Monthly Archives: December 2011

that one day of the year

29 Thursday Dec 2011

Posted by in friends, personal

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isnt it crazy how one day of the year can bring up so many memories and feelings and inspire such crazy behaviour?! this christmas, i tried to scale back the expectations and focus on what i did have around me, rather than on who or what i didnt. i am very lucky to have people in my life who helped make the last few days fun instead of fraught. also, i think i was better at looking after myself, and keeping busy helped keep the black pit of despair at bay!

firstly there was the christmas eve swim.

the sun came out finally and i even got a bit of a bite on my back from the sun.

then there was the picnic preparations. i pre-cooked the pork and sliced it up with the ham. i made potato salad (my favourite one from stephanie alexanders book) and a greek salad, and packed it all up in tupperware.

christmas morning breakfast was panettone, mince tart and coffee made with fresh ground carmello beans from allpress.

i tried to do the crossword but failed dismally. i need to do more of these or i am headed for a rapid slide into senility. trent and i swapped small gifts, then we packed up the car and headed out of town. we made for wingello state forest, where we have been a few times before, including a christmas day a couple of years ago. its a good place to take the dogs, and there’s usually not many people except crazy mountain bike riders.

we set up camp

and had a coffee and some cheesecake, it really was the best ever! then trent took the dogs for a ride

while i knitted a sock.

 then we had lunch, starting with beautiful fresh crystal bay and australian ocean tiger prawns

i reheated some of the pork on the camp stove.

jem lives in perpetual hope that he will get fed from the table, but he never does. gotta love the persistence. then there was dessert and more coffee.

trent went for another ride and ricco and possum ran along behind barking, but jem came back to me. seems the 10 year old wombat would rather hang out in a camp chair (smart dog).

we did go for a little stroll through the trees though,

it was lovely and quiet except for the generator from the grey nomad’s campsite. we didnt leave until about 5. it was a lovely relaxing day even though we were both feeling a bit sad. we’re lucky to have each other, when most other family has been lost, and we try and focus on that. and the dogs were tired, so thats always a bonus!

boxing day we went our seperate ways. i had arranged to spend some time with jane and alison, and i had a lot of fun playing with connor

and knitting and eating sushi that alison made

and then an impromptu beer garden lunch on the way home

where we knitted and talked about the cricket. it makes me rub my hands with glee to think india might beat australia (no, im not a fan of our national cricket team. so take me out and shoot me as a traitor. until you get ricky ponting out of that team im not interested).

i also picked up my delivery of the discontinued rowan calmer from missfee,

and when i got home i mucked around with test swatches for a cotton cardigan. i was also very excited to find a little package from my sister waiting for me. i sent her a tin housemaid robot called roxy that i got from the popshop in darlinghurst after guild last month. she sent me a knitted prawn.

i cant wait to hang it from my knitted tree next year. that photo is of me and my sister (shes the one looking up) with my dad, grandma, aunty jen and my mum. i love this photo, even though it makes me cry.

but thats christmas isnt it? laughter and tears, love and frustration. even though this one had plenty of good stuff, im glad its over for another year.

kxx

it really is silly

24 Saturday Dec 2011

Posted by in knitting, personal

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so here we are, christmas eve 2011 and the silly seaon is upon us. i finished up at work on thursday with some things left undone because i spent the whole last day putting in the paperwork for the promotion they’ve offered me but i then have to apply for. universities, full of smart people. as compensation, they’re going to backdate it so i should get some bonus dollars in the new year as well. i am still thinking about the other things i should have done before i left, but i’m going to stop doing that soon. i dont need to feel bad about my year. a major project started, conducted and report written, plus 6 journal articles either published or accepted. the last one in particular was in a very high impact journal that i’ve been trying to get into for 2 years. my boss was so happy he gave me a hug and ran to tell the vice chancellor about it. bless.

but today, i am home alone, well except for the three mutts. i have house cleaning to do, a pork loin to roast (apologies to my jewish grandmother who is now rolling in her grave), some laps to swim, Forbydelsen II to watch, and a gorgeous lace stole to knit:

after a few hiccups with the bottom border i managed to turn the short row corners and pick up the right amount of stitches to now be ready to start the main chart. lifelines and highlighting tape are at the ready.

i am, however, a bit sad today. trent is out for the day and night but will be here tomorrow and we will take the dogs up to the state forest to try and avoid thinking about the fact that we are both without family at this most family-oriented time of year. im a bit antsy, because ive been reading people on twitter and facebook etc complain about their families or how hard christmas is if you dont have kids, and i just dont get it. i dont buy into the whole ‘christmas is for kids’ thing. yes there is a lot of joy in giving them presents and seeing them open them, as im sure toy companies around the world agree, but the meaningless giving of STUFF for no good reason seems to breed a sense of entitlement and consumption for its own sake. and thats not what christmas is meant to be about anyway. so i dont feel sad that i dont have kids at this time of year anymore than i do any other time of year.

but i do get upset when people whinge about family at this time of year. i know what its like. i have terrible memories of family christmases when i was young. the stress and tension and meanness. there was no love or caring or sharing there. so i dont inflict that upon myself as an adult. i have that choice. but still im sad that i have parents out there somewhere who dont care whether im alive or dead. im sad that my sister and i spent such a long time not talking that we arent in the habit of making our own christmas together (we plan to change that next year). and i wouldnt be human if i didnt feel bittersweet about spending my xmas day with my best friend who was my ‘husband’ for 14 years but now isnt, considering i also ended my new ‘relationship’ last week (dont ask!). so i’d pretty well cut off my right arm for a traditional ‘family’.

but despite all that, im really incredibly happy. what a fantastic year it’s been. so much change and growth and learning, lots of it good for a change. i’ve made a kind of attempt to bring some christmas cheer, including my strange multicultural mantlepiece:

complete with glowing santa won at the work christmas lunch. there are cards from loved ones, a few small presents (that may include a goat, a pig or a wellness circle), and then there are my favourite christmas foods in the kitchen:

yesterday trent and i made a baked cheesecake together, which was a double rainbow because we didnt argue and it didnt sink in the middle.

i have lots of  plans to spend time with excellent friends in the next couple of weeks, with a whole lot of knitting to look forward to, and i am not going back to work until january 18.

but mostly, i am alive and well. i dont live in some war torn, famine, flood or disease ridden part of the world. i have money to spend on gifts and food. i have clean water to swim in. i have a car to get me places. i do not live in fear.

it really is silly to be sad or angry or complaining at this time of year. it makes a lot more sense to give to others with less and think about what we do have.

hoping yours is full of love.

k xx

toe fetish, with interruptions

19 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in FO, knitting, socks

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these last two weeks before christmas at work have been crazy. im having most of january off and suddenly everyone wants me to finish everything. of course, its not happening. i have two more meetings today and then i go into serious wind down mode. my currently throbbing right wrist will thank me, if nothing else, although i suspect thats got more to do with knitting than work! and i think its from knitting furiously for at least a week on tiny 2.25mm needles.

first i had to fix that toe issue on those stripey socks. so i got everything set up for my sock surgery on thursday, turned the offending item inside out and set about trying to unpick a judy’s magic cast on.

not as easy as it sounds, and neither is unravelling a toe when there are decreases to be dealt with.

it got a bit messy at one point.

scissors were required.

right after i took this photo i decided to go cool off with some laps in the pool.

it hasnt even been hot here yet, just a bit humid and muggy, with so much rain and cloud, but the sun came out and i decided to just jump in there. i was pretty happy, my first swim in 8 months and i did a kilometre no problem, including 400 metres non stop (usually i break it up every 100m with a kickboard lap). it felt great to be in the water again. im not a fan of summer but i’d be happy for it be warmer OUTSIDE the pool than in (the water is warmed slightly so it was 27 in and 22 out!).

of course, swimming makes me ravenously hungry, so i made a little afternoon tea before getting back into the sock surgery,

which, once past the decreases,

proceeded without further problems!

i finished them up last night, and they are almost a perfect match.

the lengths are now even, but there is a slight difference in the actual shaping of each toe. i dont think the recipient will mind.

i had another toe issue this weekend as well, which involved the Unst socks ive been working on in that yummy koigu stuff. i forgot that koigu skeins are a bit sparse, and i went down a needle size PLUS added stitches, and forgot to adjust the length of the leg accordingly. i thought i might get away with it. people i had lunch with on sunday thought i might get away with it.

but i didnt. i ran out on the train on the way home.

so close! so i decided to risk it and join in some closely matching spud and chloe fine (the yarn i originally started these socks in!) i only had about 8 rounds to go, and im pretty happy with how it turned out.

you can really only tell if you look really closely, and who’s going to be looking really closely at the toes of my handknitted socks, especially when they’re inside my shoes?

so even though i should start the second unst straight away, i think i need a bit of a break from the tiny needles. there’s some madeline tosh prairie and a jared flood pattern calling my name.

kxx

stops and starts

13 Tuesday Dec 2011

Posted by in knitting, lace, socks

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at our knitters guild meeting this weekend, we did a round the room ‘what i learnt about knitting this year’. i said i learnt that if you work on one project it gets finished, and then lyn said something that really resonated with me – that i dont like knitting patterns i dont like. i’ve always struggled with KALs, and i was really disappointed with the socks that the majority voted for in a group i helped initiate on ravelry. they were good patterns, just not the ones i really wanted to knit, especially in a year where knitting time has been so hard to come by. so i started one or two of them, and then opted out.

this doesnt just apply to KALs though. this year i have also learnt if i’ve decided on something, and i start it, and im not feeling the love, frog it. it wont get finished and it will sit in the basket under my coffee table unfinished. for example, this jaywalker sock, which i discovered on sunday when i was cleaning out said basket.

it has no sibling, because as much as i love the yarn (its online supersocke bamboo blend and its so lovely and so soft on), i really loathe that jaywalker pattern. so even though the basket is now tidy,

and that sock is back in there, there probably wont be a second one. at least, not in the forseeable future.  while cleaning out said basket, and with lyn’s words ringing in my head, i looked at the lovely madli’s shawl in gold silky thread. i havent knit it for ages. why? it bores me. i opted for no nupps, and i hate to admit it but i was wrong (yes yes i said it, take a picture). it needs the nupps so it doesnt look so repetitive, and in that superfine yarn, it really needed the nupps to give it some definition. so it got frogged. because i do want to be knitting some lace, and because fiona is my own personal test knitter at the moment, i have started jared flood’s stonecrop instead.

missfee supplied me with the yarn, which is the beautiful madtosh prairie in thunderstorm (much bluer than it looks here). i wanted to do this because i have some of that colour in madtosh sock, and i love the idea of a shetland/orenburg construction with NO KNITTED ON BORDER. whats not to love about that?

i have been trying to practice what i preach in the monogomous knitting department as well, and concentrating on getting a pair of boy socks off the needles in time for christmas. i achieved that today with these lovely stripey creations.

then i noticed a little problem.

hmmm. i think i will rip that second toe back to the same length as the first (which fits the recipient) and then kitchener it.

so that would be something i obviously failed to learn about knitting this year: look at the first sock before you start the second!

sigh.

k xx

reasons why i shouldnt be allowed to make stuff

05 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in friends, knitting

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i have a confession. i think i am not a very good crafter. i am a good knitter, but i need to follow the pattern. i am not good at improvising, or making stuff up as i go. oh, thats not quite true. im good at adapting things to fit (necessity being the mother of invention) and im good at socks with no pattern (you’d want to hope so after all this time). but otherwise, i lack imagination, visually speaking. and i really have a serious hand-eye co-0rdination problem (ask anyone who’s been a passenger in a car im driving).

other craft type things, beyond knitting, forget it. i couldnt even sew a straight line with a sewing machine in year 9 ‘textile and design’ class. so when it came to making a christmas decoration for my old sydney stitch n bitch group xmas high tea gathering, i struggled. firstly i left it too late. im blaming work for that. secondly, i aimed too high to start off with. i went for a large intricate lace snowflake using silk thread. i couldnt get the cast on right, but tried valiantly for two days before throwing it across the room in disgust. by then it was friday morning and i was out of options. i had a sudden brainwave to have a bit of fun, and ran off to my LYS where i picked up a kit for a little knitted something. it involved ‘novelty yarn’ so it was always meant to be kind of funny, but not quite as funny as it turned out. let me tell you the whole story!

i started it friday night, but it was too awkward to knit on the train up to sydney. i knitted socks instead

and admired the various views – stanwell park just north of home

sydney harbour on a sunny day as i headed to roseredville.

then i knitted like a demon all afternoon saturday in between playing cars with connor

the thing slowly started to take shape.

it wasnt a lot of fun to work with, this novelty  yarn. awkward and annoying. and it made jane sneeze. by midnight the thing had been sewn up, turned inside out and stuffed.

it was grotesque. it had a bald spot on the top. jane crocheted a little star for the top and it was lovely but didnt help diguise the unmitigated ugliness. i’d dropped stitches. it didnt sit up straight. my seaming was shit. and the yarn. god it was ugly*. i thought about not going but sunday came and off i went into the city anyway and met up with kris first to go see the latest installment of the ‘love story of bella and edward, who did not sparkle but broke a bed’. it was good. traumatising and hilarious but good. then we had chilli dogs and parmesan and truffle fries for lunch. sooo good!

then it was a mad dash through the rain down to The Rocks where the knitters had gathered for a high tea.

sandwiches, strawberries and cream, scones, cupcakes. and knitted tea cosies. and then came time for the gift swap. because shes good like that and doesnt take herself too seriously, kris made me tell her which one was my monstrosity and she grabbed it when it was her turn.

i was so embarrased by it but she thought it was hilarious. as did everyone else. its better that its gone to someone who will put silly boggle eyes on it and treat it with the irony it deserves! somehow (cough) i managed to end up with kris’ little handmade felt trees.

they are sitting proudly on my mantle piece next to buddha. they are the only christmasy type thing in the house. maybe i need to make myself an ironic yarn barf tree.

although i think i should probably just stick to socks.

k xx

* i should add that all issues with this pattern are of my own making and not in the design or pattern, which were really quite good!

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