Year of Projects - Week 5

Yip it's Sunday again, and time for my A Year of Projects update.  I finished the Tulip but as it was the third one I have made my list hasn't gotten any smaller, bummer.

Ihave been busy with an item that is not on my list, I will definitely add it to my list but as the males in my house are chomping at the bit to get going today, this is going to have to be added tonight when we get home.  It's called Take My Time, it's the Neat Ripple Blanket from Lucy at Attic24.  Stunning once you get the hang of it.  Thanks Lucy, love this.  Iam making this for Monster's bed and will be doing one repeat of the colours every week, so not sure how long it's going to take me.

But because I can't just do this, as one repeat takes me a day, I looked over my list, checked out my stash and have cast on Red Butler by Kerrie Allman.  It's Rowan Handknit Cotton in Spanish Red, and to say I'm loving this is an understatement.  I am a little nervous, I have exactly the amount to make a size 34, and I normally make size 36 for me as my arms are long and I like my cardigans once size bigger.  I bought this cotton 5 years ago to make a blanket for Pudding and have just alot of it for other projects so I can't make one out of it now and I think it will be quite a challenge to find the dye lot again.

It's done on 6mm needles so growing fast and it's another top down so there's a bonus, the sleeves are done in the round, so NO SEWING!!!

Not sure about what I am going to do about the borders on the front, I have read that sewing fabric to the front bands is tricky, I am a ribbon freak so I might find really wide ribbon and sew that on to it instead of fabric.  But I'm not there yet and will have to see when I do.

Have a good crafty day and will come home after extended lunch at the old people's home and check out all your updates.

What Happened?

Today I had planned to be stuck to the couch, crocheting the Take My Time and watching rugby.  Well that hardly happened.

Monster announced his retainer is very loose.  They put the fear of life into him, if anything is not right with it, he must come in and get it sorted.  So off we went to get that sorted.  The lady that does the retainers and any emergency Orthodontist work had the day off!!!!  We will be back on Monday.

Went to the chemist to get Pudding's medication to find out that they have lost the repeat script and haven't loaded it on the system and refused to give me the medication.  After throwing my shopping at the chemist and storming off shouting nasty comments.  I headed for the managers office, where by that stage I was shaking I was so fuming.  The chemist actually told me that he didn't care I had to pay for another script to be written!!!!

Phoned Dr Fullteron, who by the way is an angel in my eyes now, and she was just as annoyed as I was, but we both agreed that the medication is extremely important to Pudding, so I drove to another chemist, got the fax number and the star she is, she faxed a new script through for me.  Thank you Dr Fullerton, I am very happy you are in our lives.  After getting a slushie with Monster we headed back to chemist 2 and got Pudding's medication.

Now I needed retail therapy, badly.  Oh my one of the big bookshops is having a sale.  Even though there were no knitting or crocheting books, I managed to get two books for Pudding, five for Monster, one for the Bank Manager and two for my Old Man.  Brilliant.

Some other essential shopping was done, boring and then Monster begged me to head home.

Got home and quickly checked the score of the All Blacks against the Walabies and was delighted to see that the All Blacks had CREAMED Australia 30-14.  Now I am spoilt and I have two countries to support, England by birth and South Africa as I have lived here since I was 6.  I always support anyone playing against the All Blacks and Australia, however when they play each other it's the All Blacks all the way.

Made lunch, saturday hot dogs.  And settled down for more Rugby.

England beat Wales (HOORAY)
Scotland beat Ireland (HOORAY)
I know Canada is playing USA but can't find results anywhere, if someone knows please let me know the outcome.

In local Currie Cup
Sharks were beated by Griquas
Western Province were beated by the Cheetahs
Blue Bulls were beated by the Lions (BOOHOO)

I finished another repeat of the colours on the Take My Time and I have decided that I am going to one repeat a week, yes I know I have already done 2 this week, but from next week, it will only be 1 repeat, or else I will never get any knitting done, and my shoulder aches if I do too much crocheting.

Come back tomorrow for an update on my new YOP cast on.  I love the colour and the pattern is wicked!

FO Friday - Week 4

I DID IT!  I was so bummed out that I didn't have anything to post today.  I have just sat and knitted for 3 hours straight.  No breaks, yes I know not good for me, but let me tell you, it feels fantastic to have a FO!

So check out more beautiful FO Fridays from Tami Ami's site.

Blog Reading

This morning saw me taking the Beast to JSN to have her heater checked out.  Pudding, the skinny one of all of us, kept moaning that no matter what he did he only got cold air in the back.  Needless to say there was a wiring fault.  Well done JSN for getting the Beast fixed and back to me within and hour and a half. 

While I sat there I continued on with Take My Time, even though I swore to myself that I would finish Tulip.

When I got home I thought I would check in with the WIP Wednesday posts.  WOW so many.  I promptly opened all the tabs with all the blogs and set about reading.  Before I knew it, it was time to go fetch the boys from school.

We headed to Hyde Park Shopping Centre for much needed "Frisbee" hats (cricket hats) for tomorrows interhouse athletics.  And well I caved and got them each new Billabong backpacks for school as well.  That turned out to be the most expensive hats I have ever bought.

Back home, I carried on reading all your blogs and commenting where I can.  For some unknown reason I can't comment using my Google Account??  Will get around to fixing that one day.  Promise.

I was all the time making progress on Take My Time.  With Tulip begging me to finish her. 

Then Monster asked if he could do some internet surfing on my notebook so I handed it over,  2 hours later I got it back. 

Iam off to read all the other blogs that I normally read and then to bed.  I feel like I haven't done anything but read blogs today, even though Take My Time has grown.

WIP Wednesday - Week 4

Can you believe I almost forgot today was WIP Wednesday!

Yesturday after my selfish morning I had, I came home and with a bag of hand me back yarn, I started the neat ripple from Lucy (Attic24).  I have to admit, I stuffed it up about three times and had to rip it back to the begining and start again.  So it's not very far this morning.

I hope that I have it now and no more ripping back.

So yes, for the first time in ages I have two WIP's on the go.

Since my post yesturday I have done nothing on the Tulip, So to see the progress if you are interested, it's here.

I'm going to go link to Tami Ami's blog now, and will check later this afternoon on all your WIP's later when I come home.

Selfish

This morning started bright and early with Monster having his braces off at 07:30!  His teeth altough they are throbbing and sensitive, LOOK AMAZING!!  Thank you Dr Reinach!  No more gaps, and the bite is fantastic and all in 15 months!

After dropping him off at school around 9ish I decided that I wasn't going to go home to the three piles of laundry, I was going to go to my friends house for coffee and a chat.

I stopped at the bakery and got us some yummies and then arrived.  I know I should have phoned but it would have spoilt the suprise!  She was home and had no plans.  We had such an awesome morning, drinking coffee and eating yummies.

When I make a blanket I always over buy yarn.  I panic that I'm not going to have enough.  I had two balls left of each of the 11 colours I used for the Suduko blanket I had made earlier in the year and nothing in mind to do with them, she asked if she could buy them from me to make a blanket for her son. 

Since then the mosaic bug has bitten her and she has done zero knitting and crochetting, just breaking and sticking tiles on everything.  Not really that bad.  So I said to her, give me the yarn back I want to make a blanket for Monster, saves me from going to the LYS AGAIN (still having sale) and getting yarn to make a blanket for Monster.

I have had this need to crochet lately and I really want to make the neat ripple blanket for Monster.  The colours of the Suduko blanket are perfect for his room except the oranges.  No biggie will just them out.

So hooray I have this huge bage full of yarn again.  I did carry on kniting the Tulip while I was there, which my friend has now claimed as I am making for her.  But as soon as we got home I have started the chain for the ripple blanket.  SO EXCITED to be crochetting again, I have actually missed it. 

I am not going to put it on my YOP list as Iam going to do this when I please, even if it's a row a week, that will be fine by me.

I almost did it

I set myself a modest task of blogging everyday for the month of July to get myself into it, and I almost did it.  It started off rocky at the begining of the month but after that, it has become an obsession, reading other blogs and blogging myself.

I have to say a huge thank you to Tami Amis and the Come Blog Along (or Year of Projects) for helping me on Wednesday's, Friday's and Sunday's.  Those three days were much easier to blog on than the other days.  The wonderful comments that I got on those three days made the other days easier to blog on.

We went to the old people house yesturday for lunch (that's my Dad and his girlfriend) for lunch and needless to say there was much chatting and unfortunately not so much knitting.  I didn't even finish the first ball of yarn on Tulip, which is strange for me.  I definitely need to get this finished pronto as I am itching to get my kneedles on some of the new yarn I splurged on last week.