Craft4aCause

A fellow knitter on Ravelry has a daughter Ayla who has Polymicrogyria. Because Ayla needs to go to a special Steiner school to take care of her and accept her lovingly, her mother Melissa is trying to raise funds to make this happen. This is a quote from her first post on Ravelry telling her story:

I am looking for a little help from anyone who would like to give. My daughter Ayla has a motor impairment which means she is unable to crawl, walk or talk. She is 3 years old and currently charms her way through life. Mummy (that’s me) has just been informed that in order for her to go to school with her friends she will need a full-time teacher aide at a cost of $22000 per year. As the school is independent there is very little government funding available to her so it will have to be fundraised. I am putting together a crafting pool called Craft for a Cause where everyone who joins is emailed a selection of craft patterns at the beginning of every season. Each member creates one or more masterpiece/s from the patterns, donating both their time and the materials needed to complete the project and sends the finished piece to me to be sold at market stalls (and if this gets big enough an online shop on Etsy!). Money raised will go into an investment account in the hopes of generating more $$ to help us pay for Ayla’s ‘inclusive’ education.

I myself have not knitted anything yet, but I believe Ayla is one little girl out of many in the world that needs our help. I soon will knit something (once I get the other knitting out of the way) but I encourage everyone else to have a look at the Etsy store Craft4aCause that Melissa has set up. :D

Score!

I'm on a group called Freecycle and a lady made an offer of knitting/crochet patterns and quilting magazines. I immediately jumped for the knitting patterns, and I did say I wasn't too keen on the quilting magazines, but I'd take them if she can't sort them. The lady was very nice to have sorted the magazines out for me, and this is the amount of knitting patterns I have:






Haven't been through the whole thing, but have heaps of Patons, Cleckheaton and other ACS publications, as well as Rowan, Filatura di Crosa and Jo Sharp. Lots and lots to go through, although I think I won't be knitting all of them anytime soon. For me it'll be a matter of inspiration if nothing else!

Now stuck with a head cold, and I'm not totally happy. A student of mine came in with a runny nose, and that really really sucked. From there I knew I was going to catch it, and guess what? I did the following day. The wonders of teaching, really.

Other than that, I'm pretty happy and set in everything. Must admit the exercise challenge for the week ain't quite happening every day but it did happen twice at least out of 4 days... :D If I feel better tomorrow morning I may try to jog tomorrow.

Lost in-terpretation?

Is the internet so frigging disconnected that we misinterpret things way too often? Do I not get sarcasm anymore? Is there internet etiquette?

I think when I chat online or I email someone if it is to someone I see often, I can see them being "sarcastic". I can imagine them actually talking to me in their usual speaking manner as I read their messages or emails.

For friends that I don't see often, I try to be polite, because things online can be misinterpreted. I don't play the sarcasm or cynical card, I just stay neutral and friendly (which sometimes includes lots of smilies and exclamation marks, which can annoy people).

So when I chat to a friend online and he pops up saying that I'm taking things too seriously when I was just stating a point, unnecessary tension forms. Every time I chat to him, it happens. Apparently I'm uptight and can't read sarcasm... Anyways, he's not a person that I seek the company of for that very reason, and I don't even bother initiating conversations online as well.

Anyhowsen, it's amazing to see how something so impersonal get so personal. It's not like the internet can provide anything like real life can, it can only supplement it. I don't know where I'm getting at here, but I just wish sometimes the internet is not so easy, because then it'd force people to interact more, have to face a person to insult them, or write a letter in snail mail, which requires more effort, or make a phone call.

Then again - if that's the case, I'm a hypocrite and calling the kettle black by typing up this post. :P

Lists

Of crafty things to do:

1. Finish Dad's vest.
   
2. Finish my newly born cousin's jumper.
3. Finish the 3 vests that are due in March
4. Finish a friend's scarf for her birthday this week
   
5. Start on a hat for my housemate Nic
   
6. Finish my housemate Pascal's scarf for April
7. Decoupage my (knitting) money box
8. Knit a beer cozy for James
9. Knit a present for George's 21st
10. Knit Cecile's skirt that was meant to be done last year
11. Finish Mum's blanket
12. Knit Mark's cardigan
13. Knit my jacket in time for winter sometime soon!

Of general things:

1. Re-enrol into uni
2. Pay off credit card
3. Save money for a trip overseas
4. Lose at least 6 kg this year
5. No more shows this year (after Bombshells)

My challenges so far:

1. No more Maccas
2. No more soft drinks
3. Eat a piece of fruit each day

This week's challenge (and seeing as I didn't have one last week, I'm having 2 this week):

1. Walk/Jog every day for at least 10 minutes.
2. Knit for at least an hour a day

Sigh - so many things to do. So little time to do them.

Ness' knitting money tin

I'm going to buy a money tin tomorrow and label it "Ness' knitting money" and put all my coins in there. When it becomes full of coins, it shall be used to buy yarn.

This will hopefully stop me from impulse buying yarn all the time, and go - if I'm going to spend all that money, I may as well put it in the tin. Then it'll make me think twice and then I shall not buy anything. Well, hopefully. I could be wrong.

I had a candle holder that I doubled up as a mini-change bowl, and I found out in the space of 5-6 months I accumulated around $50 worth of change. That's like 5 balls of quality yarn, or 3 balls of top quality yarn. Or a bag of bargain yarn.

This time around, I think I'm going to use the change to fund for a dinner Mark is going to cook with friends, and to pay for entry to see a gig that our housemate is having this Thursday at the Annandale.

Talking about gigs, I bought tickets to go see Wayne Brady, of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" fame. It's in May... So excited! And Tim Minchin is coming up soon too... :D

Need to focus. This week's challenge - a bit of a cheat - to maintain what I have so far. Also to finish all my knitting. Grrrrr.... Too much to do, so little time!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Not a huge celebrator, but I do love cards. Especially this one which I gave to my Markyboo... :D




Mark made me dinner (must admit dropped huge hints for it), but it at least inspired to cook! I didn't get anything for Mark, just this card and a message in the card, but yah. We don't quite believe in Valentine's Day, especially due to the fact that I had my birthday the day before, and Mark's probably a bit poor from that!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY EVERYONE!

Under pressure...

To finish things! I had a friend pressure me to get a recording done, and I'm currently doing a production where I'm just slightly behind on the recording thing. I also need to re-enrol into uni, so I can finish this damn degree. And I have a few knitted items that need to finish in 2-3 weeks, and I'm like terribly behind! I'm also under pressure to lose weight, exercise more and eat less. GARRR!

Sigh, I really need to work harder this year. Need to get everything done so that I can get over this stage of my life, and just move on to the real world!

Besides that, my birthday is coming up soon, and I'm excited! :D Just to have a day for me on Friday would be great. It's a Black Friday this year, so yah, nothing too special. I'll probably just knit and compose that day.

Challenge for the week: Eat a piece of fruit a day. In conjunction with my other challenges of no Maccas and no soft drinks, which I have done for the past 2-3 weeks. :D

Happy New Year!

Yah I know, it was like more than a month ago, and I've been slack. So sorry about that.

Going to try and at least blog once a week - weekly updates. For a while I thought I may do a Vblog like one of my best friends, but I decided nah, I like typing more so than having to buy a video camera and edit and all that.

So due to the holidays I've gotten chubbier. Chubbier than chubbier... It's annoying. So I've decided to make weekly challenges for myself. Last week was no more McDonalds! I used to have (and this was my guilty pleasure) a Maccas breakfast on the way to Saturday teaching. But now I'm going to stop that habit and have no Maccas at all for at least the rest of the year, no matter how hungry or convenient it is!

My second challenge for this week was no soft drinks. Even though I had one on Monday (a diet coke, and it was free), I said no more for the rest of the week. So so far, despite the many cravings I had, I didn't have any since Monday night! :D

I'm going to make that every Monday I'm going to give myself another challenge. Like I thought today maybe my next challenge would be to take the stairs or walk as much as possible. So if there are escalators but a set of stairs right next to it, or a lift and some stairs right next to it (granted it's not 15 levels high), then I'm going to use the stairs instead of the lift/escalator. Thing is, I don't go out that much so I think that may be an easy challenge. So I probably have to have an additional challenge to it, like a serving of fruit each day or something.

Today I got my car serviced, so I decided to spend the day hanging out in the city, as the VW shuttle bus dropped me off at Town Hall, and will be picking me up soon at 4pm at Town Hall. I hung out a bit with Hein, and I got to experience his work for an hour! :D It was fun, and even though I love teaching, retail is really not as bad as I remembered it to be. Maybe because my luck with retail wasn't that great, and I had mean bosses and managers with control issues, but yah, Hein seemed to have fun at his work and I one day would like to own a knitting store and make it as fun as that! :D

Anyhows, I was in the underground QVB part, and I hadn't had breakfast yet and was hungry, so I went to the German bakery (I forgot the name). I was standing waiting to be served, and as soon as the person before me left I made a motion that I was next, and the woman behind the counter went straight for the other dude who came after me! I was like - what the hell? Granted he was probably a regular and he was kinda cute, but he wasn't THAT cute. The woman was nice and warm and cheerful to the guy, and then when she served me next, which she took her time for (because after serving him she went off to do something and clearly didn't care about serving me), it was fake and abrupt. So yah, I thought maybe she had a thing for the "regular" guy, so that annoyed me. Makes me wonder whether people are just naturally flirtatious or something that they favour the opposite sex or whatever, it just irks me that you would favour someone just because they're male (if you're a female that is). Soooooooo annoying. Anyhows, I enjoyed my tomato and boccini with pesto sauce roll, but that woman tampered the whole experience. If that roll was really shite it would've guaranteed me not to go back there, but alas, the roll was great yums.

I've been in the middle of so many knitting projects, I haven't finished any! Oh, I finished one, and that was a birthday present for my boyfriend's mum. She seemed to like it - it was a knitting bag. I need to finish dad's vest, and I also need to finish my housemate's scarf. And start on a friend's beanie, and another friend's pair of arm warmers, and a bikini for another friend, and a cardigan for my boyfriend, and three vests for a fashion designer. Sigh. This is all too much. Why do I promise to knit things when I myself can't knit that fast???? And I keep buying wool unnecessarily, but I guess that's just part of being an arty crafty person - having "stash". :D

So I'll make more of an effort to update my blog, I'm actually going to try and revamp the look of the site somehow. I'll figure something out. :D