CastOnItis Strikes Again!

I've gone and done it again, cast on another new project! After yesterdays unhappy attempt at knitting lace I thought I'd try something else with some yarn I'm more comfortable with, a nice lovely 4ply!! When I say lovely 4ply I mean it, Malabrigo Sock yarn is lovely to work with and is fast becoming a favourite along with the Handmaiden Casbah Sock I've used a couple of times.
This time I'm trying Gudrun Johnston's Aestlight Shawl, which has rather a different construction. You start with just one stitch and add to it at the beginning of each row by looping the yarn over the right needle, it produces the open stitches on the edges so that they can be easily picked up for the border to be worked. So far I'm about 60 or so stitches in to a cast on of 154, not too bad for an hour or two's work for me.
This is the easy part, the proof of how successful I'll be in sticking with this project will be when I get to the trickier border and edging sections. But then again there are over 500 projects on Ravelry so it can't be too hard, I hope!

A past life.

In my previous life (a life where I was known as Susanne, not as Mummy) I spent a great deal of time looking at, reading about, and studying art. I was interested in most forms of art, but modern art soon became a firm favourite. In particular, Edward Hopper's work stood out for me as something special, so much so that I wrote my Masters' dissertation on it.


Due to that I immersed myself in his work, reading as much as I could and studying picture after picture, over and over again. The one thing I felt I was lacking though was seeing his work with my own eyes, I felt that my writing would be less informed because of it. Nevertheless I finished the study and did reasonably well, but I still felt the need to see his work.


Soon after my graduation my husband and I were married and off on our honeymoon, first stop New York. My poor husband got dragged around gallery after gallery so I could absorb as much as I could. I managed to see some brilliant works of art that I had thought I'd never be lucky enough to lay my eyes on, and discovered more that just jumped off the canvas, works that had done nothing for me when I had seen them in books.

As I stood in awe of the many Edward Hopper's works we managed to find, Rob snapped these pictures of me so I could always remember that I had seen the real deal, so I could prove to myself that I had actually seen them. Even though they're not the best pictures of me, I'm so glad to have them.

Works in order of appearance:
The Lighthouse at Two Lights, 1929, Oil on canvas, 74.9 x 109.9cm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hugo Kastor Fund, 1962.

House by the Railroad, 1925, Oil on canvas, 60.7 x 73.7cm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Given Anonymously.

Tables for Ladies, 1930, Oil on canvas, 122.5 x 153cm, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, George A. Hearn Fund, 1931.

Just had to try it....

I came across a little meme today whilst looking at Tinkingbell's blog where you Google Unfortunately (insert your name here)

This is what I've come up with:

Unfortunately Susanne could not go with me. So I am going to be without her for 4 weeks.

Unfortunately, Susanne does not seem to plan to have any forthcoming training courses organized in my local area that I could attend.

Unfortunately Susanne was sick up in Sweden, so she had decided to stay at home, rather than infect all the rest of the team with her bugs.

Unfortunately Susan twisted her ankle on her way off stage at the end of the gig

, given that she was wearing heels the proportion of Olympic ski jumps,

Unfortunately, Susanne has been having episodes of vertigo since then, which may be connected to the toxicity.

Unfortunately Susanne had a major epic because her hand jammer was not on properly.

Then there's my all time favourite:

So true, but now unfortunately Susanne has decided she simply has to have Lederhosen! Dirndlen, you see, "are sooooo last Tuesday!

I'm off to find me some Lederhosen, do you think I'll find some to go with my purple shoes??

This Is...My favourite children's book

At the moment my favourite children's book is 'The Escape of Marvin the Ape' by Caralyn and Mark Buehner. Discovered by chance this book has become a fave as the story is engaging, it's set in New York (my favourite place) and it has the additional bonus of getting you to spot the black cat and the ostrich in each of the pictures.....plus my son really enjoys it too!

I've also been trying to think of my favourite book from my own childhood and couldn't pin it down to just one. Enid Blyton comes to mind as a constant source of good reads, I was always dipping into her world with the Magic Faraway Tree and the Famous Five, etc. Actually I'm looking forward to my son getting a bit older so that we can visit them all again together.

Thanks again to Three Buttons for This Is and thanks to Potty Mouth Mama for this weeks topic.