Ramblings of Mad Woman

My knitting has progressed well through the week. I have completed one of the socks of hideousness & am at the heel of the second one....perhaps I'll finish this one before we leave for Melbourne on Thursday morning.

We are off to visit with No 1 son & his family- namely the 4 year old GS. Apparently he has been throwing hissy fits & his parents are not amused-especially when he is out & does it. There is lots of advice on dealing with temper tantrums & small children & we do know they grow out of it-but at the time you'd like to give them away until they can be returned to you as reasonable young persons- about 25 years of age- give or take a few years!

Thankfully, none of ours were real hissy fitters-they may have thrown the odd one ,but it wasn't a regular occurrence- mine learnt pretty quick they never got their own way with me if they did resort to temper & tears. I also only fought the battles with them that were necessary- I never worried if they wanted to put a blue T shirt with the orange shorts- I let them pick their their own clothes from very early on-at least then they felt like they had some control over their own lives.

Lets face it, when rearing kids, by the time you know you stuffed it all up ,its too late! Some children should be born with an instruction manual- & not written in Chinglish either!

On the camera front, I wish I had never gone there. MOTH is getting very insistent that I buy a Sony- he even offered to buy me an A200 to see if I liked it or not-the more he pushes the more I want the Nikon D80-at this stage I'm not buying anything-I just can't stand the angst it is creating! I wonder what happened to free will in this family.....obviously not when buying a camera!

My sewing has been productive- I have written up the instructions for both my articles that are to be published, done the samples, photographed what I needed to & sent it to the editor! YEAH- even the articles are ready to be boxed & posted, hopefully tomorrow. Well before my deadline date.

DD dropped some fabric in this afternoon to make a slip for her to wear under a sheer top-that must have taken all of 45 minutes from drafting to finishing-only cost her $5 for the fabric a far cry from spending $45 to buy one.

As I was making this little slip up I was thinking that when I was her age we wore the sheer things without anything much underneath them ,funny how times have changed- we flaunted it all back in the day- these days it is better left hidden away- no one wants to see what I used to have any more! Lets face it- it isn't even where it used to be , anymore!! LOL

It would appear that many people are returning to sewing & crafting with the recession- great for all of us who have always done so & good for the businesses that sell the items- hopefully it will bring about a resurgence of crafting & sewing.

Until next timeOz-tralien

Flying Needles

During the week we changed areas at work. We do 3 months in one area & move on. This area I am now in will not go fast enough! Lynda, whom I follow at work, said the same thing!

One of my visits is eye drops.....3 times a day.....every day.....to be given 5 minutes apart.....and there are 6 of them.....sometimes 9...........it's very tedious, to say the least.

The first few days I suffered through Antique Road Show, I Love Lucy, Elliott Ness, M*A*S*H & Gunsmoke, willing the minutes to hurry by. This lady is blind & turns the TV up very LOUD.....she's not deaf at all, so I wonder why the TV has to be at full volume, perhaps to compensate for not having the visuals.

Larissa suggested I take my knitting in, to fill in time. What a brilliant woman she is! I've knitted a sock, the fingerless mittens to go with the hat & a bow tie scarf all this week! The 5 minutes between each drop is now flying & so are my needles & I'm not bored whit-less by the inane TV.

Knitting also is a conversation starter-my lady asks me each day what I'm up to , and how much more I've done.

Yesterday I went looking at new cameras. I like the Nikon D80. MOTH has been pushing me toward a Sony A350 because he has the A700 (& is coveting the A900) & he says we can share lenses. This sounds fine in theory but I have my doubts that it will work in practise. I also have to decide if I really want to start carrying around camera gear, as opposed to "a" camera.

This week I completed the red Ladder of Life socks for my GF's DH (scroll down to see pattern)-I'm sure he will love them & my GF will tell me not to encourage him!LOL

The bow tie scarf pattern was done with an odd ball I picked up at Spotlight. Patons Soft Haze in a very delicate pink. I knitted the scarf bit longer than the pattern as I found 12" choked me! The pattern is a free download from Ravelry.

Next were the fingerless mittens, to match the hat, all done in the wool I dyed with food colouring a couple of weeks back. I found these instructions difficult to follow- the mitts look like they should be longer to me-but hey, I have more yarn I'll try again with a different pattern!

Last night I started another pair of socks. What can I say- they are easy, very transportable & they knit up quickly. These ones are called Socks of Hideousness , have started these with some yarn I bought on EBay a few weeks ago.

I did start a shawl from my knitted lace of Estonia book, but felt I couldn't concentrate on the graph with the TV blaring & my lady talking to me!

Happy Crafting

Oz-tralien