Another project

I haven't shown you this before because.  Well I kept forgetting!!!

I was wandering around Hobbycraft some weeks ago and I spotted these gorgeous colours of yarn (purple, dark green, variegated).  I tried and tried NOT to buy them but in the end I simply had to and that's when I had to make a decision on what to do with them.  

I've decided to make this waistcoat (see below).  The reason for a larger project like this and one that is knitted in rows and not in the round, is to make myself practice continental purl stitch.  Now this isn't as easy as the knit stitch but I'm slowly getting there.  I keep a crochet hook handy for the occasional dropped stitch and this is my progress (after several weeks) so far.  

After the fingers and thumbs

I have just carried on as I didn't want to bore you all to bits so here are the finished gloves for my daughter.  

I didn't really enjoy them as they were so plain but they're done now.  

Next small 'job' is a hat to go with them.  Now I'm going to tackle two patterns for this.  Last year I knitted a hat for myself but it was one that needed stitching up afterwards.  This time I'm going for avoiding having that seam by using circular needles.  That's if the amount of stitches fit on the circular pin and allow me to go 'round the bend'!!!  No comments there, please as I know I'm already round that bend!!!

These are the two hats that I'm hoping to combine.  First of all this one and then this one.  

I think poor old BC3 is going to drive himself round the bend with all the counting etc!!!

My pattern site

Well it's been six weeks of worrying about my pattern site.  

You will have noticed that I use 'freeservers' as my web host and I bet a few of you thought 'good old Jane, she's got it for free'!!!   Well that's not the case!!  I pay for my space every two years (this time it's £105.00) and I usually hope to raise that amount from people clicking on adverts on this blog - hint, hint.  Lately that hasn't happened as much as people seem to have migrated to Facebook.

Anyway, I had an email from freeservers about six weeks ago telling me to check my billing status as they were going to take money from my account on October 11th.  Well I checked and horror of horrors the card I'd used two years ago was now obsolete.  No problem, thought BC3, I'll just change it to my new card.  

WRONG.  I got a big red sentence at the top of my page telling me - well you'll see below.  I tried another 12 or 13 times and each time Freeservers appeared to take 72 pence out of my bank account.  Actually that didn't really happen as they turned out to be ghosts and disappeared from ‘pending’ in the account after a few days.  I tried from time to time over the following four weeks and each time I got the same message.  I didn't ring them (too expensive from the UK) but did email but those were only answered once a week and were no help at all.

Finally at the beginning of last week I thought I'd have a final try at updating the billing information again and much to my surprise it appears to have worked. 

Yesterday dawned (11th October - pay Freeservers day) and I got a text from my bank saying that a company was trying to debit an amount of £105 from my account and told me to follow instructions - which I did very carefully as I knew who and what it was.  Blow me down with a feather but my bank saw fit to decline to pay even though I’d told them to.  I rang the bank and am now waiting for Freeservers (remember they don’t answer emails very often) to try again and the lady at my bank who I spoke to said that the payment would go through if requested again.  So if my website disappears then you’ll all know why.  

8:15 this morning and an update to the last paragraph.  PAYMENT HAS FINALLY GONE THROUGH!

Meanwhile I'd decided that the winter would be spent moving the whole caboodle over to another hosting site.  That's probably nearly 400 pages with at LEAST two links per page etc etc.  What a waste of valuable crafting time!!!

Keep your fingers crossed that it’ll all get sorted.  

Monday moan

Front side/back side tatting.  Is it important or not?  

Personally I don't think it is.  Not at all - BUT I do do it when I think it's going to be for a competition (not that I've entered one for years) or if I'm going to scan a piece for my blog (which I usually do!!).  

As a lot of us give our tatting away then it's probably a good idea to do what I think is the original way of tatting - with disregard to the way it may look.  That's just making the knots the same way on both rings and chains.  

The point is that the receiver of the tatted gift won't know there's a 'right way up' or a 'wrong way up' and when they plonk their doily (or whatever) on a table that won't even occur to them.  So I'm trying to say that it honestly doesn't matter to most people and certainly NOT to those who know little about our craft!!!

I've never seen mention of front/back in any old books or leaflets and I think it's a modern idea.  Well, within the last 20 or so years.

So today's moan isn't really a moan - more a discussion point but I'd love to know what people think.