Knitting and Knotting

A brief appearance

2011-07-26T21:25:00.004+10:00

Probably a bit like Halley's Comet, you may not see me again for a considerable period.

Life at Chez K&K has been flolloping along. T. is growing like a weed, which is to be expected, and is enjoying great-grandmother knits nowadays instead of motherly ones as I'm still running around like a headless chook attending to work, household and mothering duties. I've managed to knit two pairs of pre-schooler gloves and one ipod sock so far this year. Pitiful. H.I. continues to hold the fort for 50 hours/week as a solo parent and does a wonderful job at it.

Project 2012 has commenced. We're going to relocate to Canberra around February 2012 to give my career a bit of a kick in the pants so that when I retire my superannuation will be of sufficient value that we'll be able to have hot showers at least once a week. At least that's the plan. We'll probably be live in Canberra for about 2 years and then we'll see what divine comedy awaits us after that. Of scarey import is that this move will signal our efforts to become filthy capitalists and buy a house. On one hand it will be a relief not to have 3 monthly house inspections (!) but then we'll have to do all our own repairs. Swings and roundabouts.

In which I realise a may have a reason for being a bit tired.

2011-01-14T20:17:00.004+11:00

Happy New Year and I hope all my dear friends in the north are drying out. I'm thinking of you in the terrible aftermath.

I think the two worst aspects of post-flood period down here were the mosquitoes - horrible - and the stench. There was one point in my car trip to Can'tberra where I always had to switch from 'the air without' to the 'the air within' as the air was full of rotting vegetation, etc. Happily, I noticed both problems had disappeared by the time we returned from the coast, even though the water was still present in many places.

Not much to do

Yesterday was a day of waiting. Not my strongest characteristic. Firstly, off on foot (car in garage being serviced) to a hearing appointment. The Tilster's last hearing test (post grommet removal) showed a slight mechanical deafness. She had a head cold at the time and we were hopeful that this was just transitory due to fluid in her ear canal and not another bout of glue ear. It proved to be so. Now when she's ignoring us we know she's doing so quite deliberately... how comforting.

After a brisk walk home and eating our lunch on the back step (constitutes a picnic in Til's lexicon), we then waited for cleaners to arrive. Not their usual day and so I had to have diversions on hand to distract Til from bailing up the cleaners every 5 mins. The cleaners are a source of joy to me. After about 5 months back at work I finally got tired of spending every minute of my non-work hours doing housework and not getting any time with Til or Philip that didn't involve interruptions, snarling and general whining about how much I had to do. Cleaners have resolved a very boring situation for little outlay. H.I. was reluctant but has conceded that a sweeter Kate has arrived since their advent.

An hour after the cleaners left our new dishwasher arrived. Our old one was on it's last legs - the bearings had gone (whatever that means) and after a period of persuasion, our landlords decided the January sales afforded a good opportunity for replacement. It's SOOOOO quiet! And my suspicions that the old one was pretty pathetic at actual cleaning has been confirmed. The real test will be seeing if it can get peanut butter off knives.

After H.I.'s early arrival at home, I organised bikkie icing materials (assemble one pot of pink icing and another of purple, sprinkles, silver cachouts and mini marshmallows) and left father and daughter to decorate plain, sweet biscuits for school lunches while I picked up the car from the garage where it was having it's service.

After organising dinner, I made and froze into portions one batch of beef stroganoff and another of honey soy chicken.

Then I went to bed.

Have a mentioned that I'm glad I don't have to clean house?

A kind of happy exhaustion.

2010-12-30T21:29:00.002+11:00

We're back. Wagga to Newcastle via Sydney for a 7-day, three stop, whistle tour of the rellies. 1322km (821 miles) round trip and covered all the required bases: family, friends, playmates and good takeaway.

You couldn't get us away from home with a crow bar again for at least a week!

Our Christmases have a 3-year cycle: 1) my family 2) H.I.'s family and 3) staying at home. This year, in Newie, we had a fabulous times and felt really privileged to be able to get 4 generations under one roof for the Christmas celebration again. Him Indoors' grandmother has had a lot of illness this year and had us all worried for quite a while but she seemed to be in much better health now the weather's warming up. I got to meet a new fiance and we all got along as cheerfully as one can when surrounded by many more people than one would usually encounter during the course of a single day and two semi-hysterical little kids.

Til got to play with her 5yo cousin for three whole days, which helped her understanding of all things cars, particularly V-Dubs. She can now park, wash, fill with petrol, do donuts any car (with the exception of the beloved V-Dub collection) and make a truely wide variety of car-related noises not previously in her lexicon of weird sounds. She asked for her cousin for the rest of the car-trip home (2 loooong days) and was more than slightly put out to learn that he wasn't hidden in the back of the car somewhere.

We also got to catch up with friends visiting from Rome and some old family friends of mine that are close enough to be called 'family', anyway. Surrogate families are a great marriage of friends, loyalty and default kindness.

Back in the land of Wagga, floods have receded now but there are stagnant pools of water all about generating concerns about Ross River Fever spiking this summer and autumn. Poor Til's coming home from daycare with at least 5 bites/day. This is on top of all the bites we're suffering around the house, particularly at night as we're not getting good coverage with both barrier and insecticides, although we're obviously hesitant about the use of the latter. We'll just hope for the best.

At least we haven't had any ants in the house so far this summer!

Have re-potted a zygocactus that a friend gave me when she moved house. It's a glorious hot-pink one but was a bit root-bound so I've tried to give it a boost with new soil and a more free-draining pot. I've also taken some cuttings from my jellybean cactus (sedum rubrotinctum) and a few others I've not got names for. I'm hoping to put together a dish garden - we'll see how I manage as I'm not exactly at home dealing with plants that are happy to not be watered! After 10 years of drought, I water almost reflexively.

That's the news from the back porch. I'll try to be a bit more rivetting in my next post!

Raindrops keep falling

2010-12-04T21:22:00.004+11:00

Do you remember me occasionally commenting on the state of drought in my part of the world? Drought's over. Welcome to flood. Who'd be a farmer? Apparently Hanrahan wasn't a dour pessimist, just a optimistic realist. You'd have to be an optimist to stay a farmer!

On Thursday I was entertaining the delightful Becky et al and so missed all weather reports and warnings. We decided to take a stroll with the kids down town. We dodged one downpour, which passed through in about 5 mins and made it to town before another downpour. We'd finished our various errands and Bec and the kids pealed off to travel to Coota (hope you got there safe!) and then Til and I, with inadequate umbrellas and a stroller, started home just as the rain started to get really heavy. After crossing one intersection and poor Til getting v. wet from below (water was about 3" at the intersections) I waited for the rain to die down before I tried to cross another and go home. After 20 mins of futile waiting I called Philip and he picked us up. Turned out to be a good move as it didn't stop raining for 4 hours and 38mm later! The state of the town in the morning was astonishing; much worse than the flash floods last February, which drained away within hours, or the floods in October.

For those who watch the news concerning Australia, you may be aware that Wagga Wagga is on a major flood alert. The last time North Wagga (north bank of the Murrumbidgee River, which runs through the east and north of Wagga Wagga) was flooded was in 1991 at 9.61m. The 'big one' was 1974 at 10.74m and this is the height that the levee bank for the south bank of the river has been build to hold back floodwaters. The river is expected to peak in 2 days' time at around 10m but another large storm system is coming through and is expected around Monday/Tuesday. Houses in the lower lying areas on the north and east banks are being evacuated in anticipation of the failure of the north-side levee bank. Where we are should be fine. If we're flooded, most of inland Australia will need canoes!

Hey, maybe I won't be able to get to work on Sunday night. Woot!

A new hope...

2010-11-30T22:15:00.002+11:00

I was listening to Is it Just Me (last episode, I think) and Wendy Harmer was commenting that she'd miss the requirement of remembering to take note of stuff happening around her and making sense of it or reflecting on it through conversation with Angela Catterns.

And that's what I've missed here.

So, K&K is re-jigged. No longer a pure knitting and social group calendar, it's more about what's happening around me. And probably a few bits'n'pieces of knitting. If I ever get back to it!

DONE!

2010-04-10T15:39:00.003+10:00

Very silent but for good reasons. As this is a knitting blog, it doesn't work if there's no knitting! Instead, H.I. has been overseas for two fortnights, Til and I drove 900km to and from Adelaide (not sure I want to hear Justine Clarke sing the swinging song ever again), we've had lots of lovely houseguests and spent the inbetween weekends cleaning up the house and garden.

The Tilster is very actively 2 at the moment with all the attention demanding that goes with this. On top of that, she's giving up naps. Woe is me! Still, she's bright, bubbly and doing all the right things toward toilet training.

None of these activities are conducive to knitting. So today I went to my LYS to get some concentrated knitting time in to finish off the edges of this...

(photos to be added when flaming batteries for camera have charged!)

Hurrah!
Deets: Spring Garden Tee by Alana Dakos of Never Not Knitting
Needles: 4mm x 60cm circular; 3.75mm x 40cm circular; 4x3.75dpns
Yarn: SWTC Bamboo 2x 100gm balls
Notions: sitch markers essential; yarn needle for sewing in ends

Notes on the pattern:
A beautiful knit but the pattern was difficult to read. This may not be the writer's issue but probably more about me. I was always trying to knit this at night when I was usually pretty tired and couldn't concentrate very well on the increases. Third time proved to be the charm. The pattern worked better for me when I wrote out the stitch count between each marker for all the increase rows. After that there was several centimeters of soothing working-in-the-round to calm me down.

In the version of the pattern I have the sleeve edging/finishing states:
"Return left sleeve sts to size 5 needle. With RS facing, join yarn and purl 1 row. Bind off all sleeve sts. Repeat for right sleeve."
When I did this it became obvious that there was about 10 stitches that needed to be picked up under the arm for the sleeve before joining up the stitches on the waste yarn. Either I completely buggered up the underarm bit (not impossible!) or picking up the stitches was left out of the pattern instructions. Not sure which!

Now, on with the socks!

The calming effect of going round in circles

2010-01-28T21:21:00.002+11:00

Apparently I was missing the point of socks. They go round and round and round... you get the picture - and importantly they're as complicated or as simple as you choose them to be.

I have a swap going with a girlfriend. She'll sew me a couple of handbags if I knit her a pair of bedsocks - 1 sock per bag. "Cool!" says I, contemplating my knit list, "but it may be a bit delayed".

What I didn't realise was that a plain pair of bedsocks that have been knitted before are as a balm to the frazzled brain. I've sailed through the picot edging and am charging downwards toward the heel. I have Bells to thank for this suggestion of plain knitting to intersperse with the fancy work. She was right. I've knit down to the ankle on the first sock and am likely to whip through the rest of it in right good style.

The other helpful thing is my decision to buy luxury sock needles to knit with. The last (i.e. only) pair of socks I knit were on steel needles and they fought me every stitch of the way. I'm now using Knitpro (formerly Knitpicks) Symfonie wooden dpns and ab-so-lute-ly loving them. I got them from my LYS, Simply Stitches, as with the yarn. The yarn slips very easily across them, far more so than any of my metal needles.

Stats:
Yarn - Jo Sharp Alpaca Silk Georgette 4ply in a cinnamon colour
Needles - 3mmm Knitpro dpns
Pattern - Jo Sharp Picot Edge Socks

If you want to see the end result, check out my pink ones here. H.I. took the camera with him to Roma. Fancy that!

It's a good thing I decided to start on the sock as there's no way on God's
green(ish) earth that I'd manage anything more complicated at the moment. Him Indoors has gone overseas for 12 days (not that I'm counting) and poor Tilster is missing him rather badly. Subsequently we're both short on sleep, which makes us both short on pleasantness, particularly toward each other. Oh well, only another week to go. Groan

Problems exists 5 inches behind needles

2010-01-08T15:04:00.004+11:00

Yeah, that would be me.

This photo does for this post as well.

I finally had to admit that the two or so inches of knitting I'd achieved on the Spring Garden Tee resulted in too many errors. I've ripped out back to the yarn join and now I'm having fun trying to get the right stitch count between the markers. Sigh. So, essentially I'm not much further forward than the first photo. Apparently I'm too tired to knit anything more challenging than stocking stitch during the evening. Looks like I'm going to have to carve out some morning knitting time. While we have really hot afternoons, Til and I will be out shaking out the cobwebs early in the morning.

A workmate and I had a barney about whether Twelfth Night was the 5th or 6th of January. This is important for those traditionalist amongst us as this is the date to pack up all the Christmas finery and grit yer teeth and get into the new year's work. We were having an argument as to when the Chrissy decos should come down at work and for various nefarious reasons I was arguing for the 6th. (I wouldn't be at work so would have to do half that work!). Jean agrees with me that it should be the 6th but Wikipedia, that bastion of community knowledge, plumps for the 5th but acknowledges that many go for the 6th instead. Sheesh, talk about hedging your bets. Jean plumps for 6th January with me. What say you?

Sister Shawl Mark II

2010-01-03T09:27:00.004+11:00

After much pleasurable browsing through resources, I've decided on the pattern for the Sister Shawl Mk II (or perhaps it should be a Sister Shrug?). This is for my eldest sister who will be 50 this year. She wants something textured, not lace (pity!) and loves intricate cables!!! So, I'll be doing the Cabled Shrug by Shirley Paden.
I'll try doing it with Patons Smoothie DK (black, which is testing on the eyes) but I'll use two strands. My sister is allergic to all (it seems!) animal content yarn and this yarn gets good reviews from nearly all I've talked to about it. Hopefully I'll have the gauge right if I double the strands this way. *Shudder*, I guess I'll have to do a swatch!

Small further progress with the Spring Garden Tee. I keep mucking up the sleeve stitch count. I have to go back 2 rows because I was an idiot and didn't check the count regularly. Doh!

The results of the 2009 knitting intentions list

2009-12-29T15:02:00.003+11:00

Wow, lots of stuff that wasn't on the list got knitted, which kinda makes the striking off the list understandable!

In February 2009 I didn't commit to knitting the following items:

1 cot blanket
1 scarf
1 jumper
1 smock-kinda dress
1 shawl.

This was a good thing. Of this list, 2 items were finished, the scarf (clapotis) and the jumper (Rigby stripes). The remaining items are still intended but now they're scheduled for 2010. Nevertheless there were the following extra items:

2nd sock
ear flap hat
newborn size Topaz dress
3 pairs baby booties
baby singlet
baby hat

So, while not in the scope of the intentions, I'm certainly happy with what evolved.

In the meantime, my 2010 intentions knitting list now looks like this:

3yo size Spring Garden Tee (Til)
Alhambra wrap (me)
Sister wrap (liz)
beanie or earflap hat (til)
bed socks (friend)
socks (me)
socks (H.I.)(maybe)

Yes. Socks are mentioned three times. What does it say about me that I lust after other's socks but have a vague dislike for doing them? And what does it say about me that I even consented to knit them for a friend in exchange for two handbags when I'm so bloody hesitant about them? In compensation for having to knit them, I'm going to buy myself some lovely knitting needles so that they're as painfree as possible!

If I don't get on the 'puter again before New Year's Eve, have a good and safe one, everyone : )

All those members of the Wagga S'n'B - past, present and future! - feel free to post your intentions for 2010 here!

I'm on...

2009-12-04T15:02:00.005+11:00

I while ago Saphire Kittum did me the signal honour of making some stitch markers for me. Due to virtually no computer time at my disposal I haven't been able to show anyone except the WWS'n'B what little beauties they are; they're heart-shaped for friendship.

They've been getting a big work out on my latest project, Spring Garden Tee , executed for Matilda. I haven't knit anything for her since she was 1!!! Not a good record, mum. So, Spring Garden and then a Milo for next autumn; it'll be nice to be beforehand for a change.

For what is a reasonably simple knit, Spring Garden is turning out to be torturous. I've frogged it 3 times so far simply because I've been knitting when I've been tired and not paying enough attention to what was happening. What I wouldn't give for a graph, though. It's a little startling to discover I'm more of a graph pattern person than a written-out-pattern person. Perhaps it depends on the pattern. I'm knitting it from SWTC Bamboo. Everyone else has knit it in either cotton or wool so it'll be interesting to see how this goes. Hopefully I won't lose gauge half way through!

Things are busy. Playgroup is drawing to an end for the year, social functions leaking out our ears, trying to buy the clan their pressies and wanting to do more crafty things than I have energy or opportunity for. Bugger.

It's been a great year for the playgroup and I'm rather proud of it. I'll look forward to it starting again next year but at the moment I'm happy to know that there's just a few more weeks of organising and running it. Then we'll be into the Christmas packing before we head south of the border for Christmas. While I'm in Melbourne I'll be nutting out my requirements for mys sister's 50th birthday shawl. If 2009 is any indicator I'd better caste on as soon as I get the yarn - May ain't that long away for a shawl!

Some Stuff...

2009-11-08T21:03:00.005+11:00

Mild progress while I was away. The lemming has lept and arrived safely in the form of this clapotis for a good friend. Admittedly, it's about 5 months too late for a cold Canberra winter but it's arrived in the nick of time for a chilly New York November. My friend is spending a whole month in Manhattan. I'm greener than grass!

Pattern: Clapotis
Yarn: Filatura di Crosa, College, shade 24 - about 1.5 balls
Needles: 5mm
Length: about 2m

I've also knitted pair of booties for the upcoming baby crop (same 'recipe' as last post). I met Bells in at Tilley's Devine Cafe and caught up with her and the other fine gals. One knitter, whose name I didn't catch, came to the rescue when I started to try to knit i-cord but found myself without dpns. With hook in hand she hooked up yarn to create 2 nice little tie offs for the booties. Thanks! It was great to catch up with Bells, so sorry about the Beloved's laceration! Maybe next month we'll last a little longer.

I've some knitting intentions for the Tilster and I'll post about that another time. I'm still short on for sleep so I'll finish here. I'm hopeful that I'll get back to blogging and reading blogs again some day - possibly when Til goes to school?

Baby Bug Set

2009-08-30T09:08:00.005+10:00

Some may have noticed that I'm rarely on the blog anymore. This is a reflection on the healthy mental and physical growth of the Tilster and personal need for sleep rather than lack of inclination or defaulting to Rav. Computer time just ain't wot it used to be.

This doesn't mean that there hasn't been knitting! As per previous post, some work on outstanding projects has been achieved and I began new projects for a few friends' newborn kiddies. While I stupidly forgot to photograph the lovely little Topaz dress I knit for a friend's daughter, I did remember to photo other stuff. All patterns from panda yarns, "Adorable Baby Knits"

Baby Bug Singlet

Yarn: Zarina Print #5081 on

Needles: 3.5mm and 3.75mm

Baby Bug Booties

Yarn: Zarina Print #5078

Needles: 3.75mm

Notions:80cmx2mm electric blue ribbon

Baby Bug Beanie

Yarn: Zarina Print #5078 and 5081

Needles: 3.75mm dpns

10 mins to bed time

2009-08-29T21:53:00.003+10:00

That would be my bedtime! The Tilster's specialising in 6.30 wake ups at the moment, which are better than the 1-3am hissy fits, so I'm not complaining. But I do have to get to bed on time.

My last posts' conundrums were solved thus:

Blankie - dragged out project; discovered that the needles were filched for another project and I haven't written any details out in my journal - 'e' or otherwise. Le sigh. Have finished stupid swatching to re-discover needle size and will proceed with triangles.

Lace scarf - did a couple of repeats of the set up and it soon became apparent that this was totally within my grasp (hey, cool!) but hopeless for the scope of the project. The yarn was too big to adapt the stole pattern into a scarf and it's characteristics meant that the lace was totally going to get lost. It were froggeded.

After consultation with the recipient, I've decided on the same yarn but have suckered myself into the Clapotis. I hate joining bandwagons so I've avoided this pattern forever. But I was wearing my ISE6 scarf and my friend loved the pattern, which is essentially a mitred piece in the same manner as a Clapotis. And wadda ya know? I'm knitting the bandwagon piece. Which just goes to show; join the lemmings before they/it's passé.

Look out cliff, here I come...

Promises, Promises

2009-07-25T13:47:00.009+10:00

In a fit of hopeless ambition, at the beginning of the year I resolved to knit as many gifts as possible, thus hopefully saving some $$ and expanding my knitting skills. I seem to have avoided doing any work on two of the gifts and time is a ticking. I also seem to have delusions of grandeur as one project requires oodles of time and much stamina and the other picks on my fledgling lace skills and requires me to figure out how to modify the pattern! Oh, dear.

Firstly, the Fey One's blankie. She's about to graduate to a big girl's bed, owing to a little brother or sister coming along. The blankie was supposed to be for her cot. What to do? Keep knitting it for a single bed afghan or frog and fess to the mother? Perhaps a bait and switch: "Look, here's a cot blankie and now it's a jumper"?

The second project is a lace scarf. As mentioned, my lace skills are not brilliantly developed. I'm no Saphire Kittum and churning out shawls like a knitting fury, I've only had modest little y.o.'s in my life to date. But my friend really liked what I had to offer on my knitting bookshelf and so I said I'd give it a burl, feeling fairly confident in my nascent lace abilities. How the mighty have fallen. I've looked at the pattern several times to sit down and work it out and now I'm just avoiding it. I know that my friend would be very forgiving if I had to admit defeat but I feel a little daft admitting defeat without actually having done anything toward a beginning.

Enough angst, I'll think about them later tonight. In the meantime, some knitting has been accomplished.

socks are done (thanks to Ali graciously kitchenering the last 8 stitches for me. She thought 8 stitches was a doddle. Whatever has she been kitchenering?!?):

A pretty little Topaz is on it's way to Adelaide for a friend's newborn (I forgot to photograph it!!!). I made it from Naturally Sensations yarn , a 70% merino and 30% angora mix. Hopefully the mum will send a digi photo of the munchkin wearing it.

And I'm trying out the same simple little dress construction with some waste yarn to see what I come up with. I'm using out-of-production Katia and ditto green Patons Bluebell:

Last weekend we had a lovely visit from the recipient of the Rigby Stripes jumper. Here's Rigby wearing his clobber:

And you last saw these pants and hat modelled by Til. It's now modeled on Rigby's little brother, Argent. (The green jumper isn't my make). Argent is huge for his age - I doubt he'll be wearing the little hat for any longer than it takes for his mum to find him a bigger one!

I love seeing the next generation modelling the last one's knits : )

Winner

2009-07-08T13:44:00.004+10:00

Through the magic of random number generation, Tasha has won a little bundle of treasures. These will be arriving via snail mail this week; once there I'll show what was up for grabs : )

K&K is in the winter session, now, and we're spending the first Thursday of the month at the Pavillion, as usual, and touring the rest of Wagga for the third Thursday of the month. We'll decide on the venue at the Pavillion.

FYI, for folks that have been coming to this website for updates on the Wagga Wagga Stitch'n'Bitch Knitting and Knotting, Kylie's created a new website for International Knit In Public Day and we're using it to keep everyone updated on where we're going for knit nights. The blog is: http://www.kandksands.blogspot.com/ This make much more sense as I'm not so great about keeping up with the blog nowadays.

Also, for those who remember her fondly, the queen of the stitch marker, Jackie, is visiting Wagga from 22nd to 26th July. We're likely to meet up for a s'n'b; please post a comment if you want to catch up with her and I'll keep you in the loop about date, time and venue.

Must fly - sorry for such an administrative post!

200th post

2009-06-21T09:21:00.002+10:00

I have several hobbies (addictions) of which knitting is one. Another is the English girls' boarding school stories of the inter-war years. Authors such as Elsie J. Oxenham, Elinor Brent Dyer and Dorita Fairlie Bruce produced long, endearing and enduring series with tantalising references to, amongst other things, knitting (there are obligatory chapters centered on hockey or tennis matches). For example, this excerpt on the power of knitting and colour to transform a dour neighborhood and create a sense of common purpose:

"Jen ... realised that her vivid jumpers and jerseys must indeed be unusual spots of colour in that gray neighbourhood... "Even the 'Tin Town' girls don't rise to jumpers like mine... I believe they'd like to wear them if they had them"... and at her next class she proposed to the girls that they should knit their own jumpers, in the prettiest colours they could find. The village girls had been apathetic about knitting but they had, indeed, been eyeing Jen's greens and blues and pinks and yellows with longing eyes...

Her suggestion was adopted with enthusiasm, and her help demanded on every side... in the intervals of dances, Jen was surrounded by an eager crowd, intent on stitches, borders and intakes; and she looked forward laughingly but eagerly to the summer, when the lanes would be full of girls in every colour of the rainbow." The Abbey Girls Go Back To School", EJO.

How's that for a S'n'B: folk dancing and knitting!

I would like to celebrate my 200th post by asking for people to cite a knitting reference in one of their favourite books. People can just leave the book, author and chapter or leave a link to a post on their own blog or, if short, leave the whole quote in a comment. I'll then randomly choose someone from the comments and they'll receive a mystery yarn prize from my ridiculously expanding stash!

It's done at last

2009-06-19T14:16:00.007+10:00

I give you the Rigby Stripes jumper: Stats:
Pattern: generic raglan with round neck (#1). Stripes in an odd-number repeat (7, 5, 3, 1, 3, 5, 7) with 3 yarns.
Yarn: Purla 8ply by Panda; colours 3, 5 and 7
Needles: 4mm straights and circs for the neck

But wait, there's more:

I put together a quick little Andean-look hat with the same yarn and approximately the same stripe pattern:
Same stats except using the pattern from this book I got the hat finished during the morning event of the WWKiP day and tried it on a passing 18mo - "Awwww" was the general consensus so I think the recipient's mother will enjoy it, even if the recipient thinks it's not hat weather! [edited to add modelling photo:

WWKiP was great fun. Lovely photos of the gang on the website and a few below for your enjoyment: Bec, Elizabeth, Kelly, Isobel and her Entourage. Obviously, I'm holding the camera!

The hardest thing about the knitting choices for the evening was that I had nothing that was suitable to take out for an evening of peripatetic knitting (we were doing a regressive dinner of the main street restaurants). I ended up picking up...
...the sock! These socks were last seen in this post - and it was heralded as an intended WIP to be knocked off for the Knitlympics. Well, that didn't happen.

If there looks like way too many needles for a sock there it's because at one stage I had 6 needles and a working needle. I was doing a fold-over picot hem and had to line up all the stitches for the picots to stand up. First attempt I just picked up the stitches freestyle, as it were, but I ended up with a misalignment and the picots didn't pop. This was solved by picking up the cast on stitches on another set of dpns and then knitting aligning the cast on stitches with the 'live' stitches and knitting them together in a kind of 3-needle knit stitch (as opposed to 3-needle cast-off). Sorry if that was a completely pitiful explanation! I've just finished the heel flap and will start to turn the heel tonight over a nice dose of Ghost Whisperer (thank heaven we're just about over the whole Sam amnesia thing).

To market, to market

2009-05-31T13:11:00.007+10:00

A lovely market day was had. All my bikkies went within the hour that I was there; I had several nice cuppas, bought lemon butter (look out lemon curd friands, here I come) and marmalade for The Biggest Morning Tea event I'm planning for work, and purloined (really, there's no other word for it!) these two craft books for 75 cents each and the 2 family Circle ones for $1 each (shows where people judge value lies!):

Kaffe Fassett's "Glorious Colour: Sources of Inspiration for Knitting and Needlepoint, with 17 Projects" is on ebay for around $20. Bargain, I call it!

It's a pity I'm not a quilter as I'd certainly have gotten my money's worth - there seemed to be a gazillion fat quarters - and lots of embroidery stuff, books, frames and threads. I think that someone must have given up a hobby. The sad side to these things being on the tables is that it's a reflection of the age and infirmity of the general congregation. As they're no longer able to keep up a hobby because of various physical difficulties or space reasons (i.e. downsizing their living quarters) more and more treasured collections and unfinished projects hit the trestles. I was discussing it with the Minister, who's a contemporary of mine, and we reflected on what a lovely feel the market had - really a 1950s undertaking.

Tilly look gorgeous in her new Sunday best and to celebrate our gladrags we went for coffee at Mate's Gully cafe before church. I may even be able to convince H.I. to have breakfast there one morning.

Last night H.I. and I went on a date. Woot! We went to see Star Trek Origins and found it exciting, fun, good prequel material and wonderfully funny in places (not always intentionally). I'm not sure who designed the stunts but there were a two themes for poor Capt. Kirk. If poor young James T. got clunked on the head many more times he'd have permanent brain damage, not to mention the 'hanging-off-a-precipice' fetish the stunt writers had. If it were I, one more precipice and I'd've started carrying a grappling hook.

Largely non-knit

2009-05-29T20:04:00.008+10:00

That title's taken from one of my favourite blogs, Jean's Knitting. Jean's long-term endeavor has been to knit the Princess Shawl. She's currently setting it aside in order to begin on her Highland Games entry, a child's cardigan. She's doing a BSJ for those who are interested in tracking progress of both these fin projects. All this reminds me that the Wagga show will be on in another few months and I haven't done anything about even thinking of an entry, forget about starting it. Ulla Vulla (transylvanian for 'oh well').

I note that Taphophile is on a WiP mission - Wipeout 2009, to be more precise. I echo the sentiments and shall do likewise - I've threatened myself with dismemberment if I don't get a wriggle on with various projects. But there's so much to distract one...

I went to Melbourne for work from last Sunday until Tuesday night and had an absolutely fabulous time. There were restaurants - LOADS of them - and cool shops and Haighs and lots of people and cool hotel room service and... excuse me, just got to calm down a bit. I got myself some lovely clothes, albeit for work, a Haighs fix for H.I. as he didn't get to taste any of the fabulous take-away food, and a new dress for the Tilster, which she'll hopefully be wearing to church this Sunday.

Came home with bitter, deep-seated lurgy and am now dosed up with erythromycin. Am slowly coming good. Today Til and I went to molest the ducks in the Memorial Garden and after her nap we commenced on market baking. This Saturday is my church's 5th Saturday market. I'm contributing gluten free Tollhouse cookies, thanks to the cooking genius of Rebecca Reilly. I've mentioned her before; if you're G.F., her cookbook is a wonderful investment. Til helped beautifully with spooning in the flour, which needed to be gradually added. She took to the whole mixing, adding and mixing routine with aplomb, as you can see.

Folks know about the Knitting in Public celebrations here in Wagga. We're having a knit in at the council chambers followed by a regressive dinner (desert, mains and appetizers). Please leave a comment in the KIP2009 - Knitting and Knotting Share and Show. If there's any out-of-towners who are interested, please let me or Kylie know, too : )

Mate's Gully Organics

2009-05-21T09:19:00.003+10:00

Sorry folks, my writing was too convoluted. The cafe is Mate's Gully Organics and it's next door to where the old St Vinnie's shop got burnt out. Apparently they're applying for a liquor licence, which may change their hours of operation. Currently they're open Wed-Sun during the day only, early for brunch on the weekend.

When The Toad Came Home!

2009-05-19T20:28:00.003+10:00

I've always thought this such a lovely declarative lyric - almost victorious and certainly celebrational. I'm home and very happy to be so. I got away from work in Can'tberra with just enough time to creep into Til's room while she was still awake and get a delighted chuckle. Such a lovely welcome! H.I. gave me a nice, satisfying cuddle and trudged back to the research treadmill. All is back to normal.

The stripey cardigan is, at last, making real progress. One sleeve down, thanks to an impromptu knit night at the local gelateria with Kelly, and good progress on the second. I'm hoping that when I get a nice visit from the prospective recipient in mid-June, all will be sewn, washed, blocked and wrapped.

The hexagonal rug has been languishing badly but I met up with the mother of the recipient who assures me that it will still be very well received whenever I finish it. And even if the recipient has graduated to a big bed, there will be another bub toward the end of the year to take up residence in the cot.

So what have I been doing over the last month? Recovering from the first molar (sleep back to what passes for normal, although I really object to the 6.15 wake-ups!!!), having visitors from our old Pasadena, CA, days (although Elena is a San Francisco girl nowadays), preparing for a house inspection (you'd think they'd trust us after 3.5 years?), having my first ever Tupperware party (yes, I am embracing domesticity that enthusiastically), attending the Rotary book fair and going to the new cafe in town for morning tea. The book fair apparently raised more money than last year - not bad for a community in drought for over 10 years and now hit with a recession. I got lots of books for Tilly and a few 80s knitting books for me. Apparently batwings are coming back into fashion; I am now armed with the necessary patterns...

The new cafe is a spin-off from a organic growing venture at a property, Strathmore, near Tarcutta. Mates Gully Organics have had a stall at my local farmer's market for a while now and I've always enjoyed buying the produce there, which has often included 'heirloom' or little heard of produce such as cavolo nero/curly kale, first introduced to me by Maggie Beer, and tomatillos, a comestible I've not seen in Australia before. Now they've started a cafe in town and, from the coffee drinkers present, does very good coffee and lovely cakes & breakfast. Methinks that I'll drag H.I. down for brunch this weekend.

For pity's sake

2009-04-28T21:30:00.003+10:00

How did that happen? A month went by and I didn't write anything. There were a few highlights such not going to the Royal Easter show but going on a rellie rally to Newcastle and Sydney instead. Classic comment from H.I. on the way home, "I don't feel like we had a holiday at all", reduced me to pitiful giggles. Apparently he thought the interstate rellie rallies I've done over the last 6 months with Til were relaxing! I had to explain to him that we weren't going to have a holiday for about the next 7 years plus, we would have trips instead. He looked glum. I felt glummer. This is the problem of living so far away from family that your child barely knows their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins - you can't just plunk them with them for a weekend away. Despite the down grading of holiday to trip, we did have a good time if not a relaxing one. The next trip away will be for fun.

Til's also cut her first 2yo molar. H.I. and I are knackered. She's been clingy and whiney and off her food since January and waking up several times in the night. Now I have at least one reason why this has been happening.

Additionally, I had my 40th. Woot! Had a cocktail party in three courses - cosmopolitans, sangria and cointreau frappes - with accompaniments: crostini with red capsicum salsa, twice baked potatoes, home made raviolis, etc. For 'cake' I made the torta di Verona from May 2007 delicious. magazine - fantastic as usual. Despite requests not to, I had some very lovely presents, one of which as been appropriated by Til: a knitting bag in the shape of a sheep!

Knitting - nothing done. Oh, a few inches of sleeve but that's it. Sleeplessness and clingy child have reduced me to automaton status. I'm going to a knit night this week so I'm hoping another few inches will be done. Stay tuned for more non-knit action.

actual knitting content included

2009-03-28T14:26:00.003+11:00

H.I. are working on a mathematical/sociological/physiological research study entitled "Clumsiness as a function of fatigue". We're measuring increased incidences of clumsiness and seeing if there's a direct correlation to how many times we get woken in the night. We count how many mysteriously appearing bruises and disappearing crockery & glassware on a daily basis and compare it to how many times Tilly works her way out of the covers, gets cold, cries, one of us gets up, covers her up, staggers back to bed. So far, the correlation appears to be pretty strong. We're looking to increase our sample pool fairly soon, so volunteers are welcome.

It's a family legend that my mum usually did something domestically disasterous shortly before going into labour with one of us. With me it was a dropped can of pineapple and mum thought that was fun spectacular fun getting it off the ceiling where it had managed to splash. With my brother it was a boil over of peas which managed to be funneled into a quarter-of-an-inch gap between the stove and for the next 6 months one would mysteriously roll out every now on then for no discernible reason. I thought these stories were incredibly funny until it started happening to me...

Yesterday was a good case in point. Overnight, got up to reinsert baby twice (and this was a good night!), walked Til to the ear specialist (apparently she can't get there on her own yet - the pram won't self-steer), washed and hung out/brought back in 5 loads of washing, provided toddler entertainment and cooked 2 nutritiously balanced evening meals. Yup, two. The first lot ended up on the ground next to the BBQ after the replica Tower of Pisa I'd made out of the plates, tongs, oil bottle and paper towel slid off the cutting board I balanced it on. Smashed the plate to smithereens on the concrete and the food was liberally strewn with crepe myrtle blossom. Looked great but not terribly edible. Le sigh.

Promised knitting content

The little boy's raglan I've been knitting has been excellent fun- it's knitted itself, really. I've been using Panda Yarn Purla in 3 colours - blue, deep gray/green, and a goldy yellow. Rigby has strawberry blond hair and the yellow yarn is pretty close to his hair colour. I'm using the Panda 8plys, "11 handknits for kids (sizes 2-10years)", pattern #1. I've nearly completed the front and the back.
I've used the three colours in stripes using an odd numbers repeat going: 7(blue), 5(yellow), 3(green), 1(blue), 3(yellow), 5(green), 7(blue)...etc. In each repeat the colour performs 8 rows so the same amount of yarn is used in the end. I'm embarking on the sleeves very shortly and kind of wished I'd done the construction top down so the stripes will match where the join at the yoke/neck. Perhaps I should make the effort and do some MATHS to figure out what I'll need to do so adjust the stripes. In any case, I'll be doing the waistband, neckband and cuffs in the blue. I've also tried to be clever and have a featured row of purl in the stocking stitch around the waistband, to be replicated in the cuffs, and hopefully on the neckband - we'll see..

hot milk and bed soon

2009-03-17T21:52:00.004+11:00

I'm all settled down to blog and it's only 10pm; let's see if I can get posted before 10.30! I've a nice cup of hot milk and honey to sooth the savaged breast (uncomfortable underwire while driving, for some odd reason) so I should be able to dive into bed once I've posted and shunt off to sleep quickly.

I arrived home from Canberra this evening to find an exhausted Beloved and a soundly sleeping bub. I'm thinking that Til must either be about to or just finished a growth spurt because she is a) disinterested in food, b) frequently cranky, which is not at all like her, and c) sleeping enormous amounts - a 3 hour nap on Sunday!!! (I'm excluding illness due to lack of snotty nose, temperature and/or rash.) Til's also doing the word explosion thingy. She's acquiring about 2 new words/week. I'm not sure if she's retaining them but she's making brilliant efforts in trying to repeat the names of objects that I mention.

The Hexagonal Blankie continues slowly; I must create more knitting opportunities if I'm going to get it finished before the beginning of winter. Mind you, I think Canberra weather will beat me to the finish line - it was v. cold there last night! A quick check of the calender brought to my attention that the raglan stripey jumper I'm knitting with Purla yarn (colours 3, 5, and 7) needs to be finished in about 2 weeks. So, Hexagonal Blankie will go on hold for a wee while and I'll get a wriggle on with the Raglan Stripey. Photos once I cast on the back - probably at S'n'B on Thursday.

I've been listening to a lot of Terry Pratchett during my weekly car drives. This trip was Wee Free Fighting Men. I should admit that I've read just about everything the man has published but I enjoy listening to Tony Robinson's renditions of them. I should probably get more daring a listen to more serious non-fiction - or at least something I haven't read before! - but nothing the library has to offer has tickled my fancy to date. I was very sad to hear last year that the ABC had ceased their recordings of Australian novels. Not one of Auntie's more brilliant ideas but when the political will of the day is to ensure that public institutions are run on commercially viabile lines, one can't expect Australian novels to compete for the interest of the Australian buying public. Pooh.

There has been a few stash accidents of late as well as a few gifts. When I find out what's happened to the camera batteries, I'll post about them. Lots of yarny-goodness, that's for sure.

I'm very excited - we're going to the show over Easter! While we'll cram in a whole lot of visiting of family and friends, Easter Saturday will be spent introducing Til to various wonders of the agricultural and 'home industries' exhibits. Oh, and the woodchoppers. Can never go past the woodchopping. I have a personal objection to buying anything other than the tickets and carparking/public transport, so we'll be packing a picnic basket par excellence. There'll be the semi-dried out sangas, the crushed bikkies, the squashed fruit, the water and the thermoses for the hot tea after the the aforementioned foodstuffs. Anyone else going to be there on the Saturday? Wanna swap a sanga?

For sock lovers

2009-03-12T19:53:00.006+11:00

I know this is weird, given that I've frequently chronicled the sad fate of the 2nd sock in my life - stuck at the sixth row for over 2 years now - but I'm in the position to pass on sock yarn news for Sock Knitters of the Interior.

First, Patonyle is back but in solid colours. I thought this was particularly bizarre given that all the yarn companies have decided that 2009 is the year of the self-striping or variegated yarn. The colours are all subdued - suitable for a woman whose partner's wardrobe seems to consist entirely of various shades of gray. Not that there's any wrong with that or subdued solids (sounds like baby cereal).

Anyway, I commented on this to my LYS owner and Faye said that's because Patons is bringing out Kaffe Fassett's sock yarn!!!! So, if you're into socks or into fun, bright yarn for baby clothes, start putting aside stash money. I'm happy to enable.

BTW, has anyone else looked at the Opal Harry Potter yarn. Faye's got this as well, if folks are needing a fix. Given that I'm in Canberra every week now, I'm happy to play courier.

Getting to the point

2009-03-06T12:45:00.006+11:00

Do you remember this movie? Loved it as a kid. I keep meaning to get the DVD to watch to see if it was as fascinating as I remembered it as a 7yo.

Anyway, I'm knitting triangles for the Fey One's blankie now. I abandoned several experiments with leaves; they were just too slow and cumbersome to knit them as squares in the round and I was jiggered if I was going to sew 80 triangles together!

On top of that, when I went back to work 3 weeks ago I discovered that autumn was already a night feature in Canberra and I'd best get a wriggle on!

I got the pattern from the book above: Motifs, Borders and Trims in Classic Knitted Cotton by Furze Hewitt and Billie Daley, Kangaroo Press, 1988. I'm using the Ridged Hexagon pattern and will make it into a v. warm cot blanket. I'll make it a little larger so it can be used when the fey one graduates into a bed. The picture below gives you an idea of how it all fits together but I won't be using the suggested border.

I'm knitting the triangles in a merino alpaca blend, so it should be very warm - hopefully not too heavy! I sourced the yarn from the Wagga Wagga Farmer's Market. The alpaca farmer grazes her herd in the Riverina and she sends the yarn to Bendigo to be blended and spun. It's very nice in texture, once I get the occasional bindii (Soliva pterosperma) out! All up, a very nice regional product.

Life continues at a break-neck speed. For my sins(?!?) I've started a playgroup at my church. Once I got over a huge fit of nerves (Would anyone come? Would Til and I be wandering around aimlessly for 2 hours?), 4 kids and their mums turned up and we all had a brilliant time together. Same again yesterday, so I feel a lot more relaxed. H.I. asked why I wanted to start a playgroup when Til already attends one and I have LOADS of stuff I'm trying to get done in the 5 days that I am home. Well, I found myself doing it after a conversation that went something like this:

Me: It's a pity we don't have a playgroup here at the church hall.
Congregation member 1: Oh we used to , we've even got the furniture and equipment still but no one to run it.
Congregation member 2: Did Kate say that she was going run a new playgroup? Hey folks, did you hear that? Kate wants to start a new playgroup.

You know how the rest went!

In which I make a reappearance

2009-02-21T14:20:00.002+11:00

So, I’m back and WOW, I’ll be happy not to do the last 6 weeks ever again. When I posted last I thought all I needed to do was just pull myself together and I’d be fine. Apparently not. I’m told that severe fatigue is normal after all the doings I had done however I’m here to say that it’s really inconvenient! After a while I stopped stressing about the blog and then my email and then my knitting – it just wasn’t achievable if I wanted to keep up with Tilly and remain conscious. If I haven’t responded to anyone’s email, I’m really sorry. I’ll be back on board and returning blog comments as I’m able.

I’m hoping that I’ll post weekly, which might be a more realistic schedule. Knitting has recommenced but the project list for 2009 is looking a little ambitious now. I’ll keep on with it in hopes that all comes together. Deadline knitting is for hopeless over-achievers, anyway! For 2009 I’ve committed to completing at some stage:

1 cot blanket
1 scarf
1 jumper
1 smock-kinda dress
1 shawl.

In future posts I’ll add photos of these projects. At the moment I’ll just give you a little update on how the Til's looking at 18mo:

How'd it Go?

2009-01-03T12:29:00.005+11:00

Well, all things considered, fairly well. The operation's well and truely over and I'm starting to get on top of some unexpected complications. My sick leave has been extended into February and so I'll not be needing to do the trek to Canberra for a while, which I'm more than happy about. Thanks to all those who've emailed or phoned to ask how I've been doing.

Christmas was boring as it was necessarily quiet. It felt weird not to have at least half my immediate family hanging about but I wouldn't have coped at all if we'd had any guests. Oh well, next year will be a fun one to have. Tilly had fun ripping open her presents and didn't play with the paper all that much! Church in the morning with friends running herd on the Tilster so she didn't dismantle the manger. We had a Christmas evening meal to accommodate Til's midday nap. A lovely meal of ricotta and spinach stuffed crepes, cranberry and pistachio stuffed chicken roll, roast vegies, salad and gravey.

Christmas knitting didn't amount to much. I managed to get H.I.'s iPod sock finished. Something is up with the camera again (it could be the user) and I couldn't get good close ups. The pattern has better ones. Regardless, this is the first thing I've knitted for H.I. and he actually uses it!

pattern: http://sknitty.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/ipodsock.pdf
modification: I didn't Kitchener the 56 sts but did a 3 needle cast off instead. I did this while still in hospital. It required such concentration and muttered cursing that the nurse who came in to change my wound dressing did an about face and said she catch me later at a better time.
yarn: 4ply hand dyed by Happy Spider and enabled by Taphophile
needles: 2.25mm
notions: darning needle.

And I finished up v2.0 of the Holly teacosy after unpicking all the dumb seams. I think it looks great and certainly added panache to the brekky table when guests came for a visit over the New Year. It fits my 6 cup pot snugly but swims on my 4 cup pot, which was the size it was intended for. Go figure.Pattern: Patons on-line pattern, "Christmas Teas Cosies". This isn't available online anymore; perhaps they've incorporated it into one of their project books.

Teacosy v1.0 still languishes as a UFO. This was the one that I wanted to figure out how to do some dripping custard on. I've figured that out but now I need to frog the pot sock as it's waaaaay big - probably fit a 10 cup pot, which would be fine if I was hosting a church morning tea or the CWA was going to drop by, but I need one for my 4-cup pot. So, frog and re-cast on. At a date to be determined.

New Years saw us having a lovely BBQ dinner with friends in the backyard. As all our kids are littlies, they had early bedtimes and so everyone went home at 7.30. H.I., guest and I then sat back and watched a Robo Chicken Star Wars spoof collection. After laughing ourselves silly, I then requested to watch The Empire Strikes Back, during which we spotted all the bits that had been previously spoofed and laughed inappropriately at the dramatic spots.

Next post I'll do a list of 2009 Intentions but I'm not sure when next post will be as I'm still a bit up and down. Once on deck properly, I'm hopeful of getting the remaining 12 posts done soon so we can celebrate my 200th blogiversary : )

Oh, I make myself laugh!

2008-12-05T22:08:00.003+11:00

20 posts!?! OH, I make myself laugh. (wipes tear from eye)

Life is busy, busy, busy. Who'd'a thunk that working 2 days/week would make such a difference? I've 4 days to go to O-day so if I post again, woot. In the meantime:

1. tea cosy 1 - up to the custard, holly and berries

2. tea cosy 2 - sewed up the edges and then remembered I was supposed to leave a gap for the handle and spout (altogether now: "I'm a little teapot..."). Currently cosy looks like a wee beanie and I've discovered that when I sew something up, it stays sewn up. Hmph. may have to get serious with this little beggar.

3. pressy for H.I. - half way done.

Additionally:
3 Christmas cakes - made and sent
g.f. biscotti for church fete - made and sold

In the reality I currently inhabit, I'm unlikely to post for a while so I'll take this fleeting opportunity to wish everyone who drops in for a read Merry Christmas or other festivity of your choice. Don't let stupid expectations rule your end of year; enjoy your family and friends. To all my fellow Riverina and Canberra S'n'Bers, be well and happy and may there be at least one glorious addition of yarn to your stashes by the end of the year.

au reviour for a bit
Kate

Struggling

2008-11-22T20:48:00.004+11:00

This whole 20 post thing is looking less likely to succeed - I'm running out of days!

In one of my oft-visited sites:

SOUTH WEST SLOPES
summary: Severe Weather Warning for damaging winds. A Sheep Graziers Warning issued for cold, wet and windy weather. Forecast for Saturday evening: Scattered showers. Isolated thunderstorms with possible small hail. Possible late snow/sleet on the grounds above 1000 metres. Cold, fresh to strong west to southwest winds, reaching gale force at times.

What the hell?!?! This is November and the bum end of it at that. Sleet and snow???? For heaven's sake, we're the southern hemisphere, you dumb weather gods, you. (You just can't trust those minor deities for nuthin').

I'm still cogitating the custard for the pudding cosy but I came across another pudding cosy recipe... er, pattern. It's an old one from Patons but I can't link it as they've removed it from their free pattern site. I'll post photos as soon as the batteries are charged up again. It's a great little pattern and a real God send. I was aching for stocking stitch. Lots of lovely, mindless back and forthness. So comforting for a sleep deprived brain. I've whipped through one side and am halfway through the other.

Tonight we all went to a family friends' photography graduation exhibition. Caitlin's going into English Lit. teaching but I imagine photography will have a major pull for her most of her life, even if she doesn't pursue it professionally. As it is, I've lined her up to take some photos of Til before she moves on from Wagga.

After we got home I whipped up some Tortilla Soup. It worked brilliantly, although I ditched the feta (we can't get queso fundido or manchego here and feta is a reasonable exchange for the bitter, saltiness of these cheeses) and put in chipotle peppers in the avocado instead. Also, instead of frying the chips I brushed the tortilla slices with oil and baked them in a very hot oven. All up, yum-o-rama.

Chuuuuuunky Custard!*

2008-11-16T12:29:00.007+11:00

I finished the tube for the Christmas tea cosy last night and then realised that I'd overknit the length of the first side. Considerably. It should be where the straight needle lies. Frogging will occur tonight but then I'll have to start on the decorations. Nicky Epstein's, 'Knitting Over The Edge' provides a nice little holly and holly leaf pattern, which I'll do in appropriate festive colours - probably using the left over green from the Rosie Posie Cosy (pictured above) and the berries in the ball of wool next to it. Overall, the shape of the Christmas Pudding Cosy will be same as for the Rosy Posy. The issue now is what to do about the custard/no custard embellishment.

I'd love to have custard dripping down the sides but how to do this in knitting? The closest that I can think of is a knitted edging or scallops such as one does on the edge of a scarf, etc, and then perhaps an embroidered drips from one or two of the scallops. I'd appreciate folks thoughts and ideas on this as I'd ideally like to do the scallops of varying length. Oh dear, methinks more swatching approacheth.

Last week we did the First Day Of Work. It went well. Til didn't mind being dropped off at the day care and she joined in on all the activities. It was fairly full on for the 1.5 hours on each end of the day that Philip had her as it was all about feeding, dressing, bathing etc, but he said he managed just fine with her. I'll haul stuff out of the freezer for them both tonight, so meals will be taken care of while I'm gone. She didn't seem particularly perturbed with me not being around and she wasn't particularly clingy when I was home. Still has cruddy ears, though. Oh, and I think the 2yo molars are starting to move. *sigh*

Amusingly, I've not got a single ball of gray yarn in the stash, which is the preferred colour for H.I.'s wardrobe and accessories. He's such a bloke. Shall have to enhance the stash by a ball or three in order to knit his Christmas present. What a tragedy ; )

*Do devotees of 80s ABC viewing remember this on the Late Show?

Summer has arrived!

2008-11-14T15:22:00.003+11:00

Man, I'm wilting here. 35C today and such a huge difference to just a week ago. Til's in as little as possible and so am I. Can't bear to pick up any of the woolly bits of goodness that are about the place. There's a huge build up of cumulus and I think that we may end up with a bit of rain. Hope so; heat always makes me apathetic...

I'm about halfway through the sock of the Christmas Pudding tea cosy. I apparently need a much higher pressure deadline of the 9th December. I'll probably be in a knitting frenzy sometime around the 4th. Progress on others:

Alhambra: swatched and decided the yarn will look magnificent. Lost my place in the graph, frogged it and have yet to cast on again.

Leaf blanket: swatched - yarn is good. Having figured out the written vs graph charts, I'll now caste on again to knit the squares in-the-round, thus saving myself awesome amounts of sewing.

Stealth Christmas present for H.I. - Not going to reveal the pattern/ object as H.I. occasionally wanders through the blog. No yarn purchased yet but may be able to use stash. Shall swatch ans see.

Anyone notice that I mentioned 'swatch' 3 times?

A Walk in the Neighborhood

2008-11-07T20:53:00.002+11:00

Warning, picture heavy post!

A while ago Jejune showed us her neighborhood through a series of piccies of her usual walk. This is one of the prettier times of year in Wagga, when the cedar trees and silky oaks are out in bloom and things are still pretty green and there's not too many flies, so I'd like to show you where we live.

When H.I. and I first moved here, we picked a Central location so we didn't have to own a car. Everything is a walk away, even the Bunnings. Admittedly the neighbors thought we were a trifle eccentric the day we walked home carrying a ladder for 1.4km, but it was only a five foot ladder and it was pretty light. Even with the advent of the Tilster and buying a car we rarely use it and walking remains a big part of our usual routine.

Til's and my usual walk begins on the footpath with the decision to turn right (visit friends) or left (meander around downtown Wagga Wagga). Today we'll turn left.

And then left again

These are the cedar blossoms. The flower's scent is divine but the pollen murderous such that most Octobers are filled with sinus drugs.

At the previously viewed intersection you can see our local primary school where Til is destined to attend if we're still here in 4 years' time. is just here. They still have a bronze bell which sounds at the beginning and the end of the school day in conjunction with an electronic bell (no 'didn't hear it' excuses, kids!).

Straight across the road of the previously viewed intersection is my favourite florist. I can go in and ask for just about anything and I'm always presented with a wildly original arrangement. Love it.

This is the way H.I. goes to catch the bus to work and

it's also the general direction of Til's childcare centre. Given the recent events, I'm hoping that it's still her childcare centre!

Near the centre is the railway station. I've spent a LOT of time in this station prior to Til's arrival as I would catch the train to and from work here. This is what it looked like in the late 1800s and today. The station staff work hard to keep the gardens tidy and the place spruced up. The station house is always a lovely cool spot.

OK, we're now on our way to the main drag, Bayliss St. Mainly as a by-product of the extended drought (9 years but who's counting?) lots of businesses have closed on the main street. New business have started up, though it's still a little dispiriting when a favourite closes down. This is my favourite cafe in town. Why? because they sell wonderful gluten free meals. I can sit down to a 2 course meal without worrying about stomach pains. Noice. The main street has a number of lovely sculptures up and down the main thoroughfare, and here's one of them. The statues are inspired by the folks seen around the main street. There was a competition to name all of them, and each one has a name.

There's also this weird triangular thing that used to be filled with mildew. I wigged out one day when I saw it working - it's a water sculpture! Only seen it work the once in all 3 years of living here : ( It must have been working again recently as the glass is still clean.

Tilly and I visit the library at least once a week. The library has a great babies, kids and young adults access programs and many folks meet their tutors here to study. The best part for Til is the children's space - she can wander around doing damage to nothing and thoroughly enjoy herself while I quickly scan the newspaper, etc. The complex also houses the National Art Glass Collection in the Art Gallery. Til and I occasionally go down to the Wollundry Lagoon and feed the ducks, play on the swings, etc and then usually start to head home. This is one of the sculptures on the way home that always makes my heart sing, particularly against a sunset.

so that's a small chunk of my neighborhood.

Knitting and Knotting: New Summer Home

2008-11-06T11:23:00.003+11:00

The Kooringal turned out to be a little less salubrious during the summer months so we're moving back to The Pavillion for the summer. Stitch'n'Bitch details are:

1st and 3rd Thursdays of the month

6pm til whenever

I won't be there tonight as I'm still swallowing golfballs. Hopefully the antibiotics will kick in soon.

Inspiration and a challenge

2008-11-03T11:24:00.005+11:00

During October Rose Red, Bells and Georgie followed Big Cat's suggestion to make October Blogtober by posting on their blogs every day. A wonderful month of fun observations ensued and now I feel I know these gals way better.

Having admired this and having decided that a bit more discipline in my life, instead of outrageous flakiness, would be a good thing, I've decided that I'll try to be a bit more together about the knitting and blogging part of life. I'll vow to knit at least one row of whatever a day and I'm going to blog 20 times between here and 9th December.

Why? I have only 20 posts to go before my 200th post. On the event of my 200th post, whenever that may be, I'll be having a little giveaway. Terms of the giveaway are yet to be determined.

Why the 9th? I'm having a biggish operation tht will exclude me from blogging and knitting for a while. I'm a wee bit nervous about this so it will be a good way to distract me from dwelling on it.

So, a busy week was had. Til had her first hair cut and I call it A Big Success. H.I. thought it was daft for me to get it cut and why couldn't I cut it myself? Because, 1. I'm hopeless with my own hair and I'm not going to inflict a pudding bowl cut on my daughter and, 2. Til's got so many cowlicks on her scalp that I lost count after finding five. I needed some advice on how her hair should be styled or whether she was destined to be one of those kids with a mowhawk on the back of her head forever.

Til was really good and didn't cry, get excited or have a hissy and despite having 3 stylists attending on her at one stage they didn't charge a thing. This is how it turned out.

A lovely, neat little bob is being developed at the back. I love playing with this and stroke her hair at her neck all the time now. The haridresser recommended a side parting with the fringe/bangs held back with a clip.

The clip is courtesy of my friend, Beth. They looks gorgeous, Beth!

I spent most of Thursday, Friday and Saturday getting ready for a Girls' Night In party. The theme was Needles and Pins! It's a Girls Night In!! and I made it just a desert night so all the mothers of small children were able to come after the kids were in bed. I made Lemon Curd Friands, Chocolate Brownies and Tiramisu, all gluten free. I finally got all the buttons sewn on to the purple sheep cardy and it's now ready to hit the letter box.

It was a lovely night and while we raised some funds for the research effort we all agreed that the Foundation's literature's suggestions in the way of donations was pretty extreme. On the donation form they outlined that A Girls' Night Out could potentially cost $230!!! We're none of us rich, all with financial responsibilities like mortgages and/or kids, and I can't ever remember spending more than $120 on a night out, even in my heady single-with-big-income days. Many of the donators felt bad about what they could afford to give rather than feeling happy about being able to contribute and it soured the night a little. I think that this part of the donation form needs review and will let them know in my feedback.

The Tilster and I are down with lurgy again. I can't ever remember having so many colds in my life. I asked my sisters when does one stop getting all one's kids lurgies? They said when the kids become dour teenagers and not so keen on cuddles. I think I'd prefer the cuddles and lurgies than good health and no cuddles.

Man, that hurt.

2008-10-27T21:45:00.006+11:00

Did your mum ever tell you not to eat/drink hot things on the couch cos you might spill it and get burnt? Guess what? She was tellin' it like it is. I'm currently sporting livid red burns on my thigh and foot instep after trying to eat a very hot noodle soup last night while semi recumbent on the couch. H.I. said watching me spill it was astonishing - a bit like a juggler in a train wreck. The thing is I'd just decided that it wasn't a safe eating position and was in the process of getting up to eat at the table when I lost my grip on the bowl and all went turbo. Two lots of 20min cold showers and most of the night spent with cool, wet flannels and a bucket load of codeine phosphate seemed to assist. I'm very fortunate that all seems to have worked out well, though, with no blistering on the skin involved. I now have more insight in how it's so easy for kids to get burnt, particularly when I'm (allegedly) an adult in full command of all motor skills and on furniture built to my scale.

Anyway, to distract myself from all the pain, I caste on the cot blanket. It's going to be an embossed leaf pattern. I've started knitting just a triangle to get the hang of what I'm doing and once I've caste it off I'm going to try to knit it in the round as a square. (I've rephrased that statement several times now and I can't get it right. Grammartarians, feel free to comment on the correct construction). I'd much rather sew together 20 squares than 80 triangles.

And in breaking news, I finally finished Baby Fair Isle. This cardy was originally intended for Til but due to her leap frogging over size O at the end of summer, I've decided to gift it to a friend's newborn, due any tick of the clock now. As they're in the Northern Hemisphere, her baby should be able to wear this with aplomb through to autumn. Here it is blocking on the back porch.

It was a good exercise knitting this. I learnt how to pick up stitches for neck and button bands and I now know where to be more wary of them, particularly at the joins to the neck and the bottom of the jumper. I got in some Fair Isle practice, which clearly shows I need to be more aware of tension issues during the design band. All good lessons to learn. And while this jumper is clearly a beginner's jumper, I'm still proud of it and I like to think that my friend's baby will be warm this winter in it.

In other breaking news, we finally got an offer of 2 days/week childcare for Til. We're having a Dry Run of 2 weeks to see how we all manage and the first day was yesterday. It's hard trying not to drop into the centre all the time or ring them every hour. They have said that they don't mind it at all but when I dropped in there yesterday (OK, I dropped in twice!) I could see that Tilly is as happy as a clam in what she's doing. Yesterday she ate everything I packed her, napped for an hour after a bit of patting down (as happened on our recent Canberra and Adelaide trips although she doesn't usually need this at home unless a tooth is coming through!) and they gave me a bunch of photos of the different things she did during the day. When I rang just now they said that Til dropped off to sleep with no assistance today. I'm looking forward to picking her up tonight and tomorrow when I can take her to playgroup and then hang out with her in the afternoon, just like we will when I'm home from work from Tuesday nights.

The side benefit of all the anxt is that the inside of the house is looking particularly spotless today after 2 days of manic cleaning. Now for the outside...

A Gathering of the Clan

2008-10-23T09:02:00.005+11:00

We're back and, WOW, are my family are full-on or what? I love them but I'm glad to be back in the quietness of my home. My friends who have met me in the flesh will be amused by this statement as I'm usually so gregarious but I do enjoy my quiet time as well. Til's still coming down from her socialising high but is happily off to sleep at the mo'. We had a wonderful time at my mother's afternoon tea party for her 70th. All but 2 outlaws and 3 grandkids were there, making it a total of 5 children, 3 outlaws and 11 grandkids present. Not bad given how far we all had to travel.

Til impressed everyone by all her cute ways and clevernesses. Here she is discussing the state of the Federal Reserve with her grandfather.

She got her LAST canine on the morning of departure and promptly developed a rip roaring headcold on the night of arrival. Poor kid's still fighting this and the resultant infected ears. Thank goodness we got her grommets done or I don't think we'd have been able to fly back home on time. The downside of this was not being able to do much as she was very clingy but the worst thing, from Til's point of view, was that EVERYONE wiped her nose every time the walked past her. Even her 3yo cousing had a go!

I discovered that she likes bung fritz* and she ventured into the world of poached chicken, courtesy of her uncle who is a waaay better cook than I am, and even had a bit of ham. This is the most meat she has ever had in a month, forget about a week. Hopefully she'll keep this up now that we're home.

The knitting list for 2009 did get extended! OK, the needles are committed to producing the following between now and August:

2x Christmas themed tea cosies (due 9 December)

1x cot blanket (due 20 May)

1x hoodie (due June)

and a late entry for my sister's 50th: 1x Lady Eleanor stole in entrelac (due 19 May 2010)

About the cot blankie. This'll have to be machine washable and that breaks my heart and fills me with shudders. ACKrylic snobbery is one of my besetting sins. I wouldn't normally even bother contemplating it only the mother of the child concerned isn't well most of the time and doing handwashing it pretty hard work for her. I shall search for potential yarns that may answer the need. Does anyone have any advice on yarns that are suitable for a front-loader? Or do front loaders chew up yarn so badly that it's a bad idea all round? Please post comments on your thoughts and experiences...

*bung fritz: a specialty of South Australia and (possibly) derivative of our German smallgoods heritage. The closest flavour isn't devon or strasburg, but spam. It's made of all the piggy bits no earthly use can be found for, with a lot of soy product to give it a complete lack of texture. It's probably this lack of texture that Til finds attractive.

The results are in

2008-10-06T09:55:00.005+11:00

I got a second placing for the teacosy! Most surprised but not ready to rest on my laurels as there was only 3 entries for that category. It's just as accurate to describe the situation as "I came second last". Nevertheless, I'm very happy with this and feel the judges did a fair assessment as the winning entry, a far more technical knit than mine, had good tension throughout and looked very well. So, here's the cosy insitu:I've had a wonderfully social couple of weeks. Friends from Sydney came to visit with 10week old son and we had a fun few days of showing them Wagga, including the show where they appreciated the teacosy behind bars. (Seriously, the show society really needs a new display cabinet for the knitted stuff. I'm surprised stuff isn't regularly stolen out of the cage as it's only really suited for showing hens. Still, I imagine that they don't really have the $$ to spare for new cases.) While They were over I was discussing first birthday prezzies with them and have committed to knitting a hoodie for their son, same style as Til's. It'll be nice to do the same pattern again but it'll mean I'll have to nut out how to adjust the hood so that it reaches further forward.

I've just returned from a trip to Canberra visiting an old friend and children's author, Marianne Musgrove. Marianne hadn't met Miss Til and so it was a lot of fun comparing anecdotes about nieces and daughters. She and I got to chat about old times living in Canberra and how weird it was to be there with a Labor government insitu. I love catching up with friends like this, although it really served to remind my how peripatetic I am! While in Canberra I also committed to knitting a cot blanket for a friend's daughter. I'll make it non-gender specific as I think they'll be trying for #2 in the not too distant future.

I'll be taking Til to Adelaide for her grandmother's 70th birthday. All the family will be there, barring H.I., SIL, Mstr Jack and the First Twins, so it will be a pretty good representation of the family. I will do my best to not commit to knitting anything for anyone else while I'm there...

Off the needles

2008-10-03T08:38:00.003+10:00

A while back I indicated that I was going to take the plunge and enter into the local show a Knitted Item. Due to time and brain cell limitation during the teething days, I decided a tea cosy would fit the bill, particularly after my niece sent me a pattern that she felt would look better on my teapot than the current one.

Stats:
Rosie Posy Tea Cosy by Loani Prior
American Rose and leaves by Nicky Epstein
Patons Totem DK/8ply
5mm dpn and 4mm dpns

And here's a shot of the 'garden'. I'll find out tomorrow how I went in the competition when I pick up my entry.

7 Random Things

2008-09-18T08:45:00.006+10:00

I did a random things meme a while ago but they're fun things to do. And, yeah, I haven't much to report on the knitting front either (blush). Thanks for tagging me, Georgie! My take on this one is Me & My Numbers...

1. I was in amateur theatre from the age of 11 through to 19 in roles ranging from a rat (Pied Piper of Hamelin) through to a dumb maid in a drawing room murder mystery. Enjoyed the social life more than the acting as I hated to memorise lines and was always petrified I'd 'dry' on stage. It's left me with the wonderful gifts of clear speech and the ability to project my voice across a busy intersection.

2. I started going gray at 18 and I haven't finished the process yet.

3. My BMI is calculated at 26pts. I have 20kg to lose at which point my BMI would be 23pts. Why am I thinking about this? I had Til when I was 38 and I want to make sure she doesn't spend her 20s and 30s worrying about her mother's health when she should be trying to establish her adult life. Best way to do this is to be as fit as possible for as long as possible.

4. It took me 4.5 yrs to finish a measly undergraduate degree. I hated being a poverty stricken, full-time student so much I would end up doing every other semester part-time so I could work and have a life.

5. On average I get asked if Til's my grand daughter every other month (see point 2 above). I find this more irritating than if people say Til's a boy when she's dressed in hot pink.

6. Him Indoors and I have been not married for 9 years. After living together on 2 continents, doing joint tax declarations and having a baby together, I think we can consider ourselves married now,* don't you?

7. I haven't performed paid work for 476 days. Most likely, I won't be able to get back to work for another 134 days. (FYI, the local job fell through.) Don't get me wrong, being with Til is a joy and delight (except when she wants to play LOUDLY in her cot at 3am) but I find being a housewife is tres, tres banal. I did a quick and dirty survey of women in my LYS between the ages of 50 and 80 and they all agreed with sympathetic nods.

*I'm going to enjoy the debate that statement may spark!

New Knitty is out

2008-09-15T08:47:00.003+10:00

Like I need more things to drool on! I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO going to have a go at L'illo for a friend's son. If I needed more motivation to sort out the travails of Fair Isle 101, Twist and Shout may just be the lure I need. I'm standing firm with myself; I won't cast on another adult garment until that is finished or I give up on it!

Does anyone have a good recipe for collard greens?

Visitors are bad for knitting

2008-09-12T12:41:00.003+10:00

but lovely for company. Taphophile visited Til and I for lunch on Friday and I had a glorious time chatting about knitting, ferrets, over-dyeing and all the lovely Canberra S'n'Bers. Taph went home with 15 balls of 5ply in lemon (shudder) that I picked up for $8 at Vinnie's Boutique. I also found Vol 1 of Harmony Guide's stitch dictionary for $2 - a very happy knitting op-shopper.

Have you ever used any of Spidey's yarns? They're lovely and she sells them, too. Taph said that the Happy Spidey might be able to do something about the hideous colour of the yarn but if she can't, no worries, it can go to wrist warmers or suchlike for Taph's charity folks.

Other than Taph, lots of visitors with small people, not conducive to knitting at all. pooh. But lovely to see them all the same : )

Til's just woken up so shall post this without editing. See you all soon.

How long can a cold last?

2008-08-28T11:13:00.007+10:00

Forever if it turns into infected sinuses. 3 weeks and counting I've been sick. I'm feeling v. sorry for myself owing to the fact that my head has felt like it was going to explode for the last 2 weeks and I wish it would just hurry up and do it so I could put myself and H.I. out of our misery.

Didn't do too much for Ravlympics but I did get My Fair Baby all done except for sewing in the sleeves and a sleeve done on Fair Isle 101. I then measured it against the arm it's destined to wrap and found that it's about 4cm too long. Will rip back (and perhaps have another look at the gauge). Then had a good look at Fair Isle 101's torso that I've knit (up to dividing for the sleeves) and am now having serious thoughts about ripping that back too, despite the hard work done on the fair isle. My issue with it is all about fit. When I started this sucker in 2005, I didn't know about selecting stuff that would compliment my figure (other than I should stick with 8ply or smaller yarn) and I didn't know about shaping. I've read lots about both and now I while I think I should stick with the pattern I should do a lot more about how it fits, otherwise I fear that I'll be left with a jumper that's all about drape everywhere except the waist fair isle patterning which, by it's very nature will be more rigid and completely disinclined to drape. Shall cogitate about that while I get the second sleeve done and rip out/re-do the first sleeve.

In more positive news, we managed to get this one

over the hurdle of 1 year:

Yes, Til's 1yo now. Here she is in her crown (mum's hankie) and sceptre (handle of rattle) happily being queen of the day. She scored well in the loot factor and had a lovely time playing with visiting in-laws. I baked her a gluten free lemon sponge cake for her birthday cake and forgot to buy the candles!!! Couldn't believe it as I'd bought beautiful little candle holders ages ago. We used a sparkler instead and this was probably for the better - she was much more captivated by that than the flame coming from a candle. And Til hated the cake - even the icing! I've trained her to be anti-sugar a bit too well!

The Plague and I*

2008-08-18T10:56:00.004+10:00

I think 2008 will go down as the Year of the Cold. Tilly and I are still recovering from an exceptionally drawn out one, hence the lack of posts as it's a little difficult to type when the only comfort Til would take was cuddling in my lap. I think with amusement all the warnings that folks gave me about childcare and how much time one ends up taking off work as one's offspring catches everything going around. I think if I sealed Til in plastic bubble she'd still come down with a cold! Still, she usually only gets one for every second tooth; #14 is through now.

Ravlympics
I've nearly finished sewing up My Fair Baby - I only unpicked the shoulder seams 3 times each. I'm not 100% happy with them but I can't bear the thought of unpicking them again. Now I'm up to the sleeves. I've started knitting the sleeves of Fair Isle 101 - one's nearly finished and one more to go. There's the small matter of the body yet to be finished but, eh, should be a slam dunk! Actually, I sincerely doubt that I'll get this finished within the Olympic period but at least the Ravlympics have me picking up this project again. This entry is sadly pictureless - the camera finally died. New one for Christmas maybe. Will have to see if I can borrow one occasionally.

Bookclub
Just finished reading 'A Town Like Paris: Living and Loving in the City of Light'. Ergh. Wouldn't recommend it. Despite the author's protests, he's the painfully egotistical and an archetypal Aussie bloke as well. Next book will be 'The Lovely Bones' by Alice Sebold. I started this when I was pregnant with Til but didn't finish it as the subject matter was a bit hard to take at the time. V. well written but sad. I'm hoping that this time round I'll be more amenable to it.

We had a little outing on the weekend, driving to Narrandera and visiting the National Cavy Show. Had a fun time. Nothing like watching how geeks socialise in the same way even when it's a different 'thing' they're geeky about. The guinea pigs/cavies were fun and very cute too.

*The Plague and I by Betty Macdonald. Hilarious. Read it if you ever get the opportunity, specially if you're into the Sociology of Health and Illness.

New Venue for Knitting and Knotting

2008-08-07T14:02:00.002+10:00

Reminder to all - the location of the Knitting and Knotting S'n'B has changed to the Kooringal Hotel. We'll be sitting in the coffee table area next to the bistro from 6pm onwards. Looking forward to seeing you there.

Show Entry and Ravlympics

2008-08-07T13:37:00.006+10:00

OK, I'm an on-line knitting tragic. I joined Ravelry earlier this year for stalking purposes for the ISE6 and after a while I started to look at the FOs on the People tab and then found lots of free patterns and then the Pattern tab's search function came into it's own - I could see the same FO in many, many different sizes, yarns and colours. For example, I now think that the Lady Eleanor entrelac stole works best in Noro Silk Garden. So, as you can see, I'm hooked.

Ravelry has started a self-umpiring Olympics tribute, Ravelympics. I've entered two items in the WIP Wrestling event - My Fair Baby and Fair Isle 101. (Note to self: don't do anymore projects with 'Fair' in the title. They're destined to be long-standing WIPs that go very, very slowly.)

Also, comments and discussion from my previous post have decided me. I'm knitting a tea cosy (Category 90, 'Tea Cosy - knitted or crocheted') for the Wagga Wagga Show - Rosie Posy tea cosy by Loani Prior. Only, I'll be doing knitted roses courtesy of Nicky Epstein as I don't know how to crochet and I'm not that interested in trying to learn at this late stage of competition entry. My niece sent me the pattern from the Australian Women's Weekly's July edition with a little note that she thought it would be more cute than the current workhorse that adorns my pot.

Ed: 2x2ribbing... URK! And I swore I was going to leave off ribbing for a year. Casting on during S'n'B tonight not too successful - too many distractions and glasses of shiraz. Three attempts and could manage to do anything but 2.2 ribbing. Sheesh.

At One's Local Show

2008-08-03T21:49:00.003+10:00

The Wagga Wagga Show is on soon (first week of October) and the entry closes for knitted items (Items 80-101) on 12 September. Could 2008 be the first year of entry into the show? It almost seems like embarking on a serious course of masochism to knit for the show when rumour redounds with stories of judicial bias. And with over 20 categories to enter, how could I ever decide on what to enter? So, dear reader, to enter or not enter - that is the question...

First jumper/sweater tag - oh the horrors!

2008-07-25T10:00:00.003+10:00

I tag whoever fancies joining in on this one. Pls leave a comment so I can jump over and see what happened!

When I first took up knitting I was starting on the basic foundations that I'd learnt when I was a 'tween - cast on and stocking stitch. I'd never finished anything so I hadn't needed to even learn to cast off! The first few items were challenging - booties for my brother's twins and a pair of slippers for me. I found that these were going swimmingly but now I needed to concentrate on something with a bit more of an endurance factor. Specifically, a jumper for me.

Oh, the things that are wrong with this jumper! The pattern and yarn are from Katia but I've lost both the ball bands and the pattern books in one of the 5 moves between 2003-5 so I can't give any info on it. Issues:

it looked a helluva lot better on the model than on me! It was my first lesson in what looks good on big breasted women - always go with fine yarns rather than slubby, fat ones. The drape was similar to an unfitted tent resulting in the jumper never getting an outing to the fresh air world, which was a pity because it was quite warm;
I found that one sleeve was bat wing, the other fitted. Now I always knit both sleeves at the same time (and fronts to cardigans/jackets, too);
Pooling! Now I know what to do to prevent this but looking at the mid section in this photo starts doing weird things to my eyes' focussing abilities!

The jumper only came into its own when I was pregnant - very easy fit and easy to match stuff to it. Given the weird eye-focussing effects the pooling gave it, I wonder what people thought was happening when Tilly would move under it!

Listen to the pouring rain, listen to it rain...

2008-07-20T13:42:00.003+10:00

Gotta post this. This month is turning out to be the wettest I've had in Wagga since we got here. It's been doing a good, steady rain most of the day and I'm just thrilled. As many regular readers know, Wagga, nay most of the country, has been in the grip of the longest drought on record. Maybe this will be the year it breaks. We can but hope. Last July we got a grand total of 38mm rain; the mean is usually around the 50-60mm mark. So far July's had 38 and today is likely to bring this up much higher. Fingers crossed that we'll actually make it over 50mm this year. Is that the sound of dams being filled?

If you have a fascination for weather stats and the like, please see http://www.bom.gov.au/ for some fascinating stuff. It even has the Antarctic forecasts!

By the way, is anyone watching this show? I rarely watch reality TV but this one has me hooked. Anyone else? A possible KAL group?

Anatomy of a Cocktail Party

2008-07-19T16:48:00.003+10:00

Last night we had our biennial cocktail party. Various colds and flus brought the numbers down at the last moment but it was fun and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Till was the consummate hostess, even if she did decide at 7pm that enough was enough, thank you very much.

First Course - get the arrivees warmed up
bevvie: champagne cocktail and/or mulled wine
nibble: mushroom or prosciutto vol-au-vents or ricepaper cold spring rolls

Second course - everyone's acquainted now, get them circulating
bevvie: martini
nibble: things on sticks (tortellini wrapped with a semi-sundried tomato and then a basil leaf then marinated in a red wine vinegar viniagrette while pasta still warm)

incidental savory nibbles: feta and artichoke dip, guacamole, cheese platter

Third course - wind up
bevvie: Cointreau frappe
nibble: Chocolate almond torte (mucho almond, eggs and 70% dark chocolate; rich rather than sweet)

The only thing we forgot was the Berocca for this morning!

Travels and travails

2008-07-10T09:04:00.004+10:00

A very quick post...

Til and H.I. have this. God only knows how come I don't but I'm quite happy to miss out on it. In the interim they're both grizzly. I'm also unsure now whether there's a canine coming through as I suspected last Thursday. Mind you, with the blisters in her mouth, her gums may have swelled back up over the tooth if it really was descending.

I had a wonderful weekend visiting friends in Canberra. ('Can'tberra' has been shelved until Rudd's government gets stroppy.) The highlights include two parties - including Othlon's birthday and knitfest at Jejune's place - a morning tea at Bells (at last we've met in the flesh!) and her hubby's lovely little house, getting sprung by my boss in Target (nope, seriously, there really is no available childcare in Wagga. Well none that I would be prepared to put Til into) and having a lovely time getting to know a friend's daughter who's 14mo and a delightful little elf.

Seriously, it was wonderful getting to catch up with/finally meet my Canberran knitting friends, and this trip was primarily about trying to do just this. Bells and I have been emailing and commenting for a while now so it was great to finally be able to have a habitation to put her into context. She and Sean are doing a wonderful job with their garden and this is quite the achievement considering what awful drought still exists in the Canberra region. Over here the rain has finally started to fall and, while we're still well below average rainfall, things are greening up. In contrast, from Jugiong onward it was obvious that scarcely any rain has fallen in the region. I hope this week's rain helps to put some water in those empty dams on the farms I passed.

Catching up with Taph, HappySpider, Jejune and Othlon again was brilliant too. I haven't seen Jeune and Othlon since 2004, while the last meetup with Taph was last year. All good all the time. Taph and HappySpider were responsible for these matinee jackets (and this one), Taph for the knitting and HS for the dying. Taph also solved my angel dilemma - Mum's Chrissy prezzies are now officially sorted. Mind you I can't photograph what Taph gave me as mum reads the blog on occasion. I'll revisit this next January.

Lastly, knitting. While away I managed to get both button bands done with only needing to pull them out once each and start on the hood. For reasons best known to the designer, the hood's on 3.25mm needles - progress is much slower and more painful. Bugger. Still, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it shan't be much longer now.

Promised progress

2008-06-27T09:31:00.004+10:00

It's been very difficult to knit or post this last month. Tilly is now the proud possessor of 12 teeth (all 4 molars are through) at the tender age of 10 months. H.I. and I are exhausted. Not that she was ever in huge distress over any of them but they certainly made their presence felt and so she has been grizzly and demanding to be picked up and cuddled most of the time, which is fair enough but it's a bit difficult to knit while holding a cranky baby.

I've also narrowed down the cause of the tendonitis and I'm 99.9% sure that it isn't knitting. Hurrah! It's the way I pick up Tilly and as I'm pretty sure that there's a lot more picking up in the short and middle term future, things ain't looking so crash. There are limited alternatives to holding out one's hands and picking up the baby using the webbing between one's forefinger and thumb as the point where her weight rests. Subsequently, I think that the tendonitis is probably going to be around until she's confidently walking, climbing and getting around - probably a couple of years. What does this mean? Very, very slow progress on knitting projects as the tendonitis is a little worsened if I knitting for more than 40mins at a go and if I knit every day. Pooh.

Still there has been some progress on Tilly's hoodie.
Through the kind intervention of one of the S&Bers, Kelly, we had a wee supper party last night and I broke my 40 minute rule and got a good swack at finishing off the sleeves. Only 2.5cm to go before casting off. Kelly was going to knit a teacosy but then she found this divine little teapot and matching cups and saucers. They're delightful : ) Not to mention the gluten free goodies : D

Fronts and back are complete and I should get the sleeves cast off tonight. Then it's just the button bands (blench) and the hood to go. After that, sewing should be relatively quick. As you can see there's been a bit of pooling. I doubt that it would be quite so obvious if it were knit in stocking stitch rather than garter. I'm not fashed, though. I'd really like to get this finished by mid-July - it's getting fricking freezing, Mr Bigglesworth - as Til still won't wear any caps or beanies but is happily settling for her one hoodie. I refuse to buy her another hoodie when I know that I've got this one just about ready to go.

World Wide Knit In Public Day

2008-06-13T10:00:00.004+10:00

World Wide Knit In Public Day is designed to get knitting back out in public and enhance the craft's status. And to confuse the muggles - it's so fun watching them wig out when confronted with knitters en masse. Feel free to use this button for your own blog.

Some of the Knitting and Knotting crowd will meet at the Storehouse Cafe from 10am on Saturday 14th June. We're happy to be joined by any other folks interested and also happy to teach newbies while we're there. The Storehouse is child friendly and has a toilet/change table. Looking forward to a cuppa and a stitch.

In other news, have had a rotten cold which I might recover from one day. Apparently not today. I'll try not to spread my germs tomorrow : ) Knitting updates when I can keep my head out of a hanky. There has been some knitting!

BTW, new Knitty is out.

The Grommet and I

2008-06-02T11:57:00.003+10:00

We've had an interesting little morning today and Til's come back home with some new hardware. I asked lots of people about what happens but didn't ever get detailed information so I've written down what happened today for anyone who's about to take their baby/toddler into hozzie for grommets. Here's how it went...

8.30:Arrived at day procedure centre and signed in.

RN collected us from waiting room and escorted us to a change room. I verified information in Til’s package, changed her out of her jammies, kept on her singlet and nappy and added a pair of socks to the outfit, which was topped with a gown with yellow ties and jet planes and a cute little name band on her left ankle. I put on a paper hat, booties and a gown over my street clothes. Think in passing that my wet hair is going to look tragic when I go home. (Oh, Vanity, I know thy middle name!)

We were taken into the Day procedure observation room where I held a Tilly wrapped in a warm blanket and entertained by various staff, a bright pink induction mask smelling of bubblegum and Sesame Street on a TV suspended from the ceiling. Woot!

After a 'come hither' look from the theatre nurse, we packed up the bits and pieces Til had pulled out of her go-bag, abandoned the bags and took Til into the recovery room (no other patients were out of theatre yet) where Til’s baseline obs were taken.

I swaddled Til (guess what? She hates this now!) and carried her into the operating theatre and helped the anaesthetist to hold the mask over Til’s face and comforted Til until she dropped off to sleep.

9am: I then picked up the bags of stuff, which I’m starting to suspect are waaaay in excess of what we’ll need, and head out to the waiting room where we started off. Phoned friend who was going to wait with me and bring a chai latte to cancel this plan - it's evident that I'll not be here long!

20 mins later I’m called into Recovery where I can hear Til screaming from the corridor. This was the hardest bit. Til was so disoriented from the effects of the anaesthetic that she couldn’t get herself to drop off to sleep again, which would have been the best thing. She had a drink of water but yelled with every swallow – those ‘new’ ears were a bit sensitive. A dose of panadol, cuddling with her comfort rug (terry towelling nappy!) and some strategic thumb placement (in mouth) didn’t settle her so we eventually went into the Day procedure observation room anyway. I sat with her on my lap and she settled down much better watching moving pictures on the box suspended from the ceiling. The surgeon came in and pronounced her his best patient of the morning.

After a while we read a book, cuddled Travel Bear, drank more water, repeated previous steps but drank milk, repeated previous steps but ate some corn thins. All was right with the world so we start to pack up the 2 or 3 items we used out of the gazillion things I brought and toddled out of the observation room. We were discharged at 10.30am.

I’m a little taken aback at how quickly it all went. Til’s having a little sleep at the moment and we’ll have a quiet day of it. I’ll be interested to see if the head banging and ear tugging decrease now. I hope so!

ID Photo

2008-05-24T09:20:00.002+10:00

Last November the bushy hair got too much for me. I'd had a 2 year period of growing my hair long and it was just getting stupidly wirey and standing out at a 90 degree angle from my scalp instead of the weight of it pulling it down straight. The joys of going gray early. So, off it all came. The decision was also influenced bythe fact that Til has a very firm grasp and she usually employs it on hair. She's not been able to yank any out since it's been chopped.

I've used an old 2005 photo of me waving Philip off (yet again) to the USA. This was at the stage of our relationship when we weren't able to get jobs in the same country/continent and we were up to our 3rd, "See you sometime when we can get our employment sorted" farewell. Hence the somewhat wry expression on my face. Happily, this was the last one and the next time we flew internationally it was together to Wagga and permanent employment.

Cast off the back of this coat pictured in orange. I'm going to make it with a deep rolled up cuff so it can last a couple of years; I'll just unpick the sleeve and roll it down and restitch it again.

Happy ISE6 giftee

2008-05-21T21:35:00.005+10:00

I've just received my ISE6 parcel and I love it. Heather spun and knit me a magnificent scarf of a merino-silk blend.

She found the fleece at Rhinebeck and the scarf is, sensibly, in a simple pattern that lets the yarn speak up. It's glorious folks. It drapes beautifully and looks so... eloquent. There's the strong melody of green tones juxtaposed with the counterpoint of red-pink tones. Quietly, in the background, a twiddle of blue and yellow. And the unifying theme is the beautiful, shimmery silver overlay that silk gives to all yarn and colours. I am indeed a lucky downstream partner.

I also got a vintage set of dpns, trade name (get this!) "Sit and Relax with 'Marcia Lynn'"! Please note, Marcia Lynn is illustrated on the dpn packet as wearing a twinset. Must find my pearls... what a hoot! These dpns will find almost immediate use in the bubby hat department; we're getting a might cold here in Wagga and we've actually managed to score some rain. Also inside was a recycled rice bag pencil case - sounds odd but it's fabulously handy. I can stick all my dpns into it instead of having them falling out of my needle roll now. There were really neat animal themed buttons from thimble handmade goods and some excellent wool wash. Heather, you did a wonderful job putting this parcel together - thank you sooooo much : D

It seems that I haven't quite left the 80s/slow cooking theme behind. Tonight I had braised lambshanks with lemon rhubarb (recipe below) and custard for desert - Yum, Yum! H.I. is visiting family in Newie for a week and while the vego's away the meatosaur will play. The camera batteries died (again) as I was taking ISE6 photos so, disappointingly, there's still no slow cooked meal photos.

Lemon Rhubarb (Australian metric measures first, imperial second)

500g/17oz rhubarb, washed and cut into 4cm/2in lengths

1/4 cup/2 fl oz brown sugar

1/4 cup/ 2 fl oz castor sugar

zest and juice of 1 small lemon

Arrange rhubarb in ovenproof dish and scatter sugars & zest of lemon. Pour lemon juice over the lot. Cover and bake in 170C/ 335F oven for 20-30 mins or until rhubarb is tender. Serve with icecream, custard and/or whipped cream.

Looks

2008-05-17T10:26:00.004+10:00

It's gray outside today. Rain is occasionally falling - yay - and Til and I will need to be strategic in timing our walk today.

Clothes. I used to get cross with my sisters when they went out looking really daggy and their babies would generally look gorgeous. Spiffy clothes, cute hairstyles, well put together. My sisters would drag a brush through their hair, grab their bags and head for the car with bub on hip. "Where's their self-respect and how are their kids going to respect them?" I thought. If I asked them if they were going to change before we went, pointing out the small patches of vomit on their shoulders, they looked baffled, resigned and then slightly desperate.

Now I know what's the deal. Getting out the door with a baby is an achievement. Who cares about the vomit, so long as it isn't actually going to smear on anything. And babies grow so flaming fast that everything they have is always new. Adult clothes are expensive, kids' aren't - one cheap shirt of about $30 will buy Til leggings, socks and a cute new shirt. Mums are chronically tired. (I had no idea that I'd be more tired when Til was 8 months than when she was 1 month.) The more tired I get the less idea I have of what goes with what. And then there's the finding of the what. For the life of me I couldn't find my only lipstick the other day. (Yes, it's true, I have only 1 lipstick.) I was going to S&B and couldn't find the stupid thing so I went lipstickless.

The long and short of this boringly whingey post is that I've resolved that I need to buy myself something nice to wear to H.I.'s birthday dinner. It may even be a dress! (I do not posess a single dress.) Stay tuned...

In the meantime, I've cast on a lovely little hoodie for Til in out-of-production Tapestry. I'll photo and post soon - I really need to get a new camera! Sad news, I broke one of my casein needles. Pooh. Will send back to manufacturer as they guarantee their stock.

Visits, cooking and scarves

2008-05-12T10:26:00.005+10:00

Wow, blink and you'd miss it. Mum came to visit for 5 days to see her #14 grand daughter. Did they like each other?

They got on like a house on fire.

As for 1980s cooking challenge, my camera's batteries died at the crucial moment and so I have no damn evidence of my cooking efforts. Pooh. Oh well, we had a splendid Osso Bucco and a fantastic chocolate self-saucing pudding. YUM! It strikes me that the current fascination for slow cooking was also a thingy of the early 1980s, when crockpots were in their hey-day. I'm off to find a good pot-roast recipe!

I got my ise6 scarf into the mail. My recipient wanted a very plain scarf in neutral colours. Not sure why but it would certainly make it an everyday scarf. Here 'tis:

Stats: Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran, Ricepaper, 5x1 ribbing.

Sometimes simple things work elegantly. I'd love this scarf for myself!

80s cook-off

2008-04-29T18:06:00.006+10:00

Ok, this has NOTHING to do with knitting but I've just recently acquired 3 original late-1980s Women's Weekly Cookbooks - Italian, Chinese and Dinner Party.

You know the era, crumbed, deep-fried brie featured as an entree in many houses. So here's my idea.

Who would like to join me in a 1980s cookoff? Obviously, competition isn't really going to work as we can't taste each other's dishes. It's more the spirit of the thing. The challenge is to cook a 2 or 3 course meal for self, family and/or guests using recipes that you remember (or your parents tell you about) from the 1980s. Margaret Fulton is also a good source of material.

I'm thinking that we'll do this in 2 weeks' time - on or around the Mother's Day weekend. Hey, your mum might get a kick out of this!

Let me know in the comments who wants to participate : )

ed: some useful sites to jog memories re 1980s food
Kraft
Nouvelle cuisine
Peter Russell-Clarke
Honey Ham and lamb chops on King's Kitchen

Off the needles

2008-04-23T09:13:00.005+10:00

I've had a bit of a hiccup with my ISE6 partner. She's had to drop out of the exchange so I've been allocated a new partner. But not before I'd finished my old partner's scarf! Oh well, this will be considered for Angel needs. Scarf Angels are needed when a person gets extra flakey right at the end and no longer wants to particpate. Rather than have someone missing out altogether after all their hard work, they get a parcel from someone who's nominated to be an Angel and has a parcel all set up to give away. As soon as weather and baby permit, I'll stake it out, er, I mean block it and photograph it. I'm really happy with it.

Thanks for everyone's contribution to the work conundrum. All have valid points and it's good to hear other people express both sides of the debate. I've not confirmed my decision yet (the prospective employer hasn't got back to me to confirm if they want me!) but my posts' content will give it away with what I've decided.

In the meantime, Til's going hell for leather in advancement. I think they call this Wonder Weeks? Anyway, here's some of her firsts over a FIVE day period:

Saturday – claps my hand with her hand
Sunday – up on all fours (hands and knees); says Mumumummmmm
Monday – up on all fours and rocking; refuses mid-morning bottle and wants only solids for lunch
Tuesday – waved for the first time; refuses mid-morning bottle again - I suspect self-weaning but will persist in case of sore mouth/teething
Wednesday – crawled a few steps this morning.

If the rate of development continues at this pace, I'm going to be exhausted even if Til isn't!

Straw poll

2008-04-20T09:22:00.003+10:00

I've found over the last few years that knitters are generally sensible people and have good advice. Look at the decision on the car. So here's another one of those lifestyle decisions.

My Canberra job is allowing me to wait until January 2009 before returning and I can return on a part-time basis. I'd travel in early on Mondays and return late on Tuesdays. I could then spend the rest of the week with Tilly or organise to work from home and have her in care during those days as well.

Anyway, Til's in the fortunate position of having had me at home for 8 months. H.I.'s job for the last 6 months has been pretty busy and will only become busier to the point of frantic for the rest of the year. Sad to say but we've fallen into very traditional roles of me being the full-on housefrau and he being the bread-earner. I'm not quite meeting him at the door in a frilly apron and a cocktail but it feels a bit close sometimes. I'm itching to get back to work if only to re-establish my adult world identity. Having said that, we could cope financially if I were to stay at home.

I've been offered a full-time job here where I live. It'll be a demanding job but will cut out that commute and overnight stay in Canberra. This new job's work will really extend my capabilities and experience in my field of work - contract management and tendering. There are some down sides but I'm happy enough with what I've got in this job such that if I only had to consider me, it would be an easy decision. Now, however, we have Matilda. Oh, I haven't indulged in a Tilly shot for a few posts so here's a cute one:Not that I'm besotted or anything...

If I go back to work in this full-time position (and there's no part-time option) there's no doubt that life will become extraordinarily hectic and Philip's and my relationship probably become a bit strained as we struggle to have time to work, time with Til, time together and time on our own (a precious commodity!).

What I'm asking is this: does the frantic-ness and stress on relationships happen anyway, no matter how long returning to work is postponed, the level of busy-ness H.I. is under or whether I was working full or part time?

Interested in your thoughts...

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a...???

2008-04-16T13:19:00.006+10:00

I went to my church's fete last month and found a complicated wooden thingy. It was causing much conjecture. It felt alone. Unloved. A little freaked.

I took it home, it stretched it's wings.
I found some yarn to hug it.
There was much joy.
Yarn swift for $5. Definitely much joy.

Yarn goodness from the Yarn Goddess

2008-04-13T10:03:00.007+10:00

I had a wonderful package of yarncakes from Donni in response to a somewhat forlorn query - do you kow of anyone that produces slubby, really red yarn? Her response was, "You want that I should dye and spin some for you?". Wow. I mean, just, wow. I only have 2 crafts to my name, knitting and tapestry and tapestry barely counts when you're sole project is over 20 years old. Here's Donni with all these wonderful skills and able to offer them for a tailormade project. Like I said, wow! : )

So in the mail arrived a delicious hank of red, slubby goodness.

My photo doesn't really do justice to the lovely variations in shades of red, nor the beauty of it's thick-and-thinness but trust me, it's good. And it also smells divine. Donni, what do you wash your yarn in??? This yarn is slowly being turned into a Loopy and Luscious scarf for ISE6. Here's progress so far:

The scribbly effect will be more obvious soon - just need a better photographic opportunity. But in the meantime it's really reminding me of patterns in a scribbly bark gum.

Meme

2008-04-09T13:40:00.003+10:00

I was tagged quite a while ago but haven't had the opportunity to do much about it. Thanks tagging me Woolly Jumper. My slant on this is going to be seven random factoids:

1. Since moving out of home 20 years ago at the age of 19, I have lived in 22 different homes/accommodation. The longest has been where I'm currently living - 2.5 years.

2. I used to sleep with my jaw clenched until I woke up with my right jaw dislocated and the disk ruptured. After I put my jaw back in place I've had to wear a night brace to stop the bones rubbing together.

3. I love the colours green, orange, amethyst, ochre, cherry red, sky blue and terracotta. I try not to wear them all the same time.

4. I dislike beads on accessories. Admire in rare instances but never to wear myself.

5. Everywhere I've lived (see 1. above) I've had membership of my local library.

6. At the age of 12 I went through a phase of eating chocolate mousse whenever it was offered at a restaurant I was eating at (e.g Pizza Hut - c'mon, I was only 12!). I gathered enough data to be able to advise folks where the best mousse was to be had in town. And I advised incessantly.

7. I have a half cross stitch that I've been working on since I was 16. I'm in no hurry to finish it but I only have the one cross stitch project on the go. Let's hear it for project monogamy!

Hairy Panic

2008-04-07T10:23:00.005+10:00

Scientists like to let us know that they're not all sober-socks. I was stunned and convulsed by a recent photo in the local rag - a car buried in dried grass that's been floating all about the place in the last month. The rag named the photo 'Car Buried In Hairy Panic'. I thought the numerative 'A' was missing until I searched the name and came up with Panicum Effusum. This is a friend's back porch buried in the stuff.

It's also known as umbrella grass and arse grass (if you stand still you'll be buried up to your arse in it). It caused road closures in a town near us over the long weekend as it was obscuring the road!

Sorry for the gap in communications. So much has happened but most of it has been revolving around making Tilly comfortable - poor kid, #9 tooth is on it's way! Bright red cheeks, interesting nappies, dribbling like a waterfall and GRUMPY! I'll try and post regularly over the next few days to bring you up to date on what I've been doing during Til's good times. Adios in the meantime...

It's through!

2008-03-27T09:03:00.005+11:00

#8 tooth came through this morning. Hurrah! Til turned 7 months on Easter Sunday. Phew! I'm hoping that Tils will be a lot more comfortable for a while now and that all the rest of the stupid teeth will wait for a bit before making their collective prescence felt. In the meantime, here's most of them.I'm working on Time Thief Watchcaps Jnr for all the little kids I know for their first birthdays/winters. I'm have a great time with them devising little patterns to go on the straight bits. The one I'm doing at the moment is made from Naturally Sensation range - merino/angora - in white, mauve and purple. I'm having a lot of fun with it. Hands are still hurting but a bit of anti-inflam. gel works wonders : )

Did I tell you guys that I'm running a knitting class? We have a lot of African migrants in Wagga and the women wanted to learn how to knit and be able to have a conversation group to practise their English in - perfect ingredients for a Stitch'n'Bitch. One of the local churches has offered a meeting spot close to where the majority of them live. We started with 5 people and we have about 11 now. It's very difficult to juggle different levels of know-how, teaching and Tilly all at the same time but the women are very patient and good humoured about the whole thing. I think I need to get a helper, though!

Stuff

2008-03-24T09:46:00.003+11:00

So the re-wiring went quite well. HI and I only argued incessantly over how it to do for about 30 mins. In a bizarre reversal of roles, I'd actually researched on the web and asked advice from the fellas at the hardware shop on how to do this piece of home maintenance. HI decided that we should just wing it and that he would direct the traffic!! What is it about fellas when it involves a hammer????
Above is Harvey Mudd exiting the newly wired door in a more approved manner - can you see how he's hooked his paw around the frame? All we've got to do now is teach him how to close the door. I figure that once we've got him doing that getting him to leave a contents-covered litter tray should be a snap.
And for all you northern hemisphere folks celebrating the spring solstice, here are the first of my daffodils coming up through the pea straw on the same day of southern autumn solstice. Hilarious, non?

Roxie, thanks for your encouragement over the stupid button band. It's currently sitting in its project bag thinking over its recalcitrance. I can't leave it there for too long as I've a sinking feeling that Til's not going to fit it if I wait much longer. All that sweat and effort and not fit! I tried the 3 out of every 4 pick up so now I'm up to the 2 out of every 3 pick up. I'm feeling reasonably confident that this one will work. If not, I'll take up your suggestion with the elastic!

A marked lack of progress

2008-03-21T14:07:00.002+11:00

I feel like I'm caught in a Groundhog Day loop. I've been knitting and re-knitting the damn placket on the purple sheep cardigan three times now only to find that the I've still picked up too many stitches and the band is below the level of the waistband. At least it doesn't concertina this time and as for the first effort, well, I guess I was a little nervous because the stitches were so tight I couldn't even insert a needle into them! I will pull it out and make attempt #4 tonight. Hopefully by the weekend I shall finish this blighter. I feel quite discouraged and a little bloody-minded about the whole thing now. I will do my level best NEVER to do another cardigan with separate button bands.

It's been a big week here, packed full of events. I spent last weekend in Can'tberra doing some shopping that can't be done in our little town. Tilly now has a highchair and feeding is a lot more successful. She's fully onto solids and, apparently, can absorb food topically. At least I think that's why she smears carrots etc all over her hair, face and ears. I also cuahgt up with a few more people. The drive there and back was a lot more successful than I dreamed. Only one crying fit when we were just started on our way home and then no problems.

On Tuesday night I went out to see a touring play, The Club. I've taken out a subscription at the local theatre house and have 4 more productions to see during the year. I enjoyed the play but I have to admit that David Williamson is not one of my favourite playwrights. I can't put my finger on why but I've seen two of his plays and acted in a third and I just don't find myself enthralled by the scripts.

Some friends from up near Tweed Heads (the ones we visited over New Year) came to visit and we caguth up with them on Wednesday and Thursday nights. They go back to Canada in June, which is very sad. Barb is a knitter and got her S'n'B fix on Thursday night. Poor woman hasn't been able to find an S'n'B near where she lives and she had a blast catching up with folks and findling yarn at our LYS. Unfortunately, she's developed an allergy to alpaca and he poor woman is trying to finish off an alpaca blend vest she's started. She needs to take an antihistamine before she picks up her needles! I don't think she'll be wearing this somehow.

Today is Good Friday and a public holiday - the first of a 4-day weekend, for those whose country doesn't have the Easter weekend off as a public holiday - and all is a little vague here at home. When I lived in California and worked for the Australian government, I was delighted that I had two 4-day weekends each year, Easter and Thanksgiving. As the consulate employed both Australian and US nationals, each nation's traditional long break needed to be observed. Usually H.I. and I would go camping or at least get a bit of travel in but we've stayed put this year, which is probably a good thing as H.I. has the cold that Tilly and I had and he's walking about the house with a tissue box in tow.

I'm attempting to re-flyscreen the back door. Our cat, Harvey Mudd, saw an intruding cat on the back porch the other night and forgot that the door had a screen. Well, it doesn't anymore, just a cat-shaped hole. Hopefully the flywire won't look too poxy by the time I've finished tacking it tight.

New Knitty is out!

2008-03-17T08:45:00.002+11:00

Any popular votes on a pattern? Did we want to run a Wagga Knitting and Knotting Knit-a-long on one of them?

Still teething....

Thank God I don't have twins...

2008-03-11T11:54:00.004+11:00

Poor Tilly! Other than having the world's longest cold (15 days and counting) and bilateral ear infections she was also busy cutting #7 tooth over the last week. It finally came through overnight but is still quite painful. She cut her first two teeth without any fussing but I don't think this will happen again. She's really having a hard time, poor sweetie, and paracetamol, cool drinks, cool teething rings and all this sort of thing doesn't seem to help much. Just hugs from Mum and being held. I will probably be patchy - or should I say more patchy? - in posting for a bit as I think #8 is on the way.

Sleeves are off!

2008-03-08T21:03:00.003+11:00

Yes, they're actually off. I knitted past the required length (mental headslap) and then turned to the shoulder shaping only to find that there was no shaping. Apparently Til's supposed to just have her arms sticking out from her body at right angles. Hmm. But I'm OK with this. Really. It's not wigging me at the thought of the cuff riding up unevenly over her wrist. Well not much after I checked one of my kids' knitting pattern books and found that they didn't shape all their shoulders either. This leaves me with just the placket to do.

I'm sitting here typing with Lindt by my side having quaffed some excellent Adelaide Hills white woine (Paracombe Pinot Gris) with my mushroom stroganoff. Harvey Mudd (moggy) is circling the wagons. Apparently he's thinking we're under seige because I've dragged him in before sunset to give the little birds a fighting chance. Anyway, all the ingredients are present for a decision as to what to knit next.

Whatever it is , it needs to be on bigger needles so I can, hopefully, knit and not aggravate the tendonitis. I have surveyed all the offerings listed previously and none fulfil the requirement for needles 5mm or larger except for the slippers. However the mercury's hotter than I'm comfortable dealing with ans I'm thinking - new project. Sad, isn't it? ; P

I've found a new project in this book that is reminiscent of the Kauni Jacket in pattern. It calls for bulky weight yarn - translatable as being worsted weight or 10ply (aroundish). It's a jumper for a friend's boy who will be 1yo in April. I'm being optimistic and saying that this winter will be wet and cold and woolens will be needed. I'm going to knit this jumper on the specified 5.5mm needles which means the added challenge of knitting to gauge. Now to raid the stash...

K&K and Stuff

2008-03-06T09:38:00.005+11:00

Firstly, K&K members, I won't be there tonight. Tilly and I are labouring under the influence of the most disgusting head cold in existence. Trust me, you don't want me there.

Incidentally, it is truly vile how much nose production Tilly is experiencing. Can't you tell this is her first cold? You'd think that an ex-nurse with experience of working in respiratory diseases would be immune to being revolted but apparently this is not true.

Taphophile's latest knitting spot looks divine. It really brings to the fore that autumn is here when one can look forward to evening knit fests outside. When daylight savings ends on 6 April (in NSW, anyway) the lingering light will continue to treat us to wonderful knitting and quaffing opportunities.

Little bit of knitting done and I'm very slowly creeping forward on the cardy for Til. Happily, we've gone back to summer weather so the need isn't quite as urgent as it was only 10 days ago. The tendonitis is definitely linked to the 2.75 needles that I'm using. Perhaps it's a good thing that I don't like knitting socks! I think I'll progress to some nice 10ply yarn and fat needles for a while after I've got this off the needles.

A few weeks ago I helped out at a drought relief BBQ. The idea is that city UCA churches have a special collection that goes toward providing a form of free entertainment for farming families in areas affected by drought, which is run by rural UCA churches. These have been really successful and don't involve anything other than entertainment, at the request of the farming families. The logic being that if they're trying to forget their troubles for a day having financial and psychological counsellors at the events just reminds them of what they're trying to escape.

At the BBQ I helped at, North and South Illabo have their annual grudge cricket match at the showgrounds. Hilarious. The show grounds is planted over with all sorts of seedling trees so there're all these rules that are like backyard cricket rules. Hit a tree an your six and out and so on. Here's some photos as well as the kids' match that was happening before the main event in the carpark.

As a send off at the end of the day, we feasted on a good luck cake. The cake was donated by a local bakery and decorated in a farming and cricket theme: "Good Fortune and Confidence in 2008".

Here's hoping that the unseasonal summer rain we had is a herald of a nice wet winter to come.

Content

2008-03-02T09:46:00.003+11:00

I was reading Jean's blog entry about blog content when I realised that I should probably articulate what the history of this blog is about. Some people visit here to check on the details of Wagga's S'n'B group, Knitting and Knotting, hence the title of the blog. This was the original intent of the blog - to provide a forum for inquiries about the group and give K&K members a regular bulletin board that they could check on details of meetings. This purpose got corrupted pretty quickly!

In August 2005, I was new to Wagga, unemployed and quickly subverted the blog content to my own uses to keep me in touch with the world as I was slowly making new friends in my new home town and while I tried to find work. And then it became a fun portal for making 'virtual' friends, folks with like minds on not just knitting but politics, social justice, cooking, reading and wine. The content became even more personal when I found out that I was pregnant and then was consigned to a very restricted life, ie mostly housebound, as the pregnancy became more problematic and knitting more difficult to achieve.

Since Matilda's arrival I've been trying to wrestle the post content back to a knitting focus, given that more and more folks are joining K&K and wanting to know more knitting details. However, after reading Jean's post and the comments on it, I've decided that I'll just continue to let the personal slide on in with the knit content. After all, the knit projects are for the people I love and so it's only fair that they get a mention too. All work and no play makes for a dull blog.

ISE 6 is open

2008-03-01T09:41:00.002+11:00

I'll do another post later today when I've got myself pulled together. In the meantime, for those amongst us who are sad, bad swap-aholics, ISE6 is open for sign ups. I'm crossing fingers that I'm in!

Woot! Confirmed that I'm in : )

Faffing

2008-02-23T10:37:00.003+11:00

To faff is to fiddle with things that could perfectly well be left alone, putting them down, not actually getting anywhere with task(s) that actually should be done. Essentially, being ineffectual. Faffing can be fun or it can be frustrating - occasionally both at the same time.

I've been really impatient with my levels of faff in recent weeks. I couldn't even blame it on knitting as I haven't knitted much. (Tendonitis slowly getting better, thanks for asking : D) And then I realised what it was that was inspiring the faff spiral. Solids. Or, more accurately, mushes. Till's been on mushes for 3 weeks now. Doing well, no reactions to anything. Carrots and sweet potato gets thumbs down while broccoli and pumpkin gets standing ovations. However, I worked out yesterday that I'm now feeding Tilly 7 times a day. We're now on a constant treadmill of bottle - mush - nap. I've started taking her mushes with us so she can eat it while we're out doing necessary stuff like getting the materials for the next lot of mush or getting library books or just going out to see what the day is like. Zucchini tomorrow; should be interesting. Given that this is likely to last at least the next few months I'm just going embrace the faff and roll with it.

Welcome Newbies

2008-02-21T22:25:00.003+11:00

We've had quite a few newbies over the last few s'n'bs but, unfortunately, I haven't gotten your names or contact details. If you're feeling companionable, please email me at kathrynthorne at hotmail dit cohm (edit in the usual manner).

Knitting continues slowly because of this blasted, stupid tendonitis. I cast off the body of the green and purple sheep cardi yesterday and I'm up to casting on the sleeves. I hate that resting my hands is doing them good. Pooh. I want to get this cardi done before Til's much older.

The Yarn Harlot's post re buttons has highlighted to me that I haven't given any thought to this most serious of issues. Hmm. Will have to start combing shops for suitable buttonry.

Gratuitous Tilly shot. As you can see, the weather's MUCH warmer than the last photo. Roll on winter, is all I can say : P Tilly turned 6 months old today. I'm gob-smacked. Thankyou to everyone who've helped with your encouraging messages and little gifts. They've all meant so much to me as I've trodden this bizarre, frightening and always loving path of motherhood.

Happiness is...

2008-02-19T13:53:00.006+11:00

... a day with friends.

Instead of having Saturday 'off', (trans: running around trying to get the groceries and housecleaning done while Philip takes care of Tilly), I had a Sunday with friends while Philip did Til-watch. I went to Baden's baptism and afterwards I high-tailed it down the highway to Jugiong and the Long Track Pantry and had a lovely lunch with a Canberra girlfriend. Here are pictures of my lovely lemon friand - it totally tasted like lemon delicious pudding - while Fiona had this pear something-or-other cake.

For Canberra readers, the Long Track Pantry is about 1.5hrs south on the Hume Highway at Jugiong. Totally worth the trip and is kid-friendly. A very good venue for a S'n'B on the road, too.

Finding Out

2008-02-14T09:54:00.006+11:00

*Yesterday's Sorry statement read by the Prime Minister was as stirring as the opposition's response was disheartening. On one hand there were hundreds of thousands of Australians moved and encouraged and, hopefully, consoled. On the other there were a minority of folks who were staunchly opposed to any such expression of regret or couldn't see the need for an apology. They may state, like Mr Nelson, that the 'interventions' were done with the best of intentions.

Our generation does not own these actions, nor should it feel guilt for what was done in many, but not all cases, with the best of intentions. But in saying we are sorry - and deeply so - we remind ourselves that each generation lives in ignorance of the long term consequences of its decisions and actions. Even when motivated by inherent humanity and decency to reach out to the dispossessed in extreme adversity, our actions can have unintended outcomes. As such, many decent Australians are hurt by accusations of theft in relation to their good intentions.

To me it is as though the Coalition is saying, if it didn't work out OK, the intent should be remembered not the outcome. One of those irritating aphorisms rings true here, that good intentions pave the way to hell.

But perhaps most disenheartening of all were the very large number of Australians who didn't think that the Sorry ceremony had anything to do with them because they didn't make the decisions surrounding the assimilationist policy prior to 1975 or contributed to conditions resulting in the average Aboriginal life expectancy to be significantly lower than the rest of the Australian population. To them I would ask them to consider the following:

Did you go to school with an Aboriginal Australian whose parents were white? How did you relate to them?

Did you know that the policy of removing Aboriginal children from their parents lasted into the mid 1970s? Babies that were removed then would be 33yo this year. They may never have met their birth parents, grandparents, siblings.

Have you read the report into the removal of Aboriginal children from their parents, Bringing Them Home

Did you vote in a government over the last decade that consistently withdrew funding from community services including drug and alcohol rehabilitation units, in-person sexual assault counselling services, education and trades training programs, all of which had a disproportionately large impact on remote and rural settlements? This affected Aboriginal Australians disproportionately again.

I would then add that, lest I come across as being pompous or sanctimonious, that I only recently discovered that prior to 1975 Palm Island was a penal colony for Aboriginals and that they and their descendants had to write for permission to leave the island; that Aboriginals serving in the armed forces were not allowed to have autonomy over their wages; that living on a mission meant that an Aboriginal had to ask for permission to leave the mission or to travel to another mission - absence without written consent meant that the person was in breach of law and could be punished accordingly.

I'm still finding out about our nation's past dealings with Aboriginal Australians so that I can make sure that I can do my bit to make sure it doesn't happen again, even if it is only with letters to my State and Federal MPs and my local council and, importantly, with my vote.

Sorry button courtesy of Taphophile's Blog.

2008-02-11T13:27:00.000+11:00

Not much in the way of knitting being done and probably not for a while to come. I'm having lots of problems with tendonitis in both thumbs and what I think is the beginning of arthritis in my middle 3 fingers on my left hand. Bugger. I'm hoping that rest will help. I'm told that tendonitis isn't unusual post natally. Pooh.

In the meantime I had a stash accident when I passed the local Vinnies Boutique:
Vintage Patons - woot! There's 16 x 25g balls of white mohair, 4 x 25g balls of blue mohairAnd then there's this funky sport yarn called Slalom. Feels about a 10ply. And some v. old totem pure wool. They're all a bit rough to touch so I think they'll probably be destined for felting. I've a few felting projects in mind for the not too distant future (hopefully).

I've finally got my hands on two books that I've really wanted for a while, Victorian Lace Today and Wrap Style. The Interweave Press' series of Style books are a bit hit and miss (their Lace Style didn't strike me as worth the import fees) but I've really enjoyed this one. There's just one more I would like to get of this series and that's their Scarf Style. I can't justify it, though, as I got the local library to get a copy!

Before commencing on my yarn diet (ahem), I got a one-off skein of sock/lace yarn. I'm in the process of figuring out what, if anything, I can make from VLT. I'm sure that one of the patterns will be able to be modified for either a scarf or a runner. We'll see.

Gratutious baby shot. Till's nearly 6 months old, has just started on solids and is growing amain. We've had a few chilly mornings recently, necessitating a little cap when we first get up. Looking at her sitting up! She only wobbles over a couple of times a day and sometimes she even remembers not to donk her head on the floor but aim for the cushions instead.

Sock knitters for charity

2008-02-10T21:17:00.001+11:00

The irony of having me advertise this can only be appreciated by those who know how much I suck at knitting socks.

Wagga is one of the few places in rural New South Wales that is equipped to give cancer treatment - radiotherapy and chemotherapy. This is incredibly important for those who would otherwise be hopelessly cut off from family during the course of their treatment. Sydney is a long way away and it's terribly hard to be unsure of how your family are coping with drought and your absence at the same time. With this close proximity patients are able to quickly return home between sessions. If you know of folks who have time/sock yarn to spare and would like to knit socks, please give them these details:

Socks for Cancer Patients
Can Assist provides accommodation and services for cancer patients from rural NSW who require treatment in either Sydney or Wagga Wagga. They want to put a welcome pack on each bed as most people are away from their homes and family for 6 weeks or more. They thought knitted socks would be a lovely thing to include. They are seeking 50 large, 50 medium and 50 small pairs of knitted socks for patients to wear and take with them as a gift from Can Assist, after their stay at the Jean Colvin Hospital. The socks will be a lovely touch of warmth and comfort.
Let Kate know if you may be able to assist then with. Socks are to be sent to:

Can Assist
Kate van der Voort, Development Manager
17 Ocean Ave
Double Bay NSW 2028.
Australia
Email: kvandervoort@cancerpatients.com.au

Summer lovin'

2008-02-10T19:48:00.000+11:00

I'm on the 2nd glass of Ballast Stone shiraz (2004), stirring the mushroom and semi-sundried tomato risotto and reading the blind-pick book - Summer Reading, a compilation of classic authors from the 19th century. And ducking in to type between stirs.

To 'Blind Pick', stand in the middle of the kitchen and pick a room, pick a shelf, pick the number of the book counting from the left. This led me to a collection of short stories. I'm reading Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet.

What're you reading?

Bring on the Parade

2008-02-04T14:25:00.000+11:00

A few posts back, Roxie shared her memories - current and past - of Independence Day parades. Funny and sweet! When I was about 18 there was an Autumn Leaves festival in the small village near where I lived. The amateur theatre group I was a member of was invited to represent in the parade and so we went. Fabulous. I went as a bear (the previous winter's children's play was Goldilocks and the 3 bears) and spent the afternoon giving kids lollies, doing cartwheels up and down the main street and riding on the runner boards of the vintage car we used. In the car we had Lady Bracknell (Importance of Being Earnest) the Pied Piper and, I think, Sherlock Holmes.

I had a hot date that night and ended up sleeping through it. Oh well ; )

Anyone else been part of a parade before?

The end is nigh!

2008-01-31T13:41:00.000+11:00

Not that end but the end of the KAL. Just read that the next issue of Yarn is confirmed for publication in March 2008. This will be issue #9, which will signal the end of the KAL once it hits the newstands. I'm really looking forward to seeing what y'all have done over the holiday period when we all (allegedly) had plenty of time to knit!

As for my shenaniganns, at the moment, the sheep are purple and their grass is green and growing longer. I've knit 14 of the 16cms to reach the arm holes. Woot! Him Indoors thinks the sheep look more like Scottie dogs. What does he know?

new member Knitting and Knotting

2008-01-31T13:40:00.001+11:00

Jump over to here and welcome Kylie's little boy Baden to the crowd! He's GORGEOUS!

Procrastination

2008-01-30T09:18:00.000+11:00

I decided to count up the WIPs thismorning and have found I've made a big psychological advance. I have manage to break the bonds of inhibition and anal-retention and have actually more than two WIPs. I'm so proud! Here's six of the seven.

It's interesting. I've stopped each project because it was at a stage that I would have to do something to cure something I don't like. Here they are in order of oldest to youngest.

1. The Fair Isle 101 jumper. Commenced mid-2005, put away early 2006 when I couldn't think anymore (too many pregnancy hormones), Fair Isle completed and jumper knit to the armpits and divided for front and back. Put down again when I didn't like the way it was turning out once I'd moved from circs to straights - the stitches look bigger and there's a really obvious change in tension when I look at the 4 inches I've knit so far. I really need to frog down to the divide, thread the stitches onto a circ and move on from there.

2. Jo Sharp socks. It's in lovely Jo Sharp silk georgette yarn but I hated knitting the first sock. Couldn't get the picot edge right for ages, buggered up the length of the foot, buggered up the kitchener stitched toe and then had to frog back so I could fix both these things. When I took it off the needle the second time I'd found that I'd knit it too short for my foot but I was feeling pretty annoyed by that stage and decided it could be for my smaller-footed sister. The only reason the 2nd sock got cast on is that I wanted to show sock knitting in the exhibition we put up at the library. Now it's languishing at the picot join again.

3. Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket. I started this when the brain fog seemed to retreat in June last year. It proved to be a momentary reprieve, as evidenced by the jacket's increase count getting away from me. I need to frog this and start again, this time taking careful notes of the row and stitch count, not to mention putting the markers in a useful place to start off with! What was I thinking? The bottom row??? Obviously not on deck with the whole grey cells thingy.

4. Last winter my felted slippers finally died. They lasted 4 winters so I was quite impressed with them and want to make them again. I haven't got the original handspun yarn I worked with so I got some different yarn. I'm up to the stage of fulling the gauge swatch I knit. Yes I know that doing a tension square is a waste of time when you're going to shrink the final product but I needed to test the yarn's fulling abilities on something!

Projects 5 & 6 are the Tulip Jacket and the Time Thief Watch Cap jr. As directed, I've carefully read through the TJ instructions - twice. Now I'm in the process of getting the correct sized needles. Obviously I'm not rushing this seeing as how I've had the kit since August.

The TTWC Jr has been swatched with the result that I need to go down a needle size. Either the gauge swatch lies or I'm knitting tighter than I used to. Maybe Tilly was crying while I was doing this and I was more tense than usual?

Lastly, #7 - the purple sheep. I'm rather taken by them, although H.I thinks that they look more like scotty dogs (Taph, take note!).

Hanging out

2008-01-26T19:19:00.001+11:00

Happy Australia Day for those of you who are into that sort of thing. I wandered up to the Lagoon to see what folks were doing. A big BBQ breakfast, Kapooka Army Band (have I ever mentioned that Wagga is a military town? Airforce as well as army. Not Navy though. Would be odd as we're about 350km from the coast), Wagga cheerleaders (not sure which code they support) and sundry Scouts (I believe they were Rovers but couldn't swear to it) were working hard to whop up nationalistic fervour while the rest of us shuffled through the line-ups and listened to the army band and cheerleaders. It was nice, though low key. Incidentally, it's really nerve wracking watching the cheerleaders tumble and toss their companions over an asphault drive.

For my USofA friends, if your Independence Day didn't occur, neither would the claiming of Australia by the British. After US independence the British needed a place to send their convicts. Captain James Cook was given sealed instructions to go and see what was there after he'd done his observtion of the transit of Venus across the Sun. He finally bumped into Australia in 1770 and on 26th January, 1788, the First Fleet arrived at Botany Bay. This is an extremely potted history but Cook's and the First Fleet's stories are really interesting and worth a few Google browses. If anyone has some non-fiction recommendations for our international audience (Taph will know some for sure!), please leave a note in the comments. If anyone has a favourite fiction account of the First Fleet or colonial days, pipe on up. I think my favourite is "Sara Dane" by Catherine Gaskell.

Oh, and my whinge at the end of the last post was just that - a whinge. We're not poor or hard up or even close to it so I don't deserve any sympathy. I'm just getting used to being on one income instead of two and not having to consider anyone else but me when spending my own income. Being a 'dependant' is quite a lot to get used to given that I've earnt my own spending money for 20+ years and supported myslf for nearly 20 years. So, pay no attention to the occasional whinge; this is all very character building!

Racing against the clock

2008-01-24T09:57:00.000+11:00

I'm not sure if this is going to be a good sleeping day or a rotten one. Til woke up after 40 mins of napping each time yesterday - can't you just tell she's teething? So far this morning she's passed the 1 hour mark so I'm feeling lucky. Regardless, I'm racing to get this post in so please excuse the typos. I'll correct them when I've the opportunity.

We had a wonderful turn out to Knitting and Knotting last week - all 12 of us plus a couple of visitors. Very satisfying. We had a great catch up and I talked about the YARN Magazine KAL - hopefully some folks may join the KAL. Small grump: do others have problems with their venue being v. tepid about having their S'n'B group in? The bar we all have met at twice a month for the last 12 months always seems to be unenthused about our arrival. Is it unreasonable to expect them to be a bit more accommodating of us, particularly given that this is a group of people who wouldn't usually go to their venue as it's seen to be too pricey for them (about half our group are pensioners, and another quarter mortgage holders)? You know, see how big the group is and bring more chairs out for us on meeting nights and offer/put out bottles of water and glasses rather than we always having to ask for them. I'd be interested to know.

Despite all appearances to the contrary, I've been knitting. Here's some photographic evidence:

This is the current state of the Baby Snug - blocked and ready for the chain crochet edging. This is my first attempt to crochet anything so I'm starting on something that i hope will be simple. If it sucks badly, I'll to a wee I-cord and sew that on. Can crocheting be any worse than sewing on miles of I-cord?

This cutie is from Yarn Magazine Issue 4 called "My Fair Baby".

I'm knitting the sheep in purple, though. I dunno, it just appealed to me. Maybe they've just been shorn and there's a cold snap and they're cold.

Or maybe I should just stop overthinking this and admit that I only had 3 different shades of Bluebell and I'm on a yarn-and-money diet in the post Christmas period.

Knitting time at a premium

2008-01-14T14:38:00.000+11:00

Between caring for Tilly, trying to prevent the house from exploding under the weight of dust and general crud, and catching up with all the new babies life has been a tad frantic lately. Subsequently I've achieved very little on the knitting front. I've managed to get to the decreasing on the baby snug, so I'll be casting off in 24 rows' time. My next project after this is likely to be an Angel Puff Scarf for the KAL. These look great and I could probably do it using the left over yarn from the shrug I knit myself previously.

This shrug will feature as part of my kit for a wedding I'm going to this weekend in Sydney. My first public event post-baby and my first wearing of something I've knit that I can really be proud of. Looking forward to it : )

YARN Magazine KAL

2008-01-11T22:01:00.000+11:00

The Yarn Magazine KAL blogsite is here. It's a very easy-going KAL as far as these things go. If you would like to participate please email to kathrynthorne at hotmail dot com and I'll send you a Blugger invitation to the site.

Home Sweet Home

2008-01-06T13:06:00.000+11:00

So, we're back. We've covered about 1,600km in our 3 week odyssey during which we stayed at Canberra, Sydney, Newcastle, Glen Innes, Pottsville (Koala Beach), Armidale and Dubbo. I've pasted a map below; have some fun seeing if you can find the towns mentioned. (You won't find Pottsville, which is denoted by the green arrow just south of Tweed Heads, as it's too small. Population 2300!).

View Larger Map

Highlights included:

saw rain - lots of rain! Never seen so much rain. Glad of new tyres on the car. Pity not much of the rain happened in Wagga.
caught up with old friends and family
Tilly got her first tooth at 17w 4d of age
Tilly got her second tooth at 17w 6d of age
hardly got any knitting done
Tilly had her first swim in the ocean. Didn't think much of it!
saw this fabulous knitting exhibition (try to get to see it if it's near you!)
We all perfected the art of napping in the car
H.I. and I perfected the art of arranging driving habits around a baby's feed/nap schedule. (I now realise why Mum and Dad got into the habit of early morning starts for car trips.)
found out why New England is called this. Haven't seen anything so green since 1999. (This drought in the south has been 8 years long. I hope that this year it breaks. Light a candle for us on this one, huh?)
saw a tawny frogmouth
saw a baby bush stone curlew. Unfortunately it died later due to the torrential rains up north
saw lots of wallabies (or wobblies as they're known in my family)

Glad to be back. Will catch up with youse on your blogs and on the Yarn Magazine KAL site

Forgotten spring

2007-12-14T09:18:00.000+11:00

We've had a series of lovely cool mornings this week. It's as though we're getting an apology for the lack of spring in October and November. When I've got Tilly up in the morning she's needed woollens over her little onesie to keep warm. So much fun! Guess what she fits into now?Thanks Taph! She looks gorgeous in it. You may remember that Tilly was modeling the smaller sized jacket in the photo in this post. I didn't think there'd be a hope she'd get any wear out of it so I'm very happy about it. Incidentally, hasn't she grown!!!!

I'm going to knit the Snug in Yarn #3 and I'd originally thought to do so in some Koigu I was gifted when Tilly was born. Unfortunately, when I knitted the gauge swatch the needle sizing was such that the yarn was going to resemble a mat rather than a light-weight shrug. Pooh. So I've put aside the Koigu and am trying some out-of-production Bluebell colour 4124. This is a gentle purple and I'm thinking of some fun contrasting colours such as 4131, a light green, for the edging.

For those who haven't jumped to the Yarn KAL site I've finished my first project, an adaptation of a coffee cosy in Yarn #6. Here it is:It does it's job REALLY well. I had Kylie over for a cuppa the other day and the coffee was still warm 30mins after I poured it : )

A front approaches

2007-12-10T22:35:00.000+11:00

On Friday we had this massive - and pretty excellent - thunderstorm. The freaky thing was that you could see the front approaching. I got this not too brilliant picture of what I'm talking about.

Later that day - blue skies. This is the spring weather we were supposed to have had 2 months ago when the crops were still viable. Instead the cereal crops have been harvested for seed, if they managed to produce viable heads, or hay for fodder. Given the drought, cereal croppers are expecting to be able to flog this feed at a reasonable price to try to recoup some of their losses. I was listening to an interview with a farmer the other day and he said that it cost $2million to put the crops in and harvest them every year. $2million. Imagine gambling $2million every year and then having crops fail for 4 years in a row. Imagine the bank manager interviews as you try to finance the next season's crop. Farmers are bloody optimists. Still, at least the dams aren't empty in my local area - they were this time last year - so the stock farmers might get some returns despite the increased costs of feed.

I'm a single mum for 2 weeks since Friday. H.I. is in Boston attending a conference. I'm knackered. Tilly's missing her dad and is sleeping poorly. Can't wait for him to get back home.

Knitting progress, such as it is, is here. Only 10 more Christmas cards to post and then the niece/nephew (x14) pressies to get wrapped and sent.

I think I'll go lie down now : )

bopping along

2007-12-07T08:28:00.000+11:00

We had the S'n'B last night; way cool! Kylie, a recent arrivee to Wagga, joined us last night and Yvonne delighted us with a reappearance. She's been busy fostering kids for about 12 months and it was lovely to see her again. Hopefully the kidlets will be amenable to knitting group in the future. It was also good to see Faye, Colleen, Val, Betty, Bec and Ginny there as well. Don't forget the Christmas dinner next Thursday night at the Bridge Hotel.

Christmas is 16 days away meaning that I have exactly 10 days to get stuff into the mail to get to all the rellies. Hell's Bells! I've baked Dad his annual Christmas Cake but I'm having problems with an angel for Mum. Every year since 2001, I get my mother an angel for their Christmas tree. I have very high standards for the angel and I won't buy an angel if the ones on offer where I live look too obviously mass-produced or if the angels are just boring or ugly. And I'm not into gross sentimentality in angels, either. Apparently, this is going to be an angel-less Chrissy. If anyone knows of an Australian-based crafter who's making angels this Christmas? (Especially if there's one that's knitting. That would be cool!) I could always get it sent to Mum direct.

While remaining faithful to the YarnMagazine KAL I've just finished having a quick browse of the winter Knitty and am moderately distracted by this and this, moderately with this but this is the winner. I'm so knitting this jumper for my 6yo nephew next winter. (Next winter now needs to be 12 months long in order to complete all my project ambitions). Jean, if you're reading the blog, have a look at Laughing Carrots!

Yarn/Barb Coddington Tribute KAL

2007-11-23T19:25:00.000+11:00

Ed: the KAL blogsite is here. If you would like to participate please email to kathrynthorne at hotmail dot com and I'll send you a Blugger invitation to the site.

Many of the Australians I blog with are aware of changes afoot for our favourite, little independent magazine, Yarn. Barbara Coddington, sounding a little exhausted after two years and eight glorious editions, is hopeful that the magazine will be bought by an interested party but she can't whisper a word for the moment on the progress of the wheeling and dealing. Regardless, it seems she's going to resign from the editor role.

In tribute to Barb's wonderful magazine concept and editorship (as well as all the other gazillion bits and pieces she did for this magazine) I thought I'd try to knit something from each of the editions I own (only missing the first). Given that Christmas is around the corner I'm starting off with the cabled coffee cosy from issue 6 for a family Christmas pressie. (Yes, I know, but knitting under pressure is more fun. I think.) I've marked out a whole lot of other projects for the next few/six months - is anyone interested in joining with me in a tribute knit?

Thanks for the vote on the shrug; I'm leaving as is. It will travel with me over Christmas in the highly unlikely event it will be cool enough in Newcastle for me to need a wrap. (UK readers - sound weird having a hot Newcastle over Christmas? Nothing like the season inversion coupled with colonial place naming habits to mess with people's heads : ))

I've been away for a while travelling with Tilly to introduce her to my side of the family and then recovering from a cold. Upon return from the Rellie Rally, I discovered that Tilly has grown 10.5cm (4 inches) and 2.3kg (5.1lbs) since birth. To celebrate we moved her into a cot after we found her propping her feet up on the edge of her basinette. She's looks completely lost in the cot!

Smoke on the water

2007-11-09T16:50:00.000+11:00

I was going to take an artful photograph of the biscotti but they eaten almost as they hit the airing rack! H.I. took half for a morning tea at work and I had a rush of visitors (did they smell the house as they went past?) for the two days following the baking frenzy. So, no photos. I can say that I got the basic recipe from Rebecca Reilly's "Gluten-Free Baking". The pistachio and dried cranberry biscotti was her suggestion but I halved the mixture and added a macadamia and chocolate as a different variation. All turned out v. yummy and were finished off 4 days post baking. Both of these will find a place in my Christmas bikkie gifts.

I've cast off the shrug and despite my plans to put a lace edge of some variety around the neck section, I now think this may be guilding the lily. This is how it looks at the moment (ignore me - I'm a little tired!).

Still, I'm open to suggestion. I was going to do a graduating collar, starting small at either end and becoming wider as it goes around the back of my neck so it would drape down my back a bit. If I do go ahead with a collar, I'll use the Anny Blatt Alpagor Super #234 for the 'collar'. Whatever I do or do not end up doing with it, it's gorgeous. Floaty, airy and light, yet able to generate just a pleasant amount of warmth.

Blogger gone weird

2007-11-04T13:46:00.000+11:00

and now for something new...

Actually, could someone post a comment and let me know if they can see all my sidebar details? For some reason Blugger isn't displaying them when I'm viewing the blog and I'm not sure if this is just my computer or whether it's Blugger itself.

Ta muchly

PS: have abandoned the denim bag for the moment. Am making pistachio biscotti instead : )

A possible mistake

2007-10-31T08:42:00.000+11:00

K&K Wagga are putting on a display of summer-themed knitting in our local library for the month of November. I'm having the devil's own job trying to be dedicated to the project that I selected as my contribution. I'm not showing photos of the dubious progress because I've an awful feeling it's not going to be ready in time for the display and I don't want to publicly shame myself.

You see, it's all wrong. It's a reclaimed fabric knit and the fabric is an absolute b***h to handle. My thumbs are sore from trying to force it along the needles and through it's own loops. It looks somewhat arsed (not unusual for this type of project, I understand) and is chenille-ing like its got terminal dandruff, necessitating outdoor knitting as I go around with a snowstorm of fluff trailing behind me. I've knitted 6cm of it and have a further 19cm to go. I dislike it intensely but feel that I should just quit whinging about the bloody thing and get on with it. But then my thumbs get more sore and I have to change out of whatever clothes I'm wearing so I can re-enter the house. Too, too irritating.

Complicating this situation is that the Fair Isle is coming on swimmingly and is highly addictive. I completed the Fair Isle chart in short order and now I'm up to the plain knitting, which is perfect accompaniment to ongoing political campaigning on all TV channels, even if it does result in tension as variegated as a New Zealand Christmas Bush. (Does anyone think that Rudd is trying for the Antipodean Tony Blair Award? Is this really our only viable alternative to the Coalition? (heavy sigh)) The Fair Isle is being knit from Filatura di Crosa's Zara range - extra fine merino. This stuff is awesomely more-ish. It's like silk running through my fingers when I knit. I would venture to claim it's impossible to get RSI from knitting this yarn.

An amusing and somewhat appropos Wagga cartoon by Mr Nicholson, one of my favourite cartoonists...

Hey Ma, hey Ma, my brain is back!

2007-10-16T13:40:00.000+10:00

I stopped knitting the Fair Isle 101 (scroll to bottom of page for the photo) last February when I couldn't concentrate on anything more challenging than watching re-runs of M*A*S*H*. (I cried again when Henry Blake died and Radar left. Sheesh.) After I finished Stage One of the shrug and while I was recovering from the endless 2x2 ribbing I decided to at least get the Fair Isle back on the cable needles.

Hmm, that felt satisfying. OK, better have a look at the pattern and see if I can figure out where I left off. Okaaay, surprisingly easy to figure out where I'm up to. What say I try a round and see what happens... 7 rounds later I can confidently say that my brain is back. Hurrah! Where the red and yellow band begins (sorry about the crappy photo) is where I picked up and I'm at the first repeat of the blue/white/green/red/yellow motif that's below my begin-again line. I think the behind view in the background gives and idea of how busy this Fair Isle is. Still, I'm enjoying it : )

I've also finished the body of the shrug. Actually, I went about 6cm past the bind off point but I'm going to leave it - no way am I going to frog mohair. Been there, done that, still bear the scars.

In the meantime, Tilly models some more gifts. Taphophile knitted these two matinee jackets. Tilly will grow into the green one soon but the yellow one looks gorgeous on her already.

Katt also sent Till some beautiful knitted socks and shoes. Good thing too, as this kid's mum sneezes at the thought of knitting socks, especially incey-wincey ones.

With great daring

2007-10-11T08:51:00.000+10:00

I went out last night to see a movie without Tilly. Let's pause for a bit. I'm still getting over the trauma. Given that she's on formula (long story), H.I. is perfectly capable of taking care of her on his own but, even so, I rang both before and after the movie to check on ~~them~~... er, her. All serene, she didn't even notice I was gone. le sigh. The movie was Hairspray. I saw the original when it came out and, while this one has great songs and lots of fun dances, I don't think it's as funny.

I haven't been as good at acknowledging knitblog gifts as I should have been, so over the next few posts I'm going to show you what kind knitting folk have sent to me over the last few months. Tracy sent these just before Tilly arrived. Note the cute pin cushion - it's a black-faced sheep. It's little sewn on nose is made with pink thread and two teeny tiny pink buttons. Scores waaay high on the cute richter scale! And Tracy saw that I was having problems locating Amelia Bedelia and sent me a copy along with her favourite kid's book, Bridge To Terabitha, for Tilly to grow up to. This girl's library is seriously off to a great start. Like her wardrobe, she's going to give me a run for my money.

Knitting progresses slowly. It's weird, Tilly doesn't really take up much time during the day when she's awake but it's all the things I'm doing for her and the house that keep getting interrupted that throws me off my stride. So, I'm scaling back my knitting ambitions in terms of time but not scale. I will get that Fair Isle jumper back on needles before New Year's or I'll never wear the blessed thing!