Daisy Livingstone Fairy Mark 2

Yesterday I had lunch with Lily and I was supposed to be giving her Daisy Livingstone Fairy. However, on Thursday evening I had a visitor and Daisy Livingstone Fairy walked out the door with her.

An old school friend popped in for a quick chat before taking her 3-year old granddaughter home. Unfortunately I had left Daisy Livingstone Fairy sitting in an armchair ready for me to pick up take to Lily on Friday, and granddaughter saw her and started to play with her. When the time to leave arrived she just did not want to leave Daisy Livingstone behind. So Daisy Livingstone went off to a new home, just not the one that she was meant to go to.

I apologized to Lily and explained Daisy Livingstone's non-appearance. Fortunately I am able to rectify this because I can make Daisy Livingstone Fairy again. And that is what I have started to do. After a lovely lunch together and plenty of chat when I left Lily yesterday afternoon I called in at the local wool shop and bought a few balls of wool to supplement that which I have left over.

Yesterday evening I started work on Daisy Livingstone Fairy Mark 2. I am getting used to following the basic doll pattern now, after all this is the third that I have made, and so far I have completed her feet, the main body section which comprises legs body and head, and her right hand. Her left hand will take about half an hour to knit and each of her arms probably less than an hour so it is likely that this evening may even see me sewing Daisy Livingstone Mark 2 together and stuffing her, assuming that I have enough stuffing. then work can begin on her clothes.

Having made one version of this doll already, I know where the pitfalls are and can avoid them. It is probable that by this time next week I will be adding the finishing touches to Daisy Livingstone Fairy Mark 2 so that I can wrap her up in a bag and put her ready for me to take when next I meet Lily.

Toy knitting has turned out to be quite an enjoyable experience. I like the fact that the pieces knit up so quickly, but I'm not quite so keen on all the sewing up that is required. However, one has to take the rough with the smooth and I can cope with that little problem.

I have decided that my knitting need not be a solitary experience too. After much deliberation, I have decided that I am going to join Stitch London, a group that meets at various locations in London on a weekly basis to knit and chat. It is going to be difficult for me to go somewhere and meet a lot of strangers. But as we will all be knitters, we will have something in common and I am hoping that I can make this a regular thing for the future. Mr Smiley would have certainly approved of that.

Slight Improvement

Yes, there has been a slight improvement in my mood. Although I didn't get to sleep until gone 2am, once I was asleep I stayed that way and slept through most of this morning. That may seem like a waste of a good part of the day but when you have been surviving on a couple of hours sleep (or less) for a week, it is well worth losing those daylight hours.

Yesterday evening I managed quite a few rows on my latest lace shawl. It's a triangular shawl which starts with just 4 stitches and grows with an increasing number of stitches on alternate rows. It's not the most difficult pattern that I have ever knitted but it does require careful watching and I'm afraid that last night I was paying a little too much attention to Midsomer Murders and not enough to the pattern and I have made a mistake.

Making mistakes is an occupational hazard when knitting lace with its combination of knitting stitches together and yarn overs which create the lacy texture and the pattern in the lace. It looks as though I forgot to make a yarn over so I am a stitch short and the only way to correct it is to carefully unpick two rows stitch by stitch. If I was near the beginning of the shawl then this would not be too much of a problem but there are now just short of 200 stitches on the needles so unpicking those two rows is going to take quite a long time. I was going to do it last night so that I could pick up the knitting today and just move on, but I realised that it was probably a task for when I was a bit more awake so I put the knitting aside as a task for this afternoon or this evening.

I'm hoping that having managed to get some sleep last night the same will happen tonight. I hope that the vicious circle of not sleeping so I get depressed and because I am depressed I don't sleep has been broken. And I have something to look forward to tomorrow because I am meeting Lily for lunch and a chat. And I will be delivering Daisy Livingstone Fairy, too.

Tiny Hands

After having had an appointment with Dr M yesterday and telling him that I was at long last managing to get a decent night's sleep, last night I didn't. I had a terrible night waking up almost every hour and although I managed to get back to sleep fairly easily each time, today I am not feeling at my best.

Anything too energetic is out of the question. Not only am I too tired, but my hip is playing up at the moment so bending over doing things in the garden is off the agenda today. This means that I can spend the time doing more enjoyable things and I have decided that means that I shall spend today working on Daisy Livingstone Fairy.

All the components are knitted and many of the pieces are sewn together so it is not much more than a case of dressing her. But there are a couple of vital components that needed work on them and I have just spent an hour working on them.

The vital components were Daisy Livingstone's hands. They may be tiny but they each have four fingers and a thumb and sewing them up is both time consuming and extremely fiddly. However, I have persevered and they are now completed and ready to be attached to her arms. Once that is done I will be able to join them to the arms and then join the arms to Daisy Livingstone's body. Once that is done, I'll need to create her features, attach her hair, and then dress her in her finery.

They may be tiny hands but they are going to help with Daisy Livingstone's character and I am sure that she will be a really beautiful fairy who will undoubtedly try to grant a few wishes.

Making Up For Lost Sleep

I'm not sure whether it is because the increase in medication has now built up to a proper therapeutic level or it was just a case of lack of sleep catching up with me, but I have spent a significant proportion of the last 24 hours asleep. Even as I sit here writing this post I know that it would be fairly easy for me to sit back and close my eyes and probably drop off to sleep in a couple of minutes. But I am determined not to do that. I need to stay awake for a few hours so that I stand a chance of sleeping through the night.

So, with that aim in mind I am going to sit down with my knitting this evening and work on Daisy Livingstone Fairy. I have finished knitting all her little bits and pieces of jewellery and I am working on the finishing touches on her jacket at the moment. When that has been completed, there will only be one bit left to knit and that is her hair. This means that tomorrow it is more than likely that I will start sewing Daisy together and stuffing her. And maybe I will add her features too.

Once Daisy Livingstone Fairy is finished I will get back to knitting the teddy bear that I started a couple of months ago. I have enjoyed making these toys and I am sure that toy-making will form a part of my knitting for many years to come.

Getting Some Sleep

I have finally managed to start getting some sleep. There is only one problem. I'm sleeping during the day rather than at night.

When I was younger, and certainly all the time that I was working, I was a morning person. I could face the day, and whatever it had to throw at me, without too much of a problem. I generally needed about eight hours sleep a night, so I used to follow the old adage of early to bed, early to rise. It served me well for many years.

Then I started to suffer from depression and sleep became something that was more difficult to come by. There were times when I would survive on a couple of hours sleep a night for several weeks and then, usually on a Friday evening, my mind would just switch off because my body told it that it could take no more. I would sleep for anything up to 24 hours.

Over the last couple of years I have found myself becoming more of a night owl than an early bird. I can still get myself up early if the occasion requires it, but I am also more likely to be awake at 2am than I am at 9am.

I will probably be able to get myself back to a more normal sleeping pattern, but it may take me a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, I shall continue knitting until I can't keep my eyes open any longer and have to fall asleep. I'm hoping that tonight I can get to sleep at a reasonable hour because tomorrow is psychotherapy day and I need to get up to go to the hospital to see my psychologist and it's best that I don't spend too much of the session yawning.

And talking of knitting, Daisy Livingstone Fairy is coming along nicely. As well as having completed Daisy herself, I have made her dress and I am halfway to completing her jacket. She is going to be a very stylish fairy.

Meet Victoria

This is Victoria, well that is her provisional name, her owner may choose to call her something else. Yes, she is the doll that I have been knitting and she was finished very late on Thursday, just in time for me to take her to the Post Office yesterday to send her to There and Back, whose birthday it is today. There and Back sent me this photograph since I didn't have time to photograph her myself before she went in the post. She is delighted with her, so I am delighted.

I need something to keep my mind, and hands, occupied so I have already started making another doll. This time her name is Daisy Livingstone Fairy and she is being made for Lily, who fell in love with the picture of her when we met yesterday. So Lily, if you are reading this, I have a progress report. Daisy's feet have been knitted, her legs and body are finished and her head will be completed tonight.