A little bit of knitting

I really haven’t done much knitting or crocheting this week but here’s what I have done.

Not quite another little aran baby cardigan and yes this one has has a boo boo in the cabling but you know what I did… I’m ashamed to say that I did repeated the boo boo so that it looked like the design rather than undo the front.

This is the start of a pram/cot (crib) blanket.  It’s supposed to be knit on double pointed needles (dpns) but as I’m sure  I’ve said before I don’t really do them.  I think it’s because I’m a tucker ie, I tuck my working needle under my right arm.  I’ve tried long dpns that can be tucked but it’s still too slow, I just can’t get a rhythm going and the thought of starting with 120 stitches but finishing with about ten split between three needles – urghhhh!  So I decided to adapt it so I could use two.  The first one worked fine but I went wrong with the second darker blue one and had to undo it.  Well I say undo I’d sewn it up so neatly the end was well hidden so I took a pair of scissors to it!

And that’s been it other than a few rows of crochet and I still have these few balls to knit/crochet up…

along with a ball of red and green waiting at my local yarn shop!  Better get my finger out.

I have had a thought which might help enthusiasm matters – I generally feel better later in the day from early evening so I thought I’d try and take my Thalidomide earlier tonight (I went with 8 pm) and see if that made a difference to when I perked up tomorrow.  It’s worth a go.

Other creative spaces can be seen here.

Ripply Fish?!?!

My Creative Space this week was supposed to comprise a cardigan I’d knit for myself however it didn’t make it for two reasons

1)  I intended to model it myself but B was going to work by the time I finished it

2)  When I popped it onto my dress form to photograph it became blatantly apparent that it desperately needed blocking.  I have to admit it had been a little apparent before that but I thought that with the aid of a few strategically placed pins I could get away with it but that would be – NO

So the cardy is currently enjoying (hopefully) a wool cycle in the washing machine and instead we have the latest pram/cot (crib) blanket I’ve been asked to do…

It is again from Comfort Knitting and Crochet Afghans, is called Fish Ripple Pattern and is in a double knitting yarn.  The grandmother to be choose the colours which will  show up better when I take a pic in daylight.

I meanwhile had about three hours sleep again last night before today’s dialysis so I am expecting to sleep well tonight especially since B has accused me of overdoing it today – but we’ve a nurse coming out tomorrow to check out the house’s suitability for carrying out peritoneal dialysis (it was only arranged today) and B’s ‘It looks alright’ wasn’t satisfying me.  I mean okay I could just have stuffed the card making stuff back in the cupboard without finishing off my sis-in-law’s card and the paper bin under the desk possibly didn’t need emptying but the soil in the porch from a wayward plant really did need brushing up and whilst I was at it I might as well sort out the covers on the settee’s again, wipe down the kitchen worktops and get the bubble wrap out of the glory-hole while I was at it.  B took the cloth and vinegar spray off me before I had chance to clean the porch window (or rather Bud’s nose marks off the window) and did it instead.

However dialysis this way at home could cut out the problem of lack of sleep on the evening before dialysis mind you since it can be done during the night it could also keep me awake all night!  I’m now off to check on my washed cardigan there could be tears if it ends up like the tea cosy and then I’m off to bed where Bud’s already had an early night!

Other Creative Spaces can be found here.

Cobweb Lace

I started this shawl back in September when I abandoned the shawl I’d started the previous summer – yes that would be summer 2010.  If I hadn’t touched it for over 12 months it wasn’t going to be finished any time soon.  I don’t knit much lace because I find it a bit messy, or maybe it’s because I don’t really have any reason to do lacy things or it could just be that I don’t really like knitting it – loath as I am to admit not liking anything knitty other than circular needles and intarsia (that’s multi colour knitting for the non knitters and should not be confused with fairisle).

Anyhoo, after deciding I wanted to knit a lace shawl, and even though the first one didn’t get very far,  I searched for another pattern on Ravelry, which again to the non knitters is kinda like Facebook for knitters but with added extras.  You can see how finished items look not just as per the pattern but as knit/crocheted by other knitters.  I’d once seen a blanket pattern that I just loved and after having checked it out on Ravelry and seeing finished articles it put me right off.

It turned out that the majority of the shawls I liked were all by the same designer, Birgit Freyer.  So I tootled off to her website and selected myself ‘Flamenco‘.*  Now I have no trouble knitting with fine yarn but I do like knitting it on fine needles, so cobwebby yarn on 4.5 mm needles I find a bit, you guessed it, messy and fiddly as well.

I have been perservering, and undoing – which is extra fiddly and here’s how it looks so far…

The big plus is that I’ve got plenty of yarn for when it tips me over the edge and I throw it out the window and start again.

Other creative spaces can be found here.

*  When I went to Birgit’s website to link to the pattern and saw her beautiful finished article I could have cried!

Bright Star

I finally finished the aran weight blanket I was knitting.  Considering it was all in garter stitch, where every row is knit, it proved a bit challenging.

There were three squares like the top one where I hadn’t moved the green or blue over by one stitch which I had to reknit – because let’s face it that boo boo hits you in the eye.  A man on a galloping horse could see it.

Then there was the notched piece ie, the pink square isn’t part of the block, that I actually sewed in before I noticed that the green line had a kink.  Three friends and B told me no-one would notice but I had to disassemble it and redo.

I sewed several pieces in the wrong place and then when one side looked like this…

the other looked like this…

as I closed the seam with only three pieces in it instead of four! Der.

And then I managed to have a square over

as you can see it didn’t really matter as that one had a boo boo too.

So here it is in all it’s glory.  On the original pattern, Bright Star from Berroco Knitting and Crochet Afghans, the square at the centre of the large cream diamonds is a different colour but I decided against this – one of the reasons being that because I ordered the yarn over the phone I couldn’t decide what additional colour to put in.  I think because of this the ‘stars’ don’t pop out as much as on the original.  It’s quite big at 6ft x 4ft 10 inches.

The edging was once again a double crochet (US single crochet) row worked round with the second row being double crochet worked in reverse.

The blanket was to be a Christmas present and since Bud hasn’t had one off us yet I think he may be laying claim to it…

Other creative spaces can be found here.

The kindness of strangers

Here are the 84 squares that brings my total Share a Square squares (facebook group) for this year to 150.  Shelly was struggling to get squares from enough different people so just bear in mind that even one square makes a difference – any worsted/aran 100% artificial yarn (due to allergies) in any pattern as long as they are EXACTLY 6 inches.

All the squares I’ve done previously have been sent with the tags separate, as wonder woman Shelly will laminate the tags and attach them, but I thought I’d see if the local print shop (I thought it had closed but it had changed hands) did this kind of thing.  Now I know that the cost of getting them laminated in Texas is very, very reasonable so I was a little taken back at the cost for 88 tags (four extra just in case of boo-boos).  However I decided that the extra cost on my part was well worth the saving of Shelly’s time.

While the guy in the print shop was seeing how many he could get on each A4 sheet I felt the need to tell him what they were for.  Basically because I knew if I was in his place I would be close to bursting wondering what they were – particularly as these ones had this picture of Bud on them.

When I returned to collect them later I only needed to hand over one of the notes clutched in my grubby little hand as the lovely man in the shop had reduced the bill by about a third because of what they were for.   Therefore I can heartily recommend the services of Triprint in St Helens.

I had envisaged labelling my squares last night and getting them in the post today however between too much gassing with a friend last night and not enough tagging (I missed an opportunity there to get her tagging as she is one of my few – able to poke in person with a short stick – crafty friends) and me needing to get out of the house this afternoon after I’d had to leave Bud with the Doggy Dermatologist this morning (when I wasn’t expecting to and the house being so empty when I got home) this is how they still looked this evening…

More of Bud’s appointment to follow – it included two shaved bits, two stitches, blood tests, sedation and an Oscar winning performance in the waiting room – and that was just me! Just kidding, it was Bud that provided the show.

And in a photo worthy of Lorna’s ‘What’s That Friday’ I have managed this knitting over the past two weeks…

Can you tell what it is yet?  No!  I’m not surprised as neither can I!

With regard to THAT blood condition I didn’t in fact get my appointment brought forward so we go to the Royal in the morning.  I have felt generally better this week than last – not right (nobody say a word) but definitely improved.
Other Creative Spaces can be seen here.

Sporty Ephipany

 

I went to Armchair Yoga on Tuesday and during the relaxation at the end I had an ephipany.  Now I have to admit that at some point shortly after relaxing hands/feet/calves, generally whatever the second body part is, I drift off, not necessarily to sleep, although that has happened, but off somewhere.  On Tuesday I drifted off to thoughts of what kind of baby blanket I could do for the new MALE family member and a huge light bulb of inspiration when off.

The new member’s mummy is an avid Saints fan (the local Rugby League team) – so much so she once went to a book signing by a popular (I think that also means attractive) member of the team and narrowly avoided having someone call the authorities in case she’d escaped from her carer – having been rendered completely incoherent just by being in the same room.

So this is the team home strip…

as modelled by er, urm, owwwww, I should know who that is and I don’t!  No-one tell my Auntie Ann!  Promise?  Okay then, back to the blanket.

Traditionally the red ‘V’ was much more pronounced – just so you know for when you see my interpretation…

I also have these little embellishments to add…

And this is my third and final strip of squares…

I’ve had to be very careful with the stripey squares as the local rival team play in cherry and white in the form of hoops so I couldn’t do the stripes too wide in case someone set fire to the blanket!

Other creative spaces can be found here.

Buddies, buddies everywhere I think I need a drink!

A celebratory drink of course so I think I’ll have a Lime and Soda.

Now although I don’t normally add Myeloma Buddies to the Myeloma Buddies page until after the recipient is in receipt I didn’t want you all thinking that I’d been skiving when I wasn’t gallivanting off to the hospital over the past, very nearly, three months so I’m making an exception in this case.  Although you will have to wait to find out where this little Buddy party is off to.

So after lots and lots of knitting, sewing and stuffing (ahem, minds out of the gutter please) here’s what 100 orange Myeloma Buddies look like…

The first 50 were the hardest taking from the beginning of February until 3 April.

The next 50 took me 25 days exactly.  Which I know only amounts to two Buddies a day even though some days I knit five Buddy bodies, arms, assembly and personality insertion averaged it out to two per day.

Each one has exactly the same number of stitches and rows, and the same eyes and mouth in the same places and yet each one is unique in its own little way.

Oops, bit of a scuffle broke out at the front.

Ahhh, all sorted.

I just need to give them all ribboned tags tomorrow and they’ll be on their way as hopefully will the little bit of a rash which has appeared on my back today but then again I think it might be shingles so maybe not!

Other creative spaces can be found here.

Creative Space – Brown Paper Packages Wrapped up with…

masking tape!  My name is Paula Kilgallon and I have a brown paper and masking tape fetish!

This week my creative space is, or rather, was full this afternoon of these…

Buddy parcels.  Wrapped up ready to got to the post office and then off into the wide world.  I can’t show the contents because some people who read this may very well have ordered some!

B said he would take them to the local post office for me, basically so I didn’t drive the car again this week in the miniscule amount of snow that we have had.  Then this afternoon when he saw them he got a bit windy –

B:  ‘ALL THESE!’

Me: ‘Yes’

B: ‘Do I have to fill in any things?’

Me:  ‘If by that you mean customs labels, yes for some of them you do.’

B:  ‘Can they wait until tomorrow?’

Me:  ‘No!’

B:  General chunering.

Me:  ‘If you wait while I wrap another one I’ll come with you in my break!’

B:  ‘Okay then.’

B will even inconvenience himself to avoid me driving our his car!

Other creative spaces can be seen here – they may very well to crafty people who have their own cars so there is unlikely to be husband bashing!

 

Creative Space – Christmas Buddies

After the sudden urge to do a Halloween Buddy and a comment regarding Christmas Buddies my creative space has been filled with the following…

I know Gingerbread Men aren’t necessarily Christmassy but I just thought the idea of multicoloured ‘smarty’ dots was fun.  I’m toying (get it toying, sigh, moving on) with the idea of adding a tummy button to Rudolph Buddy.

The one in the middle is a representative Elf Buddy as my first one looked like this…

For some reason he reminded me of a China man from old films – I think it was the ‘hat’.  However looking at him now I think that with a plain green head that he would be sufficiently Elfy, and although it doesn’t look it in the pics that green is BRIGHT GREEN!

And still on the needles a Candy Cane Buddy…

Yes I am working for my living today- it just happens to be on the keyboard and it’s my break!

Other Creative Spaces are on show here!

Room for the Ironing Board

In my revamped sewing room I needed to find room for the big ironing board I bought.  B doesn’t seem to think it needs to be put away anywhere (not that he uses it) but it’s so big and looks so untidy that I do.

The fitted wardrobe already had basic shelves in that I had installed.  So I thought well if I cut them down and build an end piece – viola* room for the ironing board.

Before – Shelves all the way across

Then whilst tootling around IKEA I spotted iron holders, the ultimate thing for the bargain price of £3.99 (literally priceless) – double viola* no more iron getting in the way whilst it cooled down.

So I built my end piece using some wood we had in the shed and some screwy bolts (I don’t know the technical term – but show me someone who does AND can knit a shawl) that were out of a storage box I dismantled.

‘Ladder’ end Piece

The one worry was that I needed 10 screwy bolts and we only had 8 so I looked in the miscelleneous screw bag and found another one!  This is worrying because it would imply that something in the house or shed has a screwy bolt missing! Nothing has fallen down so far so basically I’m not loosing any sleep over it.

Screwy bolty thing

B had very kindly placed the ironing board in the wardrobe to position the ‘ladder’ and was very proud of himself.  However he decided that this achievement warranted his further involvement.  Now I’m not sure if this is because I am no longer as ‘capable’ as I was or what but he just serves to complicate matters.  This time by suggesting some sophisticated arrangement for securing the end of the laths to the ‘ladder’.  Now it sounded basically to me like a lot more work for extra nothing.  These things are going to be hidden away, so they don’t need to be asesthically pleasing just serviceable.

In light of B’s input I had to put the laths on the end piece when he was otherwise engaged.  By the time he came through he realised that my way of using wood glue on them all and securing three out of the five on each shelf with screws would suffice.  It also took about three weeks less than B’s method!

Now I had strategically positioned the iron holder just inside the wardrobe door. Far enough away from anything remotely flammable but not too far inside so it was awkward for me to slot it into place.  B didn’t like where I’d put it.  He thought it would be better positioned, well you’ll never guess, outside the door, right there…

Right there!

‘Yes, oh darling husband of mine I have spent time building an end peice, sawing, screwy bolting, glueing and screwing to hide the ironing board away only to put the iron on the wall outside the wardrobe.  Yes, I think that is a truly wonderful idea!’

Needless to say the iron is staying IN THE WARDROBE!

*  Yes I know that’s a musical instrument before anybody points it out.