Christmas has moved

If you've been missing your annual dose[s] of Catsmum Christmas Insanity, it may be because you haven't caught up with the move over to the new blog.
Please come visit for some shortbread, mincepies, general christmas cheer [ and of course more santas, snowmen and snowflakes than you could shake a reindeer at ]

One Door Closes

and another one opens

From today I will be blogging over here

I do hope that you'll follow me over to the new abode, and see how the furniture looks in its new home. It may take me a while to get it all arranged to my satisfaction but we're mostly unpacked and the kettle is on, so come on over.

decisions decisions

For some time now, I've known that I was almost out of photo storage space on this 'ere blog, and because of that, perhaps haven't posted as often, or with as many pics, of late.

Moving across to another blog is hardly onerous ... Bells did it quite successfully and so did Caity ... but illogical or not, I've resisted having to make the move from this space where I took my first tentative baby steps into the blogiverse.

I can't put it off much longer though:
As of this post, I'm up to 99% of photo storage so it's going to happen soon, and yes, I do realise that I can put pix in by linking to my Flickr account, but I tried that and that doesn't always want to co-operate, so pffft ... some day very soon, you'll come by and there'll be a note pinned to the door, telling you where to find me and mine.

but not today

today I'm going to show you some of the multitude of small things that I've been churning out since Kiri came off the needles.

Not all - probably don't have photo space enough for that

Herewith my dears, the four versions of Meret [ freebie from Wooly Wormhead ] that I've churned out recently:

Meret #1
is in Reynold's Andean Alpaca [ worsted/10ply ] that I bought in April's destash a while ago
2 extra repeats of the lace for maximum slouch. This one is nominally mine.
#2
is in BWM's Luxury 8ply [Brick] and only one extra repeat.
Despite how well that colour looks on The Girl, this one is also mineminemine
#3 is Bendigo's Alpaca Rich in Deep Plum ... and THIS one is her ladyship'sand finally [ for now ]
#4 is in Colinette Art [ Aran/10 ply ] in Copper Beech, which is also Nadie's.

and in case anyone is concerned about possible depletion of my stash [ yeah, right ] from all of the needle action that has occurred during my recent extended couch time,
need I remind you all that

it's

2 more sleeps till The Oz Wool & Sheep Show

completely gratuitous cute grandkitten

Suki up close and personal

where we're at

Well here I am, 7 weeks out from surgery, and to be honest not getting back to full strength as fast as I would have hoped [ Nadie says that this is because I totally SUCK at being lazy ]
Doesn't feel like that to me.

Initially there was a lot of bed-time. In fact, on the advice of a multiply-surgeried friend, I spent the first couple of weeks post-surgery, in my jim-jams.

and subsequent to that, there's been a buttload - and that's a metric butt-load, not an imperial one I'll have you know - of time spent on the couch: reading, knitting and catching up on some tellie.

I'm convinced that the real problem is that certain things are hard wired in when you're a mum ... I'll just bend down and pick that up, wipe that bench, empty that washing machine, dishwasher, feed those animals ...

okay okay ... yes Nadie is correct. I'm no good at taking it easy.

Still doesn't feel like that to me. The couch is beginning to develop a definite Susan-shaped divot at my preferred spot. The garden is sadly in need of a weed [ and yes, I DID pull out a few handsfull until the achey bits told me that wasn't a brilliant idea ] and we will not even discuss the amount of winter-born detritus that needs raking, piling and burning. THAT I am resolutely ignoring ... for now.

and no spinning either :(

However, I did manage to get myself off the couch, albeit under the careful supervision of She Who Must Be Obeyed,otherwise known as my lovely DD.

With SWMBO riding shotgun "just in case" I made my first tentative forays into town, to drop off Dave, and when nothing too dreadful ensued, there were a couple of [ careful ] expeditions further afield
... over the North Harcourt Road to Emu Creek for some baby goat snuzzles


[ pausing ever so briefly to admire the two lots of newly finished headgear, I would suggest that you ignore the hunched over Catsmum and focus instead on Bear 'kissing' the little Boer kid. A cynic might point out that he was probably after the milk remnants on it's cute wee face ]

and a few days - and a few ibuprofen - later into Bendigo for the ritual raiding of the Magic Back Room at the Woollen Mill, ahead of the arrival next week of the locusts ... ahem ... the lovely ladies and gentlemen who will be decending on Spendigo for the Wool & Sheep Show.

Ten minutes at the Mill segued into some baby snuggles of a very different kind, when Nadie and I finally got to meet the newest arrival at Mayhem, Chaos & Anarchy
seen here modelling one of his Catsmum natal offerings - it's a lousy pic of the hat but you've got to admit that it's a cute one of Master BJ

I was going to show you all the latest knitting but I doubt that I can top such baby cuteness so I will leave you here

Ta Da !!

As I pointed out last week, there's a huge difference between unblocked lace and the way it looks once it's thoroughly wetted out and well stretched on the blocking wires

and even better once it's completely dry and being modelled by my darling girl:

The things one finds...

when one has finally given up all hope of ever finding them.

Dateline: yesterday
Location: my wardrobe
where the urgent need for a knee brace [ I need to train Bear out of his habit of jumping enthusiastically into the back of my leg when he wants to play 'fetch' ] had me searching the innards of the tote bag that I only take to clogging classes. It is just the right size for a couple of pairs of tap shoes, some CDs, spare socks, some bandaids ... and an elastic knee bandage brace thingy.

Knee braces are a necessity for those of us, well past the first flush of youth, who still insist on engaging in high impact pursuits like Appalachian Tap, so I rarely bother to take it out of that bag. I mean, I know where it is when I need it, right?

but
what with the surgery [ and the run-up to the surgery ] there hasn't been an awful lot of clogging in my recent past, and no need to wear knee protection, so the bag has been stashed away at the top of the wardrobe.

A couple of weeks ago, I was bemoaning the loss of a pair of fingerless gloves that I'd managed to misplace before I'd even photographed or blogged about them.
I hunted high
and low
I checked every bag, basket, drawer and coat pocket that might conceivably harbour a pair of rolled up gloves, I even checked under the bed and that space under the driver's seat in the car that attracts old shopping dockets and stray mints.
No joy.
It didn't cross my mind for a single second to haul down the dance bag. It was completely off the mental radar.
So of course that is precisely where the missing gloves were hiding, along with the matching cowl that I don't actually remember making ... and the brace of course.