Month: June 2014

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In which a wall is (almost) finished

Well, here you go, it’s even got a free kitty in it if you know where to look:IMG_1385

That’s as much as I’m going to get done for a while judging by the weather forecast and it is more or less finished. I was looking at this bit though and it gave me an idea for a couple of details which I might add later on.

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I need to find some photos to copy first or have a practice at drawing them because I’m a lot better at colouring in than I am at painting things that actually look like things. I’ll show you later on if I do decide to add them and you’ll just have to guess what they might be until then but I’ll give you a clue – the one that I thought of first might have too many legs and I might do some others with some wings or even more legs.

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Here’s an updated gallery thing with the last photo added if you like that sort of thing:

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In which there is a stripy wee beastie

The wall is coming along, I should be able to show you a picture of it more or less done tomorrow, British Summer Time permitting.

Today the stripy jumper is done, I swear the child has grown six inches in the two weeks since I began it. It should be massive on her so that is still fits on 1st September when it gets cold and miserable (just in time for school going back) but instead it is only slightly oversized. Maybe the sunshine has been making her grow along with all the weeds in my vegetable bed. She seems to like it anyway and is refusing to take it off despite it being about 25°C at the moment and I get points for having made an entire jumper without buying any more wool…

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Greenest Leaves

Right, that’s as green as it is going to get.

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I find it fascinating watching how things change and develop and I have already forgotten what the wall used to be like so here is (hopefully) a gallery thing showing how it has changed so far.

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Now I am going to sleep for three days before I start the purple and to wash off all the green paint I keep finding in strange places.

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Greener leaves

I’m not sure what is going on with the weather – it is doing what it is supposed to for the time of year which is very good for painting (if a little confusing) but I mustn’t say it too loud otherwise it will hear me and start raining again. The last couple of days have been really productive, by my reckoning that is slightly more than two thirds of the green done.

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I’ve mostly been doing about a jam jar’s worth of paint a day because a) that is how much I can mix in one go in my jam jar, b) that is how long Tiny will entertain herself for and c) that is about the length of time it takes me to go a tad crazy and start wondering why I am filling in so many green rhombuses. Yesterday was perfect painting weather; most days so far I have done one jar in the morning and then by the time it gets to lunchtime the sun has come round and there is only about a two foot strip of shade left at the bottom of the wall (fine if you want to paint the bottom but if you climb up the ladder to do the top then your head is back in the sun and you’re in danger of looking like a baked beetroot in about five minutes, well I am anyway) but yesterday there was just enough cloud that it was nice and warm whilst being shady enough to carry on in the afternoon without me or the paint baking before I had finished fiddling with it and I managed to get two jars done.
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The green is creeping across enough now that I can breathe a sigh of relief. There is always a point when I’m doing stuff like this (somewhere quite a while after the bit where I merrily launch into it with only a vague idea of what I am doing) when whatever it is starts to look roughly like I imagined and I can think that it might be worth carrying on with.

The weather is looking about right for carrying on now but I think I’ve had all the green paint I can take for today. And I have a sleeve to finish…

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Green Leaves

This is just a quick update on the wall. I haven’t done much else this week apart from a little bit of secret knitting that I can’t show you yet. It doesn’t look that much different but the green is starting to creep across – I think I’ve done nearly a third of it – most of the original blue and green ones are covered up anyway.

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By the way, the hay fever inducing sweet peas are there because they have been banished by one of the inmates, I am not in the habit of picking flowers to put on the outside table. I’m not sure if you will be able to make it out in the picture but there is also a couple of very small cups and saucers on the table so it looks as though someone has been visiting for a tiny tea party, perhaps they enjoyed the flowers…

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So much for not starting anything else

Do you remember I said I had a load of stuff to finish before I started anything? Well I did finish a couple of them and then realised I should get on with two different new baby presents so rather than the big pile of too much yarn diminishing it now has grown by several colours. They are lovely colours and I did think about putting on photo of a heap of wool but I thought that would spoil the surprise so you’ll just have to wait until I’ve finished those to see them.

I had a plan in the back of my head for a stripy jumper for Tiny a while ago but I was being good and not buying any more wool for a while and then a friend who was having a tidy up of her stash gave me some bright blue aran that she said wasn’t enough for a whole jumper for her grandchildren but it might do one for one of mine (children not grandchildren). When I suggested to Tiny that perhaps she might like a blue jumper she had clearly remembered the conversation from a month or two ago about stripes and was quite insistent about it and Small seems quite keen on the bright blue. I had a think about it and realised that I have several ends of balls of aran left from various jumpers so I could do her the striped jumper out of those and probably have enough left for a blue one for Small if it had a different coloured pattern on the yoke or maybe blue and green stripes because I have most of a 400g ball of green left as well.

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So here is the beginning of a stripy jumper which I started at the weekend. I had forgotten how fast children’s clothes are, especially in big yarn, I haven’t made any for at least six months! I’m not sure why I am knitting it now because I am having to guess how much she will grow before it gets cold again but we are going camping in the holidays so perhaps she will need it then – August, cold and dank and wet, brings more rain than any yet. The pattern is called Fiver and is a free one on the Love Knitting blog. There isn’t a really clear picture of a child standing up wearing it so I’m not sure if it is meant to be short but the length they gave for the 4 year old size wouldn’t reach down to Tiny’s belly button even the size she is now so I have added about five inches to the given length in an attempt to cover up the almost permanent builder’s bum. I’m not too sure whether the colours really go together but she seems to like it and we’ll be able to see her coming a mile off – on a scale of one to Smarties-before-they-changed-to-natural-colours it is really a notch or two brighter than it looks in the photo!

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In which there is a friendly beetle

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This is Ruby, she is a cardinal beetle and has been keeping me and Tiny company in the garden today. Tiny has been busy in the sand pit (I took pity on her and replenished the sand even though it was her own fault that all the previous sand vanished down the cracks in the patio), Ruby has been busy avoiding being painted (she approves of the green) or squashed and trying to climb up my leg at every opportunity (even though I keep moving her out of the way) and I have been busy with the paints, I think I need to get the next lot a bit lighter though. I have done all the marking out and started filling in some of the shapes again.SL274241

If you live near me and it starts raining now then you know that it is a sub-optimal microclimate in the vicinity of my wall brought on by the application of Murphy’s Law and me wanting to get it finished. I apologise.

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In which there is a lot of polygons of one sort or another

It’s been a busy week – the Man in the Shed is away with work and I’ve been outside as much as possible so sorry I haven’t posted much. I keep meaning to write something and then not doing it. I have finished the Happypotomus, need to think of a secret name now so people can guess it at the fair. I think I’ve got one but obviously I can’t tell you. I’m not too sure about its gender either, there has been some debate!

I have mostly been painting this week, weather permitting (the forecast last week said it was going to piddle down all week but every time I look it up again it seems to be better and I’ve got more done than I expected to). Our garden is about nine foot up in the air and is currently held up by this wall:

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The reason being that I couldn’t bear having that much plain rendering and spent quite a long time five years ago painting it pretty colours and shapes. The only trouble is that it is going rusty from underneath – there is an edging strip on the corner of the ledge under the render which should be galvanised and clearly isn’t. I scrub all the lichen and grub off every year but the rusty drips stay and get a bit worse each year however hard I scrub and now it is getting to me. Also it is covered in small holes (at a height of about eighteen inches and below) which I suspect have something to do with Small’s bike and they look like this:

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So what with the rust and the holes I decided it was time to do something about it. I’ve been scraping off loose paint and rust and trying to seal it all again and I managed to get some real paint on it today. Now part of it looks like this:

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The Man in the Shed asked Small to describe it to him because he hasn’t seen it yet and was told, “Green and purple.” Which sounds boring but I suppose it is at least accurate. In my defence I haven’t finished yet…