Yule New Year Review

So we are at the cusp of a new year and a new decade. My challenge for the next year creatively is to knit 10 shawls in 12 months, yes I mean lace shawls. I have avoided lace for years so I am making an effort to overcome my holy terror by facing it. I would like to shout to the world I made 2009's challenge of 52 things in 52 weeks. I am sort of wondering have I bitten off more than I can chew but I am going to give it a good crack.

Other wise we as a family are focusing on making small steps to lesson our impact on the world and this includes planing for a handmade Xmas and birthday celebrations and presents. The technogeeks are starting to have concerns over their ability to achieve this goal but I am hoping the kids will develop a better appreciation of the meaning of the various celebrations.

Knit Camp UK is on the week before Ravelry Weekend 2010 in August and Hubby darling has organised our summer break so I can go. So now I have to workout from the latest schedule of classes which classes I am going to sign up to. I think it is his excuse to vege for a week in a quiet location and have a reason why he wont be running around doing activities. He is not that keen on busy holidays where we drag him round sight seeing.

So have a good 12 months all the best for the New Year may it be happy and healthy for all.

Merry Christmas and Seasons Greetings

After knitting like the clappers I managed to finish all the pieces for the darling son's hoodie just in time to wrap it up and placed under the tree. It has to be seamed yet but I did it but never ever ever again will I attempt to knit under so much time pressure.

So it is time to go and do the cooking and all that. I hope all is well and Santa had been good to you.

Santa aka hubby in this household used the various links I provided in my electronic Christmas list and has provided me with a lovely Nameste bag.

Ry's xmas pressie from me to her was the green February Lady Sweater. Rh's pressie was the pieces of his Xmas request. I added the photo when it is seamed a couple of days later

I have cast on a pair of New Years Eve socks for Rh since he picked the yarn.

Did I speak too soon?

This week I managed to finish a number of projects and after the realization that I was not prepared or organized enough for Christmas thought Ok you have done enough.

The Christmas knitting list appeared to be finished, so cool bananas, I went ahead and tweeted that I had finished my Xmas knitting. I should of known that I was tempting fate.

Friday night I came home from work to find out that the Boys of our household had opened the latest copy of Yarn Forward as it was a special for men. They each blamed the other and then promptly turned around to place a request for a specific item each.  Screws like the brown eyes of the dog who will do it on the command for his boyo were turned on and applied.  The boyo, Rh, then turned the screws that little bit further with the impossible request of “I would really really like this for Christmas please.”

I knew I was tempting fate. So now I have the great unachievable demand, which of course I am going to attempt to do.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Do we all have sad masochistic tendencies, where we like to inflict pain on ourselves and those around us when we attempt knitting deadlines that are completely unrealistic.

So with the said pattern from a brand new magazine I attempt to find the yarn to start on this request. OMG it is a discontinued yarn and it is the latest magazine come on guys give me a break. I have two weeks to go. 13 days to go I find a replacement wool which I can:potentially have delivered before Xmas and pay for without losing an arm and a leg.

Now I have to get a colour choice out of the planned recipient. I go through the story of I'm sorry but I can not do it just like the picture cause the yarn is no longer made but I can do it out of this yarn while presenting Rh the colour chart. Mum it is too early in the morning WTF this is the child who has from birth been the earliest riser in this household. Is this the child who used to scream to get out of his cot at 5:30 am in the morning or WHAT???? Breakfast comes and goes - Rh is tinkering on a computer and still I cannot get a decision out of him. I tootle off to work and come back again and he still has not made a decision. I am now down to 12 days and still I not got a colour and my knitting time availability is shrinking down to zero.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to get the colour selection out of teenage child so you can attempt to knit his requested hoodie jumper in time for Christmas.

Christmas taking stock of the season

So after having yet another day of Christmas knitting interrupted by that dreaded swear word WORK I have come to the realization that I am not going to be ready for Christmas and I am never going to have a hope in Hades that I will be ready for Christmas.  After a fair bit of prayer to St Therese to help to work out what is going on.  I just don't feel that I am ready for Christmas. Ok it is time to pull out Plan C that is to go with the flow and just bumble our way through this Christmas period. I really don't have the time or effort to go all out for Christmas. I have not even done the Christmas cards that horrified one of my colleagues today. Sod it are they really that important or a true part of the meaning of Christmas.

Christmas is meant to be the time to celebrate the joy of new life and the coming New Year not being this all consuming madness that stresses everyone out and causes people to compete with each other. Christmas is not about stores and shopping events but families and the friends. For many families Christmas time is the only time families can unite in one place to catch up with each other. For some Christmas is a time of excitement and joy but for so many it is also a time of despondency and heartache.

Christmas time in our family is when we take the opportunity to gather together and remember those who are no longer with us from our Christmas Pasts. Our family, like many Territorian families, have good and bad Christmas memories thanks to Cyclone Tracy.

Even now, so many years later, I still get anxious in the build up to Christmas and am not able to get a good night sleep until I have survived midnight mass on Christmas Eve. The 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami brought back so many memories but also provided an opportunity to help others like we had been helped in the aftermath of Tracy.


The Christmas break is also an opportunity to take stock of where we are at and prepare for the New Year. I like many use the Yule time period as an opportunity to reflect on the past year and prepare for the New Year.
I don’t make New Year Resolutions but I do attempt to hash out a few goals so that we actually get something done.

This evening as I drove across the wilds of Lancashire in the Fog on my own I had time to think about why I was so stressed and was it really worth it. I came to the realization that No it was not. We are all healthy at the moment, which after the year we have had is quiet remarkable. We are not rich and not poor we have elegant sufficiency so the bills are paid and we are muddling through. The kids are growing and achieving in school, they have friends and are happy; so what else do we need. Our little, healthy family is happy and contented consequently, do we really need all the rest of that fandango.

This Christmas we will be taking time to catch up with each other and have some of that quality time which we can lose in our busy lifestyle thanks to the demands of work, school and other activities that make up normal family life in today's busy society. While we are spending time together, we will also be taking the opportunity to pass on some of our good fortune on to others though organisations such as Oxfam and Heifer.

So please have a safe and Merry Christmas with your family and friends. If you can remember someone who is not as fortunate as you are do so.

Merry Christmas from the Kota Atok family.

18 days to go

By my calculations I have 18 days and 17 nights to go until D-Day (Christmas). Suddenly the season is upon us and I am thinking OMG I just am so under prepared. Even though I am very bah humbug about the whole Xmas experience I try and make the effort for the kids. I think we will be having our first Xmas at home in about 4 years as we have not organised anything thanks to recent lung lergy.

The biggest problem I have is work interfering with knitting time. Since last Monday I have done about 120 hours at work including Graduation on Saturday. I rolled back out on Sunday afternoon to undertake student assessments for dyslexia, there has been a bit of a backlog. I have been doing slippers as stocking fillers thinking that they are small, portable and as a project would be easy to pick up and put down. So how long do you think that a slipper for a child size 2 would take? One hour, two hours, an evening Nope it has been almost a week for just one slipper!

Santa, Northpole

Dear Santa

I know that this Christmas letter is a little late cause the organised mothers would have sent this by the first week of November but I am a totally disorganised mother and this is why I am pleading begging writing to you.

Can you please send a team of your elves who work in your toy workshop round to my house so that 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 did not get to do because I was too ill and could not be sodding bothered. I could not stand up so how could I go shopping for the required ingredients give me a break I am not Delia Smith.
6. Help me with an attitude change or some magic button I could press or tablet I could take which will actually put me in the Christmas mood cause at the moment I am giving the Grinch and Ebenezer Scrooge a run for their money in the Bah humbug stakes.
7. Find the Christmas ornaments so we can put our tree up on Xmas Eve. See I am a little bit of traditionalist and I do maintain the 12 days of Christmas but at this stage if I can find the ornaments I am certainly not going shopping for more. I am too broke and I would rather buy yarn. I could decorate the tree with some of my stash that is an idea. Thanks I think I will uses that if push comes to shove.
8. Give me enough breathing room so I can actually retain some of brain functions and not keep losing personal items such as car keys, work passes, purses, eye glasses and diary.
   With the diary please see item b and c as the hunt for that made the mess in the house even worse. You would think the local customs and excise inspectors had been in tossing the joint. Nope it was me searching for the diary without which I was totally confused for about three days. My family was ready to exile me to the dog house outside it was that bad.
9. 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.

If you could help with the above requests I would be most grateful and my family might actually survive the Christmas season with a reasonably sane mother instead of this head swivelling freak who looks like Chucky on a good day. I know that if I continue the way I am going I have a good chance of being an inpatient behind the wall at the local maximum security psychiatric hospital so can really please help with item f.

A good start would be finding one of the four cameras that you have given as gifts to members of this household in the last couple of years so I can use it and therefore update my projects in ravelry and the different blogs I have.

Bah humbug

Kotaatok

February Lady Sweater Completed

After being in the black hole of never ending knitting last week, this week I managed to get the body of the sweater finished by Monday. I then picked up stitches on the first sleeve and thanks to much drama at the school on Tuesday and Wednesday managed to finished the first sleeve. Thursday not much done on the sweater because it was now too bulky to take on the train or come travelling with me. I had done some major castonitis during the last week and I managed to find one of the cables and make a start of a Saskia narrow scarf.

Thanks to some delays with the train system I managed to get a couple of repeats done. When I finally made it home I picked up the stitches on the second sleeve of the Lady Sweater and that was about it before I conked out. Work has been a little mad and on Friday I had the knitting with me all day but did not get a chance once to pick up the sticks. After working today I came home and set myself a goal to knit and finish the sleeve in one night. Whoo Hoo I have knit the lace pattern for that long without going to sleep. All that there has to be done with this now is buttons, blocking and wrapping up for under the Xmas tree.

ETA Photo as requested:

What to knit now?

For someone who has multiple projects around her at all times it was very strange not to know what my next project was. I have a Christmas list and of course I am limited on time but looking at the stash and the list it was a real case of MEH nothing really interested me. I looked at the current lace KAL and went nice but why bother.

Then the daughter came down and did a flounce about her clothes and how nothing in the shops fitting her. I was going to do a dress for her but she has been mucking me about for months now about colour and style so I decided to put that project in time out about 5 months ago. But the last time I had done some dying I had autumn colours and a whole lot of greens. During my deliberation about trying to work out what my next project would be I started winding some of the skeins I had lying around including starting to de-tangle some of the skeins that the animals had tangled into a mess which takes hours to sort. After only getting through one detangle job it was time to find some knitting cause I was getting desperate.

I did not want seams again cause I had been put off after seaming J's waistcoat. Like J, the daughter -Ry is a long stretch in the body. She has broken the 6' mark so we know she is long. Daughter is a size 4-6 but needs the length to cover her belly. Yes we are talking long tall and very skinny. So what is girly, can be knit in the round on circs, not miles of stockingette and has an xxsmall version in the pattern directions. After a trawl through ravelry I found lots of pretty girly patterns, not miles of stockingette but Nope I am not going to do seams again for a long while. Then whoo hoo I found a pattern, it has directions in xxsmall, and it would be simple for me to make it longer to suit the body dimensions of the blonde stretch. So I knit up a tension swatch , check. Count the balls of wool I have , check. Made sure I had read all the pattern directions and cast on the start of a February Lady sweeter for the daughter last Sunday night.

I got the yoke section done the first night if I can keep up to my half a ball a night I will be able to knock this one off pretty quickly so I thought. Monday night started on the lace pattern after a few hickups I start to get the four line pattern sorted in that thick head of mine. Tuesday I skived a little from work and went out to a knitters lunch. The sweater went with me but I did not get anything done on it cause I reckon we talk to much. Then tootled down to Prescot and had a look in the wool shop. Nothing really grasped me there. Hang on shesh I have to do some Secret Santa knitting OMG I had not done the order with Chris... Give a call to Chris ayah home do you want to take some money off me... Well Secret Santa yarn purchased and some for a special item for me. That's my Christmas present to myself sorted. At knit night I think I got more gossiping done thank knitting but a couple of rows got done.

Wednesday did a few rows at work and then when I got home I could not face it all. So what do you do then you cast on another project. That did not hold me. So I cast on another project and then another. But here is the kicker it was not my Secret Santa task or even my own xmas present. Nope I have no real idea what I was casting on but I think that one of them is a thin Sasika scarf and if I do any more on it can be another stocking filler.

So feeling guilty on Thursday I say to myself if you knit 1/2 a ball on the daughter's sweater you can do some work on something else. I did not even get a row done before I fell asleep. Friday again I am thinking do a row and another row when I get a chance. Did a row here and a row there and still not finished 1/2 a ball before throwing it down in a heap. Ok tomorrow you are going to be hanging around at work a bit thanks to the Open day so take the sodding thing with you. A row here a row there and eventually you will break the hold of this black hole were you dont seem to be progressing very far. After knitting in the wind were the breeze was blowing the knitting away from me at 90 degrees and I was so glad of my circular needles I still feel that I had not progressed. Spent the afternoon on the couch but I was snoozing not knitting. This pattern is putting me to sleep.

Everyone comes home from the movies to my snoozing form on the couch and I think ok now you really have to crack on with some knitting. Join a new ball and before bed tonight you need to get 1/2 way. After 2 movies and now on the start of the third movie I am still only a quarter way through this ball. The knit is getting heavier and heavier and I keep dozing off due to the pattern. I am starting to wonder if I will ever get this sweater finished I am not even near the waist yet and I have to get it down to her hips.

Finished Objects

As the coughing subsided the knitting resumed. I managed to finish off the Sasika KAL from the Ravelry Beginners Lace Knitters October KAL whoo hoo another item of the Xmas list. So while on a roll let work on getting another item of the Xmas list. After some lace feast that I have seemed to be on for the last couple of months I was looking for a change.

Ok no lace what do I have on the list - a  waist coat for J the husbeast/silverback gorilla. Yeap I need to start it soon cause it is going to be a long slog any sort of knitting for J is going to be a long hard slog cause of the dimensions of that man. People forget that even with the false legs his body is still the size of man who would have been 6'8" tall. That means we are talking a whopping 72cm from shoulder to waist, sodding gorilla knuckle scrapping length arms and the knowledge that when ever you knit for him it will take a while.

So I cast on the back well we getting along and we are cruising along. If I can get a half a ball done a day well I might have a hope in hades chance to get it done. Surprise Surprise waiting around for kids and soccer match later I am getting along and starting to make progress on the back. Back down. Ok 1/2 done 1/2 way to go. Wont be so bad it will be in 2 halves not so heavy and easy to transport. The downside has been the amount of additional material that seems to be in the Rowan Summer Tweed. For a 80% silk and 20% cotton mix there appears to be a lot of sodding extra material for a commercial yarn. This product also snaps off very very easily and so I have lots of ends to weave in.

But in about 2 weeks I had finished the sucker, if he does not wear it I will probably never knit for him ever again. The last front panel probably took the longest. I took it to work, I took it to school , I took it to xray, and I took it to the doctors. If I could get another row done every time I was waiting round or sitting round I could get nearer to that mythical finish line.

This pattern definitely had a section between the waist band and the armcycle were I thought I was in a black hole and not progressing anywhere at all anywhere and still had a long way to go.

Now what am I going to do next. Does that mean I have to make a decision?

Still Breathing

After getting the lergy from hell and ending up with pneumonia I would like to say I am on the mend. Ok I cant walk very far and I get breathless in my own lounge chair but I am no longer doing that thing where I think that potential of never ever breathing again is a definite possible outcome of the latest coughing fit. I am still sleeping in propped at almost 90 degrees but it means that I get sleep, something I was sorely lacking at several stages during the last couple of weeks. I have been prodded and poked by the quacks and their offsiders to be thoroughly sick and tired of medical personnel. Daughter never share give your mother your lergy the extreme virus from hell with legs on it which knocked her for six again. We share good things but keep a illness to ourselves in future! Yes! A good idea.

Thanks to the lergy which rugby tackled me to the ground I ended up giving up on knitting. Yeap you heard right I gave up trying to knit. But I found that I was

1. coughing so hard that I was dropping stiches of my October lace KAL scarf
2. so weak that I could not do a full row without at rest or two or three.
3. could not walk more than 2 meters without a rest and therefore could not get the next ball to finish of some Auntie knitting
4. was so sick I had to have almost 2 weeks off from paid work which is not good for stash.
5. was still so sick I had to cancel a dye day.....

So at this stage I have not done very much knitting in the last month. I am so far behind on the KAL knitting and I am wondering if I have to order another skein of yarn from Chris so I can finish it. The Saskia is supposed to help with my Christmas Present list.

I feel so guilty about all the sessions I have missed with Students but I really was not up to it. I was silly enough to try and go into work one day towards the end of last week, blame it on the steroids making me think I could do it. After a 1 hour session with a student I went to sleep in the chair at work. Someone finally said to me - We know you are really sick you should go home. I did crawl back into my bed and almost died of embarrassment. How could I fall asleep in a chair at work?

I am now on yet another course of steroids, horse tablet size antibiotics, pain killers and a cough medicine that is so foul that you only want to take it if will soothe your inflamed tissues. During the last two week I even gave up driving , yeap that's how bad I was. Husband shuttle service has been in action and he reckons the x-ray department must know all my details by now. But they have to ask these questions before taking yet another image of the completely crappy lungs.

I am actually thinking about going into work on Monday. It will be 1/2 day but I have to get back on the horse which bucked me and also I want some yarn for my stash so I have to earn some money. Strange concept work = money.

It has also been half term here so I am ready and counting the hours until the children return to school. I think that they are too. It has not been much fun for them having me home and not well but I think karma is great at making an individual pay back. Ry and Rh have both been ill with the lergy and mother duly nursed them through the crotchets and temper tantrums. So looking after mother during half term total karmic pay back.

The Saga of the Great lergy

Knitting has been hiatus this week or so thanks to the Saga of the lergy in this house. Most of the family has now come down with a virus which Ry first brought home to share with us. Thank you so much no we don’t really want things like that my child...... So our school attendance records have gone down the tube this year as we have started school then had swine flu after less than a week in school, swine flu for a couple of weeks, then a short return to school (3 whole days) and then off again with this virus for over a week.

Knitting wise I seem to get a row done only to promptly fall asleep again. The Grand Aunty knitting is falling falling behind. I had cast on a Bucket hat a couple of weeks ago got so far and then ended up frogging it. So let recap in the last action plan. Got the birthday present knitted for K but did not get it blocked in time for the do so I have to give it to her next week. The BSJ was finished but then could not find the rest of the ball to make the matching pair of booties. The Kimono jacket back has been finished but I have not got any further on the left front panel. And I am now behind on my Christmas knitting tasks. I must get started soon on the Christmas swap stuff. I still have some things to finish for another SWAP which I need to get on with.

I think that half the problem may be my addiction to a Ravelry group called simply-nonsense-for-the-sake-of-fun. During the last couple of weeks my posting count has doubled and according to the last twelve months of statistics I have turned into a total chatter box in this group. So to counter the fad I think I will have to develop a new plan of action because I am not getting any knitting done at all. Another factor in the great knitting drought saga could be that I not really enthused with anything at the moment thanks to the start of winter. What autumn it has jumped straight into cold soggy days.


So the plan for this weekend is to do Chores. Yeap plan to do those horrible things like washing, cleaning, and vacuuming and maybe I will knit to procrastinate doing chores.

Action Plan for this week

• To do all the inane boring chores round the house and therefore I may procrastinate by actually doing some knitting.

Sea Robin's Egg Caps

Well I had finally finished that troublesome Travelling Woman no 3 and got it blocked after much determination to get it finished. It has been done and was taken slightly damp to knit night. I just had to show someone it was FINISHED!!!! Husbeast's comments of "That is nice dear", just does not cut it like afirmation by other knitters.

While it was drying I managed to complete the 2nd motorcycle girl Möbius.

Since the TW was finished I wanted a couple of quick knits to help with the Xmas list. So I cast on a Robin Egg Cap for Ry and it was such as quick knit up that I finished after knit night. I cast on the next one and finished it in a night.

I think to help get some of the knitting mojo back for the next week or so I will be doing little projects and leaving the Beast aka Js waistcoat on hold. I also have to get cracking on the birthday present knitting for K, as soon as possible. So I had undertaken action on most of the last weeks objectives.

Action plan for the next week.

• Complete Birthday present for K, ASAP!!!!
• Finish the BSJ which is currently on the needles and make a matching pair of booties.
• Finish the baby kimono jacket for FM
• One more item off the Xmas list!

Travelling Woman Number 3

Well I had got so far but I think the last pattern return of Block A of this shawl pattern has been ripped back about three times so far. I keep running out of yarn. Found a snippet added it on and still did not get far enough to cast off on the border.

I ended up have to dye a matching skein so that I get this shawl finished. So here we go tinking back the rows and lets just say I am tinking tinking and still tinking back. After another week of interruptions that have affected my ability to finish this project I still have not managed to finish it.

Last Sunday afternoon I had a little dyefest and managed a reasonable amount of dyeing. I managed to get some really lovely teals and a batch of autumn leaf colours.

During the week at the most boring inservice between sessions I managed to cast on a Möbius scarf for Motorcycle girl's girl friend. The last Möbius has been repeatedly borrowed by the girlfriend that Motorcycle girl has placed a request so that the GF has her own.

Action plan this week:

• Finish off the Travelling Woman No 3
• Finish off Möbius No 2
• Get another BSJ done for yet another sprog
• Start on Birthday gift for Kayleigh

Möbius Finished,

Well I have knocked off some projects and I am starting the planning and organisation of others that have been in my queue for a while. The Möbius for my scooter student has been finished, blocked and is now rapped for our session on Friday. Kate got her Travelling Women on Wednesday and she appeared to really really love it.

I have finished several sewing projects and some other objects that need finishing. So I have done some seaming seaming seaming. I keep promising myself a couple of rows on my current travelling woman if I get x or y chore done.

I have to rip a section back on my Ruby Ruby cause I am just not happy about it so I am hoping to get that ripped and back up to were I was so I can finish this UFO. Now I just have to get some photos for some of my projects and then I will be able to get some the UFO checked off on Ravelry.

The First day of September

Well the First day of September has arrived and if I was the other side of the equator I would be celebrating the first days of spring but unfortunately it is the first days of Autumn here. The Arctic winds have kicked in and we have had rain and no sun now for almost three weeks now. There has been a distinctive chill in the air in the morning which tells me Winter is on its way.

It is the last week of the school holidays so I have made it a priority to finish off some UFO's and outstanding chores over the next week. Between work I hope to have a couple of chores knocked off as soon as possible.

As this month is my birthday I have been leaving hints with the family that I would like them to actually remember it for once. I am still peeved about no present last year and I have a feeling that it will be missed yet again.

The Third Travelling Woman shawl has been cast on and I am looking forward to getting it a little longer than the earlier ones. I have also cast on a Möbius for a student of mine who has just brought herself a scooter to travel in and out of university. I also have to start thinking about what preezies I have to make for Christmas and some birthdays that are coming up.

Auntie knitting is getting so far behind that I am getting to the point were it is no use panicking as I have not got time to do it.

Chris for SnB thinks I must have smoke on my needles for the last week but it really a case of my job list is getting taller and taller.

Travelling Woman or should I say Women!

Well I thought it was time that I got down to work and started to tackle the Christmas Knitting List. I had ordered some yarn from Christine at Knits in the City for the Husbeast's next waist coat. I needed a quick knit and I had some lovely Rowan - RC luxury cotton DK in the stash and though of Ry. Ry's favourite colour is green and I had picked up a couple of balls just case it was a pretty green. Why is it the way that as soon as you like a yarn they discontinue it - Rowan does it all the time!

So I had several shawl patterns thanks to my trolling on Ravelry and was planning to do the next Beginners Lace Knitters KAL next time it started. The KAL voted for September and what do you know it is a Travelling Woman. I had this pattern in my library so I thought it is a good as time as any to start on. I know it was a little early for September but the Beginners Lace Knitters group is pretty flexible about when and how you do things which I like. After casting on last week I go into work and find out that Kate is leaving next week to head off to teaching college. So since it was a quick knit so far I pulled out the stash bag again and found that I had two balls of Artist Palette Butterly. This DK is perfect for a quick knit shawlette for Katie as she goes off to start her new life as trainee teacher.

So at stitch and bitch on Tuesday night I cast on the second Travelling Woman. Perfect time as the initial part of the shawl is straight stockinette. I thought this was a good idea since I would not be able to do a chart and in theory I would be just knitting while chatting. After a couple of attempts and rips I got the shawl cast on. Wednesday night I had completed Chart A repeats and Thursday all done, time to cast off. I think with Ry's I am going to do a couple of extra repeats of Chart A and this will make it slightly longer shawl which is necessary since the girl is so long.

So I think officially I now have the lace bug which is handy as I have been stumbling round trying to find ideas for the Christmas list. Looks like a couple of lace shawls will be flying off the needs at high speed.

Playing in the Dye Pot

With the end of the school holidays and the start of the academic year I felt that I need to do some dyeing. After being in total withdrawl I had a wonderful morning on Sunday playing in the dye pot while daughter was asleep and the boys were out at Football. So I have some finished products to show off. There is some that we will not be talking to a little black cat about - she who never plays with yarn unless it is on the drying rack.

Dyeing wise I forced myself to do some Autumn colours since it was the start of the Autumn term. There are some trees which are starting to turn yellow and orange and I think we could be into colourful autumn display thanks to the recent early cold snap. I also worked on some greens for the daughter. I am thinking about knitting her a Christmas sweater . Think is the key word in that sentence as she is like her father and is very long in the body.

Family Wedding

Well we have been away with a family wedding where I got some knitting in. Sometimes I have to have needles so I wont kill anyone. There were a couple of moments of tension during our family reunion and this has led me to knitting more like the clappers.

I managed to start and finish a BSJ during the weekend and I had also started with a baby blanket since I was so behind with the Great Aunt knitting thanks to the recent Swine Flu debacle. I ended up frogging the blanket when we got back. I had got half way through the blanket and I just did not like it all. I had done the pattern before and it was beautiful but I just did not like in the Cashmerino.

The wedding was lovely and the bride and groom had a lovely happy day.

Oink Oink fall out.

Unfortunately thanks to some students turning up to graduation while they were sick and contagious with Swine Flu and so I went down with the darn bug. Initially I thought it supposed to be a mild flu and I am not feeling that bad. So therefore I will get some knitting done and then it hit with the full dose. It hit, kicked, whacked and threw me a heck of a curve ball. After sleeping for almost ten days and feeling like I had just done ten rounds with Mike Tyson or a road train or both. I have not made a stitch of knitting for a whole two weeks. Shock horror I have not picked up a set of needles for a whole two weeks.

For the last week I have tried to pick up needles but the mojo is gone and I keep going back and making my Rip Van Winkle impersonation. I pick up the needles do some work but since I have been so dopy and ditzy I have made huge mistakes that can not be tinked but have to be ripped back. I have ripped back so often now that I just have not got any enthusiasm. I actually think I have ripped that far back that I am now ever further behind. I have had a couple of finishing jobs to do and I hoped that will re start my knitting bug but this has not seemed to work at all. I am still trying to find my lost knitting mojo.

I also think that Summer has something to do with it but I want my mojo back. I want to get my projects finished and I am so sick of the Unfinished Objects that are cluttering my work bags.

Buggy's Bee Socks 2

Since she wanted short socks I have managed to knit another pair out of the Buzz Sock yarn that I had ordered from Wyndwitch because I thought the daughter would choose a long line design. So we have managed another pair of anklet socks. Managed to get the second pair finished in time for her to take them off to France with her last week.

With Graduation on this week I am not expecting much in the way of knitting time. This week seems to be one graduation after another. As an usher I have to be there an hour ahead and battle with traffic and car parking gnomes. I have been allocated disabled parking but as per normal I think I will have to battle getting my allocated position.

Since I will be able to be seen on television screening I can not even do a sock in the corner type job during the speeches. As I have only one or two students when not at graduation hopefully I will get some knitting done in the off times and in the evening as I am starting to get behind on the great aunty knitting in my queue. Some of the babies will be here before I get their gifts done.