Feathered Friends

Just outside my lounge window, I have a very old winter jasmine bush growing against the kitchen wall. It's dense, about a foot to eighteen inches thick, and this year - I have a robin nesting in it!

We've tried to catch some of her activity on our birdcam, but for some reason we can't seem to capture the robin as she (apparently only the females build the nests) dives in and out of the bush, about two feet away from the window. 

It's been brilliant to watch; she started off with beakfuls of leaves, and over the last two days we've seen her switch to moss, and now she's found either some hair or very fine grass. She approaches the bush along the fence, gets to a certain point, and watches for a while. Presumably to make sure no-one's nearby. Then she darts into a slightly more open bit of the jasmine, where I can see her hopping along the branches to the nest. Then out pops a little red head and chest, she has a quick look round, and then she drops to the floor and flies off to the nearby buddleia. 

One thing I noticed is that she seems to spend a fair bit of time gathering, but doesn't appear to work the material she gathers into the nest at that point; it's almost as though, having gathered the moss or hair, she chucks it into the nest to sort out later! Perhaps she gathers it while she finds it, then sets about making it part of the nest proper when she's gathered enough to work with?

I've also seen her mate feeding her - something I never realised happened until I caught him offering her what looked like a green caterpillar this morning. I had to look it up, because I couldn't understand why an adult bird, that I knew was nest-building, would need feeding. 

Looking forward very much to watching what happens from here on in...and maybe, just maybe, getting a few pictures if we're very, very lucky. 

In the meantime, here's some dodgy phonecam footage instead... (excuse my washing hanging on the line behind!)

Mr Squidge's New Toy

 Last October, our cat, Timmy, died. 

Since then, we've noticed rather more birds in the garden, and I've strung feeders round the garden and put out mealworms and seeds regularly. We also put up a couple of bird boxes on the wall of the tree house.

So far, we've seen an overwintering blackcap (male); a pair of grey wagtails (which are actually mostly yellow); a pair of wrens; several robins; blue tits; coal tits; sparrows; great tits; blackbirds; and the ever-present pigeon.

Our visiting male blackcap, on birdcam

The blackcap seems to be camera shy, always choosing to ground feed when the camera's aimed at the bird table or table-feeding when the camera's aimed at the ground feeders. We were just lucky with the photo above...

There seemed to be lots of blue tit activity around the bird boxes - they seem to like one more than the other, perhaps because it's a natural log-fronted one, and the birds will poke their heads inside the hole, checking out whether or not this des-res will be what they need this spring. 

Mr Squidge rather enjoys watching them. So much so, he bought himself a birdcam. Not one that goes inside the birdbox, but a motion-activated trail cam. As a result, we now have several locations around the garden where poles have appeared as camera mounts, and regular 'what's on the camera?' sessions where we see what - if anything - we've caught on film.

One thing we noticed from the videos and still pictures is that the robins are distinctly different in appearance. One has a white patch to the left of his/her red chest, the other has a white patch to the right. A third has a white patch on their wing.  The lilac tree station is preferred by the flock of sparrows which roost in next-door's holly tree, but can only be filmed on a still day. 

Anyway, here for your enjoyment, a couple of clips from the bird table... I may well become a Twitcher in time...

I used to think blue tits only ate from feeders

Mr 'White patch on the right' Robin
 

Coronasocks - the sequel

 I knitted a lot of socks in the early days of the lockdown. It was the only thing keeping me busy when my brain felt like it was in turmoil from all the strangeness of those early days.

Over the summer, I gave them a rest - partly because I have so many socks of my own, I couldn't justify knitting myself more.

But of course, the nights are drawing in. The weather is getting colder, and coronavirus is rearing its head again as England prepares to move into a new, national lockdown for a month, possibly longer. 

Seems like a perfect time to start knitting socks again, actually.

This time, they are for other people. 

I bought the wool (lots of it!) and have a variety of sizes to knit for - from a size 1 to an adult size 12! Most are bigger than what I knit for myself, so they're taking longer, but I'm OK with that. Two pairs have already gone to my mum, and two pairs are ready to be posted. 

I've also given a sock-knitting lesson to a neighbour - she picked it up really quickly (most people struggle to start with when they're trying to handle four pins at a time) so I'm looking forward to seeing how her socks turn out. 

I also seem to have set Squidgeling J off on sock knitting too, although she's found a rather novel way of knitting two socks at the same time on a magic loop, combined with a much more technical approach to making her socks fit perfectly, which takes away all the guesswork. She might have to give me lessons the next time she's home. Assuming of course, that's possible with the new lockdown.  

Great, eh? 

Only problem now, as we head into November, is that I've now lost count of how many pairs of coronasocks I've knitted to date! I haven't been taking pictures of them all, so I think - THINK - that I'm currently on my 23rd pair!!! I have one more gorgeous colourway to knit for myself at some point, but that will have to wait as I still have about four pairs to knit for other people first.

At least it'll keep me busy...

Fenced off

 Mr Squidge and I were hard at work the other week, replacing the fence in part of our garden. 

The fence was put up about seventeen, eighteen years ago, so it's lasted fairly well. It did have a few adventures though...

The gentleman who used to live next door used to be very much a DIY kind of person, so there were a lot of assorted pipes and slabs and bricks in his garden, often leaning or fallen against the fence. So various bits got a bit...broken. 

Elsewhere, the fence had a bit of an incident with a couple of policemen; Mr Squidge recounts the tale of how, one afternoon, several polica cars pulled up in the street, and the officers were moving up and down the road and trying to look over gates in driveways. Realising they needed to get into the back gardens somehow, Mr Squidge let them into ours, and the officers had a bit of a Hot Fuzz moment, and leapt over the fence. It never fully recovered.

Then there was the badger. There are several badger setts near us - some on nearby allotments, the others disturbed after houses were built on what used to be the cricket pitch. Badgers aren't stopped by fences...they just...push. (Mr Squidge did his best to barricade them out with old slabs, roofing tiles and railway sleepers, but the damage had been done.)

So yeah, we needed a new fence. Thanks goodness none of the posts had rotted - they were still really sound.

After discussion with our new neighbours - and a lot of skip-filling on their part, bless 'em! - we bought replacement panels and trellis to put on the top.

The old panels came out easy enough, but then we had to dig up all the brambles growing along the fence line, and cut back overhanging branches etc. The first few panels went in easy enough - I stood one end, Mr Squidge the other, and we hammered them down into position. Fab.

Only problem was, we made the mistake of starting at one end of the garden, then moved to the opposite end to fit a panel that needed to be cut down, leaving a gap in the middle. And of course it had to be that the last panel we fitted needed to be cut down - on both ends - to make it fit the gap. 

We got it done though. Took us the best part of two dry days. We filled two builder's bags with brambles and branches, plus two trugs, a compost bag and a bucket with weeds. 

It looks fab. 

And we've even left what we're calling a 'wildlife gap' underneath it. 

*wink wink, could've hammered it down further but didn't*

Now all that's left is to fill in the empty spaces in the border with bedding plants the rest of my family gave me earlier in the year...

Digital Book Launch - Preparations

I'm just a teensy bit excited... 

I've 'dressed' my garden room ready for Tilda's Book Launch on Friday! I now have a rainbow dreamcatcher up, my books out, and my very own gallery of imaginary gemstones ready for the competition winners to be announced...

(I've also spent a few hours drawing in the book that's going to be the prize copy as well)

See you on Friday!

Soxploits - or a Coronasock update

The pace has slowed, but I've not stopped knitting... 

Since I last wrote about my soxploits, here and here, I've knitted even more. Think I might need help for this unusual addiction, cos I counted how many pairs I have in my drawer, and I reckon it's almost three dozen! Makes it easy to do a full wool wash of socks though.

Anyhoo, onto what I've created more recently. 

The first pair I knitted since my last update, I didn't keep. The wool was a bit of a pig to knit with for a start and I knew if I wore these, I'd remember the issues I had with them rather than enjoy wearing them. Strands of wool are twisted you see, and sometimes the 'twist' goes opposite to the way you naturally knit, in which case your lovely smooth wool begins to separate into thinner strands. Or the twist goes with the way you naturally knit, and in some cases ends up twisting the length of wool back on itself. As it did in this case. (Sometimes you can prevent this from happening by starting your knitting from the middle of the ball, but as I couldn't find that end in this particular ball, I was stuck.)

Anyway, the number of times I had to dangle my socks in thin air to allow the wool a chance to untwist itself... Ugh! The colours didn't knit up how I expected them to, either. The label states no two socks will be identical, and that's fine, but the stripes of each colour were so wide, one sock ended up green and the other pink. Didn't like that, either.

Fortunately, a neighbour had asked me to knit her a pair of socks (and for sock-knitting lessons once we're allowed to meet up) and as her feet are the same size as mine, I gave her these.

The next sock project was for a friend I met at Charnwood 2016; Bridget had two pairs of West Yorkshire Spinner socks already (you can buy them direct from the company) but she asked me for another, long enough to be welly socks. So...Passionfruit Cooler was the wool she chose, and when it arrived I got knitting. I used a different pattern this time - one which uses a 3.25mm needle instead of the 2.5mm I'm used to, because as this was a longer sock than I'm used to knitting, it might speed things up. 

When I got to the toe of the first sock I posted it to Bridget, to check the sizing. All good, so when she posted it back, I finished the toe off, knitted the other sock and sent them off. They looked a bit odd, because they were knitted all in rib; it's a very stretchy pattern but the garment always appears too thin to fit when it's off a body. I chose rib because I'd wanted to be certain that, if my tension was a bit off on the different sized pins, the socks would be more forgiving when worn. 

Pair number eleven completed.

My rainbows on the left and
Bridget's welly socks on the right.

And then I knitted my rainbow socks... Squeee! Again, West Yorkshire Spinners wool (they are my new favourite brand, I think) in shade Rum Paradise. And yes, I know it's pink rather than red before the orange, so it's not a 'proper' rainbow, but I just love the colours. 

I had to get a bit clever on these, otherwise the stripes would have been wider and then all out of sync when I got to the bottom of the heel and beyond. So I ended up only knitting three/four rows of each new colour down the heel (lots of ends needed to be sewn in as a result!) and by luck rather than judgement, it all worked out so my colours continued in sequence. Hooray! Pair twelve...

They are gorgeous to wear...

 

And then I went on to pair thirteen. I should've guessed there'd be problems, by the number. The lovely plain purple merino is gorgeous to knit and shows lace beautifully (I'd already knitted two pairs in this brand of wool) but could I get the lace pattern I wanted to knit right? Could I heck. I eventually chose a 'zig-zag cable' pattern, which isn't a true cable at all, and they worked out fine; the end result was worth the hassle.

 

And onto pair fourteen... Another WYS pair, in either English Rose or Peony, I can't remember which! It's a lovely pinky-purple tweedy effect when knitted, but boy oh boy. Previously I'd knitted almost a whole sock in it before deciding I didn't like whatever pattern I'd used and pulled it all back. The wool has been sitting in my wool bag now since before Christmas, and I've not felt inspired to do anything with it. The time felt right to have another go.

I found a basketweave cable. Didn't like the look of it. Tried a lace pattern. Didn't like that, either. Tried another...aaaargh! Nothing looked right! I needed something that complimented the tweedy effect, but...then I started playing. I made up a pattern, based on a widened and elongated moss stitch and at last, I was off. And finally, I have socks I like!

 

My next two pairs will be for an old uni friend and her partner, who live down-under; they'll be odds-and-sods versions so I'll share them when they're done, cos I never know what they're going to look like until I get going on them!

At least you won't be bored reading about socks again any time soon... There's some news to be posted later this week about an official book launch event for Tilda and the Mines of Pergatt, so keep your eyes peeled for that, and get your competition entry in soon!

Bye for now!

Coming out the other side of covid-19

So after almost 8 weeks of lockdown, the UK is beginning to open up.

There are very different views on this, as you might imagine. Some want things to happen quicker, to get the economy going again. Others are saying it's happening too fast, considering how many people have already died and combined with the fact that the all-important R rate is so close to 1, it will take very little to allow the virus to take hold again.

My own personal view is that as a country, we should have acted firmer, quicker. We should have continued testing and tracing in the early stages. We should have taken notice of predictions years ago that a pandemic was bound to happen sooner or later, and we should have been better prepared for it when it came.

However, hindsight's a wonderful thing.

Suffice to say that Family Squidge are very much still staying at home at the moment to see what happens in three weeks time... We have been bereaved once because of Covid-19, and we don't wish to experience any more losses.

So how are we coping?

We've settled into a routine of slow starts and late nights. As the Squidgelings continue to complete uni assignments and revise for exams, we tend to do our own separate things during the day and come together every evening for dinner. The highlight of the week is pizza night - often on a Friday - when Mr Squidge makes the dough and we all choose our own toppings. It's better than any takeaway!

I'm still posting daily positives on facebook so that even on the toughest of days - when I have no motivation or feel I've not achieved anything - I can look on the day and find something good. There's only been one day when I really couldn't find anything positive, and in posting that very fact I found it; the kindness and care of friends.

I'm still struggling to write. This is partly due to increased interruptions from the family, but mainly because I can't seem to concentrate. My brain seems to want to flit from one thing to another, which means that I have knitting, colouring, writing, quilting, and embroidery projects on the go at the moment. I'm plugging away a little at a time when I do have the brainpower and focus. I've been doing some critique for a couple of friends though - somehow finding things to improve is a lot easier in someone else's work than in my own at the moment!

Church is problematic. I've had times in my life when I've felt far from God - the advice is usually 'pray harder!' At the minute I feel as though I'm relying on others to pray for me, as I can't find the words. It's not as though there isn't any church at all - I've been astounded and moved by the way the church has mobilised itself to continue to meet the spiritual needs of Christians and the practical needs of people in communities at a time when the physical buildings are closed. My own church has a weekly online service, which is great, but it's not the same. Might never be the same again...

And I think that sums up this point of the pandemic in a nutshell for me. It's a very different life we're living at the moment, and we're nowhere near 'out the other side'. We've perhaps jumped over the first hurdle, and are beginning to adapt, but life will be lived on the edge for some time to come yet.

Photo: New Scientist

Grief

A lot of you will have already seen the post on facebook which said that my father-in-law died last Friday. Thank you to everyone who has sent love and condolences - it's very much appreciated.

As you can imagine, trying to deal with a death in the current crisis under the restrictions is a little harder then it would normally be. Even without the fact that we are 200 miles away from where Mr H died. It's very, very sad. And very, very strange.

If I'm not here very much over the next week or so, that's why.

Be back soon. x

Pairfect Socks?

An update on my coronasock exploits...

I wrote a blog about coronasocks a while back - you can read it here, but do grab a cuppa first, cos it's a long one!

There I detailed progress so far; six pairs of coronasocks completed, and my first lot of sock wool hand dyed. I also finished a pair of socks that had been begun by a friend's mum-in-law, but I didn't count them as I was only completing someone else's project.

The good weather meant I had a break from socks after that. I spent time in the garden instead, did a bit of editing, and reconnected with Discworld. However, the last couple of days I've been feeling a bit rough. I don't think it's THE virus, but I have been fatigued and achey and out-of-sorts, so I'm keeping to home and picked up the knitting again.

I knitted my hand dyed wool.

My lovely rainbow-dyed hank

And I was very disappointed.

The  lovely rainbow wool didn't knit a rainbow at all...it knitted speckly. And there was LOADS of cream - the original base colour of the undyed wool - which made some of the colours knit as stripes. And the lovely vibrant colours...weren't. Well, not in the first sock.

First sock at the bottom, second still on pins at the top

The first sock came out all muted tones - the yellow and orange were really pale. The second sock - well, the colours were much brighter. I did toy with the idea of knitting a third sock and seeing which two out of the three matched best, but they didn't look too bad once they were finished; 

I've obviously got a lot to learn about placing colours on the hank at the dyeing stage if I want to get thicker stripes. Or limit myself to two or three only...

But that's Pair number 7 completed. Feeling a bit rough still, I started on Pair 8: Pairfect Socks. 

The theory behind Pairfect Socks is that the ball has enough wool for two socks, which will match perfectly, because a section of yellow wool is the marker for the beginning/end of the colour pattern repeat which is the end/top of each sock. 

It sounded intriguing and I rather liked the pattern as shown on the label.

The reality is...different.

For a start, if I knitted the socks up as on the label, they'd be knee-highs. So I had to keep breaking into the wool to take bits out. I could've just knitted through I suppose - but I didn't. Here's the first sock:

Spot the differences...

And here's the wool left over from it...

Not the most economical of ways to knit matching socks - I'll end up with exactly the same little balls once the second sock's completed, too. 

To be honest, I've never had much problem matching my socks when using non-pairfect socks, so I don't think I'll bother using this kind of novelty approach in future.

Ah well, you live and learn! And I'm off to knit coronasock number 16.

Corona socks

OK - this is definitely a grab-yourself-a-cuppa-first kind of blog! At least it might go some way to relieving your lockdown for a while...

Got your beverage of choice? (Mine's a G&T tonight!) Then read on...

I mentioned in a post from a couple of weeks ago that I was struggling to find focus in this current crisis, and my creative urges had led me to knit socks. This is partly because it doesn't take much brain power; I'm very familiar with the pattern I use, so if they are plain knit or some of my odds-and-sods socks, I can knit a pair to fit myself (shoe size 3 and 1/2) in two or three days if I'm not doing much else.

I decided to call them coronasocks - for obvious reasons, I hope - and so far, as we go into week 4 (I think - I've lost count) of 'stay-at-home' in the UK, I have made rather a lot of them. I don't mind showing them to you now, because half have gone to their recipients, and the others are being parcelled up to be put in the post this week. Take a gander...

Pair 1 complete - red, white and blue.

Pair 2. Odds-and-sods purple and green

Pair 3 - yellow and grey odds-and-sods. Really pleased with this colour combo

Pair 4 - lace-topped burnt orange

Pair 5 - odds-and-sods random

Pair 6 - odds-and-sods turquoise, though pink and purple snuck in too

I'm currently knitting Pair 7, another odds-and-sods pair in green and orange; one sock's completed and the other is at the heel.

I did have to order some more sock wool, as a friend has asked me to complete a UFO (UnFinished Object) for her, and while I was ordering that, I got tempted and ordered these:

The heathery-grey ball is really luxurious, and I wouldn't normally have gone for something quite so expensive. The pink is an Arne and Carlos Pairfect - the yellow strand you can see marks the start of the sock (you cut the yellow off first!) and there's another strand somewhere else in the ball which marks the start of the second sock. Now, I have small feet, so I will have to wind off lots of wool to get to the repeat, then wind it back into a ball the other way so I end up with two balls of leftover that match, so that's going to be interesting!

Incidentally, I do get a bit anal about matching up the repeats in patterns, even if they are fairly random. I end up with lots of little balls, so I decided the other day to join them all together into one big ball. There will be a pair of 'Surprise!' socks knitted, once I've wound a ball of about 60g....

The other thing I ordered was a skein of undyed merino wool. I have always loved hand-dyed yarns, but they can be very expensive. I'd looked up how to hand-dye using food colouring, which seemed a darn sight cheaper - I decided I'd have a go. It was a lockdown project.

Here's how I got on...

You can find all sorts of tutorials and videos telling you how to hand-dye - I used this one to take me through the process, but there are many others. So I'm going to assume that if you want to have a go, you'll look it up and won't need me to repeat everything in detail...

So... The food dyes I used are Dr Oetke gel colours, and I bought the full range of colours. The only colour I didn't use in this first experiment was the pink, but it was good to try all the others and see how they came out on the wool.

This is the wool in to soak for half an hour in warm water, to which 3 tablespoons of white vinegar had been added. 

I laid clingfilm over my work top, making sure there was plenty beyond the end of the hank. The skein had most of the water squeezed out of it so it was damp. I got a small art brush and started to paint the colours in blocks... 

I had to manipulate the wool to get coverage throughout, but needed to be careful - any dye on my hands or splashed onto the clingfilm, and a colour would get transferred to areas where I didn't want it to be.

Now I had in my head an idea...I wanted to try to create a pattern in the colours that, yes, would follow the rainbow, but would also end up knitting as solid stripes with speckles in between. So in the spaces, I jabbed a gel-dye-laden fork all over the place, making sure the colours overlapped a bit. Here's how it ended up; 

The next phase is to fix the dye. I realised I couldn't simply roll the wool in the clingfilm, or I'd contaminate my carefully separated colours - either because of splashes on the film or where the two sides of the skein touched. So I overlay another sheet of clingfilm over the wool, pressed it well down and then rolled it. I ended up with a rainbow coloured sausage!

My microwave is a powerful one (900W) so I blasted my wool for 3 x 2 minutes at 50%, with a minute or two in between each heating. I think the sausage was well and truly cooked - you can see the condensation inside the film.

Most instructions told you to leave the wool to cool, but I was too impatient... I unwrapped it. It was flippin' hot, so I got a bowl of cool water and as I cut the clingfilm away (it had gone a bit crispy and melted together in places) I let the hot wool go into the water. Looked like rainbow spaghetti!

It took three rinses until the water ran clear - I probably should have done a couple more as the red dye was still leaking a bit of orange when I squeezed it out ready to hang to dry. Found a coat hanger and - 

Ta dah!

Now there is always an element of pot luck in how the dye actually comes out. My speckled sections had worked pretty well with green, blue, and purple...

But came out as more of a gradient between the orange, yellow, and red.

                                          

I have no idea whether this was due to the wetness of the wool when I applied the dye; whether I put too much of these lighter colours on the wool when speckling; or whether these dyes act differently on the wool for some reason. 

It didn't come out exactly as I'd imagined - but it's not bad for a first attempt! 

So there we are. My first skein of hand-dyed wool. And it seems appropriate that it's rainbow coloured, considering how much the rainbow has been used as a symbol of hope in these difficult times. I'll let you know how it knits up...but I may not get round to it very quickly (my fingers are itching!) because I've started to get back into writing again for the first time in ages. Might be time to give the knitting pins a rest and focus on words for a while...

Feel free to share any lockdown projects you've got on the go with me - always good to hear what everyone else is up to, creatively.  

Corona continues...

It's Easter weekend as I write this, and I am sitting in the garden on Easter Saturday, having just done a 45 minute pilates session on the lawn.

It's quiet - no children playing in the garden yet. Someone was mowing the lawn a few minutes ago, and there is some traffic on the main road, but apart from that...birdsong. The crows are cawing at each other. The robin came and sang for a bit on the fence. Dunnocks were twittering in the pear tree as the blossom drifted down in a light breeze. Mummy blackbird landed on the fence about two feet away from me, but decided not to risk it. Blue tits are playing in the apple tree and the pigeon nesting in next door's holly tree came down for a quick strut. The local thrush is singing from some high point - 'rapido', '1,2,3' and 'brie, brie' he seems to sing. There's the lazy buzz of bees in the forget-me-nots underlying the birdsong.

It's already warm, and feels like a holiday. Yet this is not the 'staycation' I would wish for.

I have this strange sense of not doing enough. It doesn't seem right that I'm helping by sitting on my backside at home, doing nothing. Well, I say nothing - I'm knitting, (eleven coronasocks completed) cooking, gardening... There's a strange disparity - a world of difference - between me, staying at home, and the key workers who are going out to work every day, putting themselves at risk to keep things as normal as can be or while looking after the sick and dying.

I hope and pray that, this Easter, you'd be able to find resurrection hope in the middle of this awful time. And that you would stay safe and well until we come out of this on the other side...

Musical mayhem, mid-Corona

The Squidgelings are both rather musical.

Squidgeling J plays violin and recorder very well, but has also dabbled with guitar, mandolin, viola, harp, penny whistle and piano, and is currently teaching herself the melodeon to accompany the Folk Society at their sessions.

Squidgeling T's main instrument is the bass guitar, but he is also pretty proficient on 'normal' guitar, has dabbled in keyboard and played the double bass previously, too.

Being in lockdown - and at home for an Easter holiday that's been indefinitely extended for the foreseeable future - Chateau Squidge has therefore been rather more music-full of late. I've really enjoyed hearing folk tunes from one bedroom and bass lines from another.

However, one unintended consequence of the shutdown and imposed social distancing has been the desire to learn - and manufacture - even more instruments.

Chateau Squidge has been echoing to the sounds of;

1. A homemade low flute, made from a length of pvc pipe using some very detailed instructions.

2. Homemade bagpipes, cobbled together from a bin bag, a straw, the new low flute, a recorder, and plenty of gaffer tape. (If you fancy making some yourself, here are the instructions!)

3. An alto saxophone. Now, Mr Squidge is talented, (he helped make the first two) but not THAT talented. He hired one, as T expressed a desire to learn the sax and this seemed a better way of trying it out than committing to a purchase.

Cat in a (sax) box

By the end of today, J had played recognisable folk tunes on both the low flute AND the bagpipes (the latter was rather short and sweet because there's a knack to keeping the bin bag topped up with air through the straw) and T had managed to work out how to play (a rather ropey version) of 'Happy Birthday' on it - a challenge set by Mr Squidge for T to achieve in time for his birthday at the end of April. (Thank goodness for the garden room - it was definitely easier to listen to the sax from a distance...)

Not sure what tomorrow holds...

Maybe earplugs? 

The Rollercoaster that is COVID-19

Last Wednesday, I felt remarkably upbeat. I was getting creative, and felt like I was coping with the changes we were seeing in society because of Covid-19.

However, things don't feel so rosy any more.

Every day since then has brought new restrictions, new closures, new ways of 'being'. The Squidge family has done their best, but it hasn't been easy... Personally, I've found myself very much more up-and-down. I have experienced an overwhelming mixture of emotions, often in just one day. Here are a few of the strongest.

Fear. Mainly of the unknown - when will we fall ill? How bad will it be? When will UK life be locked down? Will the NHS cope?

Sadness. We have had to deal with the limitations which need to be enforced at church - there's no public worship, and we've seen weddings cancelled and funerals limited.

Gratitude. There are lots of folk doing Good Things for friends and neighbours, or trying to give people access to activities online, or helping to calm and reassure those who are finding things difficult.

Worry. Almost constant, for family and friends who are vulnerable due to age or underlying health issues, or for those close to us who have been classed as key workers and continue to put themselves at risk of infection.

Anger. Directed against people who ignore the restrictions and guidelines which have been put in place to try to protect those who are most vulnerable and who are going to be working hard to protect us.

Disbelief. Life will probably never be the same again. We will always live with B.C and A.C - before Covid-19 and after Covid-19.

Joy. Seeing rainbows in windows, sharing comedy videos with the Squidgelings, taking a (safely distanced from others) walk and seeing signs of spring in my own and other people's gardens.

Panic. Needing to go out for some basic supplies like bread or cereal, and seeing empty shelves or no way of keeping a safe distance from other customers in a crowded store.

One minute I feel calm and content, editing Tilda 3 or colouring in my devotional book or reading or knitting. The next, it all comes crashing in again - the reality of what we are faced with - and I find I can't stop the tears from falling.

So yeah, it doesn't feel like a good place to be at the moment. But as one friend told me, when I posted I was on the verge of a panic attack after a trip to the local Aldi, talking about it all helps and there ARE things I can do to protect my mental health.

For anyone else who's struggling like me at the moment...you are not alone. Isolated, yes, but not alone. Do whatever you need to, to find the light in these dark times. In fact, I shall be lighting a candle in my window at 7pm tonight, to remind myself of the ultimate Light, Jesus.

Look for the light, and call out the darkness so it doesn't get a grip - on you, on your emotions, and on how we face this crisis together.

Love to you all. Stay home and stay safe.

Photo by Marc Ignacio

The laptop's retiring...

We're not sure how long we've had our laptop for. We guess well over ten years.

The soon-to-be-retired laptop, back in 2013!

It still operates in a fashion - the memory is almost full in spite of us deleting as much as we can, it runs an antiquated Word 2003, and has slow internet access. It's also got some sticky/broken buttons.

To be fair, it doesn't really bother me that much. I've often said I'm a bit of a technophobe, so I stick with what I'm used to. Hence the very old version of Word I use; I want to write, rather than faff about with settings in an unfamiliar programme. And I use the laptop a lot. Mainly because the main computer is difficult to work at because of my varifocals, but also cos the programmes look different to what I'm used to. I'm getting used to them, though...

Which is a good thing, because this Valentine's Day, I didn't get roses or chocolates. I got a new laptop.

Mr Squidge and I have been talking about umm'ing and aah'ing about replacing it for a while, and with me off on a writing retreat in early March to begin Tilda 4, it seemed like a good time to do it; new laptop, new book kind of thing.

Will it help me write any better? Don't know yet - I've got to get to grips with a whole new Word programme first.

Keep your fingers crossed for me - and for Tilda!

Socks

My home town has a historical link to hosiery. Sadly, the factories have closed now, and there's very little hosiery production - if any - left. We do have our 'Sockman' though, a quirky statue in the market place who sits admiring a single sock on his outstretched leg.

I'm doing my bit to keep the hosiery link alive though, as I've had a bit of a binge on the old sock-knitting front recently.

People often say they must be complicated to knit, and I'd have to say that yes, it takes a while to get to grips with creating a sock, but once you've got the knack, it's really quite easy. I have one pattern that I use over and over again - I know exactly how the end result fits my feet - and I've mastered the art of holding the four double ended pins so I don't get in a tangle.

They're an easy project. Portable, quick (I can knit a good half of a plain sock in an evening while watching TV), and rather addictive. There are so many beautiful colourways, they seem to grow really quickly when the wool keeps changing colour. I now have so many pairs of hand knitted socks, I can do a complete wool cycle wash, just for them! They are so much better for my feet - I have had chilblains perhaps twice since I began knitting socks about ten years ago. Previously, it was every single winter... Woollen socks (most are 75% wool) last a lot longer too - I've not thrown any out yet.

Also - complete bonus - they give me thinking time when I'm stuck on my writing.

So, if you're interested, here are a few I've made since the autumn...

The wool for these were all gifts. The centre and right pair are the most beautiful merino wool, so very silky to wear, and hand-dyed. The rainbow striped ones have a very thin silver lurex thread, which makes them sparkle. 

All of these have lurex thread in, too. The blue-purple I knitted for my mum for Christmas; had to undo the toes and take them back a little, as I'd guessed the size slightly wrong! But that's the beauty of these socks - they take very little effort to make them fit correctly. The red-green, I knitted for Squidgeling J, also for Christmas. The final ball is a purple-grey-pale lime mix that I'm going to knit for myself at some point. Have decided you can't beat sparkly toes...

I've only knitted one purple sock so far - that wool was a pressie at Christmas. The West Yorkshire Spinners random green was picked up on the way to Bristol; we have to stop to plug Sparky in to get us all the way there, and there's a shopping outlet with a charger AND a super little wool and yarn shop. So each time we've stopped there, I've been tempted by new colours and have succumbed to a ball. Or two. I liked the fact that in the case of WYS, I'm supporting the British wool industry as well - not many places hereabouts stock this particular brand. 

Now these have a story behind them; I was asked whether I'd be willing to make a couple of pairs for someone. She preferred handmade socks but was unable to source them from the family member who used to knit them for her. And - this shocked me SO much - she'd have to pay around £20 a pair if purchasing via Etsy. Seriously - £20 a pair! (Mind you, if the wool costs around £8 a ball minimum, it doesn't give the knitter much per hour of knitting...) I said yes, checked her shoe size and knitted up a pair of odds-and-sods fairly quickly. Forgot to take a pic of those, but she loved them, they fitted - hooray! - and I agreed to knit up two more pairs from wool she'd already bought. They're the ones in this pic. (The blue-grey ones are cabled, but shhhh, don't tell her! She's not picked them up yet.) 

Before you ask, no, I'm not going to make a habit of knitting socks for other people!! For a start, most people's feet are bigger than mine, so it takes longer. Secondly, if I'm knitting, I can't write. And thirdly, my fingers can get quite stiff if I do too much in a period of time (like two pairs in a week). 

I enjoy knitting socks, but I'm going to have to ration buying the wool. I have a bagful of leftovers - I could probably keep myself in odds-and-sods socks for the next ten years, without adding any extra colours. 

See what I mean? I did use some of the stash to knit little stars to use as decorations on my brown-paper-wrapped Christmas gifts this year, but it's not made much of an impression on the pile. 

Maybe I can allow myself to buy one ball a year? Oh, and if I'm bought a ball, I won't refuse it! 

NaNoWriMo 2019 - sickness and success

I decided to have a go at NaNoWriMo this year to work on Tilda 3, and get the first draft up on computer. Previously, I've done NaNoEdMo for myself, which meant that I had a manuscript fairly well developed already, and I worked on editing throughout the month instead of fresh work. This is the first time I've used a NaNo initiative to create relatively new material.

I'm just over half way through, and here's where I'm at:

• written for 15/17 days
• just over 22K words down to meet a target of 50K
• predicted to finish on Dec 8th

It doesn't sound bad, especially when you consider that the two days I've not written were a combination of sickness (lovely little coldy-coughy bug in the run up to Christmas) and family events (had both the Squidgelings at home with a short overlap - first time we've all been together since September, and family's sometimes more important than any goals we might set for ourselves.)

What's a little worrying at this stage is that I'm almost at the end of the story, and there simply aren't the words to make it a decent length. BUT when I looked at what I've written, I realised that I'm not actually 'writing' the scenes. They're more like notes on what's going to be happening, they're not fleshed out in any way, shape, or form. So I'm hopeful that if I hit the end of the story before the end of November, I'll be able to go back and really work on the individual scenes.

I've never been a particularly disciplined writer, but this particular NaNoWriMo has highlighted to me that I don't work well in trying to be creative under pressure. I think I need to take more time at this stage, and use the discipline of NaNoWriMo to focus on the editing. That said, I'll carry on this month, without feeling guilty about having missed the odd few days or ending up with a completely finished script at the end of it. 

Interestingly, when I did CampNaNo in June, we were able to set our own word count target, and as I'd turned mine into a 'words edited' target, perhaps I had unrealistic expectations as to what it meant to write 50K new words...I mean, Kingstone took 74 days to get the story notes down, and another 60+ to get to the point of a 46K first draft!

Do I think I'm being successful so far this NaNo? Well I've written more days than not, and my word count keeps increasing, so yes. It will be interesting to see where I'm at by the end of the month...I'll keep you posted. But right now, I'm off to get the 2,000 words down NaNoWriMo tells me I need to get back on track!

Quilting capers

Apologies to Quorn Country Crafts, but this is very late getting written up!

I went to a quilting exhibition a couple of weekends ago, organised as a charity event by QCC in East Leake. You may remember I'd been before, when the shop was still in Loughborough. This time it was held in a school hall.

To give you an idea of the size of some of the quilts

Many were for sale

It's always good to see quilts others have designed and sewn, as they give you all sorts of inspiration for future projects. This time, I think there were more 'picture' quilts than ones focusing on mixes of colours, which just goes to show how trends and fashions change. Especially when it comes to the use of machined details and applique.

Here are some of my favourites from the day...

Lovely overlapping squares in monochrome

Another optical illusion - love these colours

I loved the lime green with the aqua

Some needlefelting too...

3D butterflies and a fabulous elephant

Twelve months in applique

A thought provoking message with this one

A fleecy quilt, rather than the usual cotton

Loved how the strips framed the central panel

I've never mastered circles...

More fun applique

Lots of machine-stitched applique and embroidery in the panels

Loved these colours

Lots of machined lace as embellishment

Completely hand-stitched...

...and a lovely pattern

My absolute favourite though, was a quilt made entirely out of denim, and slow-stitched, Japanese style. It was such an obvious labour of love, with hours of work going into all the hand stitched details and decorations. It didn't have straight seams, because the denim and indigo fabrics were pieced together fairly randomly, and I loved the individuality of it.

 Afterwards, I had to stop by the shop, of course. I haven't got any fresh projects in mind (I have two quilts on my bed, one in the spare room, Squidgeling T's quilt's in Manchester, I've done two lap quilts and was very, very close to finishing Squidgeling J's quilt) that I mooched for a bit and gave in to a pack of tiny squares (might be OK for a cushion cover), some Christmas project fabric, and a charm pack in lovely pinks and aquas. Perhaps another lap quilt...?

I was inspired to go home though, and finish binding J's quilt. It is the first time I think I've ever been dressed in the colours of a quilt as I've bound the edges!

Love putting the binding on.

Colour co-ordinated quilter!

Close up of the 'squircles' quilted on the top

Mr Squidge, showing off the full size quilt.

Then I took some fabric I'd had for ages - with the aim of using it for cushion covers in the lounge - and cut it all into strips to make a kind of DIY jelly roll. I'd seen a video where you can make stripes along the length of a quilt rather than across, and the way it goes together is rather random. Now if I've learnt anything about myself and quilting, it's that I'm not very good at random. I like to lay everything out and get a balance of colours before I start, so this is a bit of a challenge. I'll keep you posted...