Eye opener! - dealing with numbers!

I can hardly believe how much time as passed since I last blogged!  Hubby is currently away in America, so I have been run ragged by my three children and trying to house train Betty my 4month old puppy and running my yarn business. Thankfully he is back tomorrow and after two weeks apart I am really looking forward to picking him up at the airport in the morning, not just because I desperately need some respite, but because I have missed him a lot more than I thought I would *hehe*.

 Phoenix has been really suffering with his asthma now that autumn has arrived, and after a few months of sleeping through, we are back to consent night coughing and broken sleep, poor Phoenix looks like death warmed up with the size of his eye bags, and understandably he very irritable at the moment.

I really enjoy our daily morning walks, and the dinosaur seems to enjoy them too lol!

Chasing around children and mopping up piddles aside craft wise I have surprisingly been really busy. A Stash Addict yarn takes up 85% of my time, but I Love dyeing yarn and making stitch markers so I am not grumbling :)

And not to mention clearing up yarn barf all over the floor!!

Good job she is cute!!

These last two weeks have been a real eye opener for me, I have not only embarked on a mission to learn and combat Knitting design, but I have also amazed myself by completing a cross stitch pattern.

Now I know to most of you a counting cross stitch pattern would be a walk in the park, but for me it’s quite a challenge because of my Dyscalculia, {it’s a condition that affects the ability to acquire arithmetical skills.} I have difficulty understanding simple number concepts, and I can’t actually visualise numbers so retaining or trying to “remember” which numbers or how many stitches I have completed is a hard task in its self as I have to repeatedly go back and recount because I forget.

My First ever cross stitch pattern :)

 

If you would have asked me 10 years ago if I thought I would ever been able to successfully knit from a pattern or read a cross stitch chart I would have said NO CHANCE!! My confidence with numbers alone would have been enough to send me into a sweaty frenzy!

Knitting, and my passion for the craft, has really changed my relationship with numbers, I have had to literally stick myself out of my comfort zone and accept and deal with Dyscalculia head on by finding other ways to help me overcome the hurdles it throws in my way.  If you read my interview with Sarah fromCrafts from the Cwtch in which I list some of the things I have used to help me progress with knitting, I am finding these days I don’t need some of them anymore! I can now count to 10 without skipping numbers, and I believe my memory is getting better, as I don’t instantly forget or feel the number slip from my mind’s eye as quickly as it used to!.

I have enrolled on a City and Guilds level 3 Hand knitting design course, which starts this coming Monday, now I know I am putting myself right into the path of pure frustration and I have accepted that it may take me a lot longer than the average person to complete, but if I can come away from this with a better understanding of how Knitting “works” I will be extremely happy! Because at the moment I am just following a series of sequences that are written down, I have extreme difficulty in decoding patterns, I certainly couldn’t tell you which bits of the pattern where placed there pacifically and for what.

  All I can grasp at the moment is decreasing and increasing, which I am using for a snood that I am designing, and even that has been really hard trying to calculate how to spread them out evenly, which I am sure most people have a problem with when designing, but it’s especially frustrating for me as the concept of odd and even I don’t always get right, and have to really Concentrate that I have them in the right order lol.

My snood so far, it is still on the needles!

I will soon find out when my lovely bunch of volunteer pattern testers try it out, I am near completion, so there feedback will be interesting lol. 

Well its Midnight and I feel I have waffled on enough, but before I go, I do have TWO FOs to share with you, I made Betty a couple of crochet jumpers, which I just improvised by using her body as a template. ( I wish i understood knitting like I do crochet!!)  I think they turned out really well! I have been asked via instagram to create a tutorial; once hubby is back and life settles back down to a routine I promise I will put one together. 

 

Good night everyone xx