New page. Old year.

Do you like the new look?



This colour green is the same as the Malabrigo wool my ISE 5 partner sent me. Is it not divine? (I mean the slightly darker green, although the other is nice too.) This is the colour I want to use for my sleeveless top. P.G. there will be enough, although if there became less of me in the NewYear I would need less, right?



I mooched up and down the High Street today and found my favourite LYS is having a sale - 40% off all wool! CK made me walk right past it yesterday as he was the only one who had been to the bank but I got there today and guess who is the new owner of a shank of glorious Artesano Alpaca (hummingbird colourway) for only £7.00 something?



The lovely 'Little Red Hen' also has lots of very nice other things on sale too - some of which I am hoping will turn up for my birthday - eg, large jugs . Although I have been playing with an early (or very late) birthday present for the last few days.



I got this i-pod from my lovliest ever brother he was here and it came with the words 'This is all your birthday presents for the last and next ten birthdays, right?' Not as generous as it may sound (although it really is b/c was a little bit shocked when I found out quite what they cost!!!) as he had actually bought it for his 13 y.o. daughter but she wasn't giving up the mini/nano/shuffle thingy she already had so we kind of got the cast-off - no complaints though you understand. As part of my Christmas present I received an i-tunes voucher and haven't we had fun with that!? Everything from this to this - we do eclectic in this house!



It was very knitty kind of holiday season here at Trash Towers - a wooden pair of 3.5mm needles which each child & I will paint together, two knitting magazines with patterns I actually want to use and a book, a murder mystery. A murder mystery. Based on knitting. And when I get my camera back from under the mounds of seasonal crap currently decorating Trash Towers all y'all are going to be so impressed!



Off to visit my god-daughter next weekend for a belated Christmas/birthday lunch. I don't think she will mind things being either 14/7 days late as she only turned one on Boxing Day! So thankfully I have finished both dolls and (again with the camera and the piles of stuff!) I will take a photie before they head off to their new home.



So this year is nearly over and it is another one for which I am extremely grateful. I am very pleased to say that 2007 was a decidedly average and mildly interesting year for us. We all got a year older (the dogs too!), Princess Curly-Wurly and BabyMan went up a class at school. We had minor illnesses, bugs and injuries. CK had stressful moments at work and I shouted at small children (mine and borrowed) but that was it. Not wishing to invoke hubris - but no major calamities, sagas or fall-outs. We are so grateful and I can only hope that 2008 stays on such an even keel.

May the gods smile on you all.

A whole new method.

I have to confess something. I am not very good at being organised. In fact I am bloody appalling and would probably live in near squalor if it were not for the thought of my mother's horrified face at finding cockroaches setting up home in my children's sock drawers.



(Not that this has actually happened! It is just an example of the potential for nasty living here at Trash Towers.)



So, having been blog-hopping for the last few days around all the innernets I have taken inspiration from ideas I have seen over at Missus Lucy Recycled-Pocket and Missus MoogsMum. Rather than list my 'To Dos' and cross them off as bits are completed I think I am going to post a 'Want To Do' list.

I have just emptied out one (yes, one. Is that a problem?!?!) of the sewing boxes and found lots of lovely material. And cross stitch patterns and threads and sewing patterns and embossing brasses and sticky paper and aqaurelle pencils and yarn and old Delicious and BBC Good Food magazines. The mind begins to boggle a bit when I begin to think that there are still two more sewing boxes, the bottom third of the airing cupboard and a whole 8x8 garden/summer house. In fact it is enough to make anyone go and take 'a bex and have a good lay down.'*

But I am stronger than that so I gird my loins (have not yet figured out if this is painful but will let you know when I am done). My goal over the next few weeks is make a to list ofthe craft type projects I would like to do over the next 12 months. Not necessarily to blog about them (although I might) rather just to identify things I want to do and see them to their completion.

Following is a list just off the top of my head (metaphorically speaking y'all understand).


1. Sew the donkeys I have been planning for a few years now.
I keep cutting up my old cords when they are no longer publicly reputable and putting the material safely away



2. Knit the sleeveless top I have decided will suit me.
For the body I plan to use the divine emerald green Malabrigo my ISE5 pal sent me and some purple donegal tweed for the ribbing. It probably sounds kind of vile but I mostly wear white shirts and t-shirts so I think it will be okay (I work with toddlers and babies, of course I wear white!!).



3. Finish painting my bug box (although you may know it as Sewing Box #1).
It has fabulous creatures crawling over two sides of it but they have never made it to the other half and it is best not to mention the top. Suffice to say if it is being used as a table top I do not rush to place a protective cover down.



4. Get the orangutan and border painted on the cupboard down at school.

Just in front of the staffroom down at my childers' lovely school is a cupboard. A bland double door wooden cupboard with four panels in each door. Six months ago I sweetly asked the headteacher if I could paint it. She smiled in a kind of 'poor, sad creature' kind of way and said yes. To date there are lions, flamingos, sheep, a deer, crows, four elephants and a blue tit.

5. Turn the beautifully soft angora mix jumper I deliberately felted into a lovely cabled cushion.

I bought it in Berlin the last time I visited my sister and it was nice and all but it never quite felt right. I guess if there was a half-size less of me it would still be a jumper but



6. Try some sort of quilty type thing.

No idea what but I love the whole idea of them.



7. Paint the wooden storage box I have been using as a bedside table for several months.

It is similar to a hinged archive box but made of wood and much nicer than cardboard. I was given a pattern of a rosella and have been wanting to paint it for over three years but you know, time got in the way and all






So there you have it. The 'Want To Dos' is not a comprehensive list and is subject to alteration but it has begun. Feel free to kick me (again with the metaphor) if it remains uncrossed off for the next six months.

*(Sincere apologies for using this publicly shared private space to air this very old family joke but I just could not resist.)

Oh goodness! I'm nearly finished.

I am only one single inch and a half diameter ball away from finishing my scarf for my spoilee somwhere in a foreign cold place.

I really am very excited about how quickly it has worked up. It goes to show how much can be achieved when you are confined to the brown couch (did I mention we have three?) for a whole day b/c of some grotty child-borne bug. It also goes to show how much can be achieved when CK takes Princess C-W and Babyman out for a quick trip to the shops (they were gone for three & a half hours).

It has also shown me how determined I can be. Given that from this

I created this

and after many loooong weeks minutes of untangling, puzzling and just a little cursing at the end of it all I end up with something like this!

And all in just a couple of weeks!

More than anything that is the incredible bit, I am reknowned for not finishing much of anything. CK built me a whole house to put my A/C (art crap) in. It is so full of unfinished things I literally cannot get in the doors and now I am spreading out into the house. But, and I am so excited about this, my scarf is probably only two nights knitting away from being completely done and the deadline is to get it into the post by December 1. At this rate my spoilee will have her scarf before Nov 1!!!!!

So now my thoughts are turned toward what to include with the scarf in the parcel. So far all I am definite about is a fabulous postcard which includes the recipe for Dorset Apple Cake (mmmm, cake) and at Granny's suggestion I have spent this afternoon making a bracelet to include (I broke the catch at teatime showing it to Princess C-W so photo to follow) but I'm just not sure what else. Hmmmm, what about a painted box? Must think harder, think, think, think...

All ideas gratefully received.

What an interesting day.

Look what CK bought for me! No reason, just because (and yes of course they had a yellow sticker on them, that makes them look prettier apparently!).

Yesterday was quite an intersting day. I completed a repeat (44 rows) on my ISE5 scarf (still up for any ideas on how to get the button widget onto this page) and very pleased I am with it too. After much ripping out and many purchases of yarn I finally settled on some variegated alpaca in autumnal tones. Even this required much ripping back, tears and creative cursing, not to mention the hours spent untangling the skein in to one very large ball of wool, but after a discussion with my nice friends behind the counter of my nearest woolshop (even out here in the back of beyond we have cool shops but the High Street is invading)I have gone up a needle size. I think I'm loving it.

I also got through my invite to Ravelry. So now I'm there I don't actually know what to do but after some playing I'll figure it out. All though to be honest I feel a bit of a fraud being a part of it.



***** This was actually written on Wednesday. Don't know why it has come up as Tuesday.

ISE5

WAIL! Gnash teeth. (grrr, grind, shnnnsh) Rent clothing. Daub mud in hair! (snfghllz!)


Well, almost. Nearly a week since the lists went out for the ISE5 and I haven't heard from my spoiler yet! Am I forgotten? Did they get a better offer? Were the responses on my questionnaire just too difficult?

I s'pose the hostessessesses did say there was to be no panicking until Wed., and while it is Wednesday here in (for now) sunny Blighty it is only at the very start. So of course my American co-knittees are still in bed.


But wait! What if the spoiler is from the Southern Hemisphere?! OH NO!

WAIL! Gnash teeth. (grrr, grind, shnnnsh) Rent clothing. Daub mud in hair! (snfghllz!)

knitting, knitting, knitting.

Wow! What a day of k-nitticating it has been today! After much saga, many tears and an awful lot of ripping out I have completed the first hat for the tropical girls due to arrive in Nov.

I tried with the fuzzy Rowan wool, honest I did but for some reason it didn't like the intarsia sparkle and the poor old Cashsoft sitting quietly at the back was almost in tears so I thought sod it!



I ripped the whole thing out all the way to the very end. I just kept on going past the ribbing this time until I was hidden by a mass of curly pink fuzzy string. With a little bit of glitz. And a fraction of sensibly clad Cashsoft. So I cast on 114 stitches in lime green Cashsoft and after just a few hours labour I have a gorgeous little hat. Yay ME!



See,then I got cocky and while babyman was at swimming tonight I cast on some violet Donegal Tweed yarn to make a grown-up looking hat for my vet s-i-l. Of course I have since ripped it three times, think it may be too scratchy for a scarf.



However my best and favourite is that I received my invite to the fifth international scarf exchange b/c I have to say I do love a good scarf.