Shoshiplatypus

What’s On Your Workdesk this Wednesday?

Persian Tiles throw

I’m making steady progress on the Persian Tiles throw, with a couple more tiles completed. They are quite large, and take some time to do. There is plenty of variety in each one, with different stitches, and a colour change with each round, so they are fun and interesting to make. I’ve discovered better ways of working in the ends as I go, so there are very few to be sewn in at the end. I haven’t made any further connecting squares.

Out of routine

This past week I’ve got out of my normal routine a bit. As a result of this, I’m afraid I didn’t manage to visit everyone’s blogs on WOYWW this week, for which I apologise. It was my birthday on Sunday, and we had a day out on Thursday with a get-together in a neighbouring county with a lovely meal – a lot of driving for my hubby but this is an annual treat, usually coinciding with my birthday and worth it in spades. With the weather for most of May having being abysmal, we weren’t expecting anything different, but the day was sunny and warm and perfect!

Having had my hospital appointment on the Monday, I’d been out of the house more than usual and still had various things to catch up on, and going out is always very tiring, however enjoyable it might be. By the end of the week I was exhausted and totally wiped out and just had to rest. My hubby was away overnight on Monday which was another alteration in my routine with extra jobs to do. In his absence, Ruby was sick twice – usually my hubby’s job to clear it up! She often eats too quickly and it all comes up again, and by mid-morning she was starving and all over me, demanding food, so she had elevenses. Then after supper she was sick again… That dreadful sound, so familiar to all cat slaves… They always manage to do it on the carpet, too. Not showing any signs of being hungry after that, so I think she may have had a slight stomach upset. Lily just sat staring at the steaming heap on the carpet while I got the wherewithal to clear it up! As I tell them on occasion, “You can go off kitties…” Anything worse carries the dire threat of being sold on Ebay. For ninety-nine pence. Hmmmm. Then, yesterday when the Tesco delivery man came, Lily disappeared, and I had about half an hour of total panic because she must have snuck out of the sitting room when I opened the door, and I thought she’d got out onto the road. I searched the whole house and couldn’t find her. I phoned my hubby and he suggested getting a neighbour to help look for her. I went into the flat where Ruby was shut in, and gave her her second instalment of breakfast (I fed it to her in small doses to prevent more sickness) and when I came out, there was Lily sitting on the bottom of the stairs!!! Phew. WHAT a relief. I immediately phoned my hubby again to let him know.

That kitty is extremely good at hiding. The naughty little baggage. We’ve lost her before on several occasions. I think she enjoys playing hide and seek, but I was NOT impressed! I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d been responsible for putting her at risk on the road.

Shoshi the Bag Lady

Since getting Kermit (my ileostomy), I refer to myself as the Gutless Bag Lady. I always think of the stoma bags as Kermit’s bags rather than mine, and he gets regular parcels sent to him from his supplier, who will insist on addressing them to me and not to him, much to his chagrin.

I’ve always been a bag lady, though, even if not gutless until six years ago. I love bags! For my birthday, I received two really lovely bags all of my own from my hubby, not for sharing with Kermit, and they arrived from Amazon on my birthday. I’ve always had a thing for baggies and boxes and often just like to own them, even if they haven’t got anything in them. I expect there’s a posh scientific name for this rather sad condition.

Knitting and crochet bag

The main present is an absolutely fabulous new bag for my yarn-based projects. It has lots of gorgeous pockets and slots and zips and cleverness to satisfy the most serious of bag fetishists. Here it is.

It has two sturdy carrying handles with a velcro’ed piece to attach them together, and a clear lid so that you can see what’s inside.

This clear lid is in two sections, so you can either unzip it in its entirety to give access to the whole of the inside of the bag, or you can undo half of it from its magnetic fasteners in order to gain access to the larger of the sections of the inside of the bag.

This section of the lid has a zipped compartment in it – I think this is for storing long knitting needles, but I don’t use these, so I expect I shall find another use for it. At the moment it contains the detachable shoulder strap for the bag.

As you can see from the previous photo, across the whole of the back of the bag is a large zipped pocket. This is large enough for my iPad complete with its case. I have my crochet patterns on the iPad.

Along the length of the other half of the transparent lid is a series of eyeleted holes. These are for threading your yarn through – six of them, to enable you to work with multiple colours, without the yarns tangling or rolling all over the floor.

Along the edge of this flap, there is a series of short strips of velcro sewn on. These are for holding the ends of the yarn in place when not in use, to stop them falling back into the bag through the holes.

On one end of the bag, there is a transparent pocket. For now, I’ve put my little wallet of crochet hooks in there. These are the ones I’ve had for many years, and they are not nearly as comfortable to use as the new set which our WOYWW hostess Julia sent me recently. The set contains some ultra-fine hooks for crochet lace.

At the other end of the bag, there is another pocket, this time made of the same material as the bag.

This is just the right size for the lovely little cloth pouch which contains my interchangeable circular knitting needle set, and my other bits and pieces (scissors, needle gauges, stitch markers etc. etc.)

Across the front of the bag is another zipped compartment, this time a flap that folds down, and it has a mesh pocket sewn in. On the flap is another zipped mesh pocket, and elastic loops to hold crochet hooks – this will be ideal for Julia’s set which have thicker handles than my old ones.

Finally, opening the main part of the bag, you can see that half of it has been divided into compartments for holding balls of yarn separate from one another. This is underneath the transparent lid flap with the holes in it. The rest of the space is the full width of the bag and is large enough for the current project on regular knitting needles. In the photo, I’ve just put my Persian tiles in there, and you can see the folder with my patterns, A4 size, and easily accommodated within the bag.

The whole thing is robustly constructed. The outer material is durable and canvas-like, and the lining is a fairly slippery synthetic material. Yarns are not going to stick on this, and it is finely woven so that it won’t get pierced by knitting needles. When in use, the bag is roughly rectangular-block shaped and sits on a flat base so it’s not going to tip over. When empty, it folds completely flat for storage.

Someone has put a great deal of thought into the design of this bag, and it’s going to be a pleasure to use, keeping everything tidily in one place, so I can get rid of my messy carrier bags, and my traditional knitting bag which really isn’t big enough. I love the dark red colour too, with a lighter coloured lining so that you aren’t rummaging in some dark cavernous space, unable to see what you’re looking for!

I think this could also be a replacement for my grab-and-go bag which I use when we go out. I have a small pouch-like handbag which I put in this bag along with my iPad, water bottle, wheelchair gloves, etc. It’s a nice bag but it’s floppy and falls over easily. If I use the knitting bag I can carry my iPad, water bottle, book, magazines, snacks… whatever I want, as well as the current project to work on! There is even room for…

Pencil case

The second part of my hubby’s present. I spotted this on Amazon a few weeks ago, and thought it would be really handy for working on drawing/colouring projects downstairs. I’ve got a large zipped bag for all my Tombow markers and other pens but it’s very bulky and heavy if I don’t want them all for a project. This new case will enable me to decant what I want, and for it to be easily portable and manageable.

A lovely little zipped durable fabric bag.

It has a carrying handle.

Opening it up, it has some pockets and a zipped mesh pouch inside the cover, and several pages with elastic loops. These are really designed for colour pencils, so one has the usual problem when trying to store pens and markers that are thicker – you have to use alternate loops in order to get them in. However, there are plenty of loops, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

The first page is sewn in, but the others are detachable, on velcro.

The pages turned back to reveal the inside of the case.

There is room underneath the pages for a small sketch pad or for bits and bobs, and if you didn’t need all the pages and removed one or more of them, you’d have even more space.

About a year ago, I bought a hard zipped case to keep my iPad accessories in  – cables, earbuds, Apple Pencil etc. Unfortunately, this is too big to go in my handbag.

However, I am delighted to see that it fits inside the new pencil case perfectly.

Of course, it will go in the new knitting bag, as will the pencil case, so plenty of options to choose from now!

Small storage box

Recently I was given this nice little plastic storage box.

Now I’ve just got to decide what to keep in it.

I think Kermit will be quite envious of all my nifty bags. He does have a very nice one of his own to store his bag changing equipment, and this goes with us when we go out, in case of emergencies. It’s got lots of compartments and pockets, and unrolls flat, or you can hang it up with a built-in hook if there’s nowhere to spread it out.

So the Bag Lady is all bagged up and ready for anything.

Old Bible

Last week, Zsuzsa shared with us the beautiful book that had come into her possession. It reminded me that I also own a beautiful old book – a Bible that belonged to my grandfather, with an inscription inside dated 1877, which I presume was a christening present. Mum gave me this Bible on my confirmation.

I never knew him; he died in 1945, shortly before my parents got engaged – he did meet Dad once or twice.

The print is extremely small, on very thin and beautiful paper. They don’t make them like this any longer.

He clearly never used this Bible, because it is in absolutely pristine condition, apart from some age stains on the dedication pages. Quite unlike my regular Bible which has had a lot of use over the past 25+ years and lives in a zipped case to protect it – the cover is fairly worn even so, especially round the spine. It’s also heavily annotated! (If the house caught on fire, I would grab this. Also Humphrey, my little platypus.)

My hubby gave me that bookmark in our early days together and it’s been in my Bible ever since! It is very special.

Food

I have found a falafels recipe that I like! I made some very successful ones last week, and will be posting about them in due course.

Kitties

After the dreadful time I had with the two of them while my hubby was away, something a bit more normal!

Special Amazon Prime delivery on my birthday.

They continue to enjoy the new kitty throw. My hubby leaves his lap rug on the chair when he’s not there, and this will protect the kitty throw from them, but he remarked that they never seem to catch their claws in it, and Ruby has shown no further interest in attacking the detached kitty tails!!

Garden

Our plum tree has arrived at last! My hubby eventually got in touch with the company because of its continuing non-appearance, and they were very apologetic and said they would look into it. They reported back that Hermes had lost it! So, if a poor bedraggled little plum tree turns up on anybody’s doorstep uninvited, please either give it a good home, or a decent burial, whichever is more appropriate!

The replacement arrived yesterday. Here’s the Head Gardener, having just planted it.

Health update

I am waiting to hear from the breast unit today with the result of my biopsy. If it comes in good time, I’ll update this post. Meantime, I’ve received a copy of the letter they sent to my GP with details of the problem and the examinations I had. The area where they did the biopsy is still quite tender, but at no time has it been painful and requiring paracetamol. There is a bit of a bruise in the place but it’s clearing slowly. I remain unworried about the whole situation, and am just glad that they took it seriously and got me seen as soon as possible.

UPDATE: The breast unit phoned mid-morning to say they want me to go in tomorrow morning to discuss the results of my biopsy. I’ll keep you informed.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving,
let your requests be made known to God;
and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,
will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7