Hip, Hip - Oh No.....

I've had a really, really bad week this week and it all started to go wrong last Friday on the way home from lectures. I saw the train in the station and I ran to get on it before the doors closed which has happened to me in the past - you're left standing on the platform with your train moving out and you not on it. I wasn't running that quickly or wearing high heels or anything daft, but my right hip exploded in a red hot shooting pain. How I got onto the train and sat down, then managed to get off the train and get to the car and drive home, is a mystery in itself. I ended up at the walk-in medical centre and then in major injuries in the hospital's casualty department, crying with pain and the doctors thinking that I'd fractured my pelvis :(
I have evidently sprained my hip though - I've torn either a muscle or ligament and it's not been fun at all.

The pain has been almost unbearable this week - walking has been nigh on impossible and the codeine prescribed by the hospital has left me dazed and sick. I did make an improvement, or so I thought, towards the end of the week when I was able to walk round the house without wincing with every step - my own GP changed my painkillers to diclofenac when I went to visit her yesterday and they've worked much better than the codeine so I haven't been feeling so sick and knocked out as I did.

I've been told to rest my hip and not to do anything too energetic. But feeling slightly better this afternoon I popped into my local mini-Tesco to pick up some food for dinner with the boys on the way home from school. Bad decision! I parked on the car park and walked into the supermarket and picked up a few bits and pieces. The pain walking out to the car was unbearable once again. I shouldn't be too surprised though - the doctor did mention that she expected it to be a good four to six weeks for the sprain to heal completely.

So - no disco dancing moves for me for a while eh? You just can't watch Hannah Montana without wanting to get up and dayance! *sigh*

The Pendulum Swings in the Other Direction

No yarn has arrived Chez Melody since my last post, I have made headway into several projects and finished a couple as well; I've also been destashing yarns on Crafty Threads 'n' Yarns and have several listed on eBay. Not bad eh?

I often see patterns that are advertised as 'knit in a weekend!' but just what is the definition of a weekend? Is it an actual two days or is it 48 hours worth of knitting? I gave myself a challenge over the Easter break to knit a cardigan in 48 hours. Okay, I did cheat a bit and used the knitting machine to knit the stocking stitch bits but it was justified I think as the usual 'weekend' patterns are often sleeveless numbers or scarves, so I didn't think that cheating was necessarily a bad thing in this case!

Well - after almost nine hours of actual knitting, this is what I have to show for it and I'm really rather pleased:

I've also managed to finish my first ever crochet-project-with-a-purpose - a new washcloth for myself. Worked in pink Patons Supersoft cotton DK with a 4.5mm crochet hook, I made the pattern up myself to a certain extent: it's a plain old granny square with two rows of double crochet around the outside *grin* I even managed to crochet a little loop so that I can hang it up in the shower to dry when I've finished washing with it!

Seaton continues to make good progress too. I'm nearly to the shoulders on the back piece. Maybe the colours are a little patchier than I would have liked, but I really don't want to frog and knit two row stripes *shrugs*

Confessions
All this time at home on Easter holiday hasn't done my purse any favours! I showed you some of the stash that Mr Postie had delivered, so here's the next part....

Yarny stuff:
Eight balls of scrumptious Twilleys Spirit DK yarn to knit a scoop necked sweater for next Autumn, a couple of balls of cotton sock yarn from one of my friends over on eBay, ten balls of Tess Dawson merino DK bought as part of Terri's destash and fifteen balls of New Lanark silk and wool mix DK in cobalt. Yummy!

And I bought some Jane Ellison books - the two Mirasol collection books and the two Arauncania books along with the Noro summer leaflet and Rowan Studio nine - I need patterns to go with the yarn! That ball of Opal is the same one as above - it sneaked into the photos twice!

What the Blazes....

I’ve been eyeing up both Peace and Hush from the Kim Hargreaves Collection for a few weeks now and even though I have destashed and sold several lots of unwanted yarn on the Crafty Threads forum, I still didn’t feel comfortable buying two knitting kits because of the price of each kit. Then Pictish pointed out that Blaze is almost the same style as Peace and I was converted!

I cast on for Blaze yesterday evening, albeit a little late at about 10.30pm, but half the moss stitch border is already done. I'm knitting using Patons 100% Cotton DK in shade Pomegranate with 4mm Brittany Birch needles, my weapons of choice at the moment. It would appear that Patons Cotton DK and Cotton 4 ply are underestimated yarns and I’ve found them mainly being used for dishcloths and washcloths on Ravelry, which is a real shame as the yarn knits, washes and wears wonderfully as proven by my Tide cardigan that I made last year. Tide has been in and out of the washing machine and is still soft and easy to wear, with the added bonus that it can be steam pressed to perfection.


Blaze has appeared twice in Rowan publications but under different name: once as 'Cheer' in Rowan magazine 32, the second time as 'Blaze' in Rowan's 'The Pure Wool Collection' as shown in the photo above, but they are both the same Kim Hargreaves design. Which of course leaves me free to buy Hush with a clear conscience *big grin*

I had cast on the stitches for, and knitted two rows of rib for, a CPH in Stylecraft Harvest aran but decided that I really don’t want to knit it at the moment, so it came off the needles just as quickly.

More things have been arriving at the Melody House this week, but I’ll wait until my next post to tell you about those *wink*

Happy Birthday, Little Melody!

Six years ago the Littlest Little Melody was three and a half hours old and we were exceptionally pleased and very relieved that he'd turned up in one piece. Today he has demanded baked beans on toast for his lunch, ripped open his birthday cards with a vengeance and made an array of unique robots with Lego. Oh how the times change!

The Postman Came Again
Yes, he did! Lookie:










Three lots of Garnstudio Safran cotton in superb, citrus-y, spring colours to knit two ribbed tops and a fitted jacket, two lots of RYC Cashcotton DK (in the pool and geranium colourway) from Celticove as it was on sale and at a bargainous price *wink* and ten skeins of Colinette wigwam from Aknita on the Crafty Threads forum cos I want to knit Sam from the now discontinued Portmanteau booklet.


But now the talk on the Crafty Threads forum has turned to New Lanark Mill yarns and I'm STILL tempted by Kim Hargreaves kits. It never ends does it?

A Week of Deliveries

This week the postman has worked hard to deliver lots of goodies Chez Melody and here is what he brought:

A lovely selection of goodies from Hanne in the Round Robin Bag Exchange - the sheep tape measure is just too cute for words!







Some glorious lime green Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk double knitting yarn which I was going to whizz up into a classroom cardi but I think it's just too special to use in the classroom







And a whole bagful of cottons from Get Knitted - two lots of 4 ply cotton in pink and blue and one lot of it in the DK weight in grape. All for summer stuff for me :-)















And the postman will be working hard this week too let me tell you *wink*

I did get Mr Melody's Rigger Boot socks finished and the ends darned in this month - knitted in King Cole Merino DK in shade graphite, they are lovely, thick and cosy for wearing inside his safety boots when he's out on site. He seemed pleased when I handed them over anyway....

Paris Jacket Finished


Hooray! I sewed on the buttons and finished my Paris jacket this morning:

I'm really quite pleased with this jacket considering that I had trouble with decreasing 2sts at the neck edge for the neck shaping and that it was knitted in one piece to the armholes which made it knitting it seem like an eternity. The sewing up was quicker though!

I made a couple of modifications - the sleeves are shorter and I used snap fastener at the top of the buttonband to ensure that the neck stays closed rather than gaping. There's a distinct lack of buttonole at the neckband in the pattern and it looked a bit odd with the neckband flapping open.

The jacket is knitted in Garnstudio Paris cotton aran, in shade 07 Heather which is real life in dark cerise colour, and it took just 9 balls to knit on a 5mm circular needle. I knitted the sleeves back and forth on Brittany birch needles and used little silver shank buttons that I had in my button stash. The ribbing at the waist gives the jacket a little shaping which I like. The yarn is deliciously chunky and cottony and I'll certainly be using it again in the future - even Matthew likes the feel of it against his senstivie skin!

My next project is yet another cotton cardigan for the warmer months (hopefully) ahead - I cast on the stitches to knit Seaton from RYC's Classic Coast last night, but I'm using the bargain Colorado cotton aran weight yarn that I got for a bargain price from Lidl last year. I'm going to knit it all in one colour though, without the striping and possibly without the ribbon tie at the waist:

Poor Neglected blog?

Well not really, I've been very busy doing other things and not much time to post anything that you might want to read.

The fifth week of TE2 is completed and it's my final week at my placement school next week. I can't begin to tell you just how much fun this placement has been and I know that I shall be full of sadness when I leave next Friday. I've already threatened to go back in on my days off!!

And I've just been a very naughty Melody and ordered some scrummy 4 ply and double knitting cottons from Get Knitted.... well, a girl needs her yarn fix occasionally!

Stash on Ravelry

I made a start today and took photos of some of my stash that I have on my shelf in my craft room. I only took simple straightforward photos and didn't go looking for interesting backdrops or anything as putting my yarn stash onto Ravelry is supposed to be for my benefit isn't it? Or is it? I have an Excel inventory speadsheet for my yarns, invented by me for me that tells me the information that I want to know. Do I really need to, or indeed have the time to, upload photos onto the World Wide Web to have complete strangers gawping at my stash? As it was it took nearly half an hour to upload six photos and describe six lots of stash... err, no thanks, I don't have the time for that!

Reduce, Re-use, Recycle and Repair

One of my many 'hobbies' is recycling and as a family we do try to recycle or re-use as much as we possibly can; I've been repairing Big Little Melody's school trousers off and on for what seems weeks now as the hems seem to be continually undone - what is that lad doing to his school trousers??!! Another pair found its way onto my 'repair' pile this morning *rolls eyes*

As items of clothing become too small or too scruffy I put them into a large drawer and every so often go through it and sort the clothing into piles. This morning I sorted out a large black sack of clothes to recycle in the textile recycling bin, another bagful for a door-to-door charity collection (that still has to collect said clothes bag from the doorstep) and yet another pile of too-good-clothes-to-chuck-out-but-are-too-small-for-Little-Little-Melody; I shall donate those to a friend with a young son who is much younger and smaller than Dan.

On the whole I was very pleased with the four cushion covers that I made from a piece of inherited furnishing fabric and I went on to make another two in pale cream self-patterned fabric to match the first four. The six cushions only cost me the price of the cushion innards which weren't all that expensive really.

I was really excited yesterday as I received my Round Robin Bag from Jacquie - Jacquie co-administers the Crafty Threads 'n' Yarns forum with me - and she sent me a superb selection in her gift bag which I'm sure had the internal dimensions of a Tardis! Here's what I received from across The Pond. First, the bag stuffed with goodies:

And all the wonderful contents!

Jacquie sent me a ball of rainbow coloured Sugar 'n' Cream cotton which I intend to knit into a washcloth from for me, a dinky, pink highlighter pen, a small bag of Quaker Oats breakfast cereal and two herbal teabags (perfect for a February morning!), two sheets of the cutest penguin stickers, a sweet little decorate-it-yourself heart shaped box which opened to reveal the most adorable, delicate silver and turquoise stitch markers inside. I am truly overwhelmed with what Jacquie sent to me.

Thank you so much Jacquie! I love everything to bits!!

It's Actually Sunday Today


Knitting from Stash? Isn't it strange that as soon as the words Stashalong or Knitting from Stash are mentioned my brain goes into hunter-gatherer mode and starts to collect yarns as if they are going out of fashion. I must have squirrel genes somewhere in my lineage! I noticed that RKM yarns have a fabulous deal on a couple of RYC yarns at the moment and I immediately wondered what I could knit in Soft Lux. I came up with Ariann from Chicknits and surprise, surprise I already have the pattern. Of course I bought some.....

It's half term holiday here and since I worked like a woman possessed to get my assignment finished over the Christmas holiday and then passed all three skills tests to boot, I'm having a bit of rest this week. It's not officially a vacation for us PGCE students, more like a Professional Study week, but since I passed both assignment and skills tests I think I deserve a few days off. So I got out my long-neglected sewing machine this afternoon and made four cushion covers - two with borders and two without as you can see here:



I've only had them lurking around since September last year before I started my Uni course, so it's great to actually have them done and sewn up. They make the living room look so much prettier and homely :)

I've Succumbed

and ordered a shedload of books from Get Knitted. I also ordered some of the RYC Alpaca that GK have on offer at the moment in the Lichen shade. I don't know whether or not they will have it in stock tomorrow when they receive my order 'in person' but I do know that I've wanted to knit this jacket for ages. Now that the yarn is on special offer, I bought the yarn to knit it.

Sprite has knitted Foxtail from the Rowan Tapestry booklet and now I'm wishing that I'd ordered the book along with the other books so that I can knit it too. I may just pop that book into my basket along with the others :-) as I can see this knitted in plain cotton double knit for the summer!


My head has been feeling fuzzy all day today and I think I have a cold starting. I've managed to avoid viruses all winter too. But Look! This cheered me up no end...I have another award on my sidebar! Sandrab from Sandra's Place gave me this award over the weekend, and I'm very grateful to have received it. I'll let you pop over to Sandra's place to find out why she gave it to me though. Now I have to choose other blogging peeps to give this award to.... I nominate Jo028 for this award as her taste in knitting is exactly the same as mine; except I'm not nearly as productive as Jo *wink*
Congratulations Jo!

Weekly News

My first week in my second teaching placement is complete - what a wonderful week I've had. Fab children and fantastic support from the school and my teacher mentor. What more could I ask?

We all had our first assignment back yesterday and I'm pleased to say that I passed at masters level so I can now go on to complete my second assignment at masters level as well to try to earn another 30 credits. This first assignment gives me 30 credits towards a masters degree which I am very pleased to have achieved. It was a hard slog over Christmas to get this assignment written and out of the way and I didn't have a very restful festive period at all. I'm very proud to have achieved what I have so far with two children and a home in addition to the constant hard work of a PGCE course.

I would normally celebrate by rushing off to buy yarn but as I promised to knit from stash this year I won't be doing that. I'll be buying knitting patterns instead!

Round Robin Bag Exchange

We're having a Round Robin Mini Bag Exchange over on the Crafty Threads 'n' Yarns forum. The idea originated from Natalie of the Yarn Yard and the idea is that we each make a small bag and fill it with goodies to send on to a person on the list every month. I decided to sew mine as I have no spare time to knit a little bag unfortunately and with the wonderful Franney's help and advice, this is what I came up with. My bag is a little on the generous side as I didn't want it to be too small! Overall I'm really pleased with this mini - project and it was far quicker and easier to sew than to knit. The bag was made from remnant pieces from curtain fabric, so it didn't cost a penny. Not only quick but cheap too!

Confessing Stashalonging

Melody reports that she did indeed make a dent in her stash in 2007, with a net reduction of.....



3.5kg!!!


I would take a group photo of all the yarn I destashed and all the yarn I managed to restash, but I don't have a wide angle lens on my camera :?

Resurrected and Refashioned

With Spring around the corner, I decided to resurrect the jacket in Garnstudio Paris cotton and I've made good progress this last week by knitting up to the armhole and dividing into two fronts and a back. Now that I'm knitting the parts of the jacket individually the jacket seems to making quicker progress! It's still on a circular needle although I have already finished one front already and I've almost finished the other so it will be finished for the warmer months after all.

Mr Melody's office has been selling off virtually brand new desks this week in an office move about, so Mr Melody secured three desks and three pedestals (medium sized three drawer cabinets) for the Melody family at a cost of £75 for the lot. The two Little Melodies have a desk and pedestal each up in the playroom/den to put their PCs and all their paraphernalia on and I managed to snaffle another for my craft room. It's much much bigger than the old table thing I used to pile all my crafting junk onto, but the pile of half-forgotten things I found under the desk was an eye-opener! Not wardrobe refashioning in the true sense, but an excellent bargain. I'm using the desk to put my sewing machine and overlocker on and the drawers will replace the tatty drawer unit in my craft room. A good thing really, as the handles fell off the fronts of the drawers recently and it's almost impossible to get the drawers open!! I can even sit at my new desk upstairs and use my new lappie on the internet, thanks to the power of WiFi. Utter Bliss.

Scarf Done!

Hooray Dad's scarf is finished!!



And I want to knit another scarf - FOR ME!! - in Tess Dawson Merino 4 ply in black, using a feather and fan pattern as I don't have a scarf to my name... wahhhh!! I thought that black would look fab with my new camel coat.

I've been rootling through stash this afternoon to locate yarns for the sweaters for the lads as I want to join the Bloke sweater knitalong on the Crafty Threads forum. Starting with small bloke sweaters seemed to be the thing to do I thought, to build myself up to knitting one for Mr Melody. He asked for a vest to play golf in, baggy to hide his tum but gathering somewhat into a rib, with deeper armholes for the arm/shoulder movement of the golf swing.... I did mention that I didn't have a magic wand!! *LOL* I'm knitting him socks to go inside his rigger boots when he's on site, so that'll shut him up for a bit *wink*

A decision has been made today and probably one that I'll regret for the next 12 months - I'm joining Terri and Piglottie to name but a few, knitting from stash for 2008. That made you sit up and take notice, didn't it??!!

The Season is Upon Us

Today is Christmas Day despite what the date says at the top of the post :? - Happy Christmas to Everyone!

Traditionally, I'm not keen on Christmas :( All the shopping for presents and food drives me to distraction. I'm hopeless at writing Christmas cards, never get them posted on time and run out of enthusiasm half way through my list :( This year, I shall do what I did with the boys last summer for teacher's leaving/thank you presents and donate my Christmas card money to a worthwhile charity. I chose Oxfam last summer, but have to think carefully about which charity to choose this year. We always donate a sum to charity for Lucy's birthday in January anyway, so may combine it with that for this year. We had a tremedously emotionally charged workshop/lecture from two counsellors from The Laura Centre in our last week of term, and I may decide to donate money to them this year.

Anyway - onwards ------

There is progress my friends! Only 90 rows on Dad's scarf until it's completed. We're visiting my parents for the day tomorrow so it needs to be done by then - do you think I'll manage to knit the extra 90 rows on this tedious scarf?! LOL!! Mum and Dad are coming to stay for a few days over New Year to look after the boys when I go back to Uni, so if the scarf isn't finished by tomorrow (which is highly doubtful) then Dad will have it for when they come down to stay.

I decided to do a bit of a Works in Progress round-up yesterday and took a few piccies of the knitting on the needles. So here they are.......

Possibly my favourite current WIP, a one-button jacket which I'm knitting in Patons Diploma Gold DK in a gorgeous plummy shade called Lupin. I'm currently knitting the first sleeve, although it's taken a bit of a back seat because of the scarf:

Progress on the Central Park Hoodie in Sirdar Highlander Aran in a beautiful, snuggly, deep red shade. This is fab to knit as it's relatively easy in terms of cabling, but not as mind numbing as pure stocking stitch!
You can just about see the cabling on this in-yer-face-red picture LOL!!

This cotton jacket is on hold until spring! It's a Garnstudio pattern in Paris aran weight cotton in what looks like red but is in fact a heathery cerise.

And of course, the tedious ribbed scarf... need I say more?? LOL!!

I'm knitting it in 4 ply sock yarn on 4mm needles - the best thing about it is knitting on these fabulous Surina needles - yum!

This New Year I don't want, or need, too many WIPs on the needles as I don't feel that anything is ever accomplished when only a few centimetres are knitted on each item. I'd much rather have one or two projects on the pins and get them finished quicker. It also means that I can cast on something new without feeling guilty!

All that remains for me to say is HAPPY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY, PEACEFUL, PROSPEROUS AND SUCCESSFUL NEW YEAR.

Maybe next time I'll confess and tell you where I stand with my destashing vs stashing figures.... or I may just leave you to guess.... *wink*

A Stressful Fortnight

Poor 'Big' Little Melody. He's been through the wringer this past fortnight, with suspected scarlet fever and tonsillitis and, just as he was recovering, he picked up a nasty cold virus that knocked him for six. The poor little lad has had one of those very high temperatures that's lasted for about five days in all and another sore throat along with a bunged up head and nose :( I think we've visited a GP of one sort or another four times in the last two weeks (twice the other Friday when Matt was so poorly with his tonsils/rash) However, this afternoon has see his temp approaching normal and his eyelids don't look so swollen and red - a turn for the better?


Last weekend we did manage to get out of the house as the boys wanted wheels for their Lego builds and we ventured into the middle of Leicester. We passed a Shelter charity shop on the way there and I spotted a fabulous camel coat in the window. As we passed the shop on the way back to the car, I popped in and asked to try it on. I was a bit nervous as I haven't really asked for things to be taken out of shop windows to try on before!


The photograph doesn't do the coat justice as I took the photo with a flash in very poor light... but.....Voila! A wonderful BRAND NEW Marks&Spencer wool and cashmere coat with the tags still on and it fits perfectly. A size 12 petite so I don't even have to shorten the sleeves. It was a pure bargain at thirty quid and helps out Shelter to boot.

I found out later that Shelter often have M&S end-of-line garments for incredible, bargainous prices so I might just have to pop in there again on the way to buy more Lego wheels *wink*