Gimme an S!

Finally.....

... another stumpy sock!

Rip we must

Oh poor baby yoda - the force was not strong in that one.

Twenty four rounds into the sleeve I realised that I had dropped a stitch about eight rounds before. Now I suck at picking up dropped stitches at the best of times, and quite frankly, the idea of trying to sort this out on four needles sent me straight to the gin bottle (which was empty, it being one of those days). So I decided I would have to rip the sleeve out and start again, and then I thought, oh what the hell, I'm going to rip back the entire thing. Because there were other problems, which I had been ignoring in the hopes that they would self-repair. For one thing, I had discovered that my tension on dpns is waaaaaaaay tighter than on straight needles:

As well as the difference in tension there, you can also see that when I bound of the shoulders, and knitted the neckband, I managed to leave a gaping great hole - or rather, two gaping great holes, one on each side. So it's back to the beginning. I'm still going to knit a baby yoda cardy with this wool, I'm just not going to make the same mistakes again (instead I'll make a whole lot of new exciting ones!).

In the interim (and to further delay any work on the v boring neckwarmer or the cursed sock) I started a second baby yoda - again (of course) not exactly as the pattern was written. Here is one front...

And I'm halfway up the other. Instead of garter stitch at the bottom I did six rows of scallop stitch; then I've continued the scallop stitch up the side; I've decreased much more than the pattern called for; and I've continued the scallop stitch into a band that will (hopefully) go around the back of the neck. And if I have to frog this one, I promise I will stick to the pattern next time!

After the baby yodas I want to do some thing like this gorgeous tank top. And then I'm starting to feel almost brave enough to knit an adult sized garment for myself. Almost brave enough... (Also I've just lost a whole heap of weight, and if I lose another few kilos it won't be half as daunting an idea as it was six months ago!)

It's a Knit Ranger day today - and I'm dying of jealousy. I want to be there, but my partner works every Sunday (and every Saturday) so I'm a solo Mum at the weekends, and there is no way I could take my feral children to a cafe to watch adults knit! One weekend soon I intend to hire a babysitter and head on over.

And that's me for today :)

There's a little piece of me in everything I knit

And I'm not talking about any airy-fairy, 'because I knit so much love in', piece of me - I mean this literally. I've just been sitting here pulling vast quantities of my hair out of the Baby Yoda cardigan. Does anyone else have this problem? Scientists would be able to identify every thing I've ever knitted because my hair constantly gets caught in my knitting. I thought it would improve after I had my hair cut recently, but no, I'm still knitting everything with a combination of wool and hair...

The Baby Yoda cardigan is still a way off becoming a finished object, despite being teeny tiny. For some reason - I can't remember why - I decided to try and do the Baby Yoda with as little seaming as possible. I don't know why because I don't mind seaming... it was just a passing thought that I foolishly acted on. So having knit the back and fronts as one piece, and joined the shoulders with a three needle cast-off, I have to do the sleeves on dpns.
Why would I do that to myself? I've only just learnt to manage dpns without stabbing myself (I sit there muttering 'it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye', sounding like my grandmother) and I am soooooo very sloooooow at knitting with them.
So the Baby Yoda cardigan is now in the second sock zone - a strange twilight place where very little happens. Don't anybody hold their breath...

Sock? What sock? I know nothing about any sock...

Tena kotou katoa. Ko Rachel tenei. Kei te pehea kotou?

It's the end of Maori Language Week so I thought I should throw a little Maori in there. Sadly that's about the limit of my reo skills. I would love to speak more. I did a year of Maori at university but we never learnt anything useful, like how to say, 'Would you like to buy my children for medical experimentation?' or 'double point needles are indeed the devil's work'. Actually, everything we did learn sounded like pass signs for cold war spies: 'The morepork calls at night'; 'the orcas are swimming in the distance'. Not so handy when you want to chat or blog, but come the revolution I'll be fine!

So knitting... I decided to go with the Baby Yoda cardigan - with a few modifications. (Because I can't just knit a pattern the way it's written, can I? Oh no, I've got to tinker and tutu and increase the chances of it all going horribly wrong. It does make it more interesting though!) I'm knitting it in Shepherd's Colour 4 Me wool which is nice and soft - a blue/pink/yellow/white variegated colourway, since Grant & Kate don't know the sex of their baby yet. I remember when I was pregnant and people would invariably ask 'Do you know what you're having?'. I took to answering very seriously: 'a baby, I hope'.

The colours in the photo aren't quite right - it's not as orange (where did the orange come from????) and much more pastel.

I've also begun a neckwarmer for my partner. This is the first time he's ever expressed any desire for a hand-knitted anything, so even though I'm totally over neckwarmers (this will be the fourth) I've said I'll do it. I probably won't bother photographing it or even mentioning it again - the instructions are it has to be black, and it can't have any lace, or pattern, or anything even remotely interesting. So it's 2 x 1 rib and it's very, very boring. Why does it have to be black and boring? Because he wants to wear it playing golf (when a scarf would be get in the way of his swing) and he doesn't want anyone to laugh at him on the golf course. Now on the surface that sounds reasonable doesn't it? But what you have to understand is that we are talking about the man who wears orange, yellow, red and green plaid trousers to golf in summer (which he had his mother make because he couldn't, unsurprisingly, find any in the shops). And he teams these trousers with a turquoise, purple and white Hawaiian print shirt. And he's worried people might laugh at a neckwarmer?????

Does the boyfriend curse still work after ten years and two children?

Global Warming?

Sometimes it's odd being at the bottom of the world. This morning's paper was full of heat waves in the Mediterranean and I keep reading North American blogs about how it's almost too hot to knit, and yet here, this is what I found at half past six...


That's ICE, which not something we routinely get in Auckland. Brrr....

So I sent Katie off to kindergarten looking like Nanook of the North...

and Jess and I hunkered down in front of the fire while I sewed up the neckwarmer - which I will need today!

This one I'm keeping - I gave away the last two. But today my nose is cold...

Back on the needles

I'm back on the needles - sounds like I'm a junkie doesn't it?

The sock progresses - I've turned the heel so we're on the home stretch. And I've nearly finished a third neck warmer (just the seaming to do). And I'm about to start a baby cardigan - I'm dithering between Stephanie Pearl McPhee's Daisy and the Baby Yoda Sweater by Cari Luna. This fit of enthusiasm will probably expire on Tuesday when I'm back at work, but that should be long enough to finish the sock at least.

I realise, reading back over this blog (oh the things we do to delay housework), that the last entry was the first time I've mentioned a book, apart from the odd knitting book and university things. If you knew me in real life you would find this odd. (I can safely say if you knew me because nobody I really know reads this blog. I mention it occassionally to friends and family and they go, 'Oh a blog about knitting; how interesting,' and stay away in their droves.) I read all the time. I read when I'm cooking, I read while I'm knitting (except socks or lace), I read while I'm theoretically watching TV. I read in the bath. I read in bed. I read while I'm brushing my teeth. When people say they haven't got time to read I look at them blankly, and say, ' but what are traffic lights for?'. We have books in our sitting room, dining room, kitchen, bedrooms, spare room, bathroom, toilet and garage. We have books in the car, books down the back of the sofa, books under the pillow, books piled up in the wardrobes. I sell books for a living. And yet I rarely mention it here. Very odd. And I guess, proof, should you need it, that a blog can only ever be a very partial reflection of a person's life.

Anyway... I think maybe I'm knitting again because the excitement of being back at work has well and truly worn off! I left home at 6 am on Thursday and got home at 6 pm on Friday, having driven 754.8 km, and I remembered how tiring this job can be! I'm still really enjoying the change, but I'm not as excited as I was the first two weeks. The trip, although long, tiring and busy, was lovely. We really live in one of the prettiest countries in the world. Driving from Kerikeri to Kaitaia around the coast early on Friday morning, I was just grinning inanely the entire time - it was so beautiful. And the girls were just fine and only missed me a little bit.

Now, some advice please... Is there a guide to blog etiquette on the net somewhere? Lovely people comment on my blog and I usually comment myself on their comment. But that does feel a bit like writing someone a thank you card, and then leaving it on your front porch so that they have to come and pick it up themselves. But if you then go to their blog and comment, other people can't follow the conversation (for want of a better word) which seems equally rude. Does any of that make sense? What's the protocol here????

Anyway... back to the sock before the knitting frenzy passes...

Read faster dammit!

Just finished the final Harry Potter (oh thank heavens it's over!) and now I'm insanely frustrated because my partner and my mother are still reading it and I can't say ANYTHING. This may drive me back to the sock!

Quilts!

Golly, it's been a while since I posted...

I haven't been getting much knitting done lately. First we had a friend staying - a fabulously talented fabric artist who makes the most amazing quilts. Here's a picture of Katie as a baby in the quilt Raewyn made for her...

And Katie and Jess in Jess's quilt....

Sneaky hey, posting pictures of other people's work because I have nothing of my own to show!

Then, of course, I've been adjusting to life in the working world. If falling asleep at 7:30 every night can be called adjusting!

So no knitting. That poor second sock, which so far consists of about an inch of ribbing, keeps looking very accusingly at me, and with the rotten weather we've been having I could do with a pair of warm socks, but it's just not happening at the moment. Once I'm more into the rythym of juggling work and kids I will return to the needles.

The whole work thing seems to be working out quite well (apart from making me very sleepy!). People keep asking me if I'm applying for the position permanently, but I'm not. It's a fun break but already I'm missing the time with the girls, and it's only been two weeks. Next week I have a night away in the far North and I think I'm more freaked about the idea than the small people are! As well as being freaked about leaving my babies (o I am sad and pathetic) I'm also keeping my fingers crossed about the weather: the poor old North had a terrible time this week (but eclair of Mad Hair Day is fine you'll be pleased to hear) and I so do not want to drive through storms and floods next week.

Time to go hang with the girls and ignore that damned sock some more!

It's lucky for her she's so cute

Okay, I'm speaking to the baby again. Yes, she frogged the third neckwarmer, the baby thingy and the stole I'd started for my mother-in-law. But she was was so proud of herself, and so pleased to show me what she'd done that I couldn't get truly cross. Although there was a moment there when I wondered if the recent banning of smacking in New Zealand also applied to stabbing your child with a knitting needle.

Anyway... Since I had nothing else to do I've started the second sock. The test now will be to try and get a pair since I didn't bother making any notes about how many rounds I knitted at any point - I never actually believed I'd finish up with a sock until I got to the grafting.

House guest at the door!

Anyone have a bell, book and candle?

I have no WIPs.

Jess has a pile of wool and a collection of needles under her bed.

Olive Cake

Another recipe I don't want to lose! This one came from my sister's sister-in-law in France, and it's divine...

100 grams flour (add a little more if the mixture is too wet)
150 grams grated cheese (preferably gruyere)
4 eggs
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 small glass of white wine
2 teaspoons baking powder
200 grams pitted green olives, sliced (nice with pimento stuffed olives)

Mix all together and bake in a greased 22 inch ring tin (or any suitable pan) for about 40 mins at 200 C.

Smug mode on

So Monday morning I was a little bored and I picked up the cursed double point needles and figured I'd give it yet another try. And voila...

My first ever sock! It's not a great sock - in fact it's a lumpy, bumpy, and very stumpy sock, but it's a sock! I had to do a little sock achievement dance with the girls, and we all sang 'Mummy can knit socks'. Well, Jess just shouted 'Mama! Sock!' but the thought was there. My partner pointed out that, strictly speaking, I can knit sock and until I do another I can't have that final 's'. Of course, he's right, but I'm not sure that this poor sock will ever get a mate. I figured there was no point in spending hours knitting the leg until I knew whether or not the whole heel thing would work - which is why it's so short. And do I really want a pair of stumpy socks? I may just keep this one as the Lone Sock and start a proper pair. Of course the girls are demanding socks of their own now, so it may be a while before I get to knit some for me.

I finished the neckwarmer (photo eventually - Jess took it away somewhere) and liked it so much that I knit another...

This one is in Cleckheaton's Vintage Hues which is my new favourite wool - I just love the colours. And I love the whole concept of neckwarmers I have to say. Way faster than a scarf, so I don't get bored, way less wool than a scarf, so I can afford to knit with nicer stuff than I would usually. And this one I liked so much I even blocked it! Wonders will never cease! I'm knitting a third one now - not in feather and fan this time - in some fluffy stuff I found on top of the bookshelf. I'm not sure what it is, but I have a feeling there's another ball in my glovebox which might have the band still on it. (Hey, I have small children - I stash my wool anywhere they can't get it!)

The baby thing is proceeding sloooooowly - I'm not sure if I like it or not so I'm not putting much effort in because it may yet get unravelled and changed into something else.

And now it's time to face the laundry mountain... We have a friend arriving to stay on Tuesday and I'm not even sure that there is a bed in the spare room because the laundry may well have eaten it!

Goodbye to all that

So it’s goodbye to the green jersey, which is finally finished; goodbye to university, because the exam and semester are now over; and, it seems, goodbye to my beloved sofa. That’s right – I’m heading back out into the big, wide, working world.
The woman who took over from me at my old job is leaving and they called me to see if I was interested in filling in for three months. So we’ve been negotiating for a couple of weeks. I’m good at negotiating:
Me: Three months is too short to make it worth giving up a semester at university, it’d have to be six months at least.
Them: No, that won’t work.
Me: OK, three months it is.
It’s quite flattering that someone thinks I am still motivated, professional and awake enough to trust with a company car, a company credit card, and the company’s reputation. Mind you, they don’t know that I am the woman who has been known to leap up, get the kids washed, dressed and fed, load them into the car, and drive off to playgroup, only to realise on arriving that I am still in my pyjamas! Okay, it only happened once, but still…
Also, I keep thinking, ‘Hey, isn’t this the job that you left because you found it so hard when you had one child?’ It is.
Anyway, we’ve worked out this incredible schedule for the kids involving kindergarten, daycare, granny, kindy friends’ parents and one lovely university student. So provided no-one gets sick we should be able to manage it - and why would pre-schoolers get sick in winter when they’re at kindy and daycare surrounded by thousands of runny noses and hacking coughs? Oh boy.

On the knitting front the green jersey is finally done – and it fits (more or less). The lacey bits would look better if I’d blocked it but you know, it’s for a 2 year old who is going to spill porridge down the front any morning now, and also I just couldn’t be bothered. (Great attitude to take to work hey!)

I tried to get a nice photo of Jess wearing it, but first she did this:

Then she insisted we take a photo of her tummy (‘Pic tummy NOW!!’)

Then she grabbed Katie so she could be in the picture too.

So here is an empty jersey… and a close up-ish shot of the lace and cables.

At some point in the last manic week, while studying for the exam and 'negotiating' about this job, I started a scarfish kind of thing but forgot to mention it. It's from the book Knit 2 Together by Tracy Ullman and Mel Clark. They call it a neckwarmer, and I've seen similar things called cowls, so who knows. It's like a scarf but it's a big loop you sling over your head. Theirs is done on circular needles, which makes sense, but I tried, I really did, and then I threw the circular needle across the dining room (causing my partner to be extra nice to me because he figured he'd done something wrong - he he he). So mine is being done on straight needles, and in a different yarn (the green one), and I changed it from a 12 stitch repeat of feather and fan to an eighteen stitch repeat. Apart from that it's exactly the same.

The book is one that came home with me from the library while I was 'studying' for my exam. Kept happening, no idea how. I'd head off to the library prepared to settle down with an analysis of the postcolonial discourse utilised in Waitangi tribunal narratives, and their use of heuristic tropes and other such exciting stuff, and I'd come home with a bag full of knitting books. Very strange. Won't it be interesting to see what kind of mark I get?

I've also started something that I'm hoping will grow into a sleeping bag crossed with a cardigan for my friends Grant and Kate's baby, which is due in October. We will see.

There's a new little doodad at the right there, which is from the Aussie and NZ knitters webring - go check them out. There are more and more of us NZ knitting bloggers and I have a great plan. Together we can all write the knitting book that I want to buy, but which doesn't yet exist!

I want (oh how I want) a New Zealand knitting book with NZ inspired designs and motifs - NO INTARSIA KIWIS - classy, subtle things. Like koru cables (I've tried, I can't figure it out), and lace based on silver ferns or kowhai. I thought I might knit a 'brick and tile' sweater with some kind of brick-like pattern on the body, and scallop stitch for the sleeves and yoke. All in one colour - not to look like a house, but vaguely inspired by our vernacular architecture. I know James at Fibre Alive has done some nice stuff with koru motifs - what else is out there? Actually I'm looking at this feather and fan, and thinking if you knit four or five repeats in red, and knitted in gold beads in the fan sections... pohutukawa! It would be a great book, and I'd buy a copy...

What a long post... now I have to go and panic some more about working!

On Socks and Strange Brains

Here's a little conversation I had with Katie this morning...

Me: Why don’t you want to go to your friend’s house?
Katie: It’s not me that doesn’t want to go – it’s my brain. My brain doesn’t like playing so it’s decided not to go.
Me: You are a very strange little girl
Katie: It’s not me that’s strange – it’s my brain. My brain is very, very, strange.

No kidding...

Then I'm scrabbling through the laundry mountain looking for socks and wondering how it is possible to have twenty-seven single kids' socks and not one pair, when Jess wanders pasts wearing four mismatched socks - two on her feet and two on her hands.

I'm sure other people's children are not this weird!

There is no knitting happening here - I have an exam tomorrow. The green jersey will return on the weekend.

Technobabies

One of the (many) reasons I blog so erratically is that when I find myself with some spare time to write, I have to fight a four year old for the computer. Katie is amazingly quick at picking things up on the computer which is fascinating, if a little scary. More than once I've been in the middle of something, like an essay, and I get up to grab a coffee, or go to the loo, or whatever, and come back to find she's switched user, logged on to the net, gone to one of her favourite sites, adjusted the volume, and won't shift!

So for anyone else with techno literate pre-schoolers, here is Katie's Top 5 Websites for Small People:

• Ceebeebies - the BBC's website for kids, with games, stories, e-cards etc
• Starfall - a great phonics-based learn to read site
• Sesame Street - needs no explanation
• Playhouse Disney - has some good games and stories based on disney characters
• Nick Jr - home of Dora, Blues Clues, Miss Spider, etc. Good problem-solving games.

Now I'm being kicked off again, so it's back to the knitting!

My doppelganger

Too weird….

I’ve been reading back through Mad Hair Day and growing increasingly weirded out by the things I have in common with the writer…

• We are both in New Zealand (ok, not so weird – with 4 million people and 40 million sheep you expect a few knitters)
• We are both 38
• Her birthday is 13 December; mine is 30 December
• We are both once divorced
• We have both been with our current partners for ten years
• We both have two young daughters
• We both have one brother, and two sisters (OK, I’m guessing – she may have more than two)
• We both went to school in Hong Kong
• We are both unabashed feminists
• We seem to have read many of the same books (I got the quote from Swallows and Amazons) – ok, not weird, but nice – I like it when people read the same stuff I do.
  

Oooh! Spooky huh!

Of course there are probably an equal number of things we don’t have in common – not least of which is that she is a superwoman who works full-time while being a mother to three children and she spins, weaves, knits and cooks, and she can do the whole dpn thing and make socks; while I am a full-time stay at home mum who can’t work up the energy to get off the sofa and do housework ever, and I still believe dpns are the devil’s work. It’ll probably turn out that we sat next to each other in upper 5 at Glenealy Primary School… (We didn’t did we?)

Okay, now I promise I won't even mention her blog again for at least a month, because, you know, I don't want to come across like some kind of obsessive stalker and scare the poor woman to pieces!

On the knitting front... I finished the front and back of the green jersey for the little one, and I've done one sleeve. And I now have SO MUCH RESPECT for people who write knitting patterns - I've been trying to type it all nicely as I go along and it's a chore people. I've written the whole front, and I thought I'd written the back, and then I realised I'd written half of it backwards (or something) and I need to sit down and look at it compared to the actual back. I started writing the sleeve pattern, and then changed my mind about what I was doing, and now I feel like writing: 'it's a sleeve for god's sake - just knit the damn thing so it looks like this one'. I don't know that this is quite what people expect in a pattern though. And boy, do I understand the whole 'work increases while keeping the pattern consistent' thing - if I ever do write the sleeve up that's the cop out I'm going to use!

I did some other knitting in between but I just frogged the whole lot and it's too depressing to write about. I'll try, try and try again :-)

And tell me, is it actually illegal to sell your children on trademe or ebay? Or is it just frowned upon?

When children meet lip gloss

Aren't they just...

I don't even wear makeup (apart from concealer generously applied to the full set of matched luggage that turns up under my eyes many many mornings) and yet Katie has developed an obsession with lipgloss and nail polish and who knows what else. I think she gets it from other kids at kindy.
A while ago - back when K was only three - our teenaged next-door-neighbour gave me a bag of lip gloss, stick on tattoos, eye shadow etc for Katie. I said thank you nicely and hid it at the back of a drawer and went and had a quiet rant about the premature sexualisation of girls, the anti-feminist marketing practices of cosmetic companies - the usual stuff, I'm betting I even threw in the word patriarchy - and then I forgot about it. Well look who found it! And I have to say it made me giggle a lot - but oh what this society does to little girls. So long as they keep thinking that the nose is a great place for lip gloss I'm not going to get my knickers in a twist though!

On a completely unrelated topic... I finally found the blog of the one and only person who ever commented here and I think I'm in love - go read Mad Hair Day because I said so (it's the mother in me - I can't help it). On one of her wonderful posts she wrote:

I write a post for this blog every day, you know. In my head while I'm in the shower I compose great reams of waffle and you can all be awfully glad that I am blessed with an appalling memory and absolutely no free time in which to write it all down.

Which is exactly what I do. Only I do it on the bus and sometimes it doesn't stay just in my head and people look at me strangely...

Why a Chocolate Cake Recipe?

Amy's Great Chocolate Cake

Sift together:

1 ½ cups flour
1 ¼ cups sugar
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ cup cocoa

Beat in:

½ cup vegetable oil

until mixture is consistency of bread crumbs.

Add:

2 beaten eggs
1 cup hot water
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Beat by hand for one minute.

Pour into greased cake tin or cupcake cases.
Bake at 180 C (350 F) for 20 – 25 minutes (cake) or 12 – 15 minutes (cupcakes)


Why am I posting a chocolate cake recipe? Because it's the recipe I always use for every occassion - it's quick, easy, and tastes delicious - and because when I went to make cupcakes and a birthday cake for Jess's birthday this week I COULD NOT FIND IT. I have made this recipe forty seven thousand times so I figured I'd be able to remember it, but could I? I made three batches of cupcakes, varying the recipe slightly each time and while they were all edible (thanks to the girls for being guinea pigs) none was quite right.

Luckily it turned up in time for me to make Jessie's cake but I started panicking about losing it again. I have written it into a recipe book, but what if I lose the book? I have stored it in the computer, but our computer... well, let me show you our computer...

Who needs an internal fan?

So then I realised that if I posted the recipe here, then when the computer dies (and it's definitely when not if) I'll still have the recipe safe and sound. Plus, since people are apparently visiting this blog (still freaked by that!) someone else may need a good cake recipe :) The recipe is Amy's Great Chocolate Cake Recipe because that's what it's always been called in our family. Amy was the woman who gave this recipe to my mother in the late 60s or early 70s - may her name be honoured forever!

And if anyone else has a child having a birthday, you must read this, which is just the loveliest thing ever, thank you Stephanie.

Aaaaaaaaaaagh

It's been one of those weeks where I am constantly asking myself why I decided to have children (and I did decide, it was just the timing that came down to my really poor grasp of basic maths! You know, 'oh, it's twenty-eight days, d'oh!'). Anyway, I keep asking myself why, and some evil mean nasty part of my brain keeps answering 'it was a HUGE mistake. Kill them now!'.

On Tuesday the little darlings (including one extra 4 year old):

• Got the collage material box off the shelf I thought they couldn't reach and made a 'magic garden' of sequins, glitter, felt shapes, etc, all over the dining room floor. Easy to sweep up but they...
• Poured water all over the 'magic garden' TM so that they could play mermaids. Then while I was cleaning that up they
• Crumbled a polystyrene box (also from a shelf I thought they couldn't reach) all over their bedroom carpet to make snow (as you do), and while I was cleaning that up they
• Got the rack of cooling cupcakes intended for Jess's birthday off the bench and covered the kitchen floor in crumbs and cupcake wrappers, and while I was cleaning that up, they
• Found a pot of barrier cream and painted Jessie head to toe. You know that stuff really is water resistant.

Jess on her own, and all on the same day mind you:

• Pulled out the kitchen drawers and climbed up them until she could stand on the kitchen bench and reach the really high shelf where we keep all the fun poisonous and deadly things, then proceeded to spray Katie in the face with shower cleaner (first time it's been used this year)
• Spent a lovely quiet (always a danger sign) quarter of an hour in the bathroom, dunking toilet paper in the toilet and eating it (I swear she's not mine!)
• Emptied every plant pot on the back deck onto the back deck, then made mud pies with potting mix and bubble mixture (and probably shower cleaner and toilet paper for all I know).

And all of this happened while I was trying to get the house looking nice for Jess's birthday tea on Wednesday.

Anyway, I didn't kill them, which is probably a good thing, and Jess had a very nice birthday, and no-one was rude enough to point out the sequins I'd missed or the fact that Jess still had barrier cream in her hair.

Not a lot of knitting has been done.

Ooooh, but I'm all excited... look to the right and you'll see a nifty little percent bar that shows how far I've got on the green lacy jersey (which I've called Spring Leaf because I am tired and uninspired and totally devoid of creative or original thought). Isn't it cool! God I love doodads and nicknackery like that :) It's from Yarn Tomato and it was really easy! Go get one!

And... I thought I'd freaked out badly when someone left a comment a while ago (Who are you? Why did you do that? Why are you reading this? Go away and read Yarn Harlot or Crazy Aunt Laurie or any real blog!) but I just discovered that Andi at Knitstant Gratification has put a link to here on her blog (which is a wonderful blog - go read it). You know, I have started diaries thirty seven million times in my life, and never lasted more than a week or two. The only thing that keeps you writing a blog is the thought that someone might be reading it - but when you realise that someone is reading it it's very disconcerting. In a good way. Possibly. All very strange, and I have more sequins to chase...

On posting patterns and pizza

I keep saying I'm going to post patterns and I don't... Partly this is because my patterns tend to look like this:

This is how the pattern for the little orange and pink cotton dress looks at the moment. Katie helped to colour it in, even though I pointed out that most knitting patterns aren't actually coloured in. Oh good grief!

It's also because I'm never quite satisfied with them... The cotton dress's sleeves were wrong and if I wrote the pattern out properly I'd change the sleeves a bit. But if I were to then post the pattern, I'd have to knit the new version of the dress so that I'd have a picture. And really people, who can be bothered?

I have been working on the ventouse hat - I knitted a new one, this time with a flat back... Which is nice I think. But I haven't picked up and knitted the neck band and ties yet, and I can't because I got enthused about a leaf lace pattern and started knitting a jersey with the 4mm needles that I was using for the hat. And once again, the kids have been playing hide the needles, and I'm back to one pair of 4mms.

So I can't post the pattern because I can't finish the hat.

The new jersey however, will be different! (I hope) I've been typing the pattern as I go (heaven forbid I should actually know where it's going!) so that if it works out nicely, I'll be able to post it straight away :-).

The lace is from a book called Beautiful Knitting Patterns by Gisela Klopper, and it's really pretty. I decided to do it panels with some cables, and so far so good... I'm now trying to decrease the lace nicely and make the cables go around the neck (or something) so cross fingers for me. Then I have to decide what to do with the back and sleeves... Knitting by the seat of your pants!

I haven't been blogging very often because life keeps getting in the way. I got my second assignment in for university, which ate a lot of my free time and made me just not want to go near the computer. I have no idea how this one will do - I thought my first essay was pretty crappy and I got an A+. This is what ten years away does to your judgement. This one I think is really crappy and when my lovely partner read it he said, 'You're not really handing that in are you?' so I'm thinking that the old GPA may slip a little! Then I have the exam on 15 June and that's one paper down, 4 to go, and I'll be a university graduate (a little unhatched chicken counting there).

On Friday I went to kindergarten with Katie and made pizza (including dough from scratch) with 23 children. I expect the shaking to stop anytime soon. Whatever kindergarten teachers are paid should be trebled immediately. Anyone who deals lovingly and patiently, on a daily basis, with the kid who poured flour a) into the yeast mixture, b) all over the floor, c) all over the kid next to him, d) all over the just-about-to-go-into-the-oven pizza and e) all over me, deserves to earn at least as much as the Prime Minister. And when I rule the world, I intend to sort that out. Glad we've got that clear.

Must go knit...

May your child be undersized and deformed

Last night I went out to dinner for my friend Kate's birthday. That's right - I left the house without children, at night and I talked to adults who don't have children. Wow!

Kate is pregnant (16 weeks) so I knitted a baby bonnet yesterday to toss in with her present. It didn't quite work (but I gave it to her anyway - dammit, it took me a couple of hours!) but it has potential so I'm going to try again and then I'll post the pattern. Anyway, here it is, beautifully modelled by Katie's doll Smelly Baby (don't ask). As I said to Kate, I was obviously hoping that her baby has a very small head, which you have to admit is kind, and if she needs a ventouse delivery she'll have a hat that'll fit beautifully...

Happy Mother's Day

Here's a little question in honour of Mother's Day, which I believe was supposed to be yesterday...

Q: What's worse than waking at 1am to a little voice saying, 'Mummy, I wet the bed'?

A: Realising that it's your bed she's talking about.

Oh the joys of motherhood are never ending.

Anyway, I haven't been blogging about knitting this week - I've been knitting instead. And... ta da! One cotton dress for the girls' cousin in London. Spotlight had this lovely cotton on sale (which is how I make all my decisions about what to knit) and since it's not cotton season here, Olivia got lucky. Jess was very happy to be the model but I think she thinks it's her dress so there could be tears before bedtime. But then, when are there not tears before bedtime? I'm so pleased with how this turned out that if I get my act together (cue uproarious laughter) I think I'll write the pattern out nicely and post it for the delight and delectation of anyone else who got their hands on some Spotlight cotton.

Alpacas ate my baby

So I ripped out all those pleats and the lace - don't think the wool will ever be usable though. Let's just NOT talk about ripping back MOHAIR okay? At least I know I can do pleats - if I ever decide I just don't have enough stress in my life!

Sometimes, especially after a whole spate of cables, lace, stuff-ups and frustrations, you've just got to go for the thick wool/small child combo... So Jess, as of about an hour ago, has a brand new jersey:



The greyish bit is Patons Inca - 50% wool, 30% acrylic and 20% alpaca, which I used 6.5 mm needles to knit. Forty-four stitches wide - boy that went fast! The cream is something lovely and expensive - I think it was pure wool - that I bought back when I was gainfully employed. The whole thing turned out way better than I'd imagined. And at half past five this morning I learnt how to do lazy daisies (or something? I'm not an embroiderer) and put three little flowers on the front - doesn't everyone do things like this at the crack of dawn?

Need more coffee now...

Run before you can walk

Okay, so I can't knit with four needles, but I can knit with ten, that's right, ten, needles. Count em!

I started another sweater and because I am now a Knitter and no longer a Beginner I decided to make up a pattern a leeeetle more challenging than the last one I wrote. Cue hysterical laughter. It has lace, it has decreases in the lace, it has PLEATS! I did a swatch with one pleat and it worked just fine, so I figured it would look pretty with four pleats... Of course I didn't consider how *&@$!%^& complicated that was going to be until I had done 20 cm of decreasing lace panels. Tra la la...

But look!!! It worked!!!

Of course while I was patting myself on the back for mastering pleats I noticed the row right near the beginning where I purled instead of yo p2tog right across the lace panels which pulls everything skew wiff and means it all bunches up and doesn't drape beautifully.

Yours, off to bang my head against the wall, Rachel

When do you stop being a beginner?

Having done all that cabling, and more importantly, having it work, I don't feel like such a beginner knitter any more.
I learnt to knit many many many moons ago - probably a good twenty-plus years - but I never finished anything more complex than a hat or a scarf until a couple of years ago. I started knitting after a long gap when I was pregnant with Katie but I developed carpal tunnel and had to stop. When Jess was born I hauled out my unfinished knitting and discovered that I had all the pieces of a cardigan - I just hadn't sewn it up. I have no idea why - carpal tunnel shouldn't stop you doing an hours' seaming but there you go - blame it on baby brain! (Women who have had children will understand!)
Since then I have finished heaps of things - seven or eight sweaters, a pair of baby trousers for Jess, countless hats - most of them from my own patterns (with very mixed results! Although I am still so proud of the trousers...). But I still felt like a beginner. This is very similar to motherhood...
I remember when I first started taking Katie to playgroup, when she was about 22 months old, I felt like a total fraud: all the other women were mothers, and I was just pretending. Even though at least half (oh, all right, three quarters) of them were younger than me I still felt like they were grown-ups and I was just this idiot who accidentally had a baby and had no idea what she was doing. Of course, just about everyone secretly felt like that (except for a couple of really, really irritating people who were probably prefects at school and always know everything and ... well you know the ones!). Sometime after Jess was born I stopped feeling like such a novice and fraud - still incompetent and with very little idea what I was doing, but at some point, without really noticing, I had become a Mum.
And now, I think, maybe I've become a Knitter.

So, having read, and been inspired by, David Demchuck's wonderful column on why beginners shouldn't limit themselves to garter stitch scarves, I decided to try to conquer the Everest of beginner knitters... The Sock. My mother kindly came around with a set of double point needles (because I couldn't find any of mine - I really should do just a little more housework and a little less knitting) and I hauled out the gorgeous expensive pure wool that she bought me a year ago and sat down with the wonderful visual instructions from Terri Lea Royea.

Well people, all I can say is that knitting with four needles is against the laws of physics and nature. It just can't be done. I don't care that thousands of people claim to do it regularly - they're all liars. Or else I am incredibly stupid. And I got an A+ for that shoddy essay (very odd I must say, standards at university seem to have slipped) so I can't be that dumb...

So I put aside the dpns (for 'put aside' read 'threw violently at the wall') and went back to things I know - hats!

Yup, it's been a week of hats here. I made a hat to match the purple jumper, after which Katie demanded a hat to match the cabled jumper, and then Jess had to have one just because. And because I'm bored by beanies, I've been working on variations of a hat I call Hex.

I was going to insert some photos there but they're on the camera, which is out of batteries again. I finally bought some new rechargeable batteries, but it seems they don't come charged. Who knew?

So here are two little photos, and when I get the batteries charged I'll slap some more up, along with the pattern!

Rorschach Knitting

The finished garter stitch tunic...



I don't know why we have developed this tipping-the-head-to-one-side-for-photographs thing...




Then Jess had to have a turn (as always) - Yo! Get down you crazy white baby!




The variegated wool made a rorschach blot on the front on the sweater which is kind of fun. So far we've had Rangitoto erupting, a malaysian kite, and a nuclear sub seen from the rear. The nuclear sub was the children's father, who I've been looking sideways at ever since - a nuclear sub? Where did that come from and should we be very worried?

A malaysian kite and Rangitoto (imagine the eruption) - what do you see?

Another day another collar

It's a happy day!

The collar doesn't look as bad as I thought and Katie is thrilled to bits with the whole sweater which is the important thing. I did cast off about forty rows too soon - which means that there aren't enough short rows to make a nice shape at the front, but there aren't so many rows that the sweater eats her head.




Having sorted that I went back to the purple garter stitch one. Here's what knitting with kids is like: Both of these sweaters used 4mm needles and luckily I have two pairs. At some point however, one of the kids swiped one needle and it hasn't been seen since. I think it's probably in their room somewhere but looking for a needle in there is like looking for, well, a needle in a haystack. There could be another child living in that tip and I wouldn't know! [I consider my role in life is to make other mothers feel good about their standards of housework - everyone I know can comfortably look at their houses and say, 'Well, at least it's not as bad as Rachel's!'] So I had the pink sweater on one needle, the purple sweater on one needle, and a third needle, which I guarded jealously, which I alternated between the two. But of course when you're doing short rows, you never reach the end of a row, so I had to finish the pink collar before I could go back to the purple one! (Which might partly explain casting off so soon!)
Anyway, the purple one, with its cowl neck, is now finished but the camera has run out of batteries. C'est la vie. I have enough of each yarn to make matching hats so that's the next project.

Now I have to go and eat chicken biryani - my lovely Bangladeshi friend Asma came over yesterday with a HUGE pot and we'll be living off it for a week.

If you're gonna do it, do it right

Well it turns out I can't do the wrap thing... The collar looks very odd.

The sweater, on the other hand, I think is pretty cool...

This is the sweater by itself

This is Katie trying on the sweater (note the beautifully cut hair - not bad considering I used blunt paper scissors and couldn't find a comb)

Then of course Jess had to have a turn.

That was all before I attached the odd collar. Now I have to wait and see how it actually looks on, before I decide whether or not to rip it out and start again. (No, Rachel, you absolutely cannot wake a sleeping child just to try on a sweater. Dammit)

How tragic is this... I scored maximum points on MSN Games 80s' Music Trivia. You wanna talk Wham! - I'm obviously your girl!

Elvis

So I've finished the second sleeve for the cable jersey, and I'm working on the collar. I don't know about this collar... First off, I've never done anything with short rows before and I'm not sure that a) I'm doing this wrap thing right and b) I'm going to able to do the knit wrap thing when I get to that point. And then... it's just so BIG! The gauge (which I may or may not be knitting in) for the pattern is 26 rows to 10 cm. And the collar is going to be about 67 rows. So it'll be over 25 cm. Now even folded in half - that's a HUGE collar for a small child! She's going to look like Elvis in his icky Las Vegas years... I may have to just cast off 30 rows early and see what happens.

I should have stuck to knitting my own patterns, amateurish as they are. At least then my poor daughter wouldn't have to choose between orangutan arms or Elvis!

I DO love my children I DO love my children

It's been one of those days...

Katie and I have been battling about her hair for the last year and a half; she adamantly refusing to have it cut, me threatening to hack it all off every time I have to comb it. It now reaches just about to her waist which is ridiculous on a four year old. So today she decides that it would be nicer shorter and starts cutting it herself... Part of me is shouting 'Yippee! Get rid of it ALL!', part of me is shrieking 'Aaaah - step away from the scissors now!' and the rest of me is rolling on the floor laughing because she looks so funny :-) I am not cruel enough to provide a photo.

As for the smallest one...


She decided to do a spot of redecorating in the kitchen with a permanent marker.

I'm opening the gin...

16 April 2007

Judy Small's Montreal, December 1989 keeps running through my head

It was a cold December afternoon, the line stretched round the block
And some of them were weeping and some were still in shock
Seven thousand came that day to pay their last respects
To fourteen women slaughtered for no reason but their sex
And the cameras and the mikes were there to record the grief and fear
Of the ordinary people who worked and studied here
And a woman in her fifties in a gentle quiet tone
Summed up her sisters' outrage at the murder of their own

She said, I wonder why, as I try to make sense of this
Why is it always men who resort to the gun, the sword and the fist
Why does gunman sound so familiar while gunwoman doesn't quite ring true
What is it about men that makes them do the things they do

And the man behind her in the line, he started getting steamed
He said, It wasn't because he was a man, this guy was crazy, mad, obscene
Yes he was crazy, the woman replied, But women go crazy too
And I've never heard of a woman shooting fourteen men, have you
And all those other times came flooding back to me again
A hundred news reports of men killing family, strangers, friends
And yes I can remember one or two where a woman's hand held the gun
But exceptions only prove the rule and the questions still remain

And don't you wonder why, as you try to make sense of this
Why is it always men who resort to the gun, the sword and the fist
Why does gunman sound so familiar while gunwoman doesn't quite ring true
What is it about men that makes them do the things they do

And I know there are men of conscience who aren't like that at all
Who would never raise a hand in anger and who reject the macho role
And if you were to ask them about the violence that men do
I know they'd say they hate male violence too

And so we wonder why, as we try to make sense of this
Why is it always men who resort to the gun, the sword and the fist
Why does gunman sound so familiar while gunwoman doesn't quite ring true
What is it about men that makes them do the things they do

Sleeveless sweaters have their merits

Things sneak up on you when you're a parent; the kids change so quickly and all of a sudden you realise that they're into a whole new phase of development. Jess thinks she can talk now, and to be fair, she's come a long way. A few months ago she had a toy that Katie wanted, and Katie asked me if she could have it. 'You need to ask Jess if you can have a turn after her,' I said. So Katie turned to Jess and said 'Gaa gaa goo goo ba boo?'. Jess, unsurprisingly, looked at her blankly and wandered off. Katie turned to me, terribly aggrieved, and said, 'She didn't even answer me, and I even asked her in her own language!'. Lovely! But Jess now mostly speaks a variety of English, although you'd have to be a mother to understand. Not necessarily her mother sadly: my sister does a much better job of interpreting than me. The bitter and twisted part of me mutters that that's because she's emotionally and intellectually closer in age to Jess. This is not kind I know but you get that.
On the knitting front things proceed apace... I now have a sleeve for each jumper. My tension seems to have gone haywire on the garter stitch so I'm encouraging Katie to hang from the monkey bars as much as possible. If her arms don't stretch at least she'll build up the strength to wear the cable one: all that bulky cabling means she's going to have to walk around with her arms held straight out to the sides. Hey ho...

Books books books

Went to the library to look for books on the Muriwhenua treaty claim and came home with three knitting books, as you do. It's this terrible innumeracy I suffer from - I set out to find the 993s, get confused, and find myself surrounded by 746s. Damn that Dewey!
Having not finished either sweater yet, I am, of course, thinking about my next five projects. (This always happens: halfway up the back of a jersey I get this ok-I'm-so-over-this-one feeling and have to force myself not to begin yet another. Does everyone do this?) One of the books I found is so good that I may have to buy it... Hand Knitting: New Directions by Alison Ellen, who you can find here. Gorgeous gorgeous book with a fascinating potted history of knitting and fabulous clear instructions for all kinds of interesting techniques.
The second book I brought home because it had very clear instructions for doing a crocheted edge on a knitted garment, which is something I'm thinking about for one of my next things. Apart from that, all I can say about Clever Knits by Kristine Clever is that she should be very very very glad that YouKnitWhat.com is no longer adding new items. I joke about punishing my children with hand knits (although the purple, lime green and pink feather and fan jumper I made for Jess really was against the Geneva Convention) but this woman!!! Her poor children not only have to wear these sweaters but she's published pictures of them wearing them in a book!!!!! Years and years of therapy ahead...
The other book was the Readers Digest Ultimate Sourcebook of Knitting and Crochet Stitches which means poor old Jess may get a sweater that combines 47 different stitches, cables and colours. It'll have to be Jess, because Katie is now old enough to fight back dammit.

If I could cartwheel I would

The front of the garter stitch jersey is finished!
The essay is finished - ok so it sucks badly and it's 750 words over the limit, but it's finished!
The girls are both asleep, and what's more, in their own beds!
I am eating all their Easter eggs to celebrate! (I'm a mother, I'm entitled)

I'm putting off procrastinating till later...

Have finished the back of the cable jersey, and am about 3 cm off finishing the garter stitch one. Of course I shouldn't actually be knitting, or blogging, at the moment. What I should be doing is writing 2000 words on the ways in which Maori demonstrated their understanding of the Treaty of Waitangi in the period 1840 to 1872, and the ways in which the government accepted or refuted those understandings. Or something like that. I (foolishly?) decided to return to university part-time this year to complete my i n t e r m i n a b l e bachelor of arts (begun in 1990). Studying with small children around is harder than knitting with small children around I have to say!
Katie (4) is very intrigued by my being back at school. She suggested that I take something I'd knitted and stand up at the front of the class and show everyone. I like this idea - could I hand in a cabled jersey in place of an essay? Could we call it a post-modern interdisciplinary interpretation of the question? With the separate strands of wool represented the separate discourses that developed around the Treaty, and the cables representing the ways in which those disparate discourses came together before moving apart again? And the rows representing movement over time? And the bit I buggered up and cabled the wrong way could be a visual and tactile representation of the hostilities that arose when the differing interpretations of the Treaty clashed. It's tempting but I don't know that my tutor would buy it...

From one extreme to another

So, after doing all that weaving in (all that endless weaving in) and then buggering up the finishing of the cardigan I decided that I would a) do something simple (with minimal weaving in) and b) follow a pattern for once!

I found a pattern in a book I had lying about for a cowl neck, garter stitch tunic. Garter stitch! And all in one colour! I had some nice variegated wool in a box and off I went.

Boy, garter stitch palls after a few rows. And even though this is for my four year old, it was still 33 cm of garter stitch before anything at all was due to happen. And that was only a little minor armhole shaping before continuing for another 16 cm.

So I figured I'd do a more complicated one simultaneously so that when I got bored with the garter stitch I could switch to something tricky, and if it became too tricky I could switch back.

The garter stitch has seriously addled my brain because I have decided to have a go at my first ever cable sweater. And it's a doozy. You've got to love a pattern that says these 32 rows form cable pattern don't you! Thirty two rows??? Oh boy!

But, trumpet fanfare please, I have completed the back of the garter stitch tunic and the front of the cable sweater.

So now I have one front and one back and my lovely partner is wandering around the house singing, 'put 'em together and what do you get? Bibbidy bobbidy boo' incessantly. I'm loving the cable I have to say - it's a lot of fun, and the garter grows so quickly that I keep having a warm glow of achievement. I'm working on the cable back now, and I can see problems ahead... not with the back, which is straightforward, but when I get to the sleeves... there's this nasty little phrase: keeping continuity of pattern as you shape the sleeve. Shaping the neck nearly killed me so we may yet wind up with stocking stitch sleeves. I'll keep you posted. The other bit that's going to be interesting is the collar, which involves strange stitches I'd never heard of, and diagrams I can't follow. Thank goodness for KnittingHelp.com, which has video instructions for something that seems to be the same. Let's hope it is...

Nine months between posts! Well, it's a good job nobody much reads this!

There are reasons for my absence... a couple of weeks after my last post my mother had a totally unexpected stroke and nearly died. She is now, thank god, almost back to her old self and doesn't seem to have sustained any major lasting damage. But it was a horrible time - especially the first few months. Because she is such an amazing woman, she has friends (and family) all over the world - all of whom were wanting constant updates on her health and progress. So we discovered yet another use for a blog! I don't know what we all did without the internet. I set up a blog and my sisters and I constantly updated it so that everyone could keep up with Annie's progress. It was fantastic, and something I 'd really recommend to anyone in similar circumstances. So this blog slid while we worked on that one...

By the time Annie was well enough for me to think about knitting or blogging, Jessie had learnt to climb onto the sofa - which put paid to knitting for a good few months - very hard to concentrate on knitting when an eighteen-month old has firm hold of one end of a needle, or is seeing how many rooms she can stretch a ball of yarn through. And then of course it was summer and who wants to knit when it's 30 degrees.

But by February, although it was still hot, Jessie had learnt that No means No (to an extent, my she's a stroppy little thing!) and I managed to finish off the rainbow striped cardigan I was knitting back in June. All those loose ends! There were fourteen stripes on the back, two fronts and two sleeves, and they all had two ends to weave in. Never again!

There are no photos. Maybe once I've ripped out and reknitted the collar and button bands... and first I should probably learn how a collar should work...

Anyway, it may all have gone horribly wrong but it got me knitting again! :-)