A notion for Potions

Next up I made A Very Brady Cowl for my Potions class.

The yarn was brought home from Japan by Joex and I LOVE it. Even better is the name of the yarn: "Olympus make make". The colour didn't match what was allowed in a Girding Potion, but luckily the class copy of the Potions book had some handy hints handwritten in the margins...

For the honour of Slytherin!

Growing up I read a lot of school stories. You know the kind: poor girl wins scholarship to expensive boarding school, or twins go off to school, or a finishing school overseas or any number of ideas. I own a lot of Enid Blyton, obviously. My two favourites growing up were "The Testing of Tansy" and "The Honour of the House". When I went to a high school that took it's house system very seriously I was in my own little heaven.

A few months ago I discovered the Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet House Cup group on Ravelry. The idea is that you're sorted into houses, you make projects for your classes, maybe knit up an OWL (a three month long project) and compete in the Quidditch. Where do I sign?!?!

As a result I've been having a LOT of fun, and getting a LOT of stuff made. Time to start showing off...

First thing I made was a rose for my Herbology class using the sock wool from my Rivendell socks (I frogged them, they wouldn't go over my heel!). I swore I'd never make another one, but I couldn't resist.

The idea is that it is obviously a mermaid's rose.

Obviously.

Whimsy

When did you last knit something so completely ridiculous it made you laugh out loud?

I'm bringing these back. Everyone, cast on for toilet roll covers, ASAP.

Beanie fever

I hope you all had a lovely long weekend. Ours was a little bit terrible, with two sick kids, but we made some important changes that will pay off in the long run (we hope).

Felix likes beanies. He has a LOT of hand knitted beanies because I like knitting for people who appreciate the end result. His latest is a doozy.

It's called "Skullcracker"  and Felix decided he wanted some grown up colours instead of the usual bright orange and green. I used Cascade 220 for the first time and I now understand why it's so popular. Soft, lofty, lovely colours. The pattern was interesting enough to keep me awake, and I replaced the plzin ribbing with two colour brioche stitch, which is brilliant. I've found my new favourite stitch pattern!

Urgh

My precious children have generously passed along some germs to me. Despite what they might think, sharing is not caring.

I'm so groggy I flubbed up a pattern row so I'm now in bed, planning on a small nap. Full track pants , wind cheater and a very squishy cowl are all working to keep me warm.

Joex brought me back the yarn from her honeymoon in Japan. Isn't it gorgeous? It only took about three days to knit up. 

It's currently very helpful.

Is that....rain?

It started raining today. It's been such a mild end to autumn that getting bucketed on today gave me a bit if a shock.

Luckily I have two fairly well covered children. Marcus in his beanie...

...and Dot in hers.

And a tutu. And purple Cons.

Fashion. It's a very personal thing.

It's beanie season

Ah, the mildest autumn I can remember. Warm, sunny, running around the back yard in t-shirts, jumping in leaves. Bliss. It's a good time to give Marcus a haircut.

Handsome little man. Perfect cut. Turn back for five minutes to clean up Dot's mess.

Oh look! Marcus took the scissors and cut the centre out of his hair. Again.

It's beanie time. 

It's still too warm for wool, so I'm crocheting up one in cotton. Crochet is fast, too. We need to cover him up ASAP.

Really?

Felix and I escaped the confines of our asylum today to go to lunch and a movie - just like normal people! A few yummy plates of yum cha followed by "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and we were feeling pretty happy.

We were at the Jam Factory cinemas so we wondered off to check out Topshop/Top Man and see if anything took our fancy. I was a bit surprised when Felix picked up a jumper and said "I've always liked these."

I looked him. " Fisherman's rib? With a plain rib crew neck?" He nodded. I may have become a little screechy at this point.

"I've had 17 balls of charcoal grey Zara waiting for five years to make you a jumper! Any jumper! I bought the wool when I was pregnant with Marcus! You've never said anything about fisherman's rib!"

Felix looked at me. "Did you ask me if I wanted fisherman's rib?" 

"I showed you pictures of jumpers! I asked you what you wanted! You sod!"

"I'd like one like this, please."

If it wasn't for the please, he'd still be walking home now.

Stash smash

Obviously I didn't really spend fours days doing nothing but eating chocolate and knitting. I'd be further along than row 32 if that were true.

On Thursday night I sallied forth in pre-Easter traffic to Chantal's house where I started organising my stash. ALL OF IT. Five boxes worth.

Remember how long I've been knitting, so I have a pretty good excuse for so much yarn. I had two boxes of future projects with the yarn and pattern in bags, plus three boxes of actual loose yarns. But now?

Now I have one box of future projects and.....four boxes of stash? Okay, that went well. It is still to be further sorted out. All leftovers from my projects will be put into plastic pockets and sealed up with a note for what project they were for. I get rather paranoid about holes in knitting and mending stuff, so I will always keep leftover balls for repairs.

That might get it down to three boxes. I can't promise miracles, mind you.

Four day chocolate fest

What is it about Australians and Easter chocolate? The rest of the world doesn't go this crazy...

Anyway, the second Sherlock Great Afghan Adventure square was released on Saturday and I started it yesterday before heading off for a pleasant afternoon with my family. Yes, chocolate was involved.

Yesterday was also our seventh wedding anniversary. Traditional presents for seven years? Copper or wool.

Felix, I want more stash or a copper spinning wheel please. Or a copper sheep.

Blue...yellow...green...

Dot took Marcus' unfinished blanket out of my bed storage drawer. She dragged it into the lounge room and started naming all the colours. I think it's a very non-subtle hint to finish it.

And start one for her.

Woohoo!

I checked with the recipient of Egeblad, aka me mum. Apparently I am SO clever.

I love knitting for people who appreciate it.

Back in the mood

Well, I disappeared for a week, but I managed to get a lot of knitting done, so all fair there!

During the week I wrote out two lists: all the knitting I want to do and all the knitting I have to do. My have list included my customer's knitting, so I knocked those over pretty quickly. Felix stayed home on Friday to help with two sick-ish kidlets, which freed up a lot of time, especially for re-organising the back room! 

On my have to knit list was blocking my Egeblad doily. I love blocking lace; it's so much fun watching something all crunchy and wobbly turn into art. I've been putting this off because it's a circle and for some reason I was worried that I wouldn't be able to block it as a perfect circle.

I wasn't but I don't care. It's circular so I win. After a day pinned I'll release it from its metal prison and gloat a lot.

I also finished the first square in my Sherlock afghan series. The first story is "A Study in Scarlet" and the first square is called "Lauriston Gardens" after the address the body was found in. The pattern represents the brickwork of the building, and it was a lovely knit, lots of twisted stitches. I've only steamed it lightly for now, I'll block it good and hard when it comes time to sew up the blocks together.

Ooooo, cupcakes!

Normal knitting shall resume soon.

In the meantime I'm enjoying a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle.

A slog

Three days of lectures and discussion, of notes and coffee, of stories and worry, not to mention the intense struggle to find something blue to wear on World Autism Awareness Day, but I still managed to do it (as did Felix, but this isn't his blog).

Level 1 ABA Therapist. Now I can relax and knit some more Sherlock square for a bit.

Little Miss Bossypants

I'm currently on Row 38 of the first block of Sherlock Great Adventure Afghan. Felix's niece Ash is over and she's been nagging me to knit.

Gimme another five minutes and I'm stabbing her with 4.5mm.

Time for a chat with Felix

I've lost my knitting mojo.

Again?  What happened?

No, not again, still.

But I thought that thing you saw at Morris and Sons had rekindled your interest...

Oh, the rainbow Viajante? It did, but the complete lack of time it takes to knit it... well, it's probably never going to happen. I don't even have the energy to knit up my square.

Okay, fair point.  So what do you currently have in progress?  If I recall, you were almost up to date with your WIPs, weren't you?

I need to sew in the ends on the crochet blanket for Marcus and block the Egeblad doily. I don't suppose you've seen a small ball of fluffy red alpaca anywhere, have you?

Ummmm... maybe in our room?  Either that, or one of our little darlings has absconded with it.

Do we have any little darlings? Dot didn't look that darling when she was painting the floor with a new container of Nuttelex two hours ago... Hrm, well that red alpaca was to add a pompom onto Da's beanie. Other than those, and my stripey cardigan that I'm very slowly working on, I've only got my Sherlock square.

So... Dare I suggest it... do you have any new projects you're interested in?

Nope, so dare away. I have the yarn to make a cardigan with Chantal, and no inclination to do so. I need something short and sharp, I think.

How about that Sherlock Beanie that Emily was bugging you for?

But I've already made one of those! Making two of the same thing is why I hate knitting socks, and why you were lucky to get Doctor Who mittens.

Fair enough, we'll put a pin in that one then.  How about a beanie for one of the precious ones, then?  To quote one of our favorite TV shows, 'Winter is Coming'...

Marcus has a beanie he refuses to wear. Dot has an aran lace beret she refuses to wear. I think you have a better chance of getting a new beanie.

Okay.  So, what would you consider a 'short, sharp' project?

I have no idea. I really am a bit lost. I just need a small something something to get me started again. I think I'll just have to quit knitting. Nothing else for it.

Okay.  I understand.  I'll start piling your stash up in the back-yard, you go get the petrol can from the garden shed.

Cute little knits

Is there anything sweeter than a baby jumper? I sewed up two this weekend and it was squees all round.

Wook at the widdle duckie!

How many do I need?

My Book Depository order showed up today.

Forget mojo, I'm trying voodoo.

I've lost my knitting mojo. Has anyone seen it?

I've lost it. It's gone, completely. I have no tv knitting, no audio book knitting, no stuck in a queue knitting, and - most shockingly - no desire to start a new project.

I checked down the back of the couch and my mojo wasn't there. Nor was the remote control, nor Jesus.

Please note that this mojo extends to crochet and sewing. I don't want to work on anything. I love blocking lace, it's the best part of knitting lace! I have a finished doily just begging to be blocked.

Nope.

I am at a loss. Even pretty pictures of yarn aren't helping.

I got nothing.

It's time to relax

We've as a long weekend here in Melbourne, and every day was full to the brim. Saturday was the wedding of the year, with Joex and Cameron gettin' hitched in a beautiful ceremony that their smallest flowergirl took no part in, as she is a crazy little poppet.

Dot decided to sit out the entire thing, except when she spotted the table with the paper and pens and wanted to draw a picture. As it was the signing table and the paper was the wedding certificate Dot was moved along quick smart. But it really was a lovely day!

Sunday was my family reunion and I decided to leave the rest of the family at home while I went off to Maryborough in country Victoria. About 100 relatives makes it a lovely day, and - most importantly - my side of the family won the cricket match, by four runs. I wasn't playing, mind. Sunlight and sport? Yuck! The best part is the 4 hour drive that I could knit the whole way through, finishing up the main part of my Egeblad doily.

Yesterday was the public holiday and Dot and I went off to visit my sister Fiona, who has a terrible sinus infection, which comes from a dry socket when she had her tooth pulled. I've had two cesareans and a sinus infection, and believe me: the sinus infection hurt a LOT more. By the time we got home I needed a nap. Which lasted a few hours. Which was odd. I got up feeling rubbish; chills, headache, sore ears and a sore throat. So I had a lovely hot bath and crawled into bed to sweat it out. Three hours later I was soaked, still sick and giving up. I think my brain told my body that I didn't have any more extreme knitting/crochet projects so it could just relax now, which means being sick.

Today I have Felix home to help with the kids, plus he's not feeling too good himself,  but apparently I'm sicker. If you need me, I'll be here on the couch casting off my Egeblad with a crochet hook.

Autumn Ills

The change between summer and autumn has had a rather bad effect on Marcus, as he's currently snuggling up to me on the couch with a rather vicious head cold.

Poor little mannikins has a blanket, an apple and "Frozen" on the tv, which he is constantly flipping back and forth in.

I'm taking the chance to catch up on his crochet blanket. It's keeping me warm and getting bigger. With only two squares left to go, I'm feeling pretty good. Mind you...

...there's still a lot of ends to sew in before I start the border.

Throwback Thursday

It's been a while since I trawled through my ancient/vintage/horribly 80's patterns for you all, and with our recent cold snap here in Melbourne I thought I'd show you a highly useful pattern book.

It's my Paton's Knitting Book No. 232, which isn't even on Ravelry - can it be possible? I looked it up by both the title number and the title pattern name "Erica" and nothing came up. (Sidebar: look up "Erica" in the category of "gloves" on Ravelry. You won't regret it, but your knitting queue may grow a bit.) I do like these gloves, they're so very "calling on" gloves, aren't they? I think they'd look wonderful in a pale spring green.

"Harebell", while beautiful with the little repeats and sensible cuffs, would probably catch on everything. "Heath" look like a more sensible option, if not a tad plain. With the right yarn though...maybe something with a silver thread?

Next up are "Hyacinth" and "Holly", some very nice fair isle gloves and mittens. You know how I feel about fair isle by now, so I shan't go into extreme rhapsodies as usual.

"Primrose", despite such a prissy name, are the thermal underwear of glove patterns. Just look at the sensibleness of them: long cuffs, reverse stocking stitch, fabulous lines. If you made these in a gorgeous charcoal grey you could easily give them to a knitting-worthy man. Not Felix, though. He has Tardis mittens.

Can't have glove patterns without some plain ones. Here are "Ivy" and "Honeysuckle", the plainest of plain gloves, zhuzed up with some embroidery (is that how one spells "zhuzed"?) and "Hawthorn", the equally plain/embellished mittens.

More examples of "Ivy" and the "Hickory" hat to throw on top. I like this hat, it's fairly easy and Nordic-y.

It's even more Nordic-y on the back cover. It's also in fair isle (yay!) and once you throw in a fluffy blonde you're practically living in the fjords. No more pining.

The reason I love the old pattern books so much are the illustrations and instructions. They're usually perfectly done and the ads - oh the ads! Great fun.

Let me know if I should scan this and add it as a download - enjoy!

Organising what's next

I sat down last week to work out what I wanted to knit/finish up/start once I'd crocheted enough hearts (I still don't think I have crocheted enough. I wanted to do 1000.) for the forthcoming nuptials. So I had a look in all of my containers for what I'd started, what needed finishing, what was nowhere near finished and made a spreadsheet.

Oh, how I love spreadsheets! They make me feel so organised, even though I'm not quite there yet. (Don't look in the top drawer of my dressing table, or in the back room of the bungalow. Let me keep my delusions.) This one has only 20 projects on it, of which three are knitting. That's when I got suspicious. So I looked at my Ravelry projects page, and took a good hard look at my "In progress" section. It has 7 projects in it, only two of which are on my list. The rest are actually finished, but I've never mentioned them here as finished either.

Oops.

I said I wasn't quite there yet, alright?!

True weirdness

I'm sitting on the couch with Felix, just vegeing out. I have nothing in my hands,  nothing in a work bag, nothing on the floor next to me. It's odd to not be crocheting, but it's great that the hearts have been passed along to the bride-to-be. 120 hearts in each of the four colours.

This is what 480 hearts look like all packed in together. My right hand needs a bit of break,  I think.

Too...much...to...do...

Have you ever had so much stuff to do that your brain has just shut down and given up? This is currently going on here in my life, and I let my insanity take over.

My cane chair is now monogrammed.

It's MY chair.

Oh, seriously?

I'm slowly clawing back my sanity, via craft, and what happens? First I run out of yarn with one square left to make. One.

True, this does mean Morris run, but for a full ball to make a square? *sigh*

Secondly, Miss Dot has a tooth-related earache. The squealing......

That's very pinteresting

My name is Andrea and I'm addicted to Pinterest.

Phew! Glad I put that out there. Now I can stop with all the terrible lies. "Oh, I found this recipe on.... the page of a cookbook." "I saw this brilliant idea for gardening on.... "Gardening Australia" last week." "I read the most amazing article about organising paperwork on...... I mean in the "Herald-Sun".

(Just kidding. I'd Oedipus my own eyes before voluntarily reading the Herald-Sun.)

Chantal and I started up a group board last year called "Future Knitting Projects". As you can see, we seem to like anything cowl/shawl-like. Also, cardigans. And lace. Loooooooooads of lace.

We started the board after a conversation about the Miette Knit-A-Long that we both wanted to join in on. Now, by the time our yarn arrived from the US (no, Chantal won't let me pay for it. She never does!) the knit-a-long was over, sort of, so we decided to start picking more things to knit together. Last time we did that we both managed was our BFF's, which went REALLY well. But what next?

Do we knit the Miette that we already have the yarn for, just waiting to be started?

Or a smaller cardigan, like the Miss Lemon, all lace and short sleeves?

Do we accept that winter approaches (pffffft!) and knit the Vite Cowl?

Or the Snow Gloves?

Maybe we just accept our fate and knit the Netherfield Evening Bag while watching "Pride and Prejudice", the BBC version which Chantal has never seen. *ahem*

So, please, everyone else: pick us a project?

I'd just like to say thank you everyone for all of your lovely comments and emails about my last post. I'm only as strong as the people surrounding me, so with all of you helping me I will most likely be invincible!

Our interesting life

My life has taken a few turns over the last week. Last Friday I went to a terribly heart-breaking funeral, and it made me sink into a little patch of the blues. I didn't have much time to wallow in sadness as Marcus started kindergarten on Monday.

 My little mannikins did beautifully. He was playing with other children, not just next to them, and we were all confident that soon I wouldn't have to attend kinder along with him.

Wednesday was even better. I went home 15 minutes after I arrived, and left him there with his aide. It was unbelievable. I thought my week couldn't get any better.

Thursday Marcus went off to my parents, as he always does on Thursdays, and had a fairly lazy time, as you can see.

Friday went terribly. Marcus was hyper-crazy as soon as he woke up and didn't improve at all. The moment we pulled into the kindergarten carpark he started crying. It took a few minutes to coax him into the classroom and then Claire (Marcus' aide) and I spent the next hour trying to calm him down, which was almost impossible at times. Eventually he ran off to the water table and I bolted for it.

It looks like it's going to take a while for Marcus to settle down there and I can be patient. Knitting is something I do because I have almost no patience, and hate just waiting. Knitting is something I can do while I'm in a queue, or watching a movie at home, or just when I need to turn my brain off. I needed it quite badly on Friday as it was an anniversary of sorts.

Last year, on Valentines Day, Marcus was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Two weeks later we found out that he is severely autistic. The first part wasn't a total surprise to us (although for a while there denial was my default position) but the second was, as I didn't think he could be that bad. I was also genuinely shocked by the amount of governmental support you receive in Australia when raising an autistic child. Holy heckmonkeys, it's an eye opener. I'm also quite glad that no-one has been stupid enough to suggest that vaccination led to this because an assault charge would be in my future.

It's been a hard year. There's been a lot of crying, buckets in fact. We've been so very fortunate to have such amazing support from our family and friends, and every idea and suggestion and offer of help is deeply appreciated and usually needed! Marcus spent most of last year in speech therapy, which has helped a lot, and this year is gonna be a doozy with speech therapy, occupational therapy, more respite care (thank you Knox City Council!) and Felix and I undertaking ABA (Applied Behaviour Analysis) training to help Marcus, and Dot too. Turns out she's also on the spectrum, but slightly less seriously than her brother. Mind you, this still has her pretty high up on the spectrum, which is a whole 'nother can of worms. I think this year will go a lot better than last year, and next year will be better and so on. It can be difficult but we'll cope. It's what we do.

But the one thing we never forget is this: our little boy is perfect. Just the way he is, and anyone who says otherwise is just plain wrong.

Stamen alive, stamen aliiiiiiiiiiiiiive!

A nursery rhyme for you all:

Ring-a-ring-a-rosy
It's Joex's wedding posy!

It's finished! It's finished!

....can I fall down?

Chaos & Destruction

Nothing like a crashing wardrobe to make you clean up your life. It's all coming down tonight,  because when we make changes to anything we have to do it in such a way the kidlets can't object.

This is one Felix who isn't gonna Fix-It.