Reading Material

Amazon didn't send me any more books today but I did get my non crochet reading for when/if I go into hospital. I ordered a couple of books by Stephen Fry as he makes me laugh and I have heard that both of these books are a good read. I must remember to pack my reading glasses!

The long cardigan by Drew Emborsky is progressing quite slowly. It is all the front crochet around the loop twisted cable style crochet and the round the back loop crochet on the wrong side that is slowing me down. It is making quite a close fabric as it is crocheted on a 4mm hook. I have put the marker pin at the half way point from the bottom edge to the armholes so that at least now I can see that I am more than half way to when I can divide for the armholes. I hope that it will move faster then when the rows are shorter. At the moment it seems to be taking me ages to go across a row plus the colour is difficult to see in the electric light. My photo makes it appear much lighter than it actually is. I would call it more of a maroon shade. I might have to start something else in a lighter colour for evening crocheting.

The rather blurry photo is of two charms that Rachael bought me from a shop in Accrington. One is a little sweater on the needles and the other is a ball of wool with needles crossing through it. I am going to try to make them into little lapel pins.

Today I nipped up to the Post Office on Pearl. It is so good to be able to nip here and there so easily. I decided to post the parcel off to Sylvia with the baby cardigans in. The Post Office was it's usual full self with the slowest moving queue in the North. There were 4 members of staff working but the queue was held up with people asking stupid questions, sometimes twice over, and the staff making it worse by asking everyone if they had life insurance and ISA's etc. Surely the time to flog their other things is not when the queue is snaking around the building. I felt like saying to the woman behind the counter - Stop chatting and trying to persuade people to take out things they don't want and just serve the customers. Oh dear I think that I am turning into a grumpy old woman. Why does trying to post a parcel turn into an hour long event?

Thanks to everyone for their kind wishes. I do hope that you can all knit and crochet with your fingers crossed! I am just crossing my legs so that I can still crochet.

Not a bad day today. I managed to get the washing dry outside - even the bathmats and towels so all in all a good day.

Flowering Cherry Tree

The Flowering Cherry tree in my front garden is in bloom and is lifting my spirits just to see it. It is such a pretty tree but unfortunately the blooms are so delicate that the first bit of wind that we have blows the blossoms off the tree. The whole street then looks like there has been a wedding and it is littered with confetti. Next door has also got a flowering cherry but hers is a different variety with darker blossom. It also appears to be a bit hardier than mine when the wind blows. The gardener is coming on Thursday and is starting with the front garden. As she is so busy it will take her a few visits of an hour at a time to get the back garden into shape. I decided to start with the front as that is the bit that people see when they are walking past and also the bit that I can see from my front window.

I haven't got a lot more crochet done. Hardly surprising after yesterday's news. I haven't finished Charlie's sweater off as the collar and placket for the buttons has the contrast colour on it and as I am using an oddment from my stash for this I want to see how the ball is working out with Finlay's sweater first. They should both be finished before the Christening on Sunday.

My GP phoned me yesterday afternoon. He has been in touch with the hospital and has had a row with them over the way they have treated me. He said that they backed down when he said that he had faxed over enough evidence that I was fit for surgery on February 12th and what more did they want. I had left him a copy of the letter and he said to them, like I had, that it just says they require notification from him. Which he gave them. The letter does not state that they required, in addition, a letter. He said I am to phone him back if I don't hear back from the hospital in a couple of days and he will ring them again. He is a lovely GP and was just as angry as me over what has happened. He told them that it was ridiculous for an operation to be cancelled and not just postponed for something like a simple water infection that was cleared up in a week with antibiotics. He said that if my operation date had been in a week then he could have understood it but as they were saying that the proposed ooperation date was up to 15 weeks away then he did not see the logic in cancelling my operation date. He said he had never heard of any other hospital having this policy.Postponement yes but cancellation no. It's good to have the GP on my side. I feel a bit better now. Watch this space. I will give the hospital a few days to get back to me and if they don't then I will take it further.

Today is quite warm but not a lot of sun. I am taking a chance on the weather and puffing some washing outside to dry. I do like it when I can dry clothes, towels and bedding outdoors. Besides which it saves on electricity when I don't have to use the tumble dryer. I do hate washing drooping about the house on racks drying. I had to do that when I was young and my son was small and vowed never again. The only thing that I allow in the house now to dry is when I am blocking out my knitting and crochet.

Start Of Another Shawl

As you can see I still haven't returned to the black crochet. I will give myself a stern talking to and get back to it before long. I am in the mood for shawls at the moment. My elder niece saw this shawl in the Contemporary Crochet book and said that she liked it. I didn't have any pale grey as on the pattern in stash so I am hoping that this brushed cream chunky will be a substitute.

I keep thinking that I should make something for my younger niece but she is a lover of all things subtle and quite dark and most of the stash that I am working with doesn't seem to be 'her' kind of colours. I will get my elder niece to run her eyes over what I have and see if there is anything that she thinks is suitable as she is more in tune with her sister's taste than I am. I don't see much of my younger niece as she lives in London.

My mind is buzzing with so many projects that I have seen in my latest books that I can't seem to crochet fast enough for me. I am always thinking about the next project. Planning things is half the fun isn't it. Wondering which pattern to chose and which colour and then just when I get it sorted I look on Ravelry and there is something else that I like. No wonder my mind whirrs sometimes. I can almost hear the crochet brain cells working overtime. Plus it doesn't help when I keep falling asleep over my crochet in the evenings. Just recently I lose an hour or so of crocheting time through nodding off in the chair.

Today has been a lovely warm summery day. I have been sitting out in the garden in between pegging out washing when the washer stops and reloading it with another load. Nothing spells summer more than a line of washing drying in the sunshine. Of course the minute I sit out I can see that the lawn needs mowing and the shrubs need pruning but I have learned that I can only do one thing at once so the gardening will have to be on another day.

It's Snowing Again

I opened the curtains this morning to see snow flurries coming down. Although we do not have the amount of snow that Bev does in the US it is still enough to grind my hilly street to a halt.Foot traffic only this morning.I live on the flat top part of the street but it slopes steeply down on the left of the photos.

I didn't get around to crocheting any beginner slippers but I still have time as there is no way I am walking up to the Post Office to post my niece's parcel until the snow goes away. I have plenty of food in the fridge and freezer as well as emergency tins in the cupboard so this lady is going nowhere today,

I concentrated on knitting a bit more on the boy's sweaters and I have finished knitting Charlie's and knitted the front of Finlay's but as you can see I have left my least favourite job of sewing up until the end. I think that is why I am such a lover of seam free crochet. I don't mind the making but the stitching up gets me every time.In the past I have been known to throw finished items in the work basket where they can stay for weeks until I brace myself to stitch them together.

Today will be a washing day. My mother always had this superstition that you should never do chores (except essentials) on New Year's Day as it meant that you will be doing them every day for the rest of your life so I haven't done any washing over the Christmas period so today is the day. I saw somewhere a saying that you should finish off any projects by New Years Eve or that means you will have unfinished projects for the rest of the year but as any knitter or crocheter knows that is a foregone conclusion anyway. A crafter who actually finishes off ALL of her projects - Get Real !

I'm so excited

I put my latest Doris Chan sweater on Ravelry describing it as Doris Chan with a difference and guess what? Doris left me a message!! Yes she did

"Here’s a brilliant example of turning an “oops” into a “do it like you mean it”! Terrific save!"

What greater honour is there than the designer looking at my efforts and leaving a lovely comment. I feel quite elated.

These are some more photos of the sweater but taken with the web cam as I have never mastered the method of taking self pictures with a digi cam. The colour is not true but you can get the general idea.

The Seraphina shawl is progressing but every row will now take far longer as the width increases. I have been very grateful for the photos on the pattern showing different stages to help me understand better where to start the next increase rather than read the pattern. I think every pattern designer should do that - take close ups of the relevant pattern bits. I find it so much easier to crochet by eye than to follow a pattern. I guess it comes from when crochet patterns (apart from doilies) were scarcer than hen's teeth back in the 60's and I had to learn to do it myself. The advantage of crocheting it in this downward direction is that I can gauge when the chenille will run out and stop at the end of a full pattern.

I definitely must drag out my sock knitting today as when I woke up this morning my middle finger right hand was as stiff as a board and it took ages to bend. Sign of too much crocheting. Buster is back home now so he occupies me so my crochet output will decline. I have looked at the front room and sighed. New throws please and bring out the hoover mum. Good job it looks like being a sunny day as it's time for a washer load.