My Weekend

We had a hectic weekend as Rob's little brother came to stay with us so we have been trying to keep him entertained for the last two days.  I hope we did but I think he was a little bored by the end.

After talking to my Mum about planning to get more organised this year I signed up to receive daily emails from FlyLady.net about how to get your house and life more organised.  The daily emails just advise doing a little at a time but waking up to an email telling me the jobs to do on that day should keep me motivated.

I've also banned myself from starting any more projects until I finish the majority of the ones I am making at the moment.  I have quite terrible startitis and think the number of projects I have on-the-go at the moment is in double figures.  This was discovered when I found some great projects to make out of some of the wool sitting in my stash but then remembered that most of my knitting needles are currently in use.

I spent a lot of time over the exam time knitting the blue/green scarf for my friend and even learnt continental knitting to help speed up the 6ft garter stitch scarf and that is almost finished now.  I had done a few rows of another scarf I had been asked to make but I realised that would take forever so make so I unravelled it and started to crochet it instead using the pattern Joseph's Scarf by Cheryl Wilson which is much quicker and I have now almost completed.

Today, I managed to complete a little knitted toy robot that I had put aside incomplete as I was reluctant to do the icords for the arms, legs, and antenna but I felt like finishing something while I was sat with Rob's brother while he watched tv and played on Rob's ancient Xbox.  The pattern is Pocket-Sized Robot by Kat Lewinski.

I think making the icord headphone covers has mostly cured me of my dislike of knitting icords - oops I haven't finished making them either!

We started brewing beer again today.  This one is lager and the bucket is sat in the hall until I crochet a  mat for it to sit on so we can put it in the living room (the only room that stays warm).

I had the job of adding the hot water and stirring the mixture.

The Brewery will be back soon

Today, The Boy went to the brewing shop again.  We haven't brewed in a while but now we are fully settled he wants to start again.

He stocked up on kits to save him the journey next time he wants to brew.

Lager and Wheat Beer kits

So now the only question is: which one should we make first?

The Boy asked me tonight if I could make a floor mat for the beer bucket to sit on.  By tomorrow.  Talk about leaving to the last minute again.  I've started it using some wool I didn't like.

Brewing Review

The day of beer tasting finally arrived and the one of the bottles was opened.  However, we didn't realise that you're not supposed to tip up the bottles but to keep the yeast settled at the bottom so the first couple that were opened were undrinkable.

We were then told by a friend who has done this before that it's best to pour it into a glass and leave the yeast in the bottle so it's now drinkable apparently.  Well, drinkable enough for The Boy to take a box of 20 around to a friend's to split between a few of them.

So overall it was a success (although we all though it wouldn't work) and no doubt there will be more beer brewing in the flat again soon.

I'm still here! Brewing update

I've been so busy again with my project that I'm actually surprised how long it is since I last posted.

Wednesday was beer bottling day which was pretty messy.  You have to use a siphon to transfer the beer from the plastic barrel to the bottle but to start it moving you have to suck the beer with your mouth and if you're not careful you end up with a mouthful of half-brewed beer - I did.

We did put the bottles in order into the boxes and numbered the first and last in each box.

The First Ten Bottles

All the bottles ready to be filled

Here is the barrel near the start

Onto the second box

And the barrel later on

So we now have 45 bottles of beer fermenting away in our spare room (sorry Eve for when you stay) and in two weeks it'll be drinkable (hopefully).

Last Day of Blogtoberfest - Happy Halloween!!!

I have loved doing Blogtoberfest!  I wasn't sure if I'd be able to keep up-to-date but it made me more motivated to complete projects and keep posting.  I'm going to try and carry on posting regularly - if not every day then every other day.

As promised, here are the pictures of The Boy starting the brewing process:

So in about a week it should be ready to bottle.  I mentioned the brewing to some people at uni and the only thing they said was how much it is going to smell - lucky me!

My Sunday

Today has been pretty relaxed - starting well by the clocks changing last night. 



The Formula One in India today was good and the new circuit in India brought more excitement.  Team Grace did well on the whole!  I got 6th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 12th so only one driver was out of the points.

After ironing last night, I sat and crocheted some halloween decorations and this morning I sewed the spring for the mouth onto my Bopbot.

So here is what I made:

The Boy has also decided to brew beer in our flat so we've just got it started.  I don't even drink or like the smell of beer so lucky me!  I took some photos but I'll post them tomorrow