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...