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.

Reduce, reuse, recycle

A while back I spent far too much time and money making a summer cotton top that came out ^#$%*. I threw it into a drawer, swore and promptly forgot about it. Last week I was cleaning out said drawer and thought to myself that it was a complete waste of really nice cotton.

So I undid it all and started crocheting bunting for Easter decorating. I'm feeling a lot kinder towards the ^#$%*-house top.

I wish it WAS coffee

You would think that fifteen balls of white yarn would be enough to finish Marcus' crochet blanket, but no, I ran out.

Felix dropped in to Morris & Sons and grabbed me another ball of Chalk and I set off to finish the blanket. It wasn't the same dye lot (not after a year) but c'mon: how bad could the difference be?

In daylight it's dreadful.

It looks like the edge has been dipped in coffee, rinsed and tried to pass itself off as clean.

New plan! Pull back the last row and curl into a ball and sob.

Next, please!

The grey jumper is finished, complete, done, finito. Did I remember to take a photo this time? No, of course not.

Next up we have an adorable baby cardigan. It's thankfully fairly small, and the colour is less depressing than grey.

Mind you, it's beige.

Gloomy knitting

Don't get me wrong, this yarn is fabulous. It's Touch Yarns, a blend of wool and possum with the loveliest aura. So fuzzy and squishy.

It's dark grey. It's depressing. I'm only halfway down the second sleeve and I'm having fantasies of sock knitting.

That's how depressing this is, I'm contemplating sock knitting.

Run away!

We're escaping for a few days. Our lovely Jonathan has volunteered his company at his beach house, so we're off.

In the meantime, my wonderful father is sanding and coating our lounge room floor. I spent this morning taking  EVERYTHING out and we'll stay away until it's dry.

In the meantime, Felix can drive while I knit. Heaven.

Spotty Dot

We're off for a long weekend holiday, leaving tomorrow night and getting home REALLY late on Monday (I'll explain why tomorrow). I'm looking forward to spending time with our wonderful Jonathan and relaxing. Well, relaxing once the kids are asleep.

I've finished the first sleeve of my customers jumper, so I'll be picking up the next sleeve today and taking it with me to finish off. I'll also be taking Marcus' blanket with me as I'm this close to finishing it. Which means that Dot will need one.

Yes, I'm that masochistic.

Anyway, my lovely mother-in-law made Dot a new quilt and the base colours are purple and aqua, which is a fantastic combination for a girl, because I hate pink. I really really do. But I can't decide on a pattern.

The colours, the daisy, the edging. It's adorable!

Or maybe an off-set granny square?

Heck, why not a diagonal granny square?!

Maybe I should be going more complex, more floral?

Or just give in and embrace the polka dot for my Dot?

It's so hard to decide!

Round and round we go

I'm pretty rubbish at winding balls of yarn. They take ages to start and usually collapse due to overload. Yesterday, I came up with a solution.

First, take four Legos.

Second, start winding. Works rather well.

In the meantime, back to my money-spinning knitting.  After the weekend I've managed thirteen repeats of six rows. Only seven repeats to go before I can start the cuff ribbing. Hurray!

Then I can start the second sleeve.....yay?

Fun or funds?

I have many wants.

I want to finish crocheting Marcus' blanket.

I want to make more squares for my Sherlock Holmes blanket.

I want to finish up my mum's old jumper for her.

I want a purple/burgundy striped cardigan for winter.

These are fun projects and I'm in the right head space for them (finally), but they don't bring in the money.

I need to finish off these sleeves so I can pay some bills.

Trying to knit

I could knit, sure.

But Marcus is all squooshy on me, so no.

Sit still, avoid movement

Thanks to Dot having a meltdown over Kinder Surprise Eggs and a sprint to get to Marcus' school bus, I'm on the couch with a back that screams at movement.

Luckily there was crochet next to the couch. I'm determined to finish something this month and Marcus' blanket looks like the chosen sacrifice.

Aspirational knitting

There's a very small section of my brain that looks at something I'm doing, or thinking of doing and says "I don't think I can do that". This is the part of my brain labelled "Common Sense" (despite my family's belief, I do have some common sense). This very small section is generally overruled by a very large section of my brain that looks at something I'm doing, or thinking of doing and says "It can't be that hard". This is the part of my brain labelled "Andrea".

This has caused some consternation for everyone but me over the years (especially when I agreed to marry my co-worker 5 hours into our first date) but it's truly handy when it comes to knitting. A massive lace shawl? Can't be that hard, and it wasn't. Fair isle hot water bottle cover? Can't be that hard, and it was so easy I made a second. Knit a wedding bouquet? Can't be that hard, and it wasn't and the bride loved it.

There are some things to take into consideration, though.

Do I really want to spend a year knitting a wedding ring blanket to cover my entire bed? Probably not.

Am I ever going to wear a massive lace stole anywhere? I mean, when do I ever go out to anything? Again, probably not.

A Victorian lace blouse? Pffffft, probably not.

Instead I'm trying to make realistic choices for my life, and that can work sometimes (my Miette cardigan) and sometimes it really really doesn't.

Have you ever received a catalogue in the mail and briefly imagined yourself in the clothes? You could wear that dress to a party, those pants scream "work presentation" and those mega heels are perfect for lunch with the girls, right? Then you remember that you're an unemployed housewife and none of the above applies (except the mega heels. They're awesome all the time).

I bought three balls of 100% alpaca to make Marcus a jumper. I pictured him in it: dark blue with a contrasting light blue stripe around it; with his hair he'd be extra gorgeous. That was in July last year, and I was planning to start it next month. Then I started thinking about the appropriateness.

Marcus doesn't wear jumpers. I can bribe him into a vest, but not a jumper. Alpaca can be pretty darn itchy too. Marcus freaks out at clothing tags, so how would he do with alpaca against his arms?

I need to learn to knit for the children I have, not the ones I hoped I would have. I think Marcus is getting another vest.

In which Andrea cannot determine if the day is fair or foul

As the parent of two small children, I sometimes wonder if they have made a pact to see how far they can push me. One will start crying, so the second starts yelling. One will fall over and cry, so the second flops down and starts howling.

Foul

Dot will wait until I'm not in the room and put a toy hammer through a window.

Marcus will wait until the window is repaired and then brace against it with his teeny little backside (to shove the couch out) until the window comes out as the glue hadn't set. Five minutes after the lightning storm starts.

Fair

I finished the blanket for my customer.

Purpose with an end

I've been working a blanket for a customer for ages. I was beginning to doubt my speed levels, and then I did some counting.

There's 52 squares joined in three needle cast off, so first I pick up the stitches along one side, then the other side then cast them off together. So each stitch is worked three times, and there are at least 15 stitches per side, closer to 35 on the larger squares. That's a lot of stitches to knit. I felt somewhat better about my abilities.

Then I did another count and realised I've sewn in around 221 ends, and now I'm feeling much better.

Can you spare some time?

This week saw our little Polka Dot head off to an Intensive Early Intervention Program. Four and a half hours on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, with three hours on Wednesday. This leaves her mother with something she hasn't had since Marcus was born: spare time.

I know one of my older sisters is currently in gales of laughter due to my belief that I can get stuff done now, but nur.

One finished Sherlock blanket square. Checkmate.

I don't doubt that any "spare" time will evaporate, but for now, I'll enjoy it while I can.

*shiver*

It's been a big week for us at Casa  Crazyhouse. Our beautiful little boy started school and seems to be doing okay as far as we can tell (he's not telling us anything!).

It was hard sending him off, even harder in shorts. What is going on with Melbourne's weather? It's summer, and next week not one day is over 23℃! I love winter more than all of you combined, but some consistency would be nice!

Due to this sudden cold snap I've been taking stock for winter, yes seriously, and I noticed that I'm mega-behind on my Sherlock KAL blanket. Square 11 has been released and I've only finished the first six.

So tonight I'm cracking on with Square 7 and watching a lot of tv with Felix instead of working on my customer's blanket. She'd understand.

I'm cold.