A Sad Farewell

 

Yes, my wedding dress has gone. After 40 odd years of lying in a box and being carried from move to move, when we cleared out the loft the other week I decided the time had come to let it go. To be honest this was more because the box had got damaged than anything else; I could just see it in another 20 years or so spoiled because the box had let in dust and dirt and possibly insect life. And I didn't want that to happen. 

I couldn't sell it or send it to a charity shop because on my wedding day someone put a stiletto heel through the train ( I'm sure it was accidental, but it was a pity none the less.) So it has gone off to Bonnie Babies to be cut up and made into beautiful little burial gowns and wraps for still born babies. It is doing more good like that than it would be lying in my loft for another few years, and I'm glad I knew I could do that with it. My veil has gone as well but I kept the head dress, and the comb that one of the bridesmaids wore in their hair, so I'm not totally without physical reminders of the day. 

That said I was a little bit sad, but then - why do we keep them? The suit the OH wore on the day has long since gone to the Great Wardrobe in the Sky and I don't remember him being loth to part with it.  We obviously imbue this particular outfit with some sort of special significance but I do wonder why. 

Changing the subject completely many thanks for the kind words from some readers on my Forth Bridges Hat, much appreciated. And given that it is the GSoY this coming weekend, keep your eyes peeled for a companion piece, coming to you in photographic kit form very shortly!  

September Wool Stats and Finished Projects

 I said to the OH the other day; it's not that I buy too much yarn, it's just that I don't knit quickly enough. I'm not sure he was convinced about that one. 

Anyway I was dreading totting up the stats for September because I did buy all that Aran wool plus  various other bits this month and that all came to a grand total of 1488g in. However it wasn't a total disaster as wool out came to 1342g, thanks mainly to a 'gifting opportunity' courtesy of my son. He worked for 6 months at a charity in Glasgow and still volunteers there two days a week, and it's just started running a year long fundraising campaign featuring knitting.  There are various ways to join in, one of which is donating wool. So a bag with 872 g will be on its way to Glasgow with us later in the week, and another 150g left the house as part of a swap. Total wool out was 1342g, which meant a net increase of 146g which was sad but not nearly as bad as it could have been. 

What with being away and then spending lots of time here clearing/cleaning the house I didn't have an awful lot of crafting time in September to be honest so I'm quite pleased, looking back, to see how much I did actually achieve. 

Starting with the non-knitting stuff, I made two cards 

they were brighter than that in real life and also not out of focus!

ThenI took a deep breath and crocheted the crib from my crochet nativity set

far from perfect but I'm happy with it. I don't claim to be a crocheter.

Then guess what? two pairs of socks. One for the OH

using some wool I bought in a destash on Ravelry. No, I don't know why I did it, except that it looked like this in the skein 

and I thought he would like the colours. Which, to be fair, he did. 

And a pair for me 

this wool was from ages ago. I'd started making a different pattern with it, but it was too complicated so it sat in time out for a while and when I could face ripping out what I had done I cast on these instead. It was unfortunate that I had forgotten that I had used this pattern once before and hated it. The finished object is fine, although not shown to its best advantage when not on a foot to be honest! but the pattern is very confusing to follow and I won't be using it again. 

I picked up the third of the four unfinished baby sweaters, the peach one, and completed it

and of course this meant that Poppy the Penguin got yet another blanket made from the left overs. 

She must be the warmest penguin in the world by now. 

And finally I picked out the kit for the Forth Bridges Hat, which I bought the last time I went to the Glasgow School of Yarn, and knitted it up. Like the Glasgow one from the same company, Wee County Yarns, this was a joy to knit . I have come to the conclusion that I must rather enjoy stranded colour work and I was very happy with the way this turned out. 

October is also shaping up to be a less than productive month, but maybe I'll be able to accelerate a bit once we're back from our next trip south.  

The Degas Exhibition

So while we were south for Bloody Scotland, and a bit of house related stuff, we also took in the big Degas Exhibition at the Burrell in Glasgow. It was actually an exhibition about Scottish Art Collectors  and their relationship to Degas' work, but Burrell was an early buyer so that fitted. 

I was a weeny bit disappointed to be honest. There was a lot of information about the men who bought Degas' pictures, and exhibits which detailed which ones they bought, for how much and sometimes how much they later sold them for. Interesting if you're digging through an archive and discovering it for yourself; not so much if you're presented with it  in a glass case. There weren't as many artworks by Degas as I expected and honestly the ones I saw in the Musee d'Orsay were much nicer. However there was a nice spread; some ballet dancers, some street women and laundresses, and some horses, so fairly representative. 

The two problems I had with it all were 1) it was spread over a large area and because my knee was still highly compromised at that point I had to keep finding somewhere to sit down. And that's personal to me and nothing to do with the exhibition. Secondly the lighting was at a stupidly low level. I read all the signs about fragility of the work and needing to protect it and that's fine, but I've never ever ever walked round an exhibition that was so dim. The lighting was so low that it meant many of the  colours in the paintings were completely wrongly perceived. And that problem was on them.

Finally, as always they never seem to have postcards of the paintings I like; the one above was the closest. I did like that picture which is rather more engaging in real life than in post card form but it wasn't my favourite. 

We're going south again shortly, mainly so that I can attend the Glasgow School of Yarn, but we're also planning a trip to the V & A in Dundee to see the Kimono exhibition there and I'm really looking forward to that. Hoping for some good postcards there! 

Just Popping In Briefly

 to say, like Granny Weatherwax, I ent dead. I am however dead tired and have not had access to my laptop for several days while my study was being decorated. We managed to put bits of it back together yesterday as the decorator finished in here on Friday. I even have a photo

It will not look this tidy/sparse ever again, The best bit about re-assembling it was having a heavy prune of the CDs as I put them back into the racks. We even have a little bit of space, in the unlikely event,  that we ever buy any more, to put them, and they are all so beautifully arranged that it should be easy to find any particular CD without problem. After the photos are done on Tuesday I am hoping to persuade the OH to put at least one of the bookcases back in here and hang a couple of pictures too. 

The decorator will be back tomorrow for a final lot of painting in the kitchen but there's not much needing to be done in there and the rest of the house is in various stages of readiness. It will all be fine by Tuesday. I should mention that the OH has worked very hard outside, clearing weeds from pavements and the patio and washing the windows,  generally a thankless task in Orkney because of the salt in the wind, but they do look fab. 

This afternoon, and my heart sinks slightly as I type the words, I shall be 'having a go' at my craft room. I am expecting it to take a while.