Monday...crochet and washing and all that

Monday, first day of the week.  With extra joy for the sunny weather and knowing that tomorrow, my mama will be here for a visit.  Look at this little flower, thrusting up from a little crack in the pavement, determined to enjoy life

and this young thing, dashing about on his bike

and a little lady taking a stroll in the sunshine

anyway, now matters either more interesting or more trivial, depending on one's perspective...

I am crocheting a THING

have you ever made a THING?  Something for which you may or may not have an idea of its intended finished state?  Something which you hope will serve a certain purpose but are unwilling to admit it until you know for sure it comes off?  I have made many THINGS, some more successful than  others.  This thing will have to wait to be finished and felted until its fate is known.

Also, the yarn I dyed with onion skins finally finished drying today, thanks to the sunshine

And, just to make full use of that glorious warming force, I got round to some handwashing

Nothing  I can do will ever stop the feet of those tights being such a filthy colour...well possibly cleaning my floors more often may have helped

Day 7...crafting time! 2KCBWDAY6

Today we are supposed to write about the time we spend crafting, where and when and how etc.  I don't really have a specific crafting time.  I was starting to worry how I would write a vaguely interesting post for this topic, let alone find relevant pics.  But then it occurred to me that there are different types of knitting for different types of crafting time.

I knit in front of the TV in the evenings.  A lot of TV went into Shalom. 

Sometimes, if I did a lot of knitting in front of a particularly moving film or documentary, all the feelings I had whilst watching it come flooding back the next time I pick the knitting up.  Weird.

I knit whilst browsing online.  Often there is a small mindless project next to the computer, like this:



I sometimes knit whilst singing abi to sleep (less so now its not such a long process)

I knit when getting a lift with a friend to toddler group.  Good for dull mindless knitting which allows easy conversation, like this (4ply, ugh...and I keep knitting the yos, double ugh):

I used to knit a lot whilst sat next to her as she played, but somehow I seem to spend more time on my feet now that she can handle me not being more than two feet away from her.

I knit when cooking pancakes at the weekends, I sometimes knit standing in the kitchen (apparently there used to be special knitting holder things on belts which would hold the wool so folk could knit whilst they walked between their chores, I think sometimes they even held a needle in such a way that the knitter could knit one handed whilst doing other things, though I have no idea how I came to 'know' this...maybe it was a knitting obsessed dream??)  Dischcloths are good standing knitting, doesn't matter if it gets a bit grubby

I knit...quite a lot.  But often not for extended periods of time, its just here and there, up and down, ya know?  Sometimes I get to a point in my knitting which I can see just requires some stamina...for me to just sit and knit and knit...then I find something good on the tele, or devote an entire nap time to knitting regardless of housework, and just go for it, and then something will get done really fast, like this:

And at the end of every row I have a sip of

 (OK I drink coffee really, but I wanted to post my tea cosy pic!)

Weekend stuff

The children have been elsewhere today so I have spent most of this beautiful sunny day at home sorting things out, sigh.

BUT this is good, because it meant I could start getting part of Dan's birthday pressie sorted out

a woodworking corner in the craft room!  No longer will it be a realm of knitting and sewing and books relating thereto (very small sigh) but a space where I hope we can craft and spend time together (yay!) We are in need of more fun quality time together.

I made onion soup and baked rolls for my darling brother who then somehow managed to not turn up, grr!  I still lub him though, and at least it meant I didn't resort to chips as I usually do when the children aren't here to see

Whilst the onions were cooking, I noticed I have managed to collect over an ounce of onions skins now.  So I got those boiling away too

for some angora yarn, and a scrap of silk which I decided to cold water dye, just to see :D  I was a bit worried about the angora, its a lovely grey shade and I'm worried dyeing it won't do it any favours, its so pretty already

but the silk is looking rather gorgeous, drying in the sun

so I am optimistic about the wool too.  Then I headed into town and picked up the other half of that fleece to be washed (I think this might be the bottom end, hmm)

which created a bit of an appetite for actual yarn I can knit right now...

oops.  I am hoping one skein will be enough to create some sort of summery top for dd...