Be More Kind

I am writing this as a reminder to myself but this is stuff that has been inside of me for a long time – most of this year – and I keep it to myself because everyone is having a rough year and I don’t and didn’t feel like I had the right to moan about it when I’ve fared relatively well when compared to others. 

I utterly hate myself.

This year has been horrible for so many reasons. I knew I had to lose weight before this year started and now I’ve put on an additional two stone (ish). I hate it. I hate me. I hate my tummy. I hate my wobbly bits. I hate that when I sit naked on the bed after a shower or bath, my boobs are held up in place by my tummy. They’re not even pert, they’re just fat.

I really, truly, hate myself.

The word for this year is uncertainty.

My anxiety has gone absolutely through the roof this year and it’s just the uncertainty over the whole thing. A three week period of furlough that lasted for a total of six months, even if some of it was part time – but I’m lucky because I had a job to go back to, and I still have that job, and I still had an income and I could still just about afford to live.

Uncertainty over what the next year will bring. Brexit, covid, bojo, everything is just a mess and my head is a mess and my body is a mess and I feel powerless to do anything about it.

Except the old eating disorders creep back in and I know I can control what I eat. I can control what and how much exercise I do (and have continually not done this year).

This year has been a year of “treat yo’self” but the result is that I hate myself more than I ever have. I am the heaviest and biggest I have ever been. I am the loneliest I have ever been. I didn’t have many friends to start with and now I have even less. Fewer. 

David keeps saying that I can’t start another blanket but they’re the only things I can make where I don’t need to think, I can just do. I can keep my hands and brain busy. I can make something and distract myself and have something useful and usable at the end of it. I want to be useful, I want to make pretty things, I want to feel like I'm doing something good.

I am really struggling with not spending all of my December pay cheque because I know I have bills to pay but all I want to do is buy yarn and craft things so I can make things to distract myself. I want to buy stuff for the allotment so I can go there and get out of this house and distract myself.

I am not one for resolutions because I never stick to them or achieve anything and at the end of the year I feel like a monumental failure.

This was my ‘aims and goals for 2020’ blog. What a hoot! Imagine a world where all of this could’ve been kept up and I would be in a totally different position now.  

I was going to hula every day for this festive break too, but then I had a stinker of a cold which resulted in a week off work and feeling like death for 8 days. I was then ok for 2 days (and could breathe through my nose) and then I got a bout of sinusitis and felt like I’d been hit square in the face with a flat bottomed pan. I have spent nearly two weeks being poorly and I am STILL BEATING MYSELF UP for not exercising, for not being a better person, for not achieving anything.

Why am I like this.

I think aims and goals are more do-able than resolutions. I think the terminology somehow makes me feel better if I don’t do something.

I need to do something. I hate myself.

 

So this was our last dominos pizza for as long as possible (I guarantee at the end of January we will have another).

I have also finished the first lot of bunting that I said I hadn’t done. I have run out of twine to do more as I took it all to work and left it there, so I need to buy more.

So, short story. I hate myself, I have vented, I haven’t cried yet but I will do when David reads this and hugs me better. I just don’t want to get into my mid-late thirties and be a fat wobbly mess. I want my hips to work without seizing up and my knees to work without cracking and my tummy to not be bigger than my arse.

I don’t know what else to say. The only person who can do this is me. The only person who can change my tummy is me. I am going to start by deleting the dominos app.

2020: A Year In Crochet

I like doing these end of year round ups. It helps me to remember just what and how much I’ve done in the previous year. The last six months have been non-stop with work and I feel like I haven’t had a lot of time to crochet, but the three months before that I was furloughed, and all I did was crochet. I tried to use my period of furlough to FINISH THINGS and SORT THINGS OUT. It mostly worked.

So, what did I make in 2020? I keep a list on my phone – I’d never remember otherwise. In 2020 I:

·       Finished the battenberg granny square blanket

·       Made a solid colour square blanket for my father in law

·       Started and finished Sophies Universe blanket

·       Made a fluffy baby blanket for my cousins new babe

·       Made a new thick wool neck warmer, but I haven’t worn it yet

·       Finished the mandala square into a giant cushion cover

·       Made two new his n hers bobble hats for D and I

·       Did 4 little birds – an angry wren, a goldfinch, a coal tit, and a great tit

·       Made my first ever pair of handmade woollen socks.

 

I blocked the jute twine bunting that I made in 2019, but I still haven’t sewn it together. I also haven’t finished the miners vest thing that I started in 2019. I sort of want to, but sort of don’t like how it’s working out. Maybe I just need to crack on and get it done, and then it’ll be done, and then I’ll love it? It’s basically a body warmer slip on vest thing. Looks well cosy on Pinterest.

I am running out of furniture to make more blankets – I have nowhere to drape any more blankets!! So maybe for now I shall hold off blanket making. Or will I? I do fancy make a ripple stitch blanket, possibly for momma in law to have on her lap when she’s on her toot toot scooter, razzin’ around Bilston. I also keep fancying making cushion covers but again, we don’t have enough furniture for cushions, we don’t have them on the sofa, and I don’t see the point of them on a bed. I haven’t done amigurumi for a while. I stopped making toys for my nieces and nephews as my sister said they had too many, and they were my main outlet for soft toys. I also used to make hats for premature babies (I have made over 400) but don’t do that any more either.

I had planned to make a crochet bird of every bird that came into the garden during lockdown but the patterns are quite fiddly with a lot of colour changes, so I quickly disbanded that idea. Maybe in 2021 I shall make the rest and get a full set.

 

Patterns:

·       Little birds

·       Handmade socks (free pattern at the bottom)

·       Sophies Universe

·       Granny square

·       Miners vest (not the pattern I’m making up, but I shall make sure I wear mine with something underneath it)

Crochet Blanket Inspiration: Sophies Universe!

I haven't done a blanket inspo post for a while! I have a few to catch up with now, so here is the first.

I was gifted the pattern book for Sophies Universe a few years ago now and it’s been sitting, waiting for me to get on with it. I had a couple of blankets I needed to finish before I could start a new one.

I started Sophie in August 2020 when I was still part time furloughed, and finished her at the end of November. The pattern was quite fun to work on but I had difficulty interpreting the pattern in some parts. Also it is written in American stitches so I had to always double check that I was doing the right stitches.

Anyhoo – she’s done! She measures about 1.8m across. I haven’t blocked her (ever). I used a 4mm hook throughout. I used Stylecraft Special DK in white, spearmint, and apricot.

Have a look at my other Crochet Blanket Inspiration posts here. There’s lots. I need more furniture to drape blankets over…

Lockdown Diaries: Day 27

Last day! Wahooooooo! Not that it’ll really make any difference to anyone. D and I will be continuing much the same as we have been.

Yesterday I FINISHED SOPHIES UNIVERSE! All 113 rounds! Done! However, I had already decided to do extra rounds to make her bigger as I like my blankets to comfortably fit on the bed, and she doesn’t yet. So a few more rounds to go before she gets washed and softened. She looks good though. It’s been fun, stressful, complicated and confusing, but I’ve wanted to make a Sophie for YEARS. Maybe five or six years. And now I have.

Today I was up at 5:45 after having a super shit sleep, and I was on site for 7:50am. We built raised bed planters today in the winter sunshine so it’s been a good day, but fuck me I am tired.

We have done the tree!! Spiky spiky but it’s done. The lights aren’t quite long enough so there’s a high chance that I’ll be buying more and swapping them…

My winter spinach seeds are coming up, we still have roses in flower out the front, the bulbs are all coming up nearly everywhere, and the amaryllis is reaching for the skies with three (!) flower buds.

Tomorrow at work we shall be having a fire and making wreaths!

Lockdown Diaries: Day 26

Tomorrow is the last full day of “lockdown” and I shall be getting up at 6am to go and build some raised beds somewhere.

Today I have been here, there and everywhere doing lots of things. I am all ready for tomorrow. I also went to the allotment to collect teasel heads ready for wreath making on Wednesday at work.

Exercise today: weights – I’ve gone up to 30 reps now. Sounds impressive until you realise I use tins of beans as weights. I’ve also done 15min cycling today.

Dinner today: beef stew! Cooked for four hours. It was WELL NICE. So good. I've been a big brave girl and put in whole button mushrooms and I even ate them.

The ginger is growing well on the windowsill.

I discovered white aero bubble things today! I am excited. I love white chocolate.

My new flamingo bauble arrived today! We’re putting the tree up tomorrow. I say up, I mean, we’re bringing it in.

I am also officially on the LAST ROW OF THE BLANKET wahooooooooooo!! Although I have decided to add a few extra bits on just to make it a bit more unique.

Lockdown Diaries: Day 25

Today! A jolly good day. Pyjama gardening, chocolate eating, mantel faffing, light lighting, someone else cooking dinner. Beaut.

So today I have potted up the new christmas tree into a bigger pot. I was going to use a blue ceramic one but it weighed as much as the tree! So I used a plastic pot instead. The tree is now in a bigger pot with a mix of sand and peat free compost, and then topped off with grit. It is still out in the garden for now.

I also potted up the kitchen avocado stone today as it was putting out lots of side roots. The daffs that I planted the other day in a planter are now on the mantel with the avocado. We went to a garden centre to get a new drip tray for the tree, and a bag of grit. I may have walked out with five pots of cyclamen, four of which are now planted in the garden and the last one is in a pot on the mantel. Very mantel-ly sort of day today.

The hellebores look like they’re about to flower which is quite exciting! I do want more hellebore for the garden but I am happy to see the flower buds. Even if I did bury them with pot compost before I realised.

It’s been super foggy on our travels today.

I also found a pic of Momma P and I from last year some time and it made me laugh, so it’s here again.

FOUR ROWS LEFT. Four rows. FOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRR.