Sick and tired

Is what I am right now.  Sick with some bug that started on Sunday.

We drove out to Bathurst on Sunday, I wanted to go somewhere I had never been, everyone else had been but me.  We were disappointed not to be able to drive around Mt Panorama, it was closed to get it ready for this weekend's race. 

The place was pretty quiet, the weather was lovely even if the breeze was a bit cool. I fell in love with the old houses in the town, pretty was my word of the day. 

Family portrait, even my shadow looks fat. 

Definitely doing something about that.  I found a great hypnosis site, completely free and for the last 3 days have been listening to some of the tracks.  I've tried the hypnosis road before but get stuck on visualising myself slimmer, I found this one so much easier.  So far I've listened to the perfect shape, weight loss, stop boredom eating and exercise motivation tracks. 

Have noticed the boredom eating  one is really working well, between dinner and bed is my hardest time, the last 2 days have not felt the need to eat.  And if it did cross my mind, I pushed it out. 

Got out for a walk this morning, wanted to grab an avocado to have at lunch and was intending on walking to a big supermarket but by the time I got to the local shops only 10 minutes away I knew that walking the extra distance wouldn't be such a good idea today.  The sun out there is quite hot, I had no hat either.  Was able to get the avocado at the local fruit shop, so came home and made myself a lovely lunch of rye toast, avocado and smoked salmon. 

From scarf to top.

 I couldn't get to sleep last night, had to listen to 'I can make you sleep' hypnosis cd twice.  The reason I couldn't sleep was because I had just finsihed making a top I really was pleased with.

From an $8 Kmart scarf.  Had gone to Kmart earlier in the evening with the view to buy some cheap tshirts for reconstruction and found this pretty muslin scarf.

It was too long to make a top so I folded it in half and stitched aross to make shoulder seams. used a tshirt to mark and cut the scooped neckline out.

The neckline is bound with strips of the same fabric.  I actually used glue (couldn't find the fray stop) to stablise the neckline and stop it fraying while working on it. Just painted it on the very edge and let it dry.  The neckbinding was stabilised with iron-on hemming tape, folded in half and one edge machine stitched on, the other I hand stitched.  I cut the binding on the straight, next time I'll do it on the bias as it gapes a little.  The sides were stitched straigh down the selvage edge of the scarf.

Was worried about fit, but it fits perfectly and is going to be a perfect top to wear on hot summer days, now on the look out for more pretty scarves. 

Who aaid knitting was relaxing?

It's been awhile since my last post, I've been busy, doing extra shifts at work, wasting time on Facebook and TV and doing a little knitting.

The yarn I dyed turned out to be a lovely muted apple green,  happily found a pattern I liked and started knitting.  Knitted from 2 balls at once, 2 rows each to help with the dyelot issue.  Started it one night and was happy to see that the colour was uniform ... until the next day when in daylight the dyelot issues showed right up as stripes in the stockinette section.  It wasn't obvious where there was lace and moss stitching, I'll need to find a lacy pattern for this yarn.

I was however in love with the pattern I chose and needed something to take to the knitting group so with only 5 minutes to spare rushed in to Spotlight and bought a lovely soft acrylic/bamboo mix, Moda Vera Gardenia, in purple.

I've also fallen in love with the new Patons Embrace yarn.  Bought a few balls and the Embrace book and tried to get started on a shawl.  I say tried becasue it's been really trying, first it took me ages to cast on the 400+ stitches, then I couldn't get past the first 2 or 3 rows, kept frogging the whole thing - a result of my counting skills and my stitch dropping skills, the pattern itself was quite easy and straight forward.  Then it clicked and I was happily knitting along and almost finished the first pattern section, was so proud of myself.   Then I took it to knitting on Wednesday and immediately noted a dropped stitch so put it away to concentrate on at home.  It took a while to pick up the stitch in the lace work but I managed to do it again was so proud of myself.  After that diaster struck, my circular needle decided to break as I was trying to move stitches along it, nothing I could do each time I tried to pick up the stitches they just ran, leave me with a confusion of loose threads.  I figured it would be quicker and less frustrating to start again...............at another time.  My knitting has now been transformed back into yarn.  Who said that knitting was a great tension reliever?

I have to wonder whether I was sabotaging myself as I chose to do the shawl on the front cover but kept wondering if I should do the larger version of it.  Oh and I was feeling guilty for not completing my purple cardy first.  I'll do that then get back onto the shawl.

Dying Yarn

Last week I bought a bag full of discounted yarn it and thought I'd try dying it before knitting something. Had thought about natural dyes but then decided to use one of the Rit dyes we sell at work to gain some product knowledge.

 

 Original Colour, dry thread, 100% cotton

 

 Dye Bath, Rit Dye Kelly Green

 

Final Colour, Wet

 

 There was one thing I didn't take into account, Dyelots.  As I was rinsing the thread I noticed colour variations, not quite as obvious as the above photo, but they are there.  The yarn I bought was on clearance and would have contained the oddments they had left, didn't occur to me until too late.  

They are now drying outside in a shady area, I am hoping the colour will dry lighter and more subtle.  

On the needles.

Have been doing a lot of knitting lately, a lot of frogging too but that's another story.  Ever since joining the Crochet/ Knitting group I've had the urge to get things done, pulled out a partially knitted jacket that's been sitting in a basket for over 5 years.  It only needed one sleeve, so far I've done as far as the arm hole shaping but got a bit bored with it.

I had the urge to start something new, resisted buying new yarn - made myself put it back on the shelf at the shops on Friday.  I looked through magazines I already had for something to make only using what I already had on hand.  I think my favourite knitting magazine is Simply Knitting, I only discovered it last year and the issues I have bought always have lovely patterns in them.

Twinkle Sews

I bought the Twinkle Sews book ages ago and finally got around to printing off a pattern a couple of weeks back.  Today I got around to playing jigsaw trying to get the pattern together, have to say my first impression is not good. This how the pattern matches up on the first part I came across with any features, the dip is the neckline. 

   

How on earth could it be so far out?  I printed off sized 16 on letter sized paper and matched up the corners. 

I'm hoping that I can salvage it as the pattern piece is for the full front, I'm simply going to slash down the centre and make it an on the fold pattern.  I am hoping that I don't find other discrepancies among the rest of the 63 pages the pattern took to print out.  That's one of the things I've heard complained about these patterns, that because every pattern piece is printed full it takes so much paper to print.  I heard it described as one pattern, one tree.  It's a pity there isn't the option to print the patterns at a copy shop, much rather do that than piece them. 

I wrote the above a couple of days ago, left the pattern until this evening to continue on piecing.  I found the above picture was of the lining, I didn't want lining so have been piecing together the front and what did I find?

Not only that, the pattern pieces are supposed to be surrounded by a dotted line on each side, this is the line to match when piecing after about the first 8 pages the side lines disappear completely, I've had to rule lines myself for matching.

I did end up cutting the pattern in half and here is the finished result.

At this stage I said to myself that this is stupid I should cut my losses and give up, to which the TV agreed, I had been watching/listening to Time Team.   At that moment Tony Robinson made the remark "This is madness"  followed by "sometimes you just have to admit defeat".  Even he agrees with me.  I could go ahead and spend more hours working just to get the patterns pieced together but I'm admitting defeat.  Such a pity because there were a few patterns I liked from the book and I paid good money for it.  

Would I recommend the book to others?  Right now probably not.  

Gratitude

How do you thank someone who isn't there?

Yesterday I bought a heater and put it on before reading the operating instructions, I hadn't realised that it needed legs attached.  Then I stupidly left the room.  A few minutes later I heard what sounded to be a male voice in the house, my daughter and I were home alone, husband and son were due later.  The voice sounded like it came from the front of the house so I went to check if they were early and to check on the heater.  They weren't home so I knew it had to be something about the heater, turned it off, unplugged it and carried it out with me.  Then checked the carton for the instructions, that's when I realised that it needed legs and should not have been sitting on carpet without them. 

Realised who the voice was, our Family Guardian, I call him Uncle Harry - after my Dad's Great Uncle who died as a POW.   He's been with us for as long as I can remember, I remember waking to see a figure watching over us as we slept, I saw him as a shadow, my sister woke many nights to see a Soldier in uniform standing vigil outside her door. 

Not all Ghost stories are frightening.

 He has done much to protect us over the years, if there is something wrong in the house he will wake me, mostly by shaking the bed.  My husband thinks I'm crazy but one night he woke me to ask why I was shaking the bed, I jumped up to check what was wrong and found the laundry door wide open.  He doesn't like us leaving doors or windows open at night.  Especially that night, we found the neigbours had a home invasion that night. 

I know he is with me right now, the top of my head is being touched,  I want to let him know that I love him, he says he knows.  Tearing up right now,  my gratitude and love go out to the Universe.