Making an effort

Rearranged my half of the study this morning. Acres of dust gone, no idea how we breathed comfortably before but I guess my body is well attuned to dust. I took about half of the fabric stash I was gifted down to the Sallies today and found some sewing patterns in my size to enable me to use up the (substantial) remainder of the fabric. I have found various long lost buttons and patterns and notions. Tomorrow night I am babysitting for a friend who has a tidier lounge floor than me so when the children are in bed I am going to cut out the rest of my skirt pattern (started in August) on her floor.




The dreaded spectre of Christmas (yes I am a Christmas grouch) is looming already. I have broken the news to my parents that we are going north to be with my elderly grandparents this year (first time since I got married nine years ago) and they were so quiet (not like Mum at all) that I'm even contemplating taking the kids to them early and having a special thing with them then.





I'm also crap on birthdays. Haven't always been but I am now. My children were both born close to Christmas and the whole fandangle craziness all together makes me want to hide. But FH's niece turned five today and I managed to get Fionn involved and we made and sent something. Something non-consumerist because I just cannot face sending more stuff to a family which I know is chock full of stuff already. What we did is that I have started a letter telling I5 of stories of her cousins and aunt and uncle. We added photos and a card and got it all bound and hopefully it is a wee bit of a success. Now that I've started, I'm aiming to do more stories, or at least the story of the chooks, for I and her sister C3 for Christmas.





My other project at the moment is knitting for a friend in London. Many knitters of my acquaintance are really lovely people. They knit for other people a lot of the time. In this respect, I don't stump up very well, only very rarely knitting for someone who is not myself or one of my two children. But Marion is a very special friend, the first really good friend I made as a new mother in London. Her second child and my Fionn are the same age and as she was pregnant with number three before we left London, I got a buzzy bee for the bump and passed on a few baby things before we left. Now, too far away to do anything more useful like babysit or make meals, I thought I would knit for the new baby. My experiment with knitting socks on double pointed needles failed. Maybe I will try another time. So back to the wool shop and I settled on knitting this kiwi classic in a blue green mix which is suggestive of paua shell. I might even get organised enough to make a paua shell necklace (or get paua buttons) to go with it.

Sometime between now and late December, I also need to get out some of my still large stash and have a go at sewing a shirt for Favourite Handyman. When I made shorts for his birthday he initially though I was sewing a shirt with the fabric and seemed so enthusiastic that I thought I would have a go for Christmas. Maybe it will turn out to be Christmas in six years' time - took that long between buying the shorts fabric for his birthday in 2003 and receiving the actual shorts this year.

So I guess I am making some effort to be a good girl. Maybe it will work, maybe not.

Comments

Mary said…
Ooo, my Mum knitted my youngest daughter a top in that pattern (but in red). Gorgeous! The paua idea sounds great.

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