Finished Crochet and Knitted Ornaments for Kings Arms Tree

Tonight I went to the last Kings Arms Knit Out of 2010. When we meet again it will be in the New Year. The Christmas tree is finally finished. Marie starched the crocheted snowflakes and they have completed the tree trimming along with an extra set of lights that the landlady bought. The tree has been admired. It is a different quirky trend on the traditional Christmas tree and reflects that the Knitting Club is a part of the pub now, Different members took part in making different things for the tree so there is a variety in the ornaments that have been made.

Tonight we had a bit of a party with mince pies and Stollen and our newest knit club member baby Orla came for a visit with her Mum and Dad. It might be some time before she picks up her first set of knitting needles but she has a lot of 'aunties' to guide her when she starts.

I have finished knitting one sleeve of the black cardigan for my niece and started the collar. I will have to make the second sleeve with the different dye number. Tonight I was doing a bit of crochet as I cannot see to knit black in the pub.

Oscar,my lodger cat, came in for a sleep today and got quite upset with me when I had to pick him up to make him leave. He had been in all day and I don't have a litter tray any more so I was afraid of him needing a wee before I got back this evening. He has learned to trust me now and no longer sleeps with one eye open. He flakes out in a deep sleep now, and does not stir if I go into the room, so he must know that he is safe here.

Santa And The Snowman

I knitted these a couple of weeks ago but as I didn't have any stuffing they have been backwards and forward to the Kings Arms and to Rachael's house. They got mislaid for a week but finally I stitched them up today as I now have a bag of stuffing. It has taken me all afternoon to stitch them up and underlined my hatred of all things amigurumi. I just do not like fiddling about with tiny bits of knitting or crocheting and trying to stitch and stuff them. Give me a big sweater any day. Father Christmas looks a bit weird as he doesn't have a face but that is the way that he is on the pattern. It's not right is it? Santa without a face!

I have spent today washing bedding, throws and cushions. I have hoovered everywhere and gathered up enough hair to jam the vacuum cleaner hose. It's a wonder that Buster isn't bald with all his missing hair!

Today I woke up to snow. Not much by the US standards. Maybe only an inch or so but as we are so unprepared for snow in the UK everything grinds to a halt. It was the bin day and whilst the glass recycling and paper recycling wagons made it up the hill the normal refuse wagon didn't. Luckily I don't have that much in my bin so there is plenty of room to wait until next week. It's hard for the people with families though.

I think that I can safely start knitting and crocheting dark colours now. I might,however, finish off the long on the needles beige jacket that I am making for one of Louise's boys. I only have the hood to knit now. It has been on the needles for so long that it will now fit the smaller boy instead of the larger one. Do you ever have projects that you just completely go off in the middle of making them and take ages to restart them - or am I the only one? I try to knit or crochet things from start to finish. Well perhaps I have 2 or 3 projects on the go. I don't like having too many W.I.P as like the beige jacket they tend to get put in a bag or a drawer and forgotten about. After that happens I lose the urge to ever finish them.

If anyone has received a strange e mail from me yesterday then I can only apologize. My PC apparently got some kind of a virus and sent everyone on my e mail list an link for some kind of fake Viagra! I have now run a complete virus check and have hopefully got rid of it.

More Sale bargains

When it's the wee small hours and I can't sleep I always think that it's a good idea to browse my favourite web sites for wool. Is it so that later I can call it Twilight Sleep Ordering ;-). At the moment I cannot resist E Kemp as they have so many bargains at the moment and all of these things that I bought cost 89p a ball. Such bargains. I bought two more balls of the blue fleck as the site said there was only 2 left so I couldn't leave them there when I had the other 16 LOL.

Unless I go mad before Christmas I only have one outstanding order and that is some pink chunky to make jackets for my great grand daughters. I can't remember if anything else 'fell' into my basket whilst I was ordering that.

I am coming to the end of Christmas Tree crochet ornaments for the Kings Arms Knit Club Christmas Tree. I think that it is being decorated tonight so we will know after that if there is enough decorations or if it still looks a bit sparse. The crochet angel made from an old fashioned wooden clothes peg was something that I doodled up last night. As a young child I used to design clothes for my dolls and when I ran out of dolls (I didn't have many) I used my Mother's clothes pegs and knitted and stitched clothes for them. I painted faces on them and called them my family. My Mother had little patience for what she called my 'doll rags' and I used to be devastated to come home from school on wash days and find that my 'family' was pegging the washing to the line! My Mother was a knitter but for her things had to have a practical use so she didn't encourage me in my 'fanciful' ways for fashion design. My aunt, however, used to help me with this and used to buy me the cardboard cut out dolls with paper clothes that slotted onto the shoulders with tabs and give me sheets of paper and coloured pencils and encouraged me to design more outfits for these cardboard dolls. When I finally got a teenager plastic doll (way before the Sindy and Barbies of this world) I used to be forever knitting and sewing for them. When my nieces grew old enough for a Sindy I used to make all kinds of clothes for their dolls. My sister in law says that she still has loads of them stored in the loft. I think that secretly she is hoping that one day she may be the Grandmother of a little girl so that she can pass them along.

Buster didn't go home until today. With the party and house guests my son didn't have time to pick him up yesterday. Buster didn't mind an extra day with me and although he was overjoyed to see his 'Dad' he kept running back in the house when it was time to go home. Ideally Buster would like the best of both worlds. Me to make a big fuss of him and his Mum and Dad to take him for walks and the other 2 dogs to play with. His ideal world would have everyone in one place. He gets very bored with me after a few days as I can't run around with him as they do.

I am hoping to get to the Kings Arms tonight. I hope to start the black knitted cardigan or the navy crochet sweater tomorrow once I have given everywhere a good hoover. The cushions and the throws are already in the washer. When I go upstairs for my shower I will change the bedding. I love having Buster but there is so much cleaning to do once he goes home. For a short haired dog he sure sheds a lot of hair and it always seems to stick all over whatever I am making.

Long Long Scarf

I feel like I am knitting a mile long scarf. This has been my going to physio project. I have knitted it whilst waiting for the ambulance to give me a ride home. The scarf isn't actually going to be a mile long that's an exaggeration. I have knitted approx 70" and it is supposed to be 100" long and then the fringe is added to make it even longer. Louise's birthday is not until the 8th December so I still have time to knit the final 30".

I haven't started anything else as my wool orders should arrive this week and when they do I can start to knit my London niece's jacket.

I smiled when I read the comment on my last post from Ailsa (Mad about Craft). She has given me a brilliant excuse that I can use to persuade myself that ordering more wool is not a crime. She says I should tell myself that I am saving money by buying now as the VAT tax is set to go up after Christmas and so the prices will rise because of this. Thanks Ailsa for giving me a perfect excuse for ordering again before Christmas. See I am saving money!

I did pay another chunk off my credit card today so I am feeling very virtuous anyway. OK OK so I know that at my age and with my resources I shouldn't be building up a credit card bill but hey it is almost Christmas and a girl has to do what a girl has to do.

I crocheted 3 holly leaves and berries last night for the Kings Arms Christmas tree. Not the best looking leaves that I have ever made and for some reason the spikes on the holly leaves want to point in the wrong direction. Perhaps no-one will notice once they are on the tree.

I had my lodger cat Oscar sleeping the night. I went to put out the dustbin last night and he dived in through the open door and straight into the spare bedroom. Hey Oscar - you live next door remember. He went home this morning and when I came home from shopping he darted in again whilst I was parking my scooter in the garage. He is getting very cheeky. He doesn't wait to be asked in any more he just pushes the door open with his nose and dashes in. He doesn't like this cold weather and wants to spend as much of his life indoors if he can.It must be tea time at his house as he has just asked to be let out. It's a cats life alright.

Christmas Ornaments

These are just a few of the crocheted Christmas tree ornaments that I made using the book that I ordered from Purplelinda. Whilst I was at Knit Club on Monday night at the Kings Arms I made another couple but I didn't take photos of them. I made another wreath with a different pattern and another mini sweater in red with silver trim. People in the pub were quite interested in them and wanted to know if they were for sale. Rachael is thinking that maybe really near to Christmas we could sell the ornaments and put the money in the box that we have for Breast Cancer donations. I am going to try and make some more in and between my other Christmas projects and have bookmarked quite a few free patterns from Ravelry to try.I also want to try a snowflake pattern with some of the white or the silver metallic yarn that I bought.

The tiny Christmas Pudding with the holly trim on was one that I got given by a friend. She bought it at a craft fair. Inside it is one Ferraro Roche round chocolate. My niece thought that they would make table decorations for the Christmas dinner table and so I tried to copy it. My attempt is the one without the silver leaves. I will have to search to get something similar. Someone suggested a shop that sells card making stuff would have something like that.Meanwhile I will continue to knit a few more. they literally take minutes to make.

I have started work on a Christmas project so I can't show you that. I am still working on the grey knitted scarf for Louise's birthday on the 8th Dec and it is now around 50" long. I measured my niece's scarf and hers measured over 100" so I have still got a lot to knit before I can fringe it. From now on I will only be able to show you the things that are not destined for people who might read the blog.

Today I went to the hospital for my physio exercises. I am doing so well that I don't have to go for 2 weeks and then will possibly be signed off from the exercises. I tried one of the pedal machines. They are not an exercise bike (which I can't yet pedal all around) they are just a set of pedals to use whilst seated in an armchair. I managed to pedal these and the physio thinks that I could benefit from getting one to use at home to increase the mobility in my knee. My son was asking what I wanted for Christmas and so I think that I will tell him to get me one of these. It would be ideal as the pedals take up very little space and are quite inexpensive compared to an exercise bike. I have nowhere to store an exercise bike. It would be just something else to fall over once the novelty wore off.

The physio put on some music for us all to exercise to and I think someone has a bizarre sense of humour as one of the tunes was the Can Can! I might be improving on my mobility but I am not ready for the Can Can as yet.

I have just had a phone call asking if I want Buster for a few days as my son and daughter in law are going away for a long weekend and their daughter can only manage to look after the other two dogs. It will be good company for me and might encourage me to try walking that bit further to take him for a walk. He is used to my walking very slowly so that will be OK.

Another Wet Miserable Dark Day

Last night I went to Knit Club at the Kings Arms in Salford. I have pinched one of Rachael's photographs and although we are all looking desperately serious on the photo we did have a good evening with plenty of laughs.

The landlady of the pub has bought a metal spiral Christmas tree and our next project is to crochet or knit the ornaments for it. I haven't started yet but I have been looking through my patterns, the ones on Ravelry and Crochet Central. I have quite a few ideas buzzing through my head. Rachael has some icicle type patterns and have ordered some white and silver metallic thread to make them with. I have also seen patterns for candy canes, tiny stockings and sweaters on Ravelry. We are sticking to the theme of red, white and green with bits of shiny white or silver thrown in. We wanted to have a Christmassy colour theme rather than a hotchpotch of different colours.

I am about 4 rows away from finishing the belt of my maroon crochet jacket. I still have to stitch the sleeves together and set them in but I am hoping to get that finished tonight. Last night I put a few more rows in on the grey knitted scarf for Louise. I like a bit of mindless crochet or knitting for Knit Club nights. I am getting worse at concentrating on a pattern and chatting at the same time.I even went wrong on the Fisherman Rib but I manage to unpick it and correct it.

I have wasted much of today searching for patterns. I have ordered some cotton to make something for my sister in law for Christmas but as I don't buy knitting magazines I think that I am going to have to enlist the help of my niece to choose a pattern for her Mum. I need to start the plain navy jacket for my other niece's friend as my niece and her husband are coming to Manchester on the 14th and I would like to have it finished by then if possible to avoid having to post it down to London. If I don't make that deadline then a friend is visiting them in London the week after that. It is quite a plainish jacket so once I start I should be able to crack along with it. Well that is providing I don't fall asleep that is.

My sleep pattern is still all over the place. I can't sleep long in my bed at night and so am nodding off during the day. Days go by and I seem to accomplish very little. If things don't get better by the weekend I will book an appointment with my GP for a chat. I have been switching on my S.A.D light every morning but it doesn't seem to be livening me up any.

Yesterday I did get a rude awakening when I tried to have a shower. The water was freezing cold and would not get warm. I could not understand this as the radiators were warm. Fortunately I managed to restart the boiler and was able to continue my shower in the warmth. I had a few hairy moments. We take our central heating boilers for granted and when they go wrong it is a catastrophe.

The curtains are all drawn. The lights are on and it's only 5pm! The clocks changing do make the evenings so long. I can still hear the rain hammering down on the roof. I do hope that there is something entertaining on the TV tonight to distract me otherwise I will be fast asleep again like some old biddie. I had my lodger cat in all last night but I think that because of the rain he is in his own house tonight. I had to literally put him out this morning for a wee as he wasn't for leaving on his own. I think that he is too comfy in my house. When the car I was in drew up outside my house last night he came running across the road to greet me and then he dived in the front door even before I walked through it. I am too soft with him. He has all his own way in my house whereas at home he has to contend with 2 noisy teenagers and a 12yrs old. He likes the comfort and the peace and quiet of my house.

Two Little Ducks

No I am not playing Bingo in fact apart from playing an odd game in the Working Man's club in the interval when I was young I have never played the game.I am referring to the fact that duck motif hat number two is finished, I have made the two adult ones first. I am trying to get the children's hats finished soon so that they can get posted down to London. One of the little girls who is having one of these hats spent the day at London Zoo last week and refused point blank to move away from the duck enclosure. She could not be tempted by any of the other animals.

My arm isn't too sore today after my flu jabs yesterday but my ex husband said his arm hurt more a couple of days afterwards so I am knitting like mad in case the hurting kicks in tomorrow.I am feeling very tired though as I had one of my wakeful nights with my painful knee and I finished up watching TV at 6am this morning.

Not much else to report really except I now need the help of the teenager from next door not only to reach my Christmas decorations out of the loft but also to re-programme my Freeview box which seems to have gone off all it's channels. I am looking forward to the day when we can go back to just pressing a button and getting the channels on the TV once again instead of all this fiddling about with top boxes or Sky boxes. The world is going mad. I don't think that I am missing much not having viewed things in high definition. I have only just progresses from black and white TV. Videos and DVD's have me shaking my head in wonder. I am just technologically inept. I wish I had been born years ago when none of this stuff existed and I could just sit there with my knitting and crochet without being made to feel in adequate.

Back To A Bit Of Knitting

I am back to my knitting and back to blogging courtesy of a borrowed monitor. I think that I mentioned that my monitor kept switching itself off well on Saturday it more or less gave up the ghost. I asked the neighbour across the road if he could look online for a new monitor for me as it was a little difficult for me to browse for one when the *$£* thing kept switching itself off and he has kindly lent me his monitor (he also has a laptop) for me to use until I can get a new one delivered.

I gave myself a stern talking to and picked up my knitting needles again. I have now finished off the left front and have started the right. There isn't a mistake in the ribbing on the right front - that is a buttonhole. Buttonholes are never my strong point. I cast off OK but the cast on the row after always fills me with dread. Sometimes I am lucky and it all goes smoothly but sometimes for some reason I finish up with one longer stitch at one of the corners. I have read manuals and online tips and I swear I do exactly as they say but I still finish up with a slack stitch.

I didn't get up to Bury today as the weather once again put me off. I hate the rain and I am so sick of getting wet through everywhere I go. It is knit club night at the Kings Arms tonight but I will be knitting with them in spirit but at home. I am such a wimp at tram and bus travel in the wet, the cold and especially in the dark. Roll on the lighter nights.

I suppose that I should think about getting the Christmas decorations down from the loft. I love it when they are all up and the tree is lit but I am not very motivated to doing all of the trimming. I think I am turning into one of the Grumpy Old Women who say Bah Humbug and moan on about how much effort it takes and all of the mess to hoover up etc. Once the rest of the street start putting their trees up then I know that I will join in as I do love the house when the fairy lights are lit on the tree and around the bay window.

True colour of blue crochet

I managed to sneak up on my web cam for this photo of Caroline's crochet cardigan. If I try to focus the camera then the colour goes greyer and greyer the longer the camera stays pointed at the subject so I apologise for the fuzziness I just captured the colour before it went!

Kevin's aran continues to haunt me. I have managed 64 rows of the pattern on the 2nd sleeve now and have calculated that I need a further 96 rows to finish. How sad it is that I have to force myself to count rows? Thankfully it is a raglan so once I start the decreases then the rows will go faster. I picked up a cream aran cardigan that I had knitted one front of a few weeks ago (for a friend) and sailed through another front last night so obviously I haven't lost my knitting mojo. Admittedly she is size 8/10 so not as much knitting as for my size 18. Now that should be an incentive for me to diet - less stitches and much less wool = more garments!

I have now organised my yarn stash into my spare bedroom. Well apart from the messy clutter (sorry craft corner!) that is lurking in my front room and not counting the patterns, boxes and bags in the pantry. I have now got some hanging files for the filing cabinet I gleaned from Freecycle but I am reluctant to take time from my knitting/crochet schedule to organise my patterns (thousands) from storage boxes into categories for filing. My friend Caroline is always trying to organise me so if I get a visit from her before Christmas perhaps she will motivate me.

She normally comes and prods me into putting up the Christmas tree and lights etc. I do love Christmas with all it's glitter just not so good these days with hauling the tree etc down from the loft. My tree is looking very shabby these days but once it is trimmed up not much of it shows. I look on it as a rather worn well loved teddy bear and am loathe to part with it for sentimental reasons. Anyway it is good for the planet using up old things and not buying new. I am not a person who changes the colour scheme of the baubles every year I prefer the old favourites. My nativity scene figures have been with me since I was a little girl although I do have a replacement Baby Jesus as it's original was made of wax and straw and got melted when I put the candles too close to the scene and set the stable on fire as a child. My Baby Jesus is out of scale and looks like a full grown toddler compared with Mary. I have also lost a couple of lambs along the way. One day I will make another stable as my little figures look a bit pathetic sitting there on the window sill.

The dog is looking rather forlorn as we had a bit of a lie in this morning and he hasn't yet had his breakfast or walk. I am such a bad mummy today. I think I will skip the morning walk and take him for a longer one at lunchtime. I should go up and get my flu jab as well. They only do them between 1 - 2 pm at my surgery so maybe Buster will have to wait until later for his walk. He is still limping so I think missing one walk will help rest it a little.