Bit of a catch up

Hmmmm things happen and I keep forgetting to add them in - you know how it goes! So I may come back and edit this post as I think of things (which, as I stated before; I hate other people doing LOL), but I'll try and remember it all before publishing the post!

First off; the 'Knitting Olympics' - Well, I failed miserably! I was knitting Mandala with the cobweb silk I got at Christmas. All was going well until my centre pull ball collapsed.

I then came up with the idea of rewinding the yarn to make another ball which I would knit from the outside. I got started. It took hours! I had to carefully detangle multiple snarls and knots. Unfortunately, I got right to the end and there was one knot I just couldn't undo and I had to break the yarn. I was gutted!

I kept knitting and was doing reasonably well until this week; I had left the shawl in my basket as I was working on something else for a while. I dropped my small project bag into my basket one evening and, unbeknownst to me; the zip got caught in the silk. I picked up the bag and pulled about six feet of silk before I saw it. I've fiddled but I can't draw back in all the silk and I've had enough of it.

I'm going to undo the shawl and work it in a heavier yarn. I'll either sell the silk on, or ply it in with something else.

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I've had a dreadful cough since Matt came out of hospital. My throat is so sore! I'm drinking several glasses of honey and lemon a day and taking painkillers regularly. I'm exhausted and fed up with the pain, so if it hasn't eased by Monday; I shall call the doctor!

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Alex told me a while ago that he wanted to see a dentist as he has a wonky front tooth and wants it fixed. I finally found somewhere and took him along.

While talking to me about treatment (Alex requires braces) the dentist told me I needed to see a dentist myself as I had visible gum disease.

I panicked!

I haven't seen a dentist since I was 16. I was scared quite badly as a child and as soon as I reached an age where I had a choice; I stopped going!

But I finally plucked up enough courage to make an appointment and go myself.

The dentist said I would benefit from visiting the hygienist (who would clean my teeth properly and teach me how to care for them), but other than that; I had 'good teeth'

I visited the hygienist this week, she took a lot of built up scale off my teeth. It was a very uncomfortable procedure and my teeth were very sensitive and really ached for a couple of days afterward.

I found this quite distressing as I've never suffered from pain in my mouth before. So people on twitter (luffs ya Claire) had to put up with a lot of moaning and complaining this past week!

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I am selling my Ashford Joy. I haven't used it at all since buying the Rose. I did consider keeping it purely for use in the camper, but space is limited in the camper really and it's easier to pull out my knitting than it is to set the wheel up (even a wheel as ready to go as a Joy).

I have everything that came in the original box (which is also included), as well as 4 extra bobbins, the WooLee Winder with five WW bobbins, all the receipts are also included.

I would like £450 for it. This price does not include postage. I am willing to catch the ferry over to Portsmouth/Southampton/Lymington to meet a buyer at my own cost and I'm also willing to transport it to Wonderwool. I will post, but the buyer must pay all shipping costs.

So if you know anyone after an Ashford Joy - send them to me!

I discovered that I don't need to take a wheel when we go camping because look what I can do!

When I first started spinning; I was told to learn on a spindle first as it would teach me control and how to draft properly. I was totally against it; I didn't like the look of the, they seemed slow and clumsy, awkward and they just weren't a wheel!

Then I saw a couple of people spinning on spindles over the last six months or so and slowly became intrigued.

Rachel agreed to loan me her spindle (made by a local man called Ian) so that I could practise in peace and this is my first attempt! I know own this spindle and I have placed an order for a Trindle too!

A painful few days & A New Beginning

On Thursday I came down with a migraine. It was quite a bad one and I, stupidly, ate dinner after taking a pain killer.

Dinner added nausea and a general feeling of bleurgh to the whole migraine experience.

On Friday I felt absolutely awful and I actually spent the entire day lying on the sofa under a blanket (much to the delight of Isis) snoozing. I then went to bed and slept for 8 hours that night!

I felt slightly better on Saturday and actually managed to get some knitting done - not a great deal, but a little bit.

Sunday, I woke up with a chronic pain in my shoulder. There was a central pain in my right shoulder which travelled across the top of my shoulders, down the right side of my back and down my right arm. This lasted all day and I just couldn't get comfortable!

I spent most of the day zoned out on painkillers with a hot water bottle pressed to my shoulder and slept fitfully Sunday night.

On Monday, Alex had an appointment and afterwards I took him for lunch in KFC. We have a ritual we do everytime we go; tear the end off the straw wrapping, put the straw in your mouth and blow hard so that the other end of the wrapping flies off and hits the person sitting opposite you. Of course, I completely forgot about this and jumped about a foot when this piece of plastic hit me square on the nose.

Christ that hurt!!!

But afterwards on the drive home, I had barely any pain at all!

I went off to our fibre craft meet as usual on Monday evening, but by the time that had finished I was in agony with pain all over the place!

I rested yesterday and shopped today and I'm still in agony, there's a band of pain going right across the middle of my back and I just can't get comfortable!

Naturally, I have a billion and one things to do. I want to tidy up as Helen is coming to visit this weekend. I've got cakes to bake as Jess turns 15 on Saturday and Alex 14 on Sunday.

This is even affecting my knitting as I need to keep moving, fidgeting, shifting position, refilling my hot water bottle, etc and I don't think I'm going to get my Olympic knitting finished in time :(

I can't wait until I finish this shawl as I really want to spin! I have the gorgeous Thunderstorm batts that I carded and several other glitzy batts that I've purchased recently and I want to spin now!!!

In good news; I have purchased 20 kilos of BFL, dyes in blue, yellow and red, squeezy bottles, vinegar and clingfilm! I'm all ready to get dyeing! I'm going to start looking at sites to sell through soon and I should hopefully have a full shop to open by the end of March!

Knitting Olympics/Ravelympics

The Winter Olympic games started on Friday 12th February.

In the knitting/crochet/spinning community; this means 12 days of frantic crafting. The idea is to challenge yourself.

During last years Ravelympics, I made Cinnamon Latte for my mum. It was my first lace project and I finished it just in time.

This time; I shall be making Mandala available here from goddessknits!

Hospital

My second son, Matt, has a heart defect.

He has a VSD (Ventrical Septal Defect - a hole in other words) and aortic regurgitation.

The VSD acted like a vacuum and sucked, the aorta valve was pulled toward it.

He had surgery 6 years ago to plug the VSD and give the aorta a 'lift'. The surgery was mostly successful, he still has a small VSD but the aorta has been overstretched (kinda like when you overstretch an elastic band) and will eventually need replacing.

Matt is going into Southampton General Hospital tomorrow for a few days. He will be hooked up to a machine and will run on a treadmill so they can view his heart under exercise. He will also be anaethetised while they put a camera down his throat and one in an artery in his groin so that they can get a good all round view of the heart.

This means that Matt will be admitted tomorrow morning and discharged on Wednesday morning.

As Southampton is so far away; I, naturally, will be going with him.

Hopefully I'll have signal on my BlackBerry, so I will try to update my blog and twitter as often as I can.

I'm hoping that I will have the opportunity to get loads done on my Ravelympics project!

It’s finished!

I didn't go to sleep last night and I've managed to get it finished! Hooray!!!

Nearly there!

I took my shawl to show the others at the knitting group last night -- it's been such hard work, I guess I just wanted reassurance from experienced knitters that it's all going ok! Daft, eh!?

I just hope that it'll be finished by Sunday and that I won't run out of wool! Anyway here's today's pic for all you interested peeps lol

Tick, Tick, Tick – will I have enough wool??

I didn't get as much done last night as Tuesday nights are cinema-and-Tesco's night with mum. We went to see the new Mummy film, compared to the others it was bloody rubbish!

My main worry now is that I'm going to run out of wool before the shawl is actually finished, I've been amazed at how much I've created out of those little 25g balls, but I'm really starting to worry. If I run out and have to order more, I won't be finished by Sunday!

Made loads of progress!

Sometimes I love being an insomniac - I got loads done on that shawl since posting on Sunday morning...I was going to post last night, but I'd over done it and given myself the mother of all migraines - I had to find my way to my bed and get undressed with my eyes closed.

I've done so much on this shawl that I've had to decrease to smaller needles, get a load of this!

Shawl progress

Well, it's the last day of the olympics and it's not finished - gutted! Oh well, I'm still going on with it, it goes fine until I hit one of the pattern rows - they're all K2tog and yarn overs and I always end up with one stitch too few or too many at the end of the round!

I'm now on Pattern row 7 and it's a decrease row too - got to the end of that last night and had about 9 stitches too few so I frogged the entire row!

It's driving me crazy lol - as you can see, I've now incorporated ALL of the colours and the pattern is definitely noticeable now, which is how I was able to find a stitch that I'd dropped yesterday!

I reckon that if I hadn't dropped that stitch (which took me 20 minutes to find as it was in amongst a hole cluster!) and managed to complete a pattern row first time without having to undo it and check it every 30 seconds as I go around, I might well have finished within the Ravelympics time limit. I'm not too disappointed (I just wanted the right to brag lol), I don't consider myself a novice by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not an expert either and this is the first time I've knitted lace and in all honesty, I've thoroughly enjoyed it and wouldn't feel at all worried about knitting this again for someone else!

I'm also bloody annoyed as I wiped my other computer now I've got this one then discovered that all the patterns I've downloaded and bookmarked aren't on this computer and I can't remember where I found most of them.

I'm not going to bother looking for them until I've cleared some of my current queue of projects - I've got wool to do at least 4 projects - that'll keep me going for a couple of weeks anyway!

Shawl progress

Managed to get loads done last night and I have now joined in the fifth colour, only one more shade to join!

Shawl progress

Well, all is going reasonably well, I'm just about to start decreasing inwards and I've added the third colour - it's coming along nicely, but I don't think it'll be finished by Sunday lol

Shawl progress

I've finally joined in another colour! I did the first pattern row last night and discovered that I had too many stitches - do you know how HARD it is to accurately count 576 stitches?? It took me 4 hours to get it right, I ended up with a headache and sore hands lol, anyway, here's todays pic! It's going great (when I don't have to count stitches LOL)

Shawl progress

I've finally finished the border! It's now one big circle, I've picked up the 576 stitches and I'm working towards the middle. I was going to post this last night, but went to bed with a migraine! I know now that it's going to progress quite quickly - I hate doing short rows (the border was only 10 - 14 stitches), now I get to work in the round!

Shawl progress

The Cinnamon Latte shawl I'm doing for the Ravelympics is going well - I've decided it will be a gift for my mum who is going on one of the final QE2 cruises in October. She says she's got a nice outfit to wear with it.

The border is almost complete, I've done 63 out of 72 scallops, once I've done 72 I will join the ends together to make a ring, then i will pick up 576 stitches and work in towards the centre - I'm hoping the actual shawl will knit up reasonably fast as I'll be constantly decreasing.

It's not very clear in the picture, but I've placed a yale key in the centre of the (almost) circle for a size comparison.

Mel moved, romper finished, shawl progress

Mel and her family moved yesterday into their new house, I took the boys down and we all pitched in - at one point her front garden looked like this: It took most of the day, but we finally had everything piled up in the lounge by dinner time lol, I've just received a text from her saying that so far they've managed to get Laura's room sorted - everyone slept on mattresses on the floor last night lol.
I've finished ANOTHER romper suit for Phoebe, it's very pretty and looks adorable, but I must be honest the pattern was SOOOOOOOOOO boring!

I've started a shawl called Cinnamon Latte for the Ravelympics, I've never knitted lace before and I had to frog a few times before I caught the jist of it, but I finally managed to get going and this is how much I managed in a few hours - it doesn't look like much - that's an A4 piece of paper it's lying on, but I'm proud of it lol. If I remember, I will try and post daily pictures of my progress.