woah, they got broadband

It's still AOhell, but better than fighting dialup. Still don't have much time on it though. I'm not spending my whole holls on the computer and I've done enough already upgrading their computer.

How long does it take to upgrade a 3 year old computer that's never had a security upgrade and dosen't have sp2? Bloody ages, that's what it takes. Oh well, should work better for them now.

I haven't even done much knitting. Picked up the branching out and knitted a couple of feet, should finish and block it tomorrow. And i'm gearing up to start of my april challenges.

Going to Gweek this afternoon, it's a seal sanctuary. Kids should love it.

off tomorrow

for a week at the parent's house. Don't know if i'll be able to post anything from there, AOL dialup isn't going to do me well for photo posting either. I think I'm just going to have to settle for saying see you next weekend.

later.........

and here goes

just realised I need to answer a few comments. The pinwheel blanket's ruffle was just done with a knit 2 make one round all one row, knit 2 rows, then knit 3 make 1 along a row, knit another row then cast off.

the pigeon was slow roasted in a covered pot, stuffed with bramley apple, dried apricot and oat stuffing and the kids stuffed themselves on it and the other half who normally turns his nose up at anything more unusual than turkey, loved it as well.


more soon.

april challenge

I got this idea off a board I use. To do one thing of a list every day, each task being a different letter of the alphabet and to try and complete the whole list by the end of the month. Ok, I'm going to ahve to get creative for some of them, but I should get there and make myself a nice list of things to do.

A is for allotment clearing. dig up bramble roots.
B is for baking bread at least once a week
C is for finishing christmas pressies from last year
D is for drive home from cornwall
E is for exercising for 20 mins per day
F is for finishing 3 other WIP
G is for tidying the garage
H is for clipping the hedge
I is for knitting an item using intarsia
J is for junk clearout, 1 box a week to charity shop
K is for knitting an item from handspun
L is for lawn clearing, mowing, weeding, regrowing grass
M is for making swatches for at least 3 pattern ideas.
N is for not buying any more yarn this month
O is for organising my kitchen shelves and cupboards.
P is for getting out my secret pal's final package.
Q is for 20 mins quiet time to read every day.
R is for cooking at least one new recipe every week.
S is for spinning at least 100g of the roving
T is for clearing the front room table
U is for undie and sock drawer clearout.
V is for cooking at least 3 veggies in each evening meal
W is for weeding the front garden
X is for eXperimenting with dyeing roving (ok I cheated badly there
Y is for yarn tidying, clear up the stash and sort the WIP.
Z is for finishing putting the stars on my daughter's ceiling above her bed- zzzzzzzz


Done the list, now time to do the actual challenge.

spinning green alpacca

Bought this from scottishfibres.co.uk along with a load of blue faced leicester roving and some wensleydale locks. No idea what to do with the latter, they aren't prepared, so I'll need to learn about that.

The spindle was a gift from a friend that made it. He's going to make them to sell along with some other spinning tools, cider presses, flower presses and he does wonderful metalwork. My friend cledry yarner has them offered for sale on her site. This is the larger of the pair he sent me. It's spinning smoothly and evenly and i'm getting a lovely smooth yarn. It feels really nice to work with as well, nice wood, nice smooth finish. Just the thing for meditative, relaxing spinning.

The smaller is absolutely perfect for laceweight. I've spun scrummy merino and soy silk into yarn the thickness of sewing thread.



Now considering how new I am to spinning, it's amazing that he would be so nice and let me have his lovely work to try out. However, I'm glad he did because they are a joy to work with.

I'm also going to set myself several tasks to complete today.

1. finish spinning the green alpacca
2. cook pigeons for supper
3. tidy my desk
4. finish one WIP

not a lot, but i did a lot of work yesterday, that and dealing with hedge woman was very, very tiring. Now I need more tea.

feeling better

Feeling better this morning. I went to bed at 9pm last night and didn't wake up until 8am. An almost unheard of level of early night for me, but I guess i really needed the extra sleep.

Good thing I woke up early. I've got a garage sale to go to in about an hour. Some of the local japanese people do big, multi family ones to sell off stuff before they go back to japan. Very good places to pick up fantastic kid's clothes and toys and kitchen stuff. I've picked up occasional bits of crafty stuff from them as well, although nothing like the bin bags of yarn that some American garage sale enthusiasts report picking up.

I've got a busy day head though, so I'm glad I got the sleep. This sale this morning, gardening afterwards, finish knitting a toy by 2.30 for my son to take as a gift for a friend's party and bramble clearing on the allotment while he's at the party.

At some point, I've got to clear the kitchen and clean it properly, because dispite so many promices, the other half just hasn't bothered. Think he's fallen into the sale line as some of the friends, stitches out, she can do everything now. It s a man thing I think, they just don't see dirt until they are up to their neck in it.

I don't know if I'll get half of that lot done, but i'm going to hobble out of the house in a few minutes to run up to the cash machine so we can do this sale. I expect to be able to sit down again and rest when it's dark. Another early night will be in order after this. I think.

still recovering

Thought I'd just add a pic of ye great lump of cat in here. just because I feel like it.


However, the stitches came out a few days ago, I can just about walk again, but it's really, really hard work. Trying to keep cheerful, but it's hard when all the help and sympathy has dried up and my leg has completely seized up. I don't think people quite understand that I've been almost not using that leg for a month. it will take more than just getting the stitches out for everything to get back to normal and for the pain to go. Still can't put normal level of weight on the op site without wanting to groan. Still, it's better than wanting to scream or cry.

It's taking me half an hour to walk half a mile, I'm getting snarky looks from people who were oh so full of offers to help when they saw crutches, but now can't understand why I'm not able to run after a playful toddler and why I'm not going to go do a load of extra work, when just trying to keep to normal is exhausting. Constant pain really is incredibly tiring.

It's not bad being outside a while though. I've always been prone to feeling really miserable and tired in the winter. A month stuck inside is not good for my mental health, particularly after the long dark months. Taking ages to walk at least keeps me outside and away from the computer a while. Guess it's worth needing to hit the codeine again, although hopefully since i'm now taking a lot less, they won't make me hallucinate again.

Online friends are great, done a lot of keeping me sane over the last month. I've literally been sitting here talking to them instead of having the time to feel sorry for myself. But I still need sunshine and I'm going to try and keep away from the machine a bit over the next few weeks. Off the boards, off chat, go talk face to face with some people. Plus get away from some of the nastiness that's been going about some places. Sometimes being the one that is upset by something and willing to talk about it, standing out from the herd makes you know who your real friends are and who isn't worth the time of day.

handspun

That's a pic of my just finished handspun. I decided i had too little of the white wool to include, plus it didn't feel as nice as the other stuff, so I left that out.

I reckon I've got about 150 yards of it, somewhere between a 4 ply and Dk weight on average, a few slightly thinner or thicker places, but it's not that wonky. So what shall I do with it?


lets add this as well. this is a laceweight silk merino. I'm not as good at yarn pr0n as artsygal, but I'll learn

Time to start knitting again

I've realised that with my current spinning obsession, I've sorely neglected my knitting. Lovely yarn is piled up on my desk, my handspun added to it, but there is no real sign of any knitting.

So I ask myself, why am i spinning, well to give myself lovely yarns to knit of course. So it is about time I started knitting again. After I've finished this pile of blue stuff on my desk (which I will show you later, because it looks even more lovely spun up) I must start to actually do knitting again.

Apart from that, today is a lazy day. A DVD of Star Trek DS9, kids contented with games to play together and a big plate of cheese sarnies and a big pot of tea. Then every day has been a lazy day this past few weeks. I cannot wait to be able to walk normally, to take my son into school, to start digging on the allotment, to be able to get about the house and tidy up the mess in the corners without giving up from the pain of trying to walk on the side of my foot.

it's all over soon though, and I hope that I didn't scare too many people with 'that picture'.

I've been spinning loads

and loads and loads.

I've gone through nearly half a kilo of Shetland, just a little more of that to go and moved on to the sale packs I ordered from knitshop.co.uk. Their stuff is not as easy to spin as the Shetland, but it was cheap and will make nice practice yarn. I've spun a load of almost laceweight red/yellow/blue silk/merino and i'm working on the wook roving, pulling the roving into chunks, then working with random chunks pulled out of the bag. No idea how that will look, i'm attempting to get it as a dk weight single that can be knit together with some white chunky mohair to make a scarf. it will probably end up in my gift box.

I've almost finished the triangle section of the v shaped scarf from Knitty's spinning secion. The rest of my Shetland will go on finishing off that. I'll need to ply though and I've decided that although I love spinning. I'm really not that fond of plying.

so lets add some pix.


that's the roving i'm working on. The colour combi should be interesting, hopefully my skill is up to making it look really nice.



My handspun in skeins. I really need to clean off that desk.




and finally, a pic of my last sp package and a thank you to the scrummy person who send it to me.