A little bit of this, a little bit of that...

I sometimes wish I had set up a 'specialised' blog - that is a blog with a sole purpose.  Like crochet and crafting, cooking, or home-edding, or just ranting and raving about anything which takes my fancy on a daily basis.  Then I could set up some relevant advertising on it, sit back and watch the lolly roll in.  heh heh.  This seems to be what some people have done, and continue to do successfully,  earning squillions doing something they were going to do anyway and enjoy!  It is so right, yet seems so wrong....

My blog does, however, sum up my life as a whole - a bit of a jack-of-all-trades and master of none.  In my little mind I have a fuzzy long term aim of getting my blog printed out into a book format for Oliver - a record of his childhood and the pointless ponderings of his frazzled mother.  With this 'goal' shining like a light in the dark (ha ha) I cannot branch out into specialist blogging, or the essence of it will be lost. 

An aside ramble here, I had a strange dream once (one of many, many, strange dreams I have on a regular basis) where there was a phrase used by an anonymous wise person of no age, race or gender.  (probably some creepy manifestation of my subconscious) ;  'For the want of Christmas, a large gift will be lost in between'.  Now this has stuck in my mind for years and I take it to mean that I am so busy looking ahead for the next big thing, that I am not looking right under my nose at the delights that I already have in my hand.  A reasonable interpretation?  Not so much a case of not seeing the wood for the trees, but seeing the wood instead of the trees?

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the daisy ripple was finished a week or so ago.  I have struggled with the end of this blanket, as it is a gift, and I feel it should be 'finished' by a posh edge.  However, in my opinion, edging this type of blanket makes it look like a four year old has hashed together some random stitches for practice:

Here it is finished, and one side edged.

Yuk.  Four times, yes, four times I whipped along an edge with various stitches to try and master it, but it looked so crappy that I am leaving it un-edged.  Sulk.  It is sitting, crossly folded up it has to be said, in my project basket until I can bear to wrap it up and have done with it.  I just don't want to see the edges again and feel that familiar sense of failure. 

On the bright side, Oliver took a shine to it in it's later stages and asked me to make him one.  This has cheered me for three reasons.  1) it is fab to be asked to make something.  2) it means I get to start a new project (could say more about this particular delightful prospect) and 3) I get to buy more yarn.

More frabjous day.  Said new yarn arrived on Saturday and I had started a-rippling the previous evening with the yarn I already had.  (cheerful black). But, there was a hitch.  A bloody big avoidable hitch.  When I discovered what it was, I could have kicked myself.  No, really, I considered it as an option as payment for my utter stupidity.  I wanted to try a more pronounced ripple for this blanket, and fell upon this pattern on Le Monde du Sucrette's blog.  This is a graphic pattern, which I don't generally use, as I am more of a words gal, but it looked so simple.  HAH!  Again, I forgot my Lack Of Attention To Detail Disorder, printed it out and off I went.  Hours later (and the next day, no less,  it was looking all wrong, I had aching eyes and was getting crosser by the stitch.  It took a few more hours to have the lightbulb moment which thrust my error into glaring, obvious and embarrassing light. 

When I printed off the pattern, I printed it onto A4, portrait size.  This meant that the last third of it was missing.  And I didn't notice!  Bloody hell, really I do worry about myself sometimes.  This wouldn't be too awful if it was just the pictures of the stitches that were missing, but half the words were missing too!!!!!  Oh the shame.  I would call it a schoolboy error but that would be just too insulting to schoolboys, who surely would not have made such a twatty mistake. 

So, a hasty re-print onto A4 landscape resolved the ahem problem, and off I went again.  Here are the colours he has chosen, although I have severe misgivings about the green.  It really doesn't 'go' in my opinion, but he is happy with them, and apparently it will be 'epic'.  Based on current form, I wouldn't hold your breath there my dear. 


The pattern, by the way, is called 'ripples of happiness'.(!)  In my mind, I think of it as ripples of many very bad swear words. 

Anyway, do check back in a couple of days because we have been asked along by friends to the museum tomorrow - oh yes, MQ#2 is afoot - and I will be recounting my tales of gone-awry good intentions and clipboards being stamped on for all to mock. 

I am bloody determined this will be a good one for Oliver.  I am.