Fair Weather Friends

Such fair weather friends you lot are - but I love you all the more for it. On the rare occassions I post about being ill usually hails a deafening silence in the comment area - I guess I deserve it. Lucky I wasn't trawling for sympathy.

As a matter of fact, I've noticed any post I make which is non-knitting related elicits few comments in general. It's like I make these little babies, nurture and feed them and then send them off into the internet abyss - 'do well my little one' - but I can never tell which ones will be notable and which ones are sinkers.

The commentless posts are always my favourites, so I won't be stopping them anytime soon regardless. Still, it's interesting isn't it?

Moving right along, I've finished SARCELLE.




Project Specifications:

Pattern: Sarcelle by Cookie A (obsessed with her at the minute)
Yarn: Bloomfield by Heritage Spinning and Weaving (store only, no online)
Modifications: I only did three repeats across instead of seven because of the fingering weight yarn used instead of cobweb.
Comments: Make one, you'll love it. Mine is going to my SP4 recipient, so I'll have to make another one for myself.



Commenters (blogger won't let me reply in person, and I would dearly like to, so here's my solution)

Michelle, who asked about the toe-up/cuff-down question on the monkey socks - I just did it like the pattern says - cuff down.

Jussi - I wouldn't be caught dead in Starbucks either.

Donna368 - I don't have the cashmere yarn yet, it has not yet been released. I've just coveted it from the knitters review site where they reviewed it. Am looking forward to getting my paws on some though.

Waiting Room

Yesterday I went to the doctor's, something which I try to actively avoid, since I don't much believe in them**. I don't even have a family doctor, I just go to the nearest medical centre and take my chances in the draw.

When my name came up, I was pleased to see that I had been selected by Dr Churn. That's not his name, btw, that's his consulting characteristic. I was pleased because I knew it would be quick.

I went there for a regular prescription and a referral to a reconstructive/plastic/cosmetic surgeon (in case you don't know, I have a boob rock* the size of an orange - lime and violet have nothing on me) . Every few years I go and visit a surgeon to discuss an operation I will never be able to afford, just to fantasise about how nice it would be to get a good result if I ever did find the money.

He obliges and then says 'is that all?'

I said, 'Oh and my ear is full of fluid again' he says 'what do you mean' I do my ear party trick where I blow air through it, he says 'you have a perforated eardrum' I say 'I know' he says 'how long has it been like that' I say 'at least a year' he says 'you need to see a specialist' I say 'bugger off'. I then say 'there's no pain, what's the problem' he says 'middle ear infections in adults can be painless' I say 'so what do I need a specialist for' he says 'it could damage your hearing' I say 'it already has, and besides I wouldn't wear a hearing aid anyway' he says 'will you go to the specialist if I refer you' I say 'probably not, but if it makes you feel better give me the letter'.

I then had to spell check and grammar check it, and make jokes whilst doing so about protecting his credibility/reputation with the consultant. Judging by his reaction, I think he would have preferred it if I was there for the methadone like everyone else.

So I have a perforated ear drum. Again.

*It really pisses me off that lime and violet set up a donation campaign on their podcast - just for her to get a bunch of tests she probably doesn't need and possibly a boob job on the proceeds - why didn't I think of that???
I have been told if it's not cancer (which it wasn't last time they checked) then removing it would classify as cosmetic surgery as there is no need for an operation if it isn't life threatening. Having one boob almost double the size of the other is not considered a medical problem according to medicare in Australia. If I want it fixed, I'll have to pay. About fifteen grand.

** I have no medical experience, so my opinions as to the necessity or otherwise of medical procedures is based only on my mistrust of some of the profession in general. Socially, I haven't met a doctor I didn't like.

The sound of White

I've mentioned that my house was decorated professionally when it was built in the early 80's in a 'federation' style colour scheme and that, alas, it didn't time travel too well.

There are timber dado rails stained dark, and various wall colour combinations throughout the house featuring dark salmon, pale apricot, deep russet and bizarrely in the bar room, aqua blue.

The darker colour is painted below the dado rail, the lighter colour above. There are decorative cornices and very fancy ceiling roses painted to contrast with the ceilings themselves, which are
not painted with ceiling white, but the same colour as the walls.

What's the problem, just paint over it! I hear you say. Well it's not that simple. You see the previous owner had an interior designer carefully match to the carpet and the window coverings throughout the entire house, and all of them are of very high quality. Since we can't afford to replace the carpet and all the window coverings as well, we've just left it as it is for now, fearing ripping it all out would be worse than leaving it all there.

Well no more. I have decided, finally, to paint my bedroom.

Oh I have agonised. I have swatched, I have studied. I have piles of interior design magazines. I literally have hundreds of sample pots. At first I liked a nice pale green - wanting something cool and soothing. Then I went a bit obsessive over a paint colour exactly like the colour of deep clear water - impossible.

At last I decided on - wait for it - white. Well not exactly white, more like an off-white. But do I want a greeny white, a purpley white, a warm white or a cool white? A soft white or a stark white? Deciding on white was harder than deciding on a colour - there are an infinite number of whites.

If I were to tell you that I have been trying to choose the perfect white for over a year I would not be exaggerating one little bit.

However, the decision has finally been made. The paint has been purchased. Alan is having some time off around the long weekend to do the job, and I am still agonising over whether I've chosen the right colour.

I've never decided on a paint colour before. It's not easy, is it?

I'll do before, during and after shots I promise.

(for those of you interested, I'm going with Dulux Hog Bristle 1/4 strength. Like, it couldn't be more of a boring colour). Still, I'm scared witless.

V is for Victory

Monkey Socks

Sarcelle

And a little simple something I'm whipping up for my mum.

Two posts in one day

But some things are just too good not to share.

Envy is one of the seven deadly sins. Along with Gluttony and Greed.

I'm so dead with envy, greed and the wish to be a glutton with this new yarn.

Gimme gimme gimme.

Kidsilk haze on bottom, new superior yarn on top. It's made with brushed cashmere and a silk core - lets say that again - brushed. cashmere. on. silk.

AND

did you see this comment left by an anonymous person the other day?
Here it is:

Anonymous said...

Greetings knitabulous. Our relationship has come to this - i am posting on your blogabuluos to contactabulous you because you never call-abulous me. Perhaps you are at camp knitting? Any hoo I'm at work and you can email me at xxxxxxxx

2:01 PM

I keep telling Hugh Jackman that until he loses the wife and my husband dies, I can't start something with him. I wish he'd stop stalking me.

Are we Flair yet?

Flair is finished. Alas, there is no flair.

There is something wrong with this cardigan, it just doesn't fit properly - it's massive and kind of dodgy around the armpits. I won't blame Knit and Tonic, I'll blame my yarn substitution. I used Paton's Inca and I fear it was just too bulky for the knit.

However, I can make it look good in photography. Maybe I should have lied to you and told you it was an incredible cardigan, but I never lie. Honestly.

For those of you who read here regularly, this is my second finished Flair - both of them crappus maximus.

I've gone off it now anyhow. It's double breasted, why is that?
Project Specifications

Pattern: Flair by Knit and Tonic, pdf download, $6 USD
Yarn: About 16 balls of Paton's Inca (if not more - yes I should have known by this it was going to be too big)
Pattern Modifications:
Didn't swatch. Just knitted the second smallest size to make up for the bulky yarn. Not much success.


What about that Rowan Patti?

For Mother's Day this year, darling husband made a call to the Wool Inn at Penrith and paid for the yarn I ordered the week before on my trip there with Donna. It came in the mail on the Thursday before Mother's Day.

I cast on for Patti almost immediately.

Check out the knitted box pleat - I love it.

Here is a back and two fronts, with box pleats everywhere.

Here is a set of half finished sleeves. And here is all the yarn I've got left.

I have run out of yarn. I need another ball, two to be safe. Back to the Wool Inn for me then, probably only by phone though because it's two hours away.

So close, so far away.


This is why I knit shawls. My garments use too much expensive yarn and I am never happy with them anyway.

Shawls on the other hand, who cares if I don't wear them?

I love making them and I love blocking them and I love looking at them.

But just maybe, this Patti might be the one.

Brother Lee Love

The retreat was positively gorgeous. Relaxation, hilarity and plenty of bitchin and stitchin. And no washing up.


My favourite bit was our bushwalk. The four of us - Donni, Sharon, Zena (with a belly full of arms and legs) and I went for a walk through the rainforest to check out the bush chapel. It's so beautiful, the pews are the only man made thing, the walls and altar and everything else are all natural. It's a bit druidy actually, but really gorgeous.

I got behind the altar and did jazz hands singing 'brother lee love' at the bush chapel. Do you remember the Kenny Everett sketch where his hands just kept getting bigger and bigger? Too funny, and such a blast from the past - pitched right at our age group. Zena is probably too young to remember, but she smiled politely anyway.

Brother Brother Brother Lee Love - (repeat whilst jazz hands get bigger and bigger)

'It's gonna be AWWWWL RIGHHHHHHT!'

Anyhow, camp was awesome. Donni makes the best gluwein on the planet, and I don't want to know how much full fat milk was in the porridge - it doesn't get that creamy from water alone. Incredibly yum.

You coming next year?

The view

The other view

Camo print yarn painting

The faithful

The cooks having morning tea (they were lashed and sent back to work moments after this shot was taken)
There were so many gathered in the name of knitting, I hoped a miracle might have ensued.

Tianne, what's the time on that sundial?

The fruit of the dying workshop (sic).

I love yarn.

Off to knitting retreat

Thank you guys so much for all those comments - a real record!

I've done the necessary, and Grenadine Girl, you're the winner. Iffen you emails me, we can work something out - I've got a few ideas for prizes so you can have an input.

And Michelle, I owe you a little something extra too, so it'll be on it's way early next week, when I come back from .......

KNITTING CAMP!!!

That's right, two wonderful nights and two wonderful days of knitting, felting, spinning without interruption.

Woo Hoo.

Seeyamonday.

COMPETITION TIME!!

PLEASE COMMENT IF YOU VISIT TODAY, THE 50,000TH VISITOR WILL GET A PRIZE

Some time today, my sitemeter is going to tick over fifty thousand. It seems an incomprehensible number to me.

To my knowledge, my webstats won't be able to tell who the fifty thousandth person is - only from whence they came.

But the 50,000th person to this blog is deserving of a prize as a measure of my gratitude for their visit - so a solution must be found to this problem.

So, if you want to be the 50,000th person, leave a comment today please and when the meter ticks over I'll pick a random comment from the selection. Can't think of any fairer way...


MOTHER'S DAY

Every year, there is a family fun run/walk at a local park near the beach to raise funds for breast cancer research.

It's a great morning, full of families and kids and bikers with pink beards.

What?

That's right, bikers with pink beards.

And shetland ponies with pink tutu's.
And other animals (shudder)

And cousins just happy to be together.

It was a beautiful day. I made baked cob loaf artichoke filling, tarte tatin (from scratch) with dollops of double cream if desired and bacon and egg bites. Washed down with champagne and good coffee, then a long leisurely walk along the harbour to get a gelato for the kids.

Bellies full, hearts full.

Lara, its so good being a mum.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Monkey Socks

Pattern from Cookie A for knitty.
Yarn - STR in the dreadfully named 'Fire on the Mountain' (makes me think of charred koalas and terrified bluetongues)

Genie

Blair is becoming aware of this blog. She reads it, and looks over my shoulder at other blogs when I'm exploring the online endless craft magazine of blogland. She loves seeing pictures of people she recognises from our real life.

She's the reason behind that blogpet thing, Christmas Bells, down there on the right. Don't worry, you don't have to look.

A few days ago, she was playing with some of her littlest pet shop toys, and came to me and said 'I want you to take a picture of my guys and put it on your blog'. So, out came the portable light box, and we were away. She makes little diorama all the time, lining things up like soldiers and talking away to herself. Sometimes she makes videos of them with the camera, flattening the batteries like nothing else. She's a loner, content with her own company and lost in her imagination.

Her big brother often sneaks up and mows them down with a rat tat tat of an imaginary spiderman web blast or a lightsabre or a tmnt samurai sword. Blair takes this in her stride, knowing it is the occupational hazard of being a littlest pet shop pet in this household. She bathes them, chats to them, makes little beds for them out of tissues and fabric remnants. She loves those little guys.

Anyhow, I digress.

Blair, your wish is my command. Today, anyway.

Sydneysiders are less culturally literate

Look.

The Melbourne Age says so.

Can you imagine a Sydney paper writing this? Why did the journalist even bother putting this paragraph into the article - it's such a non-sequitur. It's like saying 'I love oranges. Apples suck.'

I don't know why, but it really got up my nose.

Methinks the Melbourne Age doth protest too much. Or perhaps I doth protest too much.

What do you think?

And of course, congratulations to Nikki Shell for getting such good publicity for the wardrobe refashion project - I love it when the mainstream catch on to blog phenomena and seem so suprised to find out it's out there.

For love of trout

Lest you think this blog has lowered it's tone into nothing but negativity and contrary opinions, I had better share a project I've recently finished.


Just to give you an idea of the dimensions of this shawl, it is roughly a seven foot equilateral triangle. A seriously big wrapper.

A joy to knit, the yarn is called Bloomfield, and retails at this wonderful place called Heritage Spinning in Lake Irion Michigan. A 50/50 fingering weight silk/merino it has the smell, the hand, the drape and the softness of a seriously good quality yarn.

The handpainted colours have been deliberately knitted for contrast, to show their beauty. And beautiful they are.

I got the gig from the great Jae, who suggested me as a test knitter to the yarn store for whom she drafted the pattern (from a knitted prototype mind you, how clever is that?).

Anyhow I took possession of the yarn on the 27 April and here we are, almost a hundred thousand stitches later blocked and pressed and ready to fly home to roost.

One of the things I loved about making this shawl was the names of the colours. I know that a lot of people epitomise their 'America' - and clearly Joan must also, for she has named her colours after the local nature elements from which the colours were inspired. Lake Charlevoix, Up North, Trout (my favourite), Harvest, Lighthouse Road, Grand Traverse, nighthawk. Made me wish I could be there, drinking in that crisp mountain air, feasting on trout and cherries.


Each colour is knitted in a different lace pattern, and I fancied they matched the colours of the yarn. The stocking stitch centre in lake charlevoix was to me like the mirrorred surface of the still lake, with the reflections of clouds and sky on the surface, the trout colour was the scales from the wild trout in the lake, tall conifers from Up North, wheatsheafs in the Harvest, Leaves by the side of the lighthouse road, cherries from Grand Traverse and finally the dramatic feathers of the inky blue nighthawk.



It was those thoughts of the purity of the American landscape, the clarity of the colours and Joan's love of her environment that spawned their names that kept me going, even though the rows were long and the knitting grew heavy and large. I swear I could feel the lanscapes through these colours while I knitted them, so to Joan I does a little curtsey, '

I was honoured, it was a pleasure, and thank you for the opportunity m'lady.'




The final picture is of my knitting chair, in the gorgeous autumn sun one morning last week. I swear of all the sofas in this house, I spend most of my time sitting on this outdoor chair, knitting, knitting, knitting and drinking black tea. Or wine. It's not even that comfortable - it makes my bum numb - maybe I should invest in a better quality chair.

(now if I named colours after my local area they'd might get called Fairy Meadow, Puckey's Estate, North Gong pub and Unanderra railway station - hardly the same ring don't you think?)

I wish I'd written that

Today I read something and I thought to myself:

Is this person reading my mind? Can it be that the narrator of my thoughts has somehow channelled itself into writing a post on someone else's blog?

Well, of course not. But it proves there is a reason why some blogs are popular and some aren't. Some blogs are just better than others. It's unfashionably fascist, but it's a fact.

So, read this. And pretend I'm as good a blogger as that.

January 1.


But if I ever get that obsessed with colour scheme software and knitted mitred squares; just shoot me.

Pray, who is the pottter and who is the pot?

Are you a blog reader?

Have you found yourself desirous of a ripple stitch blanket lately?

Or perhaps a granny square throw?

Well, you're not alone. It's rife in the beautifully photographed blogs of desire.

posie gets cosy
yarnstorm
crochetme
me too
and me
and me
arrgh - I loike em too me hearties
don't forget me
me again, and I refer to it often
i'm here too
me as well
and me and me and me
whipup's even noticed

And you know you've made it when there's a flickr group.

plus the many hundreds of wannabe's on the two 'alongs' on the web.

If ugly is the new black, these people are all over it.

Bendigo Wool Mill finally enters the 20th Century

And not a moment too soon.

Looking for basic cheap wool for felting or fair-isle? Proper wool for baby garments?

Their alpaca is my current favourite of them, it's beautifully heathered and oh so soft. You might have seen it as heirloom alpaca - from my understanding it is the same yarn. Love it.

BENDIGO WOOLLEN MILLS

It's all-Australian too, it's good to support our farmers where we can.

And the price, cheaper than chips.

Go on, you know you need more yarn.

AND, don't you think this is the cutest name for yarn you've ever seen? Just when you thought the puns couldn't get any cornier - tofutsies! I love it.