Degrees of Difficulty

So everybody is crocheting now, it's so easy, so quick, it's decorative without being too difficult, you can make such a variety of work, from flat fabrics to three dimensional motifs - what's not to love?

Well, I'll tell you now, a badly written pattern is the absolute pits. There I was thinking that I could casually whip up a crocheted dress for Hazie Dazie, when the harsh reality sunk in that I would actually have to concentrate, deciphering the 1970's Golden Hands instructions for what the heck I was meant to be doing.



I started this dress a week after she was born and only just finished - 3 months, ouch!

So what was so hard? For starters, the dress is worked in vertical rows, increasing in stitch height to the hem for fullness, the sleeves are worked as part of the body with seams closed at the end, the stripes add to the mayhem of the pattern and - it all got a bit crazy. It was not a relaxing breezy project, it was more like a much grumbled about complex homework assignment. Blah.

Next time I would make it in one colour, to avoid the constant changing, oh who am I kidding, there will be no next time for this pattern! Once I had finished it I realised that there was meant to be a neck opening somewhere, it fits over her head now but not for long.

She models it well, and it keeps her rather cosy, even if she does look like a Tudor extra from Blackadder with those puffy sleeves, but the real insult to my hard work was watching it get covered in drool and casual baby spew.



Let it go Emma!

Listening to: Ty - Wait
Best damn UK MC in a loooong time!

From Paula

My pal Paula recently got back from Vietnam and Bali, and these were brought back for me! She knows me too well, I have sorted many stamps at her place, so these are a real treat. The Vietnamese stamps tend to be rather large, and when I use them in a belt they end up getting cropped, but I think these ones are a bit too spesh to use!

Loving the goldfish, I have always had goldfish in the house, in fact, when I was six I won two fish in a colouring in competition and they lived for 14 years!! Their names were Nipper and Pluto. We have a couple of goldfish now, but one of them lost all her colour, and now she is silvery. Hazel watches them from her bassinette as she gently drifts off to sleep.

Speaking of the wee girl, she is currently learning how to sleep on her own. I have been a rather attached parent for three months now, and simply cannot carry her around all the time! So at the moment while she is sleeping (fingers crossed), Leo and I have been playing the Star Wars Lego game on the computer. We are stuck on one level that we can never make it through. I do all the movement of Anakin, and Leo does the jumping and lightsabering, it gets a bit hectic!

I tried to take advantage of the fact that Hazie was asleep, we played over and over, and really gave those droids what for, but in the frenzy we kept making mistakes and reading the advice of, 'much have you to learn, young one'. Up yours Yoda, we deserve to make it to the next level!

Listening to: Heard 'Em Say - Kanye West

Leo's Lego Lab

Leo's very own blog has been featured over on Pepper Stitches today, sharing the fine company of five other 'man bloggers', including Dudecraft and Draw Dimension. As Leo would say, 'that's so awesome!'

Let's hear it for the boys!

I spy....

....with my little eye, something beginning with b.

In the Coburg Mall a few weeks ago, a spectrum of bras festooning a wintry tree!

I love it!

Listening to: Dexter Gordon - Backstairs