On the Needles or Getting a Head Start...

 So, Masto just SUCKS!

For the third time in 2 years Geri is losing her hair. It's been happening for 6 months now and shows no sign of letting up. However this time, the hairloss is much more wide spread aka it is body wide.... Hmmmm not good me thinks.

 After previous hair dumps Geri has grown her hair back with varying success, but it's never been quite the same as it was in its heyday.

With her loss being so widespread and prolonged this time, Geri's battling spirit has taken a battering and is severely dented. You see she spends most of her life waiting ... waiting to feel better, waiting for the latest episode to abate, waiting to see doctors, waiting, waiting, waiting and waiting for her hair to grow back. Then once it approaches a length she likes, waiting for it to finish falling out once again before waiting for it to grow back in again. The current round in this cycle has been a deal breaker.

Geri wearing Heidi in Dark Rust

If Geri liked the skinhead look I guess life would be sweet ... in the hair stakes anyway. But the trouble is she loves long hair. To help her cope in the past we've bought her wigs so that she can feel a little less self-conscious about her non crowning glory. When her hair started falling 6 months ago, Geri immediately ordered a new wig - hey, what better way to experiment with a new hair colour and style! She decided to become a redhead this time. This is one of the wigs she's using at present:

Heidi in Dark Rust

Recently it became obvious that the hair loss wasn't going to stop any time soon and after a long discussion Geri came to a decision. She decided that she could control this aspect of her waiting. She could stop waiting for her hair to grow back. With this epiphany under her belt, Geri instructed me to shave off her remaining hair. I was pretty upset doing it but Geri found it empowering and indeed it was a symbolic 'flip the bird at masto' gesture for her.

Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina

The game plan is this: She will grow what's left of her hair long enough to be styled into the style that Audrey Hepburn
wore in Sabrina. Now, I think Geri looks incredible with short hair and that this style will really suit her, but Geri begs to differ because long hair is her overwhelming preference. So, on the days when she wants to have long hair aka most of the time when she is well enough to go out with me, she will wear her wigs but at least for the rest of time she will be stylish and glam in a short haired kind of way hehe. We reckon this is a win/win situation and a really positive way to deal with this nasty situation.

The other tack I am taking to help provide a third alternative is to knit Geri some more hats. She has pressed the Angora beret into service many times this winter and with 'summer' approaching some cooler additions to the hat wardrobe are in order. She rather likes the Cloche style of hat so an extensive internet search ensued. I found that Ravelry had a great range available and with Princess Geri looking over my shoulder to give each pattern the royal nod  - or otherwise,  I sifted through dozens of pages of patterns. This simple but sweet pattern is the first I am making:
 
Amelie Cloche Hat

using 4.5 mm needles and this yarn:

Jo Sparp Desert Garden Aran Cotton in Solstice

which I conveniently had lurking in my stash. It is knitting up at a cracking pace and will be finished before the weekend if everything continues to go according to plan.

Back to  my needles ... UP UP and AWAY!

Just In Time For 'Summer' - Angora adventures come to a close.

Geri's Angora scarf was a quick knit for sure. As you can see from the photos, I didn't stretch it much when I blocked it. The yarn is so soft that I figured it would just reduce back to close to its original size once the wires were removed so I only stretched it enough to open the lace pattern up enough to be visible.

Turns out I was right!




The past four days have been absolutely gorgeous here in Wellington with soft, windless, sunny spring weather so there's not been much call for such a warm, yummy scarf. However, just last week we had massive southerly; aka freezing, gales and heroic volumes of rainfall which induced country wide flooding and landslips.  If Geri had been well enough to be out the scarf would have been pressed into service pronto!

Incidentally, one of the slips was in Pukerua Bay with another just south of us. The southern slip derailed a commuter train coming north which was then hit by another commuter train that was going south ... my husband was on the next northbound train and so had a lucky escape. Good timing huh?

Communter Train Crash

I see on today's weather forecast that our short taster of Utopian spring weather is coming to an end with another 'exciting' storm system heading our way.  Time to batten down the hatches yet  again, wind the scarf around Geri's neck when we are out on Friday and ride the incoming storm out with good old Wellington stoicism. 

Hopefully, Geri won't need to use her scarf too much this 'summer' ...

Grow Baby Grow!

The kit set mini greenhouse and the two sun tunnels arrived. The mini green house sat on the window seat for about a week until I finally found the correct 'round-to-it' and put it together. I was further motivated to finally get it done this asap as the kittens had decided that the sheets of plastic that make up the wall and roof sections were great for chewing and jumping up and down on. NOT good karma for kitties!



The sun tunnels were pressed into service straight away. One tunnel is full of vege seed and the other now has flower seed in it. Some of the vege seed has been very quick to germinate, taking just 4 days! The empty tunnel; seen in front in this photo, has a couple of unique W.A.W.D.s in it ..... aka Wellington Anti Wind Devices hehehe. These old diving weights are very useful for this sort of thing here in Windy Wellington.

The mini green house went together without too much fuss and bother. It sat on top of my pattern drafting table for a further few days once it was all together whilst I figured out how I was going to stop it taking flight with the next little 'breeze' that passed through Wellington.
Silly me... I mistakenly imagined  that it would be safe from the onslaught of curious kitties if it was up on the table. HAH! Effie eyed it up, leaped up onto the table; then onto the peak of the green house, turned around and cast me an "Oh, you are joking if you think that will stop me" look and proceeded to use the lid sections as a kittie super slide. She is such a little monster and it is indeed fortunate that she is also very cute!

I'm hoping I've solved the potential; erm guaranteed, problem of flying greenhouses by building a heavy wooden base (with my son's help) and screwing the greenhouse to it. This will hopefully live up to the challenge of 120km/hr winds! The frame also provides a little more elevation for the greenhouse which means I should be able to fit 3 pairs of my Autopot hydroponics units inside it, which will be great for growing winter salad greens - or even summer ones for that matter if we have yet another bad summer.

The Autopots -

Autopot System

are something I brought back from Australia. It is a really great growing system and is perfect out on my very large front deck. I'm planning to expand the system some time next year as the units I planted up just after I got home are going really well. I use them primarily for salad greens and herbs at the moment and will increase the range of veges once I have more units.

Jen, Geri, Lyyne and 'It'

A few months ago our friend Lynne; who inhabits the same masto Facebook corner of the world as us, lost her treasured son Thomas in the most tragic of circumstances. There are no words to describe her loss and the pain and agony this dreadful event has caused her.

As I sat here on the other side of the world I felt compelled to do something more than offer words of comfort - which to be honest felt totally inadequate. Ideally what I wanted to do was to spend some quiet time with her, to wrap her up in a huge hug and to just be there. But, that was impossible so I did the next best thing - I decided that if I couldn't be there in person to give her a hug then I could be there in spirit with my arms being substituted by a shawl.

I decided to use this yarn:

Blue Sky Alpacas 50% Alpaca 50% Silk

And once again used this pattern from Knitty:

Knitty - Ella

After confirming Lynne's address I let her know that 'It' was on its way to her and awaited the day it would arrive. That was today. At last I've been able give Lynne that hug and that's a good feeling for sure.

Shawl prior to blocking

and after blocking.