KnittingNatty

Woo hoo!

I just worked out how to create a banner after trying on and off for ages and ages! (Do you like it?)
I know the picture is a bit stretched.
Baby steps, baby steps!
Oh hell, tell me you like it anyway ;)

8 random things - a meme

The rules:  ”Here’s the deal: Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they’ve been tagged.

1. I hate being bored at work.
2. One side of my fringe has a cow lick which curls hair into my eye and periodically drives me mad.
3. If I have cash in my wallet or a positive bank balance, I feel rich.
4. I love food but I find cooking tedious
5. I prefer house cleaning or mowing the grass to cooking
6. I love lipsticks and especially lip glosses
7. I don't feel almost 38 years old at all.
8. I'm not always one to follow the rules.

I'm not tagging anyone - copy this meme to your blog if you like (see 8, above) :o)

ETA: Amanda J tagged me - thanks Amanda!

Weekend report

What a weekend it was!

• Lotus Blossom got finished (no pics yet as I have no photographer!) Good fit though, I love it
• Xmas presents bought - only a couple to go
• and wrapped
• Xmas baking started - only 2 recipes to go
• house cleaned, incl oven
• new furniture ordered
• bookcase for DD Caitlyn's room assembled and moved in
• old waterbed moved out
• 3 bags of rubbish into the bin
• 2 garbage bags of reuseables to Lifeline
• Grandma's birthday present sorted - just have to post it

Whew! I'm exhausted - off to work for a rest. ;O)

I am travelling to Brisbane for the week for work and then to visit with rellies, home Sunday night. Taking this week out of the Xmas prep equation has made things really tough this year. I have something special ordered to put under the tree for myself hehehe.

Am taking Ariann with me to do those darned sleeves at last...

How are your Xmas preparations going?

Mystery

Sorry for the blog silence - its been madness around here :o)

I had a week's holiday, and then had training in Brisbane for a week, and then it seemed like I spent all of last week catching up on things at home! 

I have been working on a mystery project for someone very special, and now that it is cast off, I can show you a pic of the remaining yarn.

I will reveal all once I know that the recipient (who reads this blog) has gotten it in the mail. It's nice, and just what the doctor ordered, in my opinion. Time will tell.

I have more to reveal - packages, and other knitting. More tomorrow, but for now, night night!

Finally, 6 weird things

I have been giving this a whole lot of thought, cause if you read this blog regularly, you already know that I read knitting blogs, cruise internet sites endlessly looking at yarn colours, and drool over yarn; so all those things are out. Although the majority of the population would find my knitting obsession and what it means to me to be weird enough to fill plenty more than 6 items, I know that here I am among friends, and I wanted to come up with a list that was really weird...

So here goes:

1. There are no bed sheet straightening habits here; but I hate having loose hairs on my fingers when my hands are wet.  You know, like you get when you shampoo your hair? And the longer the hairs are, the worse it is, cause they get tangled. Dry hands are okay, although I still notice it. I have to immediately pull the hairs off my wet hands and wipe them off onto the tiles or something. Don't even get me started on when I used to shampoo our dog years ago. Ugh!

2. Since I moved out of home many many years ago, I have always bought vegetables. Didn't eat them. Just bought 'em, put 'em in the fridge and waited for them to rot. And then threw 'em out, went to the shops and bought more vegetables that I wasn't going to eat. Even though I could se that this was what I was doing, it was like I was powerless to break the cycle...

3. Ditto house plants. I buy 'em, and watch them wither and die. It's a tough plant that can live in my garden. And just forget the ones that stay in pots. They dry out way too quickly! I do love gardening, and dream about having a lovely well cared for garden. I just lack consistency, and the plants kinda need that.

4. I even  used to plant vegetable seedlings that I don't like to eat. Guess what happened? If they lived, they would seed and replant themselves a thousandfold, like weeds, and still I would not eat them. (I now only plant the foods that I love to eat, and I only buy the vegies I'm going to eat also. Some things you can learn.)

5. I have always been able to apply myself to a rigorous exercise regime, but never to a limited food regime. I always blow all my hard work with the eating thing. This is something I wish I could change.

6. I was going to be funny and say "I can't count" but that has actually lead me to remember a very weird thing about me to do with numbers. I can remember telephone numbers and birthdays sometimes after only hearing them once, but the numbers 14 and 16 give me great trouble. If you say 14 or 16 to me, I cannot recall if you said 14 or 16. It's like they are interchangeable in my mind.

So there you have it, today's weird things. And I must be the last person to post my answer to these, so if you want to be tagged, consider yourself tagged.

meme along with me

Stolen from Maryse

You.
Can.
Only.
Type.
One.
Word.

No.
Explanations.

1. Yourself: girlish
2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend (spouse): sensitive
3. Your hair: ponytail
4. Your mother: fragile
5. Your father: sportsmad
6. Your favorite item: yarn
7. Your dream last night: forgotten
8. Your favorite drink: coffee
9. Your dream car: VW
10. The room you are in: restful
11. Your ex: delusional
12. Your fear: widowhood
13. What you want to be in 10 years? alive
14. Who you hung out with last night? family
15. What You're Not? employed
16. Muffins: pass
17. One of your wish list items: mobile
18. Time: insufficient
19. The last thing you did: phone
20. What you are wearing: cotton
21. Your favorite weather: coolish
22. Your favorite book: HP
23. The last thing you ate: apple
24. Your life: lucky
25. Your mood: so-so
26. Your best friend: Hubster
27. What are you thinking about right now? responding
28. Your car: white
29. What are you doing at the moment? blogging
30. Your summer: endless
31. Your relationship status: happy
32. What is on your TV? off
33. What is the weather like? windy
34. When is the last time you laughed? today

If you want it, consider yourself tagged!

Desert Rose from the garden. Luckily, it thrives on neglect ;)

And a Hibiscus flower. There are plenty of Hibiscuses (gr?) in our garden

When everything you touch turns to...

Shit.

I have decided not to apply for the job.

This is partly because
1. I think I have thrown out by accident all my previous applications/ certificates/ written references by mistake. Ouch! (I was inconsolable for quite a while, and will miss them a lot next time I go to write an application.)

2. It appears that there is no word proecessing program on the Mac.

I then managed to wipe from the computer my address book, emails, firefox bookmarks and entire photo and video archive as well. I was panicked already. This did not help.

Don't mind me, I am going to curl up into the fetal position in the corner and wait until Monday til I can take the computer to the shop and hopefully get everything restored.

After which time I am going to do a backup.

I think its a good idea to leave the pointy sticks alone, too. Goodness only knows what would happen if I tried to knit something.

Trivia

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 0 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

Courtesy of Anne. As regards my score of ZERO, in all fairness, my surname is more than a little unusual...

One more red dishcloth bites the dust tonight, weighing 28 grams. I still have 30 grams of Cotton Ease left, so with one more, I'll be all done with the dishcloths and another WIP can also  get scratched off the list. Yay!

Saturday, Saturday!

Firstly, to the Saturday sky. Part of the sky looked like this:

And some of it looked like this:

(The sultry weather is coming...)
And then some more of it looked like this:

(There were showers. The spike is from a tropical plant, most likely a palm frond opening up over the back fence)

And onto knitting.

The comfort socks for my SIL are finished! I liked how the yarn behaved with this project over 64 sts, and will try the next pair  for myself over 58 sts, just to see as to fit. There was minimal pooling around the gusset decreases, and the striping remained pleasingly uniform throughout. They are a little bit fraternal, but I think they are very nice, and not displeasing to the eye.


Here they are, rolled up, and ready to be posted off. On Monday. My SIL chose the yarn on her recent visit. I really hope that she likes them!

Ten, no, 11 knitterly things you did not know about me

1. I am not at all kind to my sock wool when knitting it. That ball can roll anywhere (well, almost) and I don't care. After all, the socks are going on my feet, and my feet are in contact with the ground... Maybe I'm not kind to my socks once I wear them...

2. Sometimes I eat an apple whilst I knit socks. The needles get a little sticky, but with a few rows/ persistence, the stickiness goes away. I otherwise don't eat when I knit, and I think that the compulsion to keep knitting ("just one more row") has saved me from eating many a snack. It has not, however, saved me from the evils of alcohol, as I have knitted under the  influence. I have not shopped for yarn under the influence, however, that would just be plain hazardous.

3. (You may already know this one, it's a bit obvious.) I love to knit for others, and often will knit for others in preference over myself. I make kamakaze offers to knit stuff for people. Wanna know more? I recently offered to knit my Dad 6 pairs of black socks if he will fix up his tinea. I love to give gifts, especially well thought out ones; and to me giving a hand knitted item is the ultimate. I'm not above knitting for money.

4. I always think too much about whether I should buy yarn for a new jumper, as compared to whether I should buy more yarn for, say, socks. I think this is because of my trepidation with yarn substitution, and my fear of getting caught short of yarn.

5. I am growing my hair long again. I consider one advantage to be that I now have somewhere to put my cable/ sock needle where I can always find it. So far. See 2., above. Self portrait:

6. I used  to think that aluminum straights felt normal in my hands; and I used to be dead set against circulars, just out of habit and because circulars felt too light. Now that I use circulars as a matter of preference, the ends of straights feels too heavy at the ends. I can't remember why I converted from straights to circular in my preferences. I do remember that my first circular was an Addi turbo. It was quick, I do remember that. Maybe it was the holes poked in bags and the frequent trips to Brisbane that we used to undertake a few years ago.

I used to think that 20 cm DPNs felt the right length for knitting socks. Now that I have converted to 5 inch DPNs, the 20 cm ones feel too long. I do wish that the short wooden needles I have had sharper tips, but I am not shortening them any further, just to get a sharp tip!

7. Sometimes when I close my eyes at night, I imagine different yarns and different colours, textures etc; sometimes a part of a garment, like a hem or a sleeve trim, but rarely a whole garment. I don't think that this visualisation would be unusual amongst knitters.

8. I love to join in KAL's except I always come to the party really late, as my "to do" list is really long and I do have certain rules about how many projects I have on the needles. Scoff if you must, my rules are just inconsistently applied. Want an example? I wanted to buy the pattern for Twist, but I had already bought an online pattern for Shining Star, so I "had to" knit Shining Star before I bought the pattern for Twist. I have yarn and patterns for 3 more shawls but I will  not cast them on until Icarus is cast off. All bets are off for socks during socktoberfest, however. In fact, the rules mainly apply to big (jumper sized) projects. Almost anything  small can jump the queue in my head as "it won't take long to knit up".

9. I love to buy Australian yarn to support our industry in  my own small  but meaningful (to me) way; but I also love buying nice yarns from overseas. I worry about underdeveloped populations being exploited in the manufacture of some wool products, and feel an ethical dilemma about it. I also have not done anything to research the facts, but will cast on with a little niggling feeling.

10. I think that sheep probably feel good when they are shorn of their fleece, if a little chilly for a while. I do not think that i consider the feelings of sheep to be a strange thing. I regularly tell my son that "Sheep are Mummy's favourite".

11. The longest I have sat and knitted was from 8 am to 11 pm (there were meal breaks). It was a long time ago, and I did not have much of a social life at that time (it got better). Besides I had a real goal to aim for (my sister's first baby was being born without handknits to clothe her!)