Creative Chaos

Creative Chaos

Friday 29 September 2017

I left

I left this place today after 8 years and one term. I'm a bit distraught still. 
Life will go on.
I'm taking 3.5 months to be unemployed before I start university fulltime in January 2018.
I'll miss the kids and the book reading and buying.

































Saturday 23 September 2017

Sigh.

It's polling day today. This is an election which I think has totally split the country in half. It could go either way. All I know is that I'm totally sick of the poverty, third world rates of disease, over crowding, low wages, an education system letting 20-30% of students down, houses being an average of $1 million in Auckland, high food costs etc.
It is basically (and I'm being frank) voting for social justice and caring for everyone in the country or voting for selfish reasons. I'm quite happy if my children want to leave New Zealand and never return. I feel sorry for many children growing up in a country which has one of the highest levels of inequality in the OECD.
Too many New Zealanders have their heads buried in the sand over social issues. We have a hospital system that is struggling to cope and one of the highest rates of suicide and mental health issues in the entire world.
I'm sick and tired every day of seeing poverty in a community doing the best they can do with the little they have. Wages can not cover basic things now.
Any way I'm going to be very depressed for weeks, as I'm pretty certain it won't go the way I want it to
.

Sunday 17 September 2017

The Twelve Week Finish Craft Items Challenge


My cousin and I have set ourselves up with a 12 week challenge. The idea is to actually FINISH craft items which we started years ago... in some cases on my list 2 decades ago... - ha! We have 12 weeks to finish as many items we can - I have to decrease this list down to 12 items by tonight, so we start off with an equal number. Some of the larger items I have listed more than once, as I'll work on bits of a top/jumper etc. We'll reward each other with little gifts every 2-3 weeks or so as we go along and tick something off the list!


1. Green knitted top - finish back
2. Retiary - 20 cm
3. Gingerbread - finish front (I think near end)
4. green top sleeves
5. Retiary 20cm
6.Mandela cross stitch
7. red socks (2nd one)
8.. Green top front
9. Retiary 20cm
10. Tapestry cushion
11. Aissha's socks (2nd one)
12. stripey socks (2nd one)
13. fancy red socks
14. VP socks
15. sock blanket
16. pentagon blanket
17. quilt top and bottom
18. dishcloth pile - all ends sewn in
19. Sew in ends on orange scarf


Now I only have 8 more days of work to do, so I will have plenty of free time to craft - the hard thing will be not starting something new I think.... Some of the above I stopped as got stuck etc!












Monday 11 September 2017

Spring and little gardens

It's FREEZING! Like I'm in 3 layers of wool inside! Driving sideways rain, hail, thunder, lightning.
And I'm in the tropical north.
Between the massive, massive floods in Bangladesh, earthquakes, Florida,USA  etc etc, we truly are taking a batting!

I've planted more winter veges - if the cold continues, they will continue to do well!
One of our local supermarkets (New World) have started their "little garden" promotion again. For every $40 one spends, you receive a little planting kit for your garden. It comes in a little cardboard wrap around kit, with a biodegradable pot, either a seed mat or seeds and a dirt pellet, which by putting 50mils of water on, turns magically into dirt!

I haven't planted seeds for centuries, preferring to buy little seedlings. I'm hoping they all work, and that some sun arrives soon to help them along!

Anyone else's supermarkets run any cool promotions like these? All my teachers have received classrooms sets of little gardens - what a neat thing to do with your class!











Saturday 9 September 2017

Lemon Honey

I'm off to see Midnight Oil play tonight - one of those bands I've always wanted to see.
It has been garbage weather today- squawls all day long, sunny, then sideways rain, thunder, lightning. The cyclones, earthquakes and floods around the world are terrible - this winter has apparently seen the second highest amounts of rainfall here in Auckland. We are volcanic rock here, so the chances of flooding in this particular part of Auckand are very low...

A friend and I made lemon honey this morning. We used this recipe from Taste and tripled the recipe... It worked a treat! We whisked and whisked until thick.
We had to buy more eggs and get more lemons too. I always sterilise my jars in the oven. My lemon tree needs to produce more lemons! Marmalade up next!



Thursday 7 September 2017

Back from the framers

I was late to the party discovering Lizzie Kate  stitching patterns. I really love them and have a few kits ready to stitch in term 4!

Back today, from spending two months with the framer, is my first Lizzie Kate. I love it! This was the husband's Christmas present last year - took me a while to get it to the framers in the first place!!

It was stitched on 32 count linen - I had to go and buy a decent magnifying lamp to do this one! I used the exact DMC threads it asked for.




Tuesday 5 September 2017

2017 socks

I like Tuesdays. My university day, but these past two weeks have been uni hols, so I've also been trying to catch up on notes (doing okay too!). Today I got 4 loads of laundry dry and talked to the garden :)

Then I found a pile of socks I'd knitted the past few months and f-i-n-a-l-l-y sewed the ends in!

 Yes I do have tiny feet (a 3.5 UK / size 36 euro) .
 left to right - Meraki sock wool; Waikiwi with green oddments; Drops wool (2 colours striped)
left to right - Stray Cats wool; Drops oddments with a non-label grey.

Then I found these un-finished... I have no idea what year they were even started...

 I've just un-ravelled this an started again as I knit a lot tighter now...
 The wool on the left is from Oamaru - I knitted the other one centuries ago, but have no idea where it is, so will un-ravel this too and use the wool as toes/heels etc; the gold one is a Tin Can Knits pattern, but no idea what the wool is...
And this is my first ever toe up (which i HATED!) with gorgeous Vintage Purls wool and an after heel (which I've also never done before...).

Plenty to do in 3.5 weeks time, but with only 15 days of actual work left.... I've knitted quite a few more pairs for workmates over this winter too! A few more pairs for a few more fabulous teachers to go yet...