lupinbunny

TomTom Letterbox

2011-09-03T08:47:00.001+08:00

I have a massive crush on the TomTom letterbox by DesignByThem. How I wish our fence accommodated a horizontal letterbox. Because it's stupid vertical railings like a Ye Olde Fashionedy Wrought Iron Pool Fence we need to have a vertical box clipped to the railings.

Window film

2011-08-29T20:37:00.000+08:00

Frosted lower panels, clear upper panels.

Our old house is a little peculiar in that the boundaries of our property on two sides are the external walls of our house, but we aren't butted up against any other houses. On one side is the driveway we share with the matching house next door. On the other side, unfortunately, is the car park to the unit block that was built in the 1980s following the bulldozing of two more old houses like ours.

So our kitchen unit looks out onto a giant expanse of bitumen. To the right was quite a pretty herb garden tended by one of the unit block tenants, but that brought with it its own problems. Namely people tending to or hanging out in the garden, less than a foot away from where I was scrubbing dishes or preparing breakfast. It was weird. Plus sometimes if one of the neighbours wanted to have a chat with BCB they'd knock on the kitchen window if they saw either of us in the kitchen. Friendly, but... a touch intrusive. As a result we kept an ugly vinyl rollerblind down nearly all the time.

Window film is not very common in Australia, where most people have houses with fences, rather than apartment windows onto a solid brick wall, so it took me ages to think of it. But it's the perfect fix. I looked around online, and found most of the options were custom designs that were quite expensive. We ended up at Bunnings, where $30 bought us the only roll of privacy film left on the shelf.

Little rectangley-flowery shapes show up at night when the carpark lights are one. Pretty!

I wanted plain frosted, but had no choice but this kind of geometric floral. Luckily, I think I like it even better than plain. It was relatively easy to apply. I definitely recommend going heavy on the water/ dishwashing liquid spray. It made it a lot easier to move the film around to start with. Also I'd recommend checking on it a couple of hours after application. We found a couple of new air bubbles had developed, but the glue was still just tacky enough that we could squeeze them out still.

We caught a couple of bits of grit under the film, and have one crease in panel, but given that the windows are four square feet each, I think that's not bad. Took only an hour or so from measuring the windows to finish. Hopefully it will hold up okay, but so far I'm a massive fan. The sun can peek in our kitchen again, but not the neighbours.

food from the garden

2011-08-25T20:56:00.001+08:00

so many peas! We picked the same amount again two days later.

It's harvest time around here! The sugar snap peas are going crazy, the asparagus thinks it's Spring, and the lettuce and silverbeet is doing well. We picked all of this to take to a dinner party on Saturday. Wilted silverbeet with asparagus and peas (and homegrown lemon juice and purchased butter); and a salad of homegrown lettuce, grapefruit from dad's tree, pomegranate seeds and chestnuts.

I let the asparagus go for a bit long, I think.

Homegrown asparagus is definitely worth it, and ours are doing very well growing in pots!

A bowl of colourful lettuce.

Coffe table shopping in Melbourne

2011-08-22T12:27:00.006+08:00

The Coffee Table of Blah, circa Christmas 2009. See the annoying raised edges?

I've been keeping half an eye out for a coffee table for, like ever. Ever since I moved in with BCB our coffee table is a hand-me-down with a broken leg that we superglued back together. It's not the ugliest thing in the world, but it's kind of cheap-looking and squat. More irritatingly, there are little ridges around the edges of the table top, which makes wiping it clean of dust and grit a nightmare. All the grot of an old house and two shedding dogs accumulates in the corners.

I have some specific needs. I want something made of quality materials, that will last in our hands or someone else's (this rules out Ikea. Soz, Ikea). That said, I want something that I'm not too afraid to get a little bit used. See references to table-grot above. It needs to be quite small, to fit on our small living room (this rules out almost every new coffee table - where are all the castles and palaces that must be Domayne's target market?), and for the same reason something that has a light and airy feeling would be good. The legs must not prevent free passage under the table. We have two dogs that play chasey round the room, and one of them will just plough into objects irrespective of whether he fits under or past them. Also for this reason, despite looking airy, the table must have a little bit of weight to it. A little bit of storage (shelf, drawers, whatever) would be awesome. Oh, and I'd like it a touch taller than the usual coffee table. At 40cm tall the current one is just at our-dogs'-nose-height, which makes it dangerous to leave tea and biscuits unguarded.

I am crazy for this rosewood coffee table from Twenty21, but it's already sold.

I'm think a mid-century-ish coffee table likely fits my long and exacting bill, but have not yet seen The One. In October I'm headed to Melbourne (in fact, I will be forth and back from That Rainy City quite a few times over the next couple of years), and it's occurred to me to spend the free weekend I have there searching for a coffee table.

I think I have Grandfather's Axe and Twenty21 on the list. Is there anywhere else I should be heading? And is it wrong to put a dark wood furniture on a jarrah floor?

rose prunings

2011-08-07T15:18:00.001+08:00

pretty.

The last of the roses. These are actually the buds and flowers that were pruned off by my mama this afternoon when she cut the bushes back for their dormant time. I still get her to prune my roses, because I have no idea what I'm doing. The prunings look so wild and wintery on the kitchen table. And they smell good too. Camp David variety. Drought tolerant, generous with flowering, strongly perfumed, and the new growth comes through burgundy-coloured. Highly recommended.

crimson flowering broad beans

2011-08-05T09:56:00.000+08:00

They're behind chookwire because SmallDog(TM) finds the raised bed manure irresistible.

When we were living at our old place, and we had no money to improve the sand that passed for soil, the only thing I successfully grew was broad beans. Down the path at the side of the house. Don't know what I did to make them work out (not much else did), but ever since then they've been a favourite.

When I saw that Diggers Club offered crimson flowering broad beans, I had to have a go. I bought a packet for our neighbours, for my mum, and for me. They're expensive - only 12 beans in a packet. And sadly, I didn't let my raised bed rest properly before I got all gung ho about my beans, and I burned the first nine in some undiluted chicken manure. Damn.

But I carefully planted out the remaining three beans, and have been rewarded with these amazing magenta coloured flowers. The plants are nowhere near as tall as the aquadulce variety I've previously grown. Mine are taller than mum's and the neighbour's (I obviously have a magic beanstalk touch. Just call me Jack). Unfortunately, they're a bit hidden behind some sugar snap peas that got a little bit out of control. Lucky I took this photo, to prove that they exist. Definitely pretty little things. And the number of flowers is amazing! If they all pod up we'll have a bumper crop.

Which is just as well, because given the price, I want to save some of this season's seed!

I've only just seen all the other beautiful coloured-flowering beans that Digger's Club have... I might have to find some space in the new bed for a painted lady, a sunset, or something scarlet.

More Trove updates

2011-07-31T14:46:00.000+08:00

Because I can't get enough of researching the history of my place. I found, via our local Council website that the land in our area was released as part of an estate in the mid-1890s. So I tried searching Trove for the estate name. With some great results! In order to release the land, the joint venture had to go to court to have some Chinese market gardeners who had been squatting in the area evicted. The joint venture won. Shortly after the estate was released, a white man was charged with assaulting an Aboriginal woman who lived in a camp near the estate. He chose to go to jail rather than pay a £3 fine. She was fined a few shillings for public drunkeness. And according to a letter to the editor, there was quite a problem with the local pub (long since gone) letting its rubbish pile fester!

When we first got our house, it seemed like countless numbers of people could have lived in it. Being able to trawl the papers and see the actual names, and you start to realise how few families have h

First asparagus

2011-07-29T19:52:00.003+08:00

Last winter I bought two asparagus crowns. Because we didn't have any garden beds ready, I put them in a pot (in a 50/50 blend of potting mix and straight manure) and hoped for the best. Every time I was doing something else in the garden, they got a handful of compost or manure or a bit of seasol. Asparagus are apparently heavy feeders. They did extremely well in their pots! You aren't supposed to eat the spears the first year, so I let them all grow into tall, ferny fronds. More and more shoots kept popping up - even well into early Autumn!

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I decided that the fronds looked dead enough to cut back - as you're supposed to do with asparagus in winter. Only a couple of days later, one of the crowns had some little shoots peeping up through the dirt. It's supposed to be dormant! Well, a couple of days of heavy rain and those little shoots were over a foot long! So I decided enough was enough, and cut two for eating.

We've nibbled on the woody stem end in that photo. Couldn't help it. They taste amazing - like the best bought asparagus I've had, only sweeter. We'll be eating these on pizza, along with the homegrown silverbeet and some brie. Yum.

Conclusion: Perth is quite the place for asparagus to grow.

A sheepish aside

2011-07-23T14:16:00.002+08:00

A handsome Cormo

There hasn't been loads on here recently about my spinning and knitting, but believe me I am. I'm nearly done with a handspun cardigan, and just finished a handspun cabled beret last night. But I think this is worthy of a public announcement.

In 1959 an Australian farmer looked at his prizewinning merino flock and decided the sheep weren't productive enough - that is, they weren't making enough lambies on the dodgy Australian pastures. So he crossed in some Corriedale lines - all the while selecting for the best possible fleece - and developed the Cormo breed. The fleece is as soft as merino, but stronger, and the sheep are more pest resistant, produce more young, and are better parents.

In the late 20th century more and more wool processing facilities closed down in Australia. We even lost the small-scale, innovative research facility, the CSIRO scour, a few years ago.

But the Cormo is still a rare breed. A Melbourne woman, Kylie Gusset, is crowdsourcing the raise funds to process the smallest batch of Cormo that one of our few remaining scours will alow - a ton. It's operating like a co-op, so you can buy in to receive yarn or handspinning fibre from a super-high quality flock of Cormo sheep that are sustainably farmed in Tassie. Doesn't matter if you're Australian or international (I don't think). Go donate at Ton of Wool, and you can follow her efforts on the ravelry thread here.

Dreamy homes

2011-06-29T07:01:00.007+08:00

Even though we've only had our little house for about a year, my eye can't help wandering. I don't think I'm cut out to be a home monogamist. I have my eye on the mid-century places. Unlike federation-era houses, which people think are charming, there's still a risk that people will buy some modernist gem then rip its guts out. They need protecting, y'know?

I really hope that 8 Elimatta Way is bought by someone who doesn't want it for the "triplex development potential."

Floreat and City Beach are the places to find the grander 50s and 60s houses. Pity the public transport round that way is so lousy.

10 Orana Crescent was designed in 1969, so doesn't have that boxy airiness of the mid-century houses that are a bit fashionable right now. It's warmer, cosier. The slate flooring is to die for.

And 20 Leithdale Rd (not a mid-century place, but with the same feel - my guess is 80s, maybe?) has been a favourite of mine for a while. Really it's pretty much a dream home. It's been on the market for a few months now, and the price has dropped quite a bit. Of course, I still don't have $1.5 million to spend on a place that would really only be a weekender (what, you mean people commute from Darlington?! No! Not possible! I am becoming quite inner-city snob).

Living and dying in our little house

2011-06-11T15:43:00.003+08:00

207 Young (a fantastic new blog about renovating a pre-federation house on the east coast of Australia) recently put me on to Trove, which is the digitised archives of the National Library of Australia. It has all kinds of old newspapers, scanned and text-searchable. It's truly amazing.

I'd actually been to Trove before, because there's some great old knitting patterns and stitch patterns on Ravelry that have been pulled from various old newspapers on Trove, but I hadn't though to search for my street address before!

Such good fun! On 21 November 1903 Mrs Cooper gave birth to a daughter at our house, while her husband was in Marble Bar. Poor old Mrs Macmillan held her mother's wake at our house in 1928, and her husband died (in our house) only three years later. Mrs Macmillan must have had some kids though, because Miss Ruby Macmillan won a crossword prize in 1932, a year after her father's death!

Curiously, though, our place is listed as being for rent in the middle of all of this, in 1929. I know that originally there were eight townhouses like ours on a single block, so perhaps some of the houses were sharing numbers? That would seem to make sense, as in October 1929 the property is listed as being "four rooms, conveniences," but only a month later a property at the same address is described as "6 rooms, cons, lawns, etc."

The four room property is listed as being "near running shed." I wonder what that means?

blueberries

2011-03-21T15:37:00.000+08:00

Look at that! Our first crop of blueberries! It's cheating a bit, because all those berries were on the bush when I bought it. I should have pulled them off so the plant puts its efforts into growing, but I couldn't help myself. This variety is ripe when it's pinky blue, which I find a bit more appetising than the usual deep purple-blue, to be honest.

Blueberries are so, so expensive here ($4 to $8 for about 5oz/ 150g), so I thought I'd try growing my own. Apparently the low chill varieties do quite well in Perth. I got one bush berry (Sunshine Blue) good for our climate, which is the shrubby one, and one, um... taller one (high bush they might be called?) called Delite. I can't find out much about it, but the label says it's low chill. I can't wait for them to start flowing for next season.

I'd planned to plant out the garlic today, but I'm laid up in bed, sick. I got bitten by someone else's dog at the dog park, and it got a nasty infection that's completely wiped me out, which is about the strangest reason I've ever had for a sick day. My boss told me that if anyone complained to him that work from me was late, he was going to tell them that "the dog ate my employee." Groan.

High seas

2011-03-19T08:19:00.000+08:00

From the Cabbages and Roses website

I'm mad for this grey ships fabric from Cabbages and Roses (they also do some great women's clothing). It comes in a duvet cover, but only for a single bed. I think they're implying the print is too childish for adults. I do not accept this. I could buy the fabric by the metre and make a duvet cover, but we all know that won't actually happen.

Peace through organisation

2011-03-16T07:50:00.000+08:00

Thanks to Our Fearless Leader and her tutorial on folding fitted sheets, my linen closet is a little oasis of calm. All my bedding actually fits in its alotted shelf. Try it, you'll like it.

Roses with thorns

2011-03-13T15:15:00.004+08:00

I planted out some new roses in our front garden this weekend. I'd never given great thought to roses, but before we moved into our place it was vacant for a year, and the only things that were still alive were the roses (and seven(!) grapevines out the back). Since then I've killed a couple of drought-tolerant natives, but the roses have just happily bloomed away.

We had three red Camp David roses. Not what I'd've chosen, but they're tough and they smell good. A really fifties-style, velvety, bright red hybrid tea rose. I've just cut a couple of put them in a vase for the first time. I can never decide whether to cut flowers and enjoy them inside or leave them outside to admire whenever I leave the house!

I bought a fourth Camp David to keep things symmetrical, and then two Jude the Obscures (one for each side of the path). I love their big, creamy cabbage-heads, and they smell so beautiful - like roses mixed with grapefruit! A funny match with the crisp red Camp Davids, but I like it! I also like the name. Hardy's Jude the Obscure is such a grim, dreary novel that it seems like a nice gift to the fictional Jude, that, one hundred years after publication, one of the best David Austin roses was named after him. That's got to be worth something.

Hopefully they're not planted too close together. I'm hoping they'll make a bit of a thicket to screen our house. And, as BCB just told me that a couple of girls that live in our street were assaulted last week, and the word around is that someone in the street is dealing, I think we can do with all the thorniness we can get!

(our street has a pretty unusual composition. Drugs and muggings are simultaneously expected and completely unexpected. I might blog about it sometime, I think).

Don't see Miss Manners doing this, do ya?

2011-03-10T07:42:00.002+08:00

So Australia's Queen of Ettiquette, Ms Ita Buttrose, has released her first book in, um, I'm not sure how long. A while. And this is how Penguin have chosen to go viral with the advertising.

Yep, it's pretty terrible. But I don't see Miss Manners willing to give rapping a shot, do I? My mum loaned me her copy of Every Occasion: The Guide to Modern Etiquette before my wedding and whilst it cracked me up (it has sections on how to address anyone, from the Pope to an Able Seaman; and an illustrated section on how brides can dress to suit their figure, with an extremely grumpy looking bride labelled 'heavyset') it was full of solid, practical advice. I'm going to have to see if the Heavyset Bride made it in to the new Guide to Australian Etiquette.

Spring Planting

2011-03-02T19:53:00.001+08:00

Image from The Shifted Librarian

The spring bulb catalogues are coming out here, and I'm all about the pretty flowers this year. I think I can be organised enough to put lots of stuff in our front yard. I just hope it gets enough sun. It faces South. The basil and the roses and the spring onions have done well, the agapanthus (which I do not care for much anyway) and the lavender has done poorly.

I'm planning loads of jonquils and freesias for the scent, and ranunculas for the colour. I know the freesias will do okay, because we've got some naturalised ones in the area. I'm crazy about parrot tulips, but I don't know if they're tricky to grow or not... I suspect in our slightly dingy and deshabille terrace garden they may come more tatty than rococo.

Tell me, are parrot tulips tricky things?

amateur floral arrangements

2011-02-26T09:37:00.001+08:00

At my request, BCB bought me three bunches of flowers from the Vietnamese (?) florists on Beaufort St, so I could arrange them myself. Emerson Merrick + We Like It Wild on DesignSponge have me totally convinced I can arrange flowers. I got daisies, lisianthus (?) and orchids, all a little wilty, because it was Sunday.

In one of my favourite wedding gifts, a Wembley Ware vase that came with a note saying "I chose a gift I hope will increase in value over time, as the value of your relationship with each other no doubt will." Love the vase, love the sentiment.

In a jug my uncle gave my mum as a birthday present in the 70s. It's Danish, but mum can't remember from who, and she doesn't seem too fussed about it. I'm wild for it.

There was a third vase, rectangular and brown and white speckled, with a tall arrangement of just white daisies, but I forgot to take a photo.

new wheel

2011-02-20T10:16:00.000+08:00

I'd been feeling I've reached the limit of my Ashford traditional (inherited from mah mama) for a while, and had saved enough for a new wheel of my choice, but had so many Life Things happening (new dogs, new house, wedding) that I held off buying one until I had some time to savour it.

Now is the time. Majacraft Suzie Pro, with custom black whorl and flywheel instead of the standard green, because green doesn't go with the colourscheme of my study (yeah, I'm serious).

I've had it for only 48 hours and I heart it. It's a dream to spin on. And I love how little floorspace it takes up compared to the Traditional. I love castle wheels for that reason.

birthday present

2011-02-20T09:28:00.001+08:00

One thing our house came without, that I really wanted, is a bath. I love having baths. I've totally worked out the relatively minor reno that will need to be done to move the 'laundry' out of the main bathroom and into the unrenovated, 1950s wet area (it's a bit scary to call it a bathroom), and stick a bath in the main bathroom instead.

Anyway, I was looking at reproduction clawfoot baths (our house is 113 years old, she can take a clawfoot with grace) when BCB, unbeknownst to me, saw an ad on a local noticeboard for an antique clawfoot bath. Two kids were selling it (along with some other salvage from their family home) to save up for a puppy.

For a third the price of an acrylic repro, BCB bought me a cast iron real deal. As you can see, it needs refinishing, but even then we should still come out ahead. Not to mention it is really solid and comfortable, and it has these excellent solid brass feet.

Until we can actually afford to put it in, the bath is sitting in our back courtyard (along with the daybed, the potted lime, the dogs' wading pool, the raised vege bed, and a failed DIY chair project, in case you're curious). Sometimes I sit in it and just pretend it's full of hot water.

handspun stash

2011-02-13T09:26:00.001+08:00

I was trying to build an impromptu lightbox when Buddy, our comically sooky rescue dog, wandered into the middle of the all action and decided it was the right spot for a nap. He didn't even mind when I shoved all this yarn under his arm.

Pendrell blouse - the next blouse pattern.

2010-11-21T12:14:00.004+08:00

I just finished a(nother) top for work, using the freakishly easy Simplcity 2594. Seriously, only four pattern pieces. Everything went to together well. The nicest neck facing I've ever done. Absolutely my best yoke/ lining ever. I made the v-neck version, but I redrafted the neck to be a nice, quite deep, round neck. It's lucky it worked out well, because I bought the fabric to make four versions of the same pattern in one go.*

Anyway, stumbling about the internet, I came across the Pendrell blouse. That's it in the picture above (being modelled by the designer). Pattern due out soon. I love it. Super flattering princess lines (pain to sew, but they look so purty), and drapey sleeves. And no fastenings. Made up in something soft and drapey it's exactly the kind of thing I wear to work.

* I got a bit overexcited. A cotton print for the wearable-muslin (done); silk satin on clearance at $8/m; red viscose jersey; and a natural linen/ rayon blend. The first two for work, the second two for play.

State cushions

2010-11-18T08:28:00.003+08:00

I have long loved these embroidered state icon cushions from Uncommon Goods. Always lamented the fact that they only come in US states (and only ship to US states too). Just occurred to me this morning - why not try my hand at designing a nice, cheesy WA version? My must-includes are the yacht that won the America's Cup, the Bell Tower, Tim Winton, whale sharks, a kangaroo paw and the Argyle diamond mine (with a pink diamond, of course). What would you include?

Pandan cupcakes with palm sugar icing

2010-11-15T20:07:00.004+08:00

(That isn't actually a pandan cupcake at all. It's a freakin' awesome looking green tea cupcake with pistachio icing. But it's about the right colour, and I forgot to take photos of mine).

I (uh, I mean 'we') got a KitchenAid for the nuptials. I've not been much one for baking figuring I wasn't too good at it. Really, it was a case of lacking the right tools. I've only turned out two batched of cupcakes so far, but they've both been shop-worthy. The first batch was plain old vanilla with chocolate icing.

For the second batch I got creative. We honeymooned in Penang, pretty much so we could spend a week eating. I adore Pulut Tai Tai, and was pleased to discover the palm-sugary-pandanish deliciousness of cendol. I figured those flavours might work in a cupcake, but couldn't find a recipe.

I fudged a few things together, using the Hummingbid Bakery vanilla cupcake recipe as a base (minus the vanilla). I blitzed a cup of milk with seven pandan leaves, strained the milk, and used half a cup in the recipe (the rest is frozen for another day). It wasn't enough to colour the cupcakes green, but they definitely had that beautiful pandan scent. For the palm sugar icing, I added a quarter of a cup of grated palm sugar to the Hummingbird Bakery vanilla frosting recipe, and went easy on the milk (the dampness of the palm sugar means the milk isn't so necessary). Had an excellent rich toffee/ wine scent. All together it was very, very moreish. Definitely better than standard vanilla.

Because I hate the hassle of icing individual cupcakes, I'll probably just make a big pandan buttercake next time, but I can see pandan-palm-sugar baked goods becoming my sigature.

To do list.

2010-10-22T19:13:00.002+08:00

Get married. Check.

So now that my weekends aren't taken up with seating charts and spraypainting cake stands, I can work on other things.

i) This self-closing bag (I'd make it as a Christmas gift for someone, but I can't think who);

ii) More cushion covers for the pups' oversized floor cushions. Need to order/ buy some grunge-coloured fabric, perhaps something tweedy, as no matter how often we wash their cushions, they end up with a built-in layer of dirt;

iii) Sencha blouse, to be made as part of a sew-along with a girl I work with and a girl I used to work with. We all think it's the perfect work blouse;

iv) Olive, with a yoke of pigeonroof studios handspun, and a body out of the new Beaverslide sportsweight 2-ply;

v) Riding to Avalon, without a hood, from some Jo Sharp Silkroad Tweed I acquired second-hand;

vi) Conquer my fear of jersey fabric, and run up some shapeless slouchy singlets for summer.

Compositor

2010-07-17T08:41:00.001+08:00

So my last post was all about a printer's type case I found on Gumtree. I thought it was something maybe someone young and hip had imported, then no longer wanted. But then when I e-mailed asking if it was still available, the reply was a bit odd.
"Oh yes, it's available. And I have over a hundred of these anyway."

What? Someone imported all these type cases?

No. It turned out, when we went to buy one, that they are owned by an old compositor. He used to set type for posters and newspapers and whatnot back in the UK. And when the process started to be computerised, and typesetting businesses were burning their tools, or sending them to the tip, he started buying this stuff up. For the love of it. When he moved to Australia he brought it with him. I have no idea how much there was, but at one point he sold 10 tonnes (yes) of type to someone in the USA, and he still has two garages full of Stuff. It's the biggest collection of type in Australia, and possibly in the Southern hemisphere. Right here in Perth. It's amazing. He occasionally sells off entire fonts (he is careful not to break up entire fonts by selling single letters or characters) to letterpress owners all over the world.

But really, the quantity of stuff he has belongs in a TAFE or university.

DIY out of one's depth

2010-07-10T08:36:00.004+08:00

So, I've recently become completely addicted to Gumtree. It's like Craigslist for Australians. BCB gets, like, three e-mails a day from me that go something like this "Look! Used shipping pallets to trade for a carton of beer! We could totally do something with shipping pallets, right?" or maybe "A hot pink chaise lounge. Can I have it? Pleeeeease?"

Anyway, a little while back I saw an ad for a printer's type case. And I thought to myself "Damn, that would make a cool coffee table top." BCB agreed I could have this particular piece of ephemera. So off we went, picked up said type case.

I totally have plans about how it will work. Glass top (I've even sourced the glass), screwed into nice hefty wooden sides, so the type case can continue to function as a drawer, then some nice solid legs. I'm pondering some modifications to give Buddy, the dog that likes to nest, a little cave underneath.

Problem? I've got no woodworking skills. Zip. I don't even own a saw! I don't even really want to learn them... but I want my coffee table! What's a girl to do? (no, seriously, got ideas?)

2010-07-10T08:12:00.000+08:00

Unexpected kindness.

hi. hi there.

2010-05-13T21:25:00.002+08:00

So... this place has been quite for nearly a year now. And a lot has changed in that year, too. I've moved house, twice, acquired two dogs, had to find a new car when the old one got written off... anyway, the car's not so very exciting, but by reason of the two pups and the house the focus of this blog might change a little.

I'm still knitting, of course, and spinning. But now I'm also the owner of a beautiful, beautiful little terrace house built in 1898 (that's before Australia was even a country, people). It's in pretty good condition, but needs plenty of cosmetic work. So some of that stuff might feature here.

Also, our little family has doubled in size with the acquisition of Lola, then Buddy. Both are pug x cavalier king charles spaniels. Lola, being little, pretty, neurotic, friendly and gentle, was bought from a nice lady as a puppy. Buddy, who is big, fat, lazy, cranky and loves a belly-rub, is a rescue dog. Understandably, these new family members might get the odd mention also. In an unflattering light, if Buddy gets into my spinning fibres again (that god he didn't get through the plastic bags!)

The Get Well Soon Beanie

2009-07-06T09:08:00.004+08:00

The Goldfish is also showing the knitting community the '100% acrylic' label on his scarf.

Sorry about the terrible photo quality. There are more detailed shots (including the modd-ed crown decreases - I used the stitch pattern all the way through the hat, rather than changing to stocking-stitch for the crown) on the ravelry page.

Oh jeebus

2009-07-05T08:53:00.003+08:00

Laminaria: Manlier than you think

The Get Well Soon beanie (for BCB's partner in film-crime) was gratefully received. Um, so gratefully I got three texts the morning after I gave it saying how well-liked it was. Then one the next day, and one the day after that. The recipient (henceforth christened the Goldfish) has no short term memory right now, and cannot remember sending any of them. Nonetheless, "Good beanie, this" has become a little bit of an in-joke.

The Goldfish has a big-number birthday coming up this year. Since he appreciated the beanie so well, I thought I might knit him something else. But because it's a special birthday, and he's had such an awful year, I wanted it to be Special and Heirloomy. I moaned to BCB (and the Mt Lawley Stitch'n'Bitch) that if only the Goldfish was female, I'd knit a beautiful lace shawl. Someone suggested that maybe a sort of manly-shawl thing might cut it. I finally decided to raise it with the Goldfish, when he complimented my Laminaria.
"Would you maybe like something a bit similar, but like, more manly?"
"You kidding? I'll wear this one!" (and he proceeded to wear my Laminaria for the rest of the evening, while also whinging about not wanting a fuss for his birthday).

It came up again the other night. He asked shyly for a "scarf like mine", "or even one like BCB's" before doing a bit of "oh, no, just kidding. you don't have to."
So he's coming over this afternoon to talk colours for his Laminaria-to-be.

I would really, really love for it to be handspun, because I would think that was all the more special... but his birthday is late August/ early September... I can knit about 100m a week, and spin about 50g a week... I just don't think the maths work out, do they?

A very useful book list

2009-06-15T09:42:00.000+08:00

I was trawling the internet looking for information on Latvian Mittens this morning (isn't that what everyone spends Saturday morning doing?) and I found this Extremely Excellent List of Reference Books, from Knitting Beyond the Hebrides. I have heard of most of them, seen many of them, but only own one or two. But to me this is a very neat canon of knitting, for the less trend-oriented, more technique-oriented knitter.

On knitting, worry and the world wars

2009-06-13T09:47:00.005+08:00

A fortnight ago BCB and I found out that our friend (and BCB's partner in film-crime) was going into hospital for a month. While I am very glad he will be getting All Fixed Up, it is still a very scary and stressful time. We did not realise he was that unwell. Because my bedside manner is quite terrible (more sarcastic, than reassuring and caring) I decided to knit a beanie to show my love.

Prior to starting said beanie I was a bit of a wreck. I wasn't sleeping too well, my appetite was a bit sketchy (extremely unusual for me). But the beanie calmed me right down. The repetitive action, and focussing my concerns into a physical object, worrying about gauge instead of health, really helped. And I wondered if, in part, this is why knitting for soldiers was so popular in the World Wars. When you can't see the person you love, and you don't exactly how they're doing but you can be pretty sure they're not having much fun, knitting makes you feel like you're helping. I think.

Win your good self (or me) some tasty made-to-measure

2009-05-15T07:41:00.000+08:00

There's a competition on over at Grosgrain Fabulous to win a made to measure fifties-style sun-dress from Etsy seller Loose Teeth. It looks gooooorgeous. Go check it out, and enter to win!

Clicking this linkie will take you there.

On pie and DINKs

2009-04-12T21:14:00.006+08:00

Image via Vita Arina

So, in Australia we don't really have 'pie'. If you talked about 'pie' people would assume you meant an individual-sized meat pie. I mean, yeah, you can get apple pie and stuff, but I don't think it's such a big thing as it is in the US. Just recently I discovered, however, that you can actually buy canned pie fruit here. Just like in America! I was sooooo excited! I'd never heard of it before, except on American blogs. I found cherry pie filling, but it was $6 a can. So I settled on apples, at $2.35 a can. And felt very superior, as it was 100% apple, no added sugar or filler or anything.

I thought I would probably need to make some pastry to wrap my special canned pie apples in, so while at the (gourmet) supermarket I bought some fancy traditionally churned, locally produced, terribly expensive butter. Got it home and started googling for a recipe good enough for my special pie filling.

Turns out you Americans use canned pie filling as a time saver. Apparently, if I'm going to use canned fruit I'm not going to make my own pastry. And then I thought about it, and realised that I could have bought apples at $2 a kilo, and sliced them and stewed them, and it would be less than half the price of my canned pie filling, and be identical ingredients wise...

And it was then, sitting there with my insta-pie-filling and my boutique butter that it hit me. I'm a bloody yuppy.

Hot Cross Buns

2009-04-09T21:57:00.004+08:00

I had a hot cross bun today at work, and god it was delicious! I was going to buy some from a well-known ("delightful") bakery franchise on the way home from work, to eat on Good Friday. On a whim, I popped online to see the ingredients. And decided that I would no longer be buying some commercial hot cross buns on the way home (what is a 'flour treatment agent', and why are two kinds necessary?)

I pondered using this recipe, but BCB convinced me that using the breadmaker was a wiser idea. And the breadmaker recipe was pretty similar, it just used water instead of milk, less spice and only raisins. So I changed all that. If there's one thing I love it's peel in an easter bun.

Now, it might be because I'd just finished watching an episode of The Devil's Whore, and had religion and Olde England on the brain, but I really felt connected to English women, who I imagine have been baking sweet spiced breads for centuries. In medieval England really exotic spices were used in sweet and savoury cooking - I mean, my hot cross buns do have ground coriander in them (in the mixed spice). And the idea of painting a visual reminder of a Christian celebration in flour paste seems a much more appropriate commemoration than having a sweet chocolate egg.

I think, given that I am a lapsed Anglican (can such a thing exist?), making hot cross buns will stand in for the ritual of the church for me.

(Ironically, I just took the buns out of the oven, and my crosses were too dribbly - they have completely disappeared into the bun...).

I learnt to spin.

2009-04-04T08:52:00.003+08:00

Can you tell which was taken with BCB's fancy new DSLR, and which was snapped on my old point'n'shoot? Mmm...

Anyway, obviously, learning to spin. That pale brown thing (corriedale) is my first yarn. Spun half on a spindle (which taught me to draft), then half on a wheel (when the slow pace of the spindle killed me). Bouncy green aran-y-worsted-y weight merino came next. Then came some mauvey DK weight (that was supposed to be sock weight... hmmm...). All of those were from Bilby Yarns.

And then the top picture. I'm currently working on some batts from Enchanted Knoll Farm. I subscribed to the batt club when I was having a bad week and the idea of mystery parcels with guaranteed sparkles in them seemed like the best thing I could think of.

I'm finding the batts a lot more difficult to spin than the roving (or was it sliver or tops? I dunno). The fiber gets into clumpy little bumps more easily than roving (or sliver or tops?). I like the fibers to slip past each other nicely. But luckily for all concerned, I think that particular colourway (Cabaret) will look pretty cheerful with slubs and being a bit thick and thin.

2009-01-10T08:15:00.003+09:00

Oooops. So it's been a little while. Sorry blog. A lot happened while I ignored you. I finished the Babette Blanket (only two years in the making). And the Kusha Kusha scarf (and it was given to its intended recipient).

Oh, and there was this.

BCB and I got engaged just after Christmas. While the engagement is to be long (we started to buy a house just before Christmas, which is another reason for my absence, and will prevent me splashing out monogrammed red carpets and pumpkin-shaped horse carriages), this hasn't stopped me from trawling the interwebs for the best wedding related Stuff. My theory is if I can browse enjoyably now, when I actually have to make decisions they will be easy, right?

Apron madness

2008-11-23T12:15:00.005+09:00

So last year I made a few aprons as gifts. They were so well-received, and so easy to make, that I've done another round this year.

Black and white Michael Miller spots, for a wedding present (the wedding is next week, and I'm terribly excited. It's the first wedding I've been to since I was five, and I'm doing a reading!). I found it difficult to find two coordinating prints that weren't too feminine. Actually, a lot of the Amy Butler prints would have worked, but I didn't have time to order the fabric in. I found the black and white at my local Textile Traders. The spots are kind of pearlescent/ metallic, which is neat.

And some Flea Market Fancy by Denise Schmidt, combined with plain brown. I added pockets from some Kaffe Fassett scraps I had, as I've never made one side plain before, and felt a bit guilty about making an apron that was 50% drab.

2008-11-05T07:38:00.003+09:00

No crafting, no pictures, just letting any American readers wandering around out there that I'll be spending the day glued to the online news sites, until I leave work to go to an election party ("American hot dogs, American mustard, even c*appy American beer" said the invite).

Either result I'll probably be bawling my eyes out by the end of the night (if Australia's last election is any guide). Here's hoping I spend the rest of the night bawling and smiling and singing along to The Herd's The King Is Dead.

(this was written for the Australian election last year, where we had a choice perhaps like Obama Lite vs Bush for the 4th Term).

Victorian Spinners & Weavers Guild

2008-10-26T09:47:00.005+09:00

I love knitting with handspun. Love it. So, in aid of increasing my handspun stash I decided to head off to the Victorian Spinners & Weavers Guild, in North Carlton. They have a gallery/ shop, see.

I caught the tram all on my own, and didn't get lost and was quite proud of myself. The Guild Hall is a 19th century Boy Scout Hall. Very large. Very well equipped with fiber, wheels-for-hire and whatnot. The gallery was still closed up when I arrived, so I contented myself with looking at the three skeins of handspun hung on a hat tree outside the gallery. One of them was nice, but not my colours. But if there wasn't much else, it'd do.

Then someone arrived to open the gallery. They threw back the double doors into a little room where two walls were stuffed full - full - with handspun. Arranged by colour. I think I spent nearly an hour in there. Everything is priced by the spinner. Labelled by fiber, weight, price and the spinner's name. The only downside was that there were not large quantities of anything - finding more than 100g of anything was a challenge. But I rose to the occasion, and left with seven skeins.

Merino and glitz, in a pretty sea green 3 ply (not navajo). It'll be a fuzzy, flopped beret for me.

This pink/ grey/ mauve tweed was my absolute favourite. Spun by V. Harding. I just love it.

More V. Harding - nice tawny autumny colours. Whoever this mystery spinner is, she has excellent colour sense.

I wasn't sure about this, but bought it because it's nearly 200g. And it's grown on me. Natural Corriedale plied with commercially dyed merino. For some reason it reminds me of newspaper pulp. In a good way.

And this is a little scratchy and a little expensive (compared to the rest), but it reminded me of irses, so I bought it anyway. The yellows pop a lot more in real life.

Job Warehouse, Melbourne

2008-10-26T09:19:00.005+09:00

I didn't bother to go out of my way to fabric shop while in Melbourne, but couldn't help but notice the sign in the window of Job Warehouse ('specialising in vintage fabrics', or something similar). Job Warehouse, as I'm sure Melbournians know, is a freakish anomaly. It's right in the CBD, next to an extremely popular Italian espresso bar and a couple of doors down from one of the city's finest Italian restaurants.* It is a store that by all odds should've gone the way of milk in bottles.

Here is what Job Warehouse looks like. From the back of the store looking towards the door. What you can't see is that there are several doorways on the left of the photo, into rooms filled with more fabric. Unfortunately I couldn't actually get into them, because fabric bolts were stacked chest-high across the doorways.

There are no labels, and no prices. Apparently the gentlemen that work there price according to mood. Well they liked me well enough, because I paid on average $10 p/m. For three metres of 1970s tartan acetate taffeta, two metres of (80s?) striped cotton and five metres of printed panels.

That's just half a panel I've photographed. I have no idea when these are from - ideas, anyone? The full circle skirt suggests 50s, but the print and colourway to me looks more early 80s? And the best bit - look around the panel. Along one selvedge is a printed band - for a waistband or matching button-band on a blouse. There's collar panels, and two kind of pocket panels. Pocket panels! Two kinds! I bought enough for a full circle skirt for me (too much? Should I make it only a half?) and the half panel over will become an apron.

* For those that can't afford to eat at Grossi Florentino itself (we didn't), I completely recommend the Cellar Bar - the cheaper, more casual restaurant on the side of the building also run by Mr Florentino. Most meals under $20, and absolutely fabulous. Same quality ingredients, just simpler food (spaghetti bolognaise, osso bucco, eggplant parmigiana, minestrone). Most of those dishes are under $20. Best. Value. Ever.

It's a helluva town.

2008-10-18T14:34:00.005+08:00

Alright, it's been a little quiet round here recently. But rest assured that as soon as we get home and can download all the pics I've taken on BCB's iphone there will be some Very Interesting Posts. Get home? you say. Yes, my friends, I am in Melbourne.

Be prepared for images of the World's Most Astonishing Fabric Shop ($10 p/m for genuine 1950s skirt panels in pristine condition; $10 p/m for bird-poo stained calico; priced according to how the owners feel that day...); possibly the World's Largest Vintage Store (also selling, oddly, a stack of berets knitted to Ysolda's gretel pattern...); photos of some Very Lovely Handspun at Extremely Reasonable Prices ($6 - $8 per 50g sound good to everyone? Yep, good). Oh, and I bought the Cutest Vintage Dress Ever. 1940s, black velvet trim, fabric with little pink birds singing all over. Tres Black Apple.

Just hang on a day or two more.

edit: If customs have a tantie over my suitcase (they shouldn't - I was talked into not trying to take cheese and fresh pasta on the plane) my cover story is that I'm a fashion designer, okay? There is no other way to explain how yarn and fabric takes up over half my suitcase. Back me up, okay?

I interrupt your (ir)regular crafty programming...

2008-07-06T11:03:00.002+08:00

for milk.

Sorry guys. I have to have a little rave about milk.

Noone in our house drinks plain milk, so we keep UHT on hand for the odd time I want to make a cheese sauce or a lemon delicious. Badly Coloured Boy drinks flavoured milk every morning (yep, we're grown ups). I do not.

Last night while prowling the aisles of Fresh Provisions in search of something that was healthy, 'snack-like' and only had ingredients that I knew what they were, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and try Bannister Downs milk. I knew it had won a lot of awards. I knew it came in the most awesome calcium-carbonate biodegradable pouch. I knew it cost $4.50 a litre (flavoured)!

I did not know that milk could taste so good. So amazingly, astonishingly good. Their low-fat chocolate milk has a mouthfeel creamier than supermarket full-cream. It was rich and cocoa-y, but not too sweet. The ingredients on the chocolatte flavour? Milk, dutch cocoa, sugar. No emulsifiers, or vegetable gums, or chocolate syrup! If I don't drink the whole litre in 24 hours I'm going to warm some up in a pan and have instant hot chocolate.

I don't think Bannister Downs is available outside WA, so, well, sucks to the rest of the world! More helpfully, all I can encourage you to do is to seek out a local, independent, environmentally aware dairy near you that cares about their product. I can't believe I have lived for 23 years without knowing that this is what milk can and is supposed to taste like. I must check with BCB, who grew up on a dairy farm (and an orchard, and has done time on nearly every organic farm between here and Nimbim, courtesy of his wandering mother) whether fresh-from-the-dairy milk is like BD. While it mightn't be practical for those families that go through a couple of litres a day to be buying BD, our low-milk consuming household shall be buying nothing but from here on in.

Socks of many techniques 3: the 'body'

2008-06-27T20:44:00.004+08:00

The heel in these socks is going to be an afterthought heel. There are three reasons for this:
(i) I need a contrast heel because I don't have enough handspun for full socks;
(ii) I don't want to interrupt the stripes/ variegation in the handspun; and
(iii) I get bored with knitting the leg.

When I knit toe up socks, I am always so anxious to finish after I turn the heel. I get bored of knitting the legs. So I thought rather than break the flow by turning the heel, I'd just knit a long tube - I'd be finished before I got bored! After I finished the first tube, I put it on some spare needles, and started on the second. Note that I didn't knit the cuff at that point - it made sense to leave the live stitches to check that the tubes were the same length before I did the cuffs.

Another nice thing about an afterthought heel is that the sock is flat. It makes it easier to check that both socks are the same length when you don't have some crazy heel sticking out the side. Once I knew they were the same length (well, half a round out and I wasn't going to fuss) I knit the cuffs on one sock then the other. Then just the heel to go!

Zimmermann tam (or: the cute beret)

2008-06-27T20:11:00.004+08:00

Don't I look tired? This is me, after a day at work.

Now here is an admission: I have never been very good at knitting hats. I have knit two okay ones, and two truly terrible ones for BCB. The first looked like a mushroom, and the second was comically too tight. Then I knit a Gretel for me, which, while it is an excellent pattern, just didn't work out for me, as I used the wrong weight yarn.

Then came the recipe for a tam, in Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac. It just works. It's cute. I love it. In the 'monster tam' sizing (27" circumference as the widest part). Messing with the gauge, I squeaked this hat out of 111 yards. It has a contrast under-band. You can't really see from the photos, but this yarn is just luscious. Simply luscious. It's the most buttery soft merino, handspun by the wonderful Linda Lee. And while it looks just grey in the photo, it's actually a wonderful subtle dark grey with red, turquoise and white fibres too. Look.

I have in my hot little hands...

2008-06-24T07:46:00.002+08:00

two return tickets to Melbourne, in October. Question is, what do I do when I get there?

Suggestions, anyone?

Little Arrowheads Shawl

2008-06-15T12:05:00.002+08:00

At a craft show recently I bought two skeins of Frog Tree alpaca in this luminous purple colour, because it struck me as being a very 'in' colour right now, and I've been feeling a little unfashionable recently. And I was sort of sick of my faithful Noro entrelac scarf. I wanted a new scarf.

I decided to go for a little shawl instead, because (a) the gauge was close enough, and my yardage right; and (b) I dig how cute a little triangle tied in a knot looks around the neck. Much more chic than a long rectangle, I think.

This puppy followed the free Interweave pattern exactly,* and was done in ten days (I surprised myself!) I have to admit that I didn't particularly love the look of the arrowhead stitch at first (or the name of it - it sounds so dull!), but the look of it has grown on me. The name hasn't, so in my head I secretly call it 'holly stitch', because the little solid sort-of-diamonds look like the sort of wibbly way I drew holly leaves when I was a kid.

I am completely sold on shawl-ettes now. Next I want to make Laminaria, in a grassy green. And another Little Arrowheads Shawl for my nanna for Christmas.

* I lie. I didn't follow the pattern exactly. On the last row I didn't do any of the decreases, I just knit across instead of decreasing, so that I could block the edges into points. The points along the edge of a shawl are the best bit. Why would ever make a shawl with a straight edge?

Socks of many techniques 2: The toe

2008-06-15T11:52:00.004+08:00

I forgot in my last post on this topic why overspun yarn isn't a bad thing for socks. Overspinning makes the yarn much tougher, more resilient. And thus really quite suitable for socks.

These socks are going to make that handspun go as far as possible, so the 'body' of the sock will be in handspun, with the toes, heels and cuff in some the onion-dyed Lang merino.

I usually use a short row toe for my socks. I like this toe because by the time you have to put things on a circular needle you've got lots of stitches and enough knitted-stuff to weigh them down a bit. I find magic cast-on impossibly fiddly - too few stitches, too hard to wrangle them without getting tangled.

But I recently finished my first pair of top-down socks, and I've decided that I really do like the look of a toe with those nice neat decreases better than the short rows. But I want to use every single scrappet of handspun, which means I need to knit the socks toe up.

Solution? Easy. Provisional cast on, then knit the toe down, and graft the end closed (just like in this picture). Then unzip the provisional cast, and start knitting the foot from the toe up. I get my neat looking toe, I get to use up all my yarn, and I don't have to wrangle small numbers of stitches on a circular needle.

For those that suffer second-sock syndrome, this method of starting socks has another benefit. You can knit one toe, straight after the other. Because the provisional cast on keeps the toe from unravelling until you're ready to use it, you can do both toes before going any further. Just store the toe you're not knitting onto somewhere safe until you need it. Then, when you're all "Ugh! I sooooo can't be bothered to do the second sock!" you can pull out your pre-made toe, and you're already on your way. No fiddly cast on or anything, you're already about a sixth of the way through, and on to the good bit (if your sock has a fancy stitch pattern and you regard knitting the fancy stitch as a good thing).

Observation of the day

2008-06-13T22:52:00.004+08:00

So I was catching the train home tonight. And on my train was a guy playing with a Rubix cube. Solving the Rubix cube. Like, every face a solid colour solving. It was half done when he got on the train, and he solved it a couple of stations later, and by the time I got off a few stations after that he'd messed it up and halfway solved it again. It was fascinating - the guy moved with such speed and skill! He was so confident with his movements. I couldn't stop watching this young, very hip looking guy doing something you just don't see people do anymore, something a bit anachronistic, something so interesting to watch.

And then I realised - this is what knitting on the train looks like to everyone else.

(image by Russell Bernice, used under creative common licence. Trains in Perth look a bit nicer than ones in NY though. Pretend all that grey is white and green and yellow, and the windows are much bigger).

Tropical Island socks/ Socks of Many Techniques

2008-06-08T09:38:00.004+08:00

I'm on a massive handspun kick right now. I'm not even going to tell you about all the Etsy goodness wending its way towards me right now. I 'destashed' recently, only to replace it all with handspun! Anyway, that's some handspun sockyarn I bought from DivineBird, 'Leapyear' colourway. I loved the colours. It's a very fine sockyarn - drops down to laceweight in parts - and a little overspun (easy to fix). But the colours are just great, and the yarn very soft. Because there's only 200 yards of it, it's coiled around what will be the heels, toes and cuffs. Some pure merino I dyed with onionskins and vinegar as a mordant a while ago. I'm not sure that the colour won't fade out a lot, but I don't mind.

Now, I've been reading some Elizabeth Zimmermann recently, and she's inspired me to think about the way that socks are constructed, and how I might best make them. I've broken down the socks into four elements: toe, heel, long tube (foot and leg) and cuff. Now normally one knits either cuff, half of long tube, heel, rest of long tube, toe; or vice versa. I'm going to break the order up a little, for reasons of motivation, neatness of sock, and limitations of yarn respectively. I intend to, over the next couple of weeks, run a set of tutorials on what I've done. None of it is terribly original (more EZ's 'unventing'), but hopefully it might give some of you some ideas.

Tutorial one involves the mystery of getting that single hank you saw above into this.

Two even cakes. I don't have scales to work it out by weight. But this method works nicely if you have a swift and winder. Take your little twisted skein apart so it's a big hank of yarn. Count the number of strands at any point in the hank (I counted by twos, it's quicker). For me it was 105. I want two even cakes, so I'd want 52.5 'rounds' of the hank in each ball. I put the hank on my swift, and tied a scrap of yarn to an arm of the swift where the start of the hank was. Lined that up with my ball winder. Then I just had to count that scrap of yarn passing the ball winder 52 times, and cut the yarn off halfway around the 53rd pass. Easy! I admit I did count in batches of ten, with a little pause between each to stop my poor little brain getting confused.

I also discovered when winding that in general, the yarn went dark - light - dark across its entire length. If I want the light and the dark on my socks to roughly match up, I'll knit one cake from the inside and one from the outside. Also easy.

Stop right now!

2008-06-05T18:04:00.002+08:00

Hehe. A doorstop. I made it ages ago, in fact, in Summer (it's Winter here now, remember?) because we sleep with the doors open (we have security flyscreens) in summer for airflow, but that meant the laundry door kept slamming shut. It's the doorstop pattern out of the Lotta Jansdotter book, made with some Lara Cameron fabric. It is large. It looks all funny and oozy because it has two kilos of lentils inside it, plus polyfill to fill up the rest!

----------------------------------------------------
"The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer."

1) What was I doing 10 years ago?
Um... I was halfway through my first year of highschool, so I was probably alternately moping about and laughing hysterically. Negotiating the arcanery of an Established Private School, like boater hats, and rowing teams, and matching hair ribbons, and standing whenever an adult entered the room.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today?
It's nearly the end of the day, so I'm not sure if there's five. Do the grocery shopping, fill out a form to get my superannuation transferred to my new fund, knit some rows on the Arrowhead Lace Shawl that I'm at serious risk of finishing in a week. Make dinner... I think that's it.

3) Snacks I enjoy:
Lollies. Peanut butter spread on a slice of low-fat cheddar (so sue me! It's a really good meat-free protein hit). Really good, thick yoghurt with no thickeners or preservatives or fillers or anything. Twisties (oh my god. In finding that link I just discovered that Twisties aren't available in the US because they use an 'unsafe' food colouring! They are bright, bright orange).

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
I woud buy a little house for me and Badly Coloured Boy, and a house each for my parents. Pay off BCB's dad's mortgage. Establish a prize or a scholarship for art history majors at the university I went to. Travel. To Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan and Iran. And London and Berlin and Marrakesh, since they're my favourite cities. I'm sure there's plenty of space in that money for more philanthropy too, but I'd have to think more carefully about it.

5) Places I have lived:
Port Hedland, Western Australia
Perth, Western Australia

I'm feeling a little insular right now...

6) Jobs I have had:
Kitchen hand, bookpimp (okay, retail assistant in a bookstore), cashier at a different bookstore, promo girl (not the kind in a bikini - the kind in Chuck Taylors handing out flyers outside live music gigs), my current job which I don't really like to say what it is because then I'd have to kill you.

I have also been paid for an afternoon of prepping hair transplant follicles, babysitting, and selling my DNA to a genetics study.

7) Bloggers I am tagging who I will enjoy getting to know better:
Cast on a Cupcake
knitxcore
Studio Home Creative
By Elin
Knitting School Dropout

Fantasy Naturale Market Bag

2008-05-31T11:21:00.002+08:00

It mightn't look like it, but I'm actually de-stashing. Until last week I hadn't bought new yarn all year. Oh wait, except for that Patonyle that became the Rainbow Socks. And I've sold a bunch of yarn. Anyway, I had five balls of 12-ply navy blue cotton... why? I have no idea. What was I thinking? So I figured I'd make a market bag. Again, why? Given that we have a bunch of calico bags and those ubiquitous green Coles bags... I guess I couldn't think of anything else to do with a bunch of heavy cotton. Here's the result. It's the Fantasy Naturale Market Bag, a free pattern I found using the experimental browser on Ravelry.

Square base, picked up stitches all round.

And the handles are made with a simple cast off and then cast back on a few more stitches than were cast off. I quite liked this idea, because it seemed to account for the way the handles with inevitably stretch. They're a little short to go over my shoulder now, but I bet they won't be after I first use it! It took a mere ten days, and used up two a little bit balls of cotton. I'm thinking a couple more of these filled with... stuff... might make neat Christmas gifts.

Rainbow socks

2008-05-31T11:09:00.002+08:00

I love these socks. Like, love. I did a three needle bind off on the toe because it was quicker than grafting, and it's left this annoying little seam for my toes to rub against. I wish they were longer in the leg (I misread the pattern, so the short-row diamonds on my socks are not as deep as they should be, with the result that I needed to do eight 'sections' on each foot). But still I love them. They make me happy to look at, and Patonyle does feel nice underfoot. The colours are much brighter, really, but our dim house in winter is not so encouraging with the light situation, and I didn't want to ask BCB for a light-box because he was defrosting the fridge (this requires a hairdryer, a pot of boiling water, a bucket and our largest knife. I didn't want to get too close).

Back to School (sort of).

2008-05-15T18:35:00.003+08:00

I've signed up for some sewing classes. I'm quite excited. They seem nice and flexible - because I have some sewing experience I was told just to bring along whatever it is I want to make and the teacher will help me out. I'm going to work on a pair of pants - Burda WoF 118 of 1/ 2008, view B, to be precise. Except that I'm going to redraft the legs so they're wider. I've never made pants before, and I'm glad that I'm going to be getting some help. Hopefully I'll learn lots - I don't really get the chance to learn sewing off people in real life. My mother sews really, really well, but is not the best teacher (and I am not the best student around her - imparting specialist knowledge to one another is not one of our strong points, much as I love her).

I'm also taking the Closet Knitter from work. My new Partner in Cr(aft)ime. It's kind of nice to get excited about garment-making with someone that I met outside crafting circles.

One rainbow sock

2008-05-10T18:35:00.003+08:00

I realised the other day how many things - sewn and knitted - that I've finished and not photographed. Ugh. I was planning to do lots of photographing today, even nagging BCB to build me a little lightbox, but I ended up a bit worse for wear. Sangria (or red wine generally) does not sit well with me, and I spent last night at a new restaurant/ bar at which sangria is the house special. Oooooo... so today I curled up with Heroes Season 2 and finished the heel on the second rainbow sock.

I love this Patonyle colourway so, so much. I think I'll have enough left over to do another pair of socks in plain stocking stitch, with contrast heels and toes.

Which is more fun?

2008-05-02T21:09:00.003+08:00

So I told you all about how I'm teaching that guy at work to knit. And about how whenever he comes into my office he drops the blinds and closes the door? Well, today I helped him out over lunch. Halfway through someone knocked on the door, but made no move to open it. I eventually got up and opened it. It was a colleague.
"Oh, sorry," she said. "It's just that the blinds were down and the door was closed and I heard giggling and I ~pause~ didn't want to interrupt anything."

Great. I teach someone to knit, and now people in the office think I'm having an affair.

UnStripy

2008-04-24T21:59:00.003+08:00

I love it. It's the best thing I've made. It fits him perfectly (actually, I haven't blocked it yet, but if it stretches a little that won't matter. He wore it to work the morning after I sewed on the buttons (oh, for a workplace where this outfit is acceptable!) Isn't it just the bomb? I love how it's sort of quirky and rustic and... just cool.

I'm not sure what else to say about this. The pattern worked out well. Ysolda hasn't done the tutes for the sleeves yet, so I worked out the decreases that I'd need to make and spaced them evenly down the length of the sleeve, working them where the sleeve seam would be if there were one. Turns out I did my maths a bit wrong, so after five decreases every ninth row, I did another eleven (I think) every seventh row. Seems to have worked out okay.

Sure, the flash is annoying, but it shows the wool detail a little better. You can see the variations in the handspun. And the delicious warm aspect in the natural black colour.

In an update on the guy at work I taught to knit: he came into my office the other day to show me that he'd bought Debbie Stoller's Stitch'n'Bitch in his lunchbreak. He also indicated that he'd gone a little awry with the knitting I set up for him, so I suggested he bring it to my office and I could look at it. He rushed in, then closed the door and dropped the blinds so noone could see that he (or I, I guess) were looking at knitting. He's terribly self-conscious about it. Any suggestions on how to make it better?

Rainbow Socks, a SeaRag Scarf and Learning to Knit

2008-04-20T19:29:00.005+08:00

I finally finished the Charade socks I was working on. I was so unenthused about them that I considered ripping them with only half a sock to go. Mah mama volunteered to take them though, which gave me enough impetus to churn on. I'm not sure why I was so over them... I think the colours are lovely, but a bit blah to actually knit. It seems most of what I knit is fairly bright, this colourway was a bit neutral. Also the herringbone rib is not so stretchy, which made getting them on and off a bit tricky...

And now I'm off on Rainbow Socks. I'm enjoying them very much. The colours are more entertaining, and the yarn is very soft (it's Patonyle). They're fifty kinds of fun. I went away this weekend with some people from work, and I got quite a lot done. One of the guys there asked me to teach him to knit. Luckily, I decided to travel with multiple projects (god I'm a loser). A while ago I swapped with someone in my stitch'n'bitch for some fabulous Colinette WigWam.

The colours reminded me a bit of the ocean, so I thought I'd like to do some kind of deconstructed scarf, something that looked like rags washed up on a beach. I started off with some loose garter stitch, which wasn't really working. I showed it to another friend, saying I was going for something that looked like rags washed up on a beach. After a thoughtful pause while he weighed up how I might take it, he said carefully "Um... it looks like knitting to me." So I ripped it.

While browsing Ravelry I found a nice wavy dropstitch pattern, and have been running with that instead. It's the beginning of the knitting there. I'm very pleased with it. The pattern stops because I started teaching the guy I work with to knit garter stitch. I think he did very well, don't you? It's very even - he was worried it wasn't even enough, and stumbled on the idea of blocking by himself! Suggested that maybe when you finished a project there'd be a way of stretching it out to make it all even. I was very impressed.

I plan to give him some old needles and a spare ball of yarn tomorrow. I've cast on already so he can just go (I think we'd struggle to find the time for me to teach him to cast on, and he seemed quite eager to just keep going). I'm a bit worried that 4mm and dk yarn will grow so slowly compared to the wigwam on 8mm needles above that he'll lose a little interest. But I don't have any chunkier yarn and needles to give.

Now the real question is, since I was going with a bit of a casual, deconstructed thing, should I rip out the beginner garter stitch and keep going with my pattern, or should I keep it there in my scarf as a nice reminder of someone's first go at knitting, and my first go at teaching someone?

What to do with gauge swatches # 312

2008-04-15T18:55:00.002+08:00

Set them underneath vases.

Buttons for UnStripy

2008-04-12T08:35:00.005+08:00

It's done! I finished it while watching Wall Street last night (possibly the best film to come out of the eighties, from an art history student perspective. I'm sure Badly Coloured Boy got sick of me shrieking stuff like "Look at the interior decorating! The mock surface finishes! Everything is fake! The symbolism! The symbolism!").

Now I'm stuck as to buttons.

These are a great size, and I particularly love that they are made from scrap timber from the South-West (of Western Australia, for my interstate and overseas guests). So it'd mean the whole of the jumper is local, from sheep through buttons. But I only have three, and I think it needs four. And when I bought these a couple of years ago they were everywhere, including on ebay. I can't find any on ebay now, and I doubt the sort of low-budget, quasi-transient bead shops that were stocking them are still around or still have them. I did find some similar ones on etsy, but, well, they just aren't local. I found more! I wonder why these didn't turn up in last night's etsy search.

Well, I was going to ask y'all for opinions as to which looked better, the three large buttons, or the multiples that are (in my opinion) too small. But I don't care now! I'm getting more of those big 'uns!

These little ones are pretty neat though (kind of feminine, too). I've got eleven of them, and am saving them up for something special. Maybe my Stripy. That's right. I decided I loved BCB's handspun unStripy so much I want one. I'll put stripes on mine though.

Oh, and just because it's kind of cool, in searching for buttons I found this place, Cute As A Button. Sure, it's a little pricy, but they have red and silver leather buttons!

Uh-oh.

2008-04-10T18:25:00.002+08:00

I was knitting a sock today at the train station, and I dropped the working needle. Against all odds, it slipped through these tiny little grate holes in the platform. I think my fellow commuters already find the powersuit-and-knitting combo a little strange, and I think then finding me shriek "Oh f**k! I just dropped a needle down that grate!" at 8am confirmed all dire suspicions. Badly Coloured Boy tried valiantly to remove the offending grate, but it was welded in place. Totally depressing. This is the second set of dpns I've gone through lately. BCB sat on the others and snapped one (different size, so no, I don't still have five usable needles).

I think it's a sign I should invest in some Harmony circular sock needles and learn magic loop, huh? I don't see no circs falling through a grate.

Where I've been at

2008-04-06T08:52:00.005+08:00

sewing, kids.

I made the skirt and the jacket (it just struck me that this is a rare full-face-shot of me on the blog. Hm). The skirt will be discussed next post.

The jacket is Vogue 8414. I am very, very pleased with it. This was merely a wearable muslin, before I make another in some (very) metallic linen. It's plum corduroy, medium wale, from Spotlight. I really, really love corduroy. I haven't shown it yet, but I have a corduroy dress, too (rust orange, fine wale). There's not much to say about sewing it. It was cut and sewn together (complete with handstitched hems) in a day. It was a straight size 10 (a size down from the recommended measure) with no alterations. Normally I would make the back narrower, but I figured that the absence of inset sleeves and the loose style made that less important, and I didn't want to interfere with the pleats at all.

Here's the back, with its awesome little pleats. I'm sure someone better at fitting than I could tell me why I have those creases in the upper sleeve. I'm also thinking that next time I might draft and extra inch or two in the sleeve so they don't sit right in my elbow - it gives the sleeves a slight tendency to bunch up my arms rather than crease when I bend my elbows.

One of my favourite parts of the pattern is the loose mandarin (?) collar. I love the line it creates in profile against my neck (apologies for the blurries - BCB is not so steady with the camera).

The jacket is unlined, with self-facing, so I opted to cover the facing edges with bias binding (and one of the sleeve seams too). I'm still a bit of a spazz at sewing bias binding, so I'm pleased enough that this is attached to the garment and the facings caught. Wrinkles be damned. You can also see the only spot where I didn't catch the folded-under part of the collar facing. I'll handstitch that down today. I did ignore instructions to handstitch down the collar facing and opted for machine stitching in the ditch on the outside instead. I'm getting much, much better at machine sewing down facings these days. That skirt above was done perfectly, and I only missed that tiny part on the jacket.

It doesn't have buttons yet. I'm thinking maybe dark wooden ones? All up I think this thing is very cute, very appropriate for Perth weather, very comfortable and cosy; and I'm happy enough to make well, actually a couple more probably.

Okay, just a weeny little post of linkies.

2008-03-30T16:49:00.003+08:00

Unfortunately, I think us Australians need to lift our game. New Zealand is smaller, and has more sheep than people, yet they're kicking our arses in the craft & design media realm.

World Sweet World is an awesome looking 'magazine for makers and doers', split between projects and features. Luckily for me (and you), they sell off their website.

Penny Stotter is my new oo-I-want artist. And her works are not unreasonable. Badly Coloured Boy's stepmother has offered to buy him a piece of art in honour of his graduating university, and he is a little confused about what he might like. It would be wrong to heavily steer him in the direction of something I rather want, wouldn't it?

And how did I find out about these Kiwi delights? Courtesy of my new favourite blog, Studio Home Creative. It's like Decor8, or DesignSponge, with a fresh antipodean twist. Can you believe the blogger is barely older than I am?

*sigh* I think it's time to start saving for a holiday with the rellies in Auckland.

Easter

2008-03-26T20:17:00.003+09:00

Was spent with a friendly orphan possum called Gazza. He's being readied for release into the wild. He's not so great and staying still for a photoshoot

but he is pretty tops at climbing (because I was pulling a funny face in the picture I'm not including the next picture in the sequence - Gazza diving off my back towards his cage).

I knit too. Here's my unStripy. In fact, the arm is done all the way to the wrist now. Look at the colour variations in the handspun - interesting, no? You can't really see the differences in anything but strong light. I like it. I think Brooklyn Tweed is almost right - a simple stitch pattern is best for handspun, but stocking stitch is just as good as garter, in my unhumble opinion.

Charade Socks

2008-03-15T22:19:00.002+09:00

This is quite old. I finished the sock before I started the raglan, and I've nearly finished the body of that raglan now. I'm a little unenthused about finishing, because they don't fit too well. Too tight across the bit of my foot that's just before the ankle bend. I think because the herringbone rib has so little stretch in. I also decided to try a picot bind off for a change, and, um, I don't think I love it very much.

However, my mum has volunteered to take these off my hands, so I'm slowly ploughing through the second one. Mostly a row here or there, at the train station or before a dance class (look, I need to do some kind of exercise, and jogging is just not me). In fact, when I pulled out my knitting before dance class one other girl leaned over and said "Oh wow! You catch my train in the mornings! I thought you looked familiar, but I now I definitely recognise that sock thing!" Startling, but not so bad as Badly Coloured Boy, who was recently recognised by a fellow train-traveller as "the guy that talks a lot."

I've been loving The Sartorialist again. I've bought some new patterns. Kwiksew 3436; Vogue 8414 and Vogue 8451. The Kwiksew is looking not bad, I'm halfway through a muslin. If I can make it while hungover it must truly be easy and logical. I'm planning another two, maybe three, in a blue and chocolate cotton, a teal satin, and maybe a metallic plaid chiffon type fabric I picked up in an op-shop (I had a nasty experience with plaid before, so I'm a little plaid-shy. That whole matching thing is difficult!). I'm waiting on some metallic linen from Ebay to make the jacket for 8414 (it's been a little while - hope with me that it hasn't gone astray in the mail!) I'm struggling with getting fabric for the jersey top. The stretch knits at my local fabric store were either swimwear type, or cheap and nasty. Oh, and I ordered some Kaffe Fassett and Amy Butler prints to make some pleated skirts. I doubt my skills are such that I'll earn a place on the Sartorialist's pages, but I think I am improving.

Shaker knitting?

2008-03-01T17:15:00.003+09:00

Not quite. But there is an element of function-before-form to this. A top down raglan, in handspun from Bilby yarns. The colour is 'natural black', and it was spun by a Beverley Ludlow, according to the label. I bought it at the Royal Show, remember? The handspun is very addictive to work with. It has, for want of a better word, a life to it that machine spun does not. The colours here are really accurate. I love the little reddish hints. Where it looks blurred towards the back of the photo it is not. That would be the single ball (supposed to be used for collar and cuffs) that was a shade lighter (it has a little more white fleece spun in). I spent months looking at all the yarn, in different lights, and when it was all balled up I could not for the life of me work out which one was lighter. I decided the bag was mislabeled. Or not. It happened to be the first skein I grabbed. There is a visible line where the regular-coloured-yarn starts, but how visible it is depends on the light. I decided not to rip back. The start of the raglan was a bit of a bi-atch, and Badly Coloured Boy could not see the difference (he's colourblind. Hence the name). Oh yeah, it's for him, did I mention? And the pattern is Ysolda's Stripy. I'm imagining wooden toggle buttons on the mock-placket (oo, shoulda seen BCB's face when I mentioned the mock-placket. He didn't know what it was, and he thought it sounded unpleasant).

Borrowed Light

2008-02-28T21:52:00.003+09:00

I went to see Borrowed Light last night, as part of the Perth Festival. Three things in life and the arts that I do adore are sacred choral music; challenging dance styes; and austere theology (no, seriously). Borrowed Light, by the Tero Saarinen Dance Company, fit all three. Borrowed Light was an exploration of the Shaker beliefs and lifestyle. An early music ensemble, the Boston Camerata provide live vocal accompaniment in the form of Shaker music some of which has never been heard outside the Shaker community and even then not for 150 years. Imagine something between Gregorian chants and middle-English folk music (I tried so hard to find an audio clip, but nothing forthcoming). And imagine that the singers are on stage, moving through and with the dancers sometimes.

Saarinen draws heavily on Kabuki for his choereographic language, which I think explains the awkward angles, flat feet and splayed hands. It was difficult to settle into, especially given that the first five minutes or so are performed completely in silence. The dancing was heavy and awkward. I only noticed two jumps in the entire performance - the dancers always had one foot on the ground, unless another dancer was lifting them, which was never done gracefully or easily. They barely walked when they could hobble, or limp. Once you got accustomed to it it was stunningly beautiful. I've never seen so much emphasis placed on the mere movement of individual fingers. I also loved that in a virtually abstract environment I could still discern stories and themes - loss of faith; the outsider; a struggle for grace.

Not only that, but the dancers themselves provide what percussive accompaniment there is, stamping, clapping, and, at one point, throwing their entire body on the floor. Breathing, too, was sometimes audible (and I was in the back row of the stalls). Apparently the floor is miked, which makes sense.

The costumes were dark and heavy. The men's coats were entirely made of felt, and they obscured the body for the most part. The women's skirts were part weighted-down felt, part what seemed to be pleated silk. Their shoes were heavy. The lighting was often stark and directional, like sun rays falling through meeting hall windows.

It was just beautiful.

The most pleasurable way to give yourself diabetes...

2008-02-23T18:26:00.003+09:00

I have to make morning tea for a bunch of people next week, one of whom is gluten intolerant. Now when it comes to food choices, I'm a big fan of the masses catering to the minority (well, except maybe for this girl I went to high school with who was intolerant to pretty much everything except brown rice and pears). So I wanted to make some kind of gluten-free snack everyone would want to eat, but also didn't fancy shelling out for gluten-free flour (I find it just tastes yuck). In the end I mashed a couple of similar recipes together to get these Peanut Biscuits. They're insanely rich. One is satisfying, two is mad. They're also insanely easy. Easier than making a packet mix. Here's the recipe I ended up with:

1 egg
1 cup crunchy peanut butter*
3/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 tsp bi-carb soda

1. Pre-heat oven to 180C.
2. Beat egg until combined.
3. Add peanut butter, caster sugar and bi-carb. Stir/ mix/ mash until combined.
4. Roll teaspoonfuls of the mix into balls, and place them on a baking sheet. They'll spread out as they cook, so leave them room. Flatten slightly with a fork/ fingertip.
5. Bake for 10min, or until you can slide a knife under a biscuit and sort of move it about a bit without it breaking up. If your oven doesn't heat from the bottom, like mine, they might go pale golden coloured.
6. Leave to cool on the tray.

(They puff up a lot in the oven, but flatten out when they cool).

* I normally have 100% peanuts peanut butter at home, but I was a bit worried that it'd be too gloopy for the mix. So I got Badly Coloured Boy to buy some conventional peanut-butter, with stabilisers in. Turned out to be reduced fat, added sugar and salt (blergh) Kraft crunchy. Worked just fine, but quite sweet. So sugar-free might be nice.

Quilt!

2008-02-18T19:10:00.005+09:00

I had to use up a bunch of vouchers at Calico & Ivy (um, yeah, my old boss and my friends are the coolest) and I actually didn't want more yarn (I'm trying to cut down on the stash) or fabric (ditto). I looooved this quilt. It's all the Katie Jump Rope series, by Denyse Schmidt. One giant log cabin design, with panels of irregulat widths, plus some odds and sods of random quilting on the back (most of it is the brown floral, though). I ummed and ahhed over the price, thinking "but I could buy the fabric for a third of the price and make it myself!" Then I remembered that I can't quilt, don't have the time for it, and don't have the inclination for it.

Bought quilt it was. I heart it. It's an excellent curled-up-on-the-couch-watching-so-you-think-you-can-dance quilt.

First heirloom 'failure'

2008-02-16T08:20:00.002+09:00

Capsicums. Chocolate coloured capsicums. Another heirloom variety. Don't let the colour put you off - they're red when you cut into them (they have a sort of reddish undertone to the brown too, can you see?)
Yes, they're rivalling my tomatoes for the claim to the Lilliput-vegetable-crown. Apparently it's actually quite difficult to grow a decent sized capsicum, so I'm just pleased we got any at all.

At least I was, until we tried one. They're bitter! They're so, so bitter! They really were not something that you'd take a second bite of. So I cut them up very finely and hid them in the curry I was cooking.

I more exciting news, maybe six weeks after our first eggplant flower, there are signs of an actual eggplant. I have no idea why it took so long. Eggplants are supposed to be very quick-growing (but I'm learning my garden doesn't follow the regular rules of plants). Right now it's larger than a chicken egg. Very exciting.

Warning! Hippie post ahead!

2008-02-09T08:47:00.000+09:00

Now that I no longer work Saturdays I and Badly Coloured Boy finally got to go to the organic markets for our fruit and veg. Ordinarily we go to the (very cheap) regular fruit & veg markets, but I've felt that their quality had been slipping a bit, especially on the fruit front. When I found myself buying fruit from Coles instead I knew Something Had to Be Done. Hence City Farm.

Most interesting, perhaps, were the bio-dynamic beef farmers there. They also sold small quantities of hogget. Hogget from merino sheep. "Merino?!" I exclaimed, "Didn't know they were worth eating! What do you do with the fleece?!"
The guy eyed me off.
"You from a sheep-farming background?"
"Uh... no... I, um, I knit."
*blank stare*
"What happens to the fleece?"
"Well, we usually just sell it to a bulk distributor and it gets spun with regular fleece, but if you want we can always get you raw fleeces. You'd have to scour them yourself. And you can't have any till we get over the lice problem we have right now."

Okay, aside from the amusement/ yuck value of sheep with lice, think about this. Here is a guy with bio-dynamic merino fleece, and it's just being sold into pools of regular fleece. I explained there was a market for organic, small-scale hand-knitting yarn, but he didn't seem terribly interested. I think it may also be difficult to find a mill in Australia that would be deemed organic.

I personally am not terribly interested in scouring, carding, whatevering and spinning the stuff. Bilby Yarns are aligned with the Melanian Sheep Breeders. They might, but I wouldn't be sure, be willing to take on non-coloured bio-dynamic fleece.

What can I tell this guy, where can I send him, would anyone be interested in his (lice-free) bio-dynamic merino fleece? I'd love to see something like an Australian version of Beaverslide up and about...

Cables ahoy!

2008-02-07T21:04:00.000+09:00

One Rogue, finished. Never mind that somehow one arm ended up narrower than the other to elbow, then manages a little, unnoticeable mutton-chop to get the right number of stitches for the sleeve cap. I ended up having to order more yarn, since I have eight repeats in the middle of the body instead of three.

To be honest, I'm still not convinced that it's very flattering. I'd rather have another Arwen anyday. But I'm rather in love with the yarn.

And here is my ready-to-be-cast-off Gretel. Which is now reduced to two balls of Jo Sharp Silk Road Tweed. Why? I was knitting at 18 stitches to four inches, not 16. It fit nicely, if I was going for a beanie rather than a beret... I'm going to try again soon, with extra stitches and making the slouchy size to make up for the smaller row gauge. Other than my sheer stupidity it is an entirely recommendable knit. Witty, if clever use of leaning decreases and predictable, Fibonacci-esque patterns are what you think constitutes witty.

Cushion

2008-01-28T09:50:00.001+09:00

I figured in my six days of unemployment I better make a cover for the nekkid cushion that had been on the couch for months. I was feeling a bit ghetto, what with the holes in the couch and the white polyester nekkid-cushion. It's some of Lara Cameron's fabric. Copying off her pot-holder, I put batting behind the fabric and quilted down the lines of the trees. I'm like, totally a quilter now.

Just before blogging this I read Aunty Cookie's blog, which linked to her photostream, and... damn. It seems she got to the birds-in-trees-cushion-cover-thing first... unless her cushion cover is also less than a week old? I really dig the squirrel decals above the cot too... maybe I should just give up on independent interior decorating thought and go all stalker-like.

It's also kind of embarassing to be posting this about 1/12 of the way into 2008, but this year is officially the Year of Finishing Stuff Up. I got a little bit stash-y on the knitting front in 2007, and want to clear up the boxes and my Ravelry queue a bit. I'll be seaming together the Rogue hoodie today. I've started Gretel (she can't be finished until after my birthday, as that's when I get the necessary needles...). I've made one of the six socks I want to make. I'm ready to go on Badly Coloured Boy's hundspun Stripy, and the only other thing to do is finish blocking and seam together Babette. And if I manage all that, then the tangled yoke cardigan is next on the list.

(And just finally - oo, check it out! Another indie fabric designer! Not only does she live in my state, she actually lives in BCB's hometown. Jeebus. And he tries to to tell me that the creative ones leave in this sudden we-finished-high-school diaspora).

WWJD?

2008-01-23T09:49:00.000+09:00

Or not so much. Because I'm guessing that Jesus is not so much down with the LYS.
So what would you do with a hundred dollar voucher to Calico & Ivy?

I finished up working in the bookstore yesterday. No longer am I a bookpimp. It had its less-fun moments (corrugated cardboard cuts, carrying heavy stuff, cleaning, customers, being a data-entry monkey) but on the whole it was a rather nice place to work. I think evidenced by the fact that I, as a mere 'unskilled' casual worker stayed on for six years. Potentially a record. I worked seven Christmases, which was as many as the store owner had. And it certainly beat being a kitchenhand, which was what I was prior to my bookshopgirl incarnation.

Anyway, I was showered with flowers and afore-mentioned gift voucher, softening the blow a little. Plus I have to return, because I forgot to hand over my keys. I didn't take my name tag. I figure when another casual is hungover and surly they can wear my name and give poor service with impunity, knowing complaints can't be tracked back to them (that's actually pretty unlikely, as only six people work in the store and all are very physically different. A quick check of sex and hair colour would likely reveal the offender). But still, the thought is there.

Leaving me just to ponder what I should spend said voucher on. I'm leaning towards yarn rather than fabric. Ideas? Suggestions?

2008-01-16T20:42:00.000+09:00

Tomatoes. Um, maybe the smallest tomatoes you've ever seen, but there are quite a few of them.

Round my way 'soil' is actually sand. No, no exaggeration. We've been trying to build it up, but there's that niggling 'Gosh, we just put two hundred dollars worth of soil into a rental garden' feeling that stops me from doing anything really worthwhile. Next place round I'm building no dig beds, for sure.

Two. You do know how to sew a button on, right? Sewing over a matchstick, or a heavy darning needle, means that the thread is loose enough to allow you to pull the button out from the shirt a little and actually, you know, button the thing up.

Christmas, socks, pretty lettuce.

2008-01-13T11:19:00.000+09:00

Christmas present. Ashford swift and Royal winder, from Bilby yarns. Given to me because I told Badly Coloured Boy I wasn't knitting his jumper until he bought me a swift and winder, or wound the skeins himself. He's seen me swearing over skein-winding. I hate it. Least favourite knitting-related chore ever. But now it's fun! It's all, like, neeeeeeow! Whoosh! Look at the awesome yarn-cake! I wanted to take an action shot, but, um, I was enjoying winding the skeins too much to pause.
I'm also a weeny bit partial to the swift, because Ashford made the rocking-horse I had when I was a kid. There ya go. Incidentally, I haven't named the swift yet. Any ideas? Or an opinion that naming a swift may in fact be the stupidest thing you ever heard of? The rocking-horse was called Ashley, for what it's worth.

Start of a Charade sock, with Verb for Keeping Warm's logwood dyed sock yarn. More subdued than I normally go for, but pretty, I think. I finished the Red Vinnlands I was chugging away on. Have to admit, I don't especially love them. They'll be the subject of another blog post.

And just because I can, here's what a sink full of radicchio leaves looks like. Must try growing my own radicchio sometime.

Summer Garden

2008-01-02T21:02:00.000+09:00

Listada di Gandia eggplant flower. Isn't it beautiful? Hopefully it will soon look like this.

Dwarf red fig tomatoes. This cherry tomato vine is my most productive by far. It started cropping well before the romas, at the same time as the Grosse Lisse. But while I've had one (not very grosse) lisse I've harvested about twelve dwarf red figs. They grow in little bunches of up to six at a go. We had eight little tomatoes to eat on Christmas Day.

I am a complete convert to heirloom seeds. The Listada di Gandia and Dwarf Red Fig are heirlooms, as is the chocolate capsicum I didn't take photos of. When it ripens it's brown on the outside and red within. Beautiful. I was also given some heirloom seeds for Christmas - a selection of things in a pillbox from my mother's friend; and a packet of Minnesota Midget rockmelon seeds from my Stitch'n'Bitch secret santa. I cannot wait until it's time to plant a winter garden. Carrots, beets, garlic, broccoli - whee!

On the other hand, the world's crappiest giant sunflowers. Two to three metres is a big, fat lie. Any ideas why I have managed to grow dwarf sunflowers? Do they need really rich soil or something? One of the pumpkin vines damped off and died, meaning I'll have to be really careful to hand pollinate the flowers. There's been a run of bachelor boy-flowers, and a couple of little lady-flowers that have wilted off, but one big fat lady-flower looks promising. Cue my yelling across the garden "Oo! She has big stripy ovaries, so she must be easy to impregnante!"

Whah! Snowed under!

2007-12-24T20:25:00.000+09:00

Which is funny, because it doesn't snow here. See, there's a combination of my working Christmas retail hours and my partying Christmas period style that means, no exaggeration, I go to my house to sleep, change clothes and have breakfast. I had some excellent photos for you all of a pudding in a can, and this astonishing spider that built a web in my tomato plants, and my beautiful, beautiful, Asian-glazed free range ham. But in the middle of all this Christmas capering (carols by candle light were such a highlight. A lot of my friends from highschool were well into choral singing. One is now has the university degree to prove she's an opera singer. So my darling friends were of such strength and tunefulness that they attracted attention from the nearby picnickers) I lost the cable for my camera. So we'll have to go with a web image.

Not quite so festive as you might have expected, but I did have the girlishly blushing pleasure of saying "Um, all the bank eftpos lines are down - could you pay with cash? And did you want these giftwrapped?" to the gentlemen above today. That'd be one Mr Heath Ledger, kids, if you couldn't tell through the makeup. Definitely added interest to Christmas Eve retail (along with aforementioned inability to accept any kind of electronic payment). I'm afraid as far as serving famous people goes it probably does beat Ben Elton, who stuffed $500 worth of coffee table books in his backpack and asked where was the nearest place he could buy a record player.

Christmas wrap

2007-12-18T15:47:00.000+09:00

Here's my giftwrapping from this year. How cool is the snowflake ribbon? It's from Calico&Ivy (they really do have awesome Christmas stuff). The brown paper is the last of my Ikea brown paper. And um, just in case you're confused, that brown mottled thing in the upper right corner is the vase for my Christmas stick.
Easiest wrap job was definitely the little box with the brown ribbon and bells. It's just the box that this Adorapop pendant came in

Plus the ribbon leftover from two Lindt Easter bunny chocolates. They stretched over the box (one in each direction) perfectly. I didn't even have to retie the bows or anything. Knew I kept them for a reason. See, despite buying my uber-fancy snowflake ribbon I also obsessively hoard things that might in any way be used to wrap a gift. The gold tissue paper above is recycled, as is the red box and the wide silver ribbon. The narrow silver ribbon was $2 for a haberdasher's size card/ roll/ thing (you know, the flat cards from which you buy trim by the metre) at a market stall selling vintage haberdashery.

Sewn gifts

2007-12-17T14:12:00.000+09:00

A bag from a Martha Stewart online pattern, made in Amy Butler fabric. True to form, the pattern was missing handles. So I had to kind of make up my own. I was going to make a few more of these bags, but sewing on the bias binding was rooly difficult. I also shrunk the pattern a little - as given it would've made one very large bag! This is still big enough to fit A4 documents with plenty of room to spare.

A Lotta Jansdotter pattern for a full body apron. Half aprons are cute, but I always find I get food spatters above my waist when cooking. I like this pattern a lot. Can you see it actually, very cleverly, has slight shaping in it? Tricky, huh? Hard to tell, but that's the Michael Miller Eiffel Tower print. The reverse (because the apron is reversible) is in a of black and white barcode-type stripe. It's going with a cookie cookbook and a set of cookie cutters.

And a third apron, in feedsack prints. This is my favourite, I think.

Next post: giftwrapping. Oh, just you wait. Three words: laser-cut; snowflake; ribbon.

Vintage knitting

2007-12-11T17:28:00.001+09:00

I went down South for a couple of days, to visit Badly Coloured Boy's mum. We rode horsies and fed orphaned possums and met the new dog and were offered an unwanted kitten (see orphaned possums above) and I saw a very interesting frog in the lettuce patch, so it was an excellent visit all round. And of course when we went into town we did a run of the op-shops. I was really disappointed that someone has cleared out all the vintage sewing patterns. Last time there were heaps from the sixties and seventies. Now they're all late eighties or more recent. I did get some fabric remnants and some excellent vintage knitting booklets. These are my favourites.

A beginner's knitting guide for teenage girls, from the 1960s! But what might a teenage girl make?

Why, a sweater, to catch a beau! (Guess the boyfriend sweater curse is a fairly recent superstition). There was a pattern for a hat and booties 'to show off baby' a couple of pages earlier, so methinks knitting wasn't the only things the girls were doing to snag a guy! Which is a pity, because

in ten years time those women will look up from their needles and realise the handsome beau they snagged/ married with the aid of a shotgun and a baby bump has turned into one of these four men. Hirsute, wearing clothes too tight and apparently interested only in other men (I do like the brown and yellow number on the far right, though).

Boys, knitting and tragedy: some thoughts

2007-12-07T11:35:00.000+09:00

What is it with people connecting personal difficulties, boys, and knitting? My friend J learned to knit off his mum a little while ago. When his ex-housemate dropped by and saw knitting on his bed, apparently her immediate reaction was "Darling! Are you knitting? What's wrong?"

And today BCB's very close friend, who's having a bit of yuck time with his (ex?)-girlfriend asked me to teach him to knit. Actually, technically he asked me to teach him to knit a gun so he could 'shoot happy b*stards'. I'm thinking the Mochimochi-land gun may not be quite what he's after. We might start with a garter stitch scarf, I think.

So it seems that both boys and girls assume that if boys knit they're knitting through tragedy (or that knitting through tragedy might make said tragedy easier). Where on earth does this come from? Ideas, anyone?

Finishing/ Norwegian Purl/ Sewing

2007-12-05T12:34:00.000+09:00

I've been sewing a lot over the past two weeks. I only paused because we have a rent inspection tomorrow and it looked like some kind of haberdashery bomb went off in the house. You know you've been sewing a bit too much when you find fabric scraps in your bed.

That picture above is from a dress I've made. My favourite thing I've made so far, I think, though the pattern is not especially well-fitting (in more respects than the one I'm about to detail). I went down one size from the recommended size, which should have left me with 1.5" ease sort of all-round (yeah, I do actually tend to fit dress pattern ratios). The lower line is the seam according to the pattern. The upper line is the seam I needed to sew to give me a fit I was happy with. Admittedly that was probably less than 1.5" of ease, but I took out about 4" in the bodice. I can only imagine the sack I would've had if I'd made my recommended size. It's the kind of dress that works best when worn with virtually no ease in the body. I'll blog the damn thing when I get some pictures, and you'll all drool over my beautiful dress and marvel at my Mad Sewing Skillz. My mama has a lady from Brazil staying with her right now, and said Brazilian lady apparently used to have a boutique where she sold clothing she made, when she was younger. All quilted clothing, she said. I liked that when I showed her my dress she didn't go 'oo, that's nice'. She immediately flipped it inside out and examined my seam finishing technique!

Why have I been sewing so much? I finally finished my uni degree(s) forever, and am on holiday. BCB and I are so used to the study thing that we are surprised by everyone reacting with congratulations on finishing. Both of us needed reminding that we've both achieved something quite important (to us at this point in our lives, anyway). While neither of us did much celebratory we've been dined by all parts of the family except BCB's mother who is sending us away for a weekend. In a good way. She's booking a surprise-location chalet for us somewhere.

And now for the best thing since sliced bread (this may pre-date the sliced bread, actually): Norwegian purling. I have to thank Elin for this. I commented on her blog about how I knit continental and purl English, because I can't purl continental to save my life. She e-mailed me and offhandedly said she purls Norwegian-style. I looked it up, and oh god! It's magic! It's not quite as economical of movement as some other knitting styles but it has rhythm and I've taken to it like a duck to an inground water feature. The rhythm is possibly the best part, followed closely by the fact that even when purling the working yarn is held behind the work. Which makes ribbing a breeze. No more moving the yarn about, yeah? Should you wish to try it, I started with SpellingTuesday's instructions, but in them missed the detail about holding the working yarn behind the work (um, yah. I'm a bright one sometimes). I found Interweave's written instructions (pdf) made sense of SpellingTuesday's illustrations.

Oo! And congratulations to Michelle and her n00b Patrick, born yesterday. May he fully appreciate those cabled elf booties and never tangle your yarn.

Oh Christmas stick, oh Christmas stick...

2007-12-03T08:57:00.000+09:00

Doesn't quite have the same ring, does it? Too bad. It's what I've got. A Christmas stick. I was having angst over the cost (financial and environmental) of buying a big hunk o' plastic for the living room (not that I don't love Christmas trees, I just had this internal battle going on). So I got a stick instead. The deepest irony is that my stick is actually a secondhand stick. It was my mother's. She picked it up off the lawn at Easter (Germanic countries have this tradition of Easter trees too, using pussy-willow branches. She uses gumtree branches in the absence of budding willow in Australia). It's a really elegant stick, huh? It can only take the most lightweight of my decorations, so I've got to work out some way of displaying all my awesome papier-mache-handpainted baubles too. I'm thinking of stringing them from the curtain rod. I already have some felt garlands over the curtains though. Got a better solution?

And here is the wreath. It cost $3, and involved no purchase of plastic. The ribbon I 'borrowed' out of my mother's stash. That bizzarely naff gold sprig in the middle is there as a result of an in-joke between Badly Coloured Boy and myself. There was originally just the lovely minimalist ribbon. My mother is definitely of the more-is-more school of Christmas decorating (she wanted red tinsel wrapped round that wreath too), and when decorating her tree she whipped out that sprig (can you see the gold plastic pinecone? That's my favourite part) and suggested I add it to my wreath. Seeing the horror in my eyes BCB unleashed his inner bitch and chimed in with a "Yeah! Add that! It'd look much better with the sprig too!" knowing full well my mother regards his opinion as trumping mine. And I was the only one in the room that could tell he was doing it to irk me. Never mind, I can completely see the hilarity in the situation (I'd've done the same, I think), so the sprig stays as a reminder that BCB is a bi-atch. Ignore the creepy disembodied flyscreen. I had to photoshop out our house number.

Furniture Updating

2007-11-16T16:02:00.000+09:00

Some eighteen years ago my dad bought a desk from Ikea. Eventually I inherited. I like it. It still looks alright, it still works just fine, it's a nice size. But the black handle is a bit dated, non?

This is why we love Ikea. Eighteen years on and their handle sizes are still standard (128mm). Much swisher, doncha think? Sort of industrial but not. And the little washer-type disks are just a smidge bigger in diameter, which means they cover over the bit where I idly traced round the black washers in blue biro sometime... oops.

I'd like to thank the sewing gods

2007-11-13T11:20:00.000+09:00

for Textile Traders in Morley. I was in search of a bunch of odds and sods (batting, embroidery thread, potentially cushion inserts and some dress fabric) for which I was going to have to go to Spotlight Freo for. I couldn't work up the energy for a forty minute train trip and the chaos that Spotlight inevitably is. Scouring the Yellow Pages I worked out that Textile Traders Morley was the closest place to me likely to have anything I might need, and that while I remembered it being not so hot (I ducked in one night to look at quilting cottons) it was worth a try.

Oh. Dear. Lord. It is like, ten minutes drive away (next closest fabric store is at least twice that). It has an okay range of quilting cottons (some Michael Miller, some other okay stuff). But the biggest difference is such a subtle one - it looks like their fabric buyer might have a vague idea of what is fashionable in ready to wear. Shopping at Spotlight means that I have a lot of clothes made of seersucker ticking and gingham because at least they're retro, not fug. At TT today I picked up some stunning wheat coloured dull metallic synthetic on clearance for $2 a metre. I'm going back for their somehow kind of shiny/ metallic-in-a-good-way baby cord ($3.50). Their satin prints were CUTE! Try a pink, grey, black and white print of 1930s fashion plates. Also some pink and black print of lingerie which I didn't love, but was certainly fine. So nice to see satins that aren't all aimed at children. Made me want to buy a PJ pattern (something I really must get on to). Their canvases and cotton dressmaking prints. Also attractive! Christmas fabrics? Actually some that I liked! And nothing over $10 a metre! In particular, their buyer has a similar taste in florals to me. Florals can so easily be unfashionable, but from chiffon to mid-weight cotton to canvas the florals were nice. Retro or Marimekko-ish, usually.

Their pattern range was a little limited, but I buy my patterns online anyway. The store certainly wasn't as large as Spotlight, but frankly, there was more there that I'd want to buy at a similar/ slightly lower price point to Spotlight.

What's more: the staff are friendly and enthusiastic (cf: Spotlight drones*). They all oohed and aahed over my Kokka fabric and made me write down the website. The airconditioning actually works (cf: Spotlight). While it was busy enough to reassure me that they won't close down soon I didn't have to take a ticket to get served (cf: Spotlight). Actually asked me if I wanted to put my purchases in my calico bag which I'd forgotton to give to them, rather than automatically stuffing them in plastic (a sign of people of high ethical calibre indeed).

And they had everything I needed.

* Not that I blame the Spotlight drones. If I was on their wages, in their conditions, cutting fabric for women with whining children all day I'd be surly too.

Rogue Progress

2007-11-13T08:27:00.000+09:00

(lookie! Clare can use the macro function!)

Since I had to rip out four inches or so from the body progress back up has been a little slower. But I'm getting there. The goal is to have this finished by Christmas. I'm currently maybe ten or so rows short of the armhole cast off (again), and have just started on my third skein of yarn (210g skeins). I'm really hoping after doing the middle cable repeat eight times (yeah. Eight. You heard) that I have enough yarn.

Babette/ Playing with cameras

2007-11-11T12:58:00.001+09:00

Yeah, what did ever happen to that stupidly ambitious first crochet project? Well, I finished all the squares a while ago, and started blocking them... and then kind of stalled. So, y'know, downhill run. Just blocking and seaming to go, really. Some of the squares that are supposed to be the same size vary a lot, because my gauge was not so constant. I figure that that'll sort itself out, right? Right?

That's what I have blocked so far. These were taken on a big fat.. uh.. manual digital camera? I don't even know what you call 'em. Badly Coloured Boy borrowed me one from his work, because he likes encouraging anything I do that approaches film-making tendencies, I think. I took these using the manual focus and zoom. But I think they're a tiny bit underexposed, non? Me and the F-Stop and the ShutterSpeed aren't getting on too well. Ah well, it was fun enough. I like that it makes a big manual click when you take the photo, and moving the manual lens was fun. It was really heavy though - I struggled to hold the damn thing steady, and according to an online review one of the upsides of the model he borrowed (a Pentax thingummy doodad) is that's relatively lightweight!

I really love the colour of indigo dye

2007-11-09T20:13:00.000+09:00

I think it's just such a delicious blue, no matter the intensity. I see it as a bit of beautiful luxury item, because it's not so easy to find indigo dyed things. But I was watching Collectors tonight (oh! Such a great TV show!) and a lady specialising in japanese fabrics (she had the sweetest antique pattern books, and handpainted embroidery thread spools) said that indigo was a colour reserved for the working class in Japanese feudal society. Imagine! And she showed off some kimono and helmets with designs based on tattoos. The working class in nineteenth century Japan were really, really heavily tattooed, such that tattoo imagery was influencing fashion! Double imagine!

And should you want some pretty almost-sky coloured yarn of your own, Etsy is a rather good place to look. There's this, or this, or my favourite, this.

Door Jam(b)

2007-11-07T09:11:00.000+09:00

See, this is the proper use for the internet. Not shopping, or military applications, or instant communication. A place where I can whine to the entire world about the minor injuries I do myself. I slammed my finger in the door last night. Quite hard, because I was pulling the door closed with the force necessary to close it when it's already locked. There was already a bandaid on that finger, because I bit the nail in one of my exams. But that didn't staunch the gush - the veritable flood, I tell you - of blood. Nor dull the incredible, extreme pain. I nearly bawled like a three year old. The only upside to all this is that I don't seem to have damaged the nailbed. I was terrified until I got the old bandaid off that the nail would turn black. But no, I just bruised both sides and cut myself. If you'd like to, you can click on that picture and examine my war wound in minute detail.

It makes knitting difficult. The door slammed straight across the part where I run the yarn over my finger to knit continental. So last night I got through a small portion of Rogue alternating between English (so slow!) and spazzy continental with the yarn run across the first phalanx from the hand (is phalanx the right word?)

I promise to return with some real knitting content soon. Crazy vegetables and minor injuries are not quite what this blog was intended to showcase, but they make for good diversions (I think).

Christmassy stuff

2007-11-06T15:57:00.000+09:00

I got my Christmas cards in the mail from Flora & Fauna Press. Aren't they great? I wonder if I'm the only person in the world that chooses Christmas cards because they remind me of an Agatha Christie novel. I think it's just the very, very fifties design. Subtle, but definitely there. I wish I knew the name of the typeface.

And behind it is some fabbo Kokka fabric from Duckcloth. Not sure what it will be, but damn I liked it!

Beet Root!

2007-11-05T17:45:00.000+09:00

This evening I pulled out a few of the beets that have been hanging out in our garden since the start of last winter (about six months now). Some of them never formed bulby roots properly (not sure why - too warm for them here, maybe?) so we just left them and ate the leaves like spinach. But I decided in the name of a gardening revamp it was time for them to come out.

And look at this crazy one! That root was all coiled up tight underneath what there is of a bulb. Funny, huh?

Here's another shot of the taproot stretched out a little more. With a teaspoon for scale.

Because I'm a bit silly I think the scrabbly taproot bears more than a passing resemblance to my now-half-frogged Rogue. Don't you think it looks like frogged yarn?

Uh, Houston? Problem...

2007-11-04T11:41:00.000+09:00

(and it's not Clare's mad photography skillz*)

This is Rogue. This is Rogue cast off for the armpits... oh dear. I think I'll have to rip back to the plain, repeatable cables in the middle and add another... three? four? Jeebus I'm glad I didn't go with the pocket on the front, because I'm starting some serious yarn-quantity angst. There's one extra cable in the body already. My other option is to rip the whole damn thing and try again with a needle size up. But that's too disheartening, I think.

How did this happen, you ask? Well, I'm under gauge on the row count. I admit that. I get 27 rows to four inches, not 24... but I still maintain that this pattern must be designed for the lesser of statute. Because that body is 13.5" right now, the length it is supposed to be for the smallest size. Um, do I have a freakishly long body?

On the upside, it appears the jumper isn't too tight. It was an ongoing concern as I knitted. Not quite as loose as I might have liked, but certainly not tight.

* Photo. Right. Photos taken in the mirror never look good. They will always blur - something to do with the mirror. They look worse when you use the toothpaste for sensitive teeth that leaves these little flecks like cement all over the mirror from where you brush a little crazily. But it was the best I could do, okay?

Checking in

2007-11-02T10:24:00.000+09:00

("she's checkin' in, she's checkin' in!" What? You obviously don't watch the Simpsons often enough. It's from the Betty Ford Clinic, the Musical).

I'm just squooshed in exams right now, hence it being quiet (oh, so quiet...) round here. Rogue is leaping and bounding along though. It felt very two steps forward, one step back for a while. But I'm up to the armpit shaping. It's a little smaller round the hips than I anticipated, and I've decided for reasons of length to Frankenstein the armhole shaping for the second-smallest size to the number of body stitches of the smallest. I think this means I will make the sleeves for the second smallest size.
I sincerely hope that this:
(a) works;
(b) doesn't look weird.

Alison, I'm looking directly at you for advice and reassurance right now (Alison has just managed a terrifyingly modded Rogue).

There will be photos on, say, Tuesday of next week.

The broadest of beans.

2007-10-30T10:12:00.000+09:00

(or fava, for the Americans).

Here are my chunky little broad beans growing away. Not bad, huh? I was hoping for masses, too many too eat! I was hoping for enough that I could freeze half a kilo or so of shelled beans. But I don't think that's going to happen. Not enough growing, plus they seem to be getting some weird disease. You can see the leaves yellowing in the picture above.

We are going to get a couple of meals out of them, though. This is what I've picked for tonight. They'll go with pasta and asparagus and garlic and brie. Local asparagus is in season right now, so I'm gorging on it. We can get asparagus from Thailand all year round, but it doesn't taste as good and the carbon footprint that goes with it must be enormous! With the exception of garlic we don't buy imported fruit and veges. Yum. I've eaten a few of the little beansies raw so far and they are delicious. They're too little to have skins on them.

A note on their size: I grew Coles Prolific variety, which is, I guess, a close relatives of the Coles Dwarf. Dwarf relating to the size of the beans, not the plant. What a gyp! There's only a maximum of four beans per pod. Next year I'm going to plant me so good old-school giants.

These are probably my most successful gardening exploit so far. Now fingers crossed for my ten tomato plants, my two butternut pumpkins, and the leeks (which aren't looking so great... I think Perth is a little warm for leeks). And the zucchinis which will go in next week.

What's wrong with this picture?

2007-10-24T11:23:00.000+08:00

(seems I've used that as a title before)

Hint: Think of the directions accompanying every single pattern knit in the round "Join, being careful not to twist." Got it? Yeah. I got through thirteen cable rows of Rogue, plus the facing, with a moebius strip of knitting.
So it's all been ripped. Interestingly, my gauge on plastic 4mm circulars is looser than on 4.5mm metal addi turbos. So this time the facing and body will all be knit with the same needle (as I don't have a 3.5mm circular, and am not buying one just to do a facing).
The cables aren't popping as much as I'd hoped with the Beaverslide tweed. But it's okay. I was going for a sort of tweedy, woodsy, forest-dwelling rustic/ feral sort of feel, so subtle cables aren't a huge disaster. Also I may find they pop more when I have more than thirteen rows.

And this is the onion skin dyed yarn. I followed a bastard-child combination of these instructions and these instructions. I added salt when boiling the onionskins (about two tablespoons, I think) and vinegar (a cup) when boiling the yarn. This was the skin of maybe eight brown onions? It's slightly paler, and has this interesting pink undertone in real life. But the photo above is not a bad representation.
I boiled it for maybe ten minutes, then decided that so much of the dyebath had exhausted that I wouldn't bother boiling it any longer (real professional, scientific and precise I am).

Just some little links

2007-10-22T16:13:00.000+08:00

I'm getting excited about Christmas already (I think because it's a distraction from impending exams. I start to get excited about the same time I should be starting to study). I'm already plotting and planning Christmas odds and sods. And I'm think that I should make some garlands. Decor8's recent blog post on garlands has confirmed my idea. I have two lovely little red and white felt star garlands already, but I think I'd like some triangles or circles too. I like the idea of paper being cheap, but I like that cloth garlands would be reusable. Garlands do, however, come second to my Most Favourite Christmas Ornamentation Ever. Some years ago I bought some tinsel that is really thick and fluffy. It's pine green, non-metallic, with white tips. So it looks like it's been snowed on. Sounds not so great, but it really does impart a feel of greenery in the house. A sort of lazy Australian student's equivalent of boughs of pine and holly and mistletoe adorning the bannisters of the country house. And I never ever been able to find any more since. If anyone sees it... oo, let me know.

I also need to sort out a tree. I'm a bit stymied there. I'm not a fan of the real tree, I'm not thrilled by the idea of buying a plastic one... I've heard that the WA Art Gallery Shop has a peculiar 'topiary tree' that slots together out of flat sheets of plywood. That might be the go. It's lollipop shaped, rather than pine tree shaped, but beggars/ choosers.

In non-Christmas news, my favourite pages in that totally obese US Vogue from a month or two ago were the Kate Spade ads. Loved the colours, loved the styling, loved the feel. And now, love the cute little 'I've always wanted to' page on the website that includes 'learn to knit'.

Vinnland Socks

2007-10-19T15:53:00.000+08:00

Working on these in the merino I dyed with Kool-Aid. I'm such a dolt. They were going to be snowflake socks, and then I was all "Ooo... that pattern has a lot of lines... bet I won't remember them all... might choose a different pattern." Sadly, my brain only remembered the "Choose different" part, and I picked a new pattern (Vinnland) that has three more lines to the pattern, and involves purl stitches (which slow me down like purly little speed-bumps in the smooth knittin' highway). It's a pretty pattern, but I'll be finishing them at the ankle beacuse:
(a) I mostly only wear ankle socks anyway;
(b) Pattern too slow.

Fetching mitts v2.0

2007-10-17T11:39:00.000+08:00

These are such a quick little knit. I've actually finished them both now (this photo was taken yesterday, when the pretty fabric was out). They're for Badly Coloured Boy's best friend (and my friend also, of course) Gemma. I made her a pair before, but she lost them when we were out at the Bakery one night. She didn't tell me for weeks, then casually said how much she loved the gloves I made her, and could I make her another pair? She owned up when I guessed that she lost the previous ones. But she isn't getting these till Christmas.

These are seriously modded for Gemma's tiny little artistic hands, and my personal sanity, as follows:
i) Cast on 30 stitches instead of 45.
ii) After wrist cables were finished, knit into front and back of each purl stitch for a total of 35 stitches (I made these mods on the last pair and she assured me they fit perfectly)
iii) Knit the palm, instead of ribbed, just because I'm much quicker at straight knitting and I didn't want to draw these out any longer than necessary (I just don't enjoy making the pattern very much. I find so few stitches on dpns a pain).

They aren't modelled on my hands because while they do technically fit over my hands, they're stretched out in a nasty kind of way. Much better just limp. Trust me.

While the last pair were plain black that nearly sent me blind. So these were Bendigo Woollen Mill's Midnight Tweed (now sadly discontinued). It's this awesome dark grey blended with red, blue and bright green so finely that you wouldn't even call it heathered (it's like, single hairs of fleece). The overall result is something less harsh than black or grey, but still completely neutral.