Born Sandy Devotional

If google didn't exist I'd offer a prize to the first person to tell me the meaning of this post's title. But, obviously, I don't trust you. Should I?



AMYSUE - Youso cute, miso lucky to have you on my tribe.


IT'S CATCHING

I had coffee with Donni today, she's effervescing with the promise of needlecraft, Christmas decorations, Christmas cookery and future plans.

She made me very nervous at one stage, suggesting it might be ok for me to trim my tree in more than one colour. I don't know if I'm ready for this, unless it's a sherbet themed three. You see I don't do random in a visual sense (in an OCD sort of way), although my life is quite chaotic my house is not.

It was great to see her, and I think some of the enthusiasm has worn off onto me. Being around 'up' people can't help but boost your upness. I've been feeling a bit flat lately, and although I have ben knitting like a demon (always do, every day) I haven't had the energy to take photos or blog about it. Seeing Donni today has charged my batteries.

So here's what's been a hap in the house this week:


NO GRANNY CARDIGANS

I've been occupied with two knitting whims, a nice simple cardigan and the love of the stocking stitch definition when using cashmere/merino - either Debbie Bliss' or Heirloom or anyone else's with that particular yarn twist. Since the beaudelaires, I've been stockpiling it like tinned tomatoes in the threat of war.

I recently bought a cardigan and found that I wear it all the time and I really like it. The features are - deep V front, fitted, wide band of ribbing at bottom, plain stocking stitch.

Put em together and what have you got?




This picture may as well be of a red cardigan in terms of how it has captured the colour of this yarn.

KNITTING BOOK NIRVANA



Look what Donna got for me for a tribe gift!! I was rapt, I haven't been able to put it down yet. I want to swatch every pattern in this book and put it on a giant mood board on my bedroom ceiling. It's possibly my husband might get more nooky if I did this. (note to self: put this item on agenda for next relationship discussion/family meeting).

There was also some lush stuff, in a box called 'desperate housewife'. The bubble bath crumble (not pictured) is called 'two timing tart'. It smells so good I've left a sachet of it in my project bags, it adds a new sensory pleasure to the knitting - - sherbet scented yarn. I wonder if that might take off as a marketing concept.

I snaffled the interweave crochet up from a newsagent last weekend too - not too bad. I buy it as much for the ads as the projects, which I guess is a publisher's optimal result.

LOOK, YOU'RE SOAKING IN IT!



Lisa was my dishcloth swap pal. She read my mind and sent me a Mason Dixon warshcloth (and two others). LOVE IT!


A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME

I'll show you this picture even though you can't see anything

This is the Rose of England, at row 51 or so of 152 rows. Believe it or not, it's not a frustrating or difficult knit, once you get past the second part of the chart.
Would I lie to you?


JUSSI, I LOVE YOU, BUT NOT THIS MUCH

These were originally planned as a tribe gift for the inimitable Jussi. However, she has big feet. And I'm not loving this knit one bit. I see a frog pond in the future.

How do you feel about Vanallin gloves instead? (image from Saartje knits - beautiful huh?) They look smaller.




FAREWELL TO ONE WIP

And, in a revelation that's as plain as the nose on your face I realised something.


Life's too short to knit plastic. Bye bye zhivago Amelie.

You want happy ending?

I'm back from Phuket. My friend and I had a wonderful time. We rode elephants, went out on the sea through caves in canoes, parasailed, saw some spectacular scenery, ate delicious food off the street carts and in the restaurants, had a massage on the beach every day, shopped till we dropped, got drunk in bars and relaxed by the pool and at the beach.

I'm not going to do a pictorial blurb about the beauty of Phuket. I'll just say this - some of Phuket is very beautiful but there are many things going on there that are very ugly.

Oh to be male, fifty and single in Thailand - what joy there must be in teenage Thai girls. It was quite sickening how ubiquitous the sight of an old drunk western lech with a very young beautiful thai girl eating too fast like she was a bit hungry was in the restaurants. Anyhow, moving right along.

My biggest suprise in Thailand was this:



These are the girls working the day shift in the massage parlour next door to our hotel. Every day they asked me 'you want massage madam?'. The men were offerred a bit extra - vis a vis - 'I give you happy ending'.

One day as I walked by I noticed they were crocheting. So, I had a chat with them about it and went back to the hotel to get my pomotomus. They were fascinated by the circular needles, as I with their waffle-stitch football scarves and hats in lurid acrylic. We sat and had a stitch. What a strange thing to have in common with a thai massage parlour girl.

Afterwards I noticed a lot of the massage shop girls were crocheting all over the island. I later learned that each girl gets a different name to crochet on these scarves. The girl in the picture was making scarves for MARK. Other girls had JEFF, SIMON, PAUL - or whatever.

With the number of girls sitting idle all day outside these shops on Phuket alone it is easy to see how thousands of these scarves could get hand made for next to nothing.

I've seen them in those cheap shops too, scarf and hat sets for football fans with names on them. I'll never look at them the same way again.

Two street signs caught my eye whilst in Phuket also,



Well it's a bit late now.



I'm sorry to say I may have been one of them.

Anyway, I hardly knit at all and had a great time. I'm a bit behind on a few swaps but got a slew of cute bits and pieces in Thailand so hopefully they'll be better parcels for the delay.

TTFN

Bra shopping done - check.
Swimsuit purchased - check.
Bikini wax done - check.
Complete outfits placed in ziplock bags for each day - check.
Bag packed - check.
Toiletries packed - check.
Shoes packed - check.
Passport/tickets/money - check.
Medicinal champagne for sleep assistance - in hand.


Notice something missing? No knitting!

I'm leaving in 8 hours.

If I get a chance I'll pop in, but otherwise I'll see you after the 21st.

I leave you with pics of two finished objects.

Interruption to normal supply

Normal services at chez daly have been interrupted by an unexpected mini break.

Here is the view from our apartment by day:



And by night:



And from the pool (with my kids in it):



Brought to you courtesy of the multinational that owns my husband.

They suggested we stay in an apartment near the city as a sweetener to make up for the fact that he'll be working 16 hour days this week, and it's the school holidays. It's non negotiable.

The kids have seen him for ten minutes a night this week tops. I let them stay up so he could tuck them in. We're back home alone tonight, he's in the office till at least 11pm.

Still, that view, like my husband, was bought and paid for.

Addendum

Oh, and everyone's praying for everyone else on the Rose of England KAL group.

I don't think this knitalong has any PLU's ....

A week till Thailand!

PEACOCK FEATHERS



I'm done with peacock feathers, here she is casually draped over the fence down the beach. Jaggerspun Zephyr in plum, 3.5mm knitpick options needle. Started in September, Finished 5 October.


FIRST BEACH DAY OF THE SPRING



Speaking of beach, we had our first beach day for summer 06-07 today. It was a bit windy so there were kite-surfers there. I was watching them, transfixed. They surfed up the face of the wave heading out to sea and if the wind picked up their sail at the right time, they were pulled out of the water straight up into the air, 10-15 feet for up to twenty seconds! I put that sport on the list of things to do before I die, it looks like a blast. This is a dodgy shot, but this guy is actually completely airborne, cool huh?

When we were fossicking on the rocks, we found this little sucker. He was the most wonderful shade of blue.




PINK FOR A CURE



On the way home we decided to try the new harbourside seafood joint. It's right on the working harbour, so you can eat your fruit de mer whilst watching it come in on the trawlers. It was dusk, and one of the local GP's who found her own breast cancer and has been fundraising and awareness raising ever since has a project to light the lighthouse pink. It looks wonderful.

Why do some cancers get all the glory while others languish unfunded? It's not fair.

REDRESSING THE BALANCE



I redressed one of my many inadequacies this week. I don't collect anything. The bowerbird across the road is a mad collector of fabulous antiquey and vintage stuff, and this one likes a bit of the vintage as well. Me, well, I'm a disposable sort of girl. And lately, I've been wanting to start collecting something. May I present the first one of my collection of vintage sewing machines. She works too!

NEXT POST - BRA SHOPPING FOR MY HOLIDAY - FUN FUN FUN!

I learned to knit from and evil bitch who hated me

I've been reading all these beautiful posts about learning to knit at the adoring grandmother's knee and that got me thinking.

As you may know, my mother hates me knitting. It makes her angry to see me doing something that she sees as lazy and indulgent, I should be scrubbing the floor or ironing or binge shopping in the mall - like proper women do. Needless to say she doesn't know how to do it, so I didn't learn from her.

I have often credited my paternal grandmother with teaching me to knit, but I think the reality is that she taught me to crochet as a child. I remember one school holidays when we were staying at her house in far western NSW with my sister and cousins and we were all crocheting these endless granny square blankets. That's what I was doing when I heard Elvis had died.

When I was in year 8 we had an two-day excursion to a place in NSW called Hill End. We panned for gold and generally mucked up. On the first night a few of us did the perfectly natural thing for a bunch of 14 year old girls to do, we had a mock 'levitation session' (obviosly with the skinniest girl), using a made up mantra and a few candles for atmosphere.

Anyway, we were caught in the act by a supervising parent. She went off her nut, calling us 'evil girls' and that we were going straight to hell and that god had forsaken us blah blah blah.

The next morning, this mother had whipped herself up into a frenzy of rosary induced insanity. She walked up to the table I was having breakfast at, looked straight at me and said "I want you to know that what you did last night had the devil in it. And I know you, Ailsa, were at the centre of it". She flounced off.

We all burst into laughter, she was even more furious. She wrote an awful letter to the school about how we should be expelled or exorcised, and there was an enormous brouhaha involving detentions, parental intervention and lots of praying for forgiveness.

The next term I enrolled in a knitting class at school. Who should be the 'teacher' of such class? You guessed it, the same woman who thought I was the spawn of satan. So, armed with my ill-sized needles, little bootie pattern, cheap kmart yarn of incorrect thickness, I struggled through a full term being completely ignored, picking up tips whenever she spoke to one of the other students.

I learned to knit to spite her.


And, in the true and glorious irony of life, her daughter is gay. I wonder how she prays that away?