Have I fallen off the deepend?

Save Meeee

This is the question I am asking myself. Jess the cat from Postman Pat has it right someone save me from myself. I was going meh about doing socks but still wanted to do at least one pair a month to sort myself out with socks.  As my good friend MMMC  recently observed with knickers you always seem to be short of them. Well in my household I have some sock thieves and the main offender is about 14 and has a real thing for stealing his mother's socks. I am so glad that neither kid fits my knickers or they would be at risk as well. I lose enough clothing to both of them that it is not funny.  Hello daughter that was my new coat etc  fill the blank (YKWIM). I even started to get organised to set myself up a self imposed sock club knitting project ala yarnharlot with a bunch of other ravellers.

Pattern: Haruni 

In the mean time, I resigned up for 11 shawls in 2011 group who are continuing the 10 in 2010 shawl challenge cause I have so many shawl patterns in my knitting pattern queue and yes now that I have conquered lace I have been bitten by the lace bug. My knitting queue is longer that my estimated life span but hey ho that is the breaks. I am hoping that shawl projects will help my pressie stash and to get some of my yarn stash back under control.  It would also help with the odd job issues and the need to do some xmas pressies (member of the xmas list knitters as well). I was even a good little knitter and finished up a new citron shawl, Limoncello, that I started on Boxing day for the next year which is currently blocking so I will get photos when I get the combo of light and model in the same place and time.

A Belfry

But then then some insane idiot known as Puddytatpurr mentioned something about the A to Z KAL. After a bit of fishing on Ravelry I found that there were a bunch of insane individuals in the UK sock knitters group who are going to attempt to knit 26 patterns matching the alphabet over the period of a year. Yes that is a pair of socks every two weeks. While I have the 26 patterns, I am full aware that I have absolutely nope hope in the time space continuum that is my life to do all of them. This KAL recognises that life happens so you can dip in and out. I know that there some other insane fools like Wyndwitch who are also attempting this one so I am not alone in my insanity.

So the plan challenge wise for 2011 is:

• 11 shawls in 2011
• Self imposed sock club
• Stash down -  get that stash down to a manageable size
• A-Z sock KAL 
• Xmas List knitting
• Odds and ends clean up including finishing up some outstanding creative projects

So it appears that somehow I have managed to create my own 52 projects in 52 weeks and I am totally insane because my projects are not small scale easy to complete tasks. I admit that there are several brick short in my bbq and I have bats flying round in my belfry.  

End of Year Review looking for ideas

Each year I like to challenge myself creatively and it is that time of year again to identify the challenge for the next year. In 2009, I did the 52 things in 52 weeks challenge. This year I did the 10 shawls in 12 months challenge. I sort of did all of the lace shawls in about 6 months. I learnt to spin and I now have two wheels so that long held challenge has been done and dusted in 2010. All in all I would say that this year has been very successful and I have certainly developed in my skills and knowledge. I still have a long way to go but I am not scared of lace anymore. I even competed in my first Tour de Fleece and of course the Winter knitting Olympics in February.

I am looking for ideas for 2011 as I am sort of wondering where do I go next challenge-wise? Hubby suggested that I do a small project a week or a pair of socks per month and I sort of went been there done that. I can see why he said socks as I need some but I am sort not a regular sock knitter as they are filler projects for me between others a bit like that book you have in bag that you have read several times but keep it there to be occupied when you have a long wait. In November, I brought "The Knitter's Year" by Debbie Bliss which while a lovely pattern book there are several projects in there I would never knit cause it just ain't me and I have already done the 52 projects in 52 weeks before in 2009. I am also a bit of a flippy giblet who has the attention span of a gnat so doing one project per week out of this book would just be too constraining for me.

One thing I would like to do is reduce my stash a bit as I like to keep it to one plastic container. I also want to spend more time in my coal shed / bunker. I have some fabric stash that I want to use up. I also want to be more prepared and get some spare pressies in the cupboard for emergencies cause my backups have all been used this Christmas. I have already started to address this with some shawl knitting for Xmas next year. I think no matter what I will be doing I will have to do a Xmas pressie per month so I have enough pressies in the cupboard but hopefully spacing them out with other items will help relieve some of the xmas knitting boredom that could occur. This year may be the year of the Odd Jobs ie finishing up a load of Odd Jobs round the house to help make the place more homey.

Any Suggestions out there?

We Made it

Well we made it through Xmas.  As some may know the Hubby & I survived Cyclone Tracy in 1974.  J was evacuated out and I was kept in the rubble with my Mum.   Mum was very persuasive with the army when she fired a warning shot  announcing that

1. she would consider them as looters
2. she was essential staff for reconstruction and recovery 
3. she was armed and therefore was not going to be forcibly evacuated. 

Christmas while a great family holiday for many; for us as parents can be very very stressful not only with the demands of children, extended families, work and other commitments. Please take the time to remember those who do not have their families and are less fortunate than you.

If you have a chance remember others who still need our help at this time of year.   The 2004 Tsunami survivors still need help and so do the 2010 Haiti Earthquake victims please give something to the various charities such as MSF who are trying to assist with the on going issues these locations.   It took Darwin almost 20 years to recover after Tracy the Tsunami countries still have missing infrastructure such as water supplies.

If you are a knitter please consider Knitters without Borders / Tricoteuses Sans Frontières  or if you are in the UK please consider Pennies per hour of pleasure (P/HOP).

Wishing you all safe and well.

Lunar Eclipse

Start of Lunar Eclipse last night

Well we have had some very hard winter weather here in Lancashire starting with almost 2 foot of snow on Friday night.  Normally we are sheltered by the Irish Sea but we got some of the spin off what hit Ireland and landed 30 inches of snow in some places. We have had some snow here before in the last couple of years but generally it is just a quick splash and that is it.  This time we has 12 continuous hours of snow fall. Over the weekend we got daytime temperatures topping out at -10C. Such lovely weather. It has been the perfect weather for sitting at home and knitting but unfortunately I have had to do some university work and paid work so I have been tap tap tapping away on the keyboard.  

I trudged into LJMU today taking 2 hours to do the normal 45 minute commute to have student after student cancel after I had got in there. At least the hubby and I had lunch together in peace for the first time in ages before we turned around to make the 2 hour commute home. 

The downside of the weather has been the effect on my sleep pattern but the upside has been I got a lovely view of the lunar eclipse this morning.

So take care all, may you all have a lovely Christmas and Yule time and I will probably not be posting again until the new year.

Happy St Nickolaos the Wonderworker

St Nicholas or St Nickolaos day is the 6th of December and many around the world celebrate this in conjunction with Christmas. I have some Germanic or Northern European ancestors in the family so I was brought up with St Nicholas and Zwarte Piet. While it is not a politically correct story I do like the idea of leaving sticks for the beating of bad children.  We used to get given a bag of gold chocolate coins if we were good on this day. We could of got the tradition from the Scottish part of the family as there is an association with St Nicholas on the North East coast due to the fishing industry.

Now living in Liverpool I am surprised about the lack of recognition that they make for their patron saint, yeap he is the patron saint for the city. St Nick is the patron of sailors and with Liverpool's history as a maritime town you think there would be more of a hoopla.  

So today we will be having ginger biscuits with our coffee and I will sending a little prayer his way cause I certainly need it. St Nick is also the patron of students and this student most certainly needs some divine help with the amount of writing she has to do in the next week or so. I also need his help with getting some of the Christmas stuff done.  Knitting wise I am so behind it is just not funny so I just dont want some sticks for a beating from Zwarte Piet rather some extra help with everything I need to get done this week.  I need St Nick the wonderworker badly.  I hope you all get gifts you want rather than piece of coal and swatch of sticks.

You know it is cold when

Your milk delivery is frozen solid in the glass bottle.  We have only have had a light dusting of snow much to the chagrin of the children who have been plugging for a snow day. We have had temps in the range of -8C to -10C on a couple of nights and some of the day time temps have been below 0C.  It made it to 1C yesterday. At the moment we are hovering at about -2.54C and I am feeling particularly sorry for the milk man who is dropping off bottles of milk from his electric milk float. He would not be able to deliveries if we were getting the snow that Kent and Surrey is.  

Another Dear Santa

Dear Santa

Yet another late Christmas letter cause I am a totally disorganised bugger who has failed at Motherhood 101 yet again. I failed last year when I sent the begging letter and you could of helped out more cause many of the same requests are on this year's letter.

Could you lend me a team of your elves for the next 12 months as I still have a long list which are very similar to last year's request?

If the elves come they can help me with the following:

1. Find the floor of my children’s bed rooms
2. Do the house work that I am so behind with
3. Help me to clean up the house and put everything away in an organised manner so I can find things when I am looking for them.
4. Select, shop or make and then wrap the Christmas presents
5. Make the Christmas cake and plum pudding that I normally do in the October half term and  for the second year in a row did not do cause I was totally disorganised in this case too busy earning dosh to pay the household bills which was better than last year with the lergy.
6. I still need the attitude adjustment from last year cause I yet again giving the Grinch and Ebenezer Scrooge a run for their money in the Bah humbug stakes.
7. Let the family understand that I am going to decorate with yarn on Xmas Eve cause I can not find be arsed  to locate the Christmas ornaments  (again) and no I wont be putting our tree up on Xmas Eve. See I am a little bit of traditionalist and I do maintain the 12 days of Christmas. No I am not going to change my mind I have not in the last 20+ years we have been living together J so it aint going to be happening this year.
8. Give me enough breathing room so I can actually retain some of brain functions or is that a semi balanced mental state and not keep losing personal items such as car keys, work passes, purses, eye glasses and diary due to being stressed out to the max which causes a complete loop failure in my working memory.
9. I need a time turner gadget like Hermione has in the Harry Potter books cause I am so behind in my xmas knitting that I need to distort the time continuum. If not Hermione's gadget the Tardus would do.
10. Can we have some peace in our world but I would settle for some calm in our household were we are not lurching from one crisis to another.

Yes I have started to turning into that deranged mother and wife, who is terrorising her family and the rest of the community with her continual emotional meltdowns which are now on looped repeat. Yes I am doing my role play as an inpatient at the local maximum security psychiatric hospital and I am sure people are starting to talk about my tick.

Bah humbug

Kotaatok

Oh it is shiney.

When I finally came through the front door this evening after leaving the house some 18 hours earlier I reminded my dearly beloved that it was a bad bad thing to let me loose any where near a yarn provider when I had craptastic work day when he commented on the additional parcels I had under my arm. The instinct to comfort shop hits me especially when the yarn pusher has something in one of my favourite jewel colours in one of my favourite yarn brands and at half price.

I can not say what this yarn is for but... but ... but I just had to have the soft pretty 50% silk and 50% merino wool yarn. It is soft and slinky and I have enough meterage for a garment. I was good in one way cause I could have come home with another three packets but naughty in another as I have enough yarn in my stash to last me at least a year not including the amount of fibre I have to spin into yarn. I really don't like having my stash box over flowing as I try to be reasonable about my addiction. This year since I have taken up spinning I have had to add another plastic box to store my fibre and fleece issues (4 fleeces from Scotland) so I have been trying to maintain my stash addiction at a semi-reasonable level.  Well what I consider reasonable for me.  I have tried to limit my yarn to one plastic crate since I have completely failed in the past with fabric.

The coal bunker stash

My failure of managing the fabric stash can be seen in the picture above of the coal bunker stash cupboard. Two large plastic crates live in that space behind the chair is normally where I keep my yarn and fibre stashes.  I probably should not have told you that considering some of the yarnies I know who know where I live.  

Mini NaNoWriMo in academic writing

The weather has got colder and since Friday I have done over 27,000 words in academic writing. I am now knackered out. Daughter you have well and truly been supported and I just have to get through one more day of NaNoWriMo. I have just got to survive tomorrow and a couple of tough gigs at work and then we can say this month has been done and dusted.

Mini NaNoWriMo

Daughter made her word count and is heading towards 70,000 words again this year. At least this year it was not 70,000 words over a weekend. I have been doing NaBloPoMo this month to support her. This weekend though I have been very busy with work and assignments. I have had to do some assignment work.  This weekend I have a goal of 14,000 words. After 7 hours work on Saturday I am at the 8,000 word mark. I have to get cracking today. 6,000 on assignment plus probably another 4,000 in other work tasks. So it will be definitely be a day of head down and typing at a great speed of knots.

Running like a duck swimming

With all this work on I am bit like a duck swimming at full pelt.  My little feet will be going like the clappers as I glide through the assignment and work tasks.

All hale our Hero

Tyson the wonderful mouser

We have had a suspicion for a while that we had some vermin who had joined us in the kitchen. A couple of traps were laid but no luck. During the last week the dog kept going on alert in the kitchen and today he struck. One mouse became cactus and he duly trotted out and presented it to us. Nice and neat with a clean break to the neck. It looks he has been learning from the old girl Furzy the cat was very proud of him.

Frosty Friday

Frosty footpath and road (last year)

We have had a very cold night last night and this morning it is a balmy -4C at 5am.  There as been a light dusting of snow but I expect that to melt as soon as the sun actually hits it but that will sometime after 9am long after I have gone to work.  The kids are still hoping for snow day sorry that is not going to happen today.

Knitting wise the Ruby Ruby is sitting and looking at me with pleading brown eyes saying "pick me up, you know you want to knit".  Sorry I have to do a couple of thousand words first.

It is the start of the Christmas manic panic

You know it is almost Christmas when the kids start doing the count down and the number of days is under 40 to be specific. Happy Thanksgiving for those in the USA. Both the Ry and Rh have started their campaigns for Christmas.  Ry reminded me that it is exactly a month today to Christmas, typical girl.  I was just looking at the work load, study assignments, parent tasks like parent teacher evening, the knitting present list, Christmas task list and making the conclusion that sleep will be an optional extra for the next couple of weeks.

Wish I was driving this little car.

I have to write a 4,000 word assignment in the next couple of days in between supporting someone who has to write about 10,000 words on the PhD discussion before they fly home to visit their family. So while I am driving a keyboard I wish I was  doing a road trip in the little classic citron like the photo above which was taken on a Driving holiday through Belgium. I will be glad when this month is over but I have several tight deadlines before the end of the month. Daughter has passed the 50,000 word count for her NaNoWriMo and I have been a goody two shoes for the last couple of weeks with my daily posts.  See yah I am off to read a couple of articles and write my first five hundred words.  See how I do it I break it down into manageable chunks.

A chance of snow

This week we have a chance of snow. Driving home from knit night last night there was ice on the roads to the point there was a serious accident and a police redirection. The gritters were out in one district so their roads were covered but my local district has only sent the gritters out this morning. Not much help to those who have to go to work early.

Kids are hoping for a snow day
 like last year.

From the various weather reports we could have a deep flurry come Thursday through to Sunday. Both the kids are watching the sky and the weather reports with the thrilling hope of another snow day like last year. It is cold enough for everyone to be looking for all their hand knit items. Daughter it is probably on your floor. Yeap she is doing that teenage thing at the moment where her floor is her cupboard. The downside is the son is now replicating his sister's habit.  We officially have two teenagers and I just don't go into their rooms so I don't freak out at the mess.

The Road to Scotland

A dear member of our Tuesday knit night is leaving Liverpool and heading back north to Scotland. Hubby has won a great job there and they needed to go as it was an oppertunity for them. So tonight we said bye bye to Scottish Anne.

You take the road to Scotland...

We will see her when she comes down to visit the hubby's family and I am pretty sure she will have visitors up in Scotland.

A welcoming light

When it is dark when you leave for work and dark when you get home it is so nice to see a welcoming light.

St Margen Nativity Scene 2007

The wood carvers of the Black Forest region create wonderful items. I have admired the various Nativity sets that I saw when we visited there but we are not made of funds.  Tonight I was the first home so there was no light on.  It is now and hopefully as the rest of the family comes home the light welcomes them home on this cold blustery night.

At the moment knitting wise I am working on the Ruby Ruby while the elbow protector is still in the time out corner work basket.  I ended up swapping the pattern of the Ruby Ruby Ruby project to a sideways gilet by La Droguerie.  Hopefully this gilet will give me a little je ne sais quoi.

Sunday

A peaceful scene

A peaceful scene is not something that we have had in the last couple of weeks due to the drama of life, work commitments and a lack of ability to distort time and space. Unlike Doctor Who I do not have the ability to bend temporal continuum or the time space vortex.  Today was a case of knuckling down to do all the boring chores so I will leave you with a peaceful scene which we have not had for quiet a while in this household.

Rerun Saturday

Today was one of those days were you watch reruns and snuggle up in the doona (Australian for duvet) to avoid the cold, foggy day. DH had to work today so I was home with the kids. The boyo went out with his friends to the pictures while daughter stayed home NaNoWriMo-ing. Since it was just us girlies we watched a couple of chick flick reruns.

Ruby Ruby Yarn

I love the colour and feel of this yarn but I have not had much success with this Ruby Red version that I have in my stash. I have made a Komon cardigan by Vicki Square in it and frogged it back twice cause I just was not happy with the final garment. Loved the pattern texture but the garment just did not work for me. I had blocked it and still I felt very disappointed in it so the last attempt was tossed into the time out zone while I worked out what I was going to do.

Since I was watching rerun movies I frogged it again back into skeins, dampened then to relax the knitting kinks out of it. This time I decided that while keeping the work cardi idea in my head I would look for another pattern and use it. Part of the problem I have had and why it sat in time out for so long is that I have only so many skeins of the dye lot and I would not have enough to do a long sleeved version.

The elbow protector may become an actual elbow protector. I have started the toe decreases twice and stuffed it up twice. I have had to rip it back twice so you can see I am seriously having a rerun day. The elbow protector is in the time out basket so I don't do a serious hissy fit with it.

Thank God/ Goddess or Sacred Spirits it is Friday

What ever divine being/s there is in this world I am thanking her/him/it/whatever cause it is Friday. It has been another one of those weeks  for so many with the inclement weather and the dramas of our individual lives.

Life has been a bit of a sinking ship.

But the thought of the weekend and getting some space has made me think about the bright side of life and the fact it wont be that long to spring and summer. Yes I am starting to count the days to the warmer weather.

Summer Calm

I am using positive thinking here we only have to get through the next 6 weeks and then the day light will start to be longer. The elbow protector from the Quacks is almost up to the toe section but I just need some concentration enough for straight stockinette.

Mainstream media making foobars

In the last couple of weeks we have had some mainstream media foobars. The NY Times decided to run an editorial which insulted participants in NaNoWriMo and then decided to have a sideswipe at knitting and knitters in particular those who participate in NaKniSweMo. Excuse me this event is encouraging people to write and then dripping your disdain you poke at the participants. Reality check without a writing gig the author of this editorial would not have a pay check. 

The tone of the editor indicates that participants in NaNoWriMo are laughable. Excuse me my daughter participates in NaNoWriMo she has been quiet successful in fan fiction and she is only 16. This is not her first NaNoWriMo and she wants to go on an be a writer when she leaves education but she acknowledges that she will have to find another job to fund her writing.  She has already flicked journalism to the side lines cause of hacks like this editorial. Check your facts. I would suggest they visit Shannon aka knitgrrl blog for some details and the response from knitters and writers to this editorial.

Then The Huffington Post in an article on the 9th November decided to class Ravelry which has 1,000,000, yes 1 million, users as one of the strangest Social Networks. To add salt to the wound Rob Fishman from this site goes on MSNBC to again throw his disdain about again about handcrafting as being a bizarre act. Think about 1,000,000 knitters armed with knitting needles getting a chance to express their disdain for the attitudes expressed.