back on the bus, lucky me

Output from bus trips and dedicated evenings

The building where I work has a corporate overlord and a staff member who is their community manager. She’s in charge of much that’s serious as well as more lighthearted things such as promotional events, sponsorship and raffles. So, if you’re signed up to the building’s business portal and actually make the effort to engage with the site, sometimes you win prizes. Often those prizes are vouchers for coffee or food. Last week, I received a message to say I’d won a voucher for a meal at one of my favourite in-building eateries. Well! That was me taken care of at lunchtime on Friday.

As the voucher was generous enough to buy two meals, I suggested Dr B might like to come and join me. He did. It was truly delightful to have our lunch together in a sunshiny corner, protected from the worst of the wind. We ventured out into the wilds so we could have coffee somewhere else. He went home, I went back to the office and, before I knew it, it was time to pack up the laptop and leave.

The bus rides lately have been extraordinarily bumpy, so my commuter crochet hasn’t been all I might hope. However, I’ve made a few production line centres when I could, and added middle rounds once home. I had a little pile of six or seven two-round squares waiting for me on Friday night. I finished adding them and made one more centre before finishing for the night. I’ve added a few more squares today, slotted in around helping Dr B with an online application.

So that’s been my fill of luck for the week: a delicious, free meal and enough time to sit and crochet without being overwhelmed by domestica. Have you also had a lucky week?

 

hunting gremlins in the harness

Demolition progress, sans gremlins I think

The simplest things are often the most mystifying. What the Bs were up to on Saturday wasn’t earth-shatteringly difficult or blokes-only motorcyclist business, although I loved YoungB’s description of it. They were fault-finding a longstanding ignition problem on one of the motorbikes. While they were doing that, I was working back along the enclosing of row 15 of the temperature blanket. They found their fault, to whoops of joy, and I finished the enclosing PLUS made the first square of row 16. While finishing those ends, I also finished ends on two centres I’d made during my cityward commute on Friday.

Yes, I had a day at the office last Friday, in my role as First Aid Officer! We have to ensure cover if there’s anyone physically at the CBD site and the roster reached me. The office was practically empty and, therefore, weirdly quiet. I’m back again next Friday in the same capacity, but otherwise continuing to WFH. The real benefit of the commute, however, was that it enabled me to produce another couple of centres for the ever-lengthening temperature blanket.

Oh, and being right there in the CBD with that high-rise-view gave me a chance to check the demolition progress. Impressive!

I hope your views are all equally impressive 🙂

 

that view we had?

There is still something to keep our interest

We’ve been living on borrowed joy when it comes to the view from the office window. There’s to be a posh hotel built on that bit they’re busily knocking down. The approved plans are for a building lower than ours, but it will be as high as our floor and even a lower building will block our view.

The excavator operators have done an excellent job, although a couple of the blokes in my team wondered “Why didn’t they just bring in a wrecking ball?” Uh, yeah. That close to existing buildings? When the other part of the development is heritage listed and to be retained as a ritzy shopping “precinct”? Perhaps not; although I’m sure it would have been Very Exciting.

In news that I find truly exciting (as opposed to cynical or merely sarcastic), I’ve had a productive week on the temperature blanket – in part, by determinedly crocheting en route to the office and sewing in ends at lunchtime – and am now working my way back along enclosing row 13. This means there are only seven – seven! – rows remaining. I can’t truthfully say that the end is in sight, but I feel that it might be within reach.

I hope your long-term projects are also making measurable progress 😀

 

never mind the bumps

Tidying up the ends because it was too cold to be outside

I think it took me almost four weeks to finish the last row of YoungB’s temperature blanket. Of course, I was doing other crafty things but there were times I wondered if I’d ever – ever! – get a run at wielding a hook to good effect. I managed a row this week. Don’t ask me why or how. Just plugging away at centres while on the bus, then middles in the evenings before joining to the rest, I suppose; one little bit of hooky at a time.

I’ve had a couple of WFH days, but they were too busy for anything other than work. I’ve had more success on buses – despite the bumpiness – because I’ve decided that any bus that gets me to the city will do. I’ve given up on express buses unless I catch them nearby, because they’re often standing room only (SRO). It is true that, nowadays, others will sometimes stand to let me sit if I happen to be part of the SRO cohort. Now that we’re back to something approaching normal in terms of public transport commuters, the express buses are often uncomfortably crowded. If I hop on a bus that stops at all the interchanges, the time it takes is only marginally more but there are generally enough seats to go round and I can have a double one All. To. Myself. Well!

Today I made those three centres on my way to the city. Heavens! I know I’ve said I don’t crochet quickly, which is true; but that’s about one centre per 10 minutes and I’m happy with that. At lunchtime, in the interests of trying to get out of the office and into the fresh air and sunshine, I did just that: left the building and headed out for a walk. I didn’t walk far. Although the sun was shining, the wind was quite strong and it was icy. I turned around very smartly and came back to the office where I pulled out those centres and my little sewing kit and tidied up the ends.

Like the bus trip, the centres are a little bumpy. They’ll settle down once they’re joined into the rest of the blanket. I hope your centres aren’t too bumpy 😀

 

a little lunchtime hooky

Not technology. Not a meeting. Not bad 😀

“We don’t have many meetings,” they told me, early in my time at the present workplace, despite the first week being riddled with them. The louder they said it, the less I believed them. However, things have settled down and it turns out that that was true. There are regular meetings, but they are usually brief. Additionally, we’ve all now become accustomed to online meetings. There are days I don’t know whether that’s good or bad, because the technology doesn’t always meet the demands placed upon it.

Yesterday was definitely an exceptional one in respect of meetings. We had three, with barely time to gasp between them; and the technology worked well. By lunchtime, I’d had it. I was exhausted and could barely think. To help me refocus, I sat with my sandwich and a spot of crochet. The sandwich is standard enough fare, but the crochet was something I don’t usually manage during work hours. It’s rare enough that I get any done during my commute. I don’t think I could call it a win for technology, but it might be a win for the blanket.

All the best with your meetings and technology, whether or not technology meets your meeting needs.

 

about that temperature blanket

• 

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Auditing interpreted crochet instructions via phone and messenger 😀

I liked the look of my bicraftual friend’s solid granny squares, which she starts from a circle. Via messages and sharing photos, we were able to establish a pattern that gave me the same results (the one on the right; photo taken at my computer desk after I’d unpicked the previous model). I ended up doing something slightly different, because I thought that joining on the “circle to square” round was asking for trouble. I’m not suggesting it couldn’t be done, or that I couldn’t do it. I’m merely being pragmatic.

So, using the above as a basis and with that colour, I’ve begun. Nine of the “neutral” squares – to denote month-end and blanket-end – are completed to second-round status, and one to third-round status. I needed one completed square, so I could calculate likely finished measurements. I’m working with a blanket dimension of 19 x 20, meaning there will be 380 squares. I am nowhere near up to date, but there’s no deadline.

Interestingly, when I took delivery of tranche 1 of the yarn, YoungB’s first question was as to whether that was for his jumper? He loved the brightness. Hmm. I have a plan for working on his grey jumper, – grey by request, you might recall – and note that sorting out that yarn is also on my list. At the moment, other things would interfere with my dedicating big chunks of time to knitting. However, I am able to crochet a two-round square in the time it takes me to get to work.

If you’re able to work while you commute, are you also managing to tick things off your to-do list?

 

settling

Smoke in the morning, this rain later in the day

It has taken me a couple of weeks, and one of them was short, but I think I’m now half-reconciled to being back at the office. Of course the view is wonderful, no matter the weather. All the same, I find myself strangely resentful of people who work part-time, which is irrational and uncalled for. But there you are, it’s how I feel. As I said before we went into lockdown, the departmental Higher Ups are not greatly enthused about WFH as an ongoing practice, but we are trying to slot in the odd request while there is still any flexibility to capitalise on. My GP is supportive of the plan.

In other news, I’m working slowly on the 15 neutral squares for my temperature blanket. I think I have a plan for the colours, but it looks to me as if I could achieve a better transition with one or two extra colours. At the same time, I’m trying hard not to order more yarn. Decisions, decisions. During my morning commute, I’m able to make a two-round square but I have run out of steam by the time I’m on my way home again at the end of the day. This means that I’m not making much progress, but I have a few squares completed.

May you, too, have a few of your square equivalents completed, whether you’re WFH or commuting to and fro 🙂

 

then, before you can say Jack Robinson…

…or knife, or whatever your favourite similar expression might be, it’s February! OK, there are two days remaining in January, to be technical and pedantic. But they’ll be gone before – see above.

This year already feels a bit as if that excavator has had a go at it! Photo taken late last century. Dr B on the left wearing that wondrous jumper I knitted for him 🙂

Life has been hectic and full of small and not-so-small sideswipes that seem hideously unfair in many instances but totally expected (in a bigger picture way) in others. Nonetheless, you can’t help muttering with a fair degree of frequency, “Things can only get better.”

You mutter that particularly frequently with regard to technology but, you know? So far, not so much. It’s nicknamed “Cayman Mal’s Fraudband” for good reason.

Yeah, it seems that 2018 is already shaping up to be another of those years.

That’s not to imply that we didn’t have an enjoyable festive break. It’s also not to imply that I’ve actually taken down the Christmas cards. We’ve had a hot week, then today is so cool that I’m reaching for a cardigan and thinking that summer is over. It’s not. We’ll have more hot weather, but the mornings are starting to draw in; something we’d notice even more were YoungB still rowing. We miss that for all sorts of reasons but the early mornings don’t feature among them!

I have a couple of sewing projects that I should be turning my mind to – that new summer nightie that I wrote about ages ago? Yeah, I never did get around to doing that! – and there are always rescue missions on old and well-loved garments. The trouble mostly is that they are, in fact, old. Then the question becomes, how many times can you mend a jacket? And even if you can, should you?

I have one RTW jacket that was in time-out towards the end of last year because I’d had enough of mending it. After 20-plus years of hard work, it owed me nothing. But it’s a good cut, the best in-between weight jacket I own, and I needed it for work. So I mended it. Again. Ideally, I should unpick it and use it as a template. I’m not sure I have the space for that, but it appeals to me as a good option for ending up with a jacket that I can wear for much of the year. And I could spice it up by lining it with guitar-playing skeletons, couldn’t I? (I have some fabric like that in my stash, honest.)

Then there’s the, “I feel a mitten-knitting orgy coming on” urge that often hits at this time of year (as ridiculous as that sounds when the mere thought of woollen yarn makes hands sweat). The attraction of the idea is that there’s still some daylight when I get home after work, so I’m much more likely to be able to see what I’m doing. That improves my chances of completing things, particularly darker items. So if I start now, whether on something new or one of the many WIPs, I might have something ready to go when those winter birthdays roll around.

Also, I need some crochet to work on while I’m watching TV. I don’t watch TV often but, when I do, I find it difficult to just sit there. I make too many mistakes if I try to knit at the same time but I can manage simple crochet. So I’m off to dig up another lot of stash yarn to do a knee rug to take to work. Oh, wait, didn’t I say that once before?! I promise to stop earlier with this one; or make separate granny squares so that it’s a better commuter project.

Whatever the status of your year, I hope it’s providing you with plenty of crafting opportunities.

 

 

those rounds are getting longer

Dr B is surprised every time he sees me folding up my crochet project. I agree, it’s getting to be quite a size. It’s also becoming heavy, meaning it’s less ideal for working on now that the weather is warming up. I think there are about 60 rows. It’s worked in (mostly) 8-ply yarn on a 5 mm crochet hook. Smart people – that is, not me! – could probably work out an approximate size from that information.

Since this photo was taken, I’ve completed the second row of light blue, added another of dark blue, and am now doing some more teal rows. The end is probably nearing. I won’t use all my spare yarn, so I’ve decided that I could indeed work a semi-matching cushion cover (or bolster cover) to give any potential picnickers something to lean on.

It looks at home as a picnic rug out on those re-laid pavers, doesn’t it?

 

if that was the beanie, that was it

Morning cheer, with snapdragons already adding a splash of colour.

That bit of knitting I showed you last time? That’s all you’re ever going to see of that beanie, because it flew off my needles and onto the recipient’s head fairly urgently around an emergency hospital admission. Dr B wore it for a day to block it! Life gets a bit like that sometimes. The friend – who was certainly in a bad way – has been discharged, I’m relieved to say, and while he’ll never be back to full health, he has improved remarkably.

In gardening news, I’m delighted to report that not only have all the lifted and transplanted rhizomes and bulbs bounced back to a state of flourishing, the geranium is well on its way to thriving. Mission accomplished. The seedlings are settling well and some have already flowered. The mystery bulbs are shooting and close to flowering, but I still have no idea what they are! It’s cheering to step outside and see everything looking so bright.

And in commuting news, I’ve started crocheting a (deliberately) just-off-square granny-square knee rug for use at work, or as a throw rug, or for picnics. It’s mainly something to keep me occupied on the bus or while I half-watch TV, and it’s an effort to use some of my cheap but cheerfully coloruful (or that might be colourfully cheerful) stash. So far doing well on both counts.

I hope your endeavours are all meeting with success 🙂