While I Continue To Tink...

Could you all just amuse yourselves please, while I continue to tink.  Re 'tinking' see previous post.  Tinking is a bit like taking one step forward and two steps back.  Tinking is like trying to wade through treacle.  Tinking is trying, to say the very least.  I am not happy in my tinking and I am doing a lot of it!  Maybe knitting is not for me for a while.  My little mind wanders, oblivious to what the pattern tells me and before you know it I have 'freestyled' 1000 stitches!  It is a wonder I have not knitted a granny square on auto pilot!  At least I now know who the recipient of this jumper is going to be.  I think it is for my grandson, for his eighteenth birthday.  I am hoping by the time he is 18, he is a 'small' fella for those are the instructions I am following.  There is no pressure for time as in fact my grandson has not even been conceived yet, let alone born!  I do not like working to rapid deadlines, you have to take all the knitting and tinking into consideration with the time estimates.

I have nothing to show for my tinking, the progress is all spiritual!  The patience of Job springs to mind.  So in the absence of a 'newsy, crafty post' I will share this unscheduled post about goats.  Why not?  These are actually our holiday photos!  My ten year old took a large quantity of goat photographs, I think the first one is great.  I would like it on a T- Shirt with the slogan 'You gotta be kidding me!'  

The goat I tried to photograph kept being silly.

Goats are very playful.

These lucky goats could play indoors or outdoors.

Goat milk is good for making delicious cheese (I do not recommend a Goat Milk Latte, Bleurghh!)

This was the 'Shop'.  I wish I could shop here all the time instead of doing battle at the supermarket.

These sausages cooked on a camp stove were great, well worth the very, very long wait to cook them.  There was an empty pig pen and these are pork sausages.  We did try goat sausages, but my ten year old found that upsetting!  I am concerned with how meat gets to our table but when you have to look the meat that you eat in the eye, a vegan lifestyle seems appealing.  The ten year old has concluded it is ok to eat animals you do not know, sadly I think it is the opposite.  It is easier to eat animals we do not know.

Very nice sausages even if I do wrestle with my conscience.  

I better go.  'I tink therefore I am.'  There is tinking to be done again before progress can be made.  I wonder when/if I will learn?

Frog, Tink Or Leave?

It is a serious question.  I am genuinely interested in your opinions.  I have been knitting for the first time in ages.  I had forgotten all about frogging and tinking.  I do not like either which is probably why I have not done any knitting for ages.  Frogging is when it is all off the needles and you are unraveling your knitting.  I always imagine someone impatiently pulling the rows of stitches out and the yarn makes a soft 'ribbbit ribbit' sound, that is why it is called frogging!  I am not sure if that is why it is called frogging or if I made that up.  Tinking is to tink, to knit in reverse, to unknit.  I really do not like frogging or tinking.

I think the question to frog, tink or leave is dependent on several factors.  Usually I leave!  I am fine with imperfection.  This knitting was cursed before it even got started.  I bought some lovely Aran yarn, enough to knit both boys matching jumpers, well they both hate the yarn and the pattern I chose!  I am sure they would have liked it they are just being difficult!  The youngest has asked me, "Who are you knitting that for?"  "Some grateful recipient!"  I replied.

I like knitting, I like being able to knit and to crochet and to spin.  I need to know how to rear sheep now.  I hate tinking.  I must have got distracted or carried away and out of almost one thousand stitches eight are wrong.  Eight!  Only eight.  Eight, big, ugly stitches in the wrong place.  I tried ignoring them so I would not have to frog or tink but they are shouting at me at every row turn.  I can't carry on and ignore them.  I am going to be tinking for most of today's craft time.  Retreat can often be the best form of attack.  Frogging is quicker but I would not get the stitches back on the needles.  If I frog the lot I will not start again.  Tinking it is.

Simple Things

This photograph is of  a 'Juice Bar' in Glastonbury High Street this Summer.  The simplicity appeals to me.  It makes me think of Enid Blyton and the 'Folk Of The Faraway Tree' or 'Hobbiton'.   We can all just throw our windows open and trade what we make.  I can see it now, 'Lucy's Lemonade Stand'!  I could probably throw in a Yard Sale too.  It would not look  pretty.  I really like the way the windowsill is 'distressed' in this photograph.  The effect does not look so rustic, front of house on my own place.  This window is part of a 16th Century Coaching Inn.  You can read more about it here at Glastonbury Backpackers. It has quite a history.  If that window had just a little string of brightly coloured, crochet bunting running across it,  it would be perfect.  ;)  xx

Share A shirt In September...Go on, you know you want to.

Share A Shirt In September

Well, I can hardly Adam and Eve it, it is September the 1st already.  One son has started college the other is back to school on Wednesday.  Shoes?  Check.  Trousers?  Check.  Blazer?  Oh good grief he has grown, new blazer purchased today...check.  Haircut?  No way Jose!  I have a full 24hrs for further arm twisting to get us to the Barbers.  I think we are as ready as we will ever be.  Now that brings us round to 'shirts', oh yes it does, nicely.  

Over at 'Chalky's World' Linda has been having a very thoughtful think.  If you click on the 'Share a shirt' link above she really does explain it all far more eloquently than I can.  Basically you have a rummage in the back of your wardrobes and find an old cotton shirt.  Any old shirt.  You then post it to Linda and Linda will upcycle the shirt into something beautiful to be sold for charity. I don't think it gets much easier than that.  I nearly found my way to Narnia in the back of our wardrobes and found one measly white shirt.  Bah!  I think it means actually we are all wearing our old ones!  I didn't want to get shirty about it so I popped myself off to our local charity shop and found a shirt that was crying out to be upcycled.  I was not spoiled for choice, I only saw two possible candidates, if in doubt 'pick the one with sparkles and beads' I always say.

I know I cheated a bit but it is a win win situation for 'charity'.  Eh just while we are on the topic, how hard is it to find 100% cotton these days?  Pretty hard I think. While we follow Linda's blog we will be inspired with practical ideas for how we can re-purpose perfectly good material from clothes that have maybe seen better days.  When Linda has a good idea it is a really good idea.  

Are we supposed to say 'White rabbit, white rabbit, white rabbit' and turn around for good luck on the first of the month?  I know in my school days it was a 'Pinch and a punch for the first of the month', some of them pinches and punches were delivered with too much gusto and could smart a bit.  It was a hard knock life, with not many white rabbits worth chasing!  Now I am off...humming original tunes from the old classic 1982 movie 'Annie'.  I hope September is a good one and I hope you manage to find Linda a shirt.  ;) xx