Knitting avoidance good and bad

When you have a commission to finish you need to be aware of knitting avoidance behaviours, not all which are bad.
Good avoidance
Exercise-lets face it knitting is not good for the posture
Cooking dinner but not random baking
Balancing the bank accounts-yes I am one of those people who not only can spell account reconciliation but does it every month.
Laundry especially delicate washes hung up on a rack and not put in the dryer
Office work for the husband which I am paid to do.
Bad avoidance
Coffee coffee coffee
Sudoku
Randon phone calls
Facebook
Twitter
Anything else I can play with on the phone like weather obsessions

No more commissions

Somehow I have lost a lot of the pictures of commissions I have done-the joys of transferring from one computer to another so this is only a small selection.
I have learnt a lot making things I never would have thought of making. To say I went beyond my comfort zone is an understatement. But the fact of the matter is that is is impossible to make a reasonable hourly rate. This was tragically reinforced by seeing a hand knitted scarf made in China in Asda for £5.00.
So no more. I shall concentrate on my City and Guilds Knit Design course and create knitting from my own designs. I even have a lovely new sketch book and a box of art pencils to tacky the somewhat scary art part of the course.
So I am very motivated to finish the Lady Diana Spencer sheep jumper and want that snow. Can anyone think of a nicer combination than snow, radio 4, blanket and knitting.

Weekend

My weekend was nothing short of fabulous!
I went to a weekend workshop for City and Guilds Knitting Design students. This is an extra mural course and it was wonderful to meet with other students and see what they are doing. 
I have said it before and I will say it again. I really do find a weekend of intellectual stimulation far more invigorating, more joyful than doing nothing.
I have come home with lots great ideas and highly motivated.
Knitters did you know about biscuitsandjam/stripe_generator .This generates random strip patterns-fabulous.
Also fabulous and already ordered from Amazon are the Pattern Magic books from Tomoko Nakamichi.
All in all a great weekend.

Dublin and why you should go,

Too much sun gives you cancer so why waste your holiday fund ruining your health when you can go to Dublin.
Here's why you should go.
The joy of language. Dublin has been the home of a number of important writers-Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett and Jonathan Swift to name but a few. This love of language permeates the city. People talk, they talk to people they have never met for the sheer joy of just talking. Go get inspired and maybe even finish Ulysses. If you do or have finished this most difficult of books I am truly impressed. Chapter one was great.
Do the Literary Pub Tour.
Statistics show the Irish are very charitable and there are noticeably far more examples of, well niceness than I am used to. I saw many examples of the elderly walking out into traffic knowing cars will stop for them and smile whilst doing so. There is an optimism that I sense comes from being charitable. Many people told me that things were bad economically but that they will improve. 'We'll be all right'.
The city is big enough but not too big. We could walk everywhere. The guy in the music shop knew the great slide guitarist from the night before.
Go to Dublin. We walked down Baggot Street on Saturday night and for 3 blocks there were taxis on either side of the road. Take a taxi and talk to your driver.

Ryan Air

Ryan Air shall I compare thee to a nightmare thou art more ghastly and more horrid...
I flew Ryan Air yesterday. Writing this will help.Well I hope it will help.
The board at Luton showed the Check in  counters for a lot of flights after ours. We we passengers to Dublin had to go to check in remained a mystery. Strange but hey this is Ryan Air. 
Finally we were told which check in desk to go to and we happy little travelers bounded along to queue. To queue and to queue. I am constantly amazed by the tolerance of the English. After half and hour of queuing with no Ryan Air staff in sight I could stand it no longer and went and asked a member of staff at another  desk.
She made the huge effort to look to her left to the queue of very patient travelers and said she did not know what was happening. I asked her to find out what was going on. Looking exhausted by my demands she phoned someone and found out it was Hussein who was meant to be at that desk.
II asked her where Hussein was-he was at another desk chatting with another member of staff with no one waiting to be served.
I went and asked why he was not helping us. He said he was busy (doing what??). I suggested as there was two of them serving well no body maybe Hussein could come and help us. The other chap asked if I wanted to take over managing Ryan Air at Luton. Trust me by then it did not seem such a bad idea.
Hussein then said it would be 10 minutes and he would open the Counter. Hah!  Lies. Another half and hour later 2 other frazzled women opened the counter. Of course we were late taking off. Of course there was no apology.
Ryan Air cheap but maybe not worth it. 

Stowe

We went to Stowe Gardens today. This National Trust Property was owned by Lord Cobham who in his day was richer than the Royals. The property has several lakes and 40 buildings and statues in the gardens. Makes our humble garden shed look, well , humble.
The thing is that today was a full day. The husband had to fly back to Dublin this afternoon and our daughter was battling Israeli bureaucracy in readiness for when she goes back later this year. 
Nonetheless we went to Stowe and walked the gardens for an hour. So not a major day out and we only saw a small fraction of what the gardens offer. Yet it was still great, cold and crisp and that very special light of a mid winter sunny day.

The point of all this is that it is worthwhile to get out and walk in a beautiful place even when time is short. We came home feeling calm and centred and I have been a paradigm of efficiency all evening.

Good ideas

If you have a Wii www.wiifitroutine.com is a fantastic web site. I replaced my gym membership with a Wii two years ago and have been feeling extremely bored. This site has a range of 15, 30, 45 and 1 hour routines that combines what the Wii offers in ways I never would have thought of combining them.


 Every now and again exercise habits need a boost but, as I have realised, the body needs blob time. The festive season for a Jew means Chanukah candles, a few doughnuts and not much else, such calm in the midst of people in pre-Xmas melt down. My inactivity reached it's trough today with  the annual Anne & Sue mid winter slob day. We ate and watched DVDs. In our defense we did watch a PBS documentary series on the American Civil War. This is probably a little more meaningful than previous choices such as 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' and was much more interesting than it probably sounds and has inspired me to finally actually look for a American Studies course at the Open U.


The moral of the story: stopping every now and again is incredibly energising. Just don't do it. 

say no to perfection

Tis the season that those of us who do not do Xmas to feel wise and slightly guru-like as the rest of the world seems to go mad.
At this point I would like to make the link between parties, weddings and Christmas celebrations.
Television is full of advertisements and programmes showing the perfect Christmas. Brides want 'the perfect day' and who has not been to an over-planned and somewhat stiff and uncomfortable party. 
People perfection does not exist. How liberating, how joyful to drop any attempt at any time at all to attempt to achieve perfection. Relax and enjoy life and laugh at the mistakes.

My email to Fortnum and Mason

I love living in London and one of my annual delights is to go around the West End looking at the seasonal lights and decorations.
As usual Fortnum and Mason trumped everyone else with your stunning window displays. So on Thursday 8th December I decided the icing on the cake of a lovely afternoon had to be afternoon tea at Fortnum and Mason.
Afternoon tea was 18 pounds but this is once a year and Fortnum and Mason.
The menu also states there is a discretionary service charge. I have followed, over the years, discussions on Radio 4 about such discretionary charges and just how discretionary they are. I was interested to see how Fortnum and Mason dealt with this. I told my waiter I did not want to pay the charge. He looked puzzled and took my 20 pound note. After some time no change appeared and I asked what was happening. I got given a second copy of my bill and still no change. When it finally came it was a collection of small coins (was that really necessary) and was scattered over my table some falling to the floor. The waiter did apologise but his general surly demeanor giving me my change said a lot more than his apology.
Ironically my change was 2.25. What did I do with this change? I put it in a Shelter collection bucket.
And the icing on the cake? The undercooked  iced cup cake.

Brighton

We had a great weekend. Hannah went to see Aaron in Brighton on Friday. Ruthie went down on Saturday and Clive and I came down on Sunday. Aaron pointed out that no one from their families come to visit his flatmates. We all looked at him blankly-of course we had to come and see him. It is times like this I really do feel like the Jewish mother.
I also had 2 opportunities to do the wise old aged one thing.
Ruthie went to Brighton with a friend whose birthday it was and was wondering what to buy with a very limited budget. I showed her how to make her first cake explaining that baking is essentially chemistry and measuring really is a good idea. The girl is a natural born cake decorating genius and it looked fab. She now knows the  power of cake making to impress.
Sunday the husband took a hung over Ruthie and a very amused Hannah walking whilst Aaron and I looked at possibilities for his Masters and strategies to get there. I persuaded him to buy a diary. I really believe to do's in the diary stop them floating around in my head and as a consequence make life a lot less stressful. Aaron now agrees. I am the Yoda of NW4.
So what cake? Of course the wondrous One Egg Chocolate Sponge  from the Edmonds Cookbook-a NZ staple. This is my slack version of making it,
Melt 50gm of butter and a tablespoon of golden strup.
Stir in a cup of sugar and 1 egg.
Add a splash of vanilla essence.
Add
1 tsp baking powder
1 and 3/4 cup flour
1 tablespoon cocoa
Mix in a cup of milk in which 1 tsp of baking soda has been dissolved.
bake half an hour at 190
I have made this since I was 9 and it has never failed.

Just do it.

Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to go to Covent Garden. A friend was ill and his wife offered me his ticket.
I originally was not keen.
-it was knitting group night
-it was dark
-I did not know the Opera
-I had a very mild man type cold.
But then I thought just say yes, just do it even if I do not own a pair of Nikes.
This was a good decision. I had a wonderful night and really enjoyed it. We were up in the Gods with all the scruffy people who pack food and drink and can talk knowledgeably about what is happening on stage. This contrasts with the people downstairs who have lovely nibbles and lovely drinkies at intermission and wear lovely clothes and talk about lovely things. Lovely.
I guess this is it. Good things take effort.
A good read takes more effort than The Sun.
Good food takes more effort than a takeaway
A good relationship with another takes time and effort.
A good life takes effort.
So my daughter and I  have decided to just say yes.
-

Finished

The circus figures are finished. This was not an easy project but one which I learnt from.
Essentially the knitting of toys is easy the sewing up,the embroidery and all the embellishments that take the time.
Essentially it is an extreme version of the normal challenges of sewing up our projects. Why do we knitters lose our patience with a sewing needle in our hands?

When I have finished my circus

I will blog again when I am ready to photograph the 7 circus figures I have knitted-hopefully tomorrow.

My Mother has passed

My mother died last night in New Zealand.
Both my brother and I wish we could truly mourn and that we could celebrate her life. Sadly we cannot.
I find the genre of childhood misery confessions books tasteless in the extreme and I have no intention of writing anything like that. All I want to say is that not everyone who is capable of giving birth is capable of mothering and this most certainly applies to our mother.
There are good things that came from such a childhood.
Both my brother and I had no second thoughts at all about leaving home. Had we been raised by a loving and caring mother there is a chance we could still be living in Hamilton.Sorry Hamilton but not a nice thought. We both used education as a means of escape. Both my children value education as well and this gives me such happiness.
Secondly I am grateful to all the people throughout my life who have shown me kindness, generosity and by example how to be a good person. I do not know what would have happened to me had I not known such people especially during my teens and young adulthood.
Finally my main coping mechanism as a child was, at the risk of sounding crude, to grab happiness by the balls. To relish every moment of happiness life offered. Trust me this is a pretty good if simplistic way to live.
For Halachic and personal reasons there will be no Shiva or anything resembling one but if anyone wants to join me for tea served in my nicest cups from the silver teapot please do.

Dublin

I had forgotten what a magical place Dublin is. It is small enough to be able to explore by walking and has maintained a sense of history that Starbucks and McDonalds have not completely destroyed.
But what is really special is the use of language. I spent most of the day wandering around and got into long conversations with total strangers-people in shops, in the National Library and on the street. Total strangers, all day.
It makes you realise why Ireland has produced far more writers of note than is to be expected from such a small population. People talk for the sheer joy of it. Conversation flows lyrically and rhythmically from topic to topic.
Come to Dublin walk and talk.

My son

My son has a intern.

My son is 21 years old and he has an intern. He works in a part time job for an internet company.

He is in his third year at University reading psychology when he is not working. He, of course on his way to a first. He got well about the class average in all his courses last year

My son was also really really good at being a challenging teenager.

He had a fabulous teacher at school who told me my son had been a lovely child and would be a lovely adult. He was and he is.

6am wake up

I am really annoyed with myself. Working as a Social Worker I was a powerhouse of efficiency. Yet now I knit commissions and study knitting design I have lost my efficiency. Basically I have not been such a good worker for myself. 


People life changed today. My daughter started work and I have the house to myself. So I jumped out of bed at 6am-well 6.15 and got going. I am now on a roll and feel really pleased. Yesterday went past in a fug of disorganisation, not helped by getting up at 3am to watch the All Blacks World Cup game and then going back to bed. By contrast everything I wanted to do yesterday will be done by lunch time. 


The thing is that knitting takes time and I need to make that time.


I mentioned that my daughter has work. She is home for a year after 3 years in the IDF and prior to going to Hebrew U. She had a month at home last year and the year before and got casual work with the greatest of ease. She has work as a Nanny but it took 8 weeks to find. It seems now any job for a young adult is good. I know how hard it has been for my kids in periods of unemployment and it has never been long term. The profound and long term damage that long term unemployment   brings to young adults frightens me.

Knitting trauma and the Rugby World Cup

 I have got overwhelmed with knitting again. Above is a simple jumper for me! Yes me! It's a 2 stitch cable so there is no need for a cable needle. However even this is a little to complicated to knit when watching the All Blacks play in the Rugby World Cup-I forget the garter stitches.

 I could always use the sock wool above. Hannah home from Israel is cold already. She left a lot of her things in Israel including her hand knit socks. I know we will not have enough socks to between us for winter and I really should get knitting. But if I cannot do garter stitch can I possibly knit a sock?

I also have City and Guilds course work and commissions (yep cables). But I need to knit to stay calm whilst watching rugby and have nothing simple enough.
We have a substantial blanket collection so I cannot really justify strips of stocking stitch which I fear is all I am currently capable of.

unemployment

We read about growing unemployment but I think for most of us it is difficult to comprehend exactly what this means for people.


I went to the excellent Museum of London this week and saw the exhibition based on the Evening Standard's anti poverty campaign.
Two things I found really haunting were the young man who could simply not afford the £19 UCAS application fee. It was humbling to think I did not even think about spending this money for my children and could not even remember that we had paid any fee at all.


Secondly was a family who lost a new born baby.They could not afford to pay for a burial and had to have a council burial.. Their London Borough Council buried children in mass graves. Their child's body was taken by a fox as they were waiting for more bodies to fill the grave. The good thing is that since then all London Councils except one now bury children in individual graves.


But on a more humdrum level I now know a few people looking for work and it is the tedium of it all that seems to be incredibly difficult. Lots of time and no money. I really do not know when and if this will all end but I hope it is soon.

always have some slob knitting

I have good genes I really do not do illness all that often but Sunday I sat and blobbed, felt dizzy and did nothing of any use.
People at times like this you need slob knitting. Knitting that grows without thought, knitting that encourages the limited range of random thoughts your brain is capable of. Knitting that makes you feel you can still do something. This is my resolution-I will always ensure I have a back burner slob knitting project. This week it really was the source of much happiness.