Falling Apart

It's one thing to buy cheap and cheerful clothes from the supermarket and to think that we've bagged ourselves a bargain, but it's quite another thing to find that these items of clothing start to fall apart after being worn for only a short period of time. This week has seen it's fair share of clothing falling apart in the Melody household: I have already mentioned that two pairs of Matthew's school trousers have been put into repair (my crafting/work room!) which joined a pair of Mr Melody's trousers that need the leg seam repairing. But I've found to my dismay this week that a pair baby cord combats that I love have lost the cordy bit on the inside of the legs due to friction :? and the fabric has become thin as a result, and the hood of a cashmere hoodie (again bought from a supermarket chain and not handknitted) is parting company with the neckline and I've spotted a dropped stitch.

We all went to a sports store yesterday evening to buy Matt a footie top as he plays football a lot now and needs this type of sports clothing, and I was taken aback to see the amount of non-sports clothes on sale at the sportswear store. All cheap and all cheerful. No, I didn't buy any non-sports stuff as I'm currently trying hard NOT to buy clothes just for the sake of it, but I wonder how long it would take before they start to fall apart too?

Very Little Progress :(

I have a bit of progress to report on my Las Vegas socks - I'm up to the gusset pick-up on the second sock. Although I can report that my first assignment is in first draft phase at the moment, awaiting quotes and references where appropriate.

I managed a few more rows on the Alva cardigan and Paris jacket but that's about it this week.

Matthew has somehow managed to rip the side seam of his school trousers and the hem of another pair has come adrift, so there's mending to be done this weekend. The trousers are in good condition and there's no way I'm throwing them out just yet.

Strangely, I 've just removed a comma splice from one of my sentences when last week I didn't even know the term existed....

Las Vegas Socks for September Maybe?

I've just sat and typed out my post for today and the whole lot disappeared into the ether - sheesh!

For some reason Blogger appears to be a pain in the rear this afternoon as my delete key wouldn't work a few minutes ago.

Anywhoodle, here are my Las Vegas socks which will possibly be finished in time to enter into the September Sockamonth challenge on the Crafty Threads 'n' Yarns forum:

I managed to miss the train by about five minutes a couple of times this week, so I took the opportunity to grab a polystyrene cup of train station tea, whip out my sock yarn, DPNs and sock bag and knit. Sheer Bliss.

I might have to miss the train a couple more times to get these socks finished by the end of September, and as these are my third pair, I might be in the running for a bronze award.

Student Life

Uni life has already started and we have assignments to write and plans to set out. I'm tired, I haven't had dinner yet, but I'm happy :) I've discovered that wearing my contact lenses all day in hot and dry environments doesn't result in particularly comfortable eyes :?

I also found this week that socks are very useful to knit on station platforms whilst waiting for trains. I promise I'll take piccies of my Las Vegas socks to show you at the weekend. Denver Jon would be proud as he sent me the yarn last year all the way from Colorado just up the road from Las Vegas.

On to Refashioning News - I have done a little refashioning since taking my pledge - I shortened a pair of navy chinos for Mr Melody and he's already worn them several times to play golf in. He's been to the office in them once as well, as he now informs me that chinos are perfectly acceptable in his office environment.

Preliminary Placement

Phew! Busy.

I spent Monday to Friday this week as a Student Teacher in my preliminary placement at a local primary school.... I had a fabulous but busy time working with Key Stage 1 children and have enjoyed it immensely. I have loads of notes to type up.

Lectures start on Tuesday morning at 9.15am sharp.

Ooh! Ooh!

I forgot to tell you that Jacquie awarded me the Rocking Girl Blogger award last week..... how could I forget!!! I've been coveting that award for ages, and when I finally get one, I forget to tell you all *rolls eyes*

Thank you Jacquie! Now all I have to do is figure out how to add the button to my sidebar....

And now I have to award the button to five other bloggers, but I fear that they have all been nominated previously :( Here goes nowt:

1 My darlingest, best cyberbuddy Denver Jon of Colorado Knits who has a blog no more. Jon was the one whose blog I read every day and who got me into blogging in the first place. So thanks matey!

2 Jo from I'd Rather be Knitting - she knits some fabulous stuff and we seem to have the same patterns on our 'to-knit' lists. But she finishes lots more than I do!

3 The blogger who showed me Wardrobe Refashioning - Joanne from Don't Talk Just Knit - you gotta love a girl who refashions

4 Murdo and the Pirate Purls cos I love the nutty, orange, lab-coated muppet to bits, and I love her Perfect Paparazzi Pirate Purling girls too (and happy bithday for yesterday to the eldest Pirate)

5 Fegrig - not a Rockin' Girl Blogger as such (then neither is Denver Jon of 1 above, but we gotta have equal opportunities here guys) as he made me laugh so much with his dog-walking antics today. I hereby award both Fegrig and DJ a *cough* Rocking Boy Blogger button each. Bring it on boys....

It's Refashioning, Jim. But Not As We Know It.

Not refashioning in the true sense of the word admittedly, but our cream leather sofas and chair were getting a bit grubby and looked bleugh, so last Monday I cleaned the leather with hot water and washing up liquid and made some more cushions from fabric that I already had in stash. I made one cushion cover from pale cream cotton with a smidge of lycra in it; it's not plain cream, it has white figured flowers all over it but the pattern is difficult to determine with the camera. I had intended to make flowery cushion covers for the sofa this week as well and got as far as getting the fabric out, but fate intervened once more and I found myself in class 1 for four days solid and helping out by being nursery nurse cover for the week.

Birthday Booty

I was finally allowed to opened my pressie from my wonderful friends Murdo and the Pirate Purls and this is what I found inside:

Wonderful knitting luxuries from Knitpicks, Boyes and the Yarn Yard, and some other little luxuries for me. Thank you so much Murdo and Pirates!!

I had such a bad headache on my birthday that as soon as I'd taken the boys to school and I'd had some breakfast, I went back to bed to try to sleep it off - so many apologies to the wonderful Murdo and the two Pirates for seemingly blogging late about my wonderful birthday gifts - they really are appreciated.

On birthday afternoon I logged in to see if I could pay my student tuition fees online again - this time it worked!! It's stressful having to shell out £1,535 to pay for the first half of my tuition fees - my next installment for the other half is due in January 2008. Thankfully my parents had given me money for my birthday and Mr Melody always gives me a sum in the bank to spend on what I want for me, but I can see that it will be no yarn purchases for me for a while nevertheless :( as I spent my birthday cash on the books and yarn in Wales this year (see previous posts!!)

Birthday and resolutions.

As it is 2nd September today I'm took the pledge yesterday to join Wardrobe Refashioning as from now, although officially I won't be able to join until 1st October. I just cannot afford to buy any new clothes anymore for myself unless I absolutely need them; the boys of the family are excluded from this of course as they will need new items for school uniform and work I should think.

I really need to sort out the old clothes that won't fit or I won't be wearing anymore and either get rid of them or pack them away somewhere. Having worked in an environment with small children and paint and glue for three years, I'm used to wearing casual stuff for work and clothes that could be mullered and I wouldn't be bothered about it. I can still wear jeans and combats for Uni of course, but I'm assuming not for Teaching Practice in schools. Besides, I want to look half reasonable for school and jeans just don't cut the mustard do they?

And I really have to lose some extra poundage. Sitting around on my fat ar*e all summer and not doing any exercise, plus all the goodies I've been eating, has added inches to my thighs, hips and waist. I'm positive that when I start walking from home to the train station and then from the train station to Uni each day the extra weight will start to drop off, but I can't wait that long. I walked to pick the lads up from school on Friday, and then round to my friend's house later in the evening and all told walked about 2.5 miles. Not bad for a start anyway.

I sat in bed for a wonderful hour yesterday morning, in a quiet house whilst the boys were at football practice, and read about a quarter of Jacqueline Wilson's ‘The Illustrated Mum' as part of my summer reading list. I'm about a third of the way through already and sat this morning with a box of tissues by my side, tears rolling down my cheeks. It's an excellent and thought provoking book; I'd highly recommend it.

A Bank Holiday Full of Challenges

I set a Bank Holiday Challenge for everyone on the Crafty Theads ‘n’ Yarns forum - to cast on a project on Friday afternoon/evening, and to have it completed by midnight on Bank Holiday Monday.
I was hopeless as usual, as despite actually setting the challenge, didn’t know what to knit or sew to compete *rolls eyes*

I decided to knit a dolly clothes set for a little friend of Danny’s who is five this week, rather than spend money buying a pressie. I knitted a size 12" chest preemie size cardigan in Brett’s Shimmer 4 ply (as I have a small mountain of it left over from my now-closed eBay shop), and the little hat to go with it. I’m still knitting it, so you’ll have to wait to see the finished dolly set.

I also set myself a non-crafting challenge to actually go out to the local town to find some long, knee-high boots for this winter as I’ve spent the last one or two years trying to find boots that will actually zip-up over my calves. I’ve got small feet, and muscular calves as a result of too much dog-walking and running, and boot manufacturers don’t cater for my shape of leg or smallness of foot generally. I can’t find boots that come up to my knee and actually fit over the bulgey bit of my calf muscle.

I tried all the usual suspects, but found either no boots at all or none that would fit :( So we went out on Bank Holiday Sunday to Marks and Spencer at Fosse Park to check out the boot section.




And lo and behold! Boots that fit!! I had to go up a foot size, but heck, they're fabulous boots!! The cowboy boots wouldn't usually be my first choice of style admittedly, but they look fabulous with a shortie denim skirt. And the high heeled suede boots are to die for and exactly what I wanted


Mr Melody was so fed up with traipsing round shoe departments and shoe shops that when I found two pairs that fitted, he insisted that I bought both pairs. I knew there was a reason for dragging him with me.....

Holiday Stashing - Part Deux

This is the final instalment of my Holiday Stashing piccies, taken before I stashed all the yarn and books away in their respective places.

Books, books and more books from Stash in Chester. Oh and 8 balls of Noro's Cash Iroha in a gorgeous mulberry colour to knit Agnes from Noro Knits, two pairs of Brittany Birch needles and two balls of Regia sock yarn:







And four more Colinette books and some cotton DK for dish/facecloths at bargainous 50p a ball from Ar-Y-Gweill in Llanrwst. (Notice that I managed to pick up the discontinued Portmanteau book from here? Yippee!):




I bought so many books on holiday that I had to tidy up my shelves in my crafting room today to make room for them all on the bookshelf *chuckles*
On a positive note though, I now have more free shelf space to store the yarns-that-I-want-to-knit-next rather than sticking them out of view in the guest wardrobe :)

This weekend is Bank Holiday weekend, so I'm planning to get some crafting stuff done - there are so many things I want to do, so hopefully a few will be achieved. I've set myself another Bank Holiday challenge to either knit Eve from Femme Fatale using the new Giotto yarn that I won on eBay last week, or make a start on a fusion-knit. Or sew myself a new top Or maybe make some new cushion covers for the cushions our sofa - I have the fabric and I have the cushion innards, so I really should put the two together :? There are so many crafting projects going round in my mind, but at least the crafting mojo is back :)

My Wardrobe is Out of Control!!

My wardrobe is full to bursting with clothes. I have lots of pairs of shoes, boots and sandals. I also have a large yarn stash and a fairly large fabric stash.

At one time, before I had children, and I went to work in an office for a living, I sewed all my own clothes, even my suits. Just before I found I was having my eldest son, I attended an evening City and Guilds Tailoring course but only went for a term and a half as I quickly realised that I wouldn’t be able to tailor stuff to fit my ever-expanding tummy! My mum was an excellent seamstress in her day, and still prefers to tailor her own clothes as she is able to attain a custom fit.

So I am able to knit and sew my own stuff without resorting to shop-bought clothes.

I saw an interesting entry on someone’s blog over the weekend - Don't Talk, Just Knit - about the Wardrobe Refashioning blog that aims to refashion clothes to reduce the amount of money spent on new clothing and textiles, which suits my reducing, reusing and recycling ideal very nicely.

Just one last visit to M&S and I’ll join up, I promise....

A Week of Unexpected Parcels

You expected Part Deux didn’t you? LOL! Well I’ll do part deux next I promise!

Our postie regularly delivers packages to our house (no surprise there then), but this week I’ve had one or two surprise packages arriving at Chez Melody, and I have to tell you about them cos they are so scrummy. Three surprise packages turned up in all, in amongst the ones I knew were being delivered, so I’ve had a busy week answering the door to Mr Postie.

My first package arrived on Monday morning - my one skein swap parcel from my swap partner on the Crafty Threads ‘n’ Yarns forum. Just look what Granny Smith sent to me:

















A ball of Opal sock yarn in lilac Magic, and a skein of undyed sock yarn with a set of Kool-Aid dyes. And an Apple room freshener as her clue! Perfect in every way! Thank you Granny Smith!
Then two surprise packages arrived on Wednesday, a squishy one and a heavy one, and just look what was inside!



I am knocked out by the utterly superb Tess Dawson yarns , and I've been stroking them ever since..... the Baby alpaca yarn is to die for it's so soft, and the colours are stunning! I want to knit the Boutique cardigan from one of the Jaeger books, JB30 - the cardigan that has all the buttons sewn over it, I'll find a piccie if I can - and now that Jaeger have finally closed their doors on their yarn spinning operation, the Tess Dawson Merino 4ply is a perfect substitute. A Very Generous Yarn Fairy sent these yarns to me, as she knew that I'd been drooling over them - a huge thank you to you, you know who you are *wink*; you know that I'll have so much fun testing them out.... I have plans for the Alpaca DK already!

In the heavy package there was this mysterious parcel wrapped in pink birthday paper, but I was warned not to open it until my birthday at the end of the month. I do so hate waiting to open presents, and patience isn't my strongest virtue where brightly wrapped gifts are concerned.... *sigh*

Holiday Stashing - Part Un

I was a very good Melody on our holiday to North Wales and was very restrained where yarn shopping was concerned - honest!

On our way up to Llanberis we stopped at Abakhan Fabrics for a picnic lunch. The boys were able to stretch their legs on the adventure playground and swings with Mr Melody, while I dodged into the yarn shop for a quick reccie. I came out without buying any yarn, but did buy an open-ended zip! That's totally unlike me.

On our first proper day in Wales we popped into Craig-Y-Don to do food shopping; boring, I know, but someone's gotta do it. I went looking for the Wool Post as last year the shop had moved to smaller premises on the opposite side of the road to where it had been previously. But this year? It had disappeared completely I’m afraid :(

Probably the best yarn-shop-stop this holiday was the day trip to Colinette to visit a few of my forum friends who were attending a workshop there, and to actually visit the Colinette shop in person. I had a list of the yarns I wanted to buy in my head, and had taken the only two Colinette books I possessed with me, you know, to consult in case I forgot what I wanted and how many skeins I needed.

However, fairly soon after arriving my list went out of my head completely, and so I set about chatting to Jackie, Joy, Christina, Linda, Carola, Diane at Colinette, and the ‘Pirate Purls, Knitting Girls’ (who were the Colinette Paparazzi for the day), whilst idly fondling yarns and oohhhing and aaaahing at the colours.

I bought a stack of pattern booklets from the Colinette shop, three skeins of Parisienne from the millshop itself and ordered seven skeins of Zanziba to be dyed in the raspberry colourway to knit Rachael from the Portmanteau booklet. The book is now unfortunately discontinued, so Diane kindly gave me a copy of the pattern with my yarn. I also bought skeins of the new Iona aran weight yarn in a lovely denimy blue colourway called Slate, to knit something from the new Iona book, which will probably be the Ula sweater or cardigan.

The books:

I also bought a couple of pairs of Brittany Birch straights - which have recently become my straight needles of choice - and a set of five Prym bamboo sock DPNs which are probably the slinkiest and smoothest bamboo DPNs I’ve knitted with. THe DPNs are not in this piccie though cos they're in a sock!

My haul from Colinette:


The Melody Family had to run like the wind to catch the 1pm train to Welshpool on the Llanfair Caereinion Steam Railway I can tell you!

More stashing exploits later.....

In which Melody Finishes More Items and Casts on Two New Projects

A few more finished items to show you.... first, Tide:



Knitted in Patons 100% cotton DK with Brittany Birch needles, using Louisa Harding's ‘Tide' cardigan pattern. I fudged the sizing on this as I used a different dk yarn with a different stitch tension. This fits so well and was interesting to knit, and I have the yarn out of stash already to knit another! Again in Cotton DK but a lovely mid-lilac shade this time

Next up, Vanessa:



Knitted in Sirdar Denim Tweed DK yarn with Pony Pearl needles and using RYC's Vanessa pattern from RYC Art. I knitted the size 36 size, without fudging anything except maybe the row tension which I knitted as is. I absoutely adore this! I also have yarn for this out of stash and want to knit another one, or maybe two, three, four.... LOL! I have taken some Patons Coral DK in the Vanilla shade out of stash holding, which is a cotton mix yarn, and will look fab knitted up as Vanessa I think. I thought about knitting another Vanessa in Brett's Kool Kotton, but wanted another sweater with that summer melange kinda look.

For my next trick - I cast on for the Drops short sleeved jacket using Garnstudio Paris cotton aran in a gorgeous colour called Heather, and also cast on stitches for one of the cardigans Alva, in the Colinette Banyan booklet:



The Paris yarn is a superb dark cerise-pinky-purple in real life, and it's easy to knit in one piece on Addt turbo circular needles, much to my amazement as I don't like circulars or metal needles generally. The stitches are nice and even, and there's none of that nasty rowing out business that happens when I use bamboo needles as it did with the Grace jacket I finished earlier this year. Which just so happens to be next on the list to sew up!

I'm also knitting Alva in James Brett pure merino dk, and it's an absolute joy to knit with. I chose the merino because I don't possess any Colinette AT ALL! Hopefully that will be rectified on holiday when I have promised myself a day off from Knitting from Stash to visit the Colinette millshop in person. I quite fancy some Cadenza but which shade? Who knows!

A Good Day's Work

It's been raining pretty much all week except for a few good sunny days, and I've been able to get the laundry down in the laundry basket to an acceptable level again. All this rainy wet weather means drying the washing inside though except when it's been sunny! I still have TONS of ironing to get through though, but I've been able to do almost three hours' worth of ironing in the past two days amongst everything else, so thank goodness for days off work!

The boys have been doing some cookery this week - they made twelve cupcakes before lunch today. They are both really quite good little cooks, and made excellent cakes! They love messing about in the kitchen, which as a mother of two boys I'm really pleased about and give them every encouragement. Hopefully they will be able to cook themselves a healthy meal and not have to rely on takeaway junk food when they finally leave home in years to come!



Just to tempt you, here are a few cakes that the boys decorated....

Totally Finished Objects!

Yay! As promised, a couple of totally finished objects. I've obviously had the sew-up bug this week as I've finished sewing up three knitteds. The third - Louisa Harding's 'Tide' cardigan - still needs a button and button loop, so until it has that it won't appear on the blog as a TFO.

Here are the two totally finished items:



A wrap cardigan in peacock Sirdar Country Style double knitting yarn that I fusion knitted on the knitting machine and by hand, and the Valentine sweater in Red Sirdar Denim Chunky that I knitted in February this year. The sweater has turned out really well, and I'm glad that I didn't throw it into the textile recycling bin as I had threatened! The wrap cardigan is okay and I will wear it, but I'm not sure that I'll ever knit another :? However, I'm already planning Valentine sweater number two in vintage, black, chunky yarn ;)

Officially Unemployed

It was officially my last day at preschool yesterday - so I have officially joined the ranks of the unemployed of Great Britain until I become a student again in September.

I had an amazing amount of leaving gifts from parents, children and other staff and teachers, and I'm still overwhelmed by their generosity. I had a few pieces of beautiful jewellery, a great Scholastic Circle Time book and a children's music and rythmn book for my teaching practice, chocolates by the boxes, plants, flowers, a stunning gemstone keyring to promote success (which knocked me for six it is so beautiful), a lovely mug and bowl set to warm my teaching practice food and drink in, pampering gifts such as bath bombs and lavender salts, pens, and loads of cards and warm wishes for my future.

I am, indeed, officially unemployed.

I've been asked to cover at preschool for a day in September though, before my preliminary teaching week starts - so I shall be revisiting quicker than I'd anticipated!

Knitting stuff - I've been sewing stuff up madly this week, probably due to the lack of enthusiasm for knitting and my general feeling of unsettled-iness. I have managed to sew up two garments, and they look fab! Even the rubbishy Valentine sweater that nearly went into the textile recycling bin doesn't look all that crappy after sewing it up! Piccies 2moz I promise....

Last Day at Work

It's my last day at work tomorrow :( and I'm feeling very sad at the prospect of not going back to preschool in September.

We had our summer party this morning for all the children, and it seemed so surreal, the fact that I wasn't going back next term.

I'm feeling very unsettled at the moment.....

Closing the Shop

I have made a decision about the eBay shop that I've been running for a number of years and have regretfully come to the decision to close the shop at the end of July. With all the new things that are happening in September, I just won't have the time to wrap and post parcels like I do at the moment, and the doors of Melody Yarns will close permanently on 27th July.

I will still be stash busting and listing yarns in auction listings though, so don't forget to pop by and see me, will you?

Alexandra Palace

I have made a decision not to buy any more yarns until I go to the Alexandra Palace knitting show in October this year. If I keep buying yarn at this alarming rate, I won't be able to buy anything while I'm there cos I just won't have the dosh!

I shall save my weekly yarn allowance, and sell my destashing items on eBay to hopefully raise some more cash, and we shall see how much I can raise to spend there.

In the meantime I will make a wishlist for Ally Pally and any yarns that I want, need or just plain fall in love with, shall go onto the list. And then I'm going to buy the lot at Ally Pally :))

The only exception I will make is new books in August (I can't live without inspiration!) and any new needles that I need to start or complete projects.

I already have a wishlist that I keep on an Excel file on the computer. It's not that long that I need an Excel file you understand, but it makes me happy knowing that it's there *wink*