..and I'm over it. I'M OVER IT I SAY! I was over it after the second day. And now it's been... gee... I've lost count tbh of how many days it's has consistently been above 40C. Most days it's been 43+. Nights not down much below 30C. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of the constant hum and whir of the airconditioner and fans, day in day out. I'm sick of being in the dark because the blinds and curtains stay closed to help keep the heat out. I'm sick of feeling my legs burning from the heat radiating up from the road when I put the kids in and out of the car to do school drop offs and pick ups. It's almost the only time I've left the house in the last week. And the BoM says temps like this until end of next week!! Gaaaah!!! I don't do the heat well. Which is odd really seeing as I've lived here all my life and summer can get HOT. But I don't remember feeling it so much as a kid. But now even my kids are complaining that it's hot. Everyone is tired and grumpy. By the afternoon/evening the aircon isn't working so well anymore and it starts to feel warm in the house. But it's much warmer outside, so just a step out the door and back in again tells me it's cool in here. And worst of all......
...it's so NOT knitting weather :( It's not anything weather. I can't be bothered with anything. No energy, no motivation.
When the cool change comes, I will dance in the street.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Dear Blog....
.... I'm sorry for neglecting you. I've been trying to post for sometime now but things keep getting in the way. I did have grand plans to try and blog at least once a week in 2009, but I failed miserably at that already so things aren't looking good. Also I am trying to spend less time on the PC, so sitting and blogging really flies in the face of that.
School started back today so it's been school holidays here up to now. That's kept me pretty busy between trying to entertain children, take care of a baby and keep the house from looking like a disaster zone. We did manage to do some fun things, but having a young baby restricts our movements somewhat, so not as many fun outings as I'd hoped. The Christmas period also coincided with Miss F cutting two teeth at once which resulted in an unhappy baby for about a week or two. As well as the two accidents she had which involved a trip to the chiropractor to fix, but she's back on track again now and she's already pulling up on the furniture and cruising around!! She hasn't worked out how to get down on her own yet though, so there's much frustration, esp when she just gets right back up again after I help her down LOL I've also just had a bout of mastitis, which has not been fun and I'm still not feeling 100% yet. All of this has meant that very little knitting or crafting of any kind has been going on. So nothing to show at the moment. I did want to post about my plan for the year, so I'll do that. Oh, and not to mention the 41C temperatures forecast for the next 3 days!!! and beyond that all very high 30's - not exactly knitting weather. I seem to work up a sweat just sitting and knitting so there's probably not going to be much of that in the next week or so. I need to move to a cooler climate.
2009 - A Plan
There was a thread over on Woolaholics with people's knitting plans for the year. I don't think I can break it down to specific projects and when I want to do them, but I do have some ideas about what I want to achieve this year....
- one pair of socks per month - January done!
- complete my Central Park Hoodie for winter 2010
- 3 squares per month for the afghan I'm (trying to) knit for DH
- I'd like to try a colourwork project - if anyone knows of anything that would be a good starter project then let me know!
- By the end of the year I'd like to be able to sew myself a skirt
- Make that necklace from the kit that my mother bought me for Christmas a few years ago.
- winter jacket/vest for L & M
- New soakers/shorties/longies for F
I can't really allocate those to particular months because my knitting time is fairly infrequent atm so it's hard to say when I'll get to do any of it. But obviously seasons dictate when things will be worn, so no use leaving the vests/jackets until Septmeber LOL
I've also got a problem with my hands again, which seems to be made worse by knitting atm, so that's slowing me down.
And there's also the self-imposed yarn buying ban I've put myself on. I need to lose some weight, so buying yarn is a reward for losing some of that. That plan's going well so far - no weight lost, so no yarn bought. Success! LOL Maybe if I didn't bake chocolate chip cookies and then eat almost the entire batch myself, I might actually get to buy yarn again.
I don't even have any pictures to put up to break up this post *sigh*. I'm off to turn the airconditioner on. Who thought it would be a good idea to have a hot cup of tea on a day like this?!
School started back today so it's been school holidays here up to now. That's kept me pretty busy between trying to entertain children, take care of a baby and keep the house from looking like a disaster zone. We did manage to do some fun things, but having a young baby restricts our movements somewhat, so not as many fun outings as I'd hoped. The Christmas period also coincided with Miss F cutting two teeth at once which resulted in an unhappy baby for about a week or two. As well as the two accidents she had which involved a trip to the chiropractor to fix, but she's back on track again now and she's already pulling up on the furniture and cruising around!! She hasn't worked out how to get down on her own yet though, so there's much frustration, esp when she just gets right back up again after I help her down LOL I've also just had a bout of mastitis, which has not been fun and I'm still not feeling 100% yet. All of this has meant that very little knitting or crafting of any kind has been going on. So nothing to show at the moment. I did want to post about my plan for the year, so I'll do that. Oh, and not to mention the 41C temperatures forecast for the next 3 days!!! and beyond that all very high 30's - not exactly knitting weather. I seem to work up a sweat just sitting and knitting so there's probably not going to be much of that in the next week or so. I need to move to a cooler climate.
2009 - A Plan
There was a thread over on Woolaholics with people's knitting plans for the year. I don't think I can break it down to specific projects and when I want to do them, but I do have some ideas about what I want to achieve this year....
- one pair of socks per month - January done!
- complete my Central Park Hoodie for winter 2010
- 3 squares per month for the afghan I'm (trying to) knit for DH
- I'd like to try a colourwork project - if anyone knows of anything that would be a good starter project then let me know!
- By the end of the year I'd like to be able to sew myself a skirt
- Make that necklace from the kit that my mother bought me for Christmas a few years ago.
- winter jacket/vest for L & M
- New soakers/shorties/longies for F
I can't really allocate those to particular months because my knitting time is fairly infrequent atm so it's hard to say when I'll get to do any of it. But obviously seasons dictate when things will be worn, so no use leaving the vests/jackets until Septmeber LOL
I've also got a problem with my hands again, which seems to be made worse by knitting atm, so that's slowing me down.
And there's also the self-imposed yarn buying ban I've put myself on. I need to lose some weight, so buying yarn is a reward for losing some of that. That plan's going well so far - no weight lost, so no yarn bought. Success! LOL Maybe if I didn't bake chocolate chip cookies and then eat almost the entire batch myself, I might actually get to buy yarn again.
I don't even have any pictures to put up to break up this post *sigh*. I'm off to turn the airconditioner on. Who thought it would be a good idea to have a hot cup of tea on a day like this?!
Friday, January 9, 2009
Monkey See, Monkey Do
First FO for 2009.
Monkey.
I love these socks. I used a Symmetry sock yarn set from DHDY in "Deepwater". It's beautiful. The photos don't really do the colours justice. So now I have my very own unique pair of Monkey's.... just like the other 7,712 people on Ravelry LOL
I think the yarn works really well with this pattern. I did get a bit of pooling on each, just where the decreases in the gusset are, but barely noticeable. The pattern called for 2.5mm needles, but I upsized to 2.75mm due to having large-ish feet. I'm wondering if I might actually have gotten away with using 2.5mm needles for a more snug fit? I also discovered while knitting these that I probably have a high-instep, which is something I really didn't know seeing as I've never really compared my instep with anyone else's before LOL So I added a few more rows in the heel flap (as per pattern suggestion) to accomodate that and it seems to have solved the problem I have of not being able to get my foot through the sock at foot-meets-heel-meets-leg bit - so the gusset? Anyway, will be doing that more often I think.
I also did a knitted graft for the toe, instead of kitchener stitch, as per an email from Knitting Daily. That was really easy and I'll be doing that again too. The other thing I did was cast on over two 2.75mm needles to give the cuff plenty of stretch. That worked really well too, and solved the problem of a tight cuff that I usually have even though I do a stretch cast on.
Love them.
Monkey.
I love these socks. I used a Symmetry sock yarn set from DHDY in "Deepwater". It's beautiful. The photos don't really do the colours justice. So now I have my very own unique pair of Monkey's.... just like the other 7,712 people on Ravelry LOL
I think the yarn works really well with this pattern. I did get a bit of pooling on each, just where the decreases in the gusset are, but barely noticeable. The pattern called for 2.5mm needles, but I upsized to 2.75mm due to having large-ish feet. I'm wondering if I might actually have gotten away with using 2.5mm needles for a more snug fit? I also discovered while knitting these that I probably have a high-instep, which is something I really didn't know seeing as I've never really compared my instep with anyone else's before LOL So I added a few more rows in the heel flap (as per pattern suggestion) to accomodate that and it seems to have solved the problem I have of not being able to get my foot through the sock at foot-meets-heel-meets-leg bit - so the gusset? Anyway, will be doing that more often I think.
I also did a knitted graft for the toe, instead of kitchener stitch, as per an email from Knitting Daily. That was really easy and I'll be doing that again too. The other thing I did was cast on over two 2.75mm needles to give the cuff plenty of stretch. That worked really well too, and solved the problem of a tight cuff that I usually have even though I do a stretch cast on.
Love them.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Oops
What do you do when you have a non-sleeping baby that falls asleep while you are heading home in the car? Take a drive to your LYS, that's what! Although my LYS isn't really all that local, but I have a hard time driving aimlessly around, so needed a destination with a possible purpose. And wouldn't you know it. As I pulled into a parking space, L announces from the back seat that F was awake! Well, I took that as a sign that I was meant to go in. And seeing as this LYS is the only local stockist in this city of Noro, I couldn't help but have a look at it while I was there, having never seen it in real life before. And of course, being a LYS and in this relatively sleepy little city, the price she was charging for this particular yarn was a lot cheaper than I've seen it anywhere online, and in the bigger stores from the east coast. Another sign?
So these lovelies somehow found their way to the checkout counter and into my car for a ride to my house. I grabbed two balls of three different colourways. Couldn't help myself. And that kind of blows my as-yet-unannounced plan to not buy any yarn for at least the first 6 months of 2009. But I'll justify it by saying that I needed one last fix before committing myself to this goal. And so here they are... I'd like you to meet 211, 205 & 87. They are currently getting acquainted with the rest of my stash. Not sure what I'll do with them as yet. But for now I'm just going to admire their glorious colours.
So these lovelies somehow found their way to the checkout counter and into my car for a ride to my house. I grabbed two balls of three different colourways. Couldn't help myself. And that kind of blows my as-yet-unannounced plan to not buy any yarn for at least the first 6 months of 2009. But I'll justify it by saying that I needed one last fix before committing myself to this goal. And so here they are... I'd like you to meet 211, 205 & 87. They are currently getting acquainted with the rest of my stash. Not sure what I'll do with them as yet. But for now I'm just going to admire their glorious colours.
Monday, January 5, 2009
New Toy
Looky what I got for Christmas.
Let's not talk about how I am not a sewer at all. I plan to learn. Well I did do a little sewing in high school. You know... the door snake type sewing. That was part of Home Ec in Year 9 though, which I failed I might add. Totally failed. I got a "U". The lowest grade possible LOL I really didn't like Home Ec, and I didn't do my homework, so I failed. I was far more eager to get over to the other side of the hall, where they did metalwork, plastics and woodwork. Now that was fun! So anyway, it's not like I've never used a sewing machine before in my life. The machine's actually easy to use (surprisingly to me!), it will be constructing things and having them look as they are supposed to look that will be the challenge. I've already made a bag - it's a reversible project bag and I used this tutorial to do it. I still need to get some ribbon to put in as a drawstring, but the sewing part is done. And it looks like it's meant to!! Yeeha! It was quite fun. Took me about 3 days all up, but probably only about an hours work total. My problem is not having a dedicated place to put the machine, and children who keep *needing* me as soon as I try to do something that they aren't the centre of. How rude!
I did get some knitting done over the Christmas period also, but I can't talk about it. Not just because it's secret knitting, but because it became a knitting disaster :( I've only just yesterday been able to bring myself to undo the part that was a disaster in readiness to do it again :( While trying to ignore that problem I cast on a pair of socks, which I'm almost done with. There wasn't a lot of time for knitting though, with DH on holidays for two weeks. We did lots of stuff out and about with the kids and had a lot of fun while we were at it. One of the highlights was cherry picking, and apart from the 2kgs of cherries we've nearly polished off in the fridge, we have another 2.5kgs of *seconds* cherries in the freezer waiting for me to decide what to do with them!
Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and here's to plenty of crafting in 2009!
Let's not talk about how I am not a sewer at all. I plan to learn. Well I did do a little sewing in high school. You know... the door snake type sewing. That was part of Home Ec in Year 9 though, which I failed I might add. Totally failed. I got a "U". The lowest grade possible LOL I really didn't like Home Ec, and I didn't do my homework, so I failed. I was far more eager to get over to the other side of the hall, where they did metalwork, plastics and woodwork. Now that was fun! So anyway, it's not like I've never used a sewing machine before in my life. The machine's actually easy to use (surprisingly to me!), it will be constructing things and having them look as they are supposed to look that will be the challenge. I've already made a bag - it's a reversible project bag and I used this tutorial to do it. I still need to get some ribbon to put in as a drawstring, but the sewing part is done. And it looks like it's meant to!! Yeeha! It was quite fun. Took me about 3 days all up, but probably only about an hours work total. My problem is not having a dedicated place to put the machine, and children who keep *needing* me as soon as I try to do something that they aren't the centre of. How rude!
I did get some knitting done over the Christmas period also, but I can't talk about it. Not just because it's secret knitting, but because it became a knitting disaster :( I've only just yesterday been able to bring myself to undo the part that was a disaster in readiness to do it again :( While trying to ignore that problem I cast on a pair of socks, which I'm almost done with. There wasn't a lot of time for knitting though, with DH on holidays for two weeks. We did lots of stuff out and about with the kids and had a lot of fun while we were at it. One of the highlights was cherry picking, and apart from the 2kgs of cherries we've nearly polished off in the fridge, we have another 2.5kgs of *seconds* cherries in the freezer waiting for me to decide what to do with them!
Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and here's to plenty of crafting in 2009!
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