Whoops, forgot about the blog!

I've been busy dealing with Scout fundraising, exercising, trying to get my diet under control (was doing well till a week ago when I fell off the wagon), dealing with a crook back and doing some sewing and knitting.

On the weaving front I've got the 8-shaft ready to do the final tie up, just have to get a warp on her.  The warp is ready to go, my back isn't.   The back issue is I think due to cutting out fabric and possibly my adhesion issues as well.
I'm doing my exercises to help it and seeing a Bowen therapist as well as planning on going to a myofacial release massage therapist (not the physio I'd been seeing) and probably an accupuncturist as well, but not all at once, have to do what I can afford.

On the sewing side of things I have cut out 2 pairs of waterproof trousers (both for Dh, but one was too small, so they're mine now), 1 pair of culottes for me, a shirt for me, sweatshirt for Dh, a zip up sweatshirt for G and jeans for me.  I've finished the 2 pairs of waterproof pants and started the sweatshirt for Dh.

The multi ones are Dh's, the black are now mine.

I've also got plans to make a 1745 outfit based on the Simplicity Outlander pattern.  I've not got a plaid as I couldn't find any I liked this winter, but I do have a pinstripe wool for the skirt (don't know if it's HA or not, but it looks good) and I'm going to use the green velvet I was gifted for the jacket and the stomacher.

On the knitting front I've finished a jersey, a pair of socks, cast on a hat, planned for a cardigan and won enough yarn to make a jersey in some alpaca/finn blend which is coming from the US, can't wait for that to arrive.  It was part of a KAL called the Fall Sweater Challenge.
The colours are naturals and it should look wonderful when finished, I'll either make another Strokkur or this pattern:

this one depends on whether I can get gauge.  If I can the main colour will be a dark brown and the contrasts will be cream and a lovely oatmeal.

I finished these socks for Dh, Ribby Socks

Wound 970g of yarn into two enormous cakes for a future project

Chose the yarn and pattern for the Fall Sweater Challenge, this was chosen before I won the yarn and will get started first, as soon as I finish the hat

And this is the hat which I'm knitting in the leftover yarn from the next project

This is my wonderful (and now well worn)  Eased jersey.   All in handspun on different bases (merino and Haunui from Heavenly Wools)

My other project is this lot.  I'm going to grow some sprouts for my summer sandwiches and I've got pea and sweet pea seeds to plant as well as a mesclun mix.

I might also have spent more time than ideal on the Xbox, but I enjoy it and I offer no apologies for this, except possibly to my knitting.

Tired, but happy. Blogtoberfest #27!

Hard to believe it's October 27th already!

Very busy day today, no spinning or knitting, but I got enough done that I am whacked!

Spent two hours flushing the cars brake fluid with the help of my BIL (thanks Mike!), last night I made chocolate brownies especially for him, though I think I forgot to tell him that.   I jacked up the car, removed one wheel and put it back on later, learned quite a bit and the car now has new brake fluid in all 4 brakes.  The old stuff was quite dark.

I unlocked a DVD that locked itself in its case, it's the second one to do it but we don't know why.  The first time we broke open the case, but this time I found a couple of very strong magnets and did it the other way; now we can watch Harry Potter's final movie again.  The magnets that worked were from the boys shaker torches; I've now stolen them (they don't really work very well now) and will keep them in reserve for future DVD lockouts.

I tried out the test pots on our eaves and gable today.   The colours I chose are perfect, so now I've just got to get the paint and prep everything.    I can do all the gables except the one I test painted on today; can't do that one as it has earthquake damage so has to be repaired first.

The colour on the right is the original (I hate it), the one on the left is the new one and we love it!  

I think once it's painted the whole house will look really good.  Might have to paint the gutters too, they're coloursteel, but it's degraded a bit.

I got the quilt basted together using the 505 spray and it worked well, I think my can last time was well past its use by date.   I've put a few pins in, but not many.  Started on the lawn but then had to do the rest inside as the wind got up when I started putting the back on.  Hopefully there's not too much lawn in it.

All ready to go.

Caught Ian up on the swing yesterday, not quite where you normally expect him to be, see what I mean?

When I said "up on the swing" I really did mean UP!

Got some more gardening done today, after yesterday's epic driveway weed I got some weeding done in the raspberry patch; more scratches received by me.   Lawn has been mown again too, we're now at the point where it needs doing every week.  It does look good once it's done.  Seedlings are growing, though some seem to have stalled, might have to buy tomato plants after all.

Tomorrow if the weather holds I'll probably go to boot camp, but I'll make T stay at home to rest his knee I think.  If it's raining then I'll stay home and either quilt, knit or spin.   I think I've earned a break.

Day 1 Blogtoberfest

Yesterday was fairly busy with gardening (my hayfever did not thank me for that!), baking, knitting and some cutting out of fabric.

Quilt - all the bits that make up the blocks for George's birthday quilt are now cut out and ready to go, no sewing done yet as I'm concentrating on:

Knitting - Finished the first repeat of chart 3 of my Orchid Thief and it looks gorgeous!  3 more times around this chart before I move on, hopefully I'll get a chart repeat done each day but that depends on what else we're doing

Beauty in mid-creation

I've also cast on for the fronts of my Central Park Hoodie and finished the first row, so I'm getting somewhere there too.

Sewing - not much happened here, have added the need to make a swim bag for each of the boys for next term's swimming lessons and I think George needs another pair of shorts or two.  I did get another box of fabric noted on the Excel file though, so that's good.  I seem to have a lot of embroidered fabrics.

Gardening - the main vege patch is almost clear, ran out of room in the green bin, that'll probably get finished tomorrow and today I picked up some more lettuce plants as some of the first lot died.

On the list to do for tomorrow as the boys are home
1. Finish prepping main vege garden
2. Replace back door lock and install deadbolt as well; tighten other deadbolt
3. Play some games with the boys
4. Baking.
5. Work
6. Knitting
7. Tidy another cupboard

Time to go and get the boys shortly, might do some work this afternoon, and make sure I have everything I need to replace the door lock.

Edited to add:   I also cleaned out the corner cupboard in the kitchen, you know the one.   It's the one where everything ends up and nothing can ever be found, the black hole.   It now contains baking stuff and plastic containers.   All the drink bottles are now in the cocktail cabinet (we don't have any booze in there) and the baking trays that won't fit in the corner cupboard are also in the cocktail cabinet.    It looks so much better in there now, and I've added a couple of things to the list of stuff to sell/give away.

Vintage is coming back

Have you noticed that a lot of people are going back to the old ways?  Saving things and repairing them rather than throwing them out; growing food in the back yard or allotments; wearing clothing that is modelled after vintage eras? 
Personally I love the styles of the 40's or 50's; not all of them, but I love the fit and feminine look.   Unfortunately my figure is not currently suited to many of them which is part of the reason why I'm trying to do more exercise so I can wear them.   I'm bored with jeans and sweats; I want a little glamour in my wardrobe.
I'm also enjoying watching movies based in the past.   I really want to see The Artist

and also W.E.

in both cases partly to see the costumes; and also partly for the stories in the movies.  I've been watching some of my own recently too; BBC's Pride and Prejudice and Gosford Park.   Set in very different time periods, but still both very enjoyable to watch for the story and for the costumes.   There's a part of me would love to dress like Elizabeth Bennett; but I'm not really sure that I'm up for the stares such an outfit would attract.  Not to mention finding fabric that would be just right; the summer dresses have to be a very light cotton voile or muslin; and the winter ones silk probably.   I think I might have to make something, they do after all have the advantage that if your waistline goes up and down a bit the dress should still fit!  That's important after the amount of work you'd put into such a creation.  I think a summer dress for a start; now where's my cotton fabric?

Like many other people we're trying to be a bit more clever in our use of stuff; not throwing out veges cos they've gone bad; instead trying to use them before they reach that point.   We have a vege patch, though keeping it watered this summer will be interesting with the restrictions in Christchurch.   I'm sewing and knitting of course; trying to do a bit more baking instead of buying biscuits; didn't do so well on that today though.  Spinning my own yarn fits in with this aesthetic as does making my own tooth powder instead of toothpaste (persuading the family to use it as well isn't working though).     We're keeping the carpet till it rips; we're already down to the backing in several areas.  Passing things on instead of throwing them out; our neighbours have recently received DVD's, books, clothes and a lawnmower catcher from us rather than throwing them out.  The catcher had been offered to my brother but he turned it down.  There are still some things you have to get new; the computer is one, when I get a camera it will be too; shoes are another.  I really don't believe in second-hand shoes.   Funny though, once upon a time I was all about the new, now I'm looking at old stuff and seeing potential.

WIP knitting:  T's first sock is about 10 rows off completion.  My Central Park Hoodie has a long way to go and my next cast-on will be a baby jacket for a friend using some of my handspun.

WIP Sewing:  Nothing cut out at the moment, though fabric is prepped for a tiered skirt for me, some new t-shirts for me and a couple of t-shirts for the boys.

WIP Quilting:  Just the one, and it will probably be a bit before progress on it; it's the king sized quilt for our bed using Arnold's Attic Jelly rolls; about 1/3 of the way through the blocks for it.  If I can get T's socks done, the baby stuff knit and some of the summer sewing done then I'll get back to this; would be nice to have it for next winter on our bed.

Springtime!

I think we can safely say it's spring now, some gorgeous things happening to our plants:

This is our plum tree; it's a triple graft and I think this one is Black Doris; it's also Billington and Elephant Heart.  Unfortunately the weakest graft is the Elephant Heart which is my favourite.   Spraying this each weekend at the moment with the seaweed spray to help it against the leaf curl.

This is the almond I planted down the driveway winter before last; the idea is that the fruit will be available to our neighbour as well.  I'm also spraying this each week.

The scented bulbs are out, narcissi down the driveway, the freesias are out by the front door; and they smell divine!

The kittens are feeling it too, much playing outside.   Here's Ray up in the silk tree, right at the limit of the branches

and Star looking for fun in the grass

I've cleared the main vege patch and will start on the secondary one this weekend; here's the main one

and the pile that will be dug into it this weekend

This is a mix of composts that will help boost the soil which is a little depleted going by last years performance; though some of that will be due to not being able to water the garden after the earthquakes.   We'll have that problem this summer too; already on notice that there will be water restrictions due to the damage to the water supplies in Christchurch.
I also picked up some Heuchera's to replace our Hosta's with.  Thomas isn't keen on the Hosta's as they're really messy over autumn and winter.  These guys are pretty and should fill in the space nicely, very little sun too so they'll be happy.

3 bronze and 2 purple ones.  I'll get more if I need them.

Onto the knitting, I've been working on my Jetty with no diversions to any other knitting.  I've got to the 4th ball of yarn which will get me to my 800 yards.  Today I finished the sleeves and I've tried it on and really like it.  Made some changes to the increases for the hip since I'm a size up in the hips than what I am in the bust.   I've changed to increasing every 5 rows instead of every 8 rows and will stop increasing at 220 stitches and then just continue knitting till I hit the end of the ball.  I have 6 days left to finish this, which is just as well as I also have some work to finish and it's taking me longer than I expected.

Ignore the lines on the sleeves, that was the stitch holder which I left in for just in case I didn't like the way I'd done the sleeves; those'll be coming out as I'm quite happy with it.

Blocked and unblocked

The last few days have seen some frantic knitting going on.  I've finished George's first mitten, but have the second to start (tomorrow I hope), I've also removed my Spring Garden Tee from the blocking table and tried it on, it's gorgeous!

not the best photo unfortunately, we had to use the flash and the lace at the bottom isn't showing too well.  However it fits perfectly and feels really nice; looking forward to wearing it in the summer.

Tonight I finished my Citron; it's not blocked yet and I changed my mind about beading it when I found my size 8 beads weren't quite big enough and I didn't have anything suitable in size 6.   I cast off 2 rows early to get the peacock colour on the cast off, this also meant that I didn't have to knit 2 more rows of 735 odd stitches so there's not a bad side to this.   I still have 31 grams of the yarn left and no idea what I'll do with it, but I'll work that out sometime in the future; in the meantime it'll join the other leftovers in the sewing room. 
Here's the finished object pre-blocking; 102cm wide.  My handspun too, only thing I didn't do was to dye the Merino top.

It'll get bigger once blocked, hoping to get that done tomorrow after I go to work (some urgent stuff to drop off) and also go to Mum's to go shopping for Ian's birthday present.   Can't believe he's almost 7!
He was offered three choices for his birthday.  A party involving kids from school, a family only party or going out.  He chose the family only option, "with cake please Mummy".  The plan is to do a chocolate cake with a tornado on top, hoping it goes well.  It'll be Sunday week, a morning tea which gives everyone time to cool down afterwards before the working and school week restarts the next day.
From us he's getting 5 books which I ordered last week from the book depository.   Worked out at around $30NZ which is really good, 3 on tornadoes, 1 on volcanoes and 1 on earthquakes; he should be in natural disaster heaven!
Just hoping the oven holds out, it's not a happy unit atm, but we can't afford to replace that before EQC pays out seeing as we just replaced the washing machine.   Even if EQC don't pay out in full on that, we needed to replace it as it just wasn't spinning well enough all the time (sometimes was ok, others not).  Going into winter you need a machine that spins.   We now have a good machine (see previous post for details) and it's managed to fit the duvets in and wash them properly.  Ian wet the bed the night after it arrived, just so we could test it; wasn't that nice of him?   The old one is residing in the garage for the moment, until 6 months after our claim is processed; whenever that may be.

We've also worked out we need a new lawnmower.  Our old pushmower is on its last legs, Dad rang today to tell us he could get us an almost new motor mower for a good price from his work; it had been returned due to a fault and the customer insisted on a new one; fault is fixed so we're getting it.  More space to find in the garage, and of course a slight delay on paying a bit off the revolving mortgage; but it's worth it.   It's a 4-stroke motor so no faffing around with oil mixes.  Really hope that petrol doesn't get too much higher, but considering our lawn is also often too long for the pushmower we really don't have much choice.