Tuesday, 28 May 2013

oh dear

Well, I have knitted practically all the black chess pieces - just a few arms and hoods to go - and put together the bodies of the pawns and the king and queen and part of a rook. And tonight, in the process of putting together a knight, I have broken a needle and a tooth.

Not dramatically broken a tooth, just taken a little chip out of one of the front ones, from biting a needle and trying to pull it through. The needle broke off half the eye, rendering it useless.

Anyway, I have spent three days so far at my volunteering thing, mostly scanning and uploading photos, with a bit of box listing.

Saturday I saw my nephew, who is adorable, and came and sat next to me on the stairs, and also, while reading Superworm, grabbed me by the thumb to make me do more "bang! crash! thump!"s.

Sunday my friend was unexpectedly in hospital and I took up her meds, but fortunately they let her home later in the day.

I am going to embroider a few features, glue a few more bits and then go to sleep. So there.

Friday, 17 May 2013

sigh

Knitting update - I took both. I knitted another rook and the queen and mostly-assembled both - the rook first, and I wound up undoing it, replacing the card, redoing it, then undoing it again to add another nut and redoing it again, and I ain't doing it again even though it's not entirely steady. The queen worked better because it tapers. I just need to glue stuff for both of them, as I didn't have glue, but I do now.

I also started the cardigan. First with seed-stitch border, forgetting the cables would be narrower, then with seed-stitch and increases which didn't quite work, then provisional cast-on which on reflection was too narrow, then I got it right. I hope. It's only got a few more inches to go and then I need to start thinking about shaping and things. Probably I'll go back to the chess set for a bit.

Today I went to IKEA and got two flat-pack shelves (Albert, if you care) and I just put one set together in about an hour and a half, and my arm hurts a bit (really I should have got out the electric screwdriver, shouldn't I?)

What else? I got a couple of good photos of my nephew, more by luck than judgement; I did more chores in my sister's house over five days than I do in mine over a fortnight; I got less sleep than usual and have spent a good chunk of the last two days catching up with it.

Oh, and I have been keeping a food diary to see if I can figure out what's messing with my guts, and it's pretty depressing reading, but I'm not going to stop eating junk, so I might as well keep track in case there is something specific to cut out.

Wednesday, 8 May 2013

hmm

I am going away tomorrow for a long weekend and I don't know what knitting to take... I usually get a decent amount of knitting done on the train either way, but I'll be decently busy while I'm up there, as my nephew is not quite two.

The last few days, I have been knitting pieces from Alan Dart's Chess Set - so far I have three pawns, a rook, a knight, a bishop and a king, but they are not assembled because I don't have nuts to weight them yet (I bought them off ebay Monday night). So, I could just take the yarn to finish the black side, which would probably be enough, or I could take yarn for the white side as well, or... If the nuts arrive tomorrow I can take stuffing as well and sew up some of the bits, because sewing up is horrid and I'm not leaving it all until the end or it just won't get done. I'm already doing all the arms and most of the pawns in the round.

Or I could do something completely different. At the weekend I started trying to design a cardigan, and it started getting over-complicated, and with a bit of distance I think I was just trying to do too much - with a fitted waist and boob shaping, and a cable pattern, and then hip shaping, and what about the sleeves, and... I think I can do a cropped cardi with the shaping I was thinking about, but I don't know.

So do I take a creative project that might go horribly wrong, or a pattern which will have me scattering a dozen little pieces down the back of the sofa?

ETA: I keep thinking of packing as a huge thing, but it really isn't. Fifteen minutes and I'm done, except for the ongoing knitting swither. And when I'm going to my sister's, it really doesn't matter - I forgot black trousers and she had half-a-dozen pairs in the wardrobe, I forgot socks and I went into the shopping centre by the station and bought a pack of new ones, it's not the end of the world.

I think it's a learned thing from childhood, and the thing is, taking trips with kids is difficult, and packing for yourself and three weans is stressful. But packing for yourself, when you've travelled enough, and know what you're going to want and what you couldn't care less about... it's really not a problem.

Thursday, 2 May 2013

success, sort of

I finished the shrug!

I wound up doing a variation of Kitchener stitch, and boy did I regret it halfway through.

I did not regret ignoring the ladies at knitting who said I needed to knit a couple more inches before I joined it together. I was pretty sure it would stretch, and also fit better over something without sleeves, and I was right, so there. Actually it may be a bit big - the bottom of the back sort of flaps out a bit, so maybe that wants elastic, which is to say probably it wants cut down a little but I can't be arsed doing that so elastic might work.

Apart from that...

No, that's all the craft I've been doing the past few days. And now I am at that stage just past success, where you go... "what now?"

I don't know. I have a baby jumper which is only half-done, but that is dead easy. I kind of want to do something interesting. But having made something up - two things, in fact - even difficult patterns are looking sort of boring. But there's nothing I particularly want to make that I can try making up. I've been poking at ravelry, but nothing is jumping out saying "knit me!" Or "crochet me!" Improving my crochet also sounds boring.

Bah.