A tad annoying.....

...but absolutely typical for me 😒  We had some dry and sunny days last week when I could have got out into the garden.  Unfortunately for yours truly, though, I somehow managed to hurt my neck.....just by sleeping, it seems 😏  I woke up last Monday with a bit of an ache in my right collarbone, which by the next day had transformed into a very painful neck!  A regime of Nurofen, paracetamol, Deep Heat, heating pads, plus trying not to move my neck and shoulders too much (easier said than done, as I'm sure you can imagine 😳) over the next few days meant that the pain gradually subsided.  It does feel very much better than before, thankfully, albeit still a little bit "twingy".  I've therefore erred on the side of caution for a change, and not ventured out to do any work in the garden just yet. 

I wasn't totally idle, though, as I managed to get the scrap blanket finished that I mentioned previously.  Granted, it's not the prettiest blanket in the world but by 'eck it's warm and cosy 😊  I used two strands of yarn, and it's mostly Stylecraft Special double knit.  There were also some odds and ends of other yarns, such as Scheepjes double knit and some Aran-weight which I think was Cascade.  I tried using the latter by itself but it didn't seem quite thick enough, so I added a strand of a very lightweight yarn that I had in the stash ~ possibly a laceweight ~ which seemed to create a similar thickness to the two strands of double knit.  I also had some boucle-type yarn, which I was able to use by itself.  I can't say that I enjoy crocheting with this type of yarn as it's not always easy to see where the hook needs to go!

I finished off with three rounds of half-trebles (US half double-crochet) to make a border ~ and to use up a little more of the yarn, of course 😄  

I ended up going from this.....

to this, so I'm pretty pleased to have whittled down the oddments so well.  I shall just keep these to one side and add other odds and ends as they come along until I've got enough to make another scrap blanket 😄

I also finally got round to putting all the bits and pieces into the bathroom basin cabinet.  I told you that I had bought a couple of narrow wooden crates from Etsy, and they now have all the cleaning materials neatly stored in them on the left-hand side of the cabinet.  That's more or less what was stored in our old cabinet, apart from what was in the very small drawer, along with a few things that were kept in the cupboard in our little utility area. 

 Everything else is now neatly stored in the right-hand side of the cabinet, along with the remaining "bathroom" stuff from the cupboard in the utility area.  The bits and pieces on the top shelf are easily accessible, but I've put the things on the lower shelf in a basket to make them easier to access.  The only bathroom things left in the utility cupboard are the towels, as there just isn't enough space in the cabinet for them.  It means, though, that I now have more space for all the spare laundry liquids, etc, that were being stored in the cupboard in the kitchen lobby area.  All in all, I'm pretty pleased with all the rearranging that I've managed to get done 😊

I'm now busy working on Special Project One which I will be able to share with you at a later date.....if you get my drift 😜  I was going to get cracking on the dolls house but have decided to leave it now until the New Year.  I do have some other little projects that I'd like to do, though, which I'll be able to share as I work on them.

The next job, now that my neck is feeling less painful, is not craft-related at all so watch this space for this year's Larkin Christmas Pudding 😍

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)  

Little words of wisdom

 

Use it up!

There comes a point in a yarn-hoarder's life, though, where she does have to actually use up some of the stash.....if only to allow the bed in the guest bedroom to be recognised as a place for sleeping rather than a convenient surface to "store" said stash 😱  I felt I shouldn't shock you too much, my lovelies, by showing you a photo of the yarn hoard.....not least because I also have plenty of the woolly stuff stored in the base of the guest bed, too 😁

So I've decided that the time has definitely arrived when I should make some lovely things with my precious yarn and show you the end results rather than the stash instead ~ and, of course, during the autumn and winter is the ideal time to get cracking on these projects, plus it's a tad less embarrassing 😉  And let's face it, with the weather as it is at the moment I'm certainly not getting out into the garden anytime soon 😏  The teensy wee pile in the photo above is just a smidgeon of the hoard, simply odds 'n' sods that are leftovers from other projects.  I thought I'd start with these whilst I mull over what to make with the other yarns that I have more balls of.

I decided to start with a simple storage basket, which I thought would be handy for the bits and pieces I have gathered for some hand-sewing projects that I'd like to have a go at.

I used three strands of yarn held together: one Aran-weight and the other two double-knit.  I can't remember what size hook I used ~ possibly a 7mm 😕  I must admit that it was a bit hard-going on my hands and if I'd been making a blanket, say, then I would probably have used a larger hook.  As it was a basket, though, I wanted it a bit firmer.

I think I should have made it a tad smaller, to be honest, as it is a bit floppy!  I also managed to add in an extra stitch or two on some of the rounds.  As it's just something simple that I made for myself to use up some yarn oddments, I decided not to bother to frog it and start over ~ not least because of the soreness of my hands LOL

The basket didn't use up very much of the oddments, so I'm currently making another version of the "ordinarily extraordinary blanket".  I'm using a 5mm hook, with the yarn doubled-up, so it's growing quite quickly.  I'm not sure if I will have enough of these oddments to finish the blanket, as it's a fairly large one for the sofa.  However, a few months back I made a start (not that I've progressed very far!) on one of the Special Projects that I mentioned at the beginning of the year, so I'm sure there will be yarn leftover once I've completed it to add to the oddments pile 😄 

And will the next problem.....

 

.....kindly step up to the podium, please 😒  I don't think that I've already told you about our bathroom woes but it dragged on for so long that I may have forgotten by now ~ you'll just have to excuse me as an "old woman" who repeats herself if I've mentioned it before😏

Waaay back in the mists of time you may recall that we had our downstairs bathroom completely gutted and everything replaced.  Fast forward a few years and we were noticing a fair bit of condensation in the room along with mould appearing, especially in the far corner beside the toilet.  Then we noticed that what we at first thought were cracks were appearing in the glaze of the basin.  When we ran our fingers over the "cracks" we realised that it was in fact crazing and we couldn't feel anything on the surface at all.  The crazing slowly but steadily got worse, which was a little disconcerting to be honest.

Then a few months back we found that the basin was leaking so we had to call on one of the local plumbing companies to sort it out for us.  Turned out that something had cracked and we were advised that it would probably be better to replace the basin, especially in view of the ever-increasing crazing in the glaze.  We were happy enough to do this and thought that a basin set into a vanity unit would be better than the arrangement we currently had, which was a small cabinet stood between the basin and toilet.  Whilst we had the plumber there, we took the opportunity to ask him about the condensation/mould issues we were experiencing.  He said that it was most likely because the bathroom was now very well insulated ~ which is a good thing, of course ~ but the water coming into the toilet cistern is extremely cold, hence the condensation building up on the latter and creating moisture to build up in areas where there wasn't any air flow.

We asked him if there was anything we could do to combat the condensation and he suggested that since we were already planning to change the basin, we could perhaps consider changing the toilet to a back-to-wall style set against a WC unit.  He also told us that insulated cisterns were available to fit inside such a unit.

The upshot of this conversation, my lovelies, was that we decided to bite the bullet and go ahead with the changes.  It took a couple of months before the new units had arrived and the plumbers could come out to make the changes, so in the meantime whilst we could still use the shower and toilet as normal, we had to wash our hands in the kitchen.

Finally the grand day arrived and the plumber arrived, along with our new units.  Things were going well and we also decided to have the whole of the wall behind the toilet and basin covered with a wet wall panel to match that in our shower.  To make life easier, the plumber also took down our bathroom cabinet which he later re-sited to sit centrally above the new basin.

Alas, when Peter took the toilet pan out of its packaging he discovered that the corner was cracked 😒  A new pan had to be ordered so we were now without a downstairs toilet for a couple of weeks.  I decided not to put stuff in the basin unit until the replacement toilet had been fitted, but I did give the wall cabinet a good clean and put everything back in it that usually lived in there. 

Ta-daaa!  Behold, our new bathroom fittings!  Don't get too excited, though, my lovelies...

because sadly for us, that wasn't the end of this latest tale of woe as there was a leak beneath the basin 😳  Luckily I hadn't yet got round to putting stuff in the cabinet so all that got wet was the glass shelf.  So Adrian had to make another call to the plumbers, who to give them their due came out quickly to rectify the problem.  We've given it a few days to double-check that all appears to be well, and I've now made a start on sorting out all the "bathroomy" things that are currently in the cupboard in the little utility area beside the bathroom.

The freestanding cabinet that we had previously had in the bathroom had a tiny drawer atop the cupboard space.  Everything that was in the cupboard part is now stored in the small section on the left of the basin unit.  I bought a couple of long, narrow, wooden storage crates from Woodeedoo on Etsy and have used them for holding the bits and pieces on this side of the cabinet.  This section is pretty narrow, so it's easier to pull a crate forward and take what I need rather than trying to scrabble around with everything loose, as it were.

I'm still sorting out the other stuff that I want to move into the large section of the cabinet, then I can rearrange the cupboard in the utility area.  The latter is really full at the moment, so having extra storage space is going to be really useful as I won't have to have everything so squished together 😄

Fingers crossed that we don't hit any more bumps in this particular road!

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)  

Have you been busy, Sharon?

image from Magnific.com

Well, to be perfectly honest I haven't really been busy at all 😏  The weather definitely hasn't been tempting me out of the house, although we did have a couple of nicer days when we managed to get a bit more work done in the garden.  

I mentioned previously that we were going to tackle this border and we have managed to get it sorted out.  Thankfully it wasn't nearly as "weedy" as the border on the other side of the path 😱  I'm just trying to completely ignore that side of the garden at the moment 😄  Anyhoo, we got out the few weeds that were lurking ~ mostly dandelions, so we know full well that we haven't managed to entirely dig out their bloody roots! ~ and Adrian hauled the old sleeper edging over to the stone chipped area near the dining room window so that they were out of the way.  I then raked out the soil to make it a tad more level, although we did also take out a wheelbarrow load.  

As with the new path along the side wall, the weather gods were feeling kind again so laying the weed membrane wasn't too traumatic 😄  At some point we will be laying new sleepers running across from the concrete path over to the new raised bed border, which will separate the stone chippings (to the left of the manhole cover) from what will eventually be a new lawn area.  Unless we're very lucky with how well we manage to get the rest of the garden sorted out, I can't see the lawn being laid for a good two or three years though.  Obviously we needed the membrane beneath where the stone chippings will be spread out, but decided to just continue it all the way down the border to try to keep the weeds at bay.

Even though the sleepers were in short lengths (between 1m and 1.3m) they are still really heavy and poor Adrian was knackered by the time he'd shifted them.  I put them on our local Facebook marketplace page as "free to collect" and had a lot more interest than I thought I would!  Hopefully a chap from just down the road from us is coming to collect them on Sunday ~ weather permitting of course, as we've got Storm Boelo due to hit over the weekend 😳

Little words of wisdom

 

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)  

Little words of wisdom

 

Reading round-up: September 2026

image from Freepik

A Long-Dead Thing (A DI Harrison Baird Novel): Alex Smith

Northwind (Robert Hoon Thrillers Book 1): JD Kirk

Southpaw (Robert Hoon Thrillers Book 2): JD Kirk 

Oh dearie me, what a pitiful reading round-up for September.....and thus far, October isn't shaping up to be much better either 😳  I don't know why I haven't been putting aside time to read to be honest ~ perhaps I overdid it in August 😏

I thought I'd give the Robert Hoon books a whirl ~ he's a pretty forceful character in the DCI Jack Logan books, albeit a somewhat disgraced ex-officer!  Considering he can be a rather unsympathetic character in the latter series of books, nevertheless I rather warmed to Robert in these books centred around him.  I think I have another couple to read in this little series, not to mention the gazillions of other books patiently awaiting my attention on my Kindle, so I really must try to get myself back into reading mode.

The Harrison Baird books are another series that is new to me.  Thus far I've only read the first but I enjoyed it and will read more in due course.

Now that work in the garden is rapidly slowing down I will try to balance my spare time between reading and some of my other hobbies ~ perhaps I can also finally make some serious inroads into the magazines which are still piling up, too 😄 

Peace...

www.allposters.co.uk

Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.

For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.

For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.

For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou

(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)