Something Old, Something New – December edition

Welcome! Come in and read. This post will not be what you expected but you will learn something about me. However, a word of warning: this is a long, wordy post without many photos!

I started Something Old, Something New for several reasons:

1. Like many people, I have a lot of UFOs here from a variety of crafts. I hoped that if I blogged about them, I would get some of them finished! Hence "Something Old".
2. I attend a weekly "sit and sew" group at my local LYS. Before attending classes there, I attended a class once a month. My teacher there, Elizabeth Wallace, of Aussie Patches, once said that if I was paying for her classes then I should be learning something new (not doing the same thing on a different project). It was advice that I obviously took to heart. At the beginning of this year, I decided that, since I was paying to be in class each week, I was going to learn "something new".
3. I still knit; in fact, as many regular readers would know, I tutor for the Knitters' Guild of NSW. Some of my UFOs are knitting projects. Sometimes I'm asked to tutor a knitting technique which is new to me, like shadow (illusion) knitting -- a workshop I facilitated in July. Most linky parties I've seen are quilt, or at least sewing, based. I guess because knitters have Ravelry where there are groups relating to all sorts of knitting, including knit-alongs and challenges. Because most quilters whose blogs I read seem to dabble in other crafts, I decided that Something Old, Something New would encompass all crafts.

Somewhere in the middle of the year, I lost my way. Instead of focusing on two projects (one UFO, one new-to-me technique), I began listing all my projects relating to other people's linky parties! A gentle reminder from a blog friend (hi Lindsey) got me back on track.

In my non-crafting life, I am pretty good with deadlines. I know something is coming up so I do a little towards it, think about it a lot and, generally at the last minute, have a final push to get it done on time. I have always been like this and it worked particularly well for me when I was at teachers' college (1975-1977) and university (2003-2005).

Even in my crafting life, I tend to be pretty much like that. If I have a workshop to facilitate, I will research the topic, try some knitting, think about it a lot then, a few days before the workshop, have a final push to get the samples done and notes typed up. I'm sure this must drive my good friend and test knitter crazy (hi, D.) but it works well for me. 

I rarely cut it so fine that I get in a panic but my "last minute" relaxed attitude has bothered people in the past. When I was in a musical society, some people apparently complained that I was always the last to be ready but they were asked, "Is she ever late?". When the answer was "no", they were advised not to worry, that's just the 'way Lynne is'!

Similarly, I know that our quilting group has its "Airing" on the second weekend of April each year. That means that I am still working on quilts right up to the end of March (and sometimes later) even though (I'm told) most people in the group have all their quilts for the next Airing done by the end of December!

I've known this about myself for a long time. It is the way I am. I don't do it to hurt other people and I always meet deadlines unless there are extenuating circumstances.

However, over the course of this year, particularly in the last few months, I've come to realise something else about myself: if there are no looming deadlines, I have a tendency to do as I like, when I like! 

Now, where keeping house is concerned, this could be a problem although WM rarely complains (that's why  I call him my Wonderful Man). The essentials are taken care of: I am clean, groomed and clothed; food is bought and stored; clothes are washed and ironed and put away where they belong; our bedroom, the bathrooms and the public areas of the house are tidy -- it's the cleaning-related activities that can be a bit neglected. 

As far as my hobbies are concerned, I tend to work on whatever takes my fancy at the time. It doesn't matter that I've listed Project A and Project B as my Something Old, Something New projects -- if there are no deadlines looming, I'll work on whatever I want! Quilting and knitting are my hobbies and I won't allow myself to pressure me! (I, Myself and Me don't always live in harmony! LOL)

November was one of those months. In the three weeks I had to work on my hobbies (after WM's annual leave finished), I chose to spend two weeks ironing, cutting, sorting and storing scraps. My cutting table still looks like this except the containers have a lot more in them and the contents of the basket on the ends has gone from pink to purple to blue (overflowing) to red (also overflowing) to orange:

During the last week of November, I had few days to sew. It was hot: the temperature got to 44*C (111*F) one day and was still 37*C (99*F) the following day. The weather knocked me about. I was out of the house nearly every day. The only sewing I did was to finish the four-patches for my Jacob's Ladder quilt. After all the time spent dealing with some of my scraps, I just wanted to sew and sew and sew and sew!

You know where I'm going, don't you? I didn't touch my Something Old project. I didn't start my Something New project. 

Something Old, Something New as a concept didn't work for me. I should have realised that before I started but I was hopeful that putting my UFOs "out there" would motivate me to get them done!

Something Old, Something New started the year with quite a few people linking up but, as I lost my way, less and less people joined in. In the last few months, it's only been the same few stalwarts that have linked up. Thank you, Sharon, Katie and Kate, for your support throughout the whole year. 

There were some months during 2014 where Something Old, Something New was the only post I wrote in a month. However, we did de-clutter our old house by removing one-third of the volume of our possessions, move house and spend time unpacking and getting settled here. There were several times when I considered closing my blog because I had neither time nor inclination to write. I've come out of those doldrums now but who knows what the future holds. 

It is with a touch of regret that I bid farewell to Something Old, Something New but, to be honest, it is also with a sense of relief! There will be no more guilt when I enter my sewing room and realise that I should be working on "that project" when it is "this project" that makes my heart sing! 

I think I will still be blogging in 2015. One thing's for sure, I will be working on whatever craft project takes my fancy!

For one last time, please link up here if you're inclined to write about your Something Old, Something New projects. And please, dear readers, do visit these blogs. Introducing bloggers to other bloggers is part of what linky parties are all about!  

a Blogger verification secret; & a dissertation on responding to blog comments

Have you noticed that Blogger’s comment verification (to prove that you are not a robot) has reverted from a jumbled collection of letters and a photographed number to their previous format: a jumbled collection of letters and a recognisable word?

Well, I have stumbled upon a “secret”: no matter whether the jumbled letters occur first or last, type only them – ignore the “real” word (which is, of course, easy to read). In every case where I have tried this, the comment always publishes! I have tried typing only the “real word” and that doesn’t work; but type the non-real word (is that an “unword”?) and it works, every time (just as omitting the numbers always worked!).

When will Blogger make it easy for us and just have a simple maths problem to solve or, better yet, a little box under the comment which one ticks to prove that one is “not a robot”?

~~~~~~

And now a short dissertation about bloggers who don’t respond to the comments left on their blogs (please don’t stop reading now – you may agree with me, or you may not realise I’m talking to you!).

I don’t respond to every comment that’s left on my blog but I reply to the vast majority of them. I think it’s good manners to simply say “thank you” or to show the commenter that the time they have taken to leave a comment is worth my time in response. That’s how friendships are built, online and in the real world!

We all like receiving comments. it makes us feel good, like someone is reading and cares about what we have to say.

I concede that it’s good to keep the conversation going by replying to those comments in the comment section of your blogs but…

If you post with Wordpress, we who post with Blogger don’t get your responses! Did you know that? We don’t know that you have replied to our comments! (I only discovered it by accident when I went back to an old post to check something and found out that the blog owner had responded to my comment! Up until that point, I thought that my comments hadn’t been worth answering!)

From talking to other bloggers, rarely do any of us go back to posts that we have already read to see if a reply has been left on our comment. We just don’t have the time. We could, of course, tick the little box that invites us to receive (by email) the comments that are left on your blog posts after ours – but I, for one, don't want to sort through dozens of comments in my inbox which are largely irrelevant to me!

Those of you who have had me following your blog for a long time, know that I am a faithful commenter. It would be great if I got a response to even half the comments I leave on other people’s blogs!

Since the list of blogs I read is now over 150 and I comment on about 80% of all the blogs I read, I have begun sorting through them and eliminating some. Want to know which ones I’ve eliminated first? That’s right, the bloggers who don’t ever respond to comments I have left! Mostly because I feel like they don’t consider my comments important. There are some “never-reply” blogs still in my reading list; blogs I’ve been reading for a long time, blogs where I know the blogger personally, or blogs I really, really enjoy or whose work I really admire.

So, please, fellow bloggers, if people are kind enough to take the time to leave a comment on your blog and you can contact them, either by email or visiting their blog, please, please, please, do us the courtesy of responding! Don’t just leave your response on your own blog – chances are that we will never see it!

So, what do other bloggers think?

Bloggy news: Grow Your Blog

I read about this idea on Kate's Arty Bits blog.

Like almost every one else, I would like to grow my blog so I'm joining in.

Vicki, the owner of 2 Bags Full blog has asked participants to sign up on this post and to write a special blog post introducing themselves to be published late on 18th.

Being in Australia, and ten hours ahead of Vicki in UK, I will publish early on 19th, so come back then to learn a little more about this blog.

Do you want to join me?

an apology for my absence from commenting on your blog

Yes, I was absent from the blogging world from the beginning of March until about the middle of April. This was mostly due to my interest in family history. I spent so much time researching on the computer that I didn’t have any more time to read blogs or write posts for my own blog.

When I returned to the blogosphere, I tried to catch up with people’s blogs; I really did. I’ve just had a really busy weekend and am trying to catch on posts written since last Thursday. Because of the large number of blogs I have been following, four days away from reading blogs means 73 blogs to catch up with – and some of those bloggers posted more than once in four days.

But, here’s the rub. Our internet provider has taken on more customers in our area than they can comfortably service, resulting in slower and slower internet downloading time for us. In effect, they have 87 people on a 45 seater bus! This slow download time means that our brand-new modem gets frustrated and tries to reconnect (or something like that) which just makes the situation worse. Our speed is so slow that SIL noted that we had slightly better speeds than dial-up!

We have contacted our ISP and they have finally admitted (after two years of trying to get answers) the problem. But they assure us that it will all be resolved on 4 June! After that assurance (about a month ago) the speed got slower and slower. We live only 400m from the exchange and should have excellent service but we have anything but!

Let me give you an example: I tried to open a video on the online art course WM gave me for my birthday. I tried in the middle of the day when most of the people in the neighbourhood are at work or school. It took me 45 minutes to buffer 8 minutes of a 16 minute video, and when I tried to watch the video, Jane sounded like she had the worst stammer in the world. In fact, it took eighteen seconds for her to say two one-syllable words!

But what does this have to do with you and your blogs, dear readers? Well, my internet connection is so slow I can’t use my Blogger Reading List properly so I have to open my browser and type the name of your blog. Then I go off and play a game of “Free Cell” while I wait for your blog to download to my computer. Heaven help me if I want to leave a comment and you a use Blogger and have word verification – it take about two minutes form the time I click “post comment” to the time I can read those dreaded verifications! If you are still using verification, please consider turning it off. Blogger is quite good at catching spam comments (it hasn’t missed any of mine yet) and you can always use comment moderation to make sure you only get comments worth reading.

Anyway, back to the point: It has taken me half an hour to catch up on two blogs this morning and I can’t do this for another seventy-one blogs: who has that kind of time to spend on the internet?

WM and I have done what we should have done a long time ago: we have changed providers. However this may take up to three weeks. In the meantime, our current provider must have found out that we are jumping ship, our speeds are slower than ever!

My apologies to you all. When I move into the 21st century I will just pick up where you are; there's no way I can catch up with all those missed posts. See you on your blog then!

testing

Carol, at Fun Threads, suggested I try Windows Live Writer to publish my blog posts since I have been having so much trouble with B**

So, this post is a test to see how it works. This is a photo of Younger Grandson taken in November 2011. It loaded to Writer instantly – let’s see how it goes when I post to the blog.

Fingers crossed!

eta: It took less than a minute to come across to Blogger as a draft where I have edited to add this sentence! Man, if you have a Hotmail account, you should really give Writer a go! I'm very impressed (mind you, I have only used it this once!)

Thanks Carol!

PS My previous post, about our first attempt on the quilting frame, has been edited to add photos. The hyperlink will take you to the post with photos. The text is the same as the original but it is a different post because the original post had comments but I couldn't add the photos to the original post!

What's in a name?

Today I'm linking up with (fellow Aussie) Dawn's blog As Sweet As Cinnamon. Dawn is having a giveaway and asks the question: What's the reason behind your blog name?

I started this blog because a friend had a blog and it sounded like fun. We had met at the Knitters' Guild and we both had "knitting blogs". Sadly my friend no longer posts on her blog -- she has discovered Twitter! Because I like to knit all year round, not just in winter as my mother (who taught me to knit) does, I called my blog "Too Hot to Knit? Never!" The URL was the result of me thinking it was cool to use numerals in my address.

A couple of years ago I joined a site called ravelry.com, and my user-name there is never2hot2knit. For the sake of consistency, I changed my blog name to "Never Too Hot To Knit".

Last year, my DD and I discovered patchwork and quilting but we didn't take it too seriously until this year when we began classes with Elizabeth Wallace of Aussie Patches in May. I was hooked! And my knitting output decreased dramatically!

A couple of months ago, in acknowledgement that this is no longer a "knitting" blog yet reluctant to start another one, I changed the layout of my blog and the title to reflect who I am now: someone who makes stitches with knitting needles or a sewing machine (and occasionally even a crochet hook)!

Now, I'm off to my sewing machine and perhaps tonight, some knitting in front of the television!

Thanks, Dawn, for that bit of fun!

And since I still have a "small blog", I'm also linking up here at Lily's Quilts:

thanks

Firstly, thanks to Lynne from Lily's Quilts for hosting the Small Blog Meet Up. I have gained quite a few new followers in the last few days. Welcome - I hope you will be happy here!

Thank you to all the people who follow this blog and a special thank you to all who leave comments; it's great to get feedback on what I am doing.

And finally, thank you to all of the people who voted on my 500th post. By far the most popular cause was Medecins Sans Frontieres with 78% of the votes; World Vision received 17% of the votes and World Wildlife Fund 5%. Donations to all three charities have been made on your behalf.

And, because I know you want a photo, here is Younger Grandson. This was taken when he was just four hours old. Like many second children, there just aren't as many photos of YG as there are of his older brother!

Small New Blogs Meet-up

This is far from being a new blog since I have just written my 500th post.

But I do qualify for the "meet up" - I have less than twenty followers.

I would like to meet some new blogging friends so have decided to join the fun.

The creator of this meet-up, Lynne (what a great name! LOL), from Lily's Quilts, has asked that I start by introducing myself and my quilting.

Warning: it's a long introduction and current followers have probably heard it all before!

My name is Lynne. I have been married thirty four years this year. WM ("Wonderful Man") and I live in the metropolitan area of Sydney, NSW, Australia. We have one child, a daughter (DD), who was married in January 2009. She has two sons, one nearly eighteen months old, the other just five weeks old. In this blog I refer to them as Older Grandson (OG) and Younger Grandson (YG).

I have been knitting (on and off) since I was about five years old. I completed my first garment when I was sixteen - a sleeveless sweater with cables on the body and stripes around the lower band and arm holes. I became a serious, every day knitter, some time about 2006 and started this blog in relation to my hobby (hence the title).

My grandmother, who had her own business as an upholsterer/decorator, bought my first sewing machine when I was seventeen. She also taught me to sew because the high school I attended, despite being girls only, did not teach Home Economics! My first garment was a four-gore skirt in floral patterned voile which Nanna made me line for reasons of modesty! I loved that skirt and wore it for many years.

After I was married and working full time, I took "garment assembly" classes one evening a week for four years at the local technical college; so I have been sewing, on and off, for over thirty years.

In March 2010, when OG was just three weeks old, DD and I attended a craft fair. One of the sewing machine companies was running a hands-on workshop, making blocks that were to be turned into quilts for Haiti. DD and I both made one block each and, after a hiatus from sewing for many years, I remembered how much I enjoy the process.

So, DD and I went to our local Big Box Craft Store and bought fabric to make a quilt for OG to lie on the floor - it would keep him warm and protect our beige carpet from baby "spills". We didn't know what we were doing so we followed what we had done at the Craft Fair and chose seven coordinating fabrics. We didn't know how much to buy (I was overwhelmed by too much choice and was therefore not thinking clearly) - one fat quarter didn't seem like enough, so we bought four fat quarters of each!

We made one very wonky quilt. At that time, DD christened us the "Hacky Packy Quilters" (she loves alpacas).

finished size - 30" x 30"

As you can imagine, we had a lot of fabric left. Then we found the Modern Sampler quiltalong on Elizabeth Hartman's blog, Oh Fransson! We needed twelve fabrics so we supplemented the seven with another five. We made thirty of the thirty-six blocks, and ended up leaving five of those blocks out of the quilt because we just couldn't make them work.

finished quilt was 50" x 50"

We ended up using them in a laundry bag instead.

the fifth block is on the other side of the bag

We still have a small amount of those fabrics left but they will get used in scrappy quilts (eventually). This year in March we attended another Craft Fair and met a wonderful lady called Elizabeth, owner of Aussie Patches. Her warehouse,where she holds monthly "Sit and Sew" classes, is an hour and a half's drive from here. We attended three "Sit and Sew" sessions (April - June) but because DD's second baby was due in July we had to stop attending.

While there, I designed and began my Country Houses (applique) quilt. Now I am attending weekly classes in my local area and am finally at the stage of joining the quilted blocks together. I have a few quilts on my "to do" list when this one is finished, plus some other sewing projects.

one block of fifteen - unfinished size of each block 17" square

I look forward to meeting many new bloggers - please feel free to leave a comment; like most bloggers, I love receiving them.

And, if you haven't voted on my 500th post yet, would you please pop over there and vote - it's all for a good cause (or three). Voting will remain open until 8am (Sydney time) Saturday 6th August. Thanks heaps.

500th post

Who'd have thought I would make it this far?

This time last year I had all but disappeared and yet, here we are: my 500th post and to celebrate, I'm doing something different!

I have a certain amount of money (the equivalent of collecting 500 "silver" Australian coins of various denominations)  which I will donate to charity on your behalf!

All you have to do is indicate which of three charities you would like me to donate your share to! Simple, eh?

As the percentages of the poll fall, so will I donate the money.

I did have a poll widget here (which I had to get from somewhere else because Blogger will not allow me to edit my layout!) However, the widget would not accept your votes so I must ask you to leave a comment if you want to vote for your chosen charity - sorry!

The three charities are:

• Medicins San Frontieres (Doctors without Borders)
• World Vision
• World Wildlife Fund

To those who read this blog, whether you comment or not, thank you - this blog would not be the same without you.

And a special thank you to those who are listed as followers - who'd have thought that I'd go from three followers to nineteen in a few short months?!

a parcel came today by courier

At about half past ten this morning, there was a knock on my door. I'm not usually home on Monday mornings; I should have been at sewing class but didn't feel well enough to go today. I don't usually answer the door if I am home alone but I was expecting a parcel (albeit later in the week).

I signed for it and was told, "be careful, it's a bit heavy."

The box looked like this

I patiently waited until 3pm; a little while after WM got home from work - I had to share it with someone and he is always supportive of my crafty habits. When we opened the box, this was inside:

some of you know already!

We removed the protective packaging, and this is what we saw:

And here it, unpacked from the shipping box:

the cutter, three dies and two cutting mats

It came in its own sleeping bag!

Here it is, closed up, ready to travel (that's why it's called Go! and this is the baby - small - version)

Here it is, ready for use (and that's another post)!


Thanks, Accuquilt, for offering the Go! Baby as a give-away on various quilting blogs and for getting this one to me (from USA) so quickly!

Thanks, Nova, of A Cuppa and a Catch Up (an Australian quilting blog), for hosting the give-away.

best ... blogs

I had planned to show you the goodies I got when I bought my new sewing machine "Jan", but the weather has been grey, grey and more grey, so I can't take any photos. That post will have to wait.

Now that I have taking up quilting, I follow a huge number of blogs - I'm not game to work out exactly how many!

Two of the blogs I follow made it on to the 55 Best Quilting Blogs as published in Quilters Home Magazine.

That got me thinking: is there such a list for knitting blogs?

So, I did what any of you would have done, I typed "50 best knitting blogs" into a search engine (my new computer defaults to Bing) and found a long list of responses. Here are two of them:

• Our 50 Favorite Knitting Blogs from OnlineClasses.net
• Top 250 Up And Coming Linked Knitting Blogs from KnittSings

That should give you something new to look at in your spare time! LOL

fun mail*

Last month I won a give away on Kate's Arty Bits blog. Kate has been re-organising, using or clearing out her scraps.

On Tuesday, I received a package in the mail. Because we have had rainy weather, it arrived a bit worse for wear - the envelope was started to disintegrate. Can you see what's peeking through?

The contents were all intact.

Two blocks like this:

Six blocks like this:

and a pile of half square triangle units - many with Christmas themed fabric.


Debbie, from Esch House Quilts, asked recently about challenges. As those who read this blog regularly know, I have been playing with half square triangles. I am looking forward to the challenge of what to do with these.

Thanks so much, Kate; one woman's scraps are another woman's source material!

PS I "borrowed" the title of this post from Jennifer at Ellison Lane Quilts who also recently received "fun mail".

Why do you keep looking at this page?

Okay, I'll take the bait!

Every day, at least five people view this page on my blog. No one ever leaves a comment so I can't figure out what the fascination is.

Can someone please tell me:  Why?

of this and that and unravelling the mystery

warning - long photo-free post

Do you like my new-look blog? I found the sidebar made the place looked so untidy - it was almost depressing! And what better time for a bit of spring cleaning than the middle of spring? LOL

Last week, knowing that I had to return to both jobs this week [usually terms begin a week apart] I should have been preparing lessons. But what was I doing? Of course I was. A blog doesn't change by itself. First I had to find out how to make that table-link-thingy at the top there, then I had to write a whole lot of new posts and link them and then... well, I won't bore you with the whole pseudo-geeky story! Suffice to say I'm pretty happy with the new, uncluttered web-home!

Purple is my favourite colour but I'm thinking I might change the background to cream. Hmmm! I'll have think on it some more.

And, by the way, my lessons are all prepared! All sixteen hours of them - I may even have enough to take me into next week!

And the sock workshop? Well, we had about twenty attendees [I didn't actually count them]. We had some people knitting on 4 dpns, some on 5 dpns, some on two circulars and some on one - a challenge that was, I'm happy to say, successfully met due to the capable assistance of my friend D [who could knit and graft socks in her sleep] and the goodwill of the participants in helping each other.

Everyone seemed thrilled to have learnt a new cast-on [I know it as invisible cast on]. And those that mastered grafting were doubly pleased! And yes, most of the participants did finish the whole sock at the workshop.

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat! I love teaching/tutoring/facilitating and when it's related to my favourite hobby - what could be better?

"But what about the title of this post?", I hear you ask! Well folks, this may not come as a surprise to some, but back in June [on WM's birthday to be exact] I succumbed. I said I wouldn't but I finally caved in. Not because I didn't think it was a wonderful place - I knew it was. David Reidy [Sticks and String podcast] never stopped talking about when he got his invitation. He coerced, he cajoled, and still I stood my ground! It was me I didn't trust - too much time on the computer already, didn't need any new distractions!

But I gave in [I said that already, didn't I?] All because Kris - the Web Goddess - was coming to our Guild group to talk about the knitternet. We were asked to do it before she came and I finally caved in!

Oh, come on - read the title again! You can find me there as never2hot2knit but I warn you, I'm not there often! Too many distractions, too little time! *tee hee*