Knitting Lego! 29 February 2008
Posted by kaitharshayr in Knitting.add a comment
I just found this on you tube.. i have to say I am very impressed!! Wish I had some lego! (Not that I’d ever in a million years be able to build something like that, but still the engineering is mega impressive!)
Tatting & Earthquakes 27 February 2008
Posted by kaitharshayr in Uncategorized.Tags: creative, earthquake, tatting
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So I’ve started reading Marnie MacLean’s blog, specifically because some of the pattern’s she has created are really really pretty! And there are several must knits for me. Recently she’s been talking about tatting, and here is her blog post on it. Doesn’t it look pretty? Really really pretty? And it made me think, I’m pretty sure it’s something that I can use to make this dress prettier, (I posted about this here)
Potentially I could make something and sew it on there.. somewhere. The only problem is I don’t have the time or the resources to learn this at the moment. Maybe I could by something to sew on..some kind of pattern or something, or buy some material and add it somewhere. The dress is STILL hanging up on the outside of my wardrobe, 1) so that I don’t forget about it, and 2) to try and inspire me to come up with SOMETHING to pretty it up. But so far nothing. Oh well. Maybe I’ll get more inspired after my exams. :/
In other news we had an earthquake over here (5.3), well epicentre was in Lincolnshire, heh watching BBC news at the moment, and it’s been referred to as a “Very British Earthquake” because everybody is talking about it. (Whoops aren’t I original 
) But we don’t really get these things very often, so of course we’re going to talk about it. Must confess I didn’t feel anything, but people have felt aftershocks all the way over in Holland. But it’s the biggest Earthquake in a long time, there was one that was 6.1 in 1931. (Heh I didn’t mean that to rhyme.) Ahh I’m sure there are those of you out there laughing at me for the patheticness of British Earthquakes? 
Dear D&A 26 February 2008
Posted by kaitharshayr in Uncategorized.Tags: annoyed, D&A, glasses
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Dear D&A,
I am writing because I feel you need to take a serious look at your customer service abilities, and also at the training of your opticians. I feel that it is rather outrageous to throw away someone’s contacts (when they are very very short sighted), provide them with insufficient daily disposable contacts to last until their insanely expensive glasses turn up. Now I realise that it is not really your practice to give away daily disposables like that to tide someone over, but lets face it you did destroy the original contacts with the claim that the person was going to go blind. Also not only did you suggest that the person was going blind, (not to mention that they also had an ulcer) but the suggestion that we had to go to A&E immediately would imply that it was incredibly urgent. You also recommended us to a hospital that was not equipped to deal with eye emergencies, which therefore wasted about 4 hours of our life. Additionally the referral letter (which took an hour or more instead of the 20mins you said it would take to write) did not really mention WHAT you thought was wrong because the doctors kept asking us.
I would like to point out several things here, 1) as we were told by the nice doctors/nursers at Moorfields, ulcer’s are painful, do not tell someone they have one if they are clearly not in any pain, 2) it is surely better to make the suggestion that someone should think about going to A&E, and think about using glasses for a while and NOT that it is urgent said person goes to A&E, just so you can make a sale of horribly expensive glasses. Also if you say you’re going to put a rush on getting the glasses done, so that they are done in 7 days (instead of the usual 7-10) don’t say this if you DON’T GET DELIVERIES at the weekend. That is clearly a downright lie.
Don’t get me started on the fact that even though you suggested Monday for the glasses they are still not ready, and might not possibly be ready till Wed. Where I shall point out you REALLY DID NOT supply enough daily disposables in that case as a pair WILL need to be reused for a day because said person cannot SEE otherwise.
Yours sincerely,
Annoyed
————-
*sigh* Aren’t D&A wonderful? Or am I making too much of this?
(I’d like to add that I have worked in retail, and I know that getting things ordered over from the warehouse isn’t always as instantaneous as we’d like, but I know that I was always honest about the fact that things ordered at the weekend that were in the warehouse, wouldn’t be likely to come in till Tues/Wed because the warehouse was closed at the weekend and I wouldn’t be able to check for stock till Monday. It’s NOT that hard to at least be honest and communicative.)
Edit to add: I wasn’t there at the initial meeting with D&A where they mentioned blindness, however this was the impression they did seem to give to Caleb. And I feel that such an impression was quite unnecessary and they could have thought of a better way to say things WITHOUT giving said impression.
Brain Go Mush 25 February 2008
Posted by kaitharshayr in University.Tags: coursework, project, tabs
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I just felt the need to visually SHOW why my brain is currently going “Argh no more no more PLEASE”.. I’ve been doing research for the coursework question from hell, and also project research… THIS is what it resulted in..
Usualy I just have one browser open with several tabs.. but this was getting too insane so that is 3 firefox browsers witha stupid amount of tabs open, a lot of them research papers. It hurts my brain. 
A&E 17 February 2008
Posted by kaitharshayr in Uncategorized.Tags: a&e, D&A, eyes, moorfields, NHS, north middlesex hospital, opticians, optomertrists
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I think if Demonic Soul Eaters really existed, then they would probably feed very well in some A&E departments, those places are such a drain on a person, especially when you effectively spend 3 hours in a freezing cold waiting room, for effectively no reason. So I hope you got a good feeding Mr Demonic Soul Eater, perhaps your little’uns got a good feed to? I hope they grow up big and strong… (!)
So I suppose I should probably explain exactly WHY I spent 3 hours in A&E? Well Caleb went for an eye test, a NORMAL ROUTINE everyday eye test for new contacts/glasses. He went to D&A, where the optician determined that he had to go to A&E ASAP, because he apparently had an ulcer and was going to go blind, due to his contacts. So obviously it took them an hour to write a referall letter *rolls eyes*, and they told him to go to North Middlesex A&E dept. (I was at home while this was happening.)
So not being sure quite HOW to get to the North Mid, my mum kindly gave us both a lift there. Although she did mention that the Whittington is probably a better hospital than the North Mid. But I digress. We get to the North Mid at.. hmm 2.30pm I think, register at reception, and wait. (The sign on the electronic screen says its a 3 hour wait.) Caleb get’s seen by the triage nurse/doctor(?) who says that because their eye clinic is closed they are sure if he can be seen today. Hmmm… ok. So we wait… and wait.. and wait.. (you know the drill surely?)
Finally pretty much 3 hours after we got there we’re seen by a nurse, who after a quick description of why we’re there goes. “Oh.. well the eye clinic is closed, there isn’t really anything I can do. You’ll need to go to Moorfields, or maybe Weston, as they have emergency eye clinics.” (In fact Moorfields IS the SPECIALIST EYE Hospital….)
Right… So, we’ve just wasted 3-4 hours of our life in A&E, and you can’t even do anything. Now its not the fact that they coulnd’t do anything that really ticks me off, it’s the fact that the Opticians SENT us to North Mid, its the fact that the Triage nurse/doctor didn’t think to say that because the eye clinic was closed that we should go to say Moorfields! It just boggles me that if an Opticians says you need to go to A&E IMMEDIATELY that they wouldn’t tell you to go to the A&E department in a SPECIALIST EYE Hospital(!!!!) GRRRRR!!!!!!!!
Not only was it 3 hours wasted, but it was 3 hours wasted sitting in a blood COLD waiting room!!
So, I phone home, because I can’t remember where Moorfields is but I had heard of it, it’s at Old Street, which duh I should have remembered because I used to work at Old Street. So, my dad drive’s out to North Mid to pick us up (cause I can’t figure out where the sodding bus stop is to get away from there) and drives us to Moorfields. Now THAT is a nice hospital, the waiting room had comfy chairs and it was WARM! Triage was quick, then 10-15 mins later a nurse saw Caleb to do a quick check, and ask some questions, and even she mentioned then that he probably did NOT have an ulcer because if he did he would have been in INCREDIBLE PAIN. Which he wasn’t.
Then, maybe 20-30 mins after that we got seen by a doctor. (We’d been moved to a second waiting room after the nurse, and you actually felt like things were moving in there, because you saw people go in, come out, and leave) And what did the doctor say? After doing a quick check? That there was NOTHING wrong. Oh his eye’s were a bit oxygen starved because of prolonged wearing of contacts, and that there is a point where this is irreversible and can make you blind. BUT that he wasn’t at that stage yet.
So… SO, there was NOTHING WRONG. Now I wouldn’t have minded spending 1-2 hours at Moorfields to be told this. What really irks us both is the fact that we had to waste our time at the North Mid first!! It’s just utterly INSANE. GRRRR.
Anyway I will leave this post here, because otherwise I shall just repeat most of what I’ve already said. But yes, long story short, if EVER your optician tells you to go to some general A&E department (and you live in London), DO NOT listen to them!! GO TO MOORFIELDS. It IS a SPECIALIST EYE Hospital. (Have I made my point..?)
Not enough Yarn? 14 February 2008
Posted by kaitharshayr in Knitting.Tags: cherish, Knitting, Rowan big wool
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So I’ve started knitting Cherish, well when I say started, I’ve done the 2 front pieces and the back, so all I have left are the sleeves, but I’m getting a little worried. I’m knitting the small size and the pattern asks for 4 balls of wool, so I only got4 balls of wool (it’s rather expensive wool too, Rowan Big Wool approx £7.25 a ball) and even at the start I was worried I wouldn’t have enough, because I know I’m a tight knitter. However when I managed to do the front pieces and back using only 2 balls of wool I thought “ahh I’ll be fine”, that’s a ball each for the sleeves, and I’ll have wool left over to seam it all together too.
So I thought I’d be clever and knit the sleeves in the round, to avoid seaming them together. This may have been my undoing. Sleeve number One has about 10 rows left, and I am pretty damn sure I do not have enough yarn to finish it! And if I use the yarn from my final ball then I really won’t have enough yarn to do sleeve number Two! >_<
Now I am wondering if because I knitted in the round I’ve knitted tighter and thus used more wool to get to the desired length. I think I may have to frog the sleeve and re-do it, knitting back and forth doing my best to knit loosely. That may let me finish the sleeve. (Although if that does work I’m going to have fun doing the actual seaming(!))
Alternatively I have considered knitting the extra small size in the sleeve, but even the small sleeve at the moment is a bit tight. So I am a little worried. Hmmmm…. Dilemma.
Anyway here’s a picture of a bit of the top:
Gota get creative! 12 February 2008
Posted by kaitharshayr in Uncategorized.Tags: boring, dress, sewing
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Ok so for the last few months I’ve been having some wardrobe issues, a lot of my clothes are simply too big. At some point I realyl need to sit down and alter the waist lines on many of my skirts. (Thats going to be an awkward/big task..) Anyway, while I was at the shops today, trying to find something to wear to a friends wedding, I have yet to find anything good, I saw THE perfectest perfect suit! I am currently debating with myself as to whether I should spalsh out and get it. I don’t really have a suit at the moment, as my current one.. well I’m pretty sure I just look like I’m drowning in it!! Anyway this prompted me to actually try on said suit clothes at home, and indeed most of them are too big, but I also found this hidden in my wardrobe:
Its something that has been sitting in my wardrobe for a looooong time (serveral years? from before I went to uni I’m sure!!) and I don’t think I have ever worn it. Not once. Ever.
So I looked at it, I tried it on, and yes it does fit, but… it’s boring! Oh so boring.
So I need to find a way to revamp this dress, a way to add colour to make it more interesting so that I actually wear the thing!! Cause it does fit and has a decent shape. My dilemma is what? What can I add/do to it? I’m not really a seamstress. Hmmm… this one might take some thought?
Maybe I could knit some kind of lacy skirt thing and sew it on to the waist? Maybe? but if so what colour?! Gah. Will come up with something one day.
FO - Maddy 4 February 2008
Posted by kaitharshayr in Knitting.Tags: Knitting, maddy, t-shirt, swtc, soy silk, photography, wedding
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Woo can finally blog about another finished item! Waaay back I saw the pattern for Maddy, and totally loved it. It’s very very pretty! So I spent a while figuring out what yarn I was going to use instead (Because Silk is expensive!!), put it on my Christmas list, and promptly forgot all about it. So when I did receive said yarn for Xmas it took me a while to figure out what it was for (good thing I have a Ravelry queue!! Luckily I did, and I also got to cast on using my new KnitPicks Harmony Needles too (ooh they are lovely to knit with!)
So a quick run down of pattern info:
Pattern: Maddy
Yarn: South West Trading Company (SWTC) Soy Silk - Sapphire (pic below)
Needle size: 4 mm
Size: The size given in pattern, luckily it’s pretty much my size
I was pretty worried about casting on with this yarn actually, because I’d had a quick read on Ravelry about the yarn and it seems to have a lot of drape, some FO’s got really long! I just had to hope that the fact that I have a really tight gauge would help me in this. I met stitch gauge, but was roughly half an inch off the row count. So with a bit of trepidation I cast on.
I was also a bit worried as to how complex the pattern would be, even though the designer does mention that all the numbers make more sense once your knitting, its a bit scary. But I have to agree once I’d started knitting, it did make a lot more sense.
The actual knitting for this went, for the most part, reasonably quickly, and the actual pattern was a fun knit. I cannot say the same for the yarn.
I don’t think I ever really want to knit with this stuff again. The first ball I used had about 5 breaks in it, this stuff is expensive it really shouldn’t have breaks in it! And then, I think because of the way I knit or something, but the yarn twisted as I knitted, which was incredibly annoying. I actually found myself wishing there was a break in the 2nd and 3rd balls, just so that I could get rid of some of the twists more easily instead of yelling in despair at the yarn! I suppose I could have cut it…. :/
Anyway, because I knew I didn’t meet row gauge I added another 2 rows of lace pattern to the bottom. I figured that the top is going to get longer once it’s blocked anyway and I didn’t want something that’s almost a dress!
So here is the top, before blocking - well I say blocking, I don’t really need to block it as it fitted fine, and because its knitted in the round I don’t need to do any seeming, BUT you can blatantly see where the new balls of yarn join. I have to get this wet to get the colour to run a bit.
And here is the picture after getting the top wet (gosh this took an age to dry!)
Isn’t it lovely!? And actually it’s quite long! I probably didn’t need to add the extra 2 rows of lace, but eh!
I also learned something about photography (or at least about getting better pictures of me) just now too.. Compare the above picture with this one:
There’s less hip definition in the second one… which means that if I want to make sure I have better pictures of me, I should not put my hands on my hips!
Anyway top is lovely! And I’m suddenly wondering if I could perhaps wear it to a friends wedding.. (assuming I can’t find a good dress, and assuming I find a nice skirt to wear with it!) Although said wedding is in March, but I am knitting a cardigan for that.. soo, heh I think it would be too much pressure to do a skirt as well! 
