Bling, socks and more yarn!

Well, it's been an interesting time lately. Mojo has been lacking - partly because the weather has been ick and also because of other issues which I won't go into here. I've tried to make myself available to support my partner, and when that hasn't been required, I've been distracting myself with various social events, so there's not been much crafting time. The tumble dryer started shrieking and had to be replaced - the original manufacturer conned me into practically paying for a new one over twelve months (it and the washing machine are 8). When G returned from his snowboarding trip, we cancelled it and decided to go in for a new "heat pump" one. The old one actually destroyed several shirts when we first got it, and the sensor never sensed anything, so was costing a fortune to run and doubling as heating on laundry days. Some evil git scratched and dented my car and drove off, on a week when it could have happened in quite a few places (it still being dark fairly early), so that's another bill I could have done without. The less said about trying to get rid of our old sofa before the new one arrives, the better. It's been a trying year! 

Anyway, this weekend was the annual Kegworth "Going round in circles" event. Owing to a complete oversight on my part, I'd already bought tickets for myself, Mum and sil to attend the "Sewing for Pleasure" show at the NEC on the Sunday, and they don't do refunds alas, so I could only attend Kegworth on the Saturday. It was a lot of fun to catch up with old friends and make new ones. As I was teaching a class, I didn't get time to knit anything myself, and then I packed away quite early and wished I hadn't. Anne ran a cool class on how to make mini socks, and I'm hoping I made decent enough notes to be able to make some more of these. 

Aren't they cute?! Because of the dinky size, they are knitted as flat web and then grafted and sewn up one side. She even has a method for knitting the loop for adding to a keyring. I stayed for the evening meal, which was very nice, and then hot-footed it back home to bed. Yes, I did pick up some sock yarn, and no, I'll not bore you with the pictures. 

The NEC show was also fun - this one mostly focuses on sewers (sewists?) but there are a few yarn stalls dotted about, alongside beads, printmaking, marbling, card-making / scrapbooking, and the usual oddities - a cheese stall, olives, rum, moonshine, garden furniture and clothes/handbags. Ironically I only picked up a few findings and beads, and two pairs of "harem pants" which are great for lounging around the house in. They'll also be great for holidays, should I ever be lucky enough to go on another beach holiday. 

Some bling I picked up from the Southampton Bead Shop. It was all I could do not to buy more! So much lovely stuff! 

Current mood: awake

Pictures from the rabbit hole

I told you I'd been busy! Apologies for the rotten pictures, best I could do at 10pm at night

A little bit of peyote and a bracelet made from some old beads of Mum's - I think I already made it into a bracelet once but it fell apart.

Life's been upside down here and it's been hard to see the positives. The Cog's dad's been poorly and in hospital so the Cog's been gone every night for evening visiting. K is in a bad way and barely communicating; though he's home, no care package is in place so I am not sure how mum and son will cope. To put the tin hat on the icing, a certain big UK DIY brand that has flashy adverts (begins with W) are refusing to fix our leaking kitchen for spurious reasons - sealant doesn't perish within a year but is apparently not covered in their workmanship "guarantee" (quotes deliberate because clearly it's worthless). I despair of ever getting a major job done on this house to a decent standard. We had a cowboy left us with a misplumbed shower about eight years ago, and the company that came to swap the pipes from the other side (hot for cold) damaged the bath in the process by dropping something sharp into it. Nobody has any pride in their workmanship any more, nor any decency nor honesty when it goes wrong. For shame. I despair of humanity when it's all about the money and no quality control. I have never felt less Easter, in spite of the long weekend. Ugh.

Current mood: angry

A new rabbit hole and computer woes...

First the mini rant - you'd think buying a new whizzbang Windows 11 laptop would be a joyous thing, wouldn't you? Well, I finally managed to "attend" the virtual Radiohead exhibit that my previous laptop's graphics card could not cope with. No more falling through holes into space, forever stuck and having to hit EXIT just to go back to the front door to try again. It was an amazing piece of work and the ONLY "game" I intend to install on the new laptop. No - the IT bods, in their wisdom, have hidden the ports under W11. This is a problem because a perfectly functional DAK cable, that works fine with W10 (it makes my work laptop go "bing bong" if you want to get technical), can no longer be "seen" as viable - it says there's a fault with the USB cable, the fault being that W11 is ignorant. So I cannot get DAK to talk to the Passap E6000. I discovered this quite late at night and gave up in disgust after a fruitless hour trying updates etc. Nothing about it in the Softbyte manual, W11 has yet to be invented there. I am in dangerous waters here because I only want to add ports, I don't want to become admin and end up getting hacked. So tonight's possible job is to try and get to the bottom of that mess. Thanks for nothing, Microsoft! Ironically the Silverlink box works just fine, I suspect because the SK840, being "brainless", needs a seperately powered box with RAM, and even W11 can't ignore actual electricity! Not impressed, Microsoft! Way to annoy anyone with older kit they need to run. 

On a more positive note, I spent a happy morning at Amanda's Glass Academy making a flower ornament using bullseye glass and mille fiori with a fellow WI member and a few of her relatives. Again my only problem was not putting too much on there! I've not got it back yet as they take a while to get fired. The following day (Mother's day in the UK) was also the last day of "Sewing for Pleasure" at the NEC, which also encompassed the "Creative Craft" and "Fashion and Embroidery" shows for the same price. Four of us (Mum was one, seemed churlish not to invite her when I realised what day it was!) went there in the Cog's car and had a great day, though we all ended up splitting up ultimately. Every crafter has their own private passions! J wanted to check out the high tech overlockers, Mum wanted some scrapbooking things, W was looking out for books (not many alas) and I just wanted to feast my eyes and did my usual, very OCD, up and down, so as not to miss anything. My haul? Some beading supplies plus a goody bag which contained three kits and quite a lot of other nice beady things from The Bead Selection, a rainbow necklace and bracelet kit from The Spellbound Bead Company, a fantastic tweed jacket from Manteaux that perfectly matches my current handbag (luckily for me, the last one in my size in their van), a cat and a heart wooden block and three new paints for my block printing kit. I resisted the yarn - there was one where the yarns were pettable, and one selling off the big plastic multipacks. I also managed to resist yet more fat quarters, though I did spend a good ten minutes teasing myself. Knitting-wise it was quite slim pickings, though Rachel Johns of the big needles was there. There weren't as many exhibition pieces as I'd expected, more workshop areas, and the "scrapbooking end" (Creative Craft Show) did seem a bit smaller, but perhaps that was just my imagination. I suspect the hall is the same size but the stands are further apart. One benefit of COVID, I always felt it was a fire safety nightmare in the pre-pandemic days because a lot of folks need mobility scooters and lots of folks take shopping trolleys! So it was a lovely creative weekend. I've made quite a few necklaces and some somewhat successful earrings, I made all of the kits up within a few days. Alas no pictures yet, I will work on that. Life has become even lonelier of an evening as the Cog's dad has gone into hospital in a confused state and the Cog and his brother V who lives over the road get the "night shift" of 6 to 8pm visiting. So I am rattling around the house, beading things, wondering if I really need more costume jewellery, tidying things, watching rubbish telly and getting annoyed whilst wondering why I cannot find any half-decent books on beading that explain actual techniques rather than just projects I don't particularly like! 

The Cog did me a lovely breakfast in bed for my birthday last week and had booked us tickets to the Abba show in London, which was amazing. What wasn't so much fun was being stuck on the M1 for nearly an hour because some idiot with a Bentley (and presumably another car; that was gone by the time we got to the straight section where the accident occurred) had had a nasty collision. We literally made it to the Abba venue with enough time for a comfort break but no lunch. Good job the fast 800 diet means we're fasting pros now, as there was no interval and we'd have had to climb over about 20 people twice in the dark. Not ideal! The show was great, and after a quick l'dunch, dlinner? at the shopping centre we'd parked at, we were back on the road so G could put in another night shift. This weekend we've a theatre show to go to. Dinner was also booked but is looking unlikely with all the ferrying about. My inner five year old wants to scream. Three COVID spoilt birthdays and a fourth with yet another cancelled family event - I really wish the Cog had kept it quiet so it hadn't hung over us all week. My sister is too busy to see me and caught COVID just to seal the deal. Boo and poo! As for London? Never drive, always train it. Though I was surprised that it was £6.50 each just for a return ticket for one stop on the DLR. Wow. Even our local bus is cheaper than that! The Cog did say he'd looked at hotels but it was very expensive. At least it was a sunday afternoon showing, so not too bad and as it turned out, ideal for the Cog and getting to his "night shift" 

Oh well. I am in a very dark mood because despite the change to BST my body still has no idea what timezone it's in yet. I did not manage to drop off 'til 4am after actually having a dream that wasn't a nightmare the previous night (there's always a downside). Career and work stuff upsetting me as usual.  Ugh. Pictures etc when I cheer up and take some. 

Current mood: exhausted

FO: Fiji necklace

Didn't get much crafting done this weekend, as we were away in Manchester for a wedding. I did get to visit Abakhan though, and I did finish this necklace kit when I got home on Sunday. It's the Fiji kit from the Spellbound Bead Company - I picked it up at the NEC show in March. Apologies for the poor picture, my smartphone camera is not great...

Could quite happily have stayed in bed this morning. Weird dream about meeting lots of cats I have loved in the past - I even got a hug from Gnasher!

Current mood: lethargic

Xmas projects

Charmed and uncharmed

Charmed: I may have gone a little mad for charms at this year's Ally Pally. Lots of lovely yarn and sewing stuff this year though not Doughtys whom I was particularly hoping to see. Not Uppinghams either. I also picked up a point turner, some quilter's tape, some spare bobbins for the sewing machine and some bobbin tidies, plus "Joanna the vest scarf ever" (a scarf with holes in that can be worn as a waistcoat). Didn't think these items were worthy of a picture really!



The large scissors at the bottom I can wear on a neck chain. I'm glad I bought so many pairs of scissors, as I foolishly wore the charm bracelet in the previous post and almost immediately lost the rather soft looking scissors in the melee. Not a clue what I shall do with the rest of them, they all pertain to various hobbies and interests. Bag charms maybe. From Creatotaal.

Uncharmed: Trying to get a half-decent sample of the Passap E6000's version of card 3. Yep, full of dropped stitches (green) and doubled stitches (cyan). Next attempt, if there's time, I'll be using the comb as weight, because this is just not acceptable! One or two dropped stitches I could repair, but not this many!



In other news, I'm almost done on another dress, bar the sleeves, and I have sewn "Needles of Steel" labels into lots of my jumpers. A silly thing, but it tickles me to see them.

Current mood: annoyed

Bits n bobs

Made myself a craft-themed bracelet from various bits picked up at Hobbycraft:



I was after a decent scissors pendant really - these look a bit bendy!

Made myself another Morsbag with some leftover Kath Kidston curtain fabric:



Cartoon characters (or characters with black edges) aren't very successful on my Husqvarna Rose - the design is always shifted by the time it gets to the black, which is the last thread. Ones with large blocks of colour seem to work ok - if the bobbin thread runs out partway then it can go a bit awry too.

Popped into Knits N Bits stocktaking sale, I'm sure Wendy won't mind if I share her pic:



I picked up an adjustoform tailor's dummy, some coned yarn, some binding wires, a grading ruler, some MK books, and some MK bits for other folks.



I think I might call her Etty - although, I nearly called her something else when she tried to stop me applying the handbrake on the way home! I was larking about with beads at the weekend, hence the necklaces!

The poorly tuck stitch:





I might have a duff needle at 20R

Can't take any credit for this, it's a dress I bought from 2dye4 on etsy a while back:



It's way too big now and I'm wondering if I can somehow make it fit my smaller frame.

Autumn started on October the 1st - it's colder and we may have already had the gas fire on. Himself is home with a head cold.

Current mood: cold

Holiday time

Haven't posted here in a bit, but for a very good reason - we've had two weeks on holiday, one in Newquay and one in Sorrento, with a quick dive back for clean clothes in the middle. 

Newquay was great, we had pretty good weather all week and ate very well. Only downside was the world's smallest room. That and the 7 hour drive to get there (Google reckons it's 4, but Google doesn't have to actually DO it). 


View of beach at Padstow. There would have been more pictures in Newquay, but the camera lens got jammed open and it wasn't until a few hard slaps that I got it working again. 

We had two parties to go to in the middle, a 50th birthday for sunday lunch and a wedding party in the evening.

The following week we were in sunny Italy, which hit 35 degrees C on one of the days. Sorrento had a lovely bit of old town to wander about, crammed full of good restaurants and shops. Had an interesting wander around Pompeii and made a trip to a thermal spa in Ischia, plus did a trip to Capri - despite the flowery brochure-speak, full of designer shops mostly - can't figure WHO would want a fur coat in the summer, nor a 9000 euro handbag. Only major downside of Sorrento - hardly any ATMs (and the ones I found, rarely functional) in a place where they seem to favour cash. You also take your life in your hands crossing the roads, because mopeds stop for nobody, zebra crossings not withstanding...


View over Marina Grande, Sorrento

Despite all that, I did get time to do a few things: 


CSM socks in Colinette Jitterbug - these were a quick knit for a relative's birthday. She was very pleased with them.


Mille Fiori bracelet. These beads were in amongst our toys for years, I've no idea where they came from but they are a very specific design from Venice (1920s-30s?) They've been loose for ages, so I finally decided I'd make them into something useful. Each bead is different. Apparently the original bracelet had small red seed beads between the larger ones.

Thomas the cat was like a cat with two tails last night when we picked him up on the way back from the airport. We've never boarded him for 15 days before. Shocking queues to get through security at Birmingham airport; one wonders who schedules 4-5 holiday flights to arrive within 30 minutes of each other?!. Thomas came home without collar or meow, but seems to be getting the hang of the vocal chords again. 

Currently I'm trying to make inroads into the stash with a few hats and baby blankets. The summer heatwave seems to have finally broken - indeed, I got drenched trying to load the car up yesterday - so perhaps production will step back up a bit now.