Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Turning 50

It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to....



Well ok, I'm not crying. But it IS my birthday and I think turning 50 deserves a blog entry. I think the misery of turning 50 is that you realise time has just slipped by, and you've not really achieved any of the things you set out to achieve.  I mean, I'm not a famous author. I don't even write. Hell I'm flat out reading most of the time!!  I haven't finished my Phd.  I haven't managed to save enough money to even contemplate retirement, let alone retirement in the near future. And I didn't lose weight. It's all so hopeless, and I've run out of time. Like so many of my deadlines just plain not met.

However, I am blessed with a wonderful husband, and a loving family, and a roof over my head, and life is pretty good. Plus the real upside to turning 50 is that the clock really can start over again. I can do all those things by the time I'm 60 - thus giving myself another 10 yrs up my sleeve. 

So this is as good a place to set the direction.. state my goals to I can stick to them.. share with the world so that they cannot be broken.. And so my goals for the next 10 years are:

ummmm.....

hrmm........

OH who needs goals anyway! Stupid things. Life never really goes to plan anyway. So I say "no" to goals! There! I feel much better now :)



Monday, March 12, 2012

Camping

Well it's been a busy weekend! Pingu and I took the camper van for our first road trip and found ourselves a nice quiet spot under the mountains to test our camping skills*.




After some fiddling, and a few frantic ph calls to Dad (which was quite lucky as the signal completely dropped out about an hour after we'd finished!) we found ourselves with a nice little home for the weekend.







And Pingu got to settle in while I took the 'evidence' pictures :)












And we had lovely open space and trees and mountains to look at ...



....while just sitting around and 'being' (well apart from the odd flicking off of blow flies here and there, that is!)

All in all, a successful trip was had!

On the craft front, I received a lovely book from Pingu and think that I will make one of these for the step-daughter's easter bundle. Not a traditional present, but something I think she'd love. I had a more traditional bunny in mind but might make that for the daughter and/or son.













And I also received my very first bundle of swap squares! Most exciting event.









Now, I must return to the exciting task of unpacking Dworkin's theory of equality! Doesn't get better than that.... (ok well maybe it does!).  Happy Monday-itis!






* skills might be stretching it a bit!

Monday, March 5, 2012

My instructions for block 3

I created the following instructions for making Block 3 because it's causing some grief. It took forever to get on facebook so I've copied it here so that I don't have to put myself through that effort again!

Round 1 – making the front of the flower bud
Start with a circle that has 12 tr in it. This is the front of your flower bud.



Round 2 – making the back of the flower bud
Start to work decreased half trebles (“dec 2htr”) which will fold into a circle at the back of this one. This is the bud of the flower. To work the decreased half treble – take the yarn around your hook, put the needle through the next tr and pick up one loop. Repeat this on the next tr. You should have 5 loops on your hook. Take the yarn around you hook and then pull that loop through all 5 loops on your hook.


Continue this way until you have worked the beginning decreased half treble (“2ch, 1htr in next st”) and the “5 dec 2htr” repeats. You will have 6 stitches in total. Note how your circle has folded back on itself to form a closed circle at the back. This is the back of your flower bud.


At this stage the front of your flower bud should look like this if you turn your work over.


The decreased half trebles are at the back. In the next round, you will work from the back to create the loops for petals.

Round 3 – making the loops for the base of the petal
With the back of the flower facing you, create the 2 ch loops that you will use to form the base of each petal. In each half treble stitch at the back work a double crochet and then a 2 ch loop between stitches. You will have 6 double crochet and 2 ch loops. You will be making the petal into these loops.

Round 4 – making the first round of petals
With the front of the flower facing you, work a series of “1dc, 1htr, 3tr, 1htr, 1dc” into each of the 2 ch loops. Note how you create the petal at the back of the flower bud this way.
The pattern then tells you to do “1ch, sl st around bp of st in row below” on the very last stitch of round 4. See Round 5 below for how to do this.
From the front your flower should look like this:


Round 5 – creating the next round of loops (3 ch) for the second round of petals
In this round you will be creating another set of loops at the back of your flower. Have a look at it now from the flower now and note how there is a small “bar” created in Round 3 by the double crochet between each 2 ch loop (see where the hook is pointing in the pic below).


This is the back post (“bp”) that the pattern is referring to. Turn your work over now so that you can create the loops at the back of the flower.
With the back of the pattern facing you, you need to take your hook and push it under the double crochet stitch – from the back, to the front, then to the back again as follows:


From here you take the yarn around your hook and pull through to create a double crochet. (On the first stitch, the instructions have you working a slip stitch first to “anchor” the stitches). Work 3 ch and then repeat the double crochet through the back of the next “back post” (ie the next double crochet bar created from round 3).
From the back, your ch loops should start to look a bit like this (there are two loops at the side of this flower):


This round of double crochet and 3 ch loops forms the base of the second round of petals. However, it also creates the next set of “back posts” for round 7. And so on.

Rounds 6 to 9 – continue making petals and loops
Turn you work around so that the front is facing you for the petals, and the back is facing you for the loops. Repeat the process from Rounds 4 and 5 until you have completed 3 sets of petals and created one further set of loops (round 9). This final set of 5 ch loops will give you the base for round 10 – where you start to work normal rounds of treble.

Rounds 10 to 13
Follow the pattern from here on to create several rounds of treble, with 2 tr, 2 ch, 2 tr in each corner.  Finish with the usual round of dc.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Week 3 and other things

So here's my Block 3.


As I said, very pretty but a bit fiddly. I tend not to have the patience for too many of these!

I've been busy with the other blocks (ie for the swap) and having a lot of fun trying out different patterns, and finished Mum's scarf (which ironically is the same pattern as Block 2 - I just didn't notice it!).




And I got myself organised....





And in between all that I managed to clean the fish tank. Was so excited about it that I had to buy more fish (as you do...)





Ooh and am very excited to report that I have made not one, but two (yes, TWO!) lots of baby African Violets. So my friend Eve's plant will never die now. Well maybe it will die, but it will take a lot more effort on my part to kill it!



















And of course there was the arrival of the book.


All in all, not a bad week or two :)

Friday, March 2, 2012

Week 3 Block

The week 3 block of the week was posted this morning, quite a fiddly block this time - a cute little flower in the middle but not easy to put together if you haven't had some experience at flowers. The link for the block is here.  There are a couple of typos in the pattern, though, which is a bit of a shame as the project will lose momentum if it gets to hard to follow the instructions. However, I've managed a couple of blocks and will post pics tomorrow when not so tired.

The week has been reasonably productive, I have a full chapter outline now that I'm really happy with and a few of those narky, annoying jobs off my desk (I'm ignoring the rest). I've managed a few more squares for the swap too, but will need to get some more done over the weekend or I'll fall behind!*

Last night Pingu and I went to the Comedy Club to see Tommy Dean (you can find him on Twitter here) as Pingu won free tickets again (and didn't even enter into any draw for them this time!). He was very funny, but so was the rest of the show. Quite a different line up to the usual, so we really enjoyed it.  And I managed to get myself to the hairdressers - I've been finding it quite difficult to find a decent one but think I may have succeeded today. I used the random google technique.....it's as useful as anything else I've tried!

So now I'm exhausted, and must go get my beauty sleep - as lord knows I need it!

* Note how quickly I lapsed straight back into crochet... oops!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Well there goes another weekend!

I did, however, have quite a productive and pleasant weekend! First I had to attend to the Friday Block of the Week, so did my four blocks of Week 2.





Then I started the blocks for the group swap I've just joined - loving that as I'm getting to use patterns from the 200 blocks book that Pingu bought me last year. The rules of the swap are 6" blocks, all one colour each, so that means I don't have to fiddle with changing colour and sewing in ends (which I HATE doing). I'm having a lot of fun with the colours too!





In between crocheting blocks, and wishing I was in SA with Mum for her birthday, Pingu and I went out to celebrate the arrival of my text book and his CD. And I had a lovely craft day with Car.
.
Finished the weekend off by watching "The Fugitive" for the 500th time, which is much better than crying my way through "I Am Sam" (which is what I did last week). And I'm all set to start working my way through Dworkin's theory this week. I will NOT stay glued to the TV listening to politics and/or the Academy Awards, no matter how tempting that may be!

Friday, February 24, 2012

Block of the Week - week 2

The pattern for block 2 is up - and the link is here.  I'm really enjoying having a weekly project that is small enough that I can actually achieve it without detracting from the task at hand (ie unwritten doctorate). And Friday is such a good day to get each new sheet!