New Projects - inside and out

I have finally gotten around to having a go with Wollmeise.

First I swatched (but not with the colour I was going to use):

To me it feels like cotton to knit with but it came out much softer after washing and blocking.

Deciding on a project was hardest, in the end Raiun won. My project or  Rav Link

Specs:
3.25mm needles
Wollmeise twin in Petit Poison Dark
gauge 6sts/ 8 rows per inch

Things I have learnt:

Provisional Cast On.  A simple figure 8 cast on. You can just see the wonky stitches where the marker is denoting the Cast on row. It took me an hour to get this right, I nearly gave up.Looks ok though, I will try to snug the stitches up later.

 M1P = Make one purl, yep I have never done this before either. Some are a little wonky until I got it right. I bit the bullet and looked it up rather than trying to work it out myself. I couldn't decide whether to pick up the bar from front to back or back to front.

There are a few mistakes right up near the beginning of the sleeve increases. A purl that should have been a knit etc.  This is where I second guessed the designer's plan and changed a knit to a purl because I thought the pattern ribbing would not be correct. So I have learnt to trust the designer in future and just go with the pattern. I will not try to fix it by dropping it down and picking back up because I know what will happen if I drop down 7 rows and can't get back up sounds easy but it's near another lifted increase and I just know i could stuff it up really well so I will live with it. Yes, I can do that, I can live with imperfection, just watch me.
It is actually bugging me a lot but it's such a tiny thing that no-one will see because my hair will be covering it up. So shhh, no-one will know it's there but me.

Outside of the house we have been developing our veggie garden this long weekend.
So far we have planted corn, tomatoes, coloured silverbeet, lettuce, leeks, capsicum, zucchini, carrots and basil.
We also have most of our dwarf fruit trees in. We have 2 apples, 2 nectarines, peach and an orange, we are still looking for a dwarf mandarin. Most trees are full of blossoms.

Here's the resident gardener planting out the ornamentals. The veggie patch is the part covered in pea straw at the back. This is where our big double shed used to be.

We also have the formal ornamental part complete with pot:

I reckon the pot will get blown over in a strong wind gust but we will see. It looks crooked but I keep telling myself that is part of the optical illusion of the pot's design.  Either its that or already on its way over.

Must include a pic of our water feature now that we have pots next to it:

Finally the obligatory kitteh pictures.
They are sneaky, I opened the craft room door to hang up some laundry indoors (didn't want pea straw on the freshly laundered clothes) Kitty snuck in, ignored my stern NO, jumped up on the sofa and immediately snuggled in as if she had been asleep for ages.  Andy soon followed her.

They had swapped places from where they first were, my guess is that Andy went to bite snuggle Kitty so she got up and moved away from him and he took her spot - this happens a lot.

The best part is no more uni until January next year, well one more assignment to submit but it is DONE, just hanging on to it because I always think of other things to add after submitting, yay. I'm taking Summer Semester off this year before I burn out. That leaves just 4 units to go then I will be finished. Two each year as two units are full on practicums, one music which should be easy and an Entreprenurial Professional something or other.

So the next few months will be focusing on making resources for my current class- still working as a School Services Officer in Special Ed, unpacking the many boxes still in the shed, putting my craft room in order (no pictures because it is too messy at the moment) and knitting -can't wait to try out my new garnrollenhalter that came today:

It spins so quietly and effortlessly releases your yarn as you knit. A combined bulk order with a Ravelry group. I had been using this:

from here: http://www.instructables.com/id/Rotating-Yarn-Holder/
This one is noisy as the lazy susan is very rattly. However it did work quite well and the noise was ok after a while. I simply Blu-Tacked a small lazy susan spinner onto the bottom of a CD spindle, nowhere near as complicated as the linked project. It needed the whole spindle to spin and not have the yarn rotating around the stick part causing friction.

So...I have Raiun to complete then on to a Featherweight Cardi in Wollmeise lace (Im Jahr Der Ratte), Ardelise in Bendy (Red Tweed) oh and I must make a Vanadium Bendy Classic 5 ply (Cranberry) and I must make Elfe too though not necessarily in that order. What's on your To Do list?

Socktober

Here are the most recent socks that I have completed.

Specs:

Thuja pattern

Spunky Eclectic 'Signature' yarn

3.25mm needles

Nice thick, warm socks for winter.

Specs:

Thuja pattern

3.25mm needles

Dream in Color Classy 'Ruby River'

Specs:

Thuja pattern

3.25mm needles

Shepherd Colour 4 Me 'pink/white'

Specs:

Hobby Print

2mm needles

My sock recipe

Not very happy with the way the colours pooled. Might have even posted these finished before - can't remember.

Current WIP: Sea Socks

Thuja again (love this pattern!)

3.25mm needles

Shepherd Colour 4 Me 'blue/green'

Other News

Uni

has just one more test to go in a week and a bit and then I am done for the year. Not doing Summer Semester this year, I really need the rest.

Car

found out who damaged my car, disappointed to find out that it was one of my students and even more disappointed when I found that I had to fork out for the repairs myself as the Dept will not cover staff cars! My car was not the only one vandalised either. Anyway, the damage has been repaired and I have been relieved of over $300. The crash repairers did a fantastic job, I am very happy and I will not dwell on this any longer, the damage is gone now.

Holidays

it is the holidays and we are both sick again. At least something in my life is predictable hey? I managed to avoid coming down with the flu during school-time but now that the holidays have started, I succumbed.

Weight Loss

Had official weigh in last week and my loss so far is 6kgs. I had engaged the services of a Personal Trainer 6 weeks ago and it is going well. Up until we both got sick that is and now I have no energy to do anything except reach for chocolate and pepsi max. I will worry about exercising when I am better.

Bikes

Miss A and I have new bikes and intend to go riding a) when we are better and b) when it is not raining. Kmart had 25% off bikes, Miss A had grown out of hers, great timing. I was ust going to get mine serviced but when we went to the bike store there was a bike in my fave colour for only 50 bucks more than a service would cost me. My old bike was bought when I was in my late teens and bike technology has changed a lot since then so.... a new bike was bought for me. The car has also had a towbar installed complete with bike carrier so we can ride further away. That was one of the main activities that we were going to do these holidays, best laid plans of ours always go astray.

So that's about it, being sick makes it the perfect time to sit and knit, so that's what is planned for the duration of this fluey/coldy thing.

Where Does The Time Go?

Well not much has been happening here lately just the same old work and study routine.

University studies are going very well and I'm even enjoying it. Got some credit for my previous studies and have been successful in applying for exemption to two assignments for one unit. Phew - that means less work.

Even been allowing myself time off for knitting. No pictures yet as it's just the CPHoody for Miss A and is growing slowly. I haven't had the urge to knit anything so haven't picked it up for weeks now but it is there and this week I've been knitting a little, even if it's just one row after I've read my papers, it's starting to entice me back. I'd forgotten how relaxing it is for me. if I put it off much longer Miss A will have grown out of the Hoody!

Really - not much happening = not much blogging.

I got in!

I applied to go to University a while back and last Wednesday I got the letter.
I have won a place at Charles Darwin University to study a Bachelor of Teaching.
I'll be doing it externally which means it is all either online or posted. Yippee!

I have a fantastic learning support network and organised a wonderful mentor.

How I am going to fit it all in is something I haven't figured out yet.

At least this means that I don't have to:

• Drop 2 - 3 days work/pay to physically attend Uni. I can keep us in the manner to which we have become accustomed (late night chocolate binges and Iced Coffee always in the fridge)
• Get someone to look after Miss A while I attend. (she can sit right next to me and bug me play on the old computer while I study - yeah we'll see how long that'll last ;)
• Worry about being back in time to pick up Miss A. (As usual she'll be with me 24/7......)
• Spend $$ getting to Uni and back. (helps to pay for the new computer)

It does mean that I won't have as much time to knit, so I better get cracking on Miss A's Central Park Hoody before she outgrows it.

And because it is going to be mostly online, I've invested in Broadband which should be here by next weekend I hope and a new computer. My old one is totally full and will not stand up to the rigours of late night, long hours of studying. Can you believe I am only getting on average around 32Kbps! Damn slow. At it's worst my broadband will be 64Kbps twice as fast, kewl. Oh and have 4 connections so that Miss A can access it at the same time, Neopets here she comes.

So this weekend was spent setting up the old computer for Miss A (she has to earn her computer time mwuahaha) and the new one for myself. Vista sure is purdy. Guess what was easier....

I had a good idea to update the old one to SP2, all well and good but the installation went awry and I ended up with the computer not recognising the modem! What! no internet for 2 days!!! I have just worked out what was wrong and fixed it, phew, that only took nearly 2 full days. A quick reinstall of the Operating System and a few tweaks...

I tried to install Internet Explorer 7 and that went belly up too I think it has something to do with Windows Update ( which also went belly up but is now fixed after having half a day spent on it) So I will try again now that the updating program is working. (something about not being able to connect to the internet to update itself - I hope......)

I have integrated my antivirus, firewall and anti spyware into Windows Live One Care, not linking cos I've spent too many hours at that bl**dy website searching it for fixes, and that seems to be going well. One subscription instead of two, and it was cheaper than one subscription on its own.

So hopefully in a few days I'll be able to report a full thumbs up on the computer system here at Chez Bankrupt.