Arty Farty - Surrogate Slippers and Toasty Toes

This was written in 2010 - soon after we moved back to Wellington from India.

I have a lot to catch up on as I've been really busy both on the needles, in the garden and on the GeriPie front.

First up, Chris has managed to get out of India and is now based back in Melbourne. He came home on leave for a few weeks over Xmas and was feeling the cold, even though the weather in Wellington was pretty darn good if I say so myself!

Anyhoo, Pat took pity on Chris' blue feet and lent him his felted clogs. This resulted in one happy Chris with toasty warm toes. So, I decided to get stuck in and make Chris a pair of his own, even though I had sworn vehemently that I would never make anything felted ever again after the crazy measures I had to go to to get Pat's clogs to felt. I didn't quite finish Chris' before he left to go back to Melbourne for work, but I came close.

Once the knitting was finished I decided I'd try to avoid the frustrations I experienced whilst felting Pat's clogs and did a bit of research, the upshot of which was that I  discovered that lighter coloured wools don't always felt very quickly because the bleaching needed to achieve the lighter colour affects how the wool reacts during the felting process.

AH HA!!! Maybe that's why Pat's took soooo long ...

Felting day arrived and I prepared to go to war, following all of the suggestions I had come across in my reading -

* Put item in a pillowcase
* Use a hot wash
* Use a low water setting
* Use towels or jeans to aid agitation
* Check felting progress every 5-10 minutes

and then slowly over the next hour I abandoned or augmented nearly all of them -

* Take item OUT of the pillowcase so they bash around more in the machine
*Turn the cold feed to machine off, discover water is still not  hot enough, so boil kettle 10 million times and add to the machine - ad nauseam
* Use low water setting
* Remove towels until only one remains
*Check felting progress sporadically at first as nothing happens - but DON'T get complacent as I discovered that the clogs went from Shrek size to Tinkerbell size VERY fast when I got the combination of temperature, agitation and water level correct.

As you can see, this time the process worked beautifully and Chris now has a good solid pair of clogs awaiting him on his next visit home. I guess he will require a second pair for his 'home-away-from-home' in Melbourne ...

Arty Farty - On the Needles or Getting a Head Start...

Written in 2010...

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!