LBYM tip du jour - recycling candles

As part of its new fascination with frugality, a month ago Channel 4 broadcast a program "The hunt for Britain's tightest person". Naturally, I watched it. And learned precisely one thing new: a trick for recycling candles.

The scenario: you have a pretty scented candle that has burned down more in the middle than on the outside, so that there is a bit of unburnt wax left once the wick has gutted out. Select a suitable container for holding a burning candle (I'm reusing a little metal bucket which previously held a candle). Fix a prepared wick into the bottom of the container using a drop of melted wax (you can buy prepared wicks at Hobby Craft). Cut or break the wax up into lumps and pack it around the wick. Place the container on top of a working radiator; the wax will gently melt and consolidate around the wick and voila! You have a new candle.



Points to note:

1. If you don't have a suitable radiator, select somewhere that gets really warm. I used the top of the gas fire in our lounge. Just make sure that it is a flat surface.
   
2. Wax is highly flammable, so put the candle-in-making somewhere you can keep an eye on it and remove it from the heat-source once the wax has softened sufficiently.
3. You will probably need something to hold up the wick, to keep it straight and upright. I've tied mine to a skewer. The guy in the documentary secured his between a couple of pegs, but it occurs to me you could slide it into a giant paperclip. You cut it off once set.
   
4. Once the candle has set, trim the wick to within half an inch of the top of the wax. Use really sharp scissors - wick is quite tough.
   

- Pam

Time challenged

I have the greatest respect for those people who manage to work 50 or 60 hour weeks and still squeeze in a life. Today, I did an 11 hour day. I got to work at 9am and left at 8pm and didn't really take a lunch break. Oh, I ate lunch, but I didn't really stop working. (I normally eat lunch at my desk and use the time to surf the internet - not today.)

Except for when I nursed, I've always worked in time-based businesses, selling knowledge and people's time. Since my job is to do the invoicing, I spend quite a lot of my time staring at time records. Most of my colleagues at Site do 50 hour weeks - I resent doing 40 (we work 2.5 hours more than standard UK hours). And yet.... whenever I'm working on the time billing, an avaricious part of me pipes up with "If you were a contractor and did those hours every week, you could earn £xxx per annum".

As if... For a start, I'm staff (and in today's economy, I'm glad I have a little job security. Most of my colleagues at Site are contractors. When the project finishes later this year, they'll be out of work). But I have my plans in place if I ever do end up as a contractor: Monday is for me, Tuesday for the Taxman, Wednesday for the mortgage, Thursday for the Emergency Fund, Friday for investments. I dreamed that up a long time ago, way back when I worked in Practice and spent my days preparing VAT Returns for a portfolio of computer contractors.

The other factor is time. I don't mind doing 10 hour days - I've done them often enough - but I resent being forced to. In my old job, I'd regularly work to 8pm on a Tuesday, 7pm on a Wednesday and Thursday. I had to. It's what I needed to do to get the work done. However, I could take time back when I needed it. (Long lunch break? No problem.) I didn't resent it, although sometimes I wondered where my evenings had gone.

Here, all I think about is what time I can leave; how soon I can get my life back for the day; how many hours I have left before I've done my 40 for the week; when I can escape. I think it's down to the atmosphere in the office - I don't have the same problem when I'm at Site. In the Site office, it's "us against the world". We're a team and we pull together.

I've given up trying to analyse what it is about this company that I don't like. In my last company, you were there for life. Not here. Old Mr A believed that you were his people and did his best to offer his staff some tokens of his appreciation: contractual Christmas bonuses; a grading structure where everyone on the same grade got the same perks; a subsidised staff restaurant with a full bar; a tuck-shop. (Old Mr A died in 1989. When I joined the company 10 years later, it still operated as he'd left it. Things have changed a bit now, but most of the staff are still lifers.) There is no comparison to this company. This is just a job and most people are only here until they can find somewhere better. Me included.

- Pam

And the mountains burn

Have you ever been broadsided by something? I was, yesterday, when I heard that Marysville had burned to the ground. I had the TV on the background and the headlines "Bushfires rage in southern Australia", hadn't touched me - as an Aussie you get rather complacent about bushfires - but then they mentioned Marysville and the world changed.

Marysville is a village outside Melbourne, in the Dandenong Ranges. The Dandenongs dominated the horizon when I was a child; I grew up on the far side of the Dandenong Valley, which runs all the way to Port Phillip Bay. So Marysville was relatively close, but it was an awkward place to get to, off the main routes, and I don't recall going there until I was 19 or so. My childhood bestfriend moved there as a teenager; I have no idea if Linda's family are still there. I hope to God they are OK.

Marysville didn't stand a chance. Bushfires travel fast. Gum leaves are highly flammable, as is the bark that peels from from the trees. When the Dandenongs burned in 1983, ash and burning leaves landed on our back veranda over 20 miles away. On the outskirts of Melbourne, they must be watching and waiting and hoping the fires won't travel their way. Smart people have their fire plan in place - you can't assume it won't happen to you. In the summer of 2001/02, the fires travelled as far as Frankston reservoir, maybe a 15 minute walk from Big Sis's old home. I was home at the time; our plan was to head down to the beach and wait for the fires to follow.

Across Australia, people are collecting household goods, clothes, money, anything that will help the bushfire victims rebuild their lives. Towns like Kalgoorlie, 1500-odd miles away. Amy over at Live, Learn, Knit has already mentioned the Australian Red Cross bushfire appeal donations website. The site was overwhelmed when I tried to visit it a moment ago. I'll visit it again, soon.

- Pam

I want snow tyres (or chains)!

We had another snow fall yesterday morning. It was dry and fluffy stuff, when I went out to scrape it off the car. I got as far as clearing the driver's door when I thought "better be prepared" and dashed in doors to get a flask of coffee and my "handbag knitting". (I'll be damned if I'm stuck in the car for hours with nothing to knit.)

Crawled out to the motorway behind a string of other cars. I got half way out to the junction and considered turning back, deciding that if the M4 was bad I'd go down to the next junction and then come home. The 2 miles to the M4 were a combination of slip, slip, crawl, stop, look, slip. This is on a main road. Gritters? I'm not sure our local council has any.

They are predicting another week of this. I haven't got a clue where I'd buy them (and I've never driven with them) but I'm reaching the point where I want chains for the car. I thought about getting them last time England ground to a holt, in 2003. Why, oh, why didn't I????

- Pam

Pah! I'll see your Global Warming and raise you an Ice Age!

Unless you've been living like a hermit for the last week, you may have noticed that Britain has had a little problem with snow. It started snowing on Sunday night - there was a light covering when Steve left at 3.30am following our Superbowl Party. By the time I got up on Monday morning (around 9am), Britain had shut down. It's just as well we'd booked the day off to recover from watching NFL to the wee hours.

There were no trains, no buses, no flights. The roads weren't cleared. One of our guests (the Steelers fan) took 4.5 hours to drive the 90 miles home, a journey that on a bad day takes 2 hours (it's almost all motorway and highway driving). The other guest couldn't get home because there was no public transport.

Tuesday morning, I drove into work without any problems. We sat in the office watching the snow fall and the stuff already on the ground melt, both at the same time. A few miles away, my boss was unable to get to the end of his street, the snow was falling so heavily. Yesterday, the same thing happened. Last night, it snowed again. And, outside London, everything closed down again.

Honestly, it's embarrassing how this country can't cope with a bit of weather. Granted, this was the first heavy snowfall that we'd had since 2003, but they really had no excuse. This weather was predicted last week. The first time I saw a snow plough in action was this morning! Wonder what will happen if it gets seriously cold again?

- Pam

Reasons I have stash

Reasons I have Stash:-

1. Since I can't actually find the yarn stated in 99% of the patterns that I knit, I always buy one or two extra skeins "just in case". Sometimes, this yarn is a Godsend and will be used up before the garment is finished. Sometimes, it is destined to become scarves, hats, gloves or (if there is enough) another garment. Sometimes, it just ends up in stash waiting for inspiration to strike.
2. I don't really have a local yarn store, not one I can drop in on, hang around in, etc. My nearest LYS are Baron's, an overgrown market stall in Uxbridge caught in the 1970's, and Bunty's, but their range is limited to Rowan and Sirdar. Even to get to Bunty's takes a special effort. My regular yarn buying takes place at the Knit & Stitch Show every October, so when I'm there, I really stock up. I miss the days when I worked down the road from John Lewis' yarn department and could just wander in when my latest project was nearly finished, in order to buy yarn for the next one.
   
3. Projects-In-Waiting ("PIW"). In the blind hope that I'll find something suitable in a yarn I can afford, I carry a "want to knit" list in my Filofax complete with yarn quantities, notes about gauge, notions, etc. When I get lucky, the yarn goes into the PIW category in the stash. Sometimes, I'm efficient enough to include a photocopy of the relevant pattern when I pack the yarn away.
4. Yarn-desperately-seeking-a-project. As a side effect of buying my yarn mainly at shows, sometimes I "buy first, work out what to do with it later" using a rough rule of thumb to determine how much to get. (My rule of thumb is simple: a ball band once told me that to make a medium sized ladies sweater in DK yarn, you need approximately 700g. So, I go with that and try and buy one or two extra skeins if I can find them "just in case"). The yarn may be cheap (try £1 a ball for 100% Scandinavian wool I picked up at the last Knit & Stitch Show), it may be hard to find (100% DK Alpaca is not easy to obtain in the UK), or it may be rare (100% Wensleydale Longwool).
   
5. Sock wool. If I can't figure out what else to knit, I can always make another pair of socks - is any other explanation needed?

- Pam (enjoying a "snow day". The roads are closed and we're snowed in.)

Conception 2009

THURSDAY 29TH JANUARY 2009

I'm spending most of the week at a games convention, Conception 2009, together with the crowd from the games club DH runs. The Con started yesterday and runs until Sunday. So far, I’ve played two sessions of Cthulhu and I’m booked into five more. Both my characters have survived – no mean feat in this environment.

There is wi-fi here, but at £5/hour or £25 for the week, I’m trying to avoid logging in. I can’t justify the £25 – it would just be a wasteful luxury (either that or one of the other members of our party would attempt to monopolise my laptop and I’m damned if I’m paying out for them to play internet games). I think I’ll just do one £5 session either tomorrow or Saturday.

Bringing the laptop was my idea. As well as its role in character generation for one of the games, it’s acting as an entertainment centre – the backup of my MP3 player is on it and the speakers are reasonable.

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NOTE TO SELF:

Next year when we come to the Con, remember to pack the following:-

1. - kitchen timer
2. - tea towels
3. - oven gloves
4. - the garlic crusher
5. - a chopping board – the chalet only comes with one and a second would be handy
6. - my main dice bag! (Fortunately, I have my travelling dice in my handbag.)

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FRIDAY 30th JANUARY 2009

For the first time in the history of RPGs, a knitting needle has been in anger! My character had "knitting needle" as an offensive weapon at 40% skill level. In the heat of battle, with no other weapons left, she drew out a needle and stabbed an attacker through the head for 9 points of damage. Almost, but not quite killing the attacker.

Later, the GM tells me that he designed the character with me in mind.

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DH has been using the laptop to generate certificates for games the club is running ("Most heroic death" ... that sort of thing). We've lost count of the number of times someone has asked whether it is a netbook, then "wowwed" over its features. If Acer needed salesmen, we've done a really good job this weekend.

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THE VENUE

The venue is one of your typical British holiday camps. Not quite “Hi Dee Hi”, but an obvious descendent. Picture a hundred acre, partially wooded site, populated by “chalets” (mobile homes to you Americans), with a communal bar and banqueting suite. Every possible inch of the communal areas is occupied by gamers; even the bar has been overrun by LARPers.

This is my third year and DH’s 6^th or 7^th. Each year, the chalet we’ve hired has had a different layout but universally they seem to be well designed. Far more thought has gone into their layout than your average British home: the open plan kitchens are bigger, with more food preparation space; each chalet has three or four double bedrooms with built in wardrobes and at least two bathrooms (one en-suite); the L-shaped living rooms can host a dinner party at the dining table without requiring the other furniture to be moved out of the way, and the sitting area is large enough to seat everyone for coffee afterwards. How ironic when you consider how much these buildings are sneered at.

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THE KNITTING

As far as I can tell, I'm the only knitter at the Con. I'm knitting a pair of the Herringbone Rib Socks which featured in the Winter 2008 edition of Interweave Knits. Here is the picture from Interweave:

I'm using Wendy's Happy, a 75% bamboo yarn, in the Scorpio 2505 colourway.

I've had a love-hate relationship with this pattern over the last few weeks. (I started the socks I'm working on about 3 weeks ago.) It is easy to learn but not easy in execution - if you drop a stitch or make a mistake and need to go back and correct it, it's hell on earth. On both socks, I made different mistakes that required tinking back, and the tinking was harder than knitting them up in the first place. This is not a pattern for your knitting autopilot - you constantly have to watch what is happening on your needles. The stitch pattern is fiddly in the extreme. It's also slow. Two years ago, over the course of the Con, I knitted DH a pair of socks in 4-ply sock yarn; last year, in two days, I knitted a pair in Regia 6-Faedig (DK weight, I believe). This year, I've managed one and a half socks, in five days of almost constant knitting.

I hated it for almost all of the first sock. Interweave says, "This versatile unisex pattern may well become one of the go-to sock patterns in your repertoire". If you'd asked me four days ago, my response would have been a sarcastic "Yeah, right. You've got to be kidding!".

And yet..... The results are stunning. The stitch pattern shows up the varigations in the yarn beautifully. And even the fiddliness stops being irritating after a while. Will I knit it again? Yes.

- Pam

Putting a marker in the flour

Two weeks ago, I phoned Vina: "Is £4.99 for 10kg a good price for Atta Flour?", I asked. Atta flour is wholemeal Asian bread flour and Tesco's had a special offer.

Vina is used to my stranger culinary questions; I've regularly picked her brain about Asian food and the best places to buy it. (She knows my love for her native cuisine.) This time she filled me on the best grade of Atta flour to buy (Vina uses medium to make chapatis) and that her regular price was closer to £13.

Tonight, DH and I decanted a 10kg sack of fine, medium-wholemeal Atta flour into my largest tupperware container. Plus two other mid-sized ones. (Despite my best efforts, I didn't have a container large enough.) The flour is finely milled and the bran-wheatgerm bits have been ground to a fine powder. It should make light, fluffy baked goods. I'm wondering how it will go in a regular bread recipe.

I reckon that I have enough flour to last most of the year. I'll let you know how it goes.

- Pam

Envy

Why does Envy cross into jealous spite?

When I was a child, I envied all the children in my class who could draw. And had neat handwriting. Kids who could do things that I patently couldn't - my handwriting was never "good" (I was probably the last child in my class to be allowed to use a pen). My best drawings weren't even fit to line the rubbish bin. I dreaded "Craft" lessons and hated going into the art classroom.

At about the same time, I envied the girls with long, slightly wavy hair. Mine was short, curly and frizzed when brushed. For some years, I wished my hair was blond, too. And that I didn't wear glasses. As I got older, I envied the skinny girls (I was fat). And the ones with real waists (I'm short-waisted). Eventually, I got contact lenses, learned how to manage my hair from a hairdresser who "cut it curly" and told me never to brush it, and dabbled with hair dye. I grew up, lost weight and learned that looks are secondary to confidence and self-esteem when making friends or attracting a life-mate.

As an adult, I've envied the well organised and the neat*. I've worked hard to be organised, but people who have time management down to a fine art still trigger flashes of the green-eyed monster in me. I know time management is a matter of prioritising what is important and pursuing those things instead of watching television. It's about achieving small, daily or weekly targets on the way to the big goal. I still haven't figured out how to fit into a day everything I want to do or achieve, but I'm working on it.

I've learned how to harness the power of envy and now use it to determine my priorities, goals and dreams.

Sometimes, though, people broadside you with their jealousy, and in the most unlikely settings. How many times have you received a backhand insult? When someone compliments your knitting or your cooking and then says "I could never find the time to do what you do. I wish I had all your spare time!", implying with their tone that you are tethered to the kitchen or your knitting basket and have no other life. (When I was a student, a girl I despised once attempted to insult me by disparagingly remarking, "How terribly domestic of you" after I cooked dinner in the Nurses Home. I laughed at her.)

My friend, Fluff, was recently the recipient of some unbridled jealous spite, when she showed off her latest project at her knitting group. The needling started almost immediately afterwards, "Where do you find the time?". "I wish I had all your spare time!" and on and on and on. All delivered in a spiteful tone.

I've wondered why these people were so nasty to Fluff. And why so many people deliver veiled backhand insults. All I can come up with is that the bitterness they're expressing is really directed at themselves. The thing they're disparaging in you is actually something they dislike about themselves. They wish they could knit a sweater and are angry at themselves for not achieving it. They like good food but despise themselves because they can't cook. They want a career, but can't be bothered to put in the hours of study, so disparage the people who do rather than admit their own failings and laziness.

Of course, you win no Brownie Points for pointing any of this out, but at least you can use it to neutralise their venom.

- Pam




* I've figured how "neat" works. It's the next step beyond tidy. It's to do with proportion and getting things in alignment with the major planes of say the table on which they are sitting.

Bits'n'Pieces

I took my new toy with me when I went to Site this week, so that I could surf the internet in the evenings. It is small enough that it fits into a large handbag. I did a bit of surfing, but mainly I downloaded some programs I'd missed on the BBC and watched those. I'm a big fan of the BBC, so I was very happy when the leader in my breakfast copy of The Times was a message to the TV regulator telling him to back off and leave the BBC (and its funding) alone.

Thank you Mr Editor; for once we are in total agreement.

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When I was driving back today, it struck me that I never explained why I'm feeling so broke this month. I didn't really have an explanation ("Gone mad on wool" isn't strictly true - the Sanity Fund covers that). This afternoon, the penny dropped. I've fallen foul of No Pay Day. For seven years, December's salary was paid on the 31st December, but I changed jobs two years ago. And this company does its December payroll on the last Friday before Christmas; this time that was nearly two weeks before the end of the month.

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In one respect, driving home was a bit of a white knuckle ride. The Toy is just a handful of miles off passing another milestone: 180,000 miles in just over 8 years. A milestone I'd like to record. I didn't take a camera with me when I went to Site. My nearly-seven-years-old mobile phone doesn't have one built in, either. Fortunately, I got home with 179,980 miles on the clock. We'll hit the milestone tomorrow.

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I've mentioned before about the British media's latest obsession, the new frugality. Last night, I caught the last 10 minutes of a Dispatches program, The True Cost of Cheap Food. They had several axes to grind, but the bit that I picked up on was that they'd challenged two families in Leeds to change their shopping habits. Both were classic nuclear families: two parents, two school-aged children. One family had to buy only supermarket budget lines; the other family had to only shop at small, local stores: the green grocer, the butcher, the delicatessen, the street market.

The results were interesting: both families saved significant amounts of money. The Budget Lines family cut their spending to approximately £250; the Small Shops people cut theirs to £350-ish. God knows what they were living on before - they both regularly spent over £500 a month on groceries. How??? That's practically a mortgage payment!

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Speaking of mortgage payments..... Thanks to the latest Bank of England base-rate cut to 1.5%, the tracker mortgage I have on the flat has fallen by two-thirds in less than a year.

Thanks, Gordon.

- Pam

On this day

Today is the first real day of a new era. This morning, in the White House, Barak Obama woke up as President of the United States of America. A man with lots of labels, but with whom the stereotypes fail. President. Democrat. A real African-American - son of an American woman and a Kenyan man - half African, half American. A black man who does not share the heritage of most black Americans, he is not the decendent of slaves. A politician who fought his campaign without playing the race card (much to the disgust of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, who was reported to be accusing Obama of not being black enough). The world will never be quite the same place again.

While most of the rest of the planet are just grateful to be rid of Dubya and his cronies, we did not have a vote. We are only the indirect recipients of whatever actions President Obama makes. The hopes and dreams he has to satisfy are those of the American people. I don't envy him this responsibility. If he can go even halfway to tackling the problems listed in his speech, then he will have achieved more than the last half-dozen presidents put together.

Prior to the election, much was said in the press about the reaction of Americans to Obama's ethnicity. Please, God, that this Presidency will demonstrate the fulfilment of Martin Luther King's dream, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Does his colour matter? No. Does his religion matter? No. What really matters is whether he is a man of principle and conviction who thinks through the consequences of his decisions and choses the least bad option, not the most expedient. It is doing what is right that matters, not what is easy.

Good luck, Mr President.

- Pam

Cold

On Boxing Day, we went for a walk round Rochester Castle in Kent. It was sunny, but the wind was bitingly cold, cutting through coats and hats and gloves. We took refuge in the warmth of the Cathedral. Even after stopping in a cafe for a hot drink, I was still cold. The temperature never got above freezing. There was ice on the ground at midday.

A couple of days later and further down the coast, we walked from my SIL's house to the local pub for lunch. On the way down, one of the neighbours was washing his car. Later, his driveway was coated in ice where the water had pooled. It had frozen where it landed.

Last Sunday, we visited my FIL's grave, only to find the flowers frozen in their vase.

Excluding a few days of this week, it has been seriously cold in Britain for the best part of a month. The BBC reports that it hasn't been this cold since 1995! Last Thursday, the local weather station registered -9 Celsius. I think my prediction from September is coming true. This year, Britain is having a respectable winter instead of just a rainy, grey one. (And how is that different from our summers? Not much.)

Interestingly, when it gets that cold, instead of ice/frost forming on cars and pavements, we're getting a sort of snow frosting. It looks like snow flakes, but it hasn't fallen from the sky. (We've had almost no snow falling.) It's fluffy, too, and the wipers just brush it off the windscreen.

Several times, the Toy's screenwash has frozen in its jets. On Saturday, I was horrified to discover that the regular brand is only for temperatures down to -5C. Even when used neat. I've replaced it with some heavy duty stuff that is guaranteed down to -20C. My biggest fear is that I'll be driving down the M4, use the screenwash and it'll just freeze on the windscreen, leaving me blind. I've had it freeze when the car is cold, when I've been stuck at the traffic lights, but we'd only just started up then.

The weather reports suggest the cold weather will return at the weekend, when these islands will be hit by a front that has crossed the Atlantic. I wonder if it will snow.

- Pam

New toy to play with

Having umm'd and ahhh'd for about a week, I bit the bullet on Sunday and purchased a new laptop: an Acer 2930 laptop with a 12.1 inch screen, 2GB RAM, 250GB hard drive, DVD writer, webcam, bluetooth.....



I could go on and on. This is the PC I'd hoped to get 3 years ago, when I purchased that rather expensive doorstop I rebuilt last month. It's small, almost small enough to fit into a regular sized handbag. It's light, weighing in at 2.2kg/4.6lb.

I got a good price, too. PC World were selling it "on special" for £449.99, down £50 from it's non-sale price of £499.99. (Today, they have it listed for £479.) A web-search turned up an additional 2.5% discount if I bought it from their sibling company, Dixons. So I did and got the lowest price I could find on/off the internet, £438.74. Ordered it online and it was delivered yesterday.

Now it's time to have some fun!

- Pam (DH has comandeered the doorstop)

Christmas knitting 2008

Did you get all of your knitted/crochetted gifts finished in time for Christmas? Since work consumed so much of my life last year, I set myself a very modest total of two pairs of socks and a pair of slocks (crochetted, slipper socks). The slocks never made it.

I didn't get a photo of the first pair of socks, which I gave to my SIL. However, they are from the same yarn as the sock that I was knitting half-way down this post. Here is another shot of that photo.


Yarn: Regia 6-Faedig a.k.a. Regia Crazy Colors 6 ply in the colourway Passion. 2 x 50g balls (I used approximately 80g).
Sticks: 3.5mm Addi Bamboo dpns.
Pattern: none, really. I just applied the Yarn Harlot's generic sock recipe.

The second pair of socks seemed to take forever to knit. I bought the yarn at the start of December, when I visited Barons in Uxbridge. Despite the down-beat start to our relationship, the Elle Machine Washable Sock Wool was actually a pleasure to knit. Which is just as well really - because the first sock took over two weeks, I was frantically knitting the second sock at midnight on December 23rd. My wrists were killing me!

They were for DH's best friend. I think he likes them. He modelled them for me.





Yarn: Elle Machine Washable 4-ply Sock Yarn in brown. 2 x 50g balls (5g left over.)
Sticks: 2.5mm Addi dpns.
Pattern: "retro-rib" pattern from Interweave Knits Winter 2004. Here's a link to the pattern on Ravelry, if you're curious. I made larger socks than those in the pattern, by increasing it to 72 stitches and working the heel flap over 36 stitches. The final result is perfect for a plain yarn since it allows the texture of the stitches to take centre stage, but the rib pattern does make it slow going. It was easy to memorise but almost impossible to knit without paying attention because it changes every few stitches. It was a relief to get to the foot so that I could do some plain knitting on the sole.

In a fit of inspiration/madness two weeks before Christmas, I added a hat to the mix. I'd gone into John Lewis to buy a wedding present and, as usual, wandered through the yarn department. In the clearance bin, I found two balls of Rowan's Biggy Print and thought: "That'd make the perfect hat for Kim". (It did, too.) It was only when I got home that I discovered the recommended needle size is 20mm! And I needed dpns to knit a hat. DH was sceptical that I would find needles for it, let alone get it done in time.

Tuesday 23rd December found me trekking into I Knit London to see if they had needles I could use. I ended up with a 15mm Addi Turbo circular and good luck wishes from Craig.

I cast on on Christmas Day and was finished within two hours. Lets just say that it was interesting doing the magic loop on a circular as thick as my thumb.


I made up the pattern, trying it on as I went.




Final view:



Yarn: Rowan's Biggy Print in Thunder. 1 ball per hat.
Sticks: 15mm Addi Turbos.
Pattern: Made up by me. Cast on 28 sts and join careful not to twist. Work in K1 P1 rib for 10 rows. On next row, decrease every 4th stitch either by K2 tog or P2 tog. Then work two rows decreasing every third stitch. Work 1 row of K2 tog P1. On the final row, K2 tog and repeat to end. Thread a paper-clip with the tale end of the yarn and, using that as a needle, thread it through the remaining stitches, drawing them tightly together. Weave in the ends using the paperclip as if it was a needle.

I liked it so much that I made one for me, too.

- Pam

Thank heaven for the Sanity Fund

Yesterday, I informed DH (and the blogsphere) that I'm broker than broke and had resolved to give up spending for January. Then I promptly went shopping for a pair of boots (black, knee high stretch with 2" heels - £34.25 in the M&S sale). Sounds contradictory, no?

The money for the boots came from my Sanity Fund, a concept I've borrowed shamelessly from Anita Bell, the author of "Your Mortgage and how to pay it off in 5 years - by someone who did it in 3". I've been a big fan of Anita's ever since I bought her first three books in Melbourne Airport six years ago. I read them back-to-back on the flight back to the UK.

After they purchased their first home, Anita and her husband lived off one salary whilst using the other to pay off their mortgage. The first salary paid all of their basic living costs as well as a full mortgage payment. One of the strategies that stopped them both feeling deprived, going mad and having a big blow out was the Sanity Fund. Each of them got a certain amount of money each fortnight to do with whatever they wanted (Aussies usually get paid fortnightly). Anita kept track of her Sanity Fund on a wallet card (a home made index card she kept folded in her wallet). On it, she listed items she really really wanted to purchase, portioning out her Sanity Fund each pay day until she'd saved up enough money to buy whatever it was. She'd take the Wallet Card out every time she felt tempted by something, to remind her of her goals.

The Sanity Fund and Wallet Card concepts struck a chord in my mind that has reverberated ever since. How many items were on my wish list but when I came across them, I never had the money to buy them? Things that didn't really justify becoming line items in a real budget but that I lusted after in a vague "Oh! I wish I could buy one of those!" way? They weren't mega-major purchases, just things like an expensive pair of leather boots. So I borrowed Anita's ideas and made them my own.

Initially, I started with £60 a month which was automatically transferred to a deposit account at my bank. Gradually, I've upped the money and split it between three accounts at two different banks, based on my goals. Over the years, I've used my Sanity Fund to buy those expensive boots (target £120, actual cost £95), a second-hand piano, lots of yarn (from the "Craft" budget) and to save for a very expensive mobile phone (that's the money I'm going to blow on my new laptop instead). Here's a copy of my Wallet Card from the middle of last year (apologies for the poor quality of the scan).


Sure, I could have just saved the money in the bank, but I've found carrying around a Wallet Card concentrates the mind. It's daily, sometimes hourly, reinforcement of my mini-goals. If I'm tempted by something, I know immediately how much money is available. If it costs more than the money accrued, then I either work out a trade off ("I can take £xx from Clothing and put it back next month") or I'll decide it isn't worth spending my money on. That's what I'm doing with the laptop. There won't be much money left in the fund after I buy it, maybe £100, but that's OK. I know I can save up again for a new phone and, as for the knitting software I wanted, maybe I don't want it as much as I thought when I began saving for it (the money has been there for nearly a year).

- Pam (no longer needs boots)