Where are those Elves when you need them?

I wish those parcel wrapping elves would make an appearance at my house soon. Today I have a table full of gifts to wrap which will turn out to have all the appeal of a brown paper package tied up with string. I finish up with a carpet full of paper strips, bits of sellotape stuck all over me and lumpy awful parcels. we all have our talents and mine obviously isn't making pretty packages.

That reminds me of a compliment I had once (well I took it as a compliment) A long term boyfriend who had previously had a younger gorgeous trophy wife dated me for 9 yrs despite my being overweight and 13yrs older. One day I asked him what did I have that she didn't apart from the obvious. He said well she was like that present under the Christmas tree that is decorated so beautifully that you can't wait to see the present inside only to open it and find there is nothing that you want inside. You on the other hand are like that present that tends to get overlooked because it isn't wrapped as nicely but when opened contains the best gift of all - a warm generous loving heart. OK so he was a charmer but it was still a lovely thing to say. When I met him I had no self esteem and was at my lowest ebb after my marriage ended and he made me feel like a princess no matter what I looked like. Everyone should have a Charlie in their life. I wish I could still have him on tap for those down days.

As you can see the red Cinnabar crochet cardigan is finished with the added touch of a clasp that Vicky kindly got for me from Hobbycraft to finish it off. I still have half of a fingerless mitt to finish tonight. Last night I made a pair of crochet slippers and photos will follow tomorrow.

I am off now to wrap presents. If you don't see me on here for a few days please check that I am not stuck up with my own sellotape.

Another one finished

I have just finished the baby jacket for baby Charlie but by the time I had sewn it all together and picked up the stitches for the front and hood border it was too dark to take a photo. I had finished all the pieces last night and thought that it would take just an hour or so stitch it together and do the borders. Wrong, It took me ages to get it just right.

The pattern instructions for the knitting have been less than perfect and a novice would have given up a long time ago. The stitching up instructions are practically non existent and a less experienced knitter would never have worked out which way around was the back seam of the hood and which side to sew it to the body. I am not impressed with the bands either I think that they are a bit loose and wavy. I am attempting to correct this with blocking but if I had time I would re-do the bands and pick up at least 10 sts less per front and work them on a finer needle. I guess I am a picky knitter. I won't be rushing to make any more from this book (Chic knits for Stylish Babies by Patricia Wagner)in the future unless the instructions are a lot clearer. Plus patterns in the book only go up to 12 months which means the book has a limited use for babies already here.

I received a surprise in the post today. A pair of Swarovski crystal earrings as a belated birthday present from Jen. I tried to take a photo but they don;t show the purple colour in artificial light (the postman didn't come until the late afternoon) so I will try to take a photo of those tomorrow.

I feel that I am running behind now with my projects as I hadn't expected the jacket to take me so long. On with the crochet Cinnabar tonight I think. I have finished one sleeve but still got the other sleeve, the rest of the body and all the edgings to do. Another late night for me I think!

My eyes are dim I cannot see

My eyes are dim I cannot see I wish I had brought my specs with me. Oh wait a minute I did! Like Kathy and Vicki (The Knittingdragonfly) I have blamed everything whilst knitting black. I blamed the new energy saving bulbs, grease on my glasses (no better when polished) and my own eyesight. I have come to the conclusion that knitting black in the wintertime is for the fool hardy or people who have strong craft lights and 20/20 vision. Remind me to save knitting and crocheting black for the summer next year!

I am progressing slowly with the fingerless mitts and have finished one. Sorry for the fuzzy photo but it's hard photographing your own hand. I will save the front view until both of the mitts are completely finished as it will spoil it to see them before the trim is added. The mitt felt quite warm in spite of being knitted in 4ply. I have started the other mitt but progress is slow especially when I get to the fair isle bit.

I managed to do a few rows on the Cinnabar but am really concentrating on finishing these mitts off at the moment. I just allow myself a few rows of luxury crochet every now and again to break up this knitting.

I have put my heating on today. I have made the excuse that I have done some washing and if I put the tumble dryer on then I would be using just as much energy and with the heating on I am killing two birds with one stone. Anyway without the heating my fingers are so cold that I keep dropping stitches. I was smiling today at a forum on Ravelry about finishing off Christmas projects and one lady said there should be 48hrs to every day in the months of November and December. I feel guilty at the moment if I go to bed earlier or do something other than my knit and crochet during the day.

Sometimes I feel like that hamster on the wheel, round and round and getting no-where. Ah well - guess it's time to get back on my wheel.

Last of the Doll's clothes

I waited to take photos of Baby Annabel's pram suit until I had daylight but the light was so dull again this morning I could have taken them last night with similar results. The pram suit is from Paton's Dolly Daydream book PBN K 306 if it's still available. The pram rug is crocheted although there is a knitted pram rug in the pattern book. The leggings were the bug bear being in rib they took so much of my time.

I decided to start on the Cinnabar cardigan from Doris Chan's Everyday Crochet book for my next Christmas gift project. I have done half of the yolk. The one thing I will say about this pattern is never attempt it without stitch markers as it is so difficult to see the difference between the increase V stitches and the shell stitches which can be disastrous for keeping the shaping in the right places. These stitch markers were made for my by Eadaoin (see her Etsy link on RHS of my blog) and they are so useful as they don't slip out of my work like the split ring markers do.

Today I went up to Ramsbottom to Clarks Crafts wool shop. Charlie was feeling slightly better today and wanted to pick up some wool so I jumped at the chance to go with her. It was one of her first trips out since her illness. She is getting better slowly but still gets tired quickly. I bought a ball of Diploma 4ply and double knit in black for my daughter in law's fingerless gloves and hat and some Wash n Wear DK for a jacket for my friend's baby.I would have used the wool that I had in stock but I am glad that I managed to get some better quality wool. So much still to do - so little time.

Laura - if you e mail me at fullbodiedwoman at Yahoo dot com (I am not writing the e mail address as a link so I hope that you can work it out) then I will give you info about your enquiry about learning to knit.

Cinnabar in Colinette

Vicky J came yesterday with her daughter and we spent a couple of hours chatting. She has taken the Blue Curacao shawl and has promised me some better photos of it once it is all finished off and blocked out a wee bit. I did take some photos of it with my web cam which I might post tomorrow.

Vicky liked 3 of the 4 revised squares for her granny square shawl so I can get on with some of them now I have finished the Cinnabar. She will let me know on the 4th colourway once it is decided.

I managed to get out for a short walk in the afternoon yesterday and walked as far as Iceland and M&S but this time without my stick. I must be improving. Luckily I got there and back before the heavens opened and the rain came down yet again.I am getting so sick of all this rain day after day. I will try another walk tomorrow as I need a few grocery items for the weekend. I can only carry a couple of items at a time but I don't need enough food to make up an online order from Tesco this week. I had stocked up the freezer and store cupboard before I went in hospital so have quite a lot of things stockpiled. I am in no danger of starving to death anytime soon! The main things I run out of are bread and milk.

The Cinnabar cardigan from Everyday Crochet by Doris Chan is finished (apart from sewing in all the tails). I have amended the pattern slightly and made the sleeves very slightly bell shaped rather than the tapered ones on the pattern. The colour hasn't photographed very well courtesy of our dull rainy weather. It took 400 grams of Colinette Lasso Colourway Castagna. It has a silky shimmer to it which might not be apparent from the photos. Another finished project for Vicky to pick up another day.

I am not sure if I will do some crochet squares tonight or make a start on another project. Maybe I will be a devil and do a bit of both? I didn't manage a walk today due to the weather. What happened to our summer this year? Bank holiday weekend and it looks as if it will be a another washout. I wouldn't have been going anywhere anyway so it makes no difference to me but I do feel sorry for people who get a couple of days off work and can't plan anything because of the rain.

I have lost a lot of my Sky channels again today because of all the rain. I hope that I can find something to watch tonight that isn't a repeat. I am so fed up of all the programmes that I like being re-runs.

Blue Curacao finally finished

I am very pleased to announce that the Blue Curacao shawl is finally finished. Sadly I had to unravel 2 balls worth of crochet this morning as I had thought I had enough wool for another set of pineapples only to find that I didn't and could not finish the edging so I had to unravel yet again. Because I have added extra sets of pineapples for length I haven't finished up with one pineapple at the centre back like Doris but I really cannot face any more modifications so I just hope that Vicky likes it as it is. It has taken 8 x 50 gram balls of Sublime cashmere merino silk DK Shade 011. I will post better photos of the shawl if Vicky takes them after she has blocked the shawl. I don't think it needs much blocking as I prefer it as it is when I look at some of the overstretched over blocked versions on Ravelry.It just needs a bit of gentle blocking to get the edges to lie straight but that's just my opinion and I won't be the one wearing it.

I am looking forward to returning back to the Cinnabar cardigan and a simple 2 row pattern. I might make a set of the 4 different granny squares for the shawl first just to double check that the colours are OK before I plough on with all of the granny squares. I can't exactly undo granny squares and re-use the wool if they are wrong.

I had a good night's sleep last night. I think I only woke up once. My back is still sore but not painful. Sometimes I forget all about it and do something silly and then I feel it for a while. At the moment it feels like something inside is pulling. I have the sensation that everything is sewn too tightly inside. It's probably just another stage of the internal healing. I have no idea just how long it takes the internal scars to heal. The specialist just said to me "much longer than you think" when I asked him.

There was no sign of the King's Arms knitted chandelier or any of the knitters in the M.E.N last night. Maybe they are waiting to use it in the ladies section of the paper on another day. Someone did mention the Salford Advertiser free newspaper but if that is the case then I may never see the article as I get a different area version of the paper where I live.

I was going to try another walk but as it has not stopped raining since I got up and I really cannot muster up enough enthusiasm for it although I probably need the exercise.

Restless, sleepless night

I had a dreadful night's sleep last night and in the end I got out of bed and came downstairs to watch some TV. My legs were so restless and I couldn't stand the duvet on them. I felt like I had an army of ants crawling up and down them and no matter what I did with them or what I wore they itched and twitched all night. I looked up on the Internet as to whether it could have anything to do with the fact that I have now stopped taking the morphine tablets and apparently it is a well known side effect of morphine addiction. Gosh I always though addiction came on over months of drug abuse and not a couple of weeks of prescription pain relief. Scary or what?

The good news is that the symptoms usually subside within 5-7 days of stopping taking the drug so hopefully my legs will stop jerking about and I will get some sleep tonight. The blasted rain had affected my Sky signal and I got very annoyed with the lack of sleep plus the fact that half the programmes were missing on Sky due to the inclement weather.

Vicky came today and changed my bedlinen for me. I was extremely sleepy and very bad company and the moment she went upstairs I promptly fell asleep in the recliner. It's a good job that she knows me well and I hope doesn't take offence as I was really struggling to stay awake for her and the minute that she left I was fast asleep for an hour on the sofa.

The car coat is no more as you can see from the rewound balls. I had carried on with it even though it was pretty obvious that it would have fitted a baby elephant and I was running out of wool. I seem to have this thing lately where I assume that I am far larger than I am and things I make for myself turn out on the large side. I woke up this morning and decided to bite the bullet and unravel it all. I will leave it until I decide what to use the wool for next.

Vicky brought some Collinette silky yarn in a greenish grey and I have started Cinnabar from Everyday crochet. I must admit that I have started the first row 3 times now due to my inability to count and concentrate today due to tiredness so I don't think it will progress much tonight.

The book is a gift from Charlie. I have started to read it and I will let you know if I see any visible change in my attitude to life once I have finished it.

Cinders - once I am feeling better perhaps we could meet up at the new Coffee shop in Tesco as by the time you went up hill and down dale to get to my house your battery on your scooter would probably have died before you got back home! I had another little walk today and am working my way to a walk up to the village one day soon.