Domesticated Bloggage
Domesticated Bloggage
Baby Cardigans
These are the cardigans made from Sirdar's Silky Look DK yarn that I mentioned on Thursday
They are so sweet. I love the feel and look of the fabric now that they are knitted up. It's a lovely pattern to knit; simple enough to knit quickly but with just enough detail to keep you interested. Which is great. The yarn is also machine washable and can be tumble dried which is excellent when making baby clothing.
I'd been given free rein over what yarn to use remembering that ultimately photgraphing it on a child is going to happen. If I'm being totally honest though, the finish on the yarn makes it difficult to photograph well. It has a sheen on it and it bounces the flash light back making the pink look washed out. It also gives less definition to the pattern. They don't look the way they should and that makes me unhappy with the end product.
It's been a good excercise into what types of yarn work well with a particular pattern. And all is not lost - these cardigans will look adorable on my grand-daughter. Nevertheless, it is back to the drawing board and I'm now using some Wendy Peter Pan DK. Let's see how that works out.
Here's A Thought
Theodore Roosevelt says:
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.
Only learn to say no occasionally. Or you can get seriously rushed off your feet.
Time to take some of my own advice, methinks :/
Did You Know...
...Cadbury eggs outsell jellybeans pound for pound?
I can believe that. And I confess that Cadbury Creme Eggs are my ultimate chocolate vice. Generally I eat very little chocolate as it gives me gastric reflux but I can throw caution to the wind over a Creme Egg. I like to bite the top off (removing the top as you would a boiled egg for breakfast) and scoop out the fondant with my tongue. Once empty I eat the rest of the egg shell. Yummy!
How do you eat yours?
Comments (8)Lucky, Noro and Silky
Lucky is finished
And I don't like it. The yarn is just way too bulky for such a small garment. So the cardigan has knitted up heavy and is on the stiff side. I don't think I'll use it again for a little person's garment. I have some more of this in my stash but I think I may use it to knit a bag or maybe some place mats for the dinner table. I'm really disappointed with it.
Here's some more stash yarn I need to find a project for
I'd originally bought it for the Sandy cardigan from Big Girl Knits. The pattern was a KAL on the Ample Knitters list over on Yahoo Groups. It got a mixed reception over there and I can even remember one lady saying she would only wear it in the house she was so disappointed with it. So I have eight 50g balls (or 800 metres) of the stuff and I don't know what to do with it. It knits up on 4.5mm knitting needles so I'm thinking I need to treat it as an aran weight. Maybe I'll try a jacket for one of the grandchildren.
And finally, I'm test knitting a baby cardigan at the moment. I can't show you the pattern as the designer hasn't released it yet but I'm using this yarn:
It's lovely to knit with and will make a beautiful "Sunday best" cardigan for a baby girl. It's not a complicated pattern so it's knitting together really quickly. Once I have the go ahead from the designer I'll post the finished garment. Possibly on grand-daughter3. It'll be another good excuse to show her off :)
Comments (6)Thank You...
...for all the comment love and suggestions.
I really appreciate it.
Sleep
I'm tired all the time. Actually it's more than just tired. I'm exhausted. My sleep pattern is all to pot. It's almost certainly the fibro that's causing it. This has been going on for over 12 months and has been the longest flare I've had to endure.
I don't feel as if I'm on top of things anymore. It's more like things are getting on top of me. I stay in bed for 10 hours - I go to bed at the same time each night and get up at the same time each morning - but the night is broken with pain in my limbs. My muscles become rigid and I experience painful cramps. I wake about 5 times a night and it's becoming a real problem. Broken and painful nights become fatigued and painful days.
I've been trying different sleeping positions to see if that will help. Generally I sleep on my right side with my right shoulder supported by pillows. This is because the tender points around my right shoulder are particularly sore. It may seem silly then to sleep on it. It's because I've found that warmth eases the pain so during the winter this is the best position. However, my knees are beginning to hurt in that position and I don't know what to do about it. I've tried to sleep propped up as this eases my knees but then the tender points in my lower back get sore and my right shoulder isn't supported. I've even tried sleeping in a chair with my legs up on a footstool but that's not practical and it makes for a lonely night.
I've still got a couple of things I can try before I have yet another appointment with the doctor. Perhaps I should work on the sleeping plan more and see what I can do to get a more restful night's sleep. I'll try what I did with my children when they were restless babies; a bath and and a milky drink before bedtime. Anything's worth a try.
Happy Chinese New Year!
Congratulations and be properous!
Elle x
Did You Know...
...53.8 percent of people say they are afraid of things having to do with the number 13? Coincidentally, this is approximately equal to 7 out of 13 people.
One of my children was born on the 13th day of October. It's never caused her, or me, anything to be afraid of nor brought bad luck.
Perhaps we were the lucky ones, eh?
Comments (6)Next!
Time to pick up the knitting needles again. I've decided to knit Lucky from Pipsqueaks.It calls for Rowan All Season's cotton and I just happen to have some of that in my yarn stash. So in the spirit of destashing in 2007 I'm going to use it.
The yarn is a pale blue colour but Daughter1 doesn't mind. Actually, it's only recently that the colours pink have been used for a girl and blue for a boy. Originally it was the other way round; pink was considered a masculine colour as it's a derivitive of red which is associated with power and strength. Girls wore blue as this is considered a feminine colour associated with water and being calm. I don't know why the colours were switched. I think I'll have to investigate that one.
Anyway, it's a very easy pattern; the knitting stitch used is moss stitch which I don't usually like as it can be tedious. However the yarn is an aran weight so shouldn't take me too long to knit.
ADDENDUM
I said I'd be researching the blue/pink colour preference for gender. Here's some info I've found on the net:
According to the website "Gender Specific Colors," it would seem that assigning color to gender is mostly a 20th century trait. It would also seem that at one time, the color associations were reversed when color first came into use as a gender identifier.
And some in depth work on the meaning of colour for gender can be found on Color Matters
Not necessarily about gender but the effect of colour is found on this site:
Did You Know...
...that there are more cards sent today than on all the other holidays added together?
And here's a How to French Kiss to get you in the mood for the day
However you might celebrate today - or not even - I hope it's a good one. Happy Valentine's 
Bites
I went out and did some gardening yesterday. The weather was bright and sunny if a little on the damp side. With the fibromyalgia I can't do much - it hurts my back, my shoulders and the standing and crouching is particularly difficult. However, the garden was looking tired so I thought I'd give it a go.
30 minutes later and the patio (outside the conservatory window) was looking much better. I stopped then and decided to leave the rest for another day.
Later in the evening I noticed my arms had become quite itchy and on further inspection I discovered I was covered in raised bumps and blistered. I've got no idea how I got them as I was well covered (it was much too cold to go outside with bare arms). I didn't see any mozzies around so I'm wondering if they are ant bites. Whatever they are I'm not impressed. I need to some hydrocortisone to ease the swellings and the pain
In other news - I'm now officially retired from Royal Mail. I was surprised at how quickly it happened. From medical report to official retirement only took about 5 weeks. I'll receive a severance and payment in lieu of notice in my last pay which will be the end of this month. And that will be that. It's not quite as dramatic a change as I thought it would be. Probably as I've been on the sick for so long. I didn't get chance to say goodbye to my work mates though. I'll have to see if they'll let me in to do that.
And finally - for those of you who remember Isabella's Teddy (No link to the old site as it's been taken over by some company selling real estate; which I suppose is better than links to pr0n!) I've heard from Paul the Postman. Only he's not a postman any more. And the teddy apparently got lost somewhere in outer Mongolia. Or some other obscure place. Anyway, if any of you would like his email address then let me know via elle at bellis dot blogon dot com and I'll get it to you.
Yup, That's Me
There's always room on the blog for a silly test :)
What Kind of Knitter Are You?
You appear to be a Knitting Guru. You love knitting and do it all the time. While finishing a piece is the plan, you still love the process, and can't imagine a day going by without giving some time to your yarn. Packing for vacation involves leaving ample space for the stash and supplies. It can be hard to tell where the yarn ends and you begin.
http://marniemaclean.com
Take this quiz!
MySpace
I've just joined MySpace
I've had a look round and even added a couple of people to my friends' list. I already know these people and have known them for a long time. I wonder if I'm going to use it to it's potential though. From what I've seen, it's premise is to help you meet new people and increase your network of associations. I don't really do the whole meeting people thing and I tend to remain semi-anonymous in Blogland. I could well be defeating it's purpose.
So is it A Good Thing?
Do any of you who come by the Domesticated Bloggage use MySpace? If you do, how do you use it and do you find it helpful?
And if you don't use it then tell me why too
Comments (4)Doing My Bit
Will you do yours? VIA
Knitting A Health Aid
Knitted breasts help new mothers
Knitting isn't just good for you, it can save money too!
Comments (1)An FO
That's finished object to us knitting folk.
I'm delighted to say that I've finished Mary, Mary from Pipsqueaks in good time. The yarn - Sirdar's Tropicana - was a dream to knit with and the pattern was very easy.
As Grand-daughter3 is so petite I didn't actually knit the Mary, Mary for her. I designed a simple cardigan pattern as I didn't have anything else that was small enough to be worn at the moment. Of course she could wear something bigger and turn up the cuffs so we can see her pretty hands but it's not the same. Daughter1 was delighted that I knit it in pink as most of the preemie sized cardigans she has are in white. She wanted to see her baby wearing a bit of colour.
Here's a picture of both of the FOs together.
I haven't decided what to do next yet. I think I'll take a couple of days off to rest my shoulders and perhaps try something with a bit more pattern. Not too challenging though or else it'll take me an age to knit and they'll have grown out of them before I'm finished!
Did You Know...
...since January 17th, 2004, there have been more emails sent each and every day than there are people on earth?
And we all know that a lot of that is spam, right? I'm estimating that about a quarter of all the spam I receive is in a foreign language. The majority of that is Russian and comes to me in cyrillic script. I have no idea what they're about but many of them come with images ranging from outside hot tubs to highly decorated wooden boxes. I haven't a clue as to how to filter them out. Any suggestions?
Cashmere
I've done some sample knitting for this magazine. It was so much fun and had me practising skills I hadn't used in a very long time. It also meant I was able to knit a pattern before anyone else - it'll be published in the magazine but I've already had access to it. Now that was interesting. I've designed knitting patterns myself but they're only in one size and were for specific people. I wouldn't know how to go about designing multi-sized patterns. And even though I've seen how someone did - there were notes and drawings - I still don't know how to go about doing it myself but was very interesting nonetheless.
Anyway, my payment for the samples was in kind. I don't mind that it was well worth it. I received these lovely hanks of yarn and a copy of the magazine. Each hank weighs 100g and is of the most delicious cashmere sock weight in a self striping monochromatic colour.
I don't really know what to do with it yet. It seems a shame to knit it all up as socks. With it being so soft I'm thinking maybe something for my new grandchild.
Decisions, decisions...