Halloween

Works in Progress

This one is actually not a WIP, it's finished. It is a fractal Christmas decoration, follow the link for the pattern. As I'm still learning how to defeat use my new printer, I didn't manage to print out the pattern as bright as the original. And I think if I did it again, I might use t-shirt transfer paper rather than printable fabric, which was a bit thin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, in my case, it's an Advent decoration - the 23rd I've made. It's actually the one that's due in November, so I'm ahead of myself. Don't be impressed, it was procrastination. I was giving myself a break from this.

 

The latest mega glove, with the last of my wool from Texere. (Sniff, sniff.) The pattern (yes, there is one) is a cellular automaton, which is superficially random, but has an underlying logic.

The glove weighs about 600 gm a at the moment. and it's getting lumpy to turn round, so I need to take breaks, don't I?

 

 

Mega glove no.1 (all 3 metres/2kilos of it) is finished, but drying. Well, probably finished. It has (deliberately) dropped stitches in it, and after having a discussion with Wensleydale about the veins on the backs of our hands (as you do) I'm wondering about weaving or back stitching into some of them for veiny marks.

Another break was spent making these, as per the suggestion of the visiting tutor from Uni, Christine Mills. Now I have to make them their own white cube gallery space to see what they may look like in the Degree Show. Just imagine them 3 metres high, not 15 cm...

 

Scary words, Cheshire, only 5 months away, get knitting!

 

I'm very confused...

so no change there. The reason I'm confused this time is that according to BlogPadPro, I haven't posted for a month, but according to Blogger, it's 'only' two weeks. Just hope Blogger is right, and that you can see the all the posts I can see on line!

I know I've got lax about posting, but not much exciting seems to be happening round here. Enjoyable, most of it, but not exciting, which may or may not be a good thing! We grandparent, we do the chores, I go to Uni, I knit - that's about it. The highlights of this week have been having my hair cut (relaxing) and going to the bank to rationalise our ISAs (exhausting).  The big trauma of the week, was that Texere, the company I was planning on buying all my wool for Uni from, has gone into liquidation. Fortunately my last order arrived, but where will I go for industrial quantities of rug wool now? I've used them for years, and will miss them.   But - keep calm and carry on knitting. This...

                                now looks like this. All 2.75 metres and 1.6 kilos of it.  

 

I've been thinking that it's not growing very quickly, but then I realised it's half as long again as the first one and it's taken less time.   (Anyone else hate the way IOS autocorrect cannot cope with apostrophes? All those 'it's' in the sentence had to be retyped because autocorrect doesn't realise that the 's' belongs to the 'it', not the next word. Drives me nuts!)                                     I've (did it again!) taken some time out to make October's Advent decorations. These were quicker and simpler to make than I expected, but the cutting was nerve wracking - I'm (got it right that time!) running out of felt. Serves me right for choosing such an odd colour scheme.

 

Just a few more and I may have enough ready in time for Christmas. And I bought our Christmas cake yesterday too. After years of making our own, we've realised that we are the only people in the family who eat Christmas cake, and we don't like it that much. So I bought a miniature one from Oxfam, which will give us as much as we want and benefit a good cause as well. Just the rest of the Christmas shopping to go now...

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.