Friday Night Light

The Morris run is happening tomorrow - in between two jobs - so tonight has been all about crochet.

Well, crochet and ABC i-View catch-up. Mock the Week,  QI and Gruen Nation. Lots of laughing, especially at the expense of politicians.

Hatching a Hatchling

Dot's Hatchling cardigan is zooming along.

One sleeve is done but I appear to have run out of cotton. I'll get Felix to do a Morris run tomorrow night and grab some more, plus another 8ply for my Welcome wreath.

I think I'll need another mindless knitting project after this weekend.

Sunshine!

How can I resist the siren call of gardening when it's this sunny? Stronger than I must surely break down and cry out "To the weeding!" when such fabulous weather calls.

I dug up a new bed around my massive ferns today. I'll add some trim around the edge and mulch until the ferns beg for respite.  I love my ferns.

I can't grow anything in my raised garden bed  however,  as it's Marcus and Dorothy's favourite play spot in the back yard. I gave up on it the first time Dot sat dead centre in it.

Did I mention that I was planning to knit the matching beret to Dot's new cardigan?

Started last Wednesday and finished it Thursday night, including the adorable pompom.

Love me a pompom.

Two new projects?!

A lovely weekend was had here in our little hovel. On Sunday we all went out to the park at Lilydale Lake and played on all of the play equipment for a few hours, but Marcus' favourite thing to play with was the water fountain.

When we arrived Dot was still asleep so I waited in the car while Felix and Marcus went off to run around like chickens with their heads cut off. On Saturday I realised the true horror that was my knitting: I HAD NO TV KNITTING! Nothing I could sit down and knit mindlessly without any problems. So I cast on a cardigan for Dot (yes, another one) and worked on that while I waited for her to wake up.

The pattern is Hatchling, by Lion Brand, and I'm knitting the size 2-3. Now, Dot's already in a size 3 (she's really tall) so I'm knitting this in 10ply cotton from Morris & Sons. I only have a ball of each colour, so the end result will be feather and fan stripes - yummy!

On Thursday I started crocheting up a wreath for my front door as well, but I've run short of 8ply cotton in Talc (white), again from Morris. This Thursday I'll head back in and grab another ball.

There's new 10ply there. Might have to have a little browse...

"Naugh-tee"

It's been a fairly calm week. Lots of Mersyndol to get through the day as my gum/jaw/phantom tooth hurts quite a bit, especially if the wind blows on my face and in Melbourne that's happening a lot. My da's We've picked up the trampoline a few times this week and I'm worried it will end up on top of our neighbor's garage at this rate.

Hiding indoors from winter winds has paid off knitting-wise as we took Dot off to a doctor's appointment on Tuesday in her new cardigan. This was a really easy knit. The pattern is one body piece with raglan sleeves attached and a band with a single button. The pattern is a 4 row repeat and once you're past that it's all sweet sweet stocking stitch.

I was actually knitting this at the movies the other week ("At World's End" - absolutely hysterical), which is another reason I love stocking stitch. It's so easy to do while you're doing something else like watching a movie or talking on the phone, or walking on treadmill. I like combining them all at once.

Miss Dorothy loved her new cardigan, which she wore with her new dress that her Mummy made her as well. She's been too sick to dress is anything other than pj's lately so we dolled her all up for her appointment, making sure we all had some nice woolies on.

I do have the most knitted for family that I know of. I was wearing my West Wing jumper, and Felix was all cozy in his Cobblestone. Dot was all fine, by the way, nothing wrong with her, which relieved us greatly. She's advancing in leaps and bounds, especially in speech. She has her favorite words like "bubble" and "flower" but it's her new favourite that keeps cracking us up.

"Naughty". Everything is naughty. Especially her.

Monday, Monday

Bleurgh. That's how I feel, just bleurgh. It doesn't help that my jaw hurts still, but that I can get over. The colour of the sky? Bleurgh. Two sick kidlets? Bleurgh. The lack of energy to go and make a coffee? Bleurgh.

My weekend of bed rest collapsed around 4pm on Saturday and had me up and at 'em because two sick kids aren't fun. Luckily I had enough time to finish off my Hands of Cerise gloves. 

These were meant to be a project along with Chantal but I got waaay ahead. The pattern is Hands of Blue, but I wanted brighter coloured gloves and these ones match my sneakers. Yes, I can be vacuous, why do you ask?

The pattern is easy to follow and a bit convoluted at the same time. The left and right hand are mirror patterns, you see, so they're both different yet similar. Also I made mine a repeat shorter than the original.

I love twisted knit stitch, it's just so...so...twisted.

Mucho meh

Well, I had my tooth pulled out yesterday so I'm feeling very sorry for myself today. It turns out that anesthetic injected into the jaw can make it difficult to open your mouth properly for up to a week. Feel free to make a joke here.

Today's plan is to stay in bed for as long as I can. Lolli is currently hogging the bed keeping me company and Felix is bringing me cups of tea. You're more than welcome to visit.

Bring ice cream. Really good ice cream.

All for one, mostly for me

Bad luck comes in threes, according to tradition. So far we're up to two.

1. Felix generously shared his illness with me. It's not a cold, more of a bone ache lethargy. He's been home since Monday with it, so I'm a bit worried about how bad I'm going to feel in a few hours.

2. My visit to the dentist yesterday resulted in an ultimatum: root canal or extraction. Unsurprisingly, I'm going with extraction tomorrow. The one word you never want to hear from your dentist? Necrosis. Dr Les and I agreed that it's awful, but very interesting.

I'm fairly nervous about what number three is going to be now. So instead I shall sit on the couch and finish off the arms of Dot's cardigan, followed by the fingers of my Hands of Cerise glove. If I don't move, nothing bad can happen, right?

Right?!?

Luckier numbers

Back at the end of May I posted my knitting triage list. The plan was to clear out my WIP's to a more manageable number than thirteen.

So, here's my current list:

1. Brick doorstop: I need to add some more embroidery to this to make it the same depth as the bricks. However, I'm currently sick of the sight of this so it's on hold until September 1st. Status: 90%.

2.  Marcus' orange jumper: still waiting on the yarn to finish this... Status: 60%.

3. Marcus' granny square blanket: oops. It's still under my bed. Status: 40%.

4. Egeblad doily: I've been avoiding finishing this for a few weeks. I'm thinking a good hard push on this over the next two weeks. Status:  85%.

5. Dot's aran cardigan: I'm halfway through the sleeves, and then I need to add them to the cardigan and add a HUGE border. This is tv knitting, so no big hurry. Status: 75%.

6. Hands of Cerise: my knit-a-long project with Chantal. I'm almost finished the fingers on the left hand, and Chantal hasn't picked her yarn yet! Really no big hurry! Status: 45%.

Six projects is pretty good, especially as I'll get the last three finished in the next fortnight, easily. So long as the laundry pile doesn't get any bigger. I'd better get on to the housework for the next day or so!

Just because you can...

Oh crochet, is  there no crime too heinous to commit?

A toilet seat cover?  A crime against granny square.  You couldn't make something like this look good...

...yet you keep trying.

The excuse for this is that you can use it to cover up your china plates.

No.

Hell no.

I can't decide what's worse: crocheted harem pants or using a model with an eating disorder (One Teaspoon campaign,  and the model looks healthy in this shot compared to the others).

Catering to the whims of outdoors-y hookers we have a crochet pattern tent. I quite like this.

Knitters,  you can stop feeling too smug.

Knitted house #1.

Knitted house #2. Anyone else surprised at the word "Waldorf" being involved?

Now,  whilst I do mock these works I must add a caveat: if you couldn't make it,  no teasing.   People spend hours making works of art and it's not our place to mock the medium they use.

However I could make these but choose not to, so I'm allowed to be horrible (and I am  I know).

But sometimes it really is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Why knit when you can ABBA?

Chantal and I caught up for our knitting night at Ikea in Richmond. By complete coincidence it was also the Crayfish Party night. Packed to the rafters with people, a grown man dressed in a crayfish costume and two women singing covers of everyone's favourite Swedish band (no, not Roxette).

All you can eat buffet at Ikea, including crayfish?  Heck yeah! I did feel extremely guilty that Felix was missing out.

Especially as the jelly was his favourite colours.

Green with envy

I like to be somewhat prepared,  but two years in advance is a bit far, even for me.

Marcus is swimming in his future cardigan!

Here's a contrast between one of his current jumpers and his future jacket.  It's a bit of a difference,  especially in the shoulders and sleeves.

I liked the pattern - Jet Kids, Book 8012 - due to its' simplicity.  Sometimes you just want something you don't have to overthink (although due attention should be paid to the sizing! ).

The collar is a work of short-row beauty.  It inhaled yarn, but I love how it looks.

Pinch and a punch

I had a goal for the 1st of August: get down to two projects only, Marcus' granny square blanket and his orange jumper. I didn't succeed,  but by gum it was a close'n!

Marcus' too-big jacket is ready to sew up and put aside for next year. Possibly the year after.

Egeblad is currently on row 69 of 87, but each row takes twenty minutes. I might be able to kill it off by the weekend.  I can't wait to pin it out, I love blocking lace.

Being me I don't face August with only two projects.  Chantal and I need a new joint project and while we're waiting for our Blue Moon Fiber order to arrive we started "Hands of Blue" by Lucy Hague. I'm renaming mine "Hands of Cerise" and I'm using ancient Villawool that came in my gift box from my awesome m-i-l.

Then I found some 50/50 wool/acrylic in the box and started up a cardigan for Dot.  The first aid box is due to two snotty kidlets,  poor things.

Secretly, I really feel it's "Poor Mummy"...