WOYWW #305

 I haven't joined in for weeks now due to the numerous hospital appointments, tests, scans etc for hubby who had a successful operation to remove a tumour and his lymph glands last Wednesday. Today he has been back to have the drain changed and now I need to crochet him a little bag to carry it round, it is much smaller than the bottle and pump he did have to carry round and was using one of my cotton totes to do so, putting the long handles over his head to take the weight.

Anyway it has been tough, and we have been keeping Mother in Law in the dark so she doesn't get stressed out and have a fall again, so we haven't been able to visit because with tubes sticking out she is bound to notice something has happened to hubby - unless I manage to totally disguise the equipment!

The bags above are both camera bags, the big rucksack is one I got by taking out a subscription to a photo magazine, they upgraded it to the laptop version - I couldn't imagine carrying my old £5 jumble sale laptop around, and it has gone now. I don't do laptops, the keys are too close together and it hurts after a short while, touch screen is better. Anyway I am rambling, back to the bags, I have been studying two small bags online for months, the one pictured which is Manfrotto, the Rolls Royce of photo equipment apparently, and another one on Amazon which was a make I didn't know and slightly different design which would also carry a tripod underneath using straps, so it was horizontal. The second one had great reviews, and I might want to carry a tripod - mightn't I? Well I thought and thought, read reviews over and over, finally I decided to go for the Manfrotto, it was RRP of £79.90 or thereabouts and I found it for sale for £25, this worried me a little, it was still for sale months later - was it rubbish? Then I read one review which said that you could only really carry a travel tripod on the second bag, and maybe the Manfrotto was better quality so I ordered it.

I often wished I took my camera when we went walking, or when I did take it I carried it all the way round in my hands, and only took one lens - then didn't find anything to photograph and had sore hands, or I took the rucksack which was on my back and awkward to get the camera out - Shaun would eventually take pity on me and offer to carry it then he had the camera and was too far ahead to get it if I needed it quick! The new bag only weighs .9 kg the old one weighs 2.3kg, the new one is not much heavier than the old one when it has my camera and both lenses packed in it, it is comfy to wear and when I got the hang of how to wear it it was fairly easy to unclip the safety strap and swivel it round to use. I've taken it for a walk twice to try, not actually used the camera, but the beauty of it is that I can take my hiking sticks (I try and do Nordic Walking) and the camera because my hands are free. I am one happy bunny!

I got most of this jacket for my grandson done while waiting in the hospital, it is in a 4ply bamboo and cotton yarn. The pattern was by DMC and was a bit tricky to get right, and the size skipped from 2-3 years straight to 4-5 years, I made the bigger size. I got the buttons at the recent craft show at Westpoint in Exeter at the end of January. I'm quite pleased with it apart from the pockets, they look small, didn't seem to match and I added a row in situ to the one on the left of the photo.

Here is Kenny wearing the jacket and feeding the fish, one piece at a time and in this photo he decided to send the food down the waterfall - boys will be boys! He is nearly 3 and this is size 4 to 5 years old and not that much too big for him.

Well this was him trying it, and we have had such lovely weather this week just like Summer that he didn't keep it on for long, although it is bamboo and cotton yarn so should be good for cool evenings. It became apparent that the button/hood band was too tight and the hood wouldn't be able to be used, and this combined with the pockets prompted a deep memory - it dawned on me that when I did that band and the pockets (very late one night/early the next morning when I couldn't sleep for various reasons and actually stayed up until the morning then had to go out so couldn't catch up) I may have forgotten that I needed to go up a size hook. Something in my sleep deprived brain thought it was fine to use a smaller hook for the band - no! So I have unpicked it and redone it and the pockets and I am so much happier with it (I hope the hood will be usable too) now.

We even had lots of butterflies and bees with the warm weather, nights are very cold, and the weather is forecast to return to usual Spring temperatures by the weekend, so maybe not time to ditch the cold weather clothing yet!

 When you find a closing down sale it seems rude not to buy a big box full of yarn - right? The only problem is I found a cardigan pattern I love and worked out what I needed wrong, don't think I have enough of any colour to make it, so I will have to think again or lose a lot more weight! I have bright green, hot pink, chilli pepper and some cream slub. This is Wendy Mode DK yarn and 50% Merino wool, should be nice and warm.

 I also bought a couple more balls of this James Brett yarn that I used to make those hats and Scarfati's and hand warmers earlier in the year, it is very nice to work with and has some wool content.

Then someone posted about this gorgeous Sirdar self striping yarn on offer at 85p a ball at Love Knitting, so I checked it out. This is when I realised I had worked out the Wendy Mode all wrong, so I decided to make my cardigan in this, I needed a couple of balls of chunky for another project, and I ordered a few balls more than I actually need of the rest to get free postage, it is all the same yarn - when it arrived I thought they had sent me a wrong pack, it looked so different! So I will have that cardigan and maybe something striped with the other yarn but it will be bright.

I have a lot of yarn to get through now, better not buy any more lol.

I had yarn everywhere, so I went out and bought two more underbed boxes to stash it all in - well that was the plan. I couldn't even get all of the yarn pictured above in the two tubs and I thought I was going to get all of the rest of the yarn in the room put away too!

The card making tidying and decluttering hasn't got anywhere with all that has been happening, I really must get back to it.