Happy Birthday Dreaddies

So, today my dreadlocks turn 6 months!

I can't believe it! I remember doing loads of searching online about the best way to get cool looking dreads, I learnt that wax and other so-called bonding products were to be avoided, I learnt about back combing, twist & rip and how to use a crochet hook to help develop dreadlocks.

I also learned that it's a lesson in patience and thank God mine locked up as quickly as they did because, as we all know; I'm not the most patient person in the world!

Loads of STUFF in my hair!

So, as a treat I decided to wrap one of my locks with a bit of handspun left over from the headband I made ages ago and I put some bells at the bottom of the wrap.

I like this pic on the left, it shows the wrap with the bells and it also shows the bead my godson, Mason, gave me for Christmas and the spider bead I bought when I started to dread my hair.  If you look closely, you can also see a silver bead toward the top of my hair and a turtle bead near the nape of my neck and a hint of a gold ring too!

I love how they look and I have ordered some sterling silver bells to be permenantly sewn in, but they haven't arrived yet - the bells in there now were given to me by Natalie.

Get a load of them phatties!

I got Alex to take some more pictures of my hair, but the one I was most excited about was the one that shows the back of my head!  LOOK at those gorgeous dreadlocks!  They're proper phatties!

I've got quite a bit of stuff in my hair now; there's a snake bead, a skull bead, a silver bead with a symbol on, my blue cat bead, a metal ring, a yellow plastic ring, a 9ct gold wishbone ring (a gift on my 16th birthday), my father's gold buckle pinkie ring, a turtle bead, a starfish bead, a bead I bought in Norway, the wrap with bells on, a spider bead and the big bead Mason gave me!

I want my locs to grow really long so I can be a right magpie and have loads of stuff in my hair!

Think I might buy a load of embroidery silks and use those as wraps too!

I'm not an expert on dreadlocks by any means, but here are some tips I've learned over the past six months:

• You are going to look like an unmade bed - how long for? Everyone is different!

• Do NOT use wax, glue, honey or any other product that people say you should to make it lock - it will get trapped inside the locks & attract lint/dust...and they'll smell!
• WASH YOUR HAIR! Greasy hair is slippery and knots can't form - clean hair will lock better
• Don't use conditioners/conditioning shampoos, I prefer T-Gel but not for every wash
• If you use beads from the beginning; move them around to prevent weak spots
• If you use a crochet hook to create/maintain locks; be gentle, don't break the hair
• When ripping apart your locks, move your hands right down to the roots to check separation
• Let your hair MOVE! Wear a hat/headband for work if you need to, but let them down rest of the time.
• Do NOT use rubberbands - they will get stuck inside your locks!
• It's just hair, if you don't like how your locks are forming, brush out & start again!

I hope these tips will help you out, it's up to you if you follow them or not - it's your hair!

Argh! Bright light!!

  

Here is a shot of me from the front - excuse the no make-up squinty eyed look, I hadn't put any make-up on today (psoriasis keeps flaring on my face) and I'm photosensitive; I hate the flash going off in my face!  It physically hurts my eyes and my head - took half an hour for me to get past the pain this photo caused!

So......erm......what else?

Oooooh, I remember, I'm off to visit my friend, Kerry, and her new baby next Friday and I've cast on sock 2 of 52.  No, I havn't finished sock 1 yet, but all I have to do are the toes which are nice and easy so I've been saving them as 'something to do when a complicated pattern does my head in' socks - such as when we're at bingo or when I'll be on the car ferry next Friday morning!

The second pair is Aragorn and is being knit in Onyx - this fulfills the A-Z AND SolidSocks requirements!

Happy New Year!

I was going to post yesterday, but I got distracted!

I was busy finishing up the socks I was knitting for Juliann so that I could start my first socks of 2012!

Oh....I was also watching Smallville.  If you follow me on any social media thingy, you'll know that I'm currently working my way through the entire ten seasons of Smallville!

So, new socks! 

I'm knitting Hermione's Everyday Socks which is an incredibly easy pattern! I'm knitting it in a gorgeous yarn I recently received from The Skein Queen. It's a beautiful sock yarn and the colourway is called 'Birds of Paradise' - no, you can't see it yet. Just wait until I'm finished! These socks fulfill my SKA requirements.

After this pair I'm going to knit Aragorn in a yarn from The Knitting Goddess in Onyx which will fullfill my A sock and black yarn requirement.

I'm considering the SKA mystery sock after Aragorn as it's called Bláthnat which will fulfill my B socks requirement, but I'm not sure yet - I'm waiting to see what the pattern looks like first.

Did you have a good New Year? I went to Mel's house as she was having a little party, there was food and alcohol and lots of catching up to be done.  Mason and I exchanged presents as I didn't see him over Christmas.

Dreadlock bead

He got me a HOOOGE mug that says 'Big Mouth, Big Mug' on it, a couple of bingo pens and a thingy to attach to Isis' lead which holds poo bags and a torch.

He also got me this STUNNING bead!

I was so excited to get it and I love it! It shows up really well now my hair is black cherry again - I don't think it would've looked quite so good against the purple.

I gave Mason a chocolate tool set and a chocolate lolly maker which he's been asking for for AGES! He was incredibly pleased with this, ate one of the chocolate tools and then was promised he could make lollies another day.

I bet that will be messy fun!

I also received a text at 1.30 on New Years morning to tell me that my friend, Kerry, had given birh to her fifth child 3 hours before. A gorgeous little boy and I can't wait to go and get cuddles!  Congratulations Sweetie.

I hope your New Year was as fun as mine, whatever you chose to do.

Merry Christmas

Have you had a good day?

Sock patterns from Claire!

Mine has been awesome!  I got up about 8.30, had a nice hour drinking tea and surfing the web, then I had a shower before we all opened our presents.

I got LOADS!

Claire gave me a sock pattern book and a CD with over 50 sock patterns on!

From Kathy

This gift alone will keep me busy this year!

I joined in two Secret Santas this year.  One Santa - her Ravelry username is Kathycogs -  gave me a shoe box crammed full of stuff.  There was some lovely sparkly sock yarn, Cadbury's hot chocolate sachets, chewy lollies, Galaxy chocolate, 'Keep Calm, Carry On Knitting' cup mat and little itty bitty stitch markers!

From KTjazz

The other Santa didn't immediately reveal herself until I begged her too because she bought me some lovely gifts!  

KTjazz bought me some bamboo sock yarn, some chocolate peanuts, some roving to spin up to make dread wraps, a bag she made herself and DREAD BEADS!!! How totally awesome!

She really did her research, I guess she came here LOL.

I also got some lovely angora fibre from Ambermog, can't wait to spin it!

Isis and her duck

Isis didn't get left out - she got a new toy; it's a duck that quacks.  We squeezed it before opening it and she got SO excited!  She has spent the entire day (when not drooling in the kitchen at the meat) using it as a pillow.

The kids had quite a few gifts this year - some we're not allowed to open as they're from Vicky, Matt's girlfriend, and she's not here until tomorrow.

 

 

 

Christmas Day

They seem quite happy and it took them until 8pm before arguments started LOL

After we had breakfast we sat down to watch Phantom of The Opera - no, not the crappy film version; the proper stage version filmed at the Royal Albert Hall! Mum bought it for me when we went to watch the tennis and I'd been saving it!

The kids LOVED it!

Tomorrow will be a day of gluttony as no one felt like eating - we had such a huge breakfast; no one had room for a full roast turkey dinner!

My new bag!

 So tomorrow we are going to have cold meat, mash potato, pickled onions, cranberry sauce and lots and lots of cake!

There will probably be alcohol too!

Well, whatever you did and whoever you spent it with; I hope you had a good day and that the rest of the holiday period is a good one for you and yours.

Oh....I cast on socks too *embarrassed face* but they're not for me!  I was asked to make some for Juliann ages ago, she even sent me the yarn, but I got so wrapped up in socks for me that I didn't get around to it.  In this pic I've placed the yarn with the started toes in front of the bag Matt bought me for Christmas :D

Bit of a rambly post for you...

OK....sad news first.

Kim

Last week we had Kim put to sleep. He was getting very old, he was chronically arthritic and obviously uncomfortable. It seemed the best bet all round. I took him to the vet on the 14th and cuddled him as the anaesthetic was administered.

It was very quick and he was gone before all the medicine had been injected which tells me he was ready to go.

Unfortunately, he has not been the only loss. I got a frantic call two days ago from Mel asking me to take Auntie Ruth to the vet; Walter's mother, Midnight, had given birth and unfortunately suffered a prolapsed womb in the process.

By the time she had been found she was in shock, freezing cold and barely alive. There was blood everywhere and the baby chinchilla was dead - we don't know if it had been born dead or whether she just didn't bother with it in her pain. The fact that she allowed us to pick her up and wrap her in a towel and stroke on her way to the vets was all we needed to make the decision.

A very sad week really :(

So....complete subject change!

Look at all those presents!

How do you like my Christmas tree? It was put up on Dad's birthday which we now refer to as 'tree day' and there are lots of presents underneath it - some of them are even for me!! How exciting!

Bah Humbug!

As you can see; Vicky is very excited....Alex, not so much lol

We have lots of yummy food planned for Christmas Day and we're going to sit and watch a filming of Phantom of The Opera after breakfast on Christmas morning.

I've just passed the 5 month mark with my dreadlocks and wow it's all happening there! I started wearing a scarf when I went out as they were really quite messy and annoying, the scarf worked well although I think I looked like someone having chemo!

That's a wrap!

My hair was stiff and didn't move much - in fact it hurt to try and change the way the hair lay on my scalp.

What a mess!

Awesomeness

Then I got up one morning and all of a sudden I had this hair that was nice tight locs with blunted tips, the hair moves when I shake my head and it just looks so awesome!

Unfortunately, the purple had totally faded so I bought some L'Oreal dye called Black Cherry (which I've used before) and went over the lot. I love how it looks and feels and even though I bought new scarves to wrap around my locs today; I don't think I'll be wearing them much!

When I started typing this post, I did think it was likely this would probably be my last post of 2011, but I've just remembered that I've got to show you all the A-Z socks I have knit this year - I just have to finish the Z socks and then you can see them all together! It'll be about another day or two, so keep your eyes peeled!

Wow!

I didn't blog at ALL last month.

How remiss of me!

So thiis is going to be another one of those catchup posts where I ramble incoherently LOL. If you read my blog then you're used to those. If you haven't been here before; then I'm sorry!

So......let's start with the socks. I am up to speed with the A-Z sock challenge and I have two more pairs left to knit; Y and Z.

I have knit two extra pairs (I think) for myself, a pair for Claire, done a test knit and I'm currently test knitting another (knee high) sock.

I'm still planning on taking the 52 pair plunge next year - this is going to leave me with little, if any, time to knit (or spin) anything else! Which is a shame as the Double Knitting technique is trying to seduce me at the moment.

Have you guys seen this (rav link)?

It's totally amazing and I really really want to knit it! There's another one as well which is cats eyes that I want to knit too!

I was tempted for a while to blow the 52 pair plunge off for a year, but those rascally socks just keep calling to me!!

OK.......what else.......Alex is still battling his depression, he sees a doctor regularly and is on medication. The crashes are still bad, but he's trying his best to cope with them. He has recently decided to stay away from Facebook which I think is a really good thing as it was the root of a lot of his problems!

Kyle is now living next door with my mother - he had a huge fight with Alex and it descended into physical violence which left Alex covered in scratches and bruises and a slight concussion! We decided that him staying next door for a while would be the best thing for everyone concerned and him being there also puts my mind at rest; my mum turns 70 next year and I worry about her being on her own!

I got up one morning and went to turn on the vivarium light - which is the first thing I do every morning - and I noticed one of the vents on the back of the vivarium had been popped out. My stomach dropped and I immediately opened the viv and checked the hide.

Daffydd was gone!

We have searched the house, but we can't find him anywhere. I'm hoping that he has curled up somewhere and is sleeping as the house has been chilly, but now I've put the heating on he may still appear!

I am in the process of introducing Star & Frank to Albert at the moment, they seem completely uninterested in each other, so I shall put them all in together this week! Fingers crossed Albert doesn't eat them!!!

Dreadlock update: My locs will be 5 months old in a couple of days and are doing very well! The pink didn't hold so well, so I overdyed the whole lot with purple a week or so ago. I like the way it looks, but my poor scalp is suffering from the way I've abused it!

Forgive the state of me in this picture, I was shattered!

On Thursday; Mum, Alex, Isis and I packed ourselves into the camper and drove up to Kerry's. We camped outside Kerry's on the Thursday night then on Friday 2nd December, we left Alex and Isis with Kerry while Mum and I caught the train into London.

We met up with Claire and Steve and headed into the Royal Albert Hall to watch the Aegon Masters Tennis!

I saw Pat Cash, Henri Leconte, John McEnroe, Mark Phillipoussis, Andrew Castle, Mansour Bahrami, Peter McNamara, Fabrice Sontoro, Jeremy Bates, Richard Krajicek, Mikael Pernfors, Virginia Wade, Annabel Croft & Tim Henman.

It was absolutely awesome, we watched the afternoon session then Claire and Steve left, Mum and I stayed for the evening session which was originally billed to be John McEnroe vs Ivan Lendl, but Lendle pulled out so Richard Kracijek took his place. It was a really good match.

Unfortunately, the two matches in the afternoon both went to tie-breaks, so the invitational doubles with Bahrami (the main reason I had gone) was only on for half an hour as they had to prepare for the evening session. I was rather gutted, but got some fabulous photos.

I'll post them tomorrow when I can get access to the computer - it's one of the few things I don't like doing on the iPad LOL

But I did get this fab shot of Mansour Bahrami which I will post for you for now :D

So.......what've you been up to?

As bright as a bright thing

So a few days ago, I decided I was going to dye my hair!

It's all Zaz's fault really; she's a woman with long dreadlocks from a website called Dreadlock Truth. Her locks are waist length and - due to her fascination with mermaids - she recently dyed her hair green. It looks A-MAZ-ING!

I knew I didn't want mine all one colour though and on a recent shopping trip to Southampton with Alex; I found what I was looking for!

So I roped Vicky (Matt's girlfriend - she started a Hair & Beauty course in September) in to help and we started off by dumping a load of bleach in my hair.

I will admit; I was absolutely terrified! I've put a lot of work into my dreads - I love them, they are getting solid and feel more dreadlockish. What if my hair all fell out, or the dye looked really shit? What if the bleaching process made my locs break? What if it set my scalp psoriasis off?

We sat and we waited and waited. After half an hour, I went and rinsed. A lot of the hair was still quite dark, but seemed to have survived intact. We decided to apply another load of bleach and wait another half an hour.

When I rinsed, this is what I got!

I duly posted a pic on twitter - some loved it, Claire hated it LOL

The next bit was going to be a bit more tricky as I was going to be applying 2 different colours and couldn't just slap it on as I was used to.

We started off by applying the colour to the roots - almost immediately it became obvious that this colour wasn't going to go very far and I started to panic - I didn't want a whole load of blonde hair underneath.

Then I remembered some dye I bought years and years ago and had never gotten around to trying.

When colour number 1 ran out, we added colour number 2 to the ends of the locks that had been partially dyed with colour number 1.

Once colour number 2 ran out we blanket dyed the remaining locs with the ancient dye I'd stashed in my bedroom - we had just enough!

I sat around with all that foil on my head, too scared to move in case something broke and all my hair fell out.

Vicky was exhausted and went to bed and I was left to sit and worry on my own - well, the teen boys were there, but you know what they're like!!

I waited about 40 minutes then went next door to use Mum's shower - no, I still haven't had an electrician in to wire up my fancy bath so I can get the shower attached!

I didn't look in the mirror until after I got out, but from the amount of colour that ran down my body - I knew it was going to be bright.

I had decided to hop into the shower and do it that way as colour 1 was a lot lighter than the other colours and I didn't want any bleeding effect going on.

Unfortunately, I wasn't prepared for colour 3 to do what it did!

So, first off, let me show you my hair!

Bright, isn't it?

Personally, I love it!!

Unfortunately, Mum's shower has now been stained blue - I used loads of cleaner on it and still couldn't get it back to white.

Then I saw my back - it was blue too. I could've cried!

I called Alex in and we scrubbed at it until we got most of it off. I got the hairdryer on my locs (it was gone 1am by this point) and dried them off.

Then I went to bed.

When I got up the next morning, the first thing I noticed was that my neck was blue again!

I couldn't believe it! I scrubbed again, I tried toothpaste, eye make up remover, handwash, perfume and T-Gel - I ended up with little more than a sore blue neck :(

We've come to the conclusion that this stuff is just going to leech onto my skin until it settles down, unfortunately this means I can't actually wear my hair down to show off the dye!

The first two colours - Flamingo Pink and Indigo Violet by Directions - are absolutely fine and I have had no problems with them at all. It's the Blue Velvet by Special Effects (the really dark bits) that's causing all the problems!

I'm going to go and wash it again in a minute then give it a good rinse in cold water with a bit of vinegar in to see if that helps at all.

Well....it works on fibre!

Following in her mothers footsteps

I was watching a video on YouTube today about using the Twist and Rip method of dreadlocing hair.

Jess was watching over my shoulder and was inspired, she went to work and several hours later; she looked like this!

I think she looks great and I hope she keeps them!

I've got about 9 beads in my hair now, all the original ones I bought at Woolfest, then I ordered this lot from here.

The little white one, top right, was sent as a freebie along with the five that I ordered - isn't that fab!

I've scattered the beads throughout my hair and I love how it looks today - all wild and messy!

Got Jess to take a photo of the back of my head so I could get a good look at it - it's locking up nicely now!

The beads are holding well, there are loops and knots and it's still changing daily! If I'd known it was going to be this easy to dread my hair - I would've done it years ago!

After one week - or thereabouts

So it was a week ago that I decided to stop brushing my hair. Then on Tuesday of this week, I decided to speed things up by backcombing it.

I removed the beads, backcombed, sprayed with sea salt spray and palm rolled.

Today I had a long soak in a bath with bicarbonate of soda (baking soda to my US friends) in it and this evening, I put the beads back in.

Even though I look like Sideshow Bob, I'm actually starting to like the way it looks! I can see dreading happening now, can feel the changes going on in my hair and I love it!

I've even ordered more beads!

Hmmmmmm

So, I was told to spray my hair with a sea salt spray to help the knots form, which I did yesterday.

I washed it this morning and all the knots dropped out - not sure if it's because I actually submerged my head in the bath instead of gently pouring water over it, or what.

So today, I decided I would back comb it to try and hurry things up a bit and this is what I ended up with LOL

Of course, that looked ridiculous and I was trying to resign myself to missing bingo this week - no way would Mel take me looking like that! - when I had a brainwave!

On the dreadlock forums on Ravelry, someone posted about palmrolling while in the shower, so I sprayed all my new fuzz explosions and palm rolled them and ended up with what (almost) look like proper dreadlocks.

It feels very very different - like I've done a 'big' hairstyle and put loads of hairspray in it; there's movement, but away from my scalp.

It also feels quite dry because of the salt, but I'm going to leave it as long as I can before washing to give the knots a chance to get established!

Dreadlocks

I finally took the plunge and decided to dreadlock my hair.

I spent a day giving myself a migraine by researching online.

There are several methods but I decided to just twist the hair, palm roll a bit and then just leave it! Jess helped me and did the back and I've got lots of little worms on the back of my head!

We spent several hours doing it and I was really pleased with how it looked when we finished.

Unfortunately, all that fiddling made my hair feel quite greasy so I gathered my courage and washed my hair this morning.

It didn't all fall out, although it does look really curly now! I am really pleased with it now and can't wait until it's loc'd properly!

Once it's all established I'm going to research bleaching and dyeing the locks.

Purple, naturally!