Sunday 2 August 2015

Under the weather

I've been fighting off a cold all week so consequently have been feeling a bit bleah and not very productive. Also I've wasted several hours playing Skyrim on the PC as my son set me up on his Steam account where I can play the expansions (Hearthfire and Dawnguard) that I didn't have on the Xbox 360.

We picked up my sewing machine from its service and it's running a lot better now without the squeaking noise.

I did a bit more on my knitting bag but have got a bit stuck now on the final hem that will hold the snap frame.  I thought I had left a generous hem but it seems I didn't. Have put it to one side while I think about it.


Similarly stuck on my second knitted bunny because I ran out of yarn while knitting the legs. So I need to design some shoes or boots in a different colour.

I unravelled the gradient blank, gave it a wash to straighten out the kinks a bit, and have started knitting a pattern called the Spearmint Tea Shawl. Basically you knit a garter row whenever the colour changes. I love the colours but not enjoying knitting with this yarn at all. It feels really flimsy and is extremely unforgiving of loose tension so consequently my knitting looks rubbish. I'm hoping that blocking will smooth it out more. On the plus side, my new yarn lazy susan is working well with this.

I knit a few daisies in the new white yarn for the knitted handbag and I think they look a lot better and plumper (the one on the left without a centre).  So I am going to abandon the 22 daisies I've knit, and knit a second batch in the new DK yarn.

I've turned the third corner on the Torchon bobbin lace mat and am ready to start the final triangle.  Will be glad when it's done, I'm getting a bit bored with doing the same things over and over now. I've made some minor mistakes but generally I'm pleased with it.

We inherited a small edible cherry tree and relocated it back in April.  It obligingly gave us a small crop of cherries which were dark red but never became sweet - apparently these are cooking cherries (who knew?).  I used the entire crop in an apple and cherry pie which was absolutely delicious, I served it us when DS's girlfriend was visiting and we all enjoyed it.

The kitchen fitter turned up to have a look at the dollshouse room and has agreed to do it in a few weeks. Fingers crossed he shows up, he's been a bit erratic in the past. But I'm excited about the idea of finally being able to unpack the dollshouses at last.

We drove down to a lovely village called Wherwell in Hampshire yesterday for a pub lunch with the in-laws for my f-i-l's 80th birthday. Gorgeous thatched cottages, the River Test flowing through the village, everything so picture perfect that it almost felt like an English Theme Park. It made me feel old though because in my younger days I would have been drooling over these gorgeous cottages and dreaming of owning one.  Now in my declining years I was thinking things like 'no parking', 'low ceilings', 'flood risk' and 'where's the nearest supermarket?'. Lol.  Lovely to look at but wouldn't want to live there basically.  Unless it was a second holiday home?




1 comment:

Daisy said...

At the house I grew up in, we had a cooking cherry tree in the front garden. We used to watch from the windows as people walking past (there were a lot, as it was en route to the hospital) used to pick cherries off to eat, then rapidly spit them out when they discovered they weren't sweet!