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!

Four things I did this week.

 

1. Assisted with the making of mosaics at the museum. Babybel designed her own. The VHC had a pattern for a bee, but he decided to make it 'multi-coloured' (his new favourite word) and then asked 'Where's the bee?'  

2.Worked my way through some exercises from this book. I’m up to exercise 6, although exercise 5, which is drawing with smoke, has been postponed for when I'm feeling strong.

 

3. Finished July's Advent Bough decorations. And while I was at it, I cut out August's as well. Nothing beats being ahead of the game.  

 

4. Given in to the little voice that kept telling me the other buttons  weren't big enough, and bought some bigger ones for the first long glove. (And picked them all up off the floor when the bag burst after I took that photo.)  

 

  Four things I haven't done this week.   

1. Taken off the too small buttons (predictive text suggested 'two'. I wish) and sewn on the new ones. 

2. Finished this. But I will, I will, this week, barring disasters!

3. Done much decluttering. We tackled the landing book shelves (did I mention that?) and we now have 25 bags of books to get rid of. That's an awful lot of bags to take down to the book bank, and the local ones definitely don't have the capacity to take so many, so we have called a halt until we have cleared the backlog. 

4. Watched any cycling. But I will be making up for that over the weekend!

Four things I've done in the last fortnight

Four things I've done in the past fortnight:
 
 1. Watched far too much bike racing on TV.

 2. Taken the little guys to make some 'Neolithic pots' at their local museum. No photos, I'm afraid, because I forgot my camera, but I'm sure you can imagine some coiled pots made by a seven year old and a three year old. I wasn't sure they'd enjoy it, but they did: Babybel, who 'doesn't like trails', also loved doing the Stone Age worksheet provided by the museum, and looked far harder at their selection of Neolithic tools than she would have done otherwise. The VHC made a much better job of constructing his pots than I expected, and spent the next half hour asking what all sorts of things are made of. ('What's water made of?') We all enjoyed trying out an antler pick (those things are heavy!) and stroking the deer skins. Next week is a Roman mosaic coaster, and I think we'll be going back.

3. Worked on my latest unwearable, apparently unending glove. These things are not instant gratification, and this one is extra slow because it is colour work. Lumpy colour work.

   

4. Sewn the 70+ buttons on the first unwearable glove. I think I mentioned that I had discovered that the buttons I thought would do wouldn't, because they wouldn't  go through the button holes, so I went back to my first idea of using mother of pearl ones. I ordered some very cheap ones from eBay - or maybe Amazon - and then realised that they were going to take weeks to get here because they were coming from China. They arrived this week, and are a little smaller than I'd hoped, but they look OK, so I've sewn them on. It was boring, and I could only face it while listening to the aforementioned bike racing. Until it got exciting, of course, when I had to stop sewing and watch. (Sorry about the image quality, my phone really really didn't like this!)

Four things I haven't done in the last fortnight: 

 1. Blogging. As you may have noticed.

2. Decluttering. We've done some, but the pace has definitely slowed. This may have something to do with number 1 above.

 3. Uni work. Again, this may be related to the amount of daytime TV we've been watching.

 4. This month's Advent decorations. (I did do June's, although I don't think I posted about them.) However, this morning I cut out some felt stars which I have been working on while listening to/watching  this afternoon's excitements.

Now the racing is over, but the school holidays have started, so our time will be spent entertaining the little guys. The VHC has asked for a trip to the 'little trains' and the 'science place'. Babybel has not yet expressed an opinion, but I have no doubt we will be told before long. Granny rather fancies the Charlie and Lola trail at Mottisfont, but as mentioned, Babybel 'doesn't like trails', and regards herself as too grown up for Charlie and Lola, so granny's persuasive powers may be called into action... Perhaps a promise of fish feeding, icecream and a visit to the chicken wire horse will help?    

Sorry that the layout of this is a mess, Blogger is being a bugger. Again.    

Recovering

from six days grandparenting on the trot has taken four 'normal' days (which included another1.5 grandparenting days). If you are the parent of young children you will be saying ’Only 6 days? I do it all the time!' - and I would have said the same 30 years ago - but that was 30 years ago, and somehow it seems much harder now! 

Still, we all survived: ducks were fed, school sports days were attended, the Race for Life was completed (and £250 raised for Cancer Research) by 2 of the fitter members of the family, and prizes were won by the carnival float, to which the little guys and their parents contributed time and effort, and granny contributed two mermaid tails and a red bandana. 

Decluttering also continued on days when we had the energy, and there is a little more room in half the kitchen cupboards. And of course, the Tour de France has also been watched. We didn't manage much of the live TV, but we have managed the highlights, and the right people have won - on a few occasions. (Go Cav!)

In between all that, there has been time for some knitting (but not blogging, and not much housework, as may be evident from this photo. One can be done sitting down, the other can't.)

The oft-started, top-down glove has been finished (and washed, which was a bit of a mistake, as it shrank a bit, and not evenly), and a new one, also top-down, started. I should perhaps point out that the mistakes in these are, if not intentional, intentionally uncorrected. A theme of imperfection/deterioration/ageing seems to be developing here - and knitting till the yarn runs out as a metaphor for life and death. Perhaps a rather morbid theme, but it's been one of those years! 

Learning from Experience

Other people's, in this case. Both sons have moved house recently, and seeing them battling with the sheer quantity of stuff each of them had accumulated over just a few years in relatively small houses, made us think about the amount of junk we have after 25 years in a (too) big house. I've already de-stashed a lot of my books, but that was just a drop in the ocean. I happened to read a post on a blog about tackling decluttering 15 minutes at a time, one room at a time, and we decided that was a good approach. Two of us working together = 30 minutes, and we'd be better motivated - and tougher about getting rid of stuff - working together. So last week we started with the bathrooms, on the grounds that there wasn't much in there, so it was an easy start. And there wasn't much - apart from an embarrassingly large collection of out-of-date over-the-counter medications, which had to be disposed of, together with some tired towels, grubby loofahs, etc.  This week was the turn of our bedroom, which was a somewhat larger task: indeed, had we stuck to 15 minutes a day, we'd still be on the second chest of drawers. But, like emptying the dishwasher, once we'd started we had to finish, so we tackled it one item of furniture per day. After a week, we have dozen bin bags heading for the charity shop, another dozen destined for the dump, empty  space in our wardrobes, and drawers we can actually close. It feels good!  Next week is very full of grandparenting, including a sleepover and a Race for Life, so we will tackle the hall and porch.  Despite this frenetic (?) activity, some needlework has been done. The endless gold glove has ended: I haven't measured it yet, but I think it's getting on for 4 metres to the end of its longest tail - or tentacle, it does tend to grab things. I was going to photograph it outside today, as it's outgrown the stairs, but as it's raining I decided not to bother.

  The tapestry weaving for beginners sample has also been finished. I need to work on my selvedges, but despite appearances the beginning is the same width as the end, which must be a first for my weaving.

And the long heralded, much restarted upside down glove has reached the cuff. Working out how to get the pattern to work in reverse involved a lot of standing on my head. (I lie, I turned the book upside down, but it was almost as confusing.)

I think this will be another long one, but I need to think about how I want to finish it off, which will involve experiments with samples of the fabric, bleach and matches. But not all at the same time.     

The Third Glove

Although I haven't yet finished the long, tatty glove, I decided it was too unwieldy for working on outside the privacy of my own home. I found some Aran cotton I've had for a long time (no idea why I bought it, but that's the story of my life.) I was going to use my usual (adapted from an old pattern book, 39 stitch, 5mm needles, wrist to finger) pattern. It comes out a bit big for me, but slightly over life size seems right. I use a waste yarn cast on, knit the hand bit, then pick up from the waste yarn and knit the cuff in the opposite direction. This allows me to go on knitting till the yarn runs out, which is a metaphor for life. Maybe. But. (There is always a but.) The original design has a twisted stitch pattern on it. I thought it was a cable pattern, and I didn't fancy working a cable pattern on what could turn into a 2-3 metre long glove - but when I looked properly it isn't a cable, and twisted stitches would be OK. Maybe. (There is always a maybe.) So, on Wednesday, while we were waiting in at the Cheese Minor's new house (again) for the Openreach man to turn up (he actually did this time!),  I cast on my 39 stitches, worked a few rows - and realised that the twisted stitch design would look different above and below the join. I would have to knit it from the finger tips down. I've done that many times before, but I find making separate finger and thumb tubes and then joining them together irritating, so I don't usually do it. Time for Plan B - but not that day. On Thursday, back at Cheese Minor Mansion, in the time between shopping and going to pick up the VHC from Nursery, I cast on for the thumb, and knitted 2.5 inches of stocking stitch. Well, approximately 2.5 inches, I didn't have a tape measure, but it fits my thumb. Then I cast on for the little finger. The fingers have the twisted stitch pattern on them, but I started it merrily, and it was easy to pick up. I was nearly at the end of the little finger (no measuring here, just a set number of pattern repeats) when I realised that I had made a mistake, about 5 rows from the beginning. Easier to pull the whole lot back and start again. But not that day. No photo, just imagine an unpatterned, slightly large, cream Aran thumb... We will be back at Cheese Minor Mansion on Monday, waiting in for an IKEA delivery this time, so I will have another go then. (Unlike Openreach, IKEA have told Mr Cheese Minor when they will be arriving, but somehow '10.16' has a precision which does not encourage confidence.) I had hoped to show you a photograph of the long tatty glove, finished, but it isn't, so I can't. Here it is unfinished.  

You can see how little yarn there is left though, so if I can just stop procrastinating (drinking tea, writing blog posts, doing a bit of weaving, playing Patience...) I could finish it easily. Part of the problem is that it is on 15mm needles which I find hard to hold, plus the yarn and the needles are slippery, so they keep parting company. Which is good, because I want it to look tatty, but irritating.  However, the major problem is that I am bored with it. Three or four metres of purse stitch can do that to you. You may have noticed the mention of weaving. As I couldn't get to Jilly Edwards' class on tapestry weaving at Walford last month, I joined a couple of friends in a teach ourselves day on Tuesday. (Made a  nice change from waiting in for people.) Fortunately C. had attended a class and knew about complicated stuff like twining and half hitches, so we sat in her very covetable workroom and played. This is mine, although I've added a bit more since then. I made the mistake of taking a fairly restricted range of threads, and wish I'd taken something a bit more interesting than wool, but it was a good learning experience, in good company, on a lovely day. 

  (I've just noticed how that diagonal stripe bottom right goes with the carpet!)   I shall resist the temptation to pick it up again, and stick to my knitting. (That's the weaving, not the carpet...)