Beads, Beads, And More Beads

I think that I now know why I have studiously avoided knitting a lace shawl that had beads as an additional form of decoration. It is bad enough trying to get the beads in the right place on the shawl without having to worry about how to get them off again when you discover an error several rows back that requires careful unpicking stitch by stitch to get to the spot where the mistake occurred.

The beads are applied using a very fine crochet hook; a hook so fine that it is almost impossible to see the actual hook. My beads, although small, have a hole large enough to allow me to use a crochet hook 0.75mm in size. The problem with this is the fact that the yarn, which itself is very fine, is still more than twice the diameter of the hook. Splitting of the plies of the yarn are a frequent hazard but so far I have managed reasonably well and as I am approaching the end of the second section of the pattern I have not incurred any major damage to the yarn which would require repair of the yarn with splices.

The shawl is being knitted in a very pale blue, something akin to the colour of a cloudless winter sky, while the pattern which forms the background to the shawl reminds me of the patterns of frozen water that would be seen on bedroom windows in the days before central heating. The clear beads with their iridescent centre are reminiscent of the appearance of snow which appear to be like diamonds in the winter sun. It is, therefore, probably no surprise to know that I have named the shawl 'Ice and Snow'.

I haven't progressed quite as quickly as I had hoped, partly because I am coming out of a period of depression and have not been able to concentrate in quite the way that I need to so that significant progress could be made each day. However, I am starting to feel much better and it is hoped that progress will now speed up so that I can move onto another project. I have a scarf that needs a little work on part of its pattern charts so as to enable me to finish knitting it and it is fortunate that when the pattern has been corrected, completing the scarf will possibly be as little as eight hours. Then there is the writing up of the pattern for a hat that has already been knitted and the drafting of the pattern and knitting of a pair of mittens to go with the hat. After that there will still be four more projects to be knitted; two with patterns already created and two which require an awful lot of work before knitting can even begin.

The hope is still that the book will be published before Christmas, but as September seems to be vanishing with alarming speed I know that this could still mean a lot of long nights with the needles and in front of the computer screen in order to meet the deadline. If you had told me a year ago that I would be working towards the publication of a book that contained things that I had designed I would probably have laughed at you. It's amazing what can happen in the space of a year.

Waiting For The Curry To Arrive

Sunday evenings have become curry night for me. Having found an Indian restaurant that delivers to my area, I now ring with my request just before I start my stint in the office and can then eat it while I am working.

Tonight I will be working at the computer while I eat. I have drafted the first part of another shawl pattern and managed to knit the part that has been drafted. Now I need to think about how the rest of the shawl will look so that I can draft the chart ready for further knitting. If I can work out what is needed tonight then the next few days should see me knitting at a frantic rate to see if I can finish another project for my book. That will see six items finished and another three in the pipeline.

The curry is ordered and I have moved my laptop to the office to work while I am waiting for it to arrive. There are a number of specialist computer programs for knitting designers and I have two of them. One would expect that such specialist applications would be very expensive, but they are, in fact, very reasonably priced. My more recent purchase has the accepted symbols for the specialist stitches to be used for Estonian patterns. The Estonian lace knitters use a number of stitches that are found nowhere else in the lace knitting world. Even Shetland knitted lace uses little more than a combination of increases and decreases to create the filmy fabric that the Shetland knitters are famous for.

My current work in progress uses an Estonian gathered stitch to form the background fabric for the shawl and the diamond-shaped insertions will have more traditional Shetland-type patterns within them with the somewhat unusual addition of some lovely little clear glass beads which have a slightly iridescent centre to them. Adding the beads does slow me down quite a bit but the finished effect is so beautiful that it is worth it.

So now you know what I will be doing this evening. Tucking into a delicious curry and trying to decide what pattern I am going to put where on my current project.

I Know That I've Said It Before...

I have of late become a very bad blogger. I keep looking at the blog and thinking that I really ought to write a post now and then but somehow something (usually knitting) always gets in the way.

Since I last wrote anything here I have spent all of my spare time designing shawls, scarves, hats and cowls, and then having designed them and created the patterns I have been knitting the various items. So far I have completed one hat, two scarves, one cowl, and one huge shawl. I also have two more shawls on needles being worked on morning, noon and night, a scarf that is half completed but needs a little bit of work done on its pattern before it can be completed, and a cowl which is being knitted by a friend. I also have ideas for a pair of mittens to match the hat, a large circular shawl which I have started to design and that I know how I want it to look but it is creating the pattern for it that is a bit more of a problem. I also have another shawl based on the four seasons that I have thought about but have yet to start on the design.

On top of this I am still teaching knitting and crochet classes and I'm due to teach some classes later in the year where the subject will be lace knitting. As this is a new set of classes for me I have yet to formulate what will be taught. One is for beginners to the art so that will require some careful thought and probably the preparation of a few slides to illustrate what we are doing. The second class is for more advanced knitters who already have some experience in lace knitting and will focus on creating a scarf or shawl to their own design so much of the three hour class will be spent actually creating a design and then test knitting it.

One of the shawls that I am actually working on at the moment has been on and off the needles four times over the last two days but I think that I have got it exactly how I want it now. This means that I can sit down to do a few more rows before going to bed and possibly getting to the stage where I am going to do something that I have never done before. I'm going to be adding beads to the shawl as part of the overall pattern. I know how to do it, I just haven't ever done it for real.

It's going to be a very busy month or so trying to get everything drafted, knitted, edited and then prepared for publication so that we can have the book ready for sale at the end of October. With that in mind I will try to sneak a few minutes every now and then and try to keep this blog updated. I might even try and sneak a few photographs of the various items into my posts so that you can see what I have been up to while I have been silent.

Working Hard And Making Mistakes

Last week I wrote a post saying that I was back and that I would start blogging again regularly. Nearly a week has gone by and I don't know where the days have gone. It seems that I am working harder now that I am unemployed (well, retired on medical grounds) than I was when I had a full-time job and was studying for a degree at the same time.

Perhaps it is the fact that what I am doing now does not come intuitively as things did during my working days. I found a job that I loved and that I was determined to do to the best of my ability. There were rewards along the way: promotion, opportunities to help develop better working practices, and a lot of travelling the world to see my counterparts in other organisations in Australia, Canada and the United States of America.

I have never seen myself as being creative in the artistic sense of the word. I can knit, I can crochet, I can do embroidery and dress making, but in each of these things I was always following someone else's pattern. Now that I am designing things for other people to knit I am having to be creative in a way that I have never been before. Trying to create original items, deciding which stitch patterns to put together and what the finished article should be are alien to me and therefore not very easy.

And yet, I am being able to create these designs. In a few week time I should have enough patterns for the book and all that will remain is the knitting of the samples that will be used to produce the photographs to illustrate each of these designs. As regular readers of this blog will know, I invariably have more than one project on the go at any given time. Things have not changed. At the moment I have two different scarves on the go at the moment and both of them require me to spend some time sorting out mistakes that I have made through not looking at the pattern properly. In one instance it was because I couldn't be bothered to print a copy of the chart that I have made a mistake which is going to involve me in unpicking approximately 10 rows. Fortunately the other mistake is only a row back and should be easy to correct if I can find a spare half hour this evening.

Much of today has been spent sat at the computer working on the chart for one of the larger items that I have designed. I still have a little work to do on it but I am hoping that I can get it finished this evening and updated on the computer ready for me to turn it into pdf format for my sample knitter. I also have to write the instructions about how the charts need to be laid out and what size needles it is to be knitted on. It is very fine yarn made of 70% baby alpaca, 20% silk and 10% cashmere (the alpaca and cashmere make it very soft when knitted and the silk gives it sheen and strength) and is a beautiful emerald green in colour. Choosing the needle size is important because I want use needles that are large enough to give the finished shawl plenty of drape, but not so large that it makes the finished knitting too floppy. I just might knit a few test swatches to see which needle size I like best.

Unfortunately, I am also having a bit of a battle with depression again as well as the arthritis in my hip. And to top it all off I have got a frozen shoulder again which is making it difficult to move my right arm without causing a great deal of pain and is even affecting me when I am knitting and I have never considered that to be a particularly strenuous occupation in the past. Perhaps my body is telling me that I am not getting any younger and that I have to accept that things aren't going to work so well as they did 20 or 30 years ago. The depression is making it difficult for me to always focus on the things that I need to do and is perhaps why I am making mistakes in my knitting. However, I am spotting the mistakes and I know how to rectify them so all is not lost and I am nowhere near as ill as I was this time last year.

Having written a quick update, I must go and get myself something to eat before settling down to work again. Who says that life gets easier when you are retired?

MSG Is Back!

Okay, so it's been a while since I wrote anything here. The weekly statistics were still being sent to my personal email address so I knew that there were still people looking at the blog, which I must admit I found somewhat amazing, and it was this that has caused me to reconsider whether to start writing it again.

One of the reasons that I stopped posting was because I thought it would be difficult for me to find things to write about now that my life has changed from what it was. I knew that it would be difficult to write about the daily goings on in the house and I wasn't sure that there was that much more going on in my life that I could write about and that anyone would want to read about. On reflection I have decided that there is probably enough going on that does not require me to break confidentiality and therefore I am going to try blogging again on a fairly regular basis.

So what has been going on in Madsadgirl's life over the last four months? Quite a lot really.

The crochet classes have continued throughout Spring and into the Summer. And I have also been teaching a knitting class each week. My own knitting has been suffering over the last month or so because I am busy designing items for a book. Yes, MSG is writing a knitting book, and not the one that she had in mind. The book is going to be about knitting lace and lace knitting.

Yes, I know that they may sound that they are the same thing but there is a very subtle difference. Lace knitting involves working the increases, decreases and yarnovers that create the pattern on right-side rows only and the wrong side rows being either knitted or purled with no patterning. Knitted lace involves working these pattern-forming stitches on both right and wrong side rows. Consequently knitted lace is far more complicated and you are likely to make more mistakes if you don't follow the pattern closely and those mistakes can be more difficult to pick up until you are several rows further through the pattern and can lead to a bit of silent swearing before sitting down to unpick the rows to get back to where the mistake is.

It is hoped that the patterns for the book and the samples for the photographs will be ready in September so that the book can be printed and released in time for the Christmas market. A few book signing opportunities have already been pencilled into the calendar so I have to keep my nose to the grindstone as far as designing is concerned. I already have one sample being knitted by a friend and I am busy working on two more. One pattern is waiting for the sample knitter to come back from a trip home to the US so that it can be worked on and a couple more have been written and are waiting for sample knitters to become available.

So, that is a brief update on what I have been doing and hopefully I can find things to write at least a couple of times a week so that the blog can become active again.

Rearrange These Words Into A Well Know Phrase Or Saying

Candle...Burning...At...Ends...The...Both.

Sometimes I try to do too much. I know that I shouldn't take on more than I can reasonably manage, but there is something inside me that makes me say 'yes' to things when perhaps I ought to say 'maybe'.

I didn't think that I had done too much over the last couple of weeks, but the fact that one of the staff members knocked at the door of my flat this morning and I didn't hear it because I was so deeply asleep indicates that maybe I have done more than I should have. They did manage to rouse me at 10.40 this morning and having sleepily answered the door and assured them that I was okay I went to find my glasses so that I could see what time it was. Panic ensued because I was due at a meeting at the council offices at 11am.

So after a quick wash, brushing my teeth and my hair, throwing on some clothes and picking up my notebook I headed to the kitchen to let the staff know that I was on my way to a meeting. Fortunately the council offices are only two minutes walk from where I am living so I knew that I could just make it in time.

"Is your meeting with R?" asked the member of staff. "Yes," I replied. "Oh, S took a message this morning to say that it is cancelled."

Having rushed to get ready for a meeting that wasn't going to happen, I decided that the only thing that I could do today to be kind to myself was to do nothing. And apart from a quick trip out to have a look at computers in the local PC World and the completion of a few rows of knitting, that is pretty much what I have done today. Nothing.

I now just have to remember to say 'no' a bit more often and then I won't end up burning the candle at both ends!

What An Honour

As you know I am an inveterate knitter. Knitting has been one of the most important things in my life for the last few years and has been responsible for keeping me sane at times. I starting designing socks last year in response to the suggestion that I enter I Knit London's design competition. Since then I have designed a hat that was a Christmas present for one of my knitting friends and I have designed a shawl which is being test knitted at the moment.

At the beginning of the year I started to teach knitting classes at the shop in addition to the crochet classes that I have been doing since about October last year. All of this keeps me pretty busy and I don't think that I have the time to be depressed at the moment.

One of the problems with knitting (and crochet) as a hobby is that there is a shortage of good yarn shops about these days. Twenty or thirty years ago there would have been at least one shop on every high street around the country selling knitting wool, knitting needles and crochet hooks, and some would have major haberdashery areas too. Today, such shops are few and far between, which for a yarn junkie such as myself can be a problem. I found I Knit London last year and it has rejuvenated my knitting because it has such spectacular yarns on the shelves.

Yesterday, when I arrived at the shop in readiness for my knitting class, Gerard, I Knit's owner, asked me what I thought about the idea of the shop running a sock club. For those that don't know what a sock club is, the idea is that knitters subscribe and are sent a pattern for an exclusive sock design and a suitable amount of specially selected sock yarn to be able to knit a pair of socks every couple of months. Although I have never actually joined such a club, I think that they are a great idea especially as they can introduce knitters to yarns that they may never have used before.

So, why am I telling you all about this? Well, Gerard has asked me to design the first pair of socks to be presented to the sock club. Having spent so much of last summer knitting socks while trying to come up with my design for the competition, I have a basic sock pattern which lends itself to being used as the basis for practically any design that I can come up with. And that is what I have to do now; come up with a design that is different to anything that is out there already.

This really is a big honour for me and I am determined to come up with something really special for Gerard and his sock club.

No Pterodactyls Here

It's Tuesday. Tuesday is psychotherapy day and in the past I have written about the butterflies in my stomach that seemed to be the size of pterodactyls as the awful hour approached. I used to try everything I could on a Friday morning to keep the anxiety under control but usually it was in vain.

When I was having psychotherapy with J last year I found that I rarely had any signs of anxiety until he called me into his office, at which point I would be overcome with such gut-wrenching anxiety that it was possible to see the physical effect that it was having on me. J always used to say that to see me like this made him feel as though he was torturing me.

But one thing I have noticed since I started group psychotherapy just a month ago is that there don't seem to be any particularly signs of anxiety at all. It still isn't the most comfortable experience in the world but there is no stomach churning, no feeling of butterflies, and definitely no pterodactyls.

Just Filling You In

Yes, it's really true, I am back blogging again and I have been amazed to receive comments from some old regulars because I had thought that everybody would have forgotten me.

I'm afraid that I don't have a particularly good excuse for not blogging, just complete inertia on my part. The depression has been relatively stable over the last few months although there have been a couple of blips but nothing that I haven't been able to cope with.

When I last posted I was talking about all the Christmas presents that I was knitting. I'm pleased to say that all of them except one were ready and given in time for the big day and the one that was late was only a few days late. Since then, I have continued with my knitting but I have started to work on a new project which may take me a while but will, I hope, be of great benefit to new knitters (I'll tell you more in another post).

So, what have I been up to? My crochet classes on a Thursday evening fill up almost as soon as they are put on the website and four courses have now been completed. And I have now started teaching knitting on a Tuesday evening. I still can't believe that I am being paid to do something that I love so much and I am glad that I am able to impart some of my knowledge to a new generation of knitters and crocheters.

As regular readers will know when I was receiving psychotherapy last year my therapist referred me for group therapy. I joined a group at the end of January so my Tuesdays are now quite busy. It's a quick lunch then on to the bus to take me to the hospital where the group meets, and hour and a half of talking and then across the road to catch a bus to the shop where I can indulge in a couple of hours knitting before the knitting class starts.

The biggest change, however, is my move to new accommodation. I now live in a basement flat situated in a house which provides accommodation and support for 21 people with mental health problems. My accommodation comes free of charge because I provide night cover for the residents. On the evenings that I am teaching one of the day staff takes care of the evening routine until I return at about 10pm. The job is not exactly demanding requiring me to only 'work' for a couple of hours each evening, and once completed I am free to return to my accommodation and go to bed whenever I want.

It seems that for the first time in many years that I am having some good luck for a change and that I do seem to have a bit of a future.

I'm Back

After an absence of a couple of months I am back. I've nagged myself several times over the last month or so about not blogging and this morning I have been jogged into logging in to the blog because of a new comment about my Christmas knitting.

A lot has happened since I last posted on here and I shall give details over the next few days, until then may I wish everyone a belated Happy New Year and an early Happy Easter!

A Little Bit Of Blocking

I don't know what is wrong with me. I ought to be writing a post most days, there is certainly lots to write about, but I just don't seem to have the time. My excuse is going to be that I have been knitting like mad over the last few weeks in an effort to make all the things that I want to give as Christmas presents. I've even managed to find time to knit a few commissions, a hat and mittens for one of my knitting group friends who is too busy to knit herself because she has started to make beautiful knitting project bags and is inundated with orders, and a lace scarf for her daughter to give to her Mum (she couldn't knit herself because Mum would have seen it and know it was for her).

It is this scarf that caused me to dream up the title for this post. The blocking concerned is not writer's block, but the blocking that is required to get a piece of knitting to its proper size and shape. You should really block all knitting before you start joining seams and doing the finishing touches, but I have never done that, because I know that I knit to tension and I am sure that the various pieces of any garment that I make will fit together easily.

But when it comes to lace knitting then blocking is essential. This is generally because you knit lace on much larger needles than would be expected for the thickness of the yarn. The resultant knitting usually curls around itself and has no real shape whatsoever. In order to block something you have to first soak it for some time so that every fibre of the yarn gets wetted, then you drain the water out of the bowl and squeeze out the excess water from the item to be blocked, first by squeezing it with your hands making sure that it is a squeezing action and not a wringing one, and then wrapping it in an absorbent towel to get rid of as much water as possible.

The scarf that I had to block this morning was knitted in a lovely yarn made from kid mohair and silk. The yarn is a delight to knit with but as anyone who is familiar with mohair will know the yarn has lots of fibres protruding from the yarn; it's these that give mohair its tremendous warmth capability. I put the scarf into the bowl of tepid water and it just floated on the top of it. The water just wasn't getting into the fabric at all. It took a good five minutes of prodding and poking to make sure that every stitch of the scarf had absorbed the water. Half an hour later with the scarf damp and creased from the squeezing action it was time to get the blocking wires and pins out and lay the scarf out on a couple of towels, pull it to shape, then insert the wires and add a few pins to make sure that it was kept stretched to shape while it dried.

Eight hours later I took the pins and wires out and lifted the scarf from the towels. I held up a beautiful scarf with its lace pattern clearly visible and the points at each end of the scarf firmly shaped. It will be going to knitting group with me tomorrow so that I can hand it over to the person who commissioned me to make it.

I have another scarf on the floor now. This one is a far more elaborate lace design and is made from a yarn that is a mix of baby alpaca, cashmere and silk. This one absorbed the water far more readily but I was surprised to find that the water had changed colour when I came to drain it away. Then I remembered that the yarn is from a company that uses natural dyes and so a certain amount of colour should be expected to come out of the yarn when it is first wetted.

This scarf was a little easier to apply the wires to because of the eyelets that are a few stitches in from the edge on all four sides. I'm hoping that it will be dry in the morning and I can block another scarf before I head off for knitting group. I have five scarves and I shawl to block in total and the shawl will require me to move all the furniture around in my room so as to ensure that I have a large enough area on which to lay it out.

I think that in future I will block each item as soon as it is completed so as to not have this blocking frenzy that I am going to have to endure over the next week. But at least it is keeping me busy and I don't have time to think about how difficult the next few weeks are going to be for me.

Burning The Candle At Both Ends

It has been three weeks since I last blogged. Every morning I wake up and say to myself that I must write something today but never do. It is perhaps in part because I don't think that anything very exciting has happened to me, but more realistically the reason is that I seem to have been burning the candle at both ends.

I have been frantically knitting during every spare moment to complete the things that are to be Christmas presents. The big pieces are now finished and awaiting blocking, and just a few small items still need to be done. Hopefully they can be completed fairly quickly, but I have been commissioned to knit a few other items so they have to take precedence. The consequence of all this is that I seem to be constantly searching for more hours in the day while getting more and more tired as each day passes. In fact, I have been so busy that I haven't had time to be depressed.

Thursday evenings are taken up with teaching my crochet class. Two groups of students have now completed the course and gone out into the world with new skills and an enthusiasm to continue improving. Another course has been squeezed in before Christmas and like the previous two is completely sold out. It just goes to show that there is a real desire by people to learn the old skills of knitting and crochet because the knitting courses are regularly full too.

I'm going to have a few weeks break from teaching after the New Year so that I can spend some time with the Thursday knitters, something that I miss out on when I am teaching, but a fourth course should begin about the middle of January. The break will also mean that I can do some knitting for myself for a change. I need some new woollies, so I shall be knitting myself a cardigan and a sweater to remedy this situation.

Last week I was asked to move from the building that I have been living in since July to one just around the corner from it. So the bags had to be packed (I couldn't believe how much yarn I had accumulated in my stash) and I moved into my new (temporary) accommodation. I now have a much larger room, my own bathroom, and fantastic kitchen facilities shared with the other residents in the house. I see little of my neighbours, who are all male, nor do I hear much of them when they are in.

Yesterday I decided that I would have a go at making a cake. I'm not a spectacular cook, but I can be quite innovative when I want to be and being someone who really doesn't like Christmas cake because I just don't like currants, sultanas and raisins, I have been mentally developing a cake recipe for some weeks now that would be a tasty replacement for the more traditional cake.
The end result was a quite dark coloured cake (that was the dark brown sugar rather than it being burned) which was filled with glacé cherries, chunks of dark chocolate, walnut pieces, cranberries (okay, so these were dried but I plumped them up again by putting them in saucepan with the juice of two oranges and one lemon and lemon zest and orange rind). I had a slice (or two) last night and while the cake is definitely not repulsive it still needs a little work on the recipe but I think I know what to do to improve it and I will be experimenting with the recipe again in a couple of weeks to hopefully produce something that is a bit closer to what I was trying to achieve. I think that I had better write down the recipe so that I know what I am tweaking as further test cakes are made.

So. having sat in bed with my laptop on my knees, I don't really have any excuses for not writing on a more regular basis again, and that is what I propose to do. I shall write a post before I get up in the morning and woe betide me if I make an excuse not to do so

Not Enough Hours In The Day

I can't believe that it is nearly three weeks since I wrote a post for this blog. I seem to have been so busy that there are not enough hours in the day for me to do all the things that I both want and need to do.

My first crochet course has been completed and everybody enjoyed themselves including the solitary gentleman who had been booked onto the course by his wife an avid knitter. we certainly had a good time because as 8.30 arrived each week nobody could believe that we had been in the classroom for two hours; the time having flown so quickly. The best thing about as far as I was concerned was that I seem to have included the right amount of work in each class so when the second course, which is also fully booked, begins on Thursday evening I won't have any preparatory work to do; everything is ready for me to pack in my bag on a Thursday morning ready for when I set off to the shop in the afternoon. A third course has already been put up on the website and is starting to fill up so it seems that we have found a real gap in the market.

At the hostel where I am living my handwriting skills have been put to use writing the Christmas cards that will be given to each of the residents of the various hostels/bedsits that the company has in the area. I've also written all the Christmas cards for the professionals and suppliers and later this week I will be given the list of staff for whom Christmas cards are required. I haven't even thought ab0out writing my own Christmas cards but as I am going to send handmade cards I can't do anything about it until I have bought the bits to make the cards. That is a job for this weekend.

However, while the cards are not made and written, the presents are nearing completion. I have made lots of scarves, mittens, and some shawls so everybody is getting something handmade this Christmas. I have one scarf that will be finished tonight and one more to make. I should be able to get that started this evening and then work at it during knitting group tomorrow evening. It's a pattern that I have already completed twice and it is a lovely one to make with lots of beautiful lacework on it. I'm hoping that this scarf will be finished this weekend or the beginning of next week so that I can concentrate on knitting a couple of jumpers for myself; and with the way that it has got so cold over the last few days I am definitely going to need them.

This afternoon I went to visit the building site that is my new home. Some of the flats on the top floor are approaching completion and hopefully the rest will be completed in the next month. Once all the flats have had their kitchens and bathrooms completed and it is just a case of furniture to be moved in, I can go and visit again with a view to picking which flat I want. I'm going to have to sit down in a week or so and make a list of things that I want to buy to make whichever flat I choose into my home.

I have so many things going on in my life these days that I have had to buy myself a new Filofax to keep a check on everything. I have a diary that is filling up by the day and it doesn't seem to be letting up. I can honestly say that I have not been this busy since I had to give up work and I think that I am going to have to start thinking about what I am going to do in the New Year. Hopefully things will have calmed down a bit and I can think about getting back to studying with the Open University. I have to admit that I do miss the studying and it would be nice to get back into it again.

Tonight's The Night

Tonight sees the start of my first crochet class. My bag is packed with two different lots of knitting (neither of them very taxing) that I will work on this afternoon until it is time for the class to begin, and my batch of samples so that the lovely ladies (I am assuming that they are all ladies although more gentlemen are starting to knit and crochet) can see what the same series of rows produce when using the different stitches.

I didn't sleep very well last night so after having a cup of tea and some toast for breakfast, I climbed back into bed and slept for another couple of hours. Then it was time for a lovely long shower and I'm now sitting waiting for lunch to be served. One thing is certain about this hostel; the staff are determined that no-one will go hungry. There is always a cooked breakfast of some sort for those who want it (I usually stick to a couple of slices of toast and the staff all know of my love of a toasted crust so that is what I get most mornings), a hot lunch (today's is chicken curry and rice), a hot evening meal (beef hotpot tonight, although I will miss that but if I wanted they would put some aside for me to heat up when I get back from knitting group) and sandwiches at 8pm and 10pm.

I'll let you know how things go with the class.

News Flash!

My crochet class which begins on Thursday is full. I must sit down and finish the samples tonight (there's just one left to do for the first class) and if I get the chance tomorrow I will do a few differnt shapes to show what can be achieved.

Now I can start to get really nervous.

Housing News

Last week I had a proposition made to me. It was something that I couldn't talk to anyone else about because it needed to be approved by "Head Office" before it could become general knowledge. I was asked to think about the proposition, and today I was asked if I had come to a decision. I have, and because "Head Office" have approved it, I can tell you all about it.

As you know I have been living in a hostel for the last few months. I had hoped to have moved into rented accommodation but because I was so depressed the mental health team that look after me felt that it would not be a good idea to contemplate such a move until my mood had stabilized and I was able to cope with things a bit better. The lovely lady who has management responsibility for a number of properties that the company has in this part of London (each facility has its own manager, but she oversees all of them) asked me to consider moving into a property that is being refurbished to provide 27 bedsits for people with mental health problems and acting as caretaker of the facility. There would be professional help Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm and the facilities for me to summon help if needed after these hours.

And what do I get out of this? Free accommodation. Yes, that's right; I get a little flat of my own and don't have to pay for it. Could things actually be going right for a change?

New Horizons

I've had a busy weekend turning hanks of wool into usable balls for knitting. I am going to knit a garment for a change and it was necessary to spend a few hours getting the lovely yarn ready for me to begin knitting. It was all in preparation for knitting a jumper for myself and requires eight different colours to produce a very striking effect. I can't wait to get started on it now but I have a few Christmas presents to finish before I move on to this project.

I have also spend quite a few hours making samples of crochet stitches ready for the course that I am going to start teaching on Thursday. I still have a few samples to create and then I must take some photographs of them so as to create a couple of handouts for the students.

Nervousness is starting to creep in because this is a new string to my bow. I learnt to crochet when I was in my teens and have created some really stunning work over the years, but I have never really taught a class to crochet before. I have my lesson plans drawn up guiding me about what we hope to achieve during each of the three lessons but I know that there is a big difference between what you think can be achieved in a couple of hours and what happens in reality.

My prize money has all been spent now on things for myself. There were two hanks of silk in magical colours which will be turned into scarves and shawls; a book of Andean inspired knits which I would probably never have bought ordinarily, but the prize money made it possible and there are a couple of things in the book that I hope to be knitting in the not to distant future; a set of blocking wires to aid me in blocking out the shawls and scarves that I make (much easier to use a few wires than hundreds of pins); a beautiful folder which allows me, with the aid of some magnets, to more easily follow the complicated charts which are needed for knitting lace; and a beautiful set of wooden needles in a lovely fabric case that matches the folder.

With all this going in my life, depression seems to have finally taken a back seat again. Life is still not easy, but I no longer go to sleep at night dreading tomorrow and what it will bring. I am starting to make plans again and actually carrying some of them out, but there is still some way to go before I can say that this period of depression is behind me. I have set myself a few goals for this week, including applying for a new passport, and I am definitely thinking about going to Canada some time over the winter or perhaps a trip to South Africa to visit my aunt who is also my Godmother. Perhaps the sun of South Africa would be more welcoming than the snow of Canada, but we will have to wait and see how things go over the next month.

Connected

After several months of sporadic Internet access requiring me to make my way to the library with my laptop to make use of the library's free wi-fi access, I have this afternoon bought myself a dongle and can blog whenever I want to again. This means that I shall be able to pass news on as soon as it happens and keep you up to date with my goings on.

When I had to leave the house and move into respite care, I had to start paying for this accommodation. Unfortunately, the sum that I have to pay on a weekly basis actually meant that I had little or no money to spend on things for myself. That is now no longer a problem as I decided to dip into some of the money that I invested after my husband died and now have a little spare cash, hence the purchase of the dongle and my return to the Internet.

I have lots to write about, some of which will appear under the "Tackling the Mental Health Minefield" banner as it relates to that area. This time it will not be about my being in hospital but about some of the other areas that those with mental health problems will find themselves interacting with.

This has been one of my shorter posts, but it is now time for me to head off to the dining room for my evening meal. Something like normal blogging will be back from tomorrow. You have no idea how happy saying that has made me.

Some Good News At Last!

I hate not having instant Internet access because it means that sometimes it can take a great deal of willpower to load my laptop into its bag and get on a bus to make a trip to the library to use the free wi-fi access there. My blog has been a great comfort to me over the last couple of years and has proved to be a beneficial means of me pouring out my innermost thoughts instead of keeping them bottled up inside and I hate not being able to just sit down at the computer and write a post when the urge comes upon me.

Mental illness can make one selfish; it is so easy to think that you are the only person in the world feeling as you do, but sitting down and writing about those feelings and the darkness within, allows you to meet other sufferers in cyberspace and together you can work through the difficult times. I have always been heartened by the comments that I receive and have only ever rejected one comment (apart from those that the writer has asked me not to publish) because I truly believe in free speech and allowing other people to have their say. But if you were to look through all the comments that I have received over the last two years you would probably find that they have been nothing but supportive and for that I can never fully express my gratitude to those who bother to read the blog and to comment on it.

When I had to move out of my home I was already in a very depressed state. Life was crowding in on me and suicidal thoughts were invading my brain increasingly. Having a long period of respite care has made a difference to how I have been able to recover. My consultant psychiatrist decided to make a change to some of my medication and having the support of the staff at my respite accommodation when I was going through the difficult period of weaning myself from one drug and building up to a therapeutic dose of the new one meant that I had support on the bad days.

Over the last couple of weeks I have noticed that I am beginning to feel significantly better than I did a couple of months ago. I have lots of knitting projects on the go and have already shown you some of the lovely items that I have made recently. On Wednesday I received the news that I was runner-up in the 'accessories' section of the design competition which brought with it a voucher for £100 of goods from I Knit. It suddenly made worthwhile all the time that I had spent on knitting sample socks and creating and then adjusting the charts until I got exactly what I wanted. My book of knitting patterns now seems a reality because as well as the six sock patterns that I have already created, I have several ideas for lace scarves and I am looking forward to trying to create the charts for them in the new year.

I have already spent almost three-quarters of my prize money on some beautiful yarn, a book, and a few other items that I probably wouldn't have bought for myself if I hadn't had this windfall. The yarn is the most beautiful silk laceweight yarn in two exciting colourways. this yarn is definitely going to be used for items for myself so I can now start looking for patterns to knit with them or try creating something for myself.

Wednesday also brought another bit of good news. I Knit already offers regular knitting courses for beginners and over recent weeks there have been increasing requests for a beginners' crochet course and I have been asked to be the tutor for it. With a provisional start date for the course pencilled in for 21st October, I am going to have to devote some time this weekend in working some samples for the course so that I can show the students the different stitches and what can be achieved with them.

With a bit of luck I may soon be blogging on a more regular basis and will be keep you up to date with my adventures. thank you for staying with me during this difficult period and I promise you lots of news and photographs of my works of art in the weeks and months to come.

Busy Fingers

The last few months have been pretty horrific in one way or another, but even during my darkest periods I have tried to keep myself busy. In my last post I included a photograph of the socks that I was entering in the design competition and I appreciate all the lovely comments that you sent about them. The competition was supposed to have been judged at the knitting exhibition weekend, but due to various problems the judging didn't take place. However, I am assured that the competition entries will be judged in the next few days and hopefully I will soon find out whether I have won a prize or not.

I have mentioned before that I learnt how to do Sudoku puzzles while I was in hospital last year and I have spent some of my time working my way through two books of these puzzles (one with 350 individual puzzles and the other 500). I still have problems completing them all because of the way that my brain seems to turn to mush when I am faced with numbers but I must be getting better at working them out because I can now complete almost all the easy ones at the first attempt, the medium ones are completed more often than not, and I have even managed to complete the occasional hard puzzles, something that would have been impossible this time last year.

But doing these puzzles requires a fair level of concentration, and as other sufferers will know, when you really severely depressed, a long period of concentration is something very difficult to manage. However, knitting tends to take care of this for me. I have several projects on the go at any one time, so there might be a couple of lace projects (one large, one small, and requiring differing levels of concentration), and a couple of other small projects such as socks or hats (things that require little concentration above keeping a check on the number of rows that have been completed).

This being the case, I have succeeded in completing a number of projects over the last couple of months and I thought that you might like to see some of the things that I have made.

This shawl was completed over a weekend; I think that it was the novelty of knitting with not only much thicker yarn and needles than I have been using in recent months but also it was such an easy pattern to follow. The yarn itself is Manos del Uruguay's Silk Blend (a blend of merino wool and silk) and not only are the colourways in this yarn fabulous, it is also a very economical yarn to knit with, especially when one considers that it is produced by small cooperatives in

Uruguay.

This photograph shows the three parts that the shawl is knitted in. At the top is the triangle that forms the basis of the shawl, then a border is worked on two sides of the triangle and the shawl is finished with a lace edging which is knitted sideways and joined to the shawl on alternate rows. It sounds very complicated and when I first started tackling lace knitting I didn't think that I would be able to follow the instructions even though I had years of knitting experience but now I think nothing of it and just get the needles out and get on with it.

This shawl has been knitted in 100% silk and is as light as a feather. Well perhaps not quite as light as a feather, but it seems to weigh nothing at all having taken approximately 900 metres of yarn to complete and it weighs in just a few grams short of 100 grams. This is the first triangular shawl that I have knitted that has not been started from either the top or the bottom. Instead it is worked from one side, increasing as you work towards the middle and then the stitch count decreasing back to nothing as you get to the other side. The resultant shawl has very long points at the sides which make it a very delicate shawl to throw across one's shoulders.

I have also knitted a lace scarf in this same yarn, but haven't as yet taken a photograph of it.

I think that I mentioned that I received some special yarn as a birthday present from a couple of my friends at the knitting group. I knew as soon as I saw it what I would make with it and the photograph below shows two of the three items that will form part of my winter wardrobe.

A matching scarf is on the needles at the moment and will probably be completed when I am trying to knit and watch television at the same time. The yarn is from one of my favourite American dyers, Cheryl Potter at Cherry Tree Hill, and is really a sock yarn, but it is far too beautiful to use for socks that will be hidden inside shoes so using it for winter warmers seemed the perfect solution.

My needles are full of work as usual although even for me I have rather a lot of projects on the go. I am almost halfway to completing a poncho which is being created by adapting a shawl pattern (I'm nothing if not adventurous when it comes to what I try), I have started a waistcoat using a new knitting technique (it's knitted in one piece and uses special casting off techniques to ensure that there is no sewing up at the end of the knitting process and as you know I really hate sewing things together after I have knitted them), then there is the scarf to match my hat and mittens, a lace scarf that it going to be a Christmas present for a friend, a pair of fingerless mittens which will also be a Christmas present, a really fantastic shawl in the most incredible chocolate brown silk, and a beautiful kingfisher blue stole which has required me to try two new techniques for the first time. On top of all that, I am really dying to have a go at starting a shawl which will probably take me best part of a year to complete and which is to be knitted in yarn that it is barely thicker than the cotton you use to sew a button on a shirt.

There is also a definite possibility that I may be doing some teaching of both knitting and crocheting in the coming months too. And I have been asked to become a 'service user' representative (how I hate that term) at various meetings between the local council and the companies that provide hostels and supported housing for people with mental health problems. Many of the users of these services are impaired mentally through the use of alcohol and/or drugs, and it seems that I am considered 'normal' and not 'routinely negative' about the services that are provided. I'm beginning to wonder how I am going to fit it all in.