It's Crochet, Knit & Natter 9: So Many Projects, So Little Time. (Oh well - I almost made it rhyme!)

[Fairislefandango]

A thread for woolly crafters of all types and levels.
Previous thread here

Welcome @Lottsbiffandsmudge what a lovely idea to make blankets for your DS and his GF to take to uni! You do sound very productive!

@mumsie8 that blanket is stunning!

@InTheNightWeWillWish I love those colours! I've done week one and I'm now halfway through week 2's granny squares! I quite like crocheting granny squares and just being able to pick it up and put it down! I wish I could crochet in the car, I get really bad travel sickness though so I can't even look down!

Right, I've ordered a flyer and 3 bobbins - which together cost me twice as much as the wheel itself

Can anyone recommend yarn shops near Grassington in Yorkshire? We’ll probably be flying into Leeds and hiring a car.

@Fairislefandango But think how much you’ve saved overall

Sorry, @SpinMeRightRoundBabyRightRound - I'm not far from Yorkshire, but I don't know that area well.

Grrr - having issues with my spinning orders! The spare parts from Weft Blown haven't arrived yet, and I got no order confirmation from the other company I ordered the flyer and bobbins from, then when I checked my account on their website, it said ny order is cancelled (for no discernible reason) . I don't want to re-order until I'm sure it hasn't gone through.

Welcome to @Lottsbiffandsmudge and @mumsie8

I feel that spinning is a slippery slope of spending @Fairislefandango! I am tempted to try but only when we’ve moved (which is dependant on actually finishing all the outstanding jobs in this house)

I’m just about to start the fair isle bit of my crochet cardigan and since I keep getting mixed up with which is the right side I’m not sure how well it’s going to go.

Oh no, how annoying @Fairislefandango I wonder if it’s the bank holidays slowing down the post? My stuff arrived pretty quickly from weftblown. Can I ask where you ordered the other stuff from? Just so I know to avoid them…

It was George Weil. Hopefully it's just some technical hitch. I'll phone them tomorrow.

I've re-ordered, having taken a screenshot of the cancelled order just in case. It seems to have gone through now!

Fingers crossed for you @Fairislefandango! I got my loom from them without any issues!

I’ve had a look on Google maps and there’s a couple of shops I’ve ordered from that are close to where I’ll be, so far the nearest is Adelaide Walker which is 25 mins away and theres a rare breeds farm in Grassington itself so I’ll get my wool fix one way or another…

Did you have any luck with a pattern @MerylSqueak? Hope all is going as smoothly as it can in the circumstances for your family

Speaking of woolly places to go i'm (hopefully) off to The Wool Monty. I've roped my mum into coming with me. It will be my first time doing such a thing and the idea of being surrounded by all things wool pleases me more than i'd care to admit . Hope evyone has enjoyed the Jubilee weekend.

*everyone

Also apologies for not yet isolating each and everyone of you in my responses. I'm still getting to grips with trying to remember everyone's thread name and so i come to reply and then i @ the name wrong 🙄. I will get there i promise.

I think @lucysmam posted about The Wool Monty on the previous thread and possibly going. I don’t think I’ve seen her on this one yet (sorry if I’ve missed you @lucysmam) because she might be busy making her story time spoons.

I should probably make a separate thread for this but don’t want a MN pile on telling me to LTB. I told my work that I’ve been offered another role for the end of my maternity leave and they want to negotiate to keep me. I thought about it and agreed but can’t get a meeting in for another week. Since I agreed I’ve thought about the current job and job offer a lot. Obviously I don’t even know if my job would match my salary and working pattern of my new job but if they did, I would have more money staying where I am. Obviously with the cost of living and a mega childcare bill on the way, more money can’t be ignored. I just think there’s a reason I looked for a job on maternity leave. I think the reason I’m considering negotiating is because I’m scared to go, scared to go to a new job after maternity leave and make a good impression. I saw both my mum and dad (they’re divorced so on separate occasions) over the weekend and both have said they think I need to accept the new job. My mum says work have messed me about and made me unhappy for a while, dad says I should only stay if they offer significantly a lot more (not just salary but increased responsibility/job title or flexibility depending on what stage I’m at). I’m not looking forward to the commute of the new job (1hr 40 mins each way) but this will only be once a week and my commute was an hour anyway with overnight stays at head office. I also think I might get a bit bored at the new job - my job is constantly fighting fires and not having the time to do anything proactively and I think this can be reflected in my crochet (see I found a tangible link to post it on this thread ) and why I have so many WIPs. But maybe I need to just let my brain actually focus on something?

Anyway, I keep mentioning to DH about not negotiating and accepting the new job. He says ok but not in a positive way. When I question it, he says he thought I wanted to negotiate and I did but I think because it was nice to finally feel valued by my work in reality they are probably just shitting themselves now they realise what I do and my maternity cover is saying she’s feeling burnt out after 4 months in my role. Obviously DH is seeing the cost benefit if they match the salary (I don’t think they will), I think he’s also picking up on my fear and he knows my work can be flexible around making up hours for when DD gets sent home with every bug going. However, the potential new job has given me everything I asked for except moving the office 60 miles closer to me but I do think it would be unreasonable for me to hold that against them. Whatever is making DH give a reserved answer is worrying me more. He says he thinks it’s a good job so I just don’t if there’s something he sees that I don’t and my parents don’t. I need to make a decision tomorrow though because the potential new manager was on leave last week and I said I’d get all the paperwork back to them this week.

Obsessing over this has actually been a big distraction from my crochet and I’m even further behind on my WIPs, with more and more people asking for things or having babies and me wanting to make things for them. I managed to finish week one of the CAL in the car and have been slightly good and sewn in half the ends.

@InTheNightWeWillWish yes i got the idea from reading the previous thread so i googled it (as you do) and thought why not?

As to the obviously difficult/complex decision you find yourself faced with around your current job/new job i am probably going to be no help whatsoever except to say what do you feel about both jobs?

If you peel back all the layers around them, maybe make a list of the pros and cons which leaves you feeling the most confident or instinctively secure?

I think for a lot of women after a maternity leave coming into a new role or indeed going back into one which you had done prior to having a little one will always have an element of wtf moments because surely that's natural and entirely human to have those feelings of fleeting self doubt.

Ultimately (and it's probably of little help to you right now) you should do what feels right for YOU but don't allow those sudden, unexpected feelings of self doubt make that decision for you.

If you negotiate it's because you know your worth and it sounds as though they are fast realising that too and there is no shame in that. A man wouldn't think twice about negotiating his salary, grade, title etc upwards.

I think as women we are conditioned to be 'nice', to play ball and whatever we do, don't rock the work boat! But why shouldn't you?
Maybe make a list, write down what you want, sleep on it and go from there.

Anyway i don't know if that has helped or just muddied the waters further for you i hope not

Sorry just re read that you're also restricted by time. So maybe everything i've just written is moot point. And apologies if i'm wide of the mark in anything i've said.

Would having a conversation with your current job around the time limitation be something you could raise in order to try and bring forward the meeting you are going to have? After all it seems as though they believe it's in their interests to keep you so in some ways you have the upper hand.

I think there was a reason you looked for something else @InTheNightWeWillWish and that reason hasn’t gone away. In my experience even when people negotiate a better deal with their current employer they still end up leaving several months down the line because they have already mentally gone through the process of moving on.

I agree with @StillNiceCardigan . If your current work have not valued you as much as they should, it's unlikely they will change, regardlessof the fact they want to negotiate to keep you. Maybe your dh's view is simply him not wanting to risk change unless he can see the direct benefit of it. But the importthing is whether you can see the benefit, as it's your job!

If your maternity cover has burnt out in 4 months it really doesn’t sound like a healthy work environment InTheNight. I’d agree that if you looked for a new job on maternity leave then you definitely had a good reason.

The commute is longer but weighed against not having the overnight stays it sounds better overall.

I left a job due to burn out once and I was terrified that I was making a mistake and would regret leaving what I knew but the sheer relief of not being expected to put my life on hold because someone somewhere wanted something NOW and that they actually appreciated the work I did in the actual hours I was supposed to work was mind blowing. I loved the new job, everyone was so nice and the work was interesting without the stress.

Thanks all. I have made a pros and cons list and the pros for my new job were the certainty that I could take leave at short notice for childcare and make up hours if needed. They were also that I know what I’m doing, know the environment and “how to play the game” with a note next to one that saying “don’t you want to work somewhere you don’t have to play the game?” The cons for the new one are the uncertainty and commute but overall I’ll spend less time commuting and away overnight. I really underestimated the uncertainty that would come with changing jobs on maternity leave. I do think the new job is right but then that bloody self doubt kicks in! I once left my job with 6 months left on the contract to take a job that was for 4 weeks (it got extended to 13 months about 3 hours after I accepted) and also walked out of an interview halfway through. I don’t really know why DH is reluctant. He supported me with both taking a job for 4 weeks and walking out of an interview. He did more housework and baby stuff while I focussed on writing an application and he’s listened to me complain about work for ages and saw how upset I got with things before I went on mat leave and the couple of KIT days I’ve done. Which is why it’s really throwing me.

but the sheer relief of not being expected to put my life on hold because someone somewhere wanted something NOW and that they actually appreciated the work I did in the actual hours I was supposed to work was mind blowing

@SpinMeRightRoundBabyRightRound that bit really resonates. The meeting to discuss approval for my maternity cover kept getting bumped as there were more important things to discuss. They only approved the role a few weeks before I went off. I wrote a very lengthy handover document (which they didn’t give to my maternity cover until 3 weeks after she’d joined) but I was also writing a handful of proposals (on top of everything else I was trying to finish off) and they’ve just not actioned them. However, they had an away day and my manager got all the credit for my projects. I think I need to go. I just need to work out how to shut this self doubt up for the next two months!

@InTheNightWeWillWish sorry to hear you're having doubts. Maybe have a read back on this thread (or the last one) where you told us you'd got the job and remind yourself how excited you was and the reasons why. I think when you've been on maternity leave, and away from work for some time it's easy to forget how bad that job actually was and how it made you feel.
In regards to your DH, I assume he's just very scared of change and doesn't want you to regret your decision. You're the one doing the job, so you're the one that needs to make the decision.
From my experience of my own DS being in nursery, the first few months he got ill ALOT, whereas before he was the healthiest child I knew! So having the ability to take leave for childcare would be a massive plus for me!
I really hope you settle your mind soon and settle on a decision.

I wonder if he’s worried about pushing you one way or the other and thinks he’s being balanced because it’s about salary when it’s actually about all the other stuff? But if he doesn’t discuss it with you then that’s not helpful…

Your old job sounds very like mine with the stress and power plays. Leaving was the best thing I ever did and I should have done it at least a year earlier but I stuck with the devil I knew! It totally zapped my self confidence - I had a manager who for my end of year review wrote bullet points of things I’d done with smiley or frowny faces beside them. He gave me a frowny face for working from home to wait to a parcel once - when he was the one who gave me permission to work from home in the first place. It was all mind games and he was a <insert insult of choice>

I am a highly impractical person @InTheNightWeWillWish so I am not sure you would want my advice but I would trust your instincts. Every new job makes you feel as if you can't really do it/ I think it takes a good year for those feelings to go away in most cases. I think feeling nervous about not being up to the job is an entirely rational response to having a new job but not a reason to not do it.

Someone or something has pulled all the stitches our of my knitting. It's not very well behaved yarn anyway so saving it will be a hiding to nothing. I do feel quite sad about frogging it though.

I've never regretted leaving a job, I have regretted not leaving a job sooner.

I'm doing yet another blanket in Bernat Blanket yarn, it's just a simple half treble in stripes. It grows really quickly, I'm doing it for my bed when I'm back home & have had my room redecorating, it's 7' × 4'6" up to now. I'm doing the Refuge Domestic Violence crochet every day in June challenge & will be sending a donation at the end of the month.