Fan Art

My daughter loves Steve Cole's books, specially the Astrosaurs, so her drawings are full of dinosaurs. I'm not surprised since her two favourite topics at the moment are dinosaurs & space and these books combine both. However I find it slightly ironic that she doesn't even glance at all the pink, sparkly, super-sweetness-oozing kitten, fluffy bunnies or fairies books targeted to girls of her age; but goes straight for the ones packed with action and darker colours.

Let's pretend

Let us pretend that today is Sunday, because with my husband working everyday I struggle to remember what day of the week it is. Last week on seeing our milkman my first thought was "But I canceled the Thursday delivery", followed by "Maybe it's Saturday. Can't be Saturday, feels more like Wednesday. However he doesn't deliver on Wednesday... Tuesday? Could it really be only Tuesday" It was Tuesday, tomorrow will be another and I need to remember to put the empty milk bottles out.

Getting the milk delivered was one of our better ideas to "simplify" our lives. We consume a lot of milk and one member of the family is particularly prone to meltdowns if there is no milk available in the morning to have with her breakfast cereal. This way we never run out, don't have to walk to the shops just to get a bottle of milk after we already did a lot of walking or to call my husband to pick one up on the way home from work. To tell you the truth the best part of it for me is that these glass milk bottles remind me of my childhood and I love opening them by squashing the foil top.

Anyway, back to the quote for the last week - it has to be this optimistic "I can overcome anything"-attitude song from the Russian cartoon, because I was singing it a lot in my head in the past few days.

Кручу педали, кручу

Кручу, кручу, кручу педали кручу
С горы, с горы, с горы как птица лечу,
Спешу, спешу, спешу, спешу налегке
На встречу радуге-дуге

Припев:
Пусть, пусть дорога вдаль бежит
Грусть пусть на сердце не лежит
Мне все на свете по плечу
И с песней этой качу по свету,
Качу качу куда хочу.

Терпи, терпи, терпи когда тяжело,
Скрипи, скрипи ты подо мною, седло.
Не смей, не смей, не смей на миг ослабеть
Умей себя преодолеть

Припев.

Лечу, лечу, лечу не знаю куда.
Хочу, хочу, чтоб это было всегда
Сильней, сильней, сильней лишь зубы сомкну,
Но я назад не поверну.

Припев.

Quotable Sunday

In the meantime the strike is over, with a remarkably low loss of life. All is quiet, they report, all is quiet.

In the deserted harbour there is yet water that laps against the quays. In the dark and silent forest there is a leaf that falls. Behind the polished panelling the white ant eats away the wood. Nothing is ever quiet, except for fools.
— Alan Paton (Cry, the Beloved Country)

..

Back to work

My husband went back to work on Wednesday. He worked today (Saturday), will be working tomorrow and the next two-three weekends (both Saturdays and Sundays). He may get one or two Wednesdays off instead. During the normal workdays he’ll be leaving home at 7am; if we are lucky, he’ll be back by 7:30pm, but anything between 8 and 10 is more likely. Getting through every day is relatively easy. The hard part is how little time the four of us get to spend together.

More Yarn

Few days after I wrote about my attempts to use up the yarn that I already have in my stash I received a swap package from Stagasaurus and as usual among many goodies it contained some yarn - four balls of Patons UK Mirage DK cotton and bamboo blend.

Luckily for my stash-busting plans I knew exactly what to make out of it - few days earlier I started to knit a simple summer top for my daughter, but the pattern didn't work well with the yarn I was using and I was happy to re-cast.

Stagasaurus was kind enough to include a book and a drawstring embroidered bag for my daughter.

Don't you think that it is beautiful? However, wait until you see the one she made for me.

The message on it made me want to hide away in my studio space and create something special.

This is the third "February" swap we did together and I'm very eager to do another one next year as I keep on smiling for days after receiving a package from this talented and creative woman.

Anyway, back to the yarn stash. Few more days passed and my father-in-law arrived with a ball of gorgeous hand-dyed sock yarn from Nurturing Fibres. Poor man! He got it on the recommendation of my sister-in-law and felt a bit embarrassed of giving me such an unworthy present as he struggled to wrap his mind around the fact that someone may love a small ball of wool, so I had to do a lot of knitting in front of him to help him understand that it was a perfect present as my thanks didn't seem to convey the message.

What should I make out of it? I'm tempted to knit Citron shawlette, but am worried that it will be a very small one as there are only 330 meters of yarn. Of course if it is too small I can always give it to my daughter, who loves orange shades and was asking for a shawl of her own for ages, but I would rather make something for myself. Any knitters out there, who have any recommendations?

First Bike