jenwren's blog

Happy New Year!

SSK turned out to be something of a fizzer on Christmas Eve.  Barmuda was closed and no one else was stupid enough to be out in the heat like silly me.  No matter.

It has remained horribly hot over the last week or so, and even here in Armidale I'm frying.  So I've been doing very little, as I really don't tolerate the heat all that well.

The Denim Pinafore was virtually finished on Christmas day, with only the neck and armhole edging and side seams remaining to be done.  But I didn't get around to finishing it until yesterday.  I'm really happy with the finished product.  Very cute.  I ended up using just under half the indigo-dyed yarn, so I might make another one in a smaller size for about 12-18 months age (this one is the 2-3 year old size - the smallest in Erika Knight's book).  I got that idea from this blog.  I won't start on that too soon as it would be a little boring.

I started a Wine Sock on Christmas Eve and finished by fulling it on Thursday.  It ended up far too tall - I thought I'd fulled it enough (two times through the wash parts of the heavy duty cycle on my machine, and seemingly not willing to get any smaller), but it seems to have stretched as I pulled it over a rolled up towel in plastic to dry.  It's about the right height for one of my stoppered glass bottles I keep in the fridge with water or fruit juice in them, but it is too tall for a standard wine bottle.  If I make this again (and I probably will, as it is a great way of using up leftover yarn), then I'd make it shorter than the 46 cm the pattern specified.

Today I dyed the silk and ivory yarn with the Landscape Mist dye I mentioned before Christmas.  Once it has dried and I've wound it into a ball, I'll be able to start the Flower Basket Shawl.  I knitted up the small  sample I'd dyed previously to be sure of the needle size I'll be using, and after having been concerned about having enough yarn when I first got the pattern, it looks like there's no problem.  Meanwhile, I keep itching to start another shawl with the blue 2 ply yarn I bought at Rubi and Lana.  But I don't think I want two shawls on the go at once, so I'm trying to resist the temptation.

My telly has finally gone bung.  Finally?  Well, it is a family heirloom.  It was our family's first colour television, purchased in 1978.  It has seen seven different locations, and had to be tuned to different broadcast transmitters four times (Sydney, Port Stephens, Sydney, Armidale - and those little wheels it has for tuning are murder on the fingers after about 5 minutes).  It was put into semi-retirement well over ten years ago when it moved to Port Stephens, but was put back into regular use by me when I moved out of my parents home for the second time, six years ago this month.  Mum and Dad had to replace this television's replacement a couple of years ago.

This TV was really something.  It had a remote control!  And I still have the remote (left), despite it not having worked for at least the last six years.  A whole two buttons!  One for volume (I think all it actually did was mute the volume) and one for the channel.  It wasn't infrared like modern remote controls - it used a sound frequency.  So whenever Mum did the vacuuming while we were watching TV, the set would randomly change channel.  I used to be able to make a "shh" noise with the same effect (like the remote, the receiver of this signal had stopped working too).  And the front of the TV has some really neat channel buttons.  They didn't move when you pressed them, they operated something like those touch lamps.  Occasionally, they wouldn't work unless you simultaneously put your finger on the channel button, and jumped into the air so that you were not electrically grounded.

I've been expecting the TV to catastrophically fail one day.  In truth, it hasn't exactly done that.  On Monday night, the picture went severely out of focus.  After it had been switched off for a while, it seemed fine.  Then last night, while I was looking down at my knitting (I've started the flower basket shawl), the channel suddenly changed to the channel that is the default when it is switched on.  I suspect the power supply is probably going (the recent hot weather wouldn't have helped).  I couldn't see any point in delaying the purchase of a new telly any longer - it has given absolutely no trouble in the last six years, so I assume it's present problems probably indicate it has little time left.  After more than 27 years faithful service, it owes nothing.

So, having looked at a few options in the shops yesterday, followed by internet research, I went out today and purchased a replacement.  It has enough inputs that I don't need a switching box, or to channel everything through the VCR to the TV as I had to with the heirloom (it had only an aerial socket - things started getting complicated with a DVD player.  Then I added a digital STB and a DVD recorder...).  It has a 'proper' remote control, with oodles of buttons (I couldn't find the mute control when Mum phoned earlier and ended up muting the STB to the same effect).  And I finally found a use for the TV controls on the VCR's remote control I've had since 1998 - despite it's age, setting it to the TV's brand actually worked.  With all these remotes, and no switching box, I might never need to leave the sofa again!  Somehow I doubt this new telly will last anything like 27 years.  If it did, I would be 60.  Ye gads!

Oh, and happy 1st blog birthday to me!

The flower basket shawl is growing slowly.  I've made a couple of mistakes in it that I couldn't be bothered ripping back to fix.  Only I will ever notice them.

Apart from that, I'm doing nothing exciting.  I've done a bit of preparation work for school in the hope this year won't be quite as crazy as last year.  Like I said - nothing exciting.

Only about 5% of babies are born on their due date.  My latest niece is among them.  Charlotte was born at 3.53 am this morning, weighing in at 3.625 kg (8 lb).  Good work Kath and Damien!

There will be no paraskevidekatriaphobia around here!

Happiness is thinking you have completely run out of chocolate then finding two packets of Lindt Christmas Bells and a Reindeer hidden in the back of the pantry.  I bought them before going away for Christmas, and completely forgot about them.  The reindeer is probably safe from consumption until I get back from Sydney.

The Flower Basket Shawl is now at the half-way point, judged by the weight of the remaining ball of yarn.  I've already done two pattern repeats more than specified by the pattern (my yarn is not conforming to the pattern's statement of yardage required), and it's going to be hard to judge when to switch to the edging - and with a row length currently at 295 sts, I don't want to go too far and have to frog back.  Nor do I want to finish too soon and have lots of spare yarn.  I'm keeping track of the rate at which the remaining yarn is used with each pattern repeat.  At the moment it's about 10 grams in the last repeat.

I'm back from a quick trip to Sydney to see Katherine and baby Charlotte.  I made it to SSK at last too!  There are photos from SSK up at the blog or at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/ssknewtown/.  Or there's a Flickr badge on the side bar down under "Links".  As you can see in the picture here, the Flower Basket Shawl is getting larger.  I believe I'm on what will be the last pattern repeat before I switch to the edging (and pray the yarn doesn't run out before I cast off!).

Charlotte is a lovely baby.  I got some good pictures on Friday (and a cuddle), and yesterday I handed the camera to my nephew, Harrison, and later to one of my nieces, Madeleine, and I have 59 pictures of family in varying levels of blurriness as a result.  Great fun.

I knew it was going to be a close thing to running out of yarn on the edging of the Flower Basket Shawl.  I made it to the cast off row, but only had 4 metres of yarn remaining - not even enough to do half the cast off.  Bugger.  It was close enough though to not want to rip back the last pattern repeat - I would have been left with about 15 grams of yarn.  So I decided to modify the edging, eliminating two rows - which meant ripping back only three rows.  It still looked like it might be a close thing.  I got half way across the cast off and measured what was left - 9 metres.  I still wasn't sure I'd make it until I was nearly done.  And it was indeed very close - I had one metre of yarn left at the end!

I blocked it before going to school yesterday (yes, a half-day yesterday, full days tomorrow and Monday before the students return on Tuesday *sigh*), and it was finally dry this morning (we had a cool, very humid day yesterday).  The final dimensions are 168 cm wide and 77 cm deep.  If I was doing it again I'd buy two hanks of the yarn (Silk and Ivory from the Wool Peddler) and make it larger.  But it is large enough to wrap around my shoulders and tie at the front - and I'll be keeping it close at hand for the cool Armidale evenings when I want it to keep me warm.

Now I have the dilemma of what to start next.  I've really enjoyed doing some lace for a change, but with school going back, I should probably stick to something on which I can zone out a bit more.  I still can't start the vest I want to make with the silk/wool yarn I had my Mum spin for me because my attempts at dyeing samples haven't yielded a desirable colour.  I may cast on the Kiri Shawl in the blue Rubi + Lana 2 ply to satisfy my lace craving, but start something else as well for the too-tired-need-to-relax times.