Remembrance poppies

Like lots of people, every year I buy a poppy. And each and every year, at some point I look down and find that it's fallen off, and perhaps not every year - but most - I jab myself in the finger trying to get the pin into my coat and/or getting the pin out if just the poppy has fallen off.

This happened last year, as usual. And then a FB friend posted a picture of her crocheted poppy, and I thought 'I could do that'.

And I could.

Apparently the leaf is meant to point to 11 o'clock, as shown. 

So, now, every year I can wear this instead as long as I can remember where I put it and simply donate. 

I've attached it to a safety pin, so although the chances of it falling off are reduced, the chances of me jabbing myself in the finger are still pretty high.

Still, one thing at a time.

This year I'll do some more for the rest of the family. 

Another day, another blanket - Lemontruffles

Inevitably, there is a need for another blanket. In Pistey's words:

Lemontruffles' husband died this week on New Year's Day after living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Such devastating news. Our hearts go out to her. In her own words, he was the love of her life. 

Just sharing some of her words about him
He was Welsh and loved the countryside of North Wales especially. He loved walking. He loved going to the pub and having the biggest laugh he could. He had a fantastic sense of humour and he loved having fun. He was warm hearted, he had a spirit of pure generosity - though with a 'sticking point' stubborn streak! - he was no angel. He was very adventurous about life. He was a proper hippy in the 60s and 70s. He had an amazing memory for all sorts of things, and a very wide ranging and strange knowledge of very odd things. Such an interesting man. A man with endless and deep humanity towards all the people he met. He was very well loved. He had a deep maturity and wisdom about other people.

Oh, and music! Not male voice choirs! Rock and blues from the 60s and 70s, and the manic street preachers. He had great taste. Also photographs. He was always photographing things, all sorts of random things, all sorts of bits of nature, and landscapes. He loved his camera.

Suggestions for motifs
* Any motifs of the natural world - trees, leaves, flowers, birds (esp crows )
* Can anyone find a Welsh dragon design or a harp? We'd love to find these for her.
* Anything to reflect he was a Welshman.
* Music, photography related

The original thread is here

I don't know Lemontruffles - not in real life, nor do I 'know' her by Mumsnet. But I know that the blankets help people, and I wanted to help. 

So, I revisited an old classic, and this is what I made:

 Oak leaf pattern

 This is taken from one of the Angel blanket patterns; I just reduced it to fit the 6" brief.







I hope they bring some comfort.

Back to basics

Right, as this blog is - if nothing else - for me to document my, ahem, creations, I'd best get back to it really.

 This was for the Wubbly blanket - as this one had a theme of life, nature, etc. I chose a bamboo-style pattern. Can you spot the mistake? Fortunately, the Woolly Hugs team are very forgiving of mistakes, calling them 'character'. Also, I didn't notice until I was 3/4 of the way through and couldn't really face tinking all the way back. Made with donated wool from another MNer.
March 2012.

OFFS, how do I rotate the pictures?? Again for Wubbly's blanket because her son loves the Octonauts. It's a seahorse, clearly. Made with donated wool from another MNer.
March 2012

Just a moss-stitch square here, as a spare. It's the same donated wool as above, although it's come out a completely different colour.

March 2012

Oak leaf - Wubbly blanket, March 2012.

 Tree of Life, Wubbly blanket. Really pleased with this one - even if it did (once again) take a group effort to get it done. 
March 2012

Flower for MrsKwaazi blanket.
March 2012

Owl for MatildaWormwood's blanket - also did one for Greengoose's blanket
June 2012

 Bobble square (which looked a bit, up close, like lots of little boobs, so I called it a booble square)
Spare - June 2012

 Daisy stitch square, for MatildaWormwood blanket. If you look very closely I did lose count, but I think it's very slight.
June 2012

 Icord flower for Expat/Giraffes blankets. I loved doing the icord - so simple! Bit bored by the end of this one though, and trying to get the flower shape was tricky (evidently).
Donated wool, August 2012

 Spare square, June 2012. I think this pattern would be great for appliqueing crochet designs onto, for example. 

 Bear/paw print for Expat/Giraffes blankets.
August 2012

 Daisy stitch for MumOf's blanket. Maybe this is the one where I went wrong...
August 2012

 Tribal sun for MumOf's blanket. I am really happy with the end result of this one - I tried 'proper' intarsia. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't (by which I mean it looked like it's meant to on the back) and when it did I couldn't remember what I'd done to do it right. One of these days I'll look up a YouTube tutorial...
August 2012

 Moss stitch checkerboard pattern for Expat/Giraffe blankets, or a spare. Donated wool.
August 2012

 Basketweave square for 3G blanket. Not sure if this is a contraversial cold purple?? Love this design though - another good staple I feel.
August 2012

 As lots of MNers lit a candle for Expat's DD, this was meant to be a candle-flame design. Up close it shows how shocking my tension is... must go a needle size down if I ever try it again.
August 2012

I saw this on the Vogue blanket and thought 'I did embroidery at school, I can do this'. Evidently, no I can't. Embroidering on wool is much harder than fabric. 
September 2012

Playing away...

Not only have I been neglecting the blog of late but I've also been having an affair.

I have been cheating on my original true love.

I can't help it. It's just so addictive. I've never felt this way before, and I can't stop. It's just better. More fun. I have more control over what happens. I can do things I've never been able to do before. 


No, not an affair affair. But I have cruelly, carelessly abandoned my original partner - knitting - and casually dumped her for my new passion - crochet.

Oh yes. Bring it on. Me and my hook, BFF.

Yes, I know there's mistakes. This was from, oooh, November. I'm brilliant now.

Team Hooker is GO!

Actual therapy

I'm not sure what's gotten into me; after months of posting nothing, this is my third post today. And actually related to therapy, if not knitting!

I am a member of BACP but I'm not accredited. Which in lots of ways doesn't matter, as lots of jobs say either 'accredited or working towards accreditation' (and you can be 'working towards accreditation' without actually doing anything really), but it would be nice to be able to put it on my website, and the real push comes because the only route via which I can actually get accreditation is closing at the end of October, so it's now or never. (I've known for months - typically I'm only deciding to do something about it now). 

So, step one was printing off the 46-page application. DONE. Haven't read it yet, but one step at a time.

Step two - searching for my diploma certificate so I can send off a copy. I think I must have lost it when we moved house (over six years ago). It once lived in a clip frame, but I'm pretty sure I decided that was ridiculously pretentious pretty soon after and took it out. But I have no idea where I put it then. It's not in my incredibly complicated filing system, because I thinned that out some months back (and found my CRB check form, and my passport, which were also mislaid). (I know. Bit of a pattern there.)
I do however have a letter from the course organiser, which actually has more information than the certificate - it not only confirms that I passed, and completed the course, but it gives my percentage (68% fact fans). However, unbelievably, it's not fucking dated, which makes it basically useless. And I mean at all, there's not even the year on there.
The course doesn't run anymore either, but there is a number for the coordinator. I've left a message asking for a dated letter confirming that I passed, as then the two together will suffice instead of a certificate. Fingers crossed...

Double negative

Yesterday, as I got home from the supermarket (I know! Such an exciting life I lead!) two yoofs were sat on my neighbour's front wall. Since she's had trouble with racist graffiti, rubbish being left on her lawn etc. I kept a sneaky eye on them (while trying not to look like some deeply paranoid middle-aged dullard - look, I work with young people, so I'm not pointing the finger, just trying to be neighbourly).

One one trip back to the car boot I could clearly, definitely, smell weed. Hey, I've been to university people.

'Seriously?' I said to the yoofs, bearing in mind it was broad daylight, middle of the day, not exactly being subtle.
Them: 'What?
Me: 'I can smell it.'
Them: 'What? Smell what? We ain't done nothing!'
Me: [biting down the urge to pedantically state 'I think you'll find that's a double negative, meaning you actually have done something'] and yes I know language changes and adapts, and if it didn't we'd all still be speaking like Chaucer and I should just get over it, but I'm still a copy-editor and I don't like it, ok? 
'Er, the dope?'
Them: 'Nah, man, no way'.

As I dredged nappies, kitchen roll and frozen food inside, they quickly hoofed it round the corner. I wouldn't have called our PCSOs (who were utterly lovely when some other yoofs told me to fuck off in front of my kids and threatened me) anyway, but I did chuckle to myself a bit at the idea of a) them being so bold/brazen/stupid as to smoke it openly in the first place and b) them legging it so quickly when they were 'rumbled'. 

Roll on term time...

Absolutely nothing to do with knitting.

So, I guess this is just a 'therapy' blog post and absolutely nothing to do with knitting. I was going to put 'I can't even see anything to do with knitting from where I'm sitting right now' but a ball of Debbie Bliss cashmerino DK in a lovely blue is in my in-tray (where else?). So that's the knitting part crowbarred in.


My youngest daughter will be two this month. Two. Years. Old. 


No big deal, right? And I've been saying to my husband for ages, 'She's not a baby any more'. She's walking. She's getting more and more words every day. (My current favourite, and apologies for the shameless parental brag, is 'cu-coo' - no, not cuckoo, she means cuddle. Altogether now, awwww.) Her turning two isn't really a big surprise or anything.


But it really struck me today, and made me feel sad. Then I remembered that I felt really upset around her birthday last year. This is not broodiness - bugger that, I absolutely do not want another. Life is hard enough with three of the needy little darlings without adding another. My lovely friend Helen announced that she is pregnant last night, and although I'm absolutely thrilled for her, I couldn't help but inwardly shudder at the idea of going through the hell that is pregnancy again. I'm not remotely envious of that part. Newborns? Cute, yes, lovely gummy smiles, little waving arms, yadda yadda, fine for a cuddle but I don't want one. My eldest daughter asked for a goldfish yesterday and I'm balking at the extra responsibility of even that. 


No. No more children. I simply don't have the inner resources. So why the sadness? I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's a mixture of reasons, reflecting also on why I felt sad this time last year:

• I don't have the right word for it, but the basic pulling-at-heartstrings feeling you get watching your children grow up and reach milestones. That feeling you get when they first go to school. Your little baby, that you grew and fed and watched grow, isn't small anymore. You blinked and time has moved on. Long, long days but quick years. 
• Following on from that I think there's a sense of 'what have I done with that time??' I'm not demeaning bringing up children. I still work. I don't want to have a career and break the glass ceiling. But my identity has been lost a little along the way, and time passing is reminding me of that.
• My daughter was quite ill after she was born. We spent nine days in hospital (after a home delivery) and although my mum thought this was great as I'd get to rest without the 'interruption' of a baby, it was a hideous, hideous unsettled and uncertain time. They couldn't find what was wrong with her, did three spinal taps, she got better and then worse again. We were four floors apart, I had the shakes and a rash over half my body (possibly from my own infection, which didn't clear up straight away either), the staff in SCBU each gave me their own take on the best way to try and breastfeed a poorly baby leaving me a bit bombarded and wondering how the hell I'd managed with the first two, one nurse called her 'loud' (well, yes, she's a 10lb baby who's hungry and you're used to 1 or 2lb babies who physically can't cry 'properly') and made me feel generally like we were being a nuisance. Then when we were discharged I was just told to 'wait and see if she hits her milestones' with regards to the potential long-term side-effects (she had meningitis as well as a chest infection). She's totally fine now, no hearing loss, but it still feels raw and fresh and horrible.

I feel teary typing the above. SHE'S FINE NOW. Look:

(That's not even a very recent picture. Bad mummy.)

Happy birthday baby girl.