WIP Wednesday: Bagatelle

Tarot of Durer

I know ! I know ! I keep meaning  to post ... and then I blink,and even more days have passed by post-less. But we have been out and about with the kids' various sports things, and also bouncing on sofas and buying a suite. It is orange and I love it. I shall love it even more when it arrives and I no longer have to sit on the old sofa and sink slowly through the cushions to come to rest on the floor.

Yes, I had a little windfall thanks to the PPI refund thing, and je suis désolée, désolée, désolée au fond de mon coeur to have to tell you I was totally adult and grown-up about it all, and wasted frittered alloacted nearly the whole blimmin' amount on bills and paying down debt. Man, I don't like being sensible, it's just no fun whatsoever.

Also summer arrived last weekend (and left today). But it meant the roses whooshed into bloom, and of the 3 roses in the front of the house, two are showing their colors:

This one can stay: it is scented, I like the color, and although it's a hybrid tea (SO passé)   it is generous with its blooms.

This one ? Will have to work much harder to merit being kept: the color is fine, the flower shape is 'meh', but by far its worst sin is to have no fragrance. Destructo Boy claims there is a faint scent, but he may be full of pity for it:

  
And in spite of feeling like I've been out all the time, and outside, I am managing to knit a little:

An arty shot. A rubbish arty shot.

It is a baby pattern, 'Star Jumper' from Woman's Weekly Knitting & Crochet Spring 2010. Of course, we sniggered when we read that it demands 3 balls of Rowan Cashsoft DK,(rrp £5.75/$9.69 per 50g ball) and substituted it with the far more practical and inexpensive Cygnet Kiddies Supersoft DK in 'Lemon' at £1.79/$3.02 per 100g ball.

I can no longer maintain this light and airy manner, any nonchalance (and more French vocabulary) is on the verge of deserting me in the subsuming panic I feel at heading off to the dentist for a check-up momentarily. While I trickle down the road in a river of my own fear-driven sweat, why not pop over to Tami's Amis to see what normal people are up to ? 

 

5KCBWDAY2: Dating Profile

Fantastic Menagerie Tarot

Well, yes, I missed yesterday's 5th Annual KnitCroBlo Week topic because it was Monday - not as bad a day as some were having, but by the time I had time to sit down and draft something, and also had thought of something to write about, I was just too wiped out - Destructo Boy was having a major malfunction, and the mothership had neglected to include the user manual or secret code when they dropped him off.

Destructo Boy's mind is as much of a mystery to me as Data's

Anyway, I am attempting to shake off the frazzled-ness of yesterday by joining in with today's Knit & Crochet Blog Week topic:

5KCBWDAY2: Dating Profile
 Write a dating profile for one your your past finished projects.

Kind of an interesting idea, but I'm too scared of what I might find if I Google 'dating profiles' so I shall make it up as I go along. I think a Lonely Hearts type thing might be more straightforward. And instead of a past project - none of which need to advertize for a home - I think we will try to find a match for some of my stash. We don't even insist that it has to be a perfect match, anything in the generally overgrown and abandoned companionship ball-park will do .....



385m/420yds of 100% synthetic ball of soft fluffy sparkle WLTM knitter (preferably novice) with no taste, or sense of style but lots of pity & GSOH.

To sample more knitterly dating profiles, pour yourself a large glass of wine, and pop the tag 5KCBWDAY2 into Google ....

FO Friday: End of the Minions

My most recently completed FO is still blocking - so let's travel back in time a little bit, to February when I made 4 more minion hats, all by special request:

    
A Be-do hat for my knitworthy Nurse SIL who works with the police. I have evidence that she wears it, too.

A second hat for my nephew J., who had already outgrown his Xmas one.

He had also asked for an Evil Minion hat for his birthday. What could I do but oblige ?

He told his Mum he'd been ''waiting all my life for this hat''. This boy is the King of Knitworthy.

His Nanny aka my MIL is also knitworthy:

She has said she wants to be buried in it.

Me - I'm burying the thought of more minions. For some reason, I didn't really enjoy the actuality of making these; it was only the fact that such loved ones who were also knitworthy had specifically requested them, and I knew they'd like them.

What with all the gifty knitting I feel like I've been doing this year, I can feel the urge, the siren's call, to make something just for me ....but I have a few more commitments to finish first. Pop over to Tami's Amis to  see what else is complete ....

WIP Wednesday 172: Pre-WIP

Housewives Tarot

 So I don't seem to have a WIP. Well, OK, there might be one that technically counts somewhere covered in dust. But real live active ones ? Nope.

But I do have all the bits and bobs gathered together to cast on this lovely little baby sweater for a friend of mine who is due in June:

Yes, I've made it before - but it's such a charming and unusual pattern that I'm doing it again - this time hopefully without the unintentional 'design elements'.

For now, I must go cook posh sausages for Belo's birthday ....while you recover from the shock, pop over to Tami's Amis to see what's happening there ....

FO Friday 175: It Ain't Easy ....

Victorian Flower Oracle

Well, all bar a few tiny grams of the Abstract Cat BFL Lace in 'Spring Greens' that Auntie Fashion gave me for my birthday is gone. But we have two nice crescent shawls to show for it; firstly, the SusannaIC Spring Fling MKAL, the actual name of the pattern is 'Fialka':

 There are seriously hundreds of beads, but you cannot see even one. Neither does the sunny day help in making the picture truly representative of the marvellous combination of blue- and lime- greens in this yarn.

And then, because I thought I would have enough yarn, a little crescent with the leftovers, 'Promise Me' from Boo Knits. I learned my lesson, and didn't bother with beads on this one:

I'm not 100% sure about the Boo Knits patterns - they look fabulous, in other people's projects. Mine ? Not so much. The lace looks like lots of holes, I find it difficult to see the pattern. But they are very light, delicate and airy looking shawls; ethereal might be the educated word to use.





Pop over to Tami's Amis to see more seasonal works ....

WIP Wednesday: Disguise Fair Nature ....

Tarot of the Northern Shadows

 








.... with hard favour'd rage (Henry V, III.1)

Why, no, this is not a post about any hormonal or medication-al issues I might have.

No, it isn't a post about the gory Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire - although I'm so annoyed with Martin I'm not going to read any more of the story, even if he actually manages to keep going and complete the next stage/book - me not buying it, will of course make all the difference in the world to him.

Oh I SEE. The wolf.

Well, that's because of this:

Cascade Alpaca Lace in the colorway 'Peony Pink'. Perfectly innocuous, even when pictured on a chair as the big piece of white card I usually use for pics is somehow covered in muddy paw prints, and you'd think, a good match for the Boo Knits pattern 'Sweet Dreams'.

You'd think wrong. 

I had to rip back the stockinette section to the beginning 3 times - I don't know why it kept going so wrong, it's not like it was a challenging part of the pattern. And then once more, just as I reached the final chart for the border - I'd made a huge error somewhere which resulted in the stitch count being wildly out, and the lace pattern being decidedly on the huh. So now it sits in splendid solitude while I stomp and huff around the house, with the dog avoiding my gaze.

Well, OK, so it might actually have something to do with hormones and meds as well, then. Pop over to Tami's Amis and see what balanced people are achieving .....

Made It !

Fantastic Menagerie Tarot

  Well, we made it through the Fire Swamp Easter holidays - lots of sleepovers, bright but cold weather, and I still have the cold that Mini Diva gave me, which seems to be hanging on forever - and today Destructo Boy went back to school dressed in colorful shorts, a T-shirt and a warm jacket for 'Beachwear Day'. It is somehow connected to this term's Topic, the World Cup, and Brazil; as is their visit to the cinema on Thursday during class-time to see Rio 2. We are sure that this has some kind of educational benefit, aren't we ?

Mini Diva, on the other hand, sits her SATs next month, and the revision pressure seems to be on - they don't appear to be learning anything new, just re-doing lots of old stuff. Of course, this emphasis would have nothing to do with the school being in Special Measures, about to convert to Academy status, and desperate to improve its standing .... I need to just take a deep breath and get her through this final term of primary school without her totally stressing out. Yes, she is only 11 years old. So wrong ....

On a more cheerful note, I managed to finish the Deadline Item by the Deadline - my youngest niece's 18th birthday. She had requested a blankey, so a blankey is what she got:

You may possibly recognize that this used to be the WIP formerly known as the Summer Garden Granny Square Blanket:

At a very early stage

 Except I got bored with the granny squares, and time was racing on, so I made strips of the squares, added a couple of rounds of treble stitch round each strip, and then joined the strips together before adding a great big couple of border rounds around the whole thing. I forgot to count how many squares ended up being involved ....

Now, on this grey and damp morning, with my second optimistic wash of the day in the machine, I feel the overwhelming impulse for a lil nap to recoup my energies. It has nothing to do with the fact that I just inhaled the last bit of Mini Diva's homemade red velvet cake, nothing at all ....