Monthly Archives: May 2011

where’s my head at…

29 Sunday May 2011

Posted by in friends, knitting

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

work, apparently. i appear incapable of more than once a week posts again as things go from crazy to insane at work. the melbourne trip will be followed up by a visit to a perth university in a couple of weeks, and i have two journal articles to finish editing, one to write from scratch and two conferences to prepare for. the promotions project continues to take more than the two days a week im meant to be working on it, and my other research project is about to move into phase two, which means i have to do stuff. i had some odd media attention this week about that, except my research is on risky sex and they wanted to talk about planking.

not quite the same thing but anyway. so i feel like my head only has just enough space to remember all the things i need to tick off my to do list everyday, and the more i tick off, the more things go on there. im still recovering from a chest infection, plus im a bit blah emotionally anyway, and i end up wishing i could just crawl into a cave somewhere. a cave with a doona. a big white fluffy doona.

i left the house long enough yesterday to spend some time at least with nice knitter peeps, including lunch at diggies

i had trouble deciding what to have

i ended up with the croque madame (a very fancy ham and cheese toastie with an egg on top)

but i ending up wishing i’d had the pear:

then it was up to the novotel for our monthly local stitch n bitch.

i didnt feel much like talking yesterday, and there was a new person who really annoyed me and i figured it was just wise to be silent and knit the hat.

thats also where else my head is at, desperately trying to make a new hat by next weekend. the cashmere beret is lovely, but hardly suited to a weekend camping (yes camping) and chasing sheep around a paddock with my dog in the middle of nowhere, which is where i’ll be. the hat is this pattern made with the  filatura ‘sport wool’ i got in melbourne. its a good match for the stripe study shawl, and for the hem that gets turned under im using the left over madtosh sock in ‘tart’, just for the matchy thing, and also cos its softer on the skin than the sport wool.

i blocked the shawl too, and it did grow a bit, and became very soft and drapey, and i love it even more.

otherwise, im a bit over people at the moment. i get like that sometimes. a busy week at work and a weekend away with possum should sort things out i hope. so long as i dont die from camping in the cold.

k xx

work trip, with shawl

22 Sunday May 2011

Posted by in FO, knitting, shawls, travel

≈ 20 Comments

Tags

,

i may have mentioned that i was headed to melbourne for work this week. i know lots of people have been to melbourne lots of times, and some people i know even live there, but i do like it very much. it has lots of charms, like good coffee

and cute alleyways

and lots of shopping options, much better than sydney. i was in the market for a new work bag, bigger than a hand bag, and i saw plenty i liked but they were out of reach budget wise. i will have to reassess that situation. is there a perfect bag out there, that can carry work things, files, computer, books AND knitting? ive been looking for a few years now, i just might have to take out a small personal loan to get it! i did manage to spend some time in yarn stores. the morris and sons melbourne store was very pretty, with a really lovely little sit and knit corner,

and a big table for classes etc. a much better space than either the sydney store or granny square. but nothing new yarn wise. i headed down elizabeth st looking for clegs. last time i had been there they had a wall of rowan that i wanted to revisit. except, it was gone. it was now a wall of patons and cleckheaton. they had some nice yarns from naturally nz, and a few bits and pieces of rowan, and then a whole heap of crap. the only thing that interested me was the filatura di crosa range, and i picked up 4 balls of this new sportwool ( a nice lofty soft DK) and a variety of colours in the unbelievably soft baby alpaca.

i dont know any stores in sydney who stock these guys properly, like a full range of the good basics, and it annoys me. its beautiful stuff, all from italy, great colours, and wears really well. its not always cheap, but its value for money. of course we dont want that, do we? sigh.

anyway, i spent wednesday night in my lovely spacious hotel room desperately trying to finish the stripe study shawl.

i wanted to wear it to my meetings on thursday, and i stayed up late and got a cramp in my hand casting it off. i couldnt block it obviously, but i lay it out on the hotel floor and figured it would be wearable as is:


which it would have been, if only melbourne hadnt been so damn warm! it was no cooler than it was when i left sydney, and although it was cloudy and people looked at me weird for wearing sunglasses, it was nowhere near cold enough for a heavy big shawl. so i didnt end up wearing it, which is kind of ironic, really. im glad i didnt, the meetings on thursday were hard work, and i needed to be on my toes. they went really well though, it was a totally wothwhile trip and the people i talked to at the uni i visited were extremely helpful, really above and beyond what i expected, and they looked after me all day and made time for “very important people” to talk to me, and i was completely exhausted at the end of it!

i slept very well thursday night, and woke up to another cloudy day on friday.

i didnt want to spend any more time in shops looking at gorgeous things i couldnt afford, so i headed across the river for breakfast, then walked along southbank

and up to the arts centre and the gallery, which i hadnt been to before.

it was really great, a very impressive collection of european art, with an emphasis on italian renaissance. there was a lovely tintoretto and some wonderful dutch pieces, including a couple of rembrandts. i stopped for a break in the really lovely tea room

peppermintally refreshed, i headed up to the small but impressive contemporary collection that included a rothko, through the gallery store (where i bought nothing! unheard of for me), and then out through the fantastic foyer.

then i walked back across the river

and into the city

to pick up my bags and head home. i crashed pretty early friday night, and hardly had time to breath before jumping in the car yesterday and heading down to kiama where some ladies that i knit with had an exhibition and sale at the old fire station.

i had been hoping to put some stuff out myself but i just havent had time, so i was content to sit and knit and watch the passers by admire and pay money for some lovely things. i took girasole down with me, and we found a spot for it on the wall.

oh look, its a circle! easter show people, if you’re watching, this is what it could have looked like. then knitabulous and i headed outside and she took some photos of me wearing the stripe study shawl.

i wont bore you with the project details, you can check it out on ravelry if you arent already knitting one! but i am really happy with it. its big enough for me to wear comfortably, although i do want a shawl pin to hold it on myleft shoulder there

and the yarn (madeline tosh sock in ‘tart’ and ‘cloak)’ is just gorgeous. smooth and soft and very warm.

i ended up using almost all of a second skein of tart, and i wouldnt have got another row plus cast off out of the cloak, so it needs more yarn than the pattern says for a really big one, but its worth it. i dont have a photo but the point does come well down the back. i am not a huge fan of the triangular shawl for wearability, but i think this large, more contemporary style, suits me more, and is definitely something i will wear a lot.

now i just need to finish the greenfield cardigan and i will feel ready for winter.

k xx

red update

15 Sunday May 2011

Posted by in friends, knitting

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

,

first, thanks everyone for the lovely comments on the last post. i nearly didnt post anything about mothers day, its not like its a new thing, or something i dont think about every year, but this one felt a little different. not enough to make me post the note though. well not yet at least. the urge seems to have passed (some might say sanity has prevailed).

unfortunately, though, i cant give you a finished object update on the stripe study shawl. its getting very close. im nearly through the second skein of tart, so its getting big. its already bigger than what the pattern suggests. i think i have one more red stripe section to do then im onto the black border. it may not be done in time for the trip to melbourne this coming week however, depends how much more knitting i can stand tonight!

but its cold in melbourne, and i couldnt go there without something warm and fuzzy, and red, to wear around my neck. you might remember last year i made this gorgeous ravelry red clapotis in malabrigo silky wool.

i loved it and wore it lots. but when i pulled out my woollens bag last week in preparation for the cooler weather, it was nowhere to be found. i dont remember losing it, but i dont remember packing it away either. a tragedy! the clapotis pattern is one of my favourite pieces of neckwear, and i was devestated. i did have this earlier one, that i made maybe 3 years ago:

it’s in fibreworks alpaca/wool blend, i think, in the ‘desert sunset’ colourway. once, i did pink. and purple too. not anymore. i wore this to work on thursday and it drove me crazy with its pinkness. then i had a brain wave. did i not know someone with a bit of a thing for dying yarn? so we got together on friday and did a few experiments with different colours and decided the ‘fire red’ would overdye the best. the first dying turned it a very bright hot pink. ailsa left me some dyes and i had another go later in the afternoon, and i really let it have some heat in the microwave until the water ran pretty clear, and then i hung it out to dry:

perfect. in the shadows it looks dark and mottled:

in the sunlight its the most dazzling jewel red:

i love it. what a great way to reclaim an old object and make it new again. i wore it up to sydney to knitters guild on saturday, everyone commented on it as if it was new, except kris who said ‘oh clapotee! really? isnt that so 2004′. funny ukelele playing hipster chick. guild was lovely, as usual. ive been meaning to take some pictures of this amazing venue for ages but forgot my camera again. the phone camera did manage to catch rosered and zena, with crown st behind them

and wittyknitter talking about…copyright maybe?

rosered ran a workshop on ‘pattern grading’ while we ate an amazing morning tea from missfee and jp,

then we hit the street for lunch and much laughter (sorry random passer by)

and then there were baby cuddles when mr rosered and connor joined us. can you believe that connor turned one last week? where did that year ago? i bought him some presents which he liked ripping open – some MoMA pram-hanging texture boards, a maisie book with moving parts (which i dont expect to last long)

and these cute finger puppets.

(no i didnt make them. some poor peasant in guatemala did, although apparently they’re made from acrylic, as yarn snob mummy pointed out! she didnt mean it in a bad way, but it was funny that she noticed). i got to have a cuddle too, wearing my clappy:

a fantastic day all round. it will be a perfect weekend if i can get this shawl finished.

k xx

red scare

09 Monday May 2011

Posted by in knitting, personal

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

the last few weeks seem like an avalanche of public holidays and commemorative days. easter, anzac day, mothers day. somewhere in there was’ may day’, but we dont ‘celebrate’ that any more, and meanwhile, the meanings of the other days have become twisted and warped under the pressure of hallmark commercialism. on the weekend, on twitter, i was outed as a communist. it made me laugh, and a little bit happy. i was outed because i remarked to webgoddess that i opposed commercialism (of everything), and i do, but mothers day, more than most of the others (with the hands down exception of christmas), makes me sad. on one hand, there is the politics of the thing, where ‘motherhood’ as a state is celebrated in a very crass pink fluffy way, and celebrated as a thing that all women aspire to. the pinnacle of womanness if you like. that just irritates me, but its typical in this world, with the mixed messages about what women should be. but its the personal part of mothers day that makes me really sad. not because im not a mother (i dont think whether you have children or not is the thing thats being celebrated), but because i dont have a mother to celebrate. oh she’s alive and kicking, in that realm where all the wicked witches of the west live, but she might as well be dead, all the support, love and comradeship i’ve had from her my entire life. so its this assumption, on mothers day, that all mothers are wonderful and we are so blessed to have our mums, that really gets me.

some of my friends are mothers. they are all, without exception, great mums. they are thoughtful, loving, caring and supportive of their children. they create fantastic family environments, wonderful family memories, that will build well adjusted, secure and intelligent adults. they knit stuff for their children, and for their grandchildren. they deserve to be celebrated. i wish they were my mum.

i know no one is perfect, i know no family is perfect, but on sunday afternoon i was alone in the house and i had a sudden urge for contact. i wrote my mum a note.

its been many years since i talked to her. we’ve been on and off over the last 20. the reason i stopped talking to her, and she to me, this time, are complicated and painful. i would have to do a lot of work to let that go. im not a saint. i wish i was. i carry a lot of anger, grief and frustration. im not sure if can let go. im not sure if i will post the note. i might. i might not.

but i am luckier than most. i got help when i was completely lost, and i learnt ways of dealing with these things  called ‘family history’, ‘childhood trauma’ and ‘feelings’ that dont mean i come close to necking myself three times a week anymore. most of the time these days i am happier than i ever thought i would be. and i do have family. i have my sister, who is a wonderful bright crazy human being, and i have trent, who is like the big brother i never had (and also the annoying younger brother who smells), i have my gorgeous smelly furry dogs, and i have my friends. such great friends they are. and mostly all women. this is a turn up for me. i had major issues with women once, and had only male friends. now, not so much. its not that women are all wonderfully supportive either (as they are often portrayed), but i have found a group of them now who are there when i need them, who include me in their own family activities, who accept my strange habits (like not drinking enough) and annoying tendencies (like thinking too much), and who i love unconditionally.

also, they help me out when i run low on yarn (how’s that for a segue?) i have been trying to fnish the stripe study shawl. i know pictures of things in progress are infinitely boring, but it does look kind of pretty hanging in the almost bare magnolia:

i’m loving knitting this. im not bored with it yet, but i do want it to be finished. its not finished. its probably not even close. the pattern says to do 12 stripe repeats, and i only have 9 and a half.

and im running out of yarn:

the pattern says 2 x 440 yard skeins of yarn will do, and the madtosh sock is only 395 yards. this is not enough apparently. i could just stop and swap to the black border now, but this really is one of those shawls that you want to be able to wrap around yourself. the model in the picture can, but my knitter friends and i suspect she is like one of those knit-model dwarves they use in interweave knits all the time so that everything looks great on them and shit on you. i was talking to knitabulous about how maybe i should make the black stripes wider and use up some of that yarn and make it bigger that way. i was halfway through explaining this theory and she left the room. i thought she went to get a set of scales so we could weigh how much i had left. but no, she came back with this:

a whole other skein of ‘tart’. we did buy ours together, but i completely forgot she had one. and i would never have thought to ask for it because, you know, its madtosh sock in tart. everyone wants one of those, dont they? being the generous soul she is, knitabulous is going to swap me this skein of tart for one of the other madtosh sock skeins i bought recently. so i can keep going and make the shawl as big as i want, and wrap myself in its loveliness. and when i do i will think of my fantastic friends, and how lucky i am.

there is a single red rose in my garden at the moment. people walking past have been stopping to smell it.

this picture of it is for all my loved ones who help get me through every single day.

k xx

parity parcels

06 Friday May 2011

Posted by in knitting, yarn

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

for most of my adult life, the australian dollar has, in terms of international purchasing, been worth significantly less than its face value. i remember the whole ‘floating’ thing, and our colonial currency being worth about 30 pence and 65 US cents, on average. not anymore. since the whole GFC thing, the australian dollar has steadily improved, so that its now well past parity with the US dollar. i make no apologies for being happy about this, i know its not good news for everyone, but for too long we have been at the mercy of the protected american market, and our retailers have been able to profiteer with severely inflated prices. not any more.

i have no qualms about buying overseas, although i will support particular stores here where i can. i wont be supporting the australian publishing industry as much as i used to, thats for sure. since my visit to america where i paid no more than $15 for new release paperbacks that i would pay $32 for here, i have been in revolt. i know there are all sorts of reasons why they say they charge more here, some are valid, but i think ive paid my dues. i’ve spent many thousands of dollars locally stocking my book shelves over the years, but as my reading tastes have changed, so have my purchasing practices.

for example, here are my bookshelves. they’re sorted by ‘genre’ loosely, as in history and politics, contemporary fiction and classics.

the biggest bookshelf  (the one in the middle) is the contemporary fiction, and thats the one im adding to most now. i like to go back to the classics every so often, but to be honest, there’s usually too many long words, and im just not up to it anymore. also, ive kind of read them all. these days im looking for stuff thats a whole lot lighter. still well written, but im not such a snob about the content. trashy vampire novels are great, as are those wonderful swedish crime books:

and just last week i succumbed to the latest craze and ordered the ‘songs of fire and ice’ (game of thrones) series:

this is coming to tv, and i always like to read the books first. this box set cost me $19 on amazon, and i paid extra for expedited shipping. even so, the box arrived on my door step for $35. one single volume of this series would cost at least $22 in an actual book store here. im not good with maths, but i do know value when i see it!

i have also indulged in a little bit of yarny parity-parceling. with fellow local SnB partners in crime, a large order was placed to jimmy beans. we had to wait a bit for some things to come in from suppliers, but when they did, the box was here almost overnight.

oh so much yarn. i focused mostly on the madeline tosh, i wanted more of the sock because its just so lovely, and i opted for ‘thunderstorm’ and ‘byzantine’

the byzantine is a lot deeper coloured than it shows here, rusty red shot through with magenta. mmm. i also wanted enough merino light to make an austin hoodie, and my preferred colour was ‘ink’, but they didnt have any in stock, so i opted for ‘stovepipe’ and JBs was kind enough to let me know that one skein of the six was considerably lighter than the others and did i want to order more in. i figured if they were ordering more in, i might as well get my preferred colour, so asked for 6 ink instead, and im pretty sure that was the right decision!

it is an amazingly dark blue, like its been left soaking in a bucket of indigo. in the merino light, there are shots of brilliant blue through it.

amazzing. im having trouble not casting on with it now. but i have a self-imposed knitting deadline. i have to go to melbourne in two weeks for a few days, for work. i hear its kind of cold down there now! i really need a new black cardigan to take, so i thought i should just work on greenfield, but it became obvious yesterday that it still wouldnt be done in time. im just going to have to bite the bullet and buy one in the meantime. but i do think i can finish a new shawl, so i have transferred all attention to the stripe study shawl. i even bought it to work today and am going to have a proper lunch hour not at my desk!

its amazing how quickly things grow when you work on them more!

i am looking forward to having something striking and modern looking to wear to my important meetings, and im looking forward to having a whole lot more madeline tosh draped around my person this year.

i guess i should stop buying stuff and just knit it, right?

k xx

this one time…again

02 Monday May 2011

Posted by in friends, knitting

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

yes its that time of year again. the wrap up from the annual CR&K Daisy Designs Knitting Retreat. Organised by my local yarn store, this is one of the highlights of my year, mostly because its not some big fancy posh thing, but a small gathering of people who already know each other, in very rustic but beautiful surrounds.

a few people who’ve been before couldnt make it this year, and we missed them, but some people who’ve been busy raising families came for the whole weekend, and the drop in numbers made for a smaller knitting circle, which meant everyone could join the conversation. there were no schisms or politics, everyone got along really well, and it had the feeling of good friends getting together for a really relaxing weekend of knitting, eating, drinking and laughing.

friday night we had dinner in front of the tv because of the royal wedding. as you may have guessed, i have no interest in things royal OR wedding, it irritates me that so much hype surrounds the marriage of two people who just happen to have been born into a particular bloodline, making them and their wedding no less special, romantic or beautiful than the thousands of others that happen around the world every day. but i did enjoy seeing her beautiful dress and the modern touch they tried to bring to a rather archaic tradition. we watched until the archbishop said ‘let us pray’ and about 5 of us said ‘lets not’ and we retired to the lodge to knit (and drink) for a few hours.

i was a bit under the weather, i woke up friday morning with a really bad head cold, that turned into the flu, and i thought for 5 seconds of not going to camp, and then sanity returned, i took a lot of drugs, and off i went. but i was pretty sick friday night and went to bed early. i was very grateful for my most excellent room mate kris, who also likes a nice civilised half hour of reading before lights out, and i think we both slept surprisingly well (as well as can be expected anyway). i was pretty ill on saturday morning too and groaned a bit before making a killer pot of coffee, taking more drugs, and beginning to feel a whole lot better.

it rained pretty heavily for most of saturday

but i dont think anyone complained too much. the scenery was still beautiful,

and we put the fire on and moved indoors. then suddenly, the lights went out! in fact, the entire camp lost power. but no one panicked. phone calls were made, generators, ladders, lights on strings, gas burners and camp torches acquired (thanks to trent and ailsa’s dad for helping us out there!) and knitcamp suddenly became, well, camp.

it was great fun though. it was hilarious watching people knit with lamps on their head or person

or, a la randomknits, casting on a new intarsia project with a torch under her chin. its never too dark to knit right? we did stop for a moment when kris brought the ukelele out and we sang our song that we’ve been practicing over the internet (amanda palmers ‘in my mind’). i had printed out some lyrics and we handed them around and people joined in for a second performance, and it was great, lots of knitters can also sing! even people who swore theyd never sing in public sang, and they sounded good! the only bad thing about the power going out was no hot shower sunday morning, and donna’s mai tai slushie bucket didnt freeze. i did see her with her head in it one time, contemplating just slurping it up with a straw,

but she resisted and stuck to the wine instead.

we had the usual trivia night on saturday night, and christine did a great job with her powerpoint presentation. the theme of the trivia was ‘all about knitting’, and it was quite interesting to find out what we did and didnt know about fibres, sheep, knitwear designers and where kerry has her holidays. there was much cheating of course, if you knew auslan you got a few freebies from rae, and if you’re like me and brazenly walk up to the white board and change your score from 37 to 39, you still lose by 2 points to the table with the two yarn store workers on it. hmph. then there was more knitting, drinking and eating of chocolate.

every year we also have a saturday night dress up theme, this year was ‘bollywood’ but we mostly decided it was too hard to put on sari’s in the dark. kris and i did put on some bling and make up (no decent photos sorry) and zena and charmaine managed to dress up like ‘nana mouskouri goes to the ashram’

(where’d you get those wigs Z?). i was asleep probably just after midnight, and in the morning there was evidence that Some People had partied on a little bit longer,

but really, everyone was pretty well behaved and not too wretched looking on sunday morning. sunday was glorious. the sun came out and we resumed our usual position of knitting along the wall.

it got warm enough at one point that cardigans were shed. there is nothing finer than hanging out with really great friends on a warmish sunday morning knitting and laughing and eating left over chocolate snowball-cookies for morning tea. i think some people had such a good time they didnt get much knitting done, or had to frog what they did do. i did some of the stripe study shawl, some of the greenfield cardigan, and got to the toe on the first conwy sock, which i finished off last night at home. so happy with this, and it fits trent perfectly.

overall, a great weekend. one of my best camp experiences ever. the camp organisers did such a great job of still managing to feed us with no electricity, and if it wasnt for wanting hot showers, i think we would have hung around a bit longer. but by 2pm were were all on our way home, with more memories, closer friendships, and yet more jokes about this one time, at knitcamp….

kxx

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 300 other followers