Sidetracked

I must be feeling better as I have been tidying up since I last blogged. Not a stitch has been knitted or crocheted which is very rare for me. My back is hurting but otherwise I am fine. I think that my anti depressants must have finally started to work plus the swelling in my knee has slowly started to go down. Maybe finally I am turning the corner. My specialist did warn me that it could be up to twelve months before I regained full mobility in the knee so maybe I was just being too impatient.

Sorting through patterns and books isn't easy when you have as many as I do. As you can see from the bookcase those are just my knit and crochet books. The two boxes underneath are just two of five boxes. I have now sorted baby patterns into one box. Ladies single leaflets into another. One has old Phildar and similar books, the other has my old McCalls craft magazine from the early 60's which are now falling to bits but I still love them. The last box now houses my machine knitting books and patterns as I hope to start to use my big knitting machine again soon.

I also found my Mum's wooden sewing boxes up the end of the cubby hole under the stairs where I keep my pattern boxes. I started to tidy those out. I always thought that I inherited my hoarding tendencies from my Dad but now I know that I got a double dose. I got my Mum's hoarding instincts as well. If I ever want to make any i cord knitters with 4 small nails and a wooden bobbin I know just where to find my wooden sewing thread bobbins from. I never had one of those plastic soldier i cord makers when I was a kid. My Dad used to just hammer 4 small tacks into a bobbin and my Mum would give me a blunt sewing up needle to hook the wool over with.I told you before that I come from a make do and mend generation which is probably why I still find it hard to throw things away that might come in useful one day.

I just had to share some of my very old crochet patterns with you. I am sure that many of you remember the fashions of the 60's and 70's even if you didn't wear any of them. I didn't make a lot of them for myself but I used to crochet for a boutique in the 60's so a lot of patterns are from that era.

Time to go back to my cleaning and tidying. At least after 2 days I am up to putting things back today. Previously if you had come to my house in the last couple of days you would have been surprised to see that I was in such a mess. It's funny how when doing a big clear out it always looks far worse than it did before you started. Or is that just me?

Anyway it's time to get back to work. Hopefully by next week I will get around to the upstairs. Whew. I have let things slide around the house for the last couple of years and now I am paying for it. I will never make the covers of House Beautiful but at least it will be a lot tidier. Wish me luck I am going back in, pass me the duster!

Two Parcels Arrived Today

For once the post didn't bring me any wool or books. It brought me a hand held steamer and a set of plastic shelves. I am impressed with both of these deliveries as I only ordered them on Tuesday evening.Well done Amazon (or rather the people who use Amazon to sell things through).

I managed to work out how to put together the shelves but they do look a bit crooked in the empty photo. They came without instructions and labeling them 'easy to assemble' doesn't work with me. I am clueless - tell me which end is up! I am using them to tidy up all the odd balls that I have of baby wool. If I take them upstairs into the stash room they tend to disappear without trace and I find that I am buying more of certain colours as I think that I don't have any. My plastic shopping bags and scruffy cardboard boxes have gone now in favour of plastic trays. One day I will replace the trays with storage boxes with lids although I do find that deep boxes just tangle up the wool unless it is in see through bags. For now, at least, I am pleased with this bit of tidying. I now only have the things, that I am working on at the moment, in the lounge.

The only trouble is that I now need to tidy up the upstairs stash room as some bags of wool have wound up in there from the dining room.I will just leave that for another day otherwise I might get too tired if I tackle too much work at once.I am not the young girl that I once was who could rip through cleaning the house in one day.One room at a time will do for now.

I haven't read the instructions for the steam cleaner yet but as soon as I tidy up the havoc that I have caused by re-organising the dining room I will have a try. Why is it that when you are tidying up and changing things around the house looks far worse than normal. It's usually at this time that unexpected guests arrive so at least today I have been spared that. As I said yesterday I can't give the house the care and attention that it needs and deserves so I am hoping that a steamer will get into little places that I can't reach. There seems to be enough attachments to give a great variety of cleaning processes. I will let you know how I go on when I start steaming later on.

Needless to say there has been no knitting or crocheting done so far today. I have progressed to 3 full patterns on the back of the charcoal knitting so things are moving a lot faster since I typed the pattern out in large print. I resisted the temptation to go back to the easy peasy garter stitch on the huge needles but if I do some more cleaning I might resort to no brain knitting tonight.

Time for some upbeat music and a whizz around with the hoover. I think that I must be feeling a bit better this week as I am actually noticing what needs doing and instead of turning the other cheek I want to do something about it. I will probably write to you from my sick chair tomorrow when everything aches!