Had enough of Rhinebeck yet?

So you Americans all went to Rhinebeck. And you all rubbed shoulders with the knitterati.

OKAY already, don't rub it in.

Calling all Australians who want to go to Rhinebeck next year. Send me an email, I'll see if I can set up a registered charity and then we'll pass the hat around for donations on the internet.

Who knows, maybe we'll start a podcast called The Blogs Rhinebeck Forgot. Or Road to Rhinebeck '08 and have some contests with giveaways in return for donations.

Of course there's always BENDIGO. But it just doesn't have the same ring ...

What a difference a week can make

Hi swingers! I'm back in the blog saddle. Thank you for the kind comments - you know they thought the internet would turn us all into robots but they forgot that human nature is human nature - and the internet if anything has made people closer. I've had more kind words spoken to me on this blog in the past two and a half years than I've EVER had in my real life - so they were wrong about the robot thing - and I am a much richer person for it. So thank you kind stranger-friends.

I came home from hospital on Friday, spent Saturday all but horizontal, had a lovely long beach walk on Sunday, and went back to work on Monday and Tuesday. Apart from being a bit sore of boob and them looking like hot cross buns with bruises, I feel a million bucks.

And with the kids off at school today, it's the first chance I've had to sit down with a coffee and update the blog.

The first thing I've got to tell you is this. If you're looking for INSTANT gratification, you gotta go the cro. Seriously. On Thursday 11th October, Donna gave me this yarn.

By Sunday I had finished.


And one week later it fit me.


Project specifications on ravelry. Lion Brand free pattern, yarn from Donna's stash, originally by Phildar.


OTHER PROJECTS:

The Eats Roots Shoots and Leaves is ready for the fourth repeat of the FFL pattern. It seems an appropriate time to let it rest. It's pretty depressing to think how far I've come, but how far I still have to go - this is a commitment knit all right.

As for the Neibling frosted fern doily - I ripped it back and started again on a bigger needle. I'm doing it in a fingering weight (it's jaggerspun heathers I beleive in LAVA, a gift from Dyann my ISE pal) so it will be more of a blanket than a doily - it's looking predictably like a blob of charcoal knitting on a circular needle right now.

And I really can't talk about the snicket socks. How come I can happily knit ten rounds of a 600 stitch shawl with cobweb weight yarn but the thought of doing two rounds of a 72 stitch sock makes me shudder? There is indeed something wrong with me.

There are other things OTN, but they're all sleeping. And we all know not to wake sleeping babies.

FINALLY, I got a new camera, a NIKON 40x with a bonus paparazzi lens. I'm really wanting to improve my photography now - it's so exciting! In the meantime though, you'll have to excuse the dodgy focus and lighting - I've got a lot to learn.

Update on the Patient

Hi,

This is Ailsa's husband here.

Just letting you know that Ailsa is doing well. I visited her tonight and she was up and as chatty as ever. She was out of recovery by noon and knitting in bed by 4pm. A real trooper.

Alan

Ta-ta ta-ta's

Today's the day. I wrote this post a month in advance when it was just theoretical, just a date on the calendar, nothing to be concerned with.

As the day grew closer I became more and more anxious. At one stage my mind refused to consider it. 'I'm not doing it', I said to myself in 'I don't care if I've already paid the doctor, the anesthetist, the hospital. I just won't show up on the day. It is ridiculous to be going to hospital to have an OPERATION that I don't medically really need'.

By the time you read this I'll be under the knife. I'll be going from an E/F cup right down to a B. I'm afraid of the operation but hopeful of the outcome.

I guess my most ambitious hope for the result would be to end up looking like my quilt fabric stash; small, but perfectly formed.

Wish me luck.

QUESTION
If you have a good camera, can macro photos of any old crap and look good on your blog?


BACKGROUND RESEARCH
Knitabulous has inspected a million blogs for the purposes of this research. Initial evidence seems to support the theory that a good camera can make any old crap look great on a blog.

HYPOTHESIS
Macro photographs of any old crap look good when taken with a better camera.

EXPERIMENT
1. Obtain a good camera.
2. Take a macro shot of any old crap.
(note - Use the automatic setting on the camera if you don't know how to use any of the features on the aforementioned apparatus)
4. Publish resultant photograph on blog.
5. Draw conclusion.

RESULT


CONCLUSION
Hypothesis is TRUE.


However, as we all know, blogs with good photographs are not a subset of good blogs. Nor, in fact, is the reverse true. Some of my favourite blogs have no photographs at all.

Bang Soo and Fur

What's a day trip to Cabramatta without the fur (pho) and Bang Soo (banh xeo)? I really wish I hadn't have left the camera in the boot because lunch was spectacular! And delicious.

So, how did I go in the colour matching department?



Not too bad I think ...

This fabric is going to be one of Amy Butler's pillows ....






Donna recently wrote a post about one of her stash yarns speaking to her - but she was trying to ignore it. After she swatched it a little she wasn't thrilled so she offerred it to me.

I've been crocherating* with it - the twisting is easier to hide amidst crochet.



There are other WIP's as well -

This was inspired from the ubiquitous Hemlock Ring Blanket - except mine is more special (to me anyway) because it's a NEIBLING darling.


(it'll look better when it's finished)


And I've recently been given (NOT GIFTED!! Oh how I HATE that word being used as a verb) a hand-me-down from my sister. A new knitting bag!

(apparently it's a scrapbooking tote - but we won't tell anyone)

What's inside?

A sock! Snicket sock - my first (and possibly only) summer of socks project. This is the THIRD iteration of the sock - I was trying to avoid using the 2mm needles - but no dice.



(* sic)

Should I be IRATE or THRILLED??

I found this on the internet.

What's the go here? Should she have asked my permission to use the image? It's been lifted from Ravelry BTW - as is the description text.

I really don't know whether to be irate or thrilled.

So, I'll choose thrilled.

OKF - there's been a lot of frogging going on around chez knitabulous. If my NEW CAMERA!! arrives tomorrow I won't have anything to shoot.

The mission

The colour

The room



And one big daytrip.

Donna and I are going to Cabramatta on Thursday and I hope to find me some pintuck silk in just the right shade of blue for some bedlinen, perhaps curtains - not quite gelato, not quite pastel, more like ice really.


AND ON AN UNRELATED NOTE

Have you seen the knitty surprise? More like a horrific shock! They can't be serious. It was already a crime that Donni's great pattern, the scowl, didn't make it even though I thought it was perfect for knitty, but to publish this - did anybody say 'jumped the shark?'

FREE BURMA

My knitting on a nail file

Yesterday as we were leaving the house to do some shopping, all four of us, the kids emptied the mailbox. Blair says 'you've got a parcel mum'. I was suprised because I wasn't expecting anything.

Remember this?



Well, Joan from Heritage Spinning in Michigan has had the pattern printed. And what a beautiful pattern it is too. It really is such a difference from the home printed pdf's and free downloads - like real coffee over instant. Joan sent me a few samples in the mail, and some promotional material from her shop.



And, equally as exciting, a picture inside my house is on the front page of the store newsletter!

I came over all emotional - it was quite something to see my own work photographed to look so glamorous. Added to that, Joan wrote such a lovely story about how it came to be, the international journey the yarn and shawl had, the emails, the photo progress shots.

Looking at the newsletter made me genuinely want to move to the US. You should see the courses - lace knitting, estonian garden stole, a bag workshop, felting, spinning boot camp - the knitting courses offered at this shop are greater in number than the entire prospectus from my local community college!

Oh to live in a land where there is a large population. (Australia 0 - USA 1)

I dropped into my sister's house on the way to Campbelltown* (shopping is better there than here in the Gong, I liken it to going to America).

I was very proud, and showed her the stuff. She was, as usual, nonplussed. 'That's great, KNITABULOUS' she says, 'wonderful to see you talk about knitting for a change'

I said 'Look! A nailfile with a picture of my knitting on it!"

She says 'That's a good nail file too. Can I have that?'

So, there's no picture, but there is a nailfile with my knitting on it!

STASH ENHANCEMENT



If I knew her better, I'd fully blame fleegle for this. But, since she's a stranger who proof of existence to me is only through her gorgeous lace knitting I adore, I can't really say it's all her fault that this happened to enter my home earlier this week. But there's no doubt that I wanted what she was having - so she definitely had something to do with it.

This yarn is as fine as sewing thread and as soft as you'd imagine cashmere and silk to be. It's gorgeous, just like she said. And it only took a week or so from China to Australia. (Australia 1 - USA 1)


(*where I, co-incidentally and literally, ran into Donna's Emily on her FIRST DATE!! I insisted she introduce me to the boy and informed him sternly that I was one of Em's mother's friends - the poor boy will probably run for the hills. Which, Donna, you can thank me for later). Luckily it appeared that Donna was following them too (or something like that) and I ended up with a bonus coffee date to go with the torture of doing the kids summer clothes shopping. (Australia 2 - USA 1)

Keeping Up

So I go into blogger to make the announcement on the Southern Summer of Socks blog that I've decided to do the snicket socks from magknits.

Duh. I didn't join that group. I only think I did.

Alzheimer's alert?