Monthly Archives: February 2011

FO: Not-Shur’tugal Socks

27 Sunday Feb 2011

Posted by in FO, knitting, socks

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And now for something completely different. Knitting! one good thing about not going to canberra for the weekend has been plenty of knitting time (as well as plenty of knitting-socialising time. so much that my head hurts). but i did get the not-shur’tugal socks finished, finally:

in case you didnt know, these are for the s62011 sock club, the first pattern of which was shur’tugal, which i didnt like (short version) and because there are no knitting police, i chose an alternate pair, cookie’s hederas. i have been meaning to make these for ages, and with the reissue of the pattern in the wonderful knit. sock. love, i had sizing options! so i went up to the largest size and they really are lovely on:

i probably could have got away with the medium size, but i dont want to stretch the lovely malabrigo sock yarn (in ravelryred colourway), and these just slide on. ive not been this happy with a pair of socks in a long time.

i knit them exactly as per the pattern, and its a very easy one to remember and joy to knit. and even though they are not the same socks as the majority of people are knitting for the first s62011 installment, i still finished them on time, and that is a very good feeling. i am going to do the nominated pair for the second installment, nutkins, and i have a very smooshy yarn picked for those:

but first, i have an alpaca shawl to finish.

kxx

letting go

24 Thursday Feb 2011

Posted by in dogs, personal

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its a very sad day here in my little old room. ive made a decision (that may or may not be permanent) but i think its the right one for now. its also one of the hardest decisions ive ever made. im a bit upset, so i might get soppy. sorry about that!

when trent and i split up, nearly two years ago, in some ways the hardest part was the dogs. neither of us wanted to separate them, neither of us wanted to stop doing our dog sports with them. when trent moved into my little house a few months later, and we started on this crazy journey of living together as friends, it was just wonderful to have the dogs together again. we were able to keep doing our dog sports and weekend aways as though nothing had changed.

but of course it had. ive been hanging on to this part of our life together because i cant bear the thought of thinking that everything is different. ive said it before, its no coincidence i studied history, and the weight of the past, of all of my pasts, bears heavily on my present. but sometimes, that burden is just too much. when we go away for flyball weekends together, its exactly the same as it ever was. he drives, i knit. i pass him his bacon and egg mcmuffin. he plays too much van morrison on the mp3. we argue about directions.  then we get to flyball and he runs off to be with his friends, or judge, or whatever other important thing he does, and i play with my dog and talk to the team, but my hearts not in it. i realise how it looks the same, but it isnt the same. then we come home, and we are not a couple, and i am meant to put all my feelings, all my memories, away somewhere. lock them up like a boggart, waiting to terrorise me the next time we go to flyball.

so, im not going to flyball anymore (well not as much anyway, just for team emergencies). if we arent a couple anymore, then we should do less couple-like things. i make this sound so simple, but really its not. its so very very hard, and i feel like my heart is breaking all over again. ricco and i watched him drive off just now with possum and jem, and i hate thinking that flyball has won somehow, that its taken them away from me.

that after all these years, all the terrible hurtful things that people have done to us at flyball have somehow got the better of us. but its not about that. its a miracle that we lasted as long as we did, and it makes me so proud to think that trent has hung in there despite all the crap, and that no one knows what thats been like for him, for us. its hard to think that other flyballers will think ive quit, that i couldnt hack it, running my own dog. but they will never know how hard it is for me to let someone else have the joy of running her, for her sake, not to satisfy my own pride and selfishness. i feel like im letting possum down, letting people down, but at the end of the day the only person who can look after me is me. i will miss my team, who are some of the nicest people ive ever been around in flyball, but i wont miss a lot of the other angst flyball has caused me.

i am home alone now for four days, and i have my friends, and i have ricco with me

but i cant pretend im happy. i know ill be ok, but its so hard, this letting go.

k xx

holding pattern

18 Friday Feb 2011

Posted by in dogs, knitting, personal, WIP

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contrary to the majority of the rest of the two legged fauna on this continent, i try to hibernate during summer. the only time i ever liked summer was when i was a kid, up till i was about 12, and free to ride my bike around my half wild- bush cicada and christmas beetle infested neighbourhood, and get smashed repeatedly onto the shore at wanda beach. these days, im scared of the sun, having had a BCC removed from my face a couple of years ago, and am mostly ideologically opposed to the outdoors rednecked culture of australia-major. yes yes gross sweeping generalisation, and there is lots to love about australia in the summer. the smell and feel of salt air (this is why i could never live inland again), sand in everything, melting icecream, the joy of a cold shower after a day in the sun, the fantastic fresh produce, mangos, seafood, outdoor cafes, all that. but its getting hotter out there, and the beaches are more crowded, and the outfits getting skimpier, and well, im not 12 anymore. and its so hard to WORK when its that hot. i guess thats the clincher for me. summer means holidays. how are you meant to get your head into gear when you work in front of a computer in a non air conditioned building with a workmate who doesnt want the ceiling fan on? (trust me, it got turned on).

so i feel like i have been in a bit of limbo for the last month or so, really struggling to get my head and feet moving. the feet havent had a lot of choice, kept moving a little at least by being home alone for most of the summer and needing to take the dogs for runs. today is my last day of that, and i cant wait for it to be over. not that i dont like living on my own, i actually really enjoy it, although i do start having conversations with the dogs after a while and they look at me like im quite mad.

maybe i am. its a strange living arrangement we have here, me and my ex of fifteen years living together as friends! its not always easy, and sometimes i think its a terrible mistake, but most of the time we get along better now than we did when we were together, and its just too hard to separate the dogs, and hes quite handy about the house, and if you have to share with someone it might as well be someone you know well, right? plus, im getting a lot of joy out of watching him realise his dream of going to law school. he comes back tonight after a summer in canberra doing a government cadetship, and to be honest, im very happy about it. looking after the house and three dogs by myself, plus trying to work full time, has been much harder than i thought it would be, and with things about to ramp up at work, the timing is perfect.

i’ve been in a bit of a holding pattern at work during the academic summer, but the last week has seen that shift, with a project ive been working on unfunded getting the official stamp of approval and a large sum of money from the uni. i get to hire minions now and will be travelling to perth and melbourne, and working pretty hard this year. im hoping it doesnt cut into my knitting time, which is all about the ‘in progress’ since girasole was finished (thank you everyone for the wonderful comments!). im trying to get my not-shurtugals finished by the end of february

and i just started the heel on the second one last night

so these should meet the deadline for the ss62011 first installment. im enjoying the knitting-to-deadline part of a sock club, and its nice to know i might actually have some knitted socks this winter. i am hoping to have a couple of new cardigans as well, i was left in awe last saturday at guild by missfees amazing cardigan output and i came home thinking i needed to rip what i had done on the leaving cardigan because it was so daggy and old fashioned compared to her modern snappy things. but i did some more on it

and fell in love with it again. the pattern panel up the back is really lovely,

and works beautifully in the madtosh pashmina. and anyway,  i have a whole heap of lovely black berroco alpaca to make into something a little more ‘trendy’ when leaving is done.

and we are about to start on a whole round of flyball comps as well, which means the hibernation is nearly over, and the year is really about to begin. lets hope its a good one!

kxx

FO: Girasole Shawl

11 Friday Feb 2011

Posted by in FO, knitting, lace, shawls

≈ 26 Comments

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i had a lot of trouble concentrating at work yesterday. all day, i was thinking of that lovely piece of red wollmeise stretched out on knitabulous’ floor, waiting to be unpinned. i raced over after work yesterday, and up it came. its so beautiful it nearly made me cry:

the wollmeise has just blocked beautifully, it is so smooth and light and drapey, and its HUGE! its at least 140cm across::

im not sure i made it to wear it, i thought of it more as a decoration, but it was actually very hard to take off:

i should stop preening and tell you a little bit about it, although you can see all the details on ravelry of course. the pattern is jared flood’s girasole, italian for sunflower, which it does indeed invoke:

the yarn is wollmeise lace-garn, in merlot, that george got for me in pfaffenhoffen, and really only natural light does the colour justice. it looks like, well, merlot. the pattern was written for a fingering and an aran weight, but the wollmeise is probably about a 3 ply. i went with 3.75mm sticks, or knit pick option interchangeable with the longest cable actually. it opened up beautifully on blocking:

and is light, and flowing, and drapey. i did extra repeats on chart E and G (6 and 4 respectively i think) and i still have enough yarn left over to make another small shawl. but not enough that i dont think i wasted it, and im certainly not thinking its too small! im so pleased with it, ive bought it to work today.

just because.

tease…

10 Thursday Feb 2011

Posted by in knitting

≈ 11 Comments

we might have had a little blocking party down here in wollongong yesterday. thought you might like a sneak peek.

thats all im saying though….

kxx

hommage à trois

07 Monday Feb 2011

Posted by in dogs, personal, socks

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i just want to pay a little homage to some people today. one is to my ex-aunty-in-law  (in other words, my ex’s aunty), who passed away over night.  she was diagnosed with cancer before christmas, was put on morphine last week, and passed into a coma yesterday. she died at 2am this morning.

she was always so good to me, her and her husband and their children (t’s cousins) welcomed me into their family and even when we split, they stayed open and welcoming to me. this is more than i can say for other parts of the ex-in law family and sadly, its a lot more than i can say for my own family. my dads sisters made a big deal about me being ‘discovered’ again a few years ago (as did my dad) but now im lucky to get a birthday card, from any of them (father included). family is hard work, and im not good at it, ive been without it for so long, so im sure its partly my fault. it meant a lot to me though, that aunty j and her daughters were so nice to me, and it was lovely to see t find a family again as well, after so long in the wilderness. i spent christmas with them this year and aunty j was determined that we all get our photos taken with her, me included, and it was obvious she knew she wouldnt see another christmas. i felt really blessed to be part of that huge gathering on christmas day. it was hilarious and heart warming to see her perch her tiny little frame on a chair and command the people around her.  i hope she rests in peace, i know a few will be lost without her.

the other homage is to my favourite knitted sock designer, whose new book arrived this morning, not more than an hour after we heard about aunty j. j always admired my knitting, so i dont think she would mind sharing a post with the likes of cookie a.

i say she’s my favourite, because as much as i love nancy bush and her timeless elegance, it’s cookie’s socks i look to for inspiration. i thought her first book, sock innovation, tried a bit too hard. too many complicated patterns, and not always the best choices of yarns. but this book is different. it breaks up the patterns into design ‘types’, columns:

tesellations:

and diagonals:

and its definitely the diagonals im most drawn to. my favourite knitted socks EVER, are diagonals, kai meis, from sock innovation, and the first pair im going to make out of this book are ‘thelonious’ which are kind of similiar:

the other ones i really like in this section are ‘pointelle’

and ‘in and out’

you can see that theme of those bands coming across the top of the foot, there is just something about that little trick i love. there are plenty of others in this book i want to knit as well, including some i have seen published before, but even if there werent heaps of great patterns, there is plenty about this book to love. the older patterns have been updated with new sizes and more charts and there are detailed schematics for each sock. the sizing options are a real treat, as is the book itself. its big, clearly set out, glossy, and well designed, and complemented by the most amazing photography. there is a lot to look forward to in this book, but for now i must finish hederas:

which are moving ever so slowly, partly because i was seduced by some tarty french alpaca. and also because its been so damn hot. tell me about it, i hear the collective wail. nearly too hot to knit at all. nearly too hot for flyball too. but being the tough sports people we are (snort) me and possum in one team, and trent and jem in another team, ran in the heat in canberra on the weekend. i am very pleased to report that possum and my team, ‘muddys’, came first in division one, losing only one race along the way. we werent racing our top competition, and we ran a bit slower than usual, but we made hardly any mistakes all day, and it was a great feeling, to get our groove happening, and to get our hands (or noses) on a trophy finally!

my final hommage is to trent, who has been running possum the last few years while jem was on hiatus, but now jem’s running again i get possum back, and it was weird to be in a team without trent. but we wouldnt have won it without him, because hes the one who’s done most of possum’s flyball training, and he’s the one who’s taught the team its tricks. thank trent, but this time, its me and my girl’s trophy!

and winning (just for a change!) is kind of sweet.

k xx

seeing red

04 Friday Feb 2011

Posted by in FO, knitting, WIP

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i stayed up late the other night, knitting like a demon in front of the fan (yeah its kinda hot here right now. lets not talk about it), and i managed to get girasole off the needles. tada:

i’m so happy with it. when i spread it out over the bed it looks like it might actually be mistake free. i like that feeling, knowing that i took the time and effort to get it right and don’t have to apologise for that bit over there that’s not quite straight. because it’s not blocked yet, it looks like there are some wonky bits, but there aren’t.

so i was very happy to be able to submit my easter show entry for this shawl, knowing it was flawless. that doesn’t mean it will win anything though, but i am happy to be in it, for the first time. i am going to need help blocking it, and am planning a day with wires and pins and mats on the floor with knitabulous’ help next week sometime.

in the meantime, i am continuing with my quest for a complete set of red accessories this coming winter:

(please let it be a really really cold one!) and cast on a new shawl, just a small one, that i am going to wear more like a scarf.

its romi hills ‘celeano’ (minus beads) in the gorgeous alpaca that ailsa bought me back from la droguerie in paris. i have a hat planned in red blue sky alpaca/silk, and along with the slowly progressing hederas in malabrigo

i will be dripping in luxury yarns come winter. did i mention i would like it to be really really cold?

this weekend i am off to canberra for the first flyball comp of the year. its meant to be hot.

sigh.

k xx

on butterfly wings

01 Tuesday Feb 2011

Posted by in cooking, friends

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i may have mentioned before that i am most naturally an introvert. lots of people lots of the time makes me kind of nervous. but this week gone i have been like a social butterfly extraordinaire! it started with dinner and a movie (black swan) with knitabulous on tuesday night (i loved that movie, loved every second of it, even if it was completely melodramatic and OTT). this was followed by afternoon tea on wednesday (australia day) at rosereds house, and was great to catch up with my old morris and sons SnB mates that i really dont see often enough. we ate lots of sweet things, including a pavlova decorated like sydney harbour (sort of) and fairy bread and of course portuguese tarts, given that we are not all descended from Empire:

that same day, i went back to webgoddesses place, and herself, the snook and i caught a bus down broadway to circular quay, where we met up with kunaal and his spare ticket to the opera house to see amandafuckingpalmer.

it was just so awesome, a fantastic, sprawling, chaotic, musical-drama-comedy-poetry reading thing, topped off with the amazing mr gaiman reading some new stories for us, including an ode to australian  history called Megafauna. a really great night, exhausting and a bit spine tingly. i drove through an empty city at midnight and sped down the freeway to get me home in under an hour but it was still 2am before i slept.

then i had a day or two off, and did some cleaning in preparation for my house guests, my friends georgie and bertie and james and grace and their dog ally from canberra, who came to spend the weekend with me, and trent, and our three dogs, so it was kind of crowded and kind of chaotic but really a lot of fun. saturday afternoon we met knitabulous and randomknits and zena and kate for lunch at diggies (yeah, a bit over the crap service and over pricing, shame cos its in such a great spot), then up to the novotel for wollongong stitch and bitch, where i met a new person called catherine who works in the same building as me! (we already have a coffee date! me and new people, unheard of!) george and i met bertie and the kids after their day on the beach and we went home for bbq and pavlova for desert. it was my very first pavlova. i was inspired by rosereds on wednesday, and enabled by a very thoughtful gift to the house from trent, a new mixmaster!

i had looked at some of those big $700 kitchenaids at christmas but couldnt make up my mind, and then trent saw a breville one advertised for less than $200 so we went in to look at that, but we were seduced by this groovy little number. it was marked at $140 but we haggled and it was the last one, and we got it down to $90!! nice! it comes apart too so it can be a hand mixer or a stand mixer:

it did a very nice job on my egg whites, turning them from this

to this

and then to this:

i was surprised how easy a pav is to make, really,

but there a few things that go into getting it right, like making it stiff enough to sit where you put it on the tray and not collapsing, and not cooking it for so long that all you have is yummy crunchy shell and not much meringue. james and i decorated saturday nights one into a smiley face, and i made another one on sunday that was almost perfect

a few more tweaks and i will have it just right.

the recipe is from the stephanie alexander bible (cooks companion), by the way. and now i am home alone (well with three dogs) again, albeit with a fridge that looks like an art gallery, thanks to james and grace, including a map from their place to mine:

and because its hot im going to hibernate for the rest of the week and quite possibly finish the edging on a particular shawl. its been lovely to have such a busy social week, but some quiet time sounds good too!

until next weekend….

k xx

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