I Must Stop Bidding On eBay

My only excuse for too much bidding on eBay is that I have had some kind if a bug this last week which has made me so weak and tired that I haven't had much energy for anything. Unfortunately not crocheting much gives me too much time to eBay browse and for me that is bad for my credit card. I think that I will have to hide it for a few weeks.

These are some of my latest buys. Not just one ball ,of course, but varied amounts of each one. The white one by Ice on the end does not show that it is mohair and has multi coloured sequins wound into the thread. That will be turned into a shawl for Christmas. Not sure what to make with the other yarns yet.

These items came from Kemp's clearance sale. The pink and lilac 4ply cotton was only 99p for a 50 gram balls. That will be saved in my personal stash for Summer crochet. The rest is acrylic destined for fingerless mitts and headbands etc. Plus I needed more of the reduced price metal buttons for fingerless mitts. To buy these in a shop would put £££'s on the mitts. The circular handles are destined for crochet handbags.

I found this pattern in an accessories book. They have short row shaping which makes them a good fit. I did adapt the pattern as they were supposed to have 9 buttons on each mitt which would have out the price up. I am going to make myself a pair of these for the winter.

This is an adaptation of another pair of mitts. They were supposed to be in UK dc with a cable up the centre but the cable started looking as though it was slanting sideways for some reason. It looked OK on the hand but would have not looked good at the fair unless people tried them on. I changed the basic stitch and added a crochet bar with 2 buttons as a bit of a trim.

The patterns came from eBay bids but the Twilleys Goldfingering came from Purplelinda. I wanted that for Christmas decorations or lurex trims.

The turban style headband was so easy to make. It can be worn with the bow at the front or at the back.

This was my interpretation of a headband that I made before the pattern arrived. It is worked from side to side and I put buttons on it instead of stitching it together so that if it got larger with wash and wear then the buttons could be moved to tighten it back up again.

This cap was made from a vintage Paton's pattern that I bought from eBay. I used a DK pure wool crocheted two strands together as I didn't have any chunky in hat colours.

A couple of weeks ago I bid for a mixed bag of different balls of yarn mostly fluffy or cotton. I sorted the greens out and together with some balls that I already had in stash I made one of my multi coloured versions of Doris Chan All Shawl. They are brilliant stash busters if you have not already made one.

Today I didn't get up until lunch time but yesterday and today I seem to be sleeping the bug away. I am finally starting to feel a bit better. Thank goodness for food in the freezer as I haven't felt like stepping out of doors other than to chat to the postman for the last few days. The postman and I are now on first name terms!

I hate feeling one degree under. Anything that puts me off my crochet really annoys me. I tried to crochet but I either fell asleep over it or went wrong and had to undo it. Thankfully I think that my crochet Mojo is back today. I am making another headband. This time in a twisted imitation cable pattern. The parcel postman has just brought me two more packs of Ice wool from eBay so hopefully more photos tomorrow.

She Ball Challenge

A little while ago the Bolton Knitting Noras were donated some wool. Amongst this wool were several balls of pink Sirdar She Mohair. It was decided to have a little competition between a few of the members to see what they could make from a ball of mohair. So far there has been a hat, a knitted heart shaped bikini, a necklace complete with pearls. A poodle bottle cover, a toilet roll crinoline lady cover, a cat's tutu. This is my attempt. Long fingerless mitts crocheted with a bright pink silky trim and laced up with pink cord. When everyone has finished there will be a vote by the members and small prizes for the winner.

I am not sure if anyone will want to wear these rather itchy bright pink mohair long opera mitts. Certainly not me as I itch like crazy if anything remotely woolly makes contact with my skin. My palms and fingers were red and itchy whilst I was crocheting these.

I didn't do any other knitting yesterday as I wanted to finish off this project. I was doing a bit of housework yesterday but as I am so slow there is still plenty to do today. I need to do some shopping and collect a prescription so I don't think much knitting or housework will be done today. I am so slow with my shopping so it takes me a couple of hours to walk up to the village, shop and walk down again.

One thing that we got shown at the pre knee operation meeting was an actual replacement knee joint. It is all made of titanium and we were all struck by the sheer weight of it. I am already battling with my weight and the fact that I will eventually have two of these will add a few pounds as I am sure that the kneecap that they remove weighs less than these replacements will do.

The apple shaped frame is a recipe holder that I got yesterday from Betterware. I have often thought of getting a sheet music holder to hold my patterns and books whilst I work so when I saw this I immediately saw the possibility. Holding the pattern up at an angle makes it far easier to read than laid flat on my coffee table. It seems sturdy enough to hold a pattern book as well as a single sheet.
pattern.

Time for a coffee before I drag my trusty shopping trolley out of the garage and head off to do a bit of shopping.

Gym ? Sorry I would rather be crocheting

Today was supposed to be my Gym day with the BEATS exercise programme but I got up late and tired and had no motivation at all. I am sorry to any gym nuts who might be reading my blog and are addicts but I would rather do some thrilling exercise than pedalling a bike looking at a wall. I could choose the bike with the view of 4 TV screens all with different channels and the sound turned down but I keep thinking any moment a pianist will come in and play as in the silent movies. Now that could be marginally more exciting! I look around and see the concentration on the faces of the others and then realise they are mostly plugged into IPods but as an IPod isn't high on my wish list I am one of the outcasts.

My idea of exercise is something that involves fun. I used to love my belly dancing until my back forced me to give that up. Horizontal dancing would be nice if I could find the right partner. I do get offers of the sexual kind but as the guys seem to think that because I have been without a partner for a long time that I am therefore gagging for it and they are doing me an enormous favour by asking. I am old fashioned. I want a bit of romance guys, someone who will ask me out for a drive, a picnic (well when it's warmer), the theatre etc. What I don't want is the furtive offers from other women's husbands for a roll in the hay when she isn't looking! As my father used to say "You don't look at the mantlepiece when you are poking the fire". I have no illusions that it is my beauty (ha ha) that draws them to me like moths to a flame it is more the fact they perceive me as being available at any time and they think they don't even have to pay for a room as I live alone! I am not flattered by this attention. I said to one guy "Please don't insult me by asking me and he actually did look shamefaced and admitted that was all he wanted from me - no relationship - nothing - just straight sex"

There must be some women who accept this kind of attention. I used to have a friend who had lots of different guys all the time and thought like a man. She called me a prude but I don't think I am. I just value myself a lot higher than that. I did try saying yes for a while thinking these encounters would lead to dating etc but I got very disillusioned. I even tried the Internet dating and got a wide selection of other women's husbands on that offering to come around to my house on first contact. One actually said "Why put an advert on a dating site if you don't want casual sex?" Needless to say I cancelled my subscription to that shortly afterwards.

Whoa - back to the crocheting topic that I am supposed to be writing about on here. I started another shawl, different pattern, last night. This one is crocheted from the narrow part upwards. I found it in a 1974 crochet/knit magazine (60p) when crocheting patterns were written simply and had no charts and no squiggly diagrams. Most of all, Bliss oh bliss, UK CROCHET TERMS. Yeah! Plus the added bonus of the fact it is a UK pattern so therefore no Mistakes or Typos. Hands up all the crafters out there who are sick of all the mistakes in the modern patterns. I wonder who proof reads these US crochet books I pay £12 plus for? Obviously no one who crochets that's for sure. The photos show my WIP, the finished shawl, and the front cover of the magazine.

Today I am going to try my hand at a pair of crocheted fingerless mitts as I gave up completely on the pair in the Stitch n Bitch Happy Hooker book. I am sure there must be a way of making a pattern with less ambiguous rows and a better fit. I could have crocheted 2 pairs in the time it took me to read and then re- read every pattern row. My poor yarn was almost threadbare with all the frogging I did even then. Other people have crocheted them with no trouble, I think I have trouble with her style of writing crochet patterns out plus having to always convert every line to UK terminology is annoying.

Oh by the way any guys reading this I have lost touch with my nympho friend so am unable to supply a phone number for her!