My Taste Is Sometimes Bizarre

If I were to dress the way that my inner me wants to dress then I think most people would find it a bit bizarre. As it is I dress like a normal 66yr old conventional woman does. Inside though I am still have hippy bohemian tendencies hence the name of my Etsy shop Urban Gypsy Crochet. I am not gypsy minded in the travellers kind of way but more the old Romanian gypsies as portrayed in the old movies. I love the flamboyant colours of the skirts and headdresses. I think this is why I love to crochet colourful things even though I don't actually wear them. I just hope that other people share my love of the colourful and unusual and want to buy some of my things. I am trying to give in to my inner boho self and actually wear some of the crochet that I want to wear despite knowing that people will view me as a little bit crazy. I just wish that I had more self confidence to be the inner me instead of the conventional me who dresses like people expect me to dress.

The red fingerless mitts in the centre are an example of my creativity running wild. I wanted a pair of gloves that hinted of the burlesque. They are lacy with a black fun fur edging and laced up the centre with ribbon corset style. The other mitts that I have designed are a bit more conventional to perhaps appeal to more people.

The hats are for the craft fair. What I call bread and butter crochet. The scarf pattern is Doris Chan's Sweet Lorraine and the is hat is one that I improvised to match the scarf. I added a flower to please my inner me. I think that I still have time to make a couple of lacy summer hats with flowers before Sunday.

I made this shawl from the Dudley Do Wright pattern that I bought from either Etsy or Ravelry. It is a very simple shawl to crochet but if I made it again then I would use finer yarn than the aran yarn that I used here. Whilst this version is a lovely warm shawl I think that it would drape better if done in a finer yarn. It is a top down shawl so could be adapted to any size of hook and any thickness of yarn just by altering the number of pattern repeats.

At the moment I am in the middle of crocheting another chunky shawl for the fair. I am also re-organising my yarn stash once again. I bought one of those shelving units with a cover designed as temporary storage for students and am using it for all my full balls of colourful acrylic yarns that I use for shawls, granny squares etc. Of course I underestimated my stash of single balls and so I have ordered another one today. I will post photos of  them both once they are in place and filled. I also bought a 4 tiered plastic vegetable tray on castors that I am using to store the part balls of yarns that I am working with. This idea works so well I am going to get another one to store the patterns that I am using at the moment as opposed to the ones that are stored away in boxes. I will post photos of those once they are all set up in place.

I do try my best to keep organised even though to an uncrafty eye my house is still untidy. I do feel slightly better about this when I watch the You Tube videos of the Cast Off Crew and Fresh Off The Hook as the backgrounds of their videos look equally as messy as mine. I know now that I am not alone in my crafty mess.

Today is nice and sunny although still quite chilly. The gardener has been today for the first time this season. I don't have her visit during the winter. It all sounds rather posh having a gardener but she just comes once a fortnight for an hour just to keep the lawn and the small  bit of garden tidy. I don't have a beautiful garden but at least it is neat and tidy when she comes. I just could not manage it before and I could not keep relying on the generosity of neighbours. I like to be as self sufficient as I can.

It will soon be the craft fair on Sunday and I need to sort out what I am going to take with me and make sure that things are labelled. I am not taking my baby things this time apart from a couple of newer items. I am trying out a different theme with the retro crochet items to see how they are received.

Thank you all for your comments. I do appreciate them. I am trying to blog more frequently after my long lay off but still not got back in the swing of things yet.

Where Do I Start?

Such a lot has been happening since I last blogged. The first obvious thing was that I had no Internet for a week. I felt like part of me was missing. I had things on EBay outstanding that I couldn't bid on or worse still I didn't know if I had won anything and had to pay for it.

After twice daily phone calls to Orange I was getting extremely frustrated as they passed me back from pillar to post. Orange blamed BT for a fault on my line. BT tested the line and said nothing wrong. Meanwhile I got re-assured everyday from Pakistan that everything would be right by the morning. Eventually when I started talking compensation and cancelling my contract I got put through to someone in the UK. I am not a racist but it was reassuring to speak to someone in Queen's English. Eventually as she went through every single check on my PC one by one we found out the problem was when someone from Orange had told me on the first day to alter something in my settings and that was effectively blocking the signal from the Internet to my PC. Needless to say that made me madder than mad as it would never have reconnected but for the lovely Amy from Orange who spent over an hour on the phone sorting it all out.

I don't have any photos to show you as despite crocheting away for the craft fair I haven't been taking any photos as I usually do as I didn't have a PC to upload them to. I will show some photos eventually. At the moment I am just finishing off a crochet baby aran in a Dusty Pink shade of Patons Washed aran cotton.

I have had the dogs from next door for the last two days and nights as my neighbour's Mum was dying in hospital and she was spending every minute with her. Her Mum passed away in the early hours so the dogs have now gone home. No rest for me though as my furry grandson Buster is coming tomorrow morning for the weekend.

As my stock of machine cones has increased since I last blogged I got another of those plastic shelving units for the dining room. At least I look a bit tidier now. I didn't want anything permanent as if ever my stash diminishes I can take the unit apart and use it as garage or stash room shelving. My dining room floor was full of storage boxes and I could not get to my knitting machine. Worse still I was in danger of falling over them. Now most of them are off the floor and on the shelves now.

The time is ticking by so quickly to my first craft fair. My friend Sue who is in partnership with me will be away on holiday for the first fair but has left me her crochet shawlettes to put on the stall. I am having some business cards printed up. I realize that I may not sell anything at my first fair so the important thing for me is to get my name known as a crocheter. Word of mouth is always the best kind of advertisement. I am going to print off photos of my former work and put them into an album so that people can see the sort of work that I usually make. I am trying to make a sample of different things for the stall but obviously I can't make that many things as I have only got one pair of hands ( well two pairs if you count Sue's!)

Bit of excitement for my niece last Friday. She helped to deliver her best friend's baby on the bathroom floor as her third baby (Yeah a little girl at last) arrived so suddenly that Mum didn't have time to get to the hospital. My niece was literally left holding the baby but fortunately the paramedics arrived and took over. The Mum's youngest boy was peering at his Mum who was on all fours in the bathroom and said 'Has Mum done a big poo on the floor?' Bless him - he is only 2 and didn't recognise that it was a baby and umbilical cord. Mum says that was the best delivery that she has ever had and was up walking about an hour later saying that she fancied some fish and chips. Needless to say my niece and her friend's Mother in Law who was also in the bathroom, and helped catch the baby, were far more shocked than Mum was. I now have another girl to crochet for. Gracie Victoria who was much larger than her brothers at 7lbs 3 ozs,

Hopefully I will have some photos for you next time I blog. Fingers crossed that I stay connected and that Orange has finally sorted out the problem.

Views from my windows

Not exactly exciting set the world ablaze photos (unless you are a Corrie fan as the church you can see is the one most used for their weddings and funerals)To me though it's a wonderful sight as the back bedroom window main pane has been "blown" for quite a long time and so I had a very misty view. I can now see the construction work on the new flats and houses and some of the church and church yard although the trees seem to have grown enormously since I last looked out. The last photo is of the clouds from my front side bay window. The side pane had gone on that window so at least I could see out of most of that window.

My garage roof is finished and they are just finishing making the doors. I am waiting for the electrician to come to put lights and power in there but that might not be for a few days. I now have to order some metal shelving so that I can have some tidyness in there when I put the stuff back in so it may not be until the weekend when my kitchen and dining room are back to normal. I don't want to put things back all over the floor as before. I am just dreading anyone calling unexpectedly and seeing boxes and tools strewn about all over the house. They might think that I have finally gone completely batty! They might,of course, be right.

Once again no knitting or crochet yesterday. I was tired and in pain. I came back from my seated excercise class in absolute pain. I think I am going to have to give it up. It isn't the exercise that does it. It's the walk from the tram station to the Leisure centre and back again plus the walk to and from the tram station and my home. I don't qualify for a badge for my car as I was told that because my condition is allegedly cureable by an operation I can't have one. I should have appealed really but I just could not be bothered. It makes me mad sometimes when I see people far more able than I am with a badge. Yes I know the majority of people with a badge deserve it but there are many who abuse it. I used to see people every day in my former life in the DWP. Some genuine but many not. Despite my problems I would like to do some work if I could but every day I used to deal with people who were playing on some minor disability for years and had no intentions of ever getting a job. People like them who abuse the system make it so hard for anyone with a genuine disability to get the monetary help and support that they deserve. I would have no objection to being submitted to a thorough medical if it meant more help for me.

I am hopefully going to get some knitting done today as my niece would like me to make her a long black cardigan for her birthday in April. I need to get a move on with the projects I have in the pipeline first so it's all hands to the needles and no more nodding off! Maybe I should put a darning needle at the end of a stick and give myself a sharp prod with it when I feel my eyes start to close! I blame all the re-runs on the TV for failing to hold my interest. Give me some new programmes to watch and then I can stay awake!