FLIPPIN' HELL!!!WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS????

Good morning world....

What a flipping week.....i don't know what i did in a former life but this is ridiculous!!!!

It all started on monday morning,i got up at daft 'o'clock and everything was right with the world and i was full of the joys of spring.....and then,the kids got up...and all hell broke loose...I had a morning of fights and arguements before they even sat down to their breakfast.to be honest i was glad that they went to school,i was tearing my hair out by the time it was 8.30am...and by 9.00am i was calm.......

The postman came at around 10am and bought me a copy of simply knitting...and after thumbing through the magazine i fell completely in love with the frog prince...but at the minute i don't have any green wool so i ordered and paid for some on E-Bay and decided to get out the knitting machine and make a start on an order that i had got over the web....i have never made a slipover for a girlie but i thought carefully about the colours and pattern and bit the bullet and made it...... I admit that i was biting my lip a bit with concentration,my hubs spent most of the morning teasing me because i looked so funny......it took me 3 hours to make this and then another 4 hours on the needles to do the rib on the armholes and neck...but thats by the by...

At 3.15 it all went pear shaped.......My little one was late out of junior school.I had to nip to the postoffice and mail some parcels and then i had to be home to cook dinner all before 4pm....Monday is the evening that my youngest goes to scouts and from 3.15pm until its time for him to go he's excited and like a cat on hot bricks!!!!

Anyway i got home at around 3.45pm my little one was puffed out by the time we got home..I opened the front door to arguements and shouting by my 14 year old having a hissy fit over a romote control car battery...and moaning that hubs had said no to the battery until his homework was done....My hubs looked at me and said that i needed to have a look at the daughter.....It wasn't until i saw her crying in the living room i understood excatly what he was on about...

My daughter looked upat me and said in a definite voice,"if you think i'm going to hospital you can think again!!!"On asking her what she had done...it turned out that she had slipped over during her walk to chemistry class and her foot had gone over at a weird angle...she heard and felt a snap,and well that was that!!!!

Managed to get tomas(my little one) sorted,done and dusted,and had the rest of the evening having my daughter moaning and grumbling about the pain in her foot....PAIN IN HER FOOT!!!MORE LIKE PAIN IN THE ARSE!!!,She even managed to spend all night and i do mean all night moaning in her sleep...she let out a scream at 3am,as she turned over in bed and hit her foot.....

Tuesday morning came round and as they all got up one by one,i fed them made them wash(yep even the teenage boy which is a flipping miracle!!!He must have a girlfriend again...)and get ready for school,and then i turned to my daughter and told her in nouncertain terms she was going to hospital or she could walk to school!!!The problem was that her foot was sooo swelled that she couldn't even get her socks on!!!Took her to accident and emergency at the Norwich and Norfolk university Hospital,and waited,,thankfully i took my knitting with me...i was trying to finish a pair of socks,,but still haven't yet!!!!we were called into the nurses station and then sent for X-Ray...they wouldn't let me in with her for X-Ray...i was a bit put out but what can i do????We went back to the main reception in A&E and waited,and waited,and waited....We finally got called in by some rude doctor,who seemed to think that we weren't worth his time or trouble...so i was put on the defensive,,they explained that robyn had broken a bone in the arch of her foot ,they weren't going to put her in plaster but a pressure boot instead so that they could see how much the bone would move and then told us that we would have to return the next day...

When i got back to the carpark and started up the car...i looked at the windscreen and there was a crack.....I got that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and thought what the hell did i do to deserve this?????But it was only a minute crack...so i would decide to suck it and see what would happen,,

Wednesday morning was actually quiet and peaceful...no arguements,no bickering,no miseries in the morning,,,so robynand i got in the car,,,and there was the bloody crack...it has crept a little but not a lot,it was only about 2" long and right in the bottom corner of the windscreen....i still have that sinking feeling as a new windscreen for a fiat multipla is £895.00!!!!

Got to the hospital AGAIN and the doctor had a quick poke and prod and said that things were fine and he didn't want to put robyn in a cast as it would make the break unstable...so we went home and in all that time sat in A&E and in the Fracture clinic i STILL havn't managed to get these socks done,,,if i don't get them finished soon i shall put them to one side and start again in

6 months when i have got time!!!

Got home with the crack getting bigger and bigger and bigger,the pit of my stomach was getting sicker and sicker,knowing that i would have to tell hubs...about this.....I bit the bullet when i got home,he had a look and laughed,i asked him what was going on....and he said he already knew about this...he'd done it about 5 days ago and hadn't plucked up the courage to tell me,he thught i would freak!!!

So,its thursday morning,i am poised to make another slipover,i've got a half of a sock on my dpn's,a hat on a pair of circ's and my daughter robyn sitting in the living room watching T.V With a snotty cold and a broken foot,with the sound of snot being sniffed ringing in my ears,,and for once all is fine.....but i better not get too used to this....i know,i just know that something else is going to jump up and bite me!!!

SEE? I TOLD YOU I WAS CURSED!!!!

Good evening ,
well today has been very quiet thankgod!!!have finally managed to finish my first fully fairisled garment....it took some deep breaths from me,and a few moments where i had to grit my teeth and jump in....but to be honest i was really really pleased with the way things have turned out.....what i found particularly nerve racking was doing the neckline,i found that by recording which row i was at when i started the decrease row so when i went back to do the other side i could reset the row counter and pattern reader....
the past few days have been manic i can tell you!!!
monday morning i had to go to Bury St Edmunds college ...my eldest son who's 14 attends an engineering course there and he loves it!!!!I ended up with a car full of teenage boys...they were funny and entertaining at the same time...some of the things they were talking about...they were worried about what they said to start with as they were worried that they would offend ,but it wasn't anything that i hadn't heard before....i just asked them to watch the swears and we would all get on great...and to their credit they did watch their swears and we had a good journey to bury.....
When i got home i then had time for a quick coffee and then i had to go to the junior school to pay for tom's birthday special....they have a scheme at their school where you can invite upto 15 of his friends and the school provide a special menu,of burgers,pizza,and chicken nuggets all with fries and all you have to do is supply the birthday cake,the fizzy pop and party bags and they effectively have a birthday party at school instead of running mayhem around your house or a village hall which would cost an arm and a leg.....this year will be tom's last one as he's due to go to high school in September...even though he's tiny.....he's still going,am having fun with the high school at the minute as the uniforms don't go small enough.....so i have to try and find a way around that....and then i had to run off to college again to pick up the boys and had an extra one to take home ,but i didn't mind....and then i had time for a rushed tea and get the little ones off to cubs.....the i take two others as well as tom,they stayed at cubs and then scouts as it was their first go at scouts i was a little worried as tom only has one kidney that works...one swift kick in the back and its a donor time......but he's a roughty tuffty boy and doesn't take any stick from anybody.I went and picked them up at 9.30pm and they were full of jabber,,,they couldn't wait to tell me about their activities that they did and the games that they played.....and now the boys are all saying that thy can't wait to go again next week....
I have got two more slipovers to make at the moment.... and can't wait to have a few hours to my self so that i Can get out my knitting machine and make something else....have decided to put two of my fairisled slipovers on e-bay to see how they go....have got another one on the knitting needles at the minute but its a little dark in the living room and need daylight to get on an knit it as the yarn is sooooo fine!!!!
right have got to go,tomorrow we are going to stowmarket to have look at some home brewing equipment,,,,tell you all about that tomorrow........
bye!!!helena.

OH MY GOD!!!

Good Evening,

Well today has been my most fun,productive and happy day of the year so far.................

This morning i had a request from a gentleman to make him one fairisle tanktop...and was a bit worried....Don't get me wrong i am a hand knitter but have also got a knitting machine and its taken me 2 years to understand it as it hadn't got any instructions with it....but after much research and much begging borrowing and no stealing,i finally managed to get a pair of handbooks and started reading.....

Now i can make garments on my knitting machine quite competently without any problems,,well not silly ones anyway!!!

This evening i made a brilliant discovery......Up in our loft i found a carrier bag that came with the knitting machine that i originally thought was junk.....got the bag down and found hundreds of punchcard patterns that will allow me to make fairisle jumpers and slipovers especially as they are back in vogue according to gok wan!!!!have sold two of these in the space of two weeks and now i can expand what i am doing even more!!!!

My brain is on overdrive at the moment,i am salivating at the promise of the patterns i am going to make tomorrow.....I know,I know,I know that i have got reign in my enthusiasm,but i can't ......I love to create things on my knitting machine,its Sat at the top of my stairs for 3 years and now i finally understand it!!! Its like somebody has unwound my brain,re-wired it and now i understand every intricacy of the knitting and patterning process and now i can't wait!!!

Don't get me wrong hand knitting is and always will be my first love,but machine knitting is coming a close second at the moment........

these are the first two items i have ever made on my knitting machine,and now i am going to go completely mad and make as many as i can whilst the trend is going,but tomorrow i am going to make one for a girl in several shades of pink and see where we go from here....i know that slipovers look great with jeans and a roll sleeved shirt for a bloke and with a pair of jeans a white t-shirt and a neckerchief and cap for a girl....but i want to find that one thing that will help me make some real money...i am sick of being an amateur at this and would love to make enough money to pay for the work on my car to be done,,,,the mot is due in 5 months and would love to NOT have to worry about money all the time.....but i guess i am in the same boat as everybody else at the moment....i don't have many skills but i can knit,crochet,sew and design clothing,so i guess thats a start.........

So i can't wait for tomorrow to come,when the shopping is done,and the kids have all disapeared off to their mates and my partner is having a rest and i can go to the top of the stairs and get my machine out and put my brain to work......................All i can say is;- ROLL ON TOMORROW!!!!

time for me to go have got a pair of gloves to finish and stitch together,

bye!!!!