I have just been gifted with these.....

Wanna closer look?

A friend's mother cannot use them anymore and was giving them away and my dear friend thought of me.

I will certainly appreciate and use it. I have a had a bit of a play and have just about worked out how to use it. It's not that much different to my Ashford.

Now today was spent knitting and the shoulder bind offs on the Central Park Hoodie had to be ripped out several times before I could complete the last cable and bind it off right. Unfortunately when I got home and had the left front and the right front sitting together I saw that I didn't have a matching cable on the left front so had to rip out again the shoulder of the right front. Are you with me? I sat for ages binding it off so that the right had a cable on the very top when I later found out the left didn't have one?!

Sheesh, now having cast on for the sleeve, the rib is not as tight as I like it. I like my cuffs to sit around my wrists snuggly and not flop about. I'm thinking of casting on a tighter cuff and graphing up the increases and adjusting them so the sleeve cap will fit the armholes. That'll have to wait till tomorrow cos I have no graph paper. I will be soo glad when this hoody is finished.

My motto: Nothing is ever as easy as it seems.

Not another update?!

Ahh so much is happening here I have limited time to actually post. Feel free to skip straight to the knitting part.

Let's see...
The Centrelink issue is now done and dusted with a resolution in my favour, worth the fight I must say.

Mr Ex is dragging out the Property Settlement. He has has it for 8 weeks now and he and his lawyer are taking their sweet time contacting my lawyer. Funny that, he always insisted on a fast and amicable settlement when he is the one doing the stalling. Let me tell ya their are dirty little tricks happening here at home. He is getting really good at setting Miss A and me up. It took me a while to realise the extent of the set ups but he is good. Lots of things that he knows will upset me.
I'm sure I'll laugh about it later but man he is doing me in. Should be all over in 6 weeks but that's what I said 8 weeks ago. sigh

Preparation is going well for tertiary entry right on track there. STAT test is in 3 weeks.


Knitting Part
Been concentrating solely on the Central Park Hoodie, which had me stumped there this week. The 2 fronts are not going to line up perfectly they are 1 row out which won't be a problem. The cables will match though and that's the main thing right?. A quick call to Jess got things sorted and now I'm on my way.

Looking forward to an afternoon of knitting with Jess and Miss B today.

Giving up on knitting group today for several reasons:

One being that on such a great day it has been scheduled for the library cafe (our winter location) and I am getting tired of going there (overpriced food, mouldy cheesecakes and not much choice in the way of food) The ones that actually attend regularly are itching to get back to the gardens and the people making the decision don't always attend.

Two: most people cannot attend this week anyway and I'd probably end up sitting there on my own. Knitting in public is fine if you are not the only one.

Thirdly: Jess is still recovering so staying home will be good for her today.
Better run I need to go and have a shower,oh and must duck to the shops for cake.

Knitting goes so much better when there is chocolate cake don't you think?

Another Quick Update...

I am soo tired...
I have spent the day at a course to help me prepare for the STAT test (mature age entry for Uni) 7 no we finished an hour early, 6 no we had a half hour for lunch, okay 5 and a half hours of test questions.

My brain is busted.

Not much knitting has taken place here lately. The Central Park Hoodie has a back, a left front and half a right front. Each evening this week I have had good intentions of picking it up but have been side tracked by one thing or another (mainly going to bed really early - at 8pm!) It's been my first week back at work this week.

Going out for tea with friends and Miss A tonight and really looking forward to a Schnitzel Parmigiana yum, my fave! Luckily I don't have to work this Sunday so hopefully I can slot in some knitting, but I really have to get stuck into my Personal Competency Statement for Uni entry.

I got word last week that I have indeed passed my Cert 4 in ICT (hip, hip) and the Cert 4 in Business Admin has been finished too. I've signed up for a Cert 3 in Disability Work and can transfer credit across from the other two Certificates lessening my workload by 5 units out of 11. At least it has paid off completing them.

My to do list now stands at:

• Property settlement, going slowly but progress is being made there.
• Uni Personal Competency Statement.
• Maths for STAT course in a few weeks.
• Actual STAT test in a few weeks too.
• Cert 3 in Disability.

'Keep yourself unstressed' recommends the instructor...ha

Addressing comments

Thanks for the comments...I've decided in future to try to reply to the comments in a post otherwise they get lost after a few days and unless you go looking for a response (I do) it's difficult to find. And I know I get excited to get a reply to my comments.

2paw : Thank you, I'm so relieved that it ended up looking ok.

Jessica : Yes, I remembered the Yarn Harlot did a post about fixing cables with pictures that really scared me. And now I have one of my own, hee hee. Must admit I was shaking the whole time I was fixing it. (and not breathing much)

somebunnysloveDOTcom : Imagine doing that with LACE? uhuh, I can't even knit lace let alone rip it and fix it like that. shudders Although I am leaning towards lace in future projects....

Now after all that fixing I'm thinking that the size I chose may be a bit big - not by much but I'm thinking as a jacket it might be ok to knit it a tad smaller than a jumper.
It works out the same size as my favourite jumpers but as Jessica suggested jackets are open in the front ( yes it did need to be pointed out to me) and it'll gape anyway. So it will be bigger because of that openness.
No drama because I've only nearly completed the back and am quite ok with reknitting it.
It's hard to judge how it's going to turn out. Deep down I've had this inkling that I should be knitting the next size down.
Should I follow my intuition or keep going? I think I'll restart it, wool stretches so it should be no problem in a smaller size. That way it won't look like a dressing gown as I fear it'll end up.

I actually thought I was knitting the 44" size all along until I checked and found out this week that I was doing the 48" one. Don't know how that happened!

Knitting when you should be sleeping: a cautionary tale

It was just after lunch when the thought occured to me that I should check the cables.
To my absolute horror I discovered a misscrossed cable about 3 cable crossings down!
Ack.
Turns out it was one of the first ones I did at 4 am this morning.

There was no way in h*ll I was going to rip back all of those rows - that was about 10cm work.
So I bravely read up on dropping stitches to fix cables.

I forgot to take a picture of the misscrossed cable but remembered once I had dropped all the stitches off, so here's the first part I call Come Undone ( notice the reference to the Robbie Williams song that I slipped in there?)

Here it is all fixed up, phew this only took 45 minutes to complete (best song reference here is Phoenix From The Flames) The cable in question is just above where the armhole shaping starts.

I feel that I am evolving as a knitter - deliberately dropping stitches to fix mistakes. That's something I once thought could only be fixed by a complete restart.

For Miss A's patience early this morning we are going to a Beanie Baby Party at our local shopping centre. Although I'd rather hop into bed than spend 2 hours frolicking with pricey Beanie Babies.

Robbie, Robbie, Robbie (chanted)

Miss A and I scored some tickets to the Robbie Williams concert! Aaaayyyy :)

We woke up at 3am, got ready and headed down to the nearest outlet which was 5 minutes away.
By 4:10am we were happily sitting (and knitting) second in line, can ya believe it second!
I got heaps done on the CP hoodie.

The Newsagency opened at 8am but we were lucky - we only had to stay till 7:15am when the newsagent decided to take pity on us and hand out place-holding number cards. That left us free for an hour to go home, have breakky, go to the loo and be back there at 8:40 to register and wait.

Still holding our breath at 9am cos they might sell out before we get a chance to purchase.
But we were really lucky, scored two Gold seats (seats! I'm taking Miss A and thought seats would be the go if we could get 'em ) In a really good spot too.

We are sooo thrilled!!

sings: Let meeee entertain you, do do do.

Be afraid, be very afraid....

Blogger is really messing this post up- it's not letting me separate the paragraphs so it all rolls into one, sorry.

I took this quiz and just look at my result!
Of course I knew that I was so it's no surprise really. I took it twice and got the same results.

What Type of Lunatic are You?

'Complete Psycho' PLEASE VOTE!!!
Take this quiz!








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I haven't mentioned my stalker before have I?
Well when my marriage ended I went along to one of those COPE courses on how to move on after separation. Well this guy there wouldn't stop emailing me saying how we'd be great together and how much he liked me ?! Geez I'd only just met him and only knew his name! Turns out he'd tried this with other members of the group and one member's daughter. Well every now and then he'll still email me with links to -ooh lets see how compatible we are / let's see if we like the same movie quizzes and photos (that I would never open I'd just delete) Anyway it made me feel creepy so I refer to him now as my stalker. The last email was a couple of months ago - now this course ended 2 years ago!! and it was only for 6 weeks.

I wasn't real worried because I knew I was a bit wacko of trouble and this poor guy didn't know what he was dealing with and now this quiz has proved it! ha ha.

On with the knitting content:

Ahh the Central Park Hoodie is coming along nicely:

Blogger isn't playing nice though and wont upload the picture! I've tried four times so maybe in a few days we'll see four pics of the hoodie's back. Sorry Jess, I know you really wanted to see it. You'll have to wait till knitting this afternoon.

Surfing this morning I came across this pattern. Hmm, it is specifically for beginners and looks good, I'll definitely add this to my 'want to knit' pile.

Cat content:

As I've been typing this there has been a strange noise from the backyard. Something jumping up and scraping the back fence. I thought it was Kitty because I did see her on the roof of the house behind us. Obviously it was a cat jumping up and not quite making the top of the fence and sliding back down again. Upon looking out some time later I could see Kitty coming back from over there but the banging/screeching continued.

I went out there several times and it wasn't until I did a head count that I noticed Andy missing. Gathering courage I climbed onto the rabbit cage and looked over the back fence. It's 6:45am mind you. I don't think we have neighbours there yet it's been very quiet and the dog that was there I haven't heard for a while.

Anyway looking over the fence yep, it was Andy. Poor thing was soo tired from jumping up and sliding back down as soon as he saw me he started meowing. A sad, sorry meow. How was I going to get him back, Kitty had been over there but she had obviously seen the trellis going up to the little shade area and uses that to get back. I think it was Andy's first time and he must have followed Kitty.

What was I going to do?? The big ladder we have was way too heavy for me to lift over the fence and I could just see over that fence standing on a rabbit cage. Would the rabbit cage continue to hold my weight?? Could I lift that heavy ladder over the fence?? Should I go and get help my friend two doors down has a teenage son?? But it'sonly 7am on a Sunday!! What if someone does live there how is it going to look when they see a woman in her pyjamas hoiking a ladder over their fence?! Looking around the yard I found the old beanbag that I'd been meaning to wash after a cat had piddled on it. An idea struck I'd hold the beanbag over the fence and then Andy could climb onto it and I'd pull him to safety, with him sitting nicely on the beanbag. hmmmmm.

Yeah, but as soon as I threw it over the fence he ran. Bugger. Ok, so I called him and then slowly put it back over the fence and after four tries he managed to hold on enough to be able to lift him.

I didn't count on him seeing my arm as an extension of the beanbag and he ran straight up it onto my shoulders. Luckily I had a thick jumper on over my pj's.

The beanbag is now part of the cat rescue kit.

Must add that Mr Ex and Miss A were not home as they had gone away for the weekend and every weekend Mr Ex has gone away in the past something has gone wrong with the cats be it sickness or one of them getting run over, it's always something!

It's times like this that I wish that I had a partner to help me, so I didn't have to do it alone. Some one I could be cacking myself laughing with over this ( I'm feeling my quiz results are justified cos I'm cacking myself laughing all by myself ). In the past I could call Mr Ex and know it'd be taken care of. But hell, I managed by myself and I'm none the worse for it.

So all of the cats are grounded for the day and they can stay inside, they've just used up one more of my nine lives. :)