Being Creative in Other Ways

Instead of knitting and sewing I'm DIYing and tidying.

I am getting a little knitting done, but not much I'm afraid.   I've just reached the thumb gusset stage on the first mitt for Ian's teacher aide, but it's not going very fast due to all the other stuff I'm doing in preparation for our repairs.

I've taken all the wallpaper off the shower room now, done the plastering, discovered some of the plastering originally done is best described as "shonky" and touched up some of that.  I'm going to have to get some of the mold treatment stuff Resene sells as there is mildew on the walls where the sheets of wallpaper met.    No point in replacing all those sheets though as eventually we'll be redoing the whole room with a new shower and it'll all go then, this is just a stop-gap measure.

Next room to strip will be the laundry, but I can't start that till the red bin is emptied as it's completely chocka and the recycling bin is not suitable for wallpaper.

As well as the above I've also met with the painter and project manager and we now have an order that the rooms will be done in, first room is the boys room along with the bathroom/toilet/shower area.   Bathroom won't take long, it's just the door surround, so that won't be overly disruptive and the boys room is just the ceiling so also won't be too bad.   Our room is the walls, the lounge is the ceiling and the dining/kitchen/laundry is going to be messy as it's floor (not earthquake related), walls and trim.  We won't be able to use that room for about 10 days, so no laundry, cooking etc.   I might get some paper plates, it's not ecologically sound, but it might help keep us sane.   The boys will have to re-use their school clothes more than normal or I'll have to handwash.   I'm praying that no bugs hit in that time, also that youngest doesn't wet the bed.  I think we'll have to put the washing machine in the bathroom till it's done, fridge in the conservatory and dryer in the hall.   Microwave and BBQ meals might be the norm plus takeaways which the boys will love!

I need to get more tidying done in the sewing room so I can move stuff around and out of the way, there will obviously be no sewing as that room will no doubt end up filled with furniture from elsewhere in the house, I'll have to make sure I have everything I need for knitting accessible.
First thing is to put all the yarn that's in there in safe places, some is already in boxes apparently (according to Ravelry) so I'll put those ones where they should be, find spaces in boxes for the newer stuff and that's going to make a big difference!  I'll be back once that's tidy, wish me luck.

One thing leads to another

For our earthquake repairs the ceiling in the shower room is going to be overlaid with new GIB (gypsum board for my international readers), as they were concerned about the wallpaper on the existing boards I said I'd remove that (we want to repaint in there anyway).    Yesterday I started and found that the existing GIB above the shower is showing signs of water damage so we've just gone and spent $94 at Mitre 10 for a new sheet of Aqualine GIB (water resistant), plus the stopping compound, the screws and the tape, plus a spray bottle to get the wallpaper off.    I also found another crack in a join in the existing GIB that's staying put so I'll fix that myself I think.
Got to wonder what else we'll find as we go!
The damaged GIB is now off, and looks like I'm spending mother's day doing that instead of what I'd planned in my last free weekend before the work starts.    I need to make something for Ian's teacher aide, funnily enough I'm not in the mood with all this, but I think I'm going to make the bag still but start off with some fingerless gloves in the same yarn I used for my Central Park Hoodie.  It's an aran weight so will knit up quickly and I'm going to make a pattern I've used before, Humanity Mitts.   I love my pair and they'll be lovely and warm for the winter.
In the meantime I'm going to go back into the shower room and try and remove the old glue and stuff off the studs so I can measure and cut the new stuff to go up.

Eek!

Got given a date for our repairs to start today, it's not far away, in fact it's this month!    We'll be living here during it which will be interesting, hopefully most of it will be done in the day while the kids are at school.    Before it all starts though I have a few jobs to do.

1. Strip the wallpaper in the shower room so they can put a new ceiling up easily
2. Get any sewing done now, so that's the mending pile and also the present for Ian's teacher aide who left yesterday (whoops).
3. Make a meal plan for the time we won't have the kitchen and make sure we have everything we need to do dishes in the bathroom.
4. Get the fan/light/heat unit for the shower room as the existing one can't be ducted and is therefore not legal to reinstall.
5. Clean, tidy and get rid of stuff we don't have any need for; this is the biggie.
6. Spend one full weekend learning to weave while worrying about all of the above.    Didn't know this was coming when I booked that in though.

Funny how much easier this would be if we had the garage already, but we don't so we'll muddle through and once it's done (before the school holidays all going well), we'll look back on it and say "that wasn't so bad", or possibly "thank god that's over!".   I'm hoping for the former.

However at the end of it I'll be able to tell what's left for me to do to get the place up to spec, aside from painting what will be Ian's room to disguise what they did to the wallpaper in there.   Our room and the kitchen/dining will be all painted.   I'll need to do the laundry; I wonder where the paint is for that?   Probably in storage, it'd be nice to do that while everything's out of there too, but might not be practical.

Wish us luck!

A good day

First up I'm wearing my Central Park Hoodie today, and it's lovely and warm!

Can you tell I love it?

You can see the lovely cables on the back and arms; yum!

When I booted up the pc this morning I found an email to say I'd won some yarn and a pattern from the Spud and Chloe Blog; I've chosen my yarn colours already and am really looking forward to that arriving.    I picked up my new shoulder bag yesterday, so I can carry my knitting with me.  I've been looking for one for a while, but have been unable to find something suitable.  Finally found it on Friday and they've put a new strap on it so I can wear it cross-body as well as on my shoulder.

It's navy leather, photo is under electric light so doesn't show well.

I've also had yarn arrive that I bought, I'm now back on my yarn diet.  

We've signed the contract for our garage, so now waiting for the first invoice so the bank will release payment, once that's done then they'll get the papers ready for the neighbours to approve the build, so things are definitely moving.

3 years later

3 years ago on 01.05.2010 I cast on my Central Park Hoodie; this afternoon I sewed it together.  It's now waiting for the zipper but it's at a point where I consider it finished!  You'll get photo's once the zipper is in, I have to buy one first though as the ones I have in my stash are all too short.

I got some fibre today too, photo's also to come as the light is horrible at the moment.   It's 900g of dark grey suri alpaca from Sherlin Alpacas.   It'll be spun up and knit into a shawl I think, can't get started on it yet though, need to get my grey crossbred done first.  The boys had a great time feeding the alpaca mums and the crias.   The farm owners were very impressed by the boys patience when feeding them, so were we, especially as they hadn't wanted to come.

Scott Base Socks

I finished the first sock today, I've used 51g of yarn which means I'll be short on the second sock.   I have hopes that someone might have a little left over and if she does then I should hear today, if not then I have another similar colour that might work if I alternate rows near the toe; luckily it's not a solid colour.   Keeping my fingers crossed for leftovers though.

Without further ado here is my first Scott Base Sock!

I think I need a larger sock blocker for Thomas's socks, mine are just too small and don't show the detail well at all.  I do have to say I love this sock though, it's squishy but still feels robust and it looks wonderful on!    The second will be slightly delayed though due to me needing my Central Park Hoodie; that shouldn't take too much longer now that I've decided to get rid of the hood in favour of a collar.

While I'm knitting the 2x2 rib on that I might watch a couple of Craftsy's free courses.   I've already watched Sewing Machine 911 which was really useful.

The next 2 free Craftsy mini-courses I'm going to take are:
1. Short Rows which should be handy for all sorts of things, at the moment I have to look it up each time I want to use short rows, being a visual learner I think the course will help immensely on this.
2. Know Your Wool , yes I have lots of books on this, but I think it'll be very interesting to actually hear about them while I'm knitting.

Check out all of the other free Craftsy mini-courses by clicking here.  There are quilting, cake and knitting ones that I know of and probably others too.   The interaction on these isn't with the tutors, but other students instead which is I think a wonderful thing.

Anyway, I'll leave you with a photo of Star as she was while I was working hard on painting the house

It is so hard to photograph a black cat properly!

An exciting day!

We've finally got the heads up from the bank that EQC has sent them a cheque for our claim.    This means today has been a round of emails to our chosen repairer, the garage company, the EQC guy who's been so helpful and also phone calls to family to let them know too.   Yay!
Just have to hope that the council don't get too overzealous on their fees, but we won't know that till everything is in.

I've finished painting for the moment, at least outside.    We've decided to pay someone to paint the bits we have access issues with (on top of the roof and the conservatory and the big gable), luckily I have a second cousin who has a painting firm and he can fit us in around other jobs, and he has his own scaffolding.  We've agreed to his terms which are less than getting scaffolding up so hopefully in a few weeks our neighbours will have a much nicer outlook.

Old colour, this bit is going to be done by professionals

New colour which is much nicer to look at as well as not chalking!

No painting today as I was looking outside at this:

Very heavy rain!

Definitely autumn now I think.

So today I've been knitting on Dh's sock, will have to try it on him when he gets home as I suspect it's close to the right length.  Downside is I'm going to run out of yarn, really hoping that a lady on Ravelry has some left over, she's going to check and let me know tomorrow, keep your fingers crossed for me!  Photo's to come on the sock when it's on the foot.

I also did the next item on my Historical Sew Fortnightly, it's a soft entry really but something I needed.

Workbag in 1913 parlance; today it's a project bag.

I used the tutorial from In Color Order but changed the sizing a wee bit to make it a better kniting bag size.   It's bigger.   I only bought the ribbon and the lining fabric to finish these as with the bigger size it needs more than a fat quarter to make the lining.   I'm keeping the top one, the bottom one is a gift for a fibre swap. It's nice to have finally used some of the Beatrix Potter print as I do love her work, but had nothing suitable to use it for.   Might have to make some more of these, I also have some of Mary Cicely Barker's Flower Fairy fabric to use.