Where do they go?

I had 17 balls of yarn when I started Tubey, more than enough.

I have finally picked up the stitches and started the body.

I only remember using 4 balls, maybe 5.

There are 10 balls left in the yarn bag.

Does this mean I knit up an extra two balls of yarn without noticing or did two balls of yarn get bored and decide to play hide and seek?

Knitting where???

Ummmmm not here. Nope, as tempted as I am, it is all study here at the moment. A one hour presentation to do next week and I am only about half way prepared. Eeeeek!

Actually I don't think it is possible for me to ever be totally be prepared for a presentation as I always hope that I somehow wont have to do it.

Standing in front of the class for a whole hour...............I feel sick.

I got mail!!!!

This would be the weather we are having today, weird as yesterday was 34c or about 90 F.

Mail makes it a much better day.

Kimberly at Somebunny's love and I organized a trade between ourselves.

We decided on sock yarn, chocolate and tea. A fun way of trying something from the other side of the world.

I had an assistant. Kit loves playing with paper.

It is really really dark today, but here are the goodies. Four different types of tea to try and chocolate, yummy, yummy chocolate.

Green and Black's Almond as well as Hazelnut and currant.

A tin of Cocoa Bon's Tahitian Vanila chocolate caramel and hiding in there are some sitch markers and of course, yarn.

All wonderfully new to me.

I can't wait to try everything.

And the yarn is olive mahogony a merino tencel blend from mindseye yarns. So, so soft.
No one minds if I ignore my assignments and cast on right now do they???

I love it!!!

Thankyou so much Kimberly for doing this swap with me. I hope you love your parcel as much as I love mine.

Green Tree Frog Socks

What a difference some sleep and some knitting makes to your perspective on the world.

Buses still suck, but no one said Miss B couldn't ride a bike to school.

Parenting is still hard and should be a job that is shared.

Unfortunately it isn't always shared, thank god for friends and phones.

Essays and presentations are still horrifying, I have one page more done than I did yesterday. ( one more page than none, gulp)


And knitting............ A FO

Green Tree Frog Socks.

These socks are going to live in Queensland with Miss B's Great Grandma.

Great Grandma has green tree frogs that live in the pot plants outside her windows.

And the socks have lots of green....

On envy

Blah!!!
A bus company recently shuffled our bus services around "to be more beneficial to more people".

My bus no longer goes past the 3 schools it previously went past. One of the major factors in deciding on which high school to send Miss B to next year.

Now to get to a school that previously took one bus and less than ten minutes to get to, she will have to catch two busses with about 25 minutes in between. She will have to wait in a place I am uncomfortable with her being alone in and it will end up taking an hour if not a little longer to get there.

Tell me how this is a better service???

After calling them and being told the old bus route will not be reinstated and that there had been no complaints ( what was my call then??) they were unable to tell me how I was meant to actually get Miss B to school in a reasonable amount of time, on time and safely. So much for customer service.

As far as no complaints......... that would be because most people would be sending their complaints to another bus company instead, not realising that first bus company are the ones in control of the changes. ARGH!!!


I am filling out my SATAC form for tafe next year and have just realized that the course goes for longer than I had previously thought and I am really wondering if I can do it.
I don't know if I can keep up with the essays and deadlines and assignments and fitting in things around Miss B.

Next year I will be studying at a different campus with different class times.
I don't know if I will be able to be home for her after school how I have managed to be so far.

I am tired, tired of constantly juggling, tired of feeling I am not spending enough time with Miss B,tired of doing homework, tired of feeling I should be doing more.

And then I read a post. It mentions how hard parenting is when their partner is away.

And I giggle.

And giggle.

And laugh.

A little bit evily.

And really, really envy this person the support they have in raising their children.

And envy the time they have at home with their children.

And envy the choices they have.

And envy the knitting time they have.

And the time at home with the children.

And the knitting time.

And and and...........

And then of course reality kicks in and I have to acknowledge that of course I am just having a crap day and am feeling sorry for myself.

I have no idea on everything that goes on in their life and so of course am only basing this envy on my perception of the bits of their life they choose to share in their blog.

Who knows, maybe there are some days ( days that yarn follows me home perhaps) that someone out there envies me....

More yarn but very little knitting.

A package of yarn arrived yesterday.
Yummy yummy yarn!!!
Pictures when blogger will allow.

For now knitting is going slowly as the assignment and homework level increases. Only a few more weeks and I can breathe knit again.

Fizzle and stash.

Ok it's done. I finished Sizzle.
But I'm feeling a bit blah about it. The coal colour isn't quite what I was hoping for and the neckline while definately wearable, doesn't sizzle.
I checked and rechecked the pattern and my measurements and I started the neck where I was supposed to.

I just got Miss B to try on Sizzle and it Sizzles where it should. Seems if I were to make another I need to adjust for height for the neck aswell as adding extra length.

Halfway there with the socks for Great Grandma.

Stash additions from the craft fair. Noro shade 87

And Debbie Bliss pure silk

Feeling better

I still seem to get tired quickly and sore if I do too much ( shhhh about walking around all day at the quilt and craft fair) But am feeling almost normal.

For the last week I seem to have been unable to interpret what I am reading and have spent as much time undoing knitting as what I have been knitting.
I am happy to find that my brain seems to have returned and I can actually follow a knitting pattern again.

Hopefully this means I will actually finish something.

Catching up?

I wasn't quite up to going to knitting in the Library/gardens on Sunday and after reading the group posts it didn't seem many were going anyway.
So I spent the afternoon with Tigers and Miss A, knitting outside in the sun.
Miss A and Miss B went off and watched dvd's while Tigers and I attempted to not get chocolate cake on our knitting.
I have to say catching up with Tigers at home was very enjoyable. There was no expensive hot chocolate or mouldy cheesecake to worry about and the girls had fun. Neither of them started on the "I'm bored/ can we go now?" thing that usually seems to happen at some point when we knit elsewhere. If anything they wanted to play longer.


I have been fighting with my computer for weeks and it has been going slower and slower , with more and more pop ups jumping about all over the place. It decides to just stop at the most inopportune times and I cant open or shut pages , usually when I have just found something I have been looking for.
So today I downloaded and installed the free avg antivirus and spyware software.
I ran the scans.......... 1208 files were infected. No wonder it wasn't going very well. Surprising it went at all actually.
Now it seems to be running really well, lets hope it stays that way.

This is what I finally gave in and attempted yesterday




It was 200 gms of white 4 play yarn, now it's just pretty.

On my coffee table

My cofee table is a mess!

Trying to find the remote under all the yarn and half done projects is a challenge.

First up is Tubey , so far I have done the back and most of one sleeve. It's actually a lot more green than blue.





Then there's a sock with the heel flap knitted. Behind it is a closer interpretation of Tubey's real colour.

This tangled mess is the tea pot mat. 1/3 of a row and a cast off to go. Blah procrastination.

The start of Shedir. Blue Rowan Calmer, so so soft. I may find this a little hard to part with.

And Sizzle which for some unknown reason is looking increadibly grey on my computer. It's actually a dark charcoal, not quite black.

Funny, everything is blues, greens and blacks at the moment. Where did all the pinks and purples go???

What is on your coffee table???

On Knitting

I've been feeling better and so of course knitting has been happening. Not much but definately more than none. It feels good to be actually knitting again instead of just staring at balls of yarn and wishing it to grow.

I have finished the back of sizzle and keep swapping between projects as I can't seem to settle on just one thing right now.

Mary....... the Central Park Hoodie is a cardie. I love it and have been wearing it a lot.
The only problem I have with it is that Miss B wants to run off with it.

Perception.

I seem to have an unrealistic perception of time. More to the point I seem to always think I will get more knitting done in a certain amount of time than what I ever actually get done.

I thought that during these last couple of days at home I would get a lot knitted, perhaps even something else finished. It seemed realistic. I am at home and not at tafe or work this week. ( convieniently forget about all the work I have to catch up on next week)

What actually happens is that I get tired and fall asleep, probably exactly what I should be doing but it doesn't get any knitting done. Or I find I am too sore and uncomfortable to sit still for very long so not much knitting gets done then either.

So instead of these hours and hours of knitting I imagined, it is the first hour and a bit where painkillers work really, really well and then I sleep.

Having faced that I am not going to get anywhere near as much knitted as I hoped, what do I do???

I start two more projects.

Sizzle, just because I love it.

Shedir for the lovely lady who shared a room in hospital with me. She has bowel cancer and is going for her second lot of chemo in a week or so.

Home again.

Not that many of you knew I wasn't at home hidden under balls and balls of yarn quietly knitting away, but I wasn't and now I am home again.

I had some keyhole surgery done last week and it seems the doctors had lots of fun rearranging my insides. More rearranging than they had originally planned on which meant more time spent in hospital than planned on too.

It is just so nice to be home, sit in my own chairs and drink tea from my own cups.

Now I just have to rest and heal and of course knit.

Central Park Hoodie

Halfway there

After a ridiculous amount of time spent procrastinating, I managed to actually pick up the pieces of central park hoodie. With books in front of me that really didn't explain how to attach the sleeve to the body I fudged about and came up with something I am reasonably happy with.

Once I got past the curved part and on to the straight parts all the bits I had been reading about seaming suddenly made some sort of sense. I now have one sleeve attatched and seamed and one side seam done.

The seam went a bit wonky when I got to the ribbing so I think I am doing something wrong there. I am going to un pick that part and try again.

And wow, seaming takes soooooooooo long. Who would have thouht???

It's time

Oh and look blogger is playing nice today.

The finished opal striped socks. I love how these turned out.

The fourth pair of Fetchings



Time I stopped being scared and at least had a go at seaming up the central park hoodie. All the pieces are just sitting there tormenting me .

Every time I pick up something else to knit I stuff it up and end up frogging. It seems I am not going to make any knitting progress til I do this.

Wish me luck!!!

Eeek!

Blogger has eaten my pictures. Mean Mean Mean!!!.

Anyway I have finished the zhivago fetchings, the purple fluffy sock has grown a bit, the lotus blossom has grown by all of two rows and the central park hoodie is still in pieces.

I have way too many projects going and I don't seem to focus on any of them. Shhhhh about the teapot mat I started from the Jo Sharp book Knit Issue 2.

Time to check out the bendigo shade card and work out some yarn substitutions.

Holidays are for.......

Fixing a few things on the computer. Putting the camera software back on for starters and actually posting a knitting pic!!!

Holidays are also for totally giving up on whatever it was you spent the last term intending to knit in the holidays and just knitting whatever you feel like knitting.

The start of Lotus Blossum Tank.

Yarn: Jo Sharp soho summer dk cotton in Orchid.

The Distraction Socks

Yarn : Heirloom Heatherwood Shade 581

The start of more socks

Yarn : Hotsocks from Lincraft

And of course

Central Park Hoodie awaiting my mum to come over and teach me how to sew pieces together.

Yarn: Bendigo 12 ply Rustic in Bluestone

I'm also enjoying my re-aquaintance with pots of earl grey tea.

A long weekend

Knitting at the library on Sunday was great, Maybe a little too great....... I knit a tad too far on fetching and have to rip back a few rows. Either that or grow really long hands.
I got to see the burgundy harmony Em was using for her Sizzle. I love the coulour and I love the pattern. I could see this in a block too. Not so sure about the actual knitting of the black. Oh well I can think about it. It's not like I don't have anything to knit.

I also got to spend some time with Tigers and her fantastic stash. So much sock yarn. Such friendly cats. Even the one who got stuck on the other side of the fence forgave me for laughing at it and came over for a cuddle.

I spent Sunday night and all of Monday at C's. It was nice just spending time together without Miss B or any pressure from dealines and just be.
Miss B ended up staying out with her Nana longer than planned and a new project mysteriously started.

Giggling and stuff

Ooops still giggling. It's all Tigers fault with her quiz results and the antics of her cat. I can't help it if I find the idea of her running around her backyard in jammies at 7 am in the morning trying to help her cat get back over the fence really, really funny. Now I know it probably wasn't funny and I wouldn't be thinking it was funny at all if it was my cat. But really, the way she described it you can't help but start giggling just a bit. Go on, read it and tell me you didn't giggle or at least smile. See ..... you can't.

As far as results go well I think mine had something to do with sending the aliens back to eat the fat little 5 year olds he he he


And knitting....... Central park hoodie is all knitted. I just have to wait till I see my mum in the holidays, she has promised to teach me how to sew all the peices together.

Confession time. ......... As much as I love knitting I have never bothered to learn to sew things together. Tubey = no sewing. Socks = no sewing. Shedir = no sewing. I have read books and I have tried to figure it out ( C's Mittens ARGH!!!) but somehow mine looks nothing like what it is supposed to. Lumpy and bumpy and not at all even. I don't think it will ever fall apart but the seam sure looks like crap. Obviously it is something I need to see done in person and am not able to get from a book alone.

Funny, I can graft fine, but sewing............. I think it has more to do with I am not sure where I am meant to be threading my needle through. With grafting the stitch is on the needle still so it's totally obvious what is next.

Mum got giggling too once she realised that as much as my knitting has been improving, I have no idea how to put all the bits together. I think she liked that there is something she can teach me.