Friday 31 March 2017

Crochet

A long term goal of mine is to learn to crochet and with the help of my friend I have been crocheting a throw, it's basically a large never ending granny square in colours to match my wallpaper it looks lovely thrown over my sofa.
I am also doing a series of smaller squares joined together to make a second. I have no interest at the moment in crocheting garments but I would like to expand my interest so a couple of friends and I are going to Sarah Hazell, tutor, for a workshop in May!
We are crocheting mandalas which is spooky as they are mentioned in this months newsletter from the Bipolar services. In fact strangely they mention topics of interest e.g. Knitting and cross stitch and mindfulness too!  This month we are having a Pharmacist give a talk and there is an interesting article on why Lithium seems to work for 30% of patients and not for the remaining 70%. I'm one of the lucky ones that does respond but unfortunately a weight gain was inevitable and I've struggled with this the past few years. To that end dh and I are on a quest to eat healthily and already we have lost a few lbs.  
Next week I will report on the Bipolar support group.

A Year of Techniques- March

This year is going to be exciting because I've joined in with the lovely Jen Arnall-Culliford for her A Year of Techniques in which each month brings a new project to knit and learn a technique and we've had the first - helical stripes knitting a pair of lovely arm warmers, pattern by Jen herself. At the end of the year we will have covered 12projects and a book to keep, plus patterns.
I am glad that I joined in and Jen's ravelry  group is lovely and friendly and no one tut tutted at my minor mistakes in this first project.
I wound the ball that I got from buying the kit (optional) and set off knitting picking up the technique easily and I enjoyed this project very much - it was fun to do and I'd do it again.
Next week sees month two and all we know is the needle size and gauge- I shall have to be patient!





New knitterly lovely things

This month saw me buy some lovely things for knitting, as well as yarn and patterns I enjoy trying new needles and love a new project bag. In fact I have dozens of bags and all stuffed with wips which I am trying to do something about, but there's room for another gorgeous bag from the gorgeous Sarah Hazell !
The needles are the lovely Zings.
The book is The Mindfulness in Knitting by Rachael Matthews







Friday 3 March 2017

Time Management

At this months bipolar support group meeting we learnt about time management and the extra stresses our condition has when suffering from a higher or lower than average mood.  It was very interesting and going round the table it was apparent that making lists was popular but that we needed to be kinder to ourselves and generally relax the pressure to do everything.
They do a "hot cross bun" to show the way a feeling can affect the biology and the whole thing was interesting.
I like a list!  A list makes me feel secure and confident!  I make lists for shopping and menu planning and I use ravelry to make my own version of a list to control my knitting. I often wish I could start again on ravelry, there are things I'd do differently like using the queue function and favourites to show what I really intend knitting vs what I'd like to knit!
With my friend's help I am slowly getting organised in my craft room and starting to manage my extensive stash a little better, for example we are writing pattern suggestions and putting it into a bag with the yarn.
Being organised helps my thinking- at the moment I am hypomanic which means I have racing thoughts (of the knitterly variety especially) and feel I can do far more than is reasonable and am liable to get get excited at the thought of casting on yet another project.
I thought I would do a review of what I currently have on the go and this includes my lovely crochet blanket, my striped shawl, colourwork cowl and the newest projects - toe up socks and the year of techniques arm warmers!
Next time I will blog about my knitting in particular the helical stripes technique which is simply delicious!
Next month at the bipolar group we are having a Pharmacist visit to talk about meds!