Which came first?

Not content with basking in the glow of the finished jumper, I also completed another project on Monday.

I started this chicken for Easter and promptly forgot about it. It's using up the yellow cotton from the Jumper Which Shall Not Be Named and was - eventually - a pretty quick hook up.

Now, back to knitting up the impossible shrug band...

Cold Snap

The temperature has dropped dramatically here in Melbourne. Early morning is a struggle to get out of bed, usually because there are two children lying on top of us.

This morning on my walk I felt like Cathy on the moors.

Only thing you need in weather like this is a biiiiig thick jumper, and boy do I have a doozy for you.

My mum started this jumper when she was pregnant with my sister Bronwyn. Next month Bronwyn turns 49. My mother very nicely asked me to finish this jumper a while ago, and I finally got around to it this month.

The jumper needed the ends sewn in on the motif, sleeves picked up and knitted down, and the neckband picked up and knitted. I tried doing the neck last year (before the sleeves) and gave it up.

I finished the jumper last week and the neck was DREADFUL. It stood up oddly and turned me into a salty pirate, curse-wise. I frogged it back, picked up half the stitches between the front decreases and center back and it went much better. I forgot how wide mid-sixties necklines were on jumpers. Very Ann Margaret.

So, 49 years later, it's all done and handed over. My mum is so happy with the end result, and now she's decided to pass it along to Bronwyn's daughter Ashlee. My niece gets cold really easily and as a very pale blonde she's going to look fantastic in it.

Personally, I think I should have kept it.

Future cramping

I've managed quite a bit since Wednesday.

1. Ripped back the neck of the ski jumper again. This jumper is a major thorn in my side, but I really want it done before the end of the month, so I'll try it again.

2. I needed knitting on Wednesday night, as Felix and I were off to see Avengers 2 in Gold Class. Comfy chair + Joss Whedon movie = perfect knitting time. So I whipped up a garter stitch scarf to wear on my dreaded morning walk. Avengers was brilliant, by the way. A comedy with action bits. Awesome.

3. I managed to cut my finger. I think it's a paper cut, not really a big deal, right? Wrong.

This is how I cast on, long tail method. The wool is constantly scraping over the cut at high speeds. It hurts a lot. So it looks like any new projects will have to wait.

4. Good thing too, because I picked up a project from a customer yesterday. It's a little shrug that needs a collar picked up. Shouldn't be too hard. First pick up 300 stitches. Eventually - after 33 rows of rib and increasing - there are 600 stitches. Now knit another 10 rows and cast off.

I'm doomed.

Just do it, already

I dislike exercise. By dislike I mean hate, but I'm still going to do it. Dislike every second of it, but do it all the same. I like my current wardrobe and I'd like to keep wearing it, so exercise has to happen.

Every morning I drop Dot off at school and then drive off to the regarding basin near my house.

It's a lovely walk. Every man and his dog are there, literally as it's the local dog walk, but I can ignore them. The lake usually has a few ducks in it, and the puppies try to attack them, which is highly amusing.

I walk down the path, get to the end and turn 180° and walk back. It's not a particularly challenging walk but as I'm not after a challenge, that's okay.

It's chilly out so I made a set of fingerless mitts to match my hat (while sobbing through "Anne of Green Gables"). Easy pattern, just plain knitting with a thumbhole. Same yarn as my hat, nice and lumpy and woolly and WARM.

Plus they make picking up tv towers easier.

Depths of despair

My life is a perfect graveyard of buried hopes now. This is a time that tries the soul, but there's no comfort this time.

If you need me, 13 years old Andrea and I will be sitting down this week watching our favourite tv show and unashamedly weeping.

Oh Gil...

It got better

Every Thursday night Felix deserts me heads into the city to nerd up a level play Pathfinder. This usually goes okay here at Casa Crazy, but last night the kidlets took our house name literally.

After the water fights/bathtime, television tilting (thanks for the latest twenty grey hairs, Marcus) and an adorable meltdown from Dot due to the wifi playing up (don't get between my daughter and videos of Kinder Surprises being opened) I finally got everyone into bed.

As I tuck Marcus in I sometimes say what I'm doing, so last night was sheet, doona, rainbow blanket; my little boy sat straight up in bed and reached out to pat the crochet. "I love rainbow blanket!",

Yep, It got a lot better.

Smug satisfaction

There are times when I finish a project and I'm okay with it. It's nothing spectacular, it's wearable, I'm okay with it. Then there are times where I'm pretty bloody chuffed with it, say a really nice cardigan, or fancy socks.

Then there's today.

I have finished Marcus' blanket and it is #@$%ing glorious.

I started this January 31, 2013. It has 36 balls of wool in it. It cost...never mind that bit.

I thought I'd never get it finished, but I did. It was a LOT of work and I'm more than a little proud of it.

But the best part? The bit that made me so happy I could cry? I spread it out on Marcus' bed and called him in to see it.

He  threw his arms out and cried "Oh, it's a rainbow!"

And every thread sewn in, every hand cramp, every second was worth it.

No power in the 'verse can stop me

I had a lovely weekend crippled with a rubbish back so I knitted. Did I work on finishing up projects? Nope, I started a new hat, most of which was worked on during a Gold Class session of "Cinderella".

The pattern is Capucine and the yarn is slubby stuff that was once a shawl but I frogged it back last week. I need a hat for my morning walk (You don't have to like exercise, you just have to do it) and this one covered my ears nicely.

Girl walks down the street in this hat...

...people know she's not afraid of anything.

I want to knit everything

It's autumn and I want to knit everything. The time to plan my autumn/winter wardrobe is upon me and I'm getting itchy fingers.

There's an amazing beret that has to be made asap.

It reads "I heart someone with autism" and "Someone with autism hearts me". I suspect a few friends will be putting in orders, right Jonathan?

I really need fingerless gloves. What? 6am is cold and I'm getting old. Also, I don't have any gloves at all, as I finally threw out my old red ones after ruthlessly saving the 42 nacre buttons they had. Looks like gloves are heading up my list.

Then there's jumpers.

I have the pattern and some lovely cream 10ply from Bendigo for this jumper and it was on my to do list, but then this free pattern appeared from Untangling Knots.

The fact that I have a massive girl crush on the designer, Andi, has nothing to do with it.

You can't blame me.

Three different surfaces

Despite Dot being illl and being not so fabulous myself I managed to knit another square of my Sherlock Holmes afghan.

Mostly knitted while lying in bed watching Season 2 of "Sleepy Hollow " while Felix was tending to the kidlets, poor man.

Mind you, he was absent today while Dot puked. Four times in the morning. I spent most of this morning scrubbing floors. Wooden, lino and carpet.

*sigh*

Well, that's over

Easter is done. Good Friday was spent in the sunshine at the park with the kidlets and all was lovely. Saturday I escaped for OVER 12 HOURS. BLISS.

I spent the day with Joannah and Lea, which Joannah christened "Fleece and Flounce Day" due to a combination of knitting (me), spinning (Joannah) and crochet (all of us) and various costume dramas. I can't thank Felix enough for letting me escape, I really can't. Sheer bliss.

Easter Sunday had a very rude awakening: the sound of Dot being violently unwell. Marcus managed to make it to the family celebrations, but the rest of us just stayed put. It was incredibly unfun, even if Marcus brought home a bucket-load of chocolate.

So another Easter is over and I can pack all of my decorations away, including my finished Easter bunting.

I didn't get a chance to hang it up. Maybe next year.

A timely reminder

I saw the cutest little Easter bunny crochet pattern, and asked Felix if I had time to make it. His reply is my new office poster.

Spoilsport.