Thing-a-day.com

I have the title of this post going round in my head like the reproduction song from Grease too.

And destroying things has been my thing for today - I have several items of clothing whcih have gotten a bit scruffy.  So I cut two of the t’shirts up so I can use the material for a project I have in mind.  I also pulled out a pair of sparkly black trousers which I love but which I’ve not been able to wear for years (too small for me).  Cut those up too and I think if I do the same to another part of old trousers I’ll have enough material to make a cover for the new V  pillow I bought today.  I was thinking of kniting one and I might anyway.

But sometimes it’s fun to destroy something, and that it definitely was today.

I made pancake batter from scratch this afternoon.  Covered the entire kitchen with flour and then covered myself in flour as well for good measure.

Ben and Geri came round late afternoon and they cooked the pancakes.  I wasn’t sure that my arms would be up to the pancake cooking thing.  I had a go at flipping one however and managed to do it.  That surprised us.  Didn’t manage to catch it in the pan though so the floor caught it for me and I gave that one to Milo who also came.  Always good to have a dog to eat the cookery mistakes.  Tried again with another one with Ben holding the pan with me as well that time - flipped it fine and got it caught on the edge of the pan but… it also hit the floor.  We joked that Milo was very lucky because the only pancakes I cooked were made especially for him.  And we laughed lots.

I was going to make toad in the hole if there’d been any batter left but there wasn’t… might be a thing for another day.

4 days late for Shrove Tuesday but well worth it.

I’ve been knitting for my blanket again today. Counting all the squares I had done before Thing a Day started I have six and a half now  (and also lots of cool things from the other days of the project when I didn’t make blanket squares).

I blocked the six I have and laid them out so now I have a much clearer idea of how many squares accross it will need to be - probably 4 but maybe 5 or 6 depending on how wide I want it and in terms of length I suspect I’m going to need maybe 8 - 10 rows.  i think it’s going to depend how I join them together.

I also emptied out a box I’ve been looking at and meaning to organise for months.

Tomorrow I plan to attempt to learn to crochet whcih is something I’ve wanted to learn since well before I learned to knit (and I’ve been knitting for about a year now).  Any tips or tricks or advice as to a quick one day project for a beginner would be more than welcome!

So for day one of the challenge, I created new images for the layout of my main blog.  and I also reinstalled my creative blog and used those images (tweaked a little) for that layout.

But on my website I also have some static html pages.  And I’ve been meaning to update them for basically, forever.  (as far as I can tell the last update was 06/06/06).  So today I used the images I created on Friday to do a new layout for my static html pages - most of which are writings from before I started this site.  And a new splash page.  The splash page is up but the rest will have to wait until later or maybe until tomorrow.  Because I’d forgotten how annoying dreamweaver can be.

Time taken to do the layouts - maybe 30, 40 minutes.  To transfer the content manually because dreamweaver annoyingly won’t do it automatically? Who knows.

… here’s one I made earlier.

I’m feeling a bit run down today (headachey, sick and you don’t want to know what else) so I’ve been slowly adding to an ongoing long project. I’m knitting squares in Garter Stitch they are twenty sts by twenty rows and are knit in Sirdar Denim Ultra in corn. I’ve almost finished knitting one square today and that is todays thing… but it’s not quite done and I need to get off the computer so I thought I show you a finished one so I can get off here for the night, watch Kitchen Nightmare’s and finish it off.

I like to make beaded bracelets and make them fairly often.  But one thing I haven’t done in probably more than 10 years is make a friendship bracelet.  I’ve got loads of abandoned cross stitches meaning I’ve loads of the threads that I will never, ever use for their intended purpose.  And I saw that someone had made one on here the other day.

So I fished out a load of them and had a go and wrapping and knotting and making a bracelet.  It took me maybe half an hour and the end result was it looks good but could do with being bigger - I can get it on but it feels tight and I don’t think it will see much wear.  Also if I did it again I’d want to wrap and knot it tighter.  Maybe another project for another day?

But, for now, I’m glad that I gave it a go and “rediscovered” a lost skill.  And I’m also very glad that the pile of unused threads is smaller now - one of the things I really hope this project will allow is for me to use up a load of my stashed yarns and other crafty materials.

Well, not quite.

I didn’t actually make a book today; I made a bookmark.

it’s knitted - I cast on a bucket load of stitches on my biggest needles (I never counted them), knit two rows and the cast off.  What was the side of the work is actually the top of the book mark.

I used some self patterning purple eyelash yarn which is the first yarn I ever bought way back before I even learned to knit or thought of doing so!  I’m not really sure why I bought it but I’m glad to have finally used part of it after maybe two years.

No pictures today because in the very short term my camera needs new batteries and in the not very long term needs replacing.  I think some form of camera cosy might be a project for one day - this one hasn’t worked right since I dropped it so protecting and padding any new one would be a great idea, me thinks!

Today I’m offering up a slightly ranting disability rights poem.  It’s based on two events which happened today - one of which shocked, sickened and even scared me.

 it’s not my problem

it’s not my responsibility

it’s not my job

or so you tell me

well, guess what?

dealing with your attitude

your disphobia

your ableism

educating you

banging my head against a brick wall

trying desperately to help one of my people

to show that we matter

we care

we are part of society

and

that we are people

the same as you

shouldn’t be MY problem

shouldn’t be MY responsibility

shouldn’t be MY job

but people like you

make it like that

i hate that

but i refuse to let my people suffer

or to suffer in silence

when i can fight

fight

fight

and so

it is MY responsibility

it is MY job

and

it is MY problem.

Until such time

as i no longer hear those words

and

i’m not waiting

20 minutes

to be helped

off the train

and my people don’t

spend an hour

lying on the floor

because no one will help

them up

and

i’m sorry

my wheelchair

causes a

problem

for

you

but

i don’t

really care

disability rights

it’s not your problem

your job

or your responsibility

it is mine

but

it shouldn’t be

it should

belong

to all of us.

want me

to

shut up?

listen

to

me

help

me

learn

from

me

and

MY

people

equality

disability

rights

and

awareness

everyone’s

problem.

[I found another disabled person lying on the floor in a disabled toilet in a main London train station this morning.  He had pulled the emergency alarm but no one came.  When I found him he’d been there an hour - and the first staff member i told went “it’s not my job, not my problem” and walked off. - kinda put the fact i had to wait 20 minutes for help off a train into perspective]

I go swimming every week and I never want to take my whole every day bag with me so I usually just sling some lose change, and my phone in the very front pocket of my rucksack and then spend ages hunting each time.

It’s knitted and it took about two hours (I listened to a slightly less than 1 hour podcast whilst doing it and watched a one hour tv show) It’s garter stitch (pink and black dk held together) and i just knit it till I thought it was long enough and then sewed it together with some more yarn. The loop at the back is to do it up with - it needs a button or a bead putting on for that purpose but I haven’t got anything suitable at the moment.  It looks better than the photo suggests and I could probably fit my iPod in too but haven’t tried that yet.

Yay for new things and crafty things and challenges!

Today I made new images for my blog.  They are almost up but not quite (give me ten minutes), wordpress is having a few hiccups with them at the moment.  But I’m pleased I signed up for this; new images is something I’ve wanted for ages but had had a chance to sort out.  I investigated digi scrapping for ideas for the images and I think it’s going to be something I have a go at soon.

I also did some knitting