Where have I been and what have I been doing?

1. Nowhere I don't usually go.

2.  a) Knitting. (Now there's a surprise.) What may or may not be the first glove of the degree show is finished - apart from getting a proper armature and support.

It's in double knit, and as it has taken me over four weeks to make it, and it's not really big enough (I ran out of wool), I have moved up to something a tad thicker.

Berber rug wool from Texere, on the biggest double points I own.

Of course a week after I bought it, Texere had a half price sale. 😢 So I ordered some more: 10 cones instead of 5.😊

b) Chasing up John Lewis to find out whether or not they'd delivered my new printer for click and collection (Yes! I had to chase up JL!), then collecting said printer and setting it up. The reviews on the website said it was easy to set up. They lied. It probably was easy if the disc in the box had the right software on it. Mine didn't. I ended up having to download the drivers, and even now it won't work wirelessly, but I can live with that.

It prints quite well, but it will be better when I can work out how to get it not to print in colour all the time. It may be time to invite the family techies round for fish and chips and technical advice. Again. 

On the other hand I downloaded El Capitan all by myself, twice, with only the minimum of swearing.

c) Adding more plaster to this.

 I gave up trickling diluted plaster down in a delicate manner, and plastered it on with a (very small) trowel. It's lumpy and cracking and I love it.

d) Sat in a traffic jam for 2 hours getting to Uni. Fortunately I allow time for traffic, so I still managed to get there in time to have some coffee and get to my lecture. Got to get your priorities right.

e) Being ill. I had a recurrence of the ear infection I had a few years ago. This meant that when I moved, the earth moved too, only more so, and it didn't stop moving when I did. Although Winchester does have a history of earthquakes, this was a very localised one, so I did something I've never done before and made an urgent appointment at the surgery. After a very thorough examination by a nurse paractitioner, my own diagnosis was confirmed and I came out with a prescription, and a flu injection as well. Not to treat the ear infection, but because it was a good idea. Just hope it's more effective than last years. 

I am feeling much better - still some problems with balancing, but the world is more stable. 

f) Making and eating cake. (You can tell how much better I am!) The little guys and their mum and dad held a Macmillan Coffee morning today, so I contributed a lemon cake and ate my fair share as well.

Next week is more knitting, less cake, less sitting in traffic jams (I hope) and as little IT as I can manage.

Technology? The good, the bad and the ugly

 

It all started a couple of weeks ago when Big Mac starring ticking. Yes, ticking. A bit worrying, but I was fairly sure it hadn't turned into a bomb. Unplugging and restarting it led to the return of the tick, and a white screen with an image of a grey file, and a flashing question mark. Further access was denied.

 

Time for a spot of Googling. (Is it better to have two or more means of accessing information technology, so you can Google problems with one using the other, or to have none at all? Discuss.)

 

Google produced a number of ways to tackle the problem, all of which:

1. Were incomprehensible and/or scary

2. Involved being able to get beyond the white screen of death, which I couldn't

 

 

Further Googling suggested that it was almost certainly a dead hard drive.

 

I thought briefly of consulting the family techies, but decided that if the back was going to have to come off it, I preferred a professional. But my heart quailed at the thought of lugging a heavy screen come computer from the car park, up an escalator and across a shopping mall to my nearest Apple shop. 

 

Was there an alternative! Back to Google...

 

Hurrah! An Apple repair company called Stormfront had a more accessible branch. Double hurrah, when we got there, there was a parking space right outside. Triple hurrah, their service was excellent. To cut a long story short, I knew before I left the shop that the hard drive was not dead, merely sleeping, that they would wake it up rebuild it, (don't ask me what this means, -  and even more, please don't tell me) and that it would cost me all of £25. And they messaged me about 4 hours later to say it was ready. I've got it home and it's working!

 

Unfortunately the printer isn't.

 

This is not the A3 Canon I bought recently, fortunately, but the cheap as chips HP all in one, which has probably lasted as long as the other cheap as chips HP all in ones we've had. I.e. not long. They both decided only to print when they felt like it (’Oh, I don't like that paper! It's too thick, too thin, too shiny, not HP paper, not the right colour...'). This one has decided that it doesn't want to print at all, refusing to recognise any of our computers or tablets, either wireless or plugged in. (It's not the cable, I checked.) It will still copy, which is nice of it, but of limited use. 

 

Unfortunately the Canon is not an all in one, and I think that repairing a £40+ machine is unlikely to be an economic prospect - so hey ho, hey ho, all in one shopping we will go.

 

All of this meant that the morning I meant to spend pouring runny plaster over a sample glove - as you do - turned into a morning of swearing and hair tearing. I got plastered this afternoon instead.

 

 

 

On the up side, I haven't had any problems downloading IOS9 - yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of those weeks

It's been a week which has been mundane, exhausting, hectic, nerve wracking, peaceful and frustrating in almost equal parts. Mundane because the little guys went back to school, but nerve wracking, for adults at least, because, hard as I find it to believe, they have both moved on a stage: the VHC is started big school, his big sister the Juniors. Both seem to have coped with the change, but there have been a few hiccups, and they have been very tired.

 

 

Hectic and exhausting because we had the little guys here for a sleepover, followed by babysitting for them at their house the following night. It might have been easier to have a two night sleepover, but mum and dad wanted to see them in the interim, which meant we got a brief break.

 

 

Peaceful when I found time to sit down and not only finish my August Advent bough decorations (the ones I cut out a month ago) but all to make September's as well. You will note that if you choose untraditional colours for your decorations, you end up with blue mistletoe.

 

 

 

And I spent a morning gossiping with my friend N, who had some very positive and helpful things to suggest about my uni work, followed by an afternoon at the hairdressers.

 

 

And frustrating, because having received an assurance from the charity shop that someone would contact me about the bags of books - no-one did. Foolishly I didn't check they had the right phone number, so I will have to chase them up again.

 

 

And finally - Wensleydale just went down to the bottle bank with an embarrassing number of bottles, to find the whole area roped off for cycling proficiency testing. So now we have bags of books in the hall, and boxes of bottles in the kitchen.

 

     

Tomorrow granny goes back to school, and that is definitely nerve-wracking.

Still Here...

and still knitting. 

Yes, I am knitting both ends at once. It's a long story - and a long glove.   

 Not much else has been happening. I've  had a series of what Babybel calls 'wrong days' - nothing major going wrong, fortunately, but not much going right. For example, the curtains were finished and hung - and, true to form, I've managed not to get the linings in straight, so the centre of each lining is slightly longer than the curtain. Harrumph.    

 Fortunately the VHC is very happy with them, and I got a special 'thank you' from him at his birthday party, despite competition from (more) Brio type trains and (more) Lego. He didn't get many other presents apart from Brio and Lego but was not in the least disappointed: in fact he was so preoccupied with building a truly amazing train track that he didn't eat his birthday cake. This is unprecedented: he is rather fond of cake.

Those are the VHC and his daddy's knees. I'll let you work out which is which.   

 (I made the cake. I will spare you the saga of making the cake. Let's just say it was similar to the saga of making the curtains, only stickier...)   

 The highlight of the week was a trip down to Walford to the 'Abode' exhibition, which foolishly I had thought would be furniture, but turned out to be mostly textiles/mixed media. Some names I knew (Caren Garfon, Debbie Smyth, Caroline Parrott, Betty Pepper), some were new to me (Hannah Sawtell, Ruth Allen). All good, and a bit of a fifties vibe in some things which I really liked.   

Despite the excellent work by these ladies, what both Wensleydale and I fell in love with was some plates. And bowls, jugs, cups etc. So much so that we came home and ordered some egg cups. We didn't need any egg cups, we were just in love. The range is called 'Eclectic Avenue' by a company called 'People Will Always Need Plates'.  Yes, They do. I really need plates like this.

So wee are trying to justify buying some. Like a dinner service's worth. Unfortunately we have rather a lot of china already: my grandmother's tea service, my aunt's tea service, my mother-in-law's tea service, and two complete(ish) dinner services of our own, best and every day, of which we only ever use the latter. But if we give the dinner services to the sons, and sell the older stuff (which we'd been planning on doing anyway) - we'd need some replacements, wouldn't we? And we'd have some money to spend on it, with any luck. (The inherited stuff is not immensely valuable, but tracking similar stuff down on Google suggests we might get something for it.)   

 So, when we've got rid of the 20 something bags of books, which someone from a charity which I won't name was supposed to contact me about and hasn't, and accumulated enough boxes and newspapers to pack it all, and got my MIL's stuff down from the loft - I'll take a sample to the recommended sale room's valuation day and keep my fingers crossed!    

The Curtains - Continued

  I mentioned last time that my attempt to  shorten and line the VHC's curtains had been scuppered because of the need to wash off the sticky fixers which someone had applied to them. They had dried out by Monday but we had a very busy day so it was on a Tuesday morning that I sat down to tackle them. Pressed them, took off the old curtain tape, started to cut the lining to size - and realised that the fabric wasn't  wide enough. Entirely my own stupid fault, of course. I had measured them, but when I went to buy the lining and heading tape I couldn't find the piece of paper with the measurements on. So I bought what I though was the right width and brought it home. What I hadn't realised is that these are very w-i-d-e curtains. Thomas needs a lot of room, being an engine, albeit only a small one. So, a trip out to buy some more lining - extra-wide, so I don't need to seam it - and home in time for a drink before lunch. I cut the new lining to size (I shall probably do some creative knitting with the other stuff, so it's not wasted) and started to hem it. All went well until I jabbed my thumb with the point of the scissors. Blood on the lining! I know the best thing to clean blood off is your own spit, but there was rather more blood than spit, so I held the scarlet section under the nearest tap and fortunately it washed out. It is now draped over the radiator to dry. (Yes, it's August. Yes, the heating is on. It's cold!) Then I decided to put a plaster on the nick, although it's not very big, to prevent further staining. It took me about 5 minutes to get the #%*{€>* plaster out of the packaging, finally resorting to the scissors that caused the damage, and it was difficult even with those. I'm all for keeping plasters clean, but impenetrable? - not a good idea.  I had a much needed cup of tea,  ironed the damp section and resumed work.  I finished hemming the linings, pinned them to the curtains, sewed them in. Pressed the result, folded the top hem, pinned the curtain tape to the top and -  cut it off about 10cm too short. (The curtain was folded and I thought I'd reached the side - but I hadn't. Of course, what is left is amply long enough for one curtain, but not long enough for two. I really can't face another trip to the shop, so I will get some more tape tomorrow and try again. In the meantime I will head for my burrow and scream quietly. I knew there was a good reason to buy that bottle of Bombay Sapphire on special offer last week...      

When I got up this morning...

the plan for the day was to alter and line the VHC's curtains. I had foolishly volunteered todo this, because the window in his new bedroom is shorter and brighter than his old one. In my youth I made curtains from scratch, with proper linings - indeed, we still have the first set I ever made, 40+ years ago, and they are bearing up well. (Sanderson Morris fabric, worth every penny we paid.)   But I have never enjoyed making curtains, and gave it up long ago. I resisted altering these till I could resist no more. As the VHC and his family are on holiday this week, it seemed like a good time. I screwed my courage to the sticking place and sat down at the sewing machine. Only to discover that, for some reason, the curtains were encrusted with sticky fixers. (The reason is probably a mischievous nearly 4 year old, currently in Bruges...) I picked off what I could, and washed out the rest, but obviously I have had to postpone the task till they dry.   So instead, I replaced the pages in the remaining hand made books I found in my unplanned decluttering last week. 

 

 And covered a tatty A5 ring binder I found in the same decluttering.

  And reminded myself how to use the A3 printer, to print some patterns I'd made. Last week's 'Playing with Sketches' exercise was making a tileable pattern. And once I'd made it, I played with it in iColorama. I'd course. Today I decided to print off some of the results. After I'd remembered that the A3 printer chunters to itself, loudly and at length, before printing, all went well. Two of these are on painted paper, because I found it when I was looking for the plain A3. Two don't tile, but I like them.

   And I found and photographed my slipper socks.  

   This was all much more fun than altering curtains...      

Four things I did this week.

 

1. Assisted Babybel and the VHC, with crafts at the museum again. This week was a rather clever idea, involving clear sticky back plastic (of course!) and felt. Each child made a felt picture on the sticky side, and when it was finished another piece was placed on top to seal it. The only problem was that the VHC got frustrated because he couldn't manage the scissors himself, so in due course we left big sister to it and went over to get him a library card, much to his delight. We left with some Thomas books, to nobody's great surprise.
2. Finished this, at last. It's a glove, in case you hadn't realised.
   
3. Took some time out from knitting gloves to make a quick pair of slipper socks, because my feet have been cold in this lovely summer we've been having. I hate to wear shoes in the house, but I refuse to give in and wear socks, (because it's summer!) so slipper socks seemed to be an acceptable compromise. Except it's got warmer, and I have put them in a safe place, so of course I can't find them to take a photo...
4. Done some of the decluttering I said I wasn't going to do until we'd got rid of the 25 bags of books. I'm continuing to work through the book 'Playing with Sketches', and Exercise 10 was doodling. I like using prepainted paper for doodling - so I started looking for a notebook with painted pages. Which led to going through all many of my notebooks, hand made books, sketchbooks, scrap books etc. etc. etc. By the end of the afternoon I had:

a. Some notebooks with painted pages, ready to doodle in; b. A few notebooks with contents I was still interested in, (in contrast to the large number I no longer had any interest in at all.) (I can hear someone saying 'You should have kept those!' No, I shouldn't, some of them have been up there, unlooked at, since before I started City & Guilds!); c. Six hand made books which need to have the pages replaced because I like the cover but I'm no longer interested in the contents; d. A box of blank notebooks; e. A box of sketchbooks with some pages left in them; f. Half a shelf of sketchbooks with no empty pages to speak of; g. Two boxes of hand made books too small or too interesting in structure to actually use; h. More space in my workroom; i. A bag of paper rubbish and a bag of non-recyclable rubbish; j. And a partridge in a pear tree. (Not really, though we often have a magpie in an apple tree.)   And I actually did some doodling!   Four things I haven't done this week.

1. Finished sewing the new buttons on the long buttoned glove. I'm probably about 2/3 of the way there, but taking one set of buttons off and replacing them with another set is more than twice as boring as putting them on in the first place. And I sewed the first lot on very firmly...
2. Replaced the pages in the hand made books that I decided needed new pages. I've done the three easiest ones, but the rest all have multiple signatures, and non-standard sized paper. And for some reason, replacing pages makes my back ache!
3. Started a new glove. Too busy making slipper socks.
4. Finished this month's Advent decorations, despite cutting them out in July. I did make a start but they are quite fiddly and I was tired (Excuses, excuses.)

  Next week will be busy, as the little guys are doing a dance summer school and need ferrying about all week. However the week after that we have off, so although we did think about going away, it's ended up being filled with optician's appointments, hair appointments, car services and so on.      That's the trouble with being retired, there's no time!