a room of my own

movin' on up

2009-04-04T15:28:00.002+11:00

i decided to do more than just update my template. i moved streets entirely. im still in the blogger neighbourhood but my new address is http://www.inaroomofmyown.blogspot.com

come on over, all previous posts and comments have been moved there.

comments on all posts on this blog have been closed. please leave comments on the new one.

k xx

blog philosophy

2009-04-03T20:56:00.007+11:00

i have been thinking about this post for a few days. this is post number 400. i have been posting on this blog since may 2006. i had been meaning to post something about the trip to london, but i have been having some 'feelings' about that, and then when i noticed it would be post 400 i thought it might be a good chance to stop and take stock instead.

i think i am experiencing a bit of e-world over-exposure. a few months ago i started facebooking, and more recently got on the twitter band wagon. i very quickly set my facebook settings so that no one can search for me (in other words, i can only add people i WANT to see me) and i am ok with how thats working, but the last few days i have been twitter spammed. i started following the prime minister kevin07, and within about 10 minutes i had all these people start following me, including the liberal party. what the?! i blocked them all, including the one that was just a link to an online casino site. ok i can block them, but the fact that people can set up their twitter to automatically follow someone who starts following someone else is just stupid. and eerie. what sort of world is it that you want to read updates about people you dont even know? what sort of person is it that needs to accumulate followers like the toys out of a happy meal, plastic and meaningless? that is NOT social networking, or whatever you want to call it.

but i dont see the blog thing as social networking, for me. i started this blog when i moved to canberra from wollongong and knew no one. all my friends were still in wollongong and sydney and i was lonely and at home working on a phd. when i started going to canberra SnBs i heard that some people had these knit blog things, and i thought that would be a good way for me to tell the people i had left behind what was going on with me. so i blogged my knitting but i blogged my life as well.

this tendency has come back to bite a couple of times. once i blogged something about a dog competition and got a nasty comment from a fellow-competitor. i changed my comment settings. recently, i blogged about another dog competition and had part of my text taken out of context (no permission no credit) and used to start a debate on RiotACT where i was villified by people i didnt know for comments i had made in the context of a blog NOT in the context of starting a debate on RiotACT. that whole episode was very distressing, not so much because of what was done but because of the rationale that was used that it was ok. that is, my blog was public and therefore 'fair game'. technically speaking correct. ethically speaking, low. lazy journalism at best.

i have however, always been aware of the paradox of public diary keeping. because this blog really has become a kind of diary. now i have moved away from canberra as well and left behind all my friends there, i feel the need to stay connected more than ever. time poor and chained to a desk, blogs, facebook and twitter are all good ways to stay in touch with the people i care about. so for me they are friendship tools.

but they are not this for everyone. for some they seem to often be a means of taking pot shots at others and hiding behind so-called 'anonymity' when we all know what they really mean. they can be tools of one-up-manship and name dropping and creation of false personas with hidden agendas. this is me being 'half-glass-empty' and focusing only on the negative, when there are real and genuine positives, i know that.

still, they give me pause for thought. i am not sure anymore how much to share. if i were to focus only on knitting, then posts would be few and far between because i am so bloody slow. and i like other peoples blogs that dont just talk about knitting. so i tell more than that, and sometimes more than i should, because thats who i am.

but a blog is not who we are really are. to judge people from what they put into 30kb posts is to make a serious error of judgement. im sure we're all guilty of it, im sure i have been. but i dont really want to stop blogging. i get so much out of it, from doing it, and from other people doing it, that i can put up with the other stuff. its just tiresome, that wherever there is human nature, there is 'other stuff'.

i dont know, maybe i need to quit the facebook and twitter instead. maybe i just need a new template.

or maybe we just all need to go back to letter writing and phone calls.

anyway, thanks for reading!

k xx

pictures for thousands of words

2009-03-31T17:22:00.005+11:00

so i am still too out of it to blog properly and i am not sure how to organise my adventures, chronologically, or by theme, because there was history and art and yarn and travel and work, so in the meantime, here is a link to some of the photos i took (i took about another hundred i wont bore you with).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kyliemonique/sets/72157616154345616/

they give you some idea of what i managed to cram into a few days!

k xx

theres no place like home...

2009-03-30T10:11:00.002+11:00

nothing is quite as beautiful as watching sydney unfold as the sun rises while you drop from 30000 feet in a plane full of poms. they were impressed. its a beautiful sight, and not just because theres no place like home. that coastline north of sydney is really something else. but yes, after 48 hours travelling i was pretty homesick and had to restrain myself from kissing the tarmac. i have now showered and eaten my first batch of vegemite toast. i am never going away without it again. i tried marmite in london, it was passable but not quite the same. there are some things one just cant live without it.

24 hours on a plane makes my back hurt. my knees also hurt and i have a blackened toe nail, as if a blood vessel burst. movies arent quite as good on 7 inch screens. its surprising how humid sydney is, even just after 10 days. the crap coffee at sydney airport at 730 this morning was better than just about any other coffee i had in the entire UK, apart from at flat white in soho (thanks shelley!). trents hair has grown. he swore at me on the mobile within 5 minutes of me being home because i got cranky with him for not being right there where i was at arrivals. so things are all normal there. i didnt forget how to drive, tho i was a bit erratic on the harbour bridge just now (trent had to go to work poor thing). jem nearly wet himself when he saw me, possum just rolled over for a tummy rub. the water pressure here is great. so is fresh white bread toasted with vegemite. i have 94 posts on bloglines to read and i think some sleeping to do, so this is just a teaser. there will be more, complete with photos, later. maybe tomorrow.

kxx

crazy town

2009-03-25T03:32:00.002+11:00

a quick post, sans pictures, from the crazy place that is london. i am leaving it tomorrow morning and i have just figured out where everything is of course! for some reason i couldnt figure out the directions of things and kept walking south when i meant to go north and ended up in back alleys and went round the block 4 times looking for the british museum when its just over there! but today of course, it all went click and makes perfect sense and now i feel completely comfortable and its time to leave!

but i am glad to be going. dont get me wrong, i love it here, its the most amazing city i have ever seen. its about a GAZILLION times bigger than sydney. for example, i just caught the bus back here from oxford st. it took as long to do 2 blocks as it takes to do circular quay to central. but it doesnt stop there, it just keeps going and going, with more shops and more streets, and more people than can possible live in one place. its just all crazy insane with people and buses and taxis and noise! i am looking forward to my two hour train trip to cardiff just for some peace and quiet. i am also hoping cardiff is considerably smaller.

i am sore all over from walking, i havent walked so much in three days for a very long time, and the jet lag has been bad, i feel asleep the first day i got here at 4 in the afternoon and woke up at 1am, then slept again till 5. last night i did from 8pm to 4am, so im hoping i can hold out a bit later tonight and get a more normal sleep pattern happening, before i get back on the plane and screw it up again entirely. its much worse going in the opposite direction i know, so im not looking forward to that.

but i am looking forward to getting home and seeing my boy and my puppies and blogging properly all the funny things that have happened and the amazing museums and all the yarn (and the books, oh god the books) i have bought so far. like the rowan, the manos silk, the wensleydale, the sublime, the debbie bliss, the quivit. no its not all for me. and i havent even been to colinette yet!

more to follow
k xx

me and my clapotis

2009-03-20T20:25:00.003+11:00

are off to london to visit the queen.

well not really, i am actually going for work in the form of a conference and meetings in cardiff, but that starts wednesday. before then i am going to try and see some of london. i am staying at a little place in bloomsbury, just near the british museum, which is appropriate given my interest in all things virginia woolf. i arrive sunday morning british time (gaining a day on the way) and have plans to walk around and check out some of the shops etc along oxford st (liberty, john lewis), and then pop into the brit, and maybe the victoria and albert museum, and then take the tube to waterloo and hang out at iknit, maybe visiting the tate modern and the globe afterwards, crossing the river on the millenium bridge to see st pauls. followed by a collapse.

then i catch the train to cardiff, for meetings and networking and then a workshop presentation at the biggest nursing research conference in the world, being held in this rather swish building, complete with swish conference dinner. then on friday i am hoping to hire a car and drive up to this little town, which is the home of colinette, and roll around in yarn there for a while (i wonder if this is where dafydd lives?!). it is about a 3 hour drive from cardiff apparently, but seems a good way to see the countryside. i will have seen enough of cities by then i think.

i have just about everything ready, workshop prepared, money organised (not without some hiccups there), tickets, etc, and you may have noticed that the suitcase is not quite full. of course there a few more things to go in there, but not much, because i intend to be bringing a few things back. nothing for me of course! also, i have decided not to risk the knitting needle thing and will settle for some good movies and a book instead. and hopefully some sleep. it is kind of weird to think that this time tomorrow i will be in the sky somewhere headed to the other side of the world.

see you when i get back!
k xx

my sweetie pies

2009-03-17T08:51:00.004+11:00

nothing about knitting pleases me more than socks. sometimes i am still amazed that something i once thought was impossible now seems so easy. this doesnt mean i do it well, particularly, but i like the fact that i know i can take some wool and some sticks and make a sock without having to carry a notebook or pattern or chart etc around as well. so much so, that i am thinking of taking an innocent ball of koigu and some bits of bamboo in a pencil case on board with me on saturday. (dont tsk tsk me like that. 22 hours in the air and you expect me to not knit?) the point im trying to make however, is that i am confident enough about the numbers of sock knitting that i can just make it up as a go.

i attempted to make one of my christmas presents up as i went, like actually designing my own pattern. i wanted to call them sweetie pie socks, because they were to have pretty purl details and be made out of a red called vatican pie. it didnt quite work, so i ended up resorting to an old favourite, the picot eyelet pattern (ribbon still to come):

i did add a few extras, like a german heel with the two purl stitches at each end of the heel flap rows, and the purling for gusset decreases.

i also did purl decreases on the toe, but i made one serious mistake with these socks, which was gift one of them with an IOU attached, without taking notes about what i did. so i am not entirely confident that they match. i thought i did a french toe on the other one, so i tried it again here, but from memory. i dont think its quite the same. however, i tell myself, this adds to their charm.

and of course, you cant go wrong with socks made from colinette jitterbug in 'vatican pie' which must be one of the most amazing sock yarns, and brilliant colours, ever. i will be at a conference next week a mere 3 hours drive away from the home of colinette, and i am determined to get there. its the same thing as being in rome and having to see st peters yes?

at any rate, i am going to go back to the drawing board on this design. i really like the effect purling can have on plain socks in yarn like the colinette or koigu, with the really tight spin they have. purl details really stand out and make the colours 'pop', as people say. i wanted to have a plain picot edge, no eyelets but a row of purls instead, then a panel of purls down the side of the leg, that matched the purls in the heel.

a very long flight on a very large plane seems the right place to attempt such a thing. i wonder if i can get an upgrade....

k xx

in the bag

2009-03-12T12:06:00.005+11:00

we all know that its just not knitting without the right accessories. hence, i am a little obsessed about project bags. i have a few of them, all different sizes, but recently ran into a problem because i am usually only working on one large item at a time. that one item was cobblestone, and it had my large custom made project bag all to itself. until recently. until i decided to start a second lily cardigan. they have been sharing the bag but it was not a happy marriage. and then this morning i discovered a little coffee shop in mona vale that sells little knick-knacky things, including these ecosilk bags:

they are fantastic colours, made from parachute silk, so they are actually really tough and fully washable, and you can tie the handles together. they are meant to be shopping bags but i think it will do just fine for a project bag. lily is happy.

cobblestone may have a bag to itself but it is not otherwise a happy project. look closely:

i was knitting merrily along on it the other night and felt something rough in my hand, looked down and found this:

really bad form. not happy jo sharp.

k xx

a walk around the block

2009-03-10T11:29:00.008+11:00

whats this you ask? two posts in two days? if you answered 'oh kylie's working from home, she must be procrastinating' you answered correctly. go to the top of the class.

seriously, i am done with grant application software.

i did have a good start to the day tho, and i thought i would share it. you have seen lots of pictures of the amazing view over the back yard, so i thought i would take you on my walk around the block this morning.

possum and i set off around 720am, me in my new shoes:

these are adidas runners ( i think i might have heard of that brand before - ha ha injoke). i got them on special for $80. they are so white they glow. they have a silver bit on them that might make me go faster. i plan to be wearing them a lot around london, so they need to get worn in first.

we start by negotiating the driveway:

and then turn right onto the main road that links our village with the next one. then there is just bushland:

we walk up here for a while, trying to avoid the people in large expensive 4 wheel drives doing significantly more than the speed limit. there are lots of horsey people around here. i am not a big fan of horsey people, but i do like horses - this place is next door:

then we turn left:

and go down a hill where there are more horsey places and a very cloudy sky:

we turn left again at a cross roads and head down this hill:

we had 80 mm of rain here on sunday, and the ground is very mushy and there are mini waterfalls running under the road:

then we go up this very steep hill:

i already have a sore calf muscle. this doesnt help, but it gets the heart racing. then we turn left again into my favourite street around here, but i took a photo while walking so its blurry. der.

i love the canopy of overhanging trees. there is another small hill here which used to hurt but doesnt anymore (a good sign), and then we turn left one more time back onto the main road and into the home stretch. we are the second set of bins on the right (try squinting):

then we turn right into the driveway:

and we're all glad to be home, about 40 minutes later. its a big block.

k xx

plus ca change

2009-03-09T08:31:00.010+11:00

despite my scepticism, it appears as though something like autumn is on the way after all. there are brown leaves skipping across the road and a few nights this week have required a small doona. mornings have a certain crispness about them as well. i think we will feel the cooler months a lot more where we live now, and i am looking forward to that.

but something feels weird about seasonal change this year. i think i am feeling the inevitability of it, that despite all our efforts to the contrary time continues to slip through our fingers, the one thing about life on earth that humanity can not control. i used to feel like i had lots of it, and, like most kids, couldnt wait to be grown up. now i would gladly slow things down. a lot. not that i am grown up (growing up appears to be a never ending process of continually coming to terms with how much you cant control!), its just that it seems sometimes as though i am waiting for the next thing to happen, rather than just living. this feeling has become more pronounced with a full time job where weekends have become precious commodities and i say things like 'thank god its friday'. lots of times over the past 10 years i didnt even know what day of the week it was! now i have calendars and diaries and meetings planned months in advance and its very weird.

as a sign of the changing seasons, the tomato plants started to wither up and die. admittedly it wasnt just the weather, although extreme flucations in temperature probably didnt help. i watered these buggers religiously but i think the nutrients in the soil were still deficient, despite the frequent addition of worm wee:

so i pulled them all out over the weekend and am going to plant more sturdy herbs, rather than vegetables, in these pots. i think vegies need more room for root systems. i did harvest plenty of fruit tho, a lot of which will be ripening on the kitchen window sill:

and now the pots will look like this for a while till i get back from england and can tend to them properly again:

speaking of england, less than 2 weeks to go. our workshop for the conference is nearly all planned, and i found out last week that some people i have written about in another paper will be there, so i am making plans to interview them as well. meanwhile i will be doing some running around this week getting the bits and pieces i need to be able to drive a car through wales to that very important factory. i am excited about going, but i must confess that i really dont travel all that well. the plane thing is fine, i quite like flying, but i do get freaked out being in big cities i dont know. london looks kind of scary. at least this time i wont have to deal with the language thing. it was ok in italy because i can speak it a bit and the italians are mostly nice people who will try and work out how to communicate. the less said about communicating in amsterdam the better as i have nothing nice to say and will likely offend someone. mostly tho, i just like being at home. i miss my boy and my puppies, and i dont like being in new places alone when i would rather share the joy and excitement with someone. and i feel guilty for going overseas three times without him. but we are planning a big trip to the US later this year, so i will try and not have too much fun this time around. i cant lie about looking forward to the potential stash enhancement, however!

on the knitting front, i have been working mostly on lily and the victorian ruby, of which i have now finished the first border and have changed direction to knit the body. when i ripped it back and restarted at a certain row, something wrong happened that i didnt notice till it was too late, but i can block it out so im letting it slide (thats one thing that never changes, n'est pas?):

and lily grows slowly:

last night while watching 'lost in austen' (yes please), i put all the bits on their separate waste yarns ready to start sleeves etc and then remembered reading how someone, knitting something like this, figured out how to continue with the body and to come back and do sleeves later. advice please!

meanwhile, i have to redye my hair because weird grey bits are sticking out everywhere again (ok, i dont HAVE to, i CHOSE to) and i have upgraded my skin cream to the 'firming' kind. sigh. in other (french) words, plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose*.

k xx

* the more things change, the more they stay the same

mixed bag

2009-03-02T15:07:00.007+11:00

rant\. this weekend just gone we drove to canberra for the royal show. i usually look forward to it even tho we have had some bad experiences there before in relation to the flyball comp, which is what we go for. after the weekend we just had i am pretty sure the canberra royal is cursed for us. the spot where they put the flyball is also the spot used for camping during that other canberra cultural highlight, summernats. hence, given the lack of rain in that part of the world at that time of year, it is sometimes a bit of a rough patch. this year it was a dust bowl. saturday was hot (36) and windy. dust got in everything, including my knitting.

after a while of scraping through the dirt possum started limping and then we saw that she had scraped the skin off her dew claw pad. poor baby. we taped her up but it didnt help and she ran a lot slower so we lost races we would normally win. we ended up having to pull her out so she wouldnt get hurt worse, and we finished only third when we were pretty sure of a first or second. we did one good time, but if they dont fix that surface for next year i think we wont go. the bad part of the weekend was made worse by the fact that we, the flyballers, were not given parking permits into the exhibitors part of the showground and would have had to pay show rates for parking. this didnt apply to people doing agility, or with the pretty show dogs. (what is it with the human race, that people always have to JUDGE someone else, and what they do, as not worthy somehow?) so we parked out on the street and came back to find a window smashed and the car broken into. we lost important stuff we probly shouldnt have left in the car, and yet again i am left wondering at the complete deadshits human beings can be at times. especially canberra bogans.

i also had the joy of having some idiot woman from some other club competing in the flyball yell at me for not 'stewarding' (ie help out in the ring during racing). i dont run a dog, i just help my husbands team. i am not even a member of the afa. i dont need to steward if i dont want to. and i dont want to. right now, i dont want to go near flyball ever again because of stupid people like her, and the bad losers in other teams, and the internal politics that continues to leave a very bad taste in my mouth.

i understand that humans are just human, you get them in a group and all kinds of weird shit happens. but i am getting downright annoyed at being dragged into squabbles that have nothing to do with me (and not just in flyball), at being told lies and manipulated and played because other people need to make themselves feel better, or need to feel like victims in this world. i dont care if not everyone likes me, i probably dont like them either, but seriously, build a bridge people, and leave me out of it. /rant.

there were goodies to be had at the canberra show however, i just didnt get a chance to take pictures. like bells, i enjoyed the german sausage, but i thought the numbers were down and some of the usual selling points werent there (eg, no opal lady). i am pretty sure tho that i got teary when i saw the beautiful things in glass cabinets that my clever friends had made that now wore ribbons, and i made a resolution to work really carefully on something of my own to enter in a show next year. im pretty sure someone else agreed to do the same, yes?! it was very inspiring, and im very proud to know the people who made such lovely things. we had a lovely dinner together with other lovely friends and partners after the show, even though i nearly fell asleep in my chocolate mousse parfait, but i enjoyed my mini impromptu snb, and am thankful for the help i got with the ruby problem i have.

the ruby problem you ask? here it is and see if you can spot it:

no its not a test. apart from a problem in the very early rows that i was willing to let slide, i had a pattern reading problem, so that instead of doing chart a rows 1-46 then rows 15-58, i did chart a rows 1-58 all at once. woops. i had to rip it back a bit, and i thought i had fixed it but i hadnt. you know when you look at something and think about something so hard and so long it just blurs? i couldnt for the life of me see what i needed to do. jane saw the problem in about 5 seconds flat. i have now ripped it back again and restarted from row 15 again, and i think there might be a minor hang over problem that you will get when you rip lace with no lifeline, but i can live with it. i now have only 4 works in progress

(gratuitious shot of lovely lily in zara there), including nearly finishing the second of the vatican pie socks (colinette, how do i love thee, let me count the ways). speaking of which i have been trying in vain to figure out how to work in a day trip up to llanfaire caereinion to hang out at the colinette factory during the very important conference i am going to in cardiff, but its in the middle of nowhere, with no direct train line, and i dont have an international drivers licence with which to hire a car....sigh. i shall have to make do with yarn stores in london (only 3 weeks to go!!). its a hard life....

k xx

ETA: sorry about the rant, i am not very good at self-censorship! its not aimed at anyone in particular, just the world in general :)

long not so lacy summer

2009-02-26T07:42:00.007+11:00

in two days they tell me summer is over for another year, but i remain a sceptic. the australian climate has no respect for european calendar systems. i have known it to be damn hot at easter. we have had a minor reprieve with some rain and cloud but we are off to canberra this weekend for the flyball comp at the canberra royal (and to catch up with people and to see clever knitted things in the show), and i know it will be stinking and if there is hell on earth to me, its canberra in summer. at a flyball comp. but there will be compensations, im sure.

the point of this rant about summer is that its over, which means the 'long lacy summer' is over. i have been a bad KAL-er, as i always am, because life (and other knitting) seems to get in the way. i have made very little progress on the myrtle leaf shawl that bells and i started on australia day:

its a difficult knit in terms of concentration factor and i havent been up to it with the new job and working out timetables etc. and then there was lily. i did really itch to do some lace lately so i went back to victorian ruby which has a rest row, and a knit one at that. nice.

this yarn is jade sapphire cashmere and is the most beautiful thing i have ever held, i wish i could explain how soft it is.

but i did finish one lacy thing this long summer, and its a gift. it was went to be a christmas present for george, it was finished a couple of weeks ago and finally got blocked this week. it is just lovely:
it is not perfect, and my blocking leaves something to be desired, but this yarn (knittery slim socks in merlot) has lent itself quite well to the idea of being a scarf instead of socks. it has a lovely silky touch to it that works really well with the fantastic pattern that is the 'weldons wide and handsome border' from victorian lace today.

speaking of socks, my IK Spring arrived yesterday and i was flicking through some kind of nice patterns (probably nothing i will make) when i saw the most interesting thing in the magazine - an ad. not just any old ad tho, oh no, it was an ad for a book, a whole book of cookie a sock patterns.

it comes out in april. i am sooo there.

k xx

back...and baking

2009-02-22T07:39:00.004+11:00

that was a long and tiring week. im glad its over. i dont like being away from home really. i did get nearly a whole paper written, it just needs some polishing, but its pretty close. i didnt get a lot of knitting done really, just a few rows on lily here and there. but there was a lovely little parcel waiting for me when i got home...

ok, it wasnt so little. it contained rather a lot of malabrigo:

the green is for renee and the rest is for me.

these 4 skeins of lace weight are in paris night colourway and are for the shetland tea shawl from 'a gathering of lace' if i ever manage to finish the myrtle leaf, or the victorian ruby. (i am a bit obsessed with lily at the moment but am missing the lace, i might do some today). the paris night colours are perfect, not quite black, or grey, or blue, or purple, but little bits of all of them at the same time. scrummy.

and two more velvet grapes in worsted to go with the 4 i got for my birthday. this is enough now to make a leisl for me. if i ever finish lily, and trents cobblestone! so much knitting, so little time.

oh, and whats that in the background? sam norton knight tackling my yarn, as the waratahs beat the chiefs. two from two, happy about that.

anyway, all this yarn fondling made me want to do some baking, so i set up the ingredients in the kitchen and set to work:

the result was 5 cakes:

2 of the velvet grapes for leisl, one socks that rock in atomic for the blackrose socks (i only have one pair of socks that are nearly finished on the needles, must remedy that situation!), plus the koigu for plain socks, and one skein of the paris night just to see what it looked like. delicious!

k xx

away from home

2009-02-17T18:22:00.007+11:00

this week i am away from home, but only down the road. well, 2 hours down the road, but i am staying here for the week because i am in a 'writing for publication' workshop and there is homewrok to do and its pretty heavy going, so i didnt think i could cope with the driving AND thinking. today was day 2 and it has taken me this long to figure out how to get the laptop connected to the uni wireless network. sheesh. anyway, here i am, eating my healthy choice microwave meal, reading papers about factors that influence nursing as a career choice and making mind maps:

its raining here still, and its lovely really. this is such a gorgeous campus, here is the view from my window (i am staying at the unilodge).

oh, and i might be knitting a bit. i cast on lily mark two in the filatura di crosa zara and its motoring along:

i love this pattern, so easy. no sewing. this might be a record knit for me, timewise. and did i mention i am in love with the zara? i may never knit with anything else again....

and before i left i managed to finish the second of bells' christmas monkey socks. the colours are not great here as it was cloudy but the cherry tree hill sock yarn in serengeti is MADE for monkeys. voila:

i must end with an apology. i am not much of a blogger at the moment, obviously rather sporadic in the posting, but not great on the commenting either. a full time job may well add to the bank balance (not sure, havent been paid yet) but it definitely detracts from important blogging time. you are in my thoughts tho.

k xx

when looks deceive

2009-02-12T17:08:00.004+11:00

there is nothing quite like the joy of home grown tomatoes:

there is also nothing quite like the horror at home grown tomatoes gone wrong - grubs did this i think:

and too much rain did this:

bugger.

dont get me wrong, im not complaining about the rain, it started a couple of days ago and has been pretty constant on and off since. they are getting some of it down in the fires, and things are looking a bit greener and a bit less scary around here. the temp has dropped considerably too. i am grateful for that but the extremes are a little off-putting. it just seems very unpredictable. its freaking me out. as a kid growing up in the 70s i remember lying awake at night in real fear of the nuclear bomb. these days i am glad i dont have kids to raise in a world that sits on the brink of environmental and ecological disaster. it would be too freaky.

on the not-so-freaky side, i have started another version of the lily cardigan. i made one of these last year in a lovely possum-merino blend and it was beautiful, until i washed it, at which point the sleeves grew by about another half length and the picot edges curled up making the whole thing about half a foot shorter than it should be. ok so i exaggerate a little, but ever since i have been determined to make another one in a more structured yarn, minus the *cough* slight variations *cough cough* in the first one.

so i bought some zara specially, and swatched it two nights ago. i swatched it on 3.5mm needles because they were what i had spare (even tho the pattern says 3.75mm) and despite rather vigourous wet blocking my swatch refused to be 4x4 inches.

sigh. i do have a 3.75mm addi turbo but the cable in it really shits me because it is badly kinked, but i cast on with it last night anyway. there is a lot more room in the stitches, i can tell already it will be closer to gauge.

this is good because it means i dont have to alter the pattern or stitch count. my only concern is that its going to make a fabric that is a little bulkier than i was hoping for. i know what youre going to say. swatch it again on the right size needle. no FREAKY way. too impatient. sorry.

k xx

world on fire...

2009-02-09T09:00:00.006+11:00

all the news here is about the fires in victoria and its hard to not have that put things in perspective. bells has already written most eloquently on the subject. it does however make me think about all sorts of things, about white settlement of a land mass that regularly sets itself on fire to regenerate, and our complete and utter refusal to accept that fact. about our modern capitalist insistence on being individually comfortable, in cars, with air conditioning, no matter the cost. and it reminds me of a book i read recently, cormac mccarthy's the road, (about to be a movie) which is the scariest thing i have read in a long time, the most utterly distressing and compelling book ive ever come across, about a world destroyed by fire and what happens to humanity in the aftermath. its a very telling tale, but its a lesson i fear we we will never learn.

despite the southerly that came last night i woke up in a sweat and got up to turn fans on. i looked outside and could see the peats ridge fire buring in the distance.

its a good 60kms north of us but it has been burning all weekend and the smoke has smeared the horizon:

while the smell of burning eucalyptus fills the air. its a strange sensation, and its one i associate entirely with summer in australia. so why are we never prepared?

anyway, we spent most of the weekend in our luxurious pool thanking our lucky stars that we have a pool. trent and the dogs slept a bit:

yesterday evening we cooked chicken on the bbq and sat looking over our yard and the miles of bushland only a hundred metres away and talked about what to do when the fire comes our way, as it inevitably will. dogs. laptop. run. oh, and ring the insurance company and check our coverage.

it has been so hot i have not managed to get much knitting done. when i am tired i find knitting acts like a soporific so its been slow going this week. another repeat on myrtle. approaching the toe on monkey number two:

and back to work already. i have one more week of working two part time jobs, before starting the new one full time officially next monday. my first week is a full on writing workshop. good lord, what have i done?!

k xx

the idea of perfection

2009-01-31T14:11:00.004+11:00

as a self- taught and mathematically-challenged knitter, i have grown used to the fact that my knitting is not now and will never be perfect. every project i have ever embarked upon has been frogged or carries some degree of mistake (the kind that you point out to other knitters just in case they spot it and look at each other with raised eyebrows and pursed lips and mutter something about lifelines, which is also the kind of mistake that most NORMAL people would not notice and think that whatever you make is lovely and clever and special). i am not by nature a perfectionist, not since i left the prison-house that was the childhood home, where everything had to be just so, and from which i rebelled into 'that'll do'. and usually, it will do.

this does not mean that i dont strive to do things properly, and when it comes to knitting, i try pretty hard to get it right. there isnt much point in knitting lace and stuffing it up and knitting along anyway, cos its not going to look much like the pretty pictures in vlt that way. and if i was going to do that, i wouldnt bother with lace for a start.

but i am bothering with lace, and often lace bothers me. it is the sort of knitting that i do with my tongue out and tension gathering in my shoulders, forgetting to breath as i go. you would think then that i would confine myself to knitting lace with a rest/purl row. oh noooo that would be SENSIBLE! instead i decide to embark on the myrtle leaf shawl with bells. of course, hers is going great guns, growing by the minute, and i feel an urge to keep up with her. but i cant, and i wont, for a number of reasons. firstly, i frogged it three times. there was just something about the chart i wasnt reading properly. secondly, it can not be knit at night time, its too hard to tell where you're at, and black 2 ply silk is NOT for tinking. thirdly, it can not be knit with other people around. it requires full concentration, i have to count every stitch, double check everything as i go, remember to breath. so its slow going. i have done one full repeat of the main chart. there are 40 repeats required. so its going to be a long-term committment this one. but i dont care, i love it! look, see:

you know what? its perfect! there is not ONE single error in this repeat. i love that about it. its my goal to knit the rest of it, one repeat at a time, with no mistakes. just so i can have one piece of knitting that is perfect. and that piece really should be a black silk shawl. so bells will finish before me, but we will both have something beautiful at the end!

there is a bit of near-perfection in the air today. its hot, again, of course, so i cleaned the pool and went in:

i thought of you all as i splashed around on my pool noodle. i may even have giggled to myself :)

i have had to restake my cherry tomatoes as they are growing like wild things.

they are so delicious that they dont even make it upstairs, whenever i pick one i just pop it in my mouth and go all mushy at the rich sweet home grown tomato flavour. best thing in the world.

oh, apart from perfect yarn! i have some of that too. knitting camp weekend also meant some stash enhancement, in the form of some pink koigu that i bought myself and bells delivered:

(yes i just noticed that one skein is slightly lighter than the other. i dont care, its koigu).

and some gorgeous blue koigu that donni gave me. what fantastic colours:

mmmmm koigu. and now i am home alone for quite a few hours with just myrtle to keep me company. does it get any more perfect? i think not....

k xx

a bevy of knitters

2009-01-27T09:24:00.004+11:00

bev⋅y
/ˈbɛvi/ Spelled Pronunciation [bev-ee]
–noun, plural bev⋅ies.
1. a group of birds, as larks or quail, or animals, as roebuck, in close association.
2. a large group or collection: a bevy of boisterous sailors.

this weekend a group of birds descended upon our house for kylie's summer knitting camp (no trademark infringement intended because im pretty sure no one owns the rights to the concept of knitting camp). it wasnt really a camp anyway, most people had proper beds to sleep in, although for a house with 5 bedrooms, we still needed to put a mattress out in the lounge room!

the birds in question were of the knitting variety, though they could also be mistaken for boisterous sailors, especially after a day of quaffing large amounts of bubbly while floating in the pool. the evening conversation was rather amusing as a result.

it was so incredibly hot on saturday we did little knitting but were mercifully saved by the pool. some clever people worked out how to put up the shade sail (which is actually a real windsurfer sail):

and there were no snakes swimming with us, although today we have a frog:

we nodded briefly at australia day by putting lamb on the bbq but it was marinated greek style and the chicken was portuguese, because australia is actually a land of immigrants despite certain redneck racist appearances to the contrary. thankfully some the birds bought their mates who carry the bbq-gene, so dinner and breakfasts were wonderful.

we had pavlova and chocolate chip cookies and mini lemon meringue pies and paella and sangria, including a non-alcoholic 'blonde' one made with sparkling grape juice. yummo.

there was also some knitting. dr k became a convert to the clappy, and also learnt the basics of sock construction, and bells and i plunged into the abyss of black lace. and long tail cast ons. for a being with an opposable thumb i was alarmingly badly co-ordinated in that department, but i did get the hang of it which is lucky because i had to frog the bloody thing of course. it got a bit easier when i submitted to the discipline of stitch markers after each pattern repeat but i am still doing something wrong - this is where i got to on the second go last night but its not quite right and i will probably start again today:

i do get the feeling tho that once i get into the swing of it it will be ok and the yarn is just delicious (jaggerspun zephyr mmmmmm).

today i am at home because there is something wrong with my car, it went funny on the way to work this morning so i came home via the mechanics and am waiting to hear. after such a lovely noisy weekend it is very quiet here today, and it started raining when everyone left and hasnt stopped, which seems entirely appropriate. i am a little bit tired and a little bit blissed out at having such wonderful people in my life who will come and spend a whole weekend and fill it with love and laughter.

but to the person who took the ikea body-drawing model thing and replaced it with this:

i know where you live...

k xx

calling dr freud

2009-01-22T08:19:00.002+11:00

last night i had a dream that my lovely friend renee and i were sitting down for coffee somewhere (could it have been paris? london perhaps?) anyway, and this girl comes up and sits next to us and she says to me 'whats the gorgeous perfume youre wearing?'. this girl is paper thin, british and wearing a rather startling long red silk dress. i look at her and say 'that new chanel one' (the name eludes me) and she looks puzzled and we look at her some more and i realise who it is and i say 'for goodness sake, the one that youre in the ad for!'. yes that was keira knightley, and no we couldnt remember the name of the perfume, but its coco mademoiselle and i do wear it, every day. i have not, however, bumped into keira knightley while doing so.

enough silliness.

k xx

rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated....

2009-01-20T16:57:00.004+11:00

no i am not dead, i just have a job. song lyrics leap through my head, the smiths obviously, but ive quoted them before about being miserable when finding a job, but it doesnt apply because im not miserable. alanis morrisette comes next with her little ditty about irony.

of course, she doesnt really know what irony is (jane austen on the other hand knew very well....) but it IS ironic that all i ever wanted when i was doing a phd was a job and money and a normal life and well, here i am... yes its ironic. while im on the subject, i am still working two part time jobs because i have the interview on friday to make the new job official, permanent and fulltime, but i dont want to quit my 2 day job until i have the contract signed (i lie, i do want to quit, i want to quit it RIGHT NOW but other people are telling me to be sensible). so i wont quit until next week when we have the paperwork done.

good news on the new job front is that i have been able to negotiate working from home two days a week and also to include a research component, which means i can keep working on the current project to do with nursing and for which i am going to wales in march (would you believe the 6 nations rugby final is on in cardiff the night i am scheduled to land in london....more irony anyone?) and also means i can bring my own work to the new faculty and apply for grant money with some very big names in the grant-getting business. they are already sending me to a one week writing workshop, and the work itself is interesting and varied, so i am feeling pretty good about it so far. i imagine i am going to feel a whole lot better again when i get my first fulltime pay packet. its not about the money....its about the MONEY! seriously, being a student put a lot of strain on us, i will glad to see the end of it.

however, the other pains of student life are fast starting to look rosy in my retrospective glasses, as the pinch of the real world makes itself felt. not that i want to be a student again, but it can be a nice life while you have it!!

in other news, i have finished the first of my christmas gifts. no not for this year, for last year. yes yes im hopeless. i actually dont subscribe to christmas consumerism and refuse to buy stuff for anyone anymore, but i did want to make 3 people in particular something meaningful. i didnt quite plan it out right, and ended up giving helen and jane one sock each with IOU tags attached, and to george i gave a box with half a weldon's scarf still attached to the needles inside. it was pretty funny watching her pull it out of the box and asking 'am i meant to finish this?' no she wasnt, i was, and i have. its not blocked yet but its so lovely. see:

because i dont plan (did i mention that already?) i also forgot to figure out how much yarn i used on the first border and then just knitted the body to as long as i liked with no thought for leaving enough for the second border. i got lucky:

this is knittery slim sock in merlot, too slim for socks i think, perfect for lightweight vintage lace scarves. this is actually my first official long lacy summer FO, i have another scarf (victorian ruby) on the needles i can go back to, and am starting the myrtle leaf shawl from VLT in jagger spun zephyr in black this weekend.

this weekend is looking kind of special. not because its australia day (tho some lamb might find its way on the barbie and there was talk of a pavlova) but because a whole heap of lovely knitty people are coming to spend the whole weekend and im so excited i cant stand it! hurry up and get here already! i promise i got the snake out of the pool :) (plus also the frog and the funnel web).....

kxx

snakes alive

2009-01-14T08:53:00.008+11:00

warning: if you are squeamish or planning on swimming in this pool anytime soon (you know who you are) you might want to look away now. yesterday there was a snake in the pool. at first i thought it was just a long piece of bark, we get that, being surrounded by gum trees:

but no, it was a snake. we get them too, apparently, being surrounded by gum trees. the wires person who came to fish it out thought it might have been a python but on closer examination of this picture:

i am pretty sure it was a red bellied black snake. it had managed to get itself out of the pool before we could catch it, and has slithered back into the shrubbery around the pool fence i think, where im sure its doing good deeds by getting rid of rats. oh yes, we get them here too apparently.

whats more of a worry is that the snake was the best part about yesterday. i worked mostly from home because i had a guy coming to finish installing new fly screens and he is an older gentleman, from central europe, and a right royal pain in the arse. he wanted to argue with me about what did or didnt need doing, and failed to get the message that we just wanted them ALL done regardless of what he thought of their condition, and in fact, he had agreed to do them all the first time he came, so of course he was shitty and didnt leave till 730pm.

and i had a crap working from home day with a heap of hierarchy politics going on in my sydney job, and that upset me, but it helps to confirm that the other path i am taking is the right one, because i was looking forward to coming back here today (sick, i know), and also confirms that the hunch i have been developing over the last few years, that australia's academic historians are arrogant self-important ego-maniacs, is in fact correct, and really, i dont want to be one.

give me a snake anyday. at least you know its going to bite you, not pretend its your friend, ally or mentor just before it sinks its fangs in.

k xx

making time

2009-01-11T17:24:00.009+11:00

who knew you could do so much with so little time?! despite my protestations about working almost full time (2 x part time) i have managed to fit in quite a lot this week.

on thursday i worked at my city job and came home early to the smell of over ripe bananas in the kitchen. interestingly, someone bought me a very appropriately titled cooking book for christmas, donna hay's no time to cook. in it was a recipe for 'simple banana bread' and given that most of my attempts at banana bread have been anything but simple i decided to give this one a go. it never ceases to amaze me that you can start with this:

and end up with this:

it was delicious, best banana bread ever. i am going to make it again and again.

i made time for knitting at work by taking the second of the monkey socks that i owe bells for her christmas present and forcing myself to take a full lunch hour (or thereabouts) and work through one whole pattern repeat in between bites of my ham, roast capsicum and avocado sandwich (they have a great sandwich bar in the uni food court - bonus). at this rate, monkey number two will be finished in 6 more lunch hours, plus maybe a night time of heel turning and toe grafting. it felt good to be disciplined about it.

i also discovered that i had, quite by accident, knitted the required amount of drop stitch pattern repeats for the body of the weldon's scarf, and could start the second border. no crack scales required. i am pretty confident i have enough yarn, as i started with more than the pattern calls for. it took me quite some time to get my head around how to start a knitted on border that runs at 90 degrees to the body of the scarf. the way the pattern was written made no sense to me, and the more i thought about what they were asking the less sense it made. so i decided to just knit it like they said anyway and see what happened. the issue was that i had to crochet cast on 36 stitches, but the way the pattern read it would be on to the right hand needle and i didnt think you could do that. but you can, and i did, it was a bit awkward, but it worked and i am now working horizontal to the vertical body, picking up body stitches and knitting them to the border every second row:

thats why im not a pattern designer see! anyway, it too will be finished with a few more night time knitting hours.

we have had a lovely weekend, doing some neglected house and yard work yesterday, getting all the washing done, home made pizza for dinner, even watched a movie on dvd. and then today we went off for a bit of a four wheel drive adventure, looking for a secret route to the old north road that the convicts built. there is a place where you can drive on to it, but we couldnt find it, and made do with trekking for a while on the shepherds gully track part of it. we could see parts of the original stone road under the leaves and rubble, and then we found a fantastic bridge-type part made of perfectly hewn sandstone blocks, with a tunnel under it to drain the water under the road. as i scrambled back up the bank from the tunnel, i pulled myself up using one of the large paving rocks, and i thought, i just touched a rock that a convict touched. sounds weird, but it was pretty amazing. 200 years ago they built that road, and its still there, it was pretty magic. we had a lovely lunch at the settlers arms at st albans and then drove back the other way, meaning we took two ferries to cross the hawkesbury. very cool.

and i still found time to stop and smell the roses. well, the tomatoes anyway. the cherry tom plants in pots are going mental,

and there were two red ones, i picked the smaller one (not pictured) because it looked red but when i got it inside it was still a bit orange. it was a bit tart but really sweet as well, yummo. i cant wait to eat the rest of them. is there a trick to knowing when to pick them, or how long to leave them to ripen etc? i am very impatient with these things....well ok with most things, i admit it.

speaking of which, there is a border needing knitting. theres no rest for the wicked you know!
kxx

there are no knitting police

2009-01-08T07:55:00.012+11:00

are there bells? no there are not. yet inside my head it is totalitarian knitting-police state. i have been feeling like a bit of a loser on the knitting front, not able to keep up with the amazing output of some of the bloggers i read, overwhelmed by the choices on ravelry, even a little bit freaked out by my increasing stash. i am starting to understand why i have resisted a major stash enhancement. i am not good at having yarn sitting around. i want to make stuff with it. there is currently too much of it sitting over there in that basket taunting me with its loveliness and reminding me how little time i have to knit.

this has become majorly exacerbated lately with the taking on of a new job and its attendant travelling time (for such a huge country, our public transport really sux). i am not even finished my first week and it is very obvious to me that i am going to be lucky to get an hour or two of knitting time a day. you cant get a lot done in two hours a day.

and i made it worse for myself by buying this book:

and falling madly in love with this shawl:

and i am going to do it in malabrigo too. i just dont know when! bells and i are starting the myrtle leaf shawl soon and i still have two scarves to finish- one of which is intended as a gift, but it is nearly there:

my problem here is that i dont know how much yarn it took me to do the first border so i am not sure when to stop the length to knit the second border. i need some crack scales.

my other problem is that i knitted some people a single sock each for christmas, including my very first monkey (which i LOVED making, what a great pattern), and i gifted them with IOU tags attached. they need to be finished in the next two weeks as well.

after this though, i am going to have to take the pressure off myself to produce outcomes, and go back to knitting as a process. i promised my nieces some cardigans but i just wont have time, and i dont knit to get more stressed, i knit to unwind. so a shift of focus will be required to oust the police state. maybe i need a knitting buddha!

at least today has dawned cool and cloudy with the arrival of a good southerly, pushing the heatwave out to sea. there was talk of bushfires yesterday, but this morning it looks like this:

and i dont have to drive to work today. thats something.

knitting, anyone?

k xx

squeak squeak

2009-01-05T14:21:00.004+11:00

i am now officially a mouse, chained to the wheel of full time employment. thats the sound i make as a run around and around. this is the wheel to which i am chained:

of course, its not actually as bad as that. in fact its kind of good. i still have my two day a week history association job but will be quitting it soon because i have been offered a full time job (i think i may have talked about this before!) for which i cant be interviewed and hence officially appointed until late january. in the meantime, i am on a short term 3 day a week contract. which means i am here (uow) three days and there (unsw) two days. i have had many dilemmas about the travelling issue (it is a nearly 2 hour drive from home to uow, and there are no trains that get me here in reasonable time in the morning, so i must waste 4 hours a day driving when i could be knitting!) but if i have a day at in sydney in between each wollongong day it wont be too bad, and i can work up to flexible arrangements as i settle into the job more.

so far it seems like an interesting job, a lot to take care of, many things to manage at once, and some of it dead boring, but the opportunities it presents are worthwhile, and to be honest, i am sick to death of being the poor one. its time i earnt some good money, to put back at least some of what i have taken out over the last 10 years, and because i am grown up enough now to do that!

so while im sure the novelty will pass soon enough, for today at least, i am happy to be squeaking away.

k xx

two thousand and nine

2009-01-01T17:21:00.004+11:00

and so it begins, another year passes, another year older. wiser? hmmm. perhaps. in some ways yes. in some no, same old same old. but in many ways 2008 was our annus horribilus and now that its over it feels like the end of an era, and i think this is a good thing. new beginnings and all that. starting a new year not being a student, with a new job to go to next monday (to become full time in another month or so), and new horizons to explore. i am pretty confident 2009 will be a good vintage.

we saw the new year in just us and the dogs, with a seafood bbq and only ventured out in search of ice cream, but our favourite place was shut (shut, on new years eve, when all the restaurants around it were buzzing! i mean, really) and settled for something slightly less satisfying from down at manly. lots of people about. beautiful summer evening. we came home, watched one episode of boston legal and crashed by 1030. the reason for this early evening is that we decided yesterday we would go for a little stroll on the waratah track in the national park behind us, my dad had this great idea to give us a 'bushwalks in sydney' book and we read about this walk and it sounded pretty easy. it wasnt really hard as far as bushwalks go, but it was hot yesterday and there were a couple of steep climbs, and some of us arent getting any younger! if i made new years resolutions one of them would be something about improving fitness, but this is one of my perpetual life-projects anyway. after yesterday tho, i do feel somewhat more motivated to actually put in a bit more effort on that front.

anyway, we slept it off while there was some big fireworks thing going on in town, then 2009 dawned hot and sunny, and with me feeling a bit sore and sorry! we did some gardening, had scrambled eggs for breakfast, a bit of house cleaning in preparation for visitors this weekend, and then a long loll around in the pool. i think this is a rather auspicious beginning to the year. harmonious and domestic. i think i will make this my theme. and this picture kind of sums it up, no?

hope everyone else had a good one and isnt feeling too bad this side of the parties. and i really hope 2009 brings some peace and joy to the world, and some sense to those determined to stuff it up.

k xx

i'm ba-ack

2008-12-31T14:00:00.002+11:00

and have been for a few days but what with unpacking and washing and trying to enjoy this week off, i am not up to much blogging. and there has not been much knitting really, just a lot of length added to the weldons lace scarf. it made for good car knitting. we had a lovely time away, it was good to be with family and we went for lots of drives and i saw fraser island for the first time. we didnt go over as it was too busy but we watched the ferry go over and then drove the car down onto the beach at inskipp point without deflating the tyres and got stuck in the sand. just for a little while. we got out with some help. next time, we take the proper equipment! then we went walking in the forest behind my dads place where possum picked up a tick, even tho she had a tick collar on, and started to show signs of paralysis so we drive up to the one and only vet open in hervey bay and he gave her the anti-tick serum which of course she had a bad reaction to, requiring a shot of adrenalin. i was a bit scared for her for a minute there, but she is ok. it wouldnt be a christmas away without one of our dogs getting ticked. sigh.

trent took some lovely photos which i will blog once i get around to resizing them. i might have something more interesting to show and tell by then, and i hope to get around to reading all the posts in my blogroll!

have a safe new years whatever you are doing. personally, i cant wait to see the back of 2008.

k xx

away

2008-12-22T06:01:00.002+11:00

we are packing the car about to head up the highway to my dads place in queensland for christmas. i am, despite myself, looking forward to it. even the car trip is fun when you are a knitter!

hope everyone has a great week, whatever you do with it, see you on the 29th.

k xx

oh happy happy joy joy

2008-12-17T08:29:00.003+11:00

so apparently my pollyanna attempt wasnt entirely convincing. meh. im no pollyanna, i know that. but i tried! today, i am genuinely happy tho. some good things happened yesterday, so its hard to stay grumpy forever.

firstly i got a little pressie in the mail. it might have been some malabrigo sock yarn in Tiziano Red. it is the most perfect colour for me, and is that not the best name for a red?! malabrigo sock yarn is designed to make you feel better about things all round. thank you, you little elf.

secondly, our second family christmas bbq here went very well and everyone had fun, and everyone loved their presents, and books were opened and read, and i was presented with a lovely box set of the harry potters. as if i needed an excuse to read them again! (btw, i finished atonement over coffee this morning. sigh. so sad, and beautiful. the ending is a bit different to the movie, i think the movie ending might be actually better, but otherwise its very faithful and the book is terrific).

tonight we are doing family dinner out, same people but all together in one place, instead of spread over two nights here. we are going to bbq king in goulburn st which im pretty sure is my favourite chinese restaurant in the known universe. hmmm bbq pork and duck....

but i digress.

tomorrow night i am hoping to get to snb in the city, and friday night we are having drinks and dinner with a visiting academic friend from the US and his wife, and some of our mutual academic friends from wollongong. after much soul searching, i decided to take them all to the latest sensation, din tai fung, for dumplings. hmmm dumplings.

sorry. no, this is not homer simpson writing on my blog.

then saturday we have our dog club christmas picnic, and then sunday the day trip to The Can then on monday we set out for the land of the queen (or the redneck). (god i wish my father had chosen to retire in tasmania, or the southern highlands. somewhere cool and sophisticated, for gods sake. anyway...)

so all this is to look forward to. but wait, theres more.

remember i mentioned i had been offered a job? i did some soul searching and talked to lots of people about it, and i decided to go for it. its a full time job, but because it was offered to me especially, they have changed the nature of the job a little to make it more flexible and to introduce a research component. so as well as developing and managing research projects for the faculty, i will be able to develop projects of my own, and work with others on their research. it is in health, not arts, which is not such a huge shift for me as i worked in health a long time ago, and there is an opportunity for me to bring my social theory to health projects, so i think its a good opportunity. and to be quite frank, arts faculties are dying a slow painful and protracted death. not that i think this is a good thing, because we always need critical thinking, now more than ever, but to be honest, in the race to the cash, arts faculties have merely raced to the bottom and the amount of critical thinking actually going on is pretty light on the ground. i am glad to be out of it.

so anyway, i applied through all the proper channels so that we can make sure everything looks legit, and they want to do the whole interview thing, but we couldnt find a mutual date until january 23. so yesterday they asked me if i would start the job now, just for 3 days a week (in recognition of the fact that i do have a 2 day a week job elsewhere, and i can not be expected to quit it until i have the other contract signed and in my hand) on a short term contract. i said yes. i start on jan 5, but have to go down this friday to sort it all out. i think i am quite excited, and of course i am just thrilled that they are quite keen to get me by the looks of things, and having done the job for a few weeks on a flexible arrangement (including working from home) means it will be easier for me to negotiate more of the same for the full time gig. it is funny how things work out though, isnt it?

all of this is in the future of course. so in the interest of keeping the joy in the moment, i got a couple of photos around the place last night before my camera batteries died. i am very pleased that since we moved here trent has been able to do lots of more training with jem, and he has bought some weave poles. last night they did some excellent training. here is jem weaving:

here is jem with his post-weave reward:

and here is the single big tomato (lots more have appeared on the cherry plant) growing every day:

i hope i get more of these on this plant. so far nothing on the roma...are they usually slower?

now i have some work to do.

k xx

trying pollyanna

2008-12-16T12:42:00.004+11:00

i am under threat to post something positive today by someone who took offence to my little vomit of negativity yesterday. not any of you, who made lovely understanding supportive comments. perhaps i was a bit harsh. but sometimes when you feel sick and you throw up you feel a bit better afterwards. so im going to try and be a bit of a pollyanna today, not purely because i have been threatened, but also because i am actually enjoying reading peoples happy christmas blogs (see for example quiltingmick and kuka), and maybe, just maybe, there are some good things going on as well.

firstly, lets be clear. i am by nature anti-social, except where knitting is concerned. i dont like groups, i get self-conscious and anxious and i just want to go sit in a corner and read. i was always always like this, as long as i can remember. at primary school i had my two best friends and that was it. i was happy that way. i am happy that way now. so enforced socialising like what happens at this time of year is really hard. secondly, i come with a whole heap of fucked up baggage about christmas and of course i know that i still tend to opt for pessimism and cynicism rather than have expectations dashed, yet again. i also know its possible to change that, and to have good experiences. i have had plenty of those too, and so far this year has not actually been BAD.

it has been nice to buy books for kids and to see them actually sit down and start reading. it has been nice to plan hand knitted gifts for some people, and i am actually looking forward to seeing my dad, really. i am making a conscious effort to try and improve our relationship, so it will be a step in the right direction.

i am, however, a little annoyed that i have not had time to do all the stuff i would really like to do, like make my own mince pies or my favourite ice cream pudding, or to actually FINISH hand knitted gifts for everyone. only some people are getting things and they wont even be finished! so maybe thats why i was a bit bah humbug yesterday (quiet down the back). perhaps next year if i plan a bit better it will be better all round.

and i am really looking forward to a daytrip to canberra this coming sunday where i will be very comfortable in a large group of knitters, eating cupcakes.

see, i can do pollyanna. sort of :)

k xx

bah humbug

2008-12-15T16:36:00.003+11:00

i have been trying not to whinge about christmas and trying to find my own peace with it, but really, im over it. on two fronts - family, and consumerism.

i dont have a close family. this year i have an in-law family to deal with, which includes a lot of kids. we entertained some of them here yesterday and are doing so again tonight. most of the time they are good fun, but i do find it hard work. i find being pleasant for hours at a time around most people really hard work. im tired already.

then we have a drive to queensland to see my dad to whom i am not close really but it seems like the right thing to do. for whom, i wonder? for what purpose? out of misplaced guilt for time lost that will never come back? in a pathetic attempt to recreate some sense of family where there is none, and hasnt been for many decades?

so the whole family thing rings really hollow with me, and attempts to redefine it just seem silly this year, for some reason. it just doesnt sit well.

and the consumerism. good lord. did someone mention there was an economic meltdown, or do we just continue merrily like lemmings until we have really fallen over the edge of the cliff and there is no one else to blame? i saw a bit of ellen today. she is doing this christmas giveaway where she gives stuff to her audience. clothes and diamonds and electronics. does she stop to think about the children who slaved to dig up those diamons, to sew those clothes? her audience sure dont, they jump and scream and some of them cry like something important just happened. its disgusting. ellen, where is my world peace? my end to hunger and poverty and oppression? oh what, it costs too much? silly me.

so you know, im over it. call me scrooge, whatever.

k xx

mojo

2008-12-13T11:52:00.006+11:00

its back! my reading mojo that is. and i have christmas to thank. let me explain.

i hate christmas shopping, usually because people are so bloody rude, and because i stress out too much about getting the right thing. this year i have children to buy for, long lost in-law nieces (9 and 10) and a nephew (16), and in-law step-children? (i cant explain the nature of that relationship, too complicated) twin boys (10) and a most unusual girl (11). trent has taken the latter out today to buy her a drum kit. he was in a band once, as a drummer not a musician (haha) but her mum is paying for that. i struggled long and hard with what to buy all these kids - what do you get kids who already have all the toys? i have this thing about kids and books, that i should be the one to take responsibility for this part of their development in some way, so i spent a long time poring over the volumes available. eventually they all got something, but i walked out of that book store with nothing for myself. i havent bought myself a fiction book in the longest time, but i noticed some very attractive titles while there, and later that night, trent and i went out for dinner at the latest sensation and stopped by kinokunya on our way there. i picked up a few things:

the top two were only $9 for both, and i have read 'what maisie knew' already, but could easily go there again, and i looooooooved the movie of atonement and from what i hear this is his best book in ages, and the road, well i love cormac mccarthy and havent read this one yet, and the steve toltz? rave reviews, shortlisted for the booker, very funny beginning. thats one for the week of christmas itself when we will be in queensland visiting my dad and wondering what the hell we drove all that way to sweat in front of the aircon for. at any rate, i was very pleased to have felt the urge to want to buy books that are somewhat more substantial than pictures of socks, or lace knitting charts.

i also appear to have some gardening mojo. i never thought i did. i am not a tender by nature. i shove them in and wait for something to happen and wonder why they get covered in pests or wilt away. most of the things i planted in the pots however are taking off. one rocket plant is a bit browny and the coriander is not growing because its been too bloody wet, believe it or not, but last week i staked and fed the tomatoes and this morning i discovered this:

yes! a tomato! this is a normal big tomato, the cherry toms also have three or four fruit on them:

the roma hasnt flowered yet but its growing, and i just fed it again now, so im sure it will in time. i am quite excited about this small event.

i am also a bit excited about my lace knitting mojo. not that i am some kind of expert, but last night i finished the first border and turned it to knit the body of the scarf, in the wonderful elongated stitch pattern. i turned the corner no problem but the pattern said to put that last cast off stitch onto a stitch holder and then put it back on the needle after you had picked up all the straight edge stitches, but i didnt see why that was necessary (it would have meant cutting the yarn anyway, why would i do that?) so maybe i finished on the wrong side or something, but i just turned the work 90 degrees, keeping the last cast off stitch on the needle and picked up the rest of them as i was supposed to. it looks fine, and worked fine, so yet again i learn that the pattern is not the word of god and i will not be struck down if i deviate from it in some way. anyway, here it is as i start moving up the body:

there are a few little mistakes but nothing that affects the overall look and that wont block out, and i wont repeat them when i get to the other border, and i am really pleased with it. it LOOKS victorian, if you know what i mean!

anyway, now i have presents to wrap. hope you are all having a good weekend.
kxx

happy amazon dance

2008-12-09T18:14:00.004+11:00

is there any more joyful symbol than this:

or any more joyful sight than this at your door when you get home from work:

and you do a little happy dance because you know exactly what it is and you only ordered it 2 weeks ago and the estimated date of arrival was january 6 and here it is a whole month ahead of schedule! so you take it inside and open it up and think what is this? the new bubble wrap? please!

but it doesnt matter because its what under the plastic that counts:

yes folks thats right, my very own copy of victorian lace today. more happy dance. i dont think ive ever been as enarmoured of a knitting book as i am of this one - history, patterns AND techniques all in the one beautiful volume. i am pretty sure i want to knit about 90% of the things in here. i am already working on two, victorian ruby, and the weldon's wide and handsome border scarf, and i have yarn for a melon shawl and am currently stalking some black silk blend for a myrtle leaf shawl. will it never end? no it wont. although the weldon scarf is now nearly at the end of the second chart repeat of the first border:

one more repeat to go then i switch to the body. this is taking a while as there are only so many minutes in the day of optimal lace knitting time given the high concentration factor required.

and arent those sunnyboys multitalented little things. do you have one yet?! i think i need another.....

k xx

our sunday tradition

2008-12-08T08:34:00.006+11:00

since we moved, trent and i have developed a new sunday evening tradition, when we are home, which means going down to dee why (about 10 minutes drive away) for fish and chips for dinner. we have found an excellent take away shop, where you can pick the sort of fish you want, and how you want it cooked, and we go across the road and sit on benches looking at the ocean. i am quite taken with dee why, its got a really nice set up and there are always people out and about, walking, picnicking, kids playing ball:

it doesnt feel pretentious, like so many of sydneys beaches are. and every time we have been it has been windy and cloudy and quite cool, which is weird, but makes for good photos (warning, more flora and fauna shots to follow!). here is the southern point of the beach walk:

and the view across to long reef:

there are crabs:

and pelicans:

and very impressive cliffs with houses perched right on them.

i am not allowed to blog about how this is where trent spent the first 6 years of his life and how many fond memories of the area he has, so i wont, i will just post this photo instead:

we spent most of the rest of yesterday digging out lantana and making numerous trips to the tip (sigh), thankfully it was somewhat cooler than saturday, but i got no knitting done at all! i finished sock number one of the sweetie pie socks on saturday night - it is a very multicultural sock, having a german heel and a french toe:

i did a single purl stitch on the side of the foot every second row the whole way down, including purling the decreases at the toe, just to give it some detail to try and match the purls in the heel, and i am quite taken with the seam stitch down the back of the heel, interestingly. at first i didnt like it, but its grown on me, and i am pretty sure i am going to do all of my plain sock heels this way from now on.

now i need to get back to some serious lace work, so i have something more interesting to post!

k xx

fauna and flora

2008-12-06T14:22:00.008+11:00

at the risk of stating the obvious, goddamn its hot here today. i went to the shops early and it was 30C at 10am. it looked like bushfire weather, and im sure theres going to be many more days like that over the next few months. this photo really doesnt pick up the orangey haze:

but lets just agree it was hot. i had some gardening to do, and normally i avoid the heat like the plague, but i really want my pots to thrive, so i gathered my tools (yes i went to bunnings by myself, and yes i also went to bakers delight):

i lathered up and set to tending, staking, and putting some basil in pots. i stopped for a while to watch a wedge-tailed eagle circle above, just slowly going round and round, maybe looking for rabbits, or snakes.

i have seen one shed skin, only small, and some plumbers who were here last week reckon they saw a red bellied black snake. i am a little dubious, but the dogs know there are snakes about. its a little freaky. anyway, here are the pots now, complete with basil.

today they got a drink of seasol, some garlic spray, some tomato food, and a good dusting, i am not entirely sure the pots are pest free although a golden orb spider faithfully builds her beautiful web above the pots every night. so far most things are growing, tho some of the coriander has gone yellow (too much water?) and the rocket browned off in parts. but there are little flowers on some of the tomatoes, and this is still really an experiment, i dont know what will really work here yet. the lettuce are good tho:

i am still experimenting with socks too. bells noted that i frog a lot, and i do if i really cant get away with it. complicated lace that was really hard and is only a small mistake i can let slide, but something that youre going to wear, well it has to be right really. i did frog the picot socks completely and have restarted, they are humming along:

the picot cuff has come up great, and the eyelets are for a thin red satin ribbon. i gave up on the purl inset down the sides but i have since realised that i did it wrong, i need to only purl every second row. d'oh. but they have a lovely german heel which doesnt show up well in this photo:

and i am adding a string of purls (haha) all the way down the side of the foot just to give it some detail to try and match the picot edge (so on every second round, needles 1 and 3 have a purl one stitch in from the instep stitches if that makes sense). anyway, the colour is gorgeous.

i want to get this one sock finished so i can go back to my lace, but its too hot to concentrate on anything other than socks today. i am also a little distracted because i have just been offered a full time research management job at my old uni, which is very attractive, but means leaving my little history job, and i feel bad about doing that....but i will only take the job if we can arrange telecommuting cos im not driving 2 hours each way every day, so negotiations should commence on monday. will keep you posted.

did i mention its hot?

k xx

a handy little....

2008-12-02T16:42:00.003+11:00

...female dog. my possum, that is.

at least, thats what the farm boys say whenever they see her work. they use the word starting with b. sounds rude, but she is. handy, that is. as i have mentioned before, occasionally me and misspossum go off and run around a paddock after some sheep. we got into it because she is a working dog, a koolie, not a border collie, the oldest type of sheep working dog in australia. we got her as a pup from a farm, to do flyball with, but she was mental and we had no idea what to do with her, so we went to see some people who taught us how to work with a working dog. a few years later, and trent runs her in flyball, where she is anchor dog (the last one, who brings it home) for one of the fastest teams in the country. in fact, i think at the moment they are the fastest, but these things change quickly.

and i do the sheep thing with her - i have done a yard dog trial or two but i get very nervous and am not one for competition. i love the practise, and we are now very good. but goddamn, i really get sick of dog people. like, people with dogs who do organised sports with them etc. usually women who have no control over the other things in their life, they are competitive and bitchy and judgemental and arrogant. they live in the city and wear rm williams, and think they are cool, but really they are twits. i have to work very hard to put them out of my mind or misspossum and i wouldnt be having the fun that we do.

anyway, in between turns about the paddock on the weekend, i decided the sweetie pie socks werent working. they were too big, and the purls down the side just looked like really big ladders (which of course they had been designed to avoid!) so it went ribbit, and they have become instead the standard blackdogknits picot eyelet socks, complete with eyelets for ribbon:

they are still going to get a german heel tho.

also moving along nicely is the weldons scarf from vlt, this is the first chart repeat (42 rows):

with two more repeats to do before turning 90 degrees and knitting a long dropped stitch body, and then turning again for the other end border. this whole process seems like quite a challenge but i am excited about it. it might look a bit manky here, and i do not deny there may be one or two little extra holes *cough* but when it is blocked it will look just fine im sure.

nothing else interesting happened overnight.

k xx

a quick WIP around

2008-11-28T15:01:00.003+11:00

i thought it was time to blog about some knitting in between all the rest of the stuff thats been going on around here. especially given theres no point philosophising anymore.

so i am working on a few things. firstly, my easy night time knitting (now that i figured out how to join in the round on something big without twisting) is cobblestone:

doesnt look like much but it is growing and will be ready in time for next winter, trust me. its such a lovely design, and the yarn and colour are perfect. its just endless stocking stitch, thats all.

to balance that out, i am working on not one but two lace projects. i blogged before about frogging the embossed leaves socks in the knittery slim sock, and i have opted instead for the Scarf with a handsome border from Victorian Lace Today:

i would like this one to be nearly done by christmas, so i have put ruby on the back burner for now:

but i do miss her. i am totally in love with this book which jen lent me, and i am going to have to give it back at some point, so it was with some glee that i saw a copy of it on the shelf last night at tapestry craft snb (my first time, it was very nice), and i took it down to the counter but of course it was a little *cough* expensive, and it was the last copy, and i didnt really want to pay $70 for a very well thumbed and crumpled edition. i settled for some extra knitpicks options tips and cables, but when i came home i did happen to look it up on amazon and they do happen to have it for under $20 and with the shipping and currency conversion it did still only come to about $44so i may have slipped and ordered it...when it arrives i will return yours jen i promise!

i am also making up a pair of socks with the vatican pie jitterbug. i really think this is the best sock yarn, such gorgeous colours and crisp stitch definition:

the pattern is called SweetiePie and borrows elements from my other favourite socks, so its plagiarised really. its got a picot edge (my favourite sock edge, doesnt keep the sock up but looks lovely), then two rows of purl rather than eyelets for a ribbon. then i had to work out where the back of the sock was going to be, (or which stitches would end up being the heel flap) and then on the ends of those particular needles i am doing k2 p2 and then knitting the rest. this is to make a column of purls on either side of the leg which will run down to match the k2p2 at the edge of the german heel from knitting vintage socks, which is my all time favourite heel. you dont want anything much going on with the jitterbug, it does all the good stuff by itself i reckon.

there are two other pairs of socks also on the go, a simple rib for me thats resting while i do the xmas knitting, and one sock of a christmas pair that i am saying nothing about right now.

plenty to keep me busy.

and in other stuff, because i cant help it, i am frustrated beyond belief at insurance companies and smash repairers who have had the smashed up subaru for over 2 weeks but only just started work because the insurance company were thinking about writing it off given how much its going to cost, but of course our policy only has a rental car for 14 days, and those days are up, and they wont extend it! we have other cars here we can use but its a pain and i want my subaru.

also painful has been the process of replacing my mobile phone which i managed to put through the washing machine. not just IN the washing machine, but through a whole cycle. i didnt like any of the telstra replacements so trent got one through work and it has taken them forever to figure out how to unlock it so i can use it on the telstra network, but its working today finally. i meant to take a picture, its shiny and red and comes in a red velvet pouch and the ring tone goes 'hello moto' (its a motorola). i feel whole again. call me superficial, go on, i dare ye!

k xx

its all relative

2008-11-27T13:33:00.001+11:00

i took the test that caffeine fiarie took. the result, while reflecting a schizophrenic approach to philosophy, does not entirely surprise.

Your result for The Find Your Philosophical Era! Test...

The Post-Modern

25% Ancient, 19% Medieval, 25% Modern and 31% Post-Modern!

Congratulations! You are: a Post-Modern!

Congratulations! Unlike everyone else, you Post-Moderns were born in the right era. You can even influence the further development of Post-Modernism! Post-Moderns like you are bowed down by the weight of all the writers and thinkers who have existed before them; but, rather than respecting the authority of the past, as a Medieval thinker might do, a Post-Modern thinker is more likely to reject or reinterpret everything which came before him. While the Moderns ridiculed religion, Post-Moderns ridicule religion and atheism alike. The parody is _the_ classic Post-Modern art form.

Post-Modern thinkers tend to cast every commonly received notion into doubt. The naive, common-sense interpretation of things is shocked when Post-Modernism declares, for instance, that perfect translation is theoretically impossible, or that the connection between a word and its meaning is merely illusory. The distinction between meaning and meaninglessness is blurred--see the poetry of e.e. cummings or the works of Joyce for an example of the Post-Modern disregard for the orthodox English sentence.

Moreover, Post-Moderns like Freud and Nietzsche, with their psychological insight, cast into doubt the freedom of the human will, and helped to blur the lines previous eras might have drawn between a good person and a bad one, between a madman and a sane one.

Some post-modern philosophers: Wittgenstein, Nietzsche, Derrida, Foucault, Freud, Benjamin, Hegel, Kierkegaard

Some post-modern artists: Joyce, Henry James, Proust, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Faulkner, Woolf, Samuel Beckett

Typical post-modern art forms: the non-traditional novel, black comedy, jazz, film, photography, the music video, the psychological case study, the parody

Take The Find Your Philosophical Era! Test at HelloQuizzy

philosophy is dead anyway
k xx

photos of photos

2008-11-25T09:15:00.006+11:00

i was hoping to bring you some pictures of the hair cut, because trent took some on the weekend, but a terrible thing has happened. we went out on sunday for a drive in the rain, and trent took some great pictures of things along the way, and then on the way home we detoured via a big homewares supercentre near our place where there is a big electronics chain store. im going to name them, it was domayne, and we sat in front of one of those little print stations and printed off some of these photos. this was the first time we had done this, and we had a lot of fun, and when we got home i cut some of them up and put them in these glass photo-coasters i got for my birthday. they look great, and we were happy.

this morning, i pulled out the memory card and plugged it into the computer to resize some of the pix for blogging, only to find that ALL of the pictures we took on sunday are not rendering, plus also some random others. some we printed, some we didnt. now i dont know if there is a problem with those machines, or we did something wrong, or something else has happened to the memory card, but i am Not Happy Jan. they were great photos, and i am disappointed by their loss.

i have however, taken photos of some of the prints with my little digital. they are not quite the same thing, but you get the idea.

so, on sunday it was raining. we went for a drive down into the national park at the back of our place, where there are a couple of nice little spots with marinas for the locals to park their boats etc. we stopped for a while at cottage point. trent took photos of the oysters:

sydney rock oysters. mmmm. and a couple of shots of me when i wasnt looking, including close ups of the hair cut, which are gone. this one remains, which even i quite like:

the hair doesnt look this good now, cos i washed it and i dont have one of those super straighteners but i am happy enough with how it works with no styling!

then we went and had a coffee and snack at the kiosk:

and trent took some great shots of the boats and the rain:

i also spent some time on sunday trying to cast on one of my christmas sock presents. because it was a failure i can tell you what i was planning, which was a pair of embossed leaves for someone in this:

it is lovely knittery slim socks, but there is no way this pattern and this yarn go together. this yarn needs to be knit on really small needles, not on 2.75s, so after three attempts at casting on that rather complicated tubular thing, i gave up. i sat and looked at it for a moment, thinking how it might be called a sock yarn but really its a lace weight, as thin as the cashmere i am knitting the Victorian Ruby with, and suddenly a light bulb went on over my head. 500 yards of potential lace weight grinned up at me. who said you had to give people SOCKS for christmas? so this is destined to be something a little more exciting and the recipient might not get it for christmas, but it will at least now be fun trying. also slated for a christmas present is this:

colinette jitterbug in vatican pie. this colour is not listed on their website anymore (but if you go look especially in jitterbug it is still there). i have my own sock design in mind for this one, and am planning to cast on today sometime, hopefully, though i am very busy with research work deadlines, and a guy here fitting new blinds, and other projects that are going to have to languish for a while because it has just occurred to me that in fact it is exactly one month until christmas. how the hell did that happen????

k xx

totally addicted to lace...

2008-11-23T10:18:00.003+11:00

wo-oh wo-oh (ear worm anyone?)

today i am glad i am not a dog, because dogs cant knit lace. and knitting lace is So. Much. Fun.

i had yesterday to myself, trent had the joy of being chauffer and playmate to young things at jamberoo (where you control the action. i do believe he went on the taipan. twice). there was not room for me in the bus. oh well.

so i made yesterday into a kylie-day (i am trying to let go of the guilt of even saying that, because in some ways i feel like everyday is a kylie-day, but like george once said, i feel guilty if i sit and do nothing while there are even possible chores that could be done) but i made myself ignore the vacuuming and ironing. i needed time and space to let go of a few balloons, so i did.

first i got my hair cut. its been a while, and i was quite attached to my old hairdresser who knew how to deal with too much curly stuff. also its usually an expensive exercise, but i found a mid range place in the local mall, and was lucky to get a very good cutter who was not scared by putting layers into curls, and i even had a treatment, as it has been let go too long. everyone in the salon commented on the end result, so that made me feel good, and then i bought some groceries, and a birthday present (not mine, and personally i am quite glad that the sun has now passed from scorpio thanks very much), and came home to start HP and the Half Blood Prince for the third time (finished the Order of the Phoenix on friday).

then, there being nothing on tv, and no ABC shop in the local mall (i was hoping to buy the dvds of life on mars, which i loved but didnt catch all of on tv), i went back to the beginning of the xfiles, and worked on ruby. i am at row 22:

i think i am starting to see the pattern. there might be one place where i messed up a bit but i am not sure, so im not ripping! it looks vaguely like its supposed to and its one of those patterns that wont show until you do the whole chart, but i am really pleased with it so far, and the yarn, oh the yarn. jade sapphire mongolian cashmere. you may drool now:

then i went for a little stroll around the block with miss possum, and showered and dressed and drove out to the burbs where i met trent for a friends birthday dinner. it was a very nice meal, in very nice company, and we got home late and crashed.

this morning i am happy to report that the wallabies beat france (i am not surprised that new zealand won the rugby league world cup and am quite happy about it really, not being a fan of the current crop if gen Y footballers), and now trent is out mowing, and i am going to do the vacuuming i promise, but not before i show you pictures from the garden, in appreciation of the simple things and the wonderful space we have here. someone, long again, tried to make more formal gardens here, but its all been overgrown. the agapanthus survive, not in as good shape as they could be, but they make an interesting juxtaposition to the natives:

the pots are going well, we have had too much rain this week probably and not enough sun, but at night time there are heaps of spider webs around the pots and i think this will take care of pests for me. i also gave them a drink of worm wee this morning. i dont know if the plants like it but jem did:

and is not the passionfruit flower one of the most spectacular things youve ever seen:

the vine is wild and straggly and unkempt but covered with buds. heres hoping for some fruit.

k xx

ps thanks for the all kind words, it helped a lot :)

not simple enough

2008-11-20T15:09:00.003+11:00

i wish i was a dog. they dont worry about anything, except whether someone is stealing their bones, or getting a longer tummy rub than them. they dont have to worry about calories or exercise (they seem to magically get the right amount of both around here), and if they're hungry, they just eat dirt:

they sleep all day, chase birds, roll in crap and get taken on cool car adventures. sometimes they get to run and jump over things, grab a ball, chase some sheep. roll in crap again.

me, im too busy freakin' analysing everything to realise how simple life can be if you let it. i am sick of being a human female who thinks too much, feels too much, cares too much. i have been turning myself in knots about family complexities, work opportunities, health care, other peoples driving skills (or lack thereof, i am really a bit scared on the road now), and What Other People think...its driving me to distraction.

for example, yesterday i had to go to wollongong unexpectedly for a meeting with someone else who wants me to do some research work for them, and its possibly a big deal with possibly a big deal job in the new year (the current work is just on contract to see how we work together), and i met some of her other staff, and they were all 20 something skinny lizzy PYTs and i felt every single one of my excess kilo 40 year old self. it was so bad, i came home via the chemist and bought hair dye because i can not possibly work in that centre with grey hair. sorry RR, i caved... gah!! whats going on in the world?!!

and just now i have had a ridiculous phone conversation because i couldnt just say whether i would or wouldnt do something on the weekend without thinking about all the underlying implications and how it would appear and what other agendas were at work, and its no wonder sometimes People want to strangle me. I want to strangle me.

i have also been worrying a lot about life post-phd and what i should or shouldnt be doing. i feel as tho there is a strong expectation, from others, from myself, that i should pursue a full on academic career but i cant honestly say i want the crap that goes with it, and i feel like i need to be doing something more grounded, that gives back to society in some way. this is a good thing about the research work i am doing, the latest project is about the affect of sports peoples off field behaviour on young peoples perceptions of risk taking, however the deadline is like, tomorrow, and the other nursing research work im doing has just been taken to a whole other level because of a late night teleconference we had with the UK earlier this week, which opened up a whole other 'can of worms', plus i still have my 2 day office job, so i have more work than i know what to do with, and there just arent enough hours in the day!

i took an hour at lunch time to cast on the Victorian Ruby scarf from Victorian Lace Today (which i am carrying around like its my bible at the moment), i made a rather simple crochet cast on into some sort of contortionist act, but when i did figure it out i felt a whole lot better:

also making me feel better is the way the weather has been here the last few days. this was at 6am the other morning:

look closely and you will see its wabbit season. i wish the dogs were better at catching them, cheeky little pests.

and just now a storm rolled in that was quite spectacular:

it dumped a lot of rain:

which is really helping my pots and the rocket has righted itself, so thats one less thing to worry about.

did someone say 'breath'?

k xx

ups and downs

2008-11-16T07:07:00.007+11:00

shortly after i posted about my reading material etc on thursday, things went a little pear shaped. firstly i decided to make a yarn cake out of my jade sapphire so i could get started on the victorian ruby scarf. only thing is, it was either very bladly skeined or i am a yarn cake making retard (the latter is entirely possible). every few circles of the swift, and the yarn got stuck. i couldnt for the life of me find a way to unstick it, it was as though it was coming from the middle of the skein and needed to be unthreaded. so i took it off the ball winder and did it by hand:

it was frustrating, and i had to leave it half way to go drop a rental car off, grab a taxi across town, and pick up our subaru from the smash repairers, because a couple of weeks ago someone bumped us in the back and the bumper bar needed replacing. not a bad one, but annoying.

so then on friday i get up early and go off to do my grocery shopping, and i had to go to the big mall down at manly that i hate, but its the only medicare office around here and i needed to claim back my therapy (trent thinks its funny that im paying someone $160 an hour to tell me to breath. it is funny. but im very thankful that the govt covers 12 of these trips per calendar year, with a small gap. if you didnt know about that, and need to see someone, get thee to a dr and have a mental health plan done).

anyway, so i spend too long buying food and have fresh fish for dinner in the car and am driving home watching some kid on his mobile phone behind me, when i stop and he doesnt. he hit me very hard in the back, and he had to be towed. luckily i could drive but only just. the whole floor of the boot had been pushed up and into the car, and there is a major kink in the rear door and the frame of the back of the car:

the insurance company were great and got it towed from home, and i was a bit shaky and sore. i am a bit tentative in the car, and now all i see is young men on mobiles driving around, and my message is pretty clearly, dont text or drive or you're going to have some mad woman shouting at you.

that was a down. an up was when i got home there was some mail. in it was a present from caffeine fairie who had missed my bday party because she was too busy swanning around the halls of cambridge and the british musem to bother, but she compensated by bringing something special back for me:

100g of louisa harding silk/wool in the most gorgeous deep reddy pink (fetchings anyone?!) and these gorgeous magnets from the brit:

i love these to bits! it made me feel a lot better on a very bad day.

another up was yesterday getting my hands dirty in our new garden. you may have noticed we have a huge place here and we do intend to do the whole vegie garden with chooks thing, but its a little overwhelming, let alone expensive. so we decided to start small. first the worm farms wer inherited needed work - we were left two in styrofoam boxes

we merged them into a new home and moved them into the abandoned shade house (which is going to get unabandoned shortly):

we need to buy another proper box but they arent cheap either. then it was onto the gardening proper, but because i dont have a very green thumb, something manageable and close to the house seems a good idea for now. so i ordered a tonne of good dirt and went to the nursery:

trent helped me empty out these old pots:

and i refilled them, plus some others, with new dirt, warm casting and this amazingSeasol gel stuff (my Product of the Week), and put in tomatoes (roma, cherry and a specially for pots one), a chilli plant, coriander, mint, chives, parsley, strawberries, lettuces, rocket and bee attracting flowers. i also meant to do basil but forgot to buy some, and the rosemary plant was already there. i left it cos its doing well at the moment. this is what it looks like now:

then it rained all evening, and trent devised a snail catching device, and we went into darlinghurst to visit a friend in hospital and thenr dinner at our favourite thai (s thada) (hmmm gai yang).

more ups than downs, i think.

k xx

a little light reading

2008-11-13T08:24:00.008+11:00

i used to be such a book worm. this is just one of my bookshelves, my favourites, the classics:

the phd put paid to that. when you have to read to work you dont want to read for pleasure as well. hence knitting.

but lately i have been feeling the urge to read again, especially as christmas is coming and that is traditionally the time i stock up on all the latest releases, and there are some good ones this year.

to ease back into it, i chose a classic i havent read in a while, elizabeth gaskells 'wives and daughters' and read two chapters about sweet molly gibson, and gave up. then the potter movies have been on tv again, and i thought i might go back and read the last three just to brush up and see if i could pick up some details i had missed. so i am now happily ensconced in this one:

i know that some people dont get the potter thing, and say they are not well written and not original stories, and this is to some extent true. but they are kids books, and i think they are well written for kids. the level of writing and themes is far and away better than any enid blyton i ever read when i was young, and no one ever said they didnt get the famous five! and i cant explain why i love them but i do. i am happy when i am reading about harry (even tho i think hes a bit of a prat, of course i totally relate to hermione) and thats all that matters really.

potter reading was interrupted yesterday by the arrival of a package of books being generously lent to me by a very fine lace knitter who had read of my lace knitting dilemmas and took pity.

there are three books with fantastic lessons in lace techniques and some beautiful examples of scottish, american and russian lace, and i think i might end up making some doilies after all! and i have flicked through victorian lace today before, but to sit with it and read each pattern and all the techniques at the back made me much more appreciative. there are so many patterns in here i like, and so much useful information, i think i will end up buying it. given i have two lace weights to use over summer, i have decided on two patterns. for the jade sapphire i am going to go with Victorian Ruby, a lovely wide bordered scarf with a drop stitch body.

i am going to start with this because its complicated at the ends and easy in the middle and i think thats a good start to serious lace, especailly leading into christmas where i am not entirely focused! i have 400 yards of the jade sapphire 2 ply cashmere and the pattern calls for 450 of a 2ply, so i may end up buying another skein and making it longer.

and for a less-than-800 yards bigger scarf/wrap, i cant go past the melon shawl for the alpacka.

i will have more than the pattern calls for so again, can make it bigger if required, or at least make it with out the 'do i have enough' tension. its surprisingly complicated, not the pattern repeat, but the construction, with the corners and border so i am looking forward to being challenged by this one early in the new year.

after that i am going to do some lace weight stash enhancement and try one of those huge circular shawls, like the cap shawl (rav). seriously tho, i want to knit just about everything in this book.....thanks jen!

other reading i am doing is a pile of first year exams.

this is definitely my last lot of marking in the immediate future, and its that thought alone that is getting me through each piece of plagiarised drivel.

on that note, i interviewed on monday for 'that museum job' and they were quick to tell me they were interviewing all day and had received 'many fine applications'. i put that aside and did a good interview and felt happy that i had done all i could, and the rest was out of my hands. so i was momentarily crushed when i didnt get the job, but am ok about it now. i have an opportunity to make more of the nursing research i am doing, and they were pleased to hear they could have me on a more permanent basis, so who knows where that will lead (apart from cardiff in march. hmmmm colinette.....)

and in between all that reading, i am running around like a fool today getting cars in and out of mechanics etc. jem knows i am going out and is waiting for his bone:

awwwww.....

k xx

lace dilemmas

2008-11-11T13:33:00.006+11:00

bells has been blogging about peoples 'lacy summer' conquests, and i am frustrated. not with bells, heaven forbid. with myself. it turns out i am a dreadful lace fusspot. i was working on cambria with the bruised bloodwood 'packy, but suddenly i yawned and was bored. its a lovely pattern but its written for a 4 ply and the packy is not that, and it was too open and light, and cambria is not lacey enough for a lace weight. so i frogged it. i know i know.

the dilemma of course is what else to do. i have two lace weight options. unlike some who have whole baskets and still cant decide.

i have the bloodwood, looking a little sad now that i have frogged it and cant rewind it into a yarn cake.

(i heard centre pulling balls werent a good idea for lace weight anyway, but im pretty sure ripping back three times isnt great either...).

and then i have one single skein of the most incredible 2 ply cashmere:

today i fell in love with nancy bush's estonian scarf, and the whole idea of learning something new in 'nupps', and i downloaded the pattern and it is just gorgeous, but i need about 100 yards more than i have in the jade sapphire.... do you think i could cast on less stitches and make it narrower perhaps as it does block out pretty wide? and i SOOOO want this book. otherwise im thinking this one might work, although i worry its too similar to the shetland triangle pattern.

for the bloodwood i have my heart set now on the melon pattern(rav) from victorian lace today (and what wouldnt i give for that one?).

do you see a theme developing here? i have learnt something in this quest for the perfect lace pattern about what i like in a lace. i knew with the shetland triangle that i liked things that were circular as opposed to angular. so diamond type patterns are out. but more than that, i like something that is really lace. by really lace i guess i mean heirloom type lace. something really symbolic, with historical meaning (hence my love of all things nancy bush) or of cultural significance (hence the estonian). and something really lacey, like complicated with charts and fancy patterns. the cambria was too straightforward in that area.

this is kind of ironic, considering i cant even get the most straightfoward things like garter stitch in the round right. you will be amused i know to hear that the cobblestone got frogged AGAIN because i had managed to knit two rows of stocking stitch somewhere in amongst the garter stitch. i tried to tink it but no luck, so i ripped it. i cast on for the third time last night, which is about right for me on any serious project, and am working on 'bringing my awareness closer'.

oh, and i promise no more soap boxing on controversial social justice issues for at least a week. promise.

k xx

just a couple of things...

2008-11-09T13:26:00.004+11:00

been a bit busy here this week....i meant to blog on thursday about something that we did on wednesday night but lost track of time, so will do it now!

so, on wednesday night trent and i had dinner at chez jardin de botanique (thats my made up french). this was the view from our 'table':

then we went to the sydney peace prize lecture inside said opera house to hear patrick dodson talk. his inspiring lecture was preceeded by a fantastic and moving welcome to country, and archie roach and ruby hunter singing, and then followed by the moorambilla voices, the most fantastic little choir ive ever seen, and the kids were so awesome and beautiful they made me cry. i was in a choir when i was young (and have been in one again as an adult) and their joy in singing and performing brought back a lot of memories.

the welcome to country (sorry, i cant find a good link to explain what this means to international readers...but it could be a good research project!) made me very aware of how i feel about living deep in traditional aboriginal land up here - you cant help but feel it every time you look around, and the interesting connection between this and childhood memories is my returning to therapy this week. it went really well and i like her a lot, although i had to put aside my thoughts about her being white south african. this doesnt matter in terms of therapy, but it has been interesting since moving here to see the predominance of white south africans, so much so that the local franklins has a south african food section. i bring this up because it strikes me as ironic that in a country that is forever banging on about assimilation and ghetto-isation of migrants (see recent debate about the islamic school in camden, for example), no one ever said anything about all the south africans living up here. again, i dont care where migrants live or what they do there, so long as they share their yummy food, but as a whitey migrant (polish on my dads side) in a black country, i feel a little uneasy about the good life i have and the 5 acres i'm having it on. i wish more people were just a little bit uneasy about it as well, maybe then a change might come to australia as well....

on a lighter note, yesterday i had the great pleasure of driving 4 hours to be told my cobblestone pullover was twisted. see, i went down to helen's at bundanoon to catch up with george and bells and to meet some lovely new canberra knitters as well, and to try yet again the art of spindle spinning, at which i am irredeemably remedial, and bells asked how the cobblestone was going, and i pulled it out and george and bec say, almost in unison, is that twisted? of course, i had no idea what they meant. i always read that line in the sock pattern that says 'join to knit in the round being careful not to twist the stitches' but that only happened to me the very first time i knit socks on my own and i saw straight away there was a problem. i didnt even think about it on a circular cable. i just joined them up and off i went, and i had done about an inch when it was spotted. i am of course entirely thankful to my fellow knitters, who made sure my cast on and rejoin was not twised, but i cant help but feel that all my recent talk about technique kind of rings a bit hollow today!

i did pick up a couple of things from out of helens little lounge room store, but i was quite restrained - some dark stripey sock yarn, because dark sock yarn is hard to find:

and some 5 ply to make fetchings:

it was a lovely day and i had a lovely drive home and when i got out of the car there was the smell of bush fire smoke (i think they have been back burning this weekend) followed by the most amazing sunset:

everything is ok, today.

k xx

and making progress

2008-11-04T15:35:00.004+11:00

its interesting how once you get serious about knitting, like really working on technique, and getting the right bits and pieces together to help, the end product tends to improve! funny that.

some people call themselves process knitters, and are really good at just winging it, and adding their own touches to things, but i am not real good at that. i think i dont know enough about the actual technical aspects of knitting as a form of engineering to know how to experiment, if you know what i mean. on the weekend i was looking through a book, which i now cant remember the title of, but i really need to read it cover to cover, it was all that stuff about knitting that if you are self-taught you really never learn, because all ive ever done is learn from patterns, or from other people showing me what to do in certain situations.

i think this is often the case, that you need to know the rules in order to break them, and i dont know enough about the underlying rules of knitting. but i was explaining lace knitting to a novice the other day and i was able to explain the whole decreases sloping one way, and decreases needing to be matched with increases etc etc, so some of it must have sunk in.

this is good, because its a long lacy summer, and i have this gorgeous baby alpacky in donni's bruised bloodwood, and i tried three times to get the cambria wrap off the ground, but it wasnt happening. it looked to some like i had missed a row here or there. i think this was the case. on the weekend, i saw bells had one of those magnetic board things, and she said she got it from craplight, so i went there yesterday and snaffled one, and my what a difference $7.45 makes

also, i am surprised to find that charting the written pattern has helped. i got used to a chart with the shetland triangles, because it gave me a visual of what sort of shape the yarn overs etc should be making. i am pleased to find that my hand drawn chart for cambria has yielded improved results:

also, i have learnt enough from knitting misshapen garments to knit test swatches. i dont bother for socks or wraps etc, but for clothes its vital for someone who needs to follow a pattern line by line (ie, me!) i am about to cast on the cobblestone pullover (rav) for trent tonight, and i want to use smaller needles than the pattern suggests because i want it to be a bit finer on him. gauge is 18 stitches and 29 rows on 4.5mm (4inches). i always always always get row gauge and and am always short on the stitch gauge. how weird is that?!

in this instance, with a bit of blocking, i get close to gauge both ways, using 4mm needles, so i am pretty confident i can proceed as per the pattern for his size on smaller needles and have it block ok. its also got a bit of ease in it, so should be fine i think. this yarn is jo sharp DK in 'heath' (they were out of smoke). it suits him very well and is a lovely cool violet grey with a nice shine on it in proper light.

in other matters, progress is being made on the home front, and though there will always be iss-ews, at least there is willingness. in something that may be considered too much information (but its my blog and i can say what i like!) i have decided to go back to therapy. its been a while and you think you get done with things but they have a way of coming back to haunt you. like the ghost-sickness dean had last night on supernatural. mmmmmsupernatural....

on a lighter note, i am highly opposed to the australian habit of taking days off work for sporting events especially when only two states get it, and its the wicked and cruel sport of horse racing, except for when you get Viewed in the work sweep. i love (almost) black horses, so that makes it ok.

k xx

getting serious

2008-11-03T17:23:00.005+11:00

knitting is serious business. it might be going only a little too far to say that knitting saved my life. when i was doing my phd it kept me sane when everything else was crazy. now i cant stop, and i dont want to. it is the most creative and productive thing i do, and it makes me feel cleverer than all the the french psychoanalytic theory in the world ever did!

when i started off i had no idea how to even hold the yarn when i turned the work to start another row. my first baby scarf wasnt even straight because of this slight problem. today, i have a whole knitting corner, my own swift and ball winder, can make socks without a pattern (i am even thinking about designing a pair of my own), am comfortable making garment modifications (for this part i might even get really serious and swatch first!), and today, i wrote my own chart for a lace pattern - see:

but where knitting really saved my arse is the people. every so often there is a wave of posts in knitblogland about the 'right' way to blog, or the right way to knit, or even the right way to have knitting meetings. i find this intriuging - i just dont get that there is a right way to do anything in this world! no one is a more serious, or better knitter, than anyone else. some people might be yarn snobs, maybe even i am (no acrylic, no feathers) but i dont begrudge the people who do knit with that stuff, just like i dont begrudge the people who spin die and knit their own. but there is no knitting royalty, we are all just people making stuff with strings and stricks. its not solving world hunger, after all.

simply put, the meeting, blogging and ravelry part of knitting have bought people into my life that i never would have thought possible. not all of them i have liked, not all of them like me. not all of them have become close friends, just like i have not become their 'bestie'. that, as they say, is life. there are lots of people everywhere i dont like, who i dont become friends with. just because we all knit doesnt mean we all have to like each other, but i would hope that we could be civil! variety is the spice of life, and it takes all types to make the world go round. we would all do a lot better to be more accepting, less judgemental.

at the same time, i have met people who would drop everything (well ok, maybe not the baby) to help me out during a tough time, who would change their plans to eat cake with me and help me feel a bit better, whose words of wisdom helped restore the balance, and without whom i dont know what i would have done this weekend just past.

you know who you are. love yas all :)

k xx

a short break

2008-10-31T11:10:00.002+11:00

there will be a break in transmission for a while over here at The Room, there is some stuff happening at home that i dont want to blog about and cant really pretend everythings ok when its not. i am going away for the weekend and hope to get some knitting done at least, so there will be FOs on the other side i hope.

k xx

dedication to the cause

2008-10-29T16:12:00.005+11:00

i find it interesting to note that now that i dont HAVE to blog everyday, having opted out of blogtoberfest, i suddenly find time to do so. committment issues, me? surely not...

anyway, i thought you might like to see some more from the birthday that keeps on giving. i went into the city this morning and embarked upon a fruitless search for a new wallet but i am fussy and i. dont. like. anything.

then it was borders, where the fact that there was nothing decent on the craft shelves indicated rosered had already been there. (i half expected to see her name scratched in the wood!). i was very interested to see the new kate grenville novel for sale at only $32 as compared to the $45 i have seen it marked for elsewhere. this annoys me about borders. i dont want to support them but i will, at that price.

then i wandered down to a certain yarn store where i had vouchers to the value of $150 to spend. these vouchers were a combined gift from my lovely flyball friends who are now used to the sight of me knitting in between races. in fact, some of them do it too. its like a mobile stitch n bitch when we do dog things together, very nice!

i was surrounded by a pile of jo sharp packets when in walked the aforementioned rosered, looking radiant today! (no, not a coincidence. we may have planned this little rendevous). anyway, i was looking for the colour that trent wants his cobblestone pullover in, it was the lovely dark browny-grey of Smoke, but there were only two balls of it left, and only two balls of the closest like-colour, Beetle, so we decided on Heath. he already has a brown jumper and didnt want black, and the other greys were too school uniformy, so i think this is a nice compromise:

its a bit shiny because of the camera flash (it being a lovely dull rainy day), and it is a bit warmer than this, if you know what i mean, but i think it will be perfect.

i did have in mind to get some cotton to make another lily, with aspirations to wear in summer (*snort*), but on consultation, i think it is too heavy and the colours were a bit dodgy. it didnt take much arm twisting to settle on this instead:

yes a small mountain of zara, in a lovely rich brown with a touch of purple/red in it. i have it on good authority that zara is a lovely yarn, and although its wool its so light, if i start it soon i will have it for autumn. so thank you to my flyballing friends, two jumpers for (just slightly over) $150. nice.

ms red and i then repaired to somewhere fancy for lunch (apparently it was ok because i just turned 40 and ive never been there so....). it was lovely, i am so going back there for the little cakey afternoon tea thing. anyone?

a quick trip to kinokunya book store yielded nothing, although i did fondle BGK2 and the vogue sock book. this was followed by coffee and a discussion about cambria, which RR definitely thinks need frogging. she's right. it is not doing what its supposed to. it will annoy me if i leave it. ribbit she said. rippit i will. then i caught the bus home (how novel - full of school kids. like, ohmygod) and then walked in the rain the half kilometre or so to my front door.

the reason i give you all this detail is not just to annoy you with pointless information, or to make you jealous (well ok maybe just a little), but because something happened on monday night (my birthday night, no less) that makes all this trekking around town admirable, on my behalf. i dropped a brick on my foot. yes thats right, a brick. i didnt know it was loose in the wall, and my washing basket dislodged it, and it fell smack onto the top of my foot. of course i am going to post a picture, so look away now if you are squeamish.

no nothing broken. feels like it though. i dont care, nothing gets in between me and a good roll in the yarn, (yes i sniffed the zara), not to mention lunch with one of the nicest people i ever met (she is, isnt she?!). its really lovely to be back in sydney and have someone to lunch and yarn shop with. thanks rr :)

k xx

i know you love red....

2008-10-28T07:37:00.004+11:00

QM has already talked about what a great colour red is, and i tend to agree. when i thanked her for my lovely sock box, she commented that she knew i loved red. she may be on to something here. i had to go to the RTA to renew my license yesterday and i put the sock box in my bag just in case there was a queue. this is what i saw:

hmmm.

there was a theme in my birthday present yarn too, all shades of purple and red:

i should expand my repertoire, but really, why? they're so pretty - see:

the problem with this tho is that i am not entirely sure that cambria is working out how she is supposed to.... note to self, dont try and knit late at night when tired. i kept losing track of where i was. i think im going to frog it cos im pretty sure its not right....

sigh

k xx

the flip side....

2008-10-27T07:49:00.005+11:00

today it is official, i am 40 years old. recently at uni they had a workshop about 'the legacies of 68'. it was supposed to be about how important 1968 was to world events, esp to the labour movement etc. i submitted an abstract about how 68 was important because it was the year i was born and the future of the labour movement existed not in the past, but no one laughed.

anyway, here i am, 40. people asked me over the weekend how i felt about it, and the answer is not really that bad actually. in fact, i feel kind of good. like im 40, you dont mess with me anymore. like seriously an adult. i mentioned before there seemed a bit of confidence that came with it, as though now its just not worth entertaining fools. i dont feel particularly grown up though, unfortunately. i wonder if i ever will! to be honest turning 30 was worse. life was a lot harder then, and it seemed a bigger jump from 29 to 30. there isnt really that much difference between 39 and 40 when you think about it.

and it is of course helped by the fact that i am still recovering from what turned out to be a fantastic weekend. there was a lot of running around and cleaning and organising to get ready for the party, which was also meant to be a housewarming for our new place as well. i have however, neglected to take good pictures - eg, i took pictures of my empty pastry cases but not filled in ones!
they had prosciutto, bocconcini, tomato and basil; cream cheese dill and smoked salmon, and the wanton wrappers (cooked in muffin tins in the oven) were full of a crab and celeriac remoulade (they were a little popular). i also made this ricotto mix (add anchovies, atichokes, parsley and chilli) stuff into strips of roasted capscium and thread onto a skewer with a pesto stuffed olive on the end! plus there was nigellas roqumole, modified to taste, a spit roast, home made rocky road (not by me) and a chocolate truffle cake to end all chocolate truffle cakes. there were party lights in the trees, a lot of knitting and knitting talk, a few tipsy people, and an argument about the meaning of 'bring your own' (some people dont quite get this concept). it was a lot of fun, and apparently it went well tho it is hard to tell when you are too busy to even taste most of your own canapes! i had lots of helping hands in the kitchen though thank you ladies xx

i do have a picture of the morning after:

and i have pictures of sean cooking a bbq breakfast to die for, but will not incriminate him without his permission!

and of course, i cant talk about the party without talking about the presents. i really was a very lucky girl - here is a group shot:

there are beautiful vases, an obscene amount of my favourite french skin care products (they are already in the bathroom sorry!), a heap of chocolate, and a rather large pile of gift vouchers from a certain city yarn store (i am going in on wednesday. be afraid, be very afraid). people were very generous and thoughtful. and none more so than helen, jane and george. i am pretty sure i cried when i rippped off the red celophane and saw this:

there is lornas laces, koigu, trekking, jade sapphire cashmere, regia silk and a small mountain of the most beautiful malabrigo! i couldnt believe it - so thoughtful and so generous. i have never handled any these yarns before, and the colours are perfect and i spent most of the rest of the weekend carrying the basket around and checking out patterns on ravelty! i will post pix of them seperately in my ravelry stash a bit later.

but wait, theres more! look at this and tell me what you see!

yes, thats right, a swift and ball winder courtesy of trent (who has decided he is going to go with the jo sharp in smoke rather than brick for the cobblestone). he was going to give it to me today (which is the official bday) but said i could have it if i found it. i needed a coathanger to get it down from the top shelf of the first wardrobe i looked in! i played with it last night, and wound up my jitterbug in vatican pie and also the yarn cakes baby alpacky so i can start the long lacey summer which i cast on last night:

but what is that little red thing i see there?! oh! look at that! its a sock box from michelle! i even think its the first one, and i cant believe how lucky i am! it has alreay been put to work, and i love it.
am i not the luckiest 40 year old in the world?!

k xx

the last post...

2008-10-24T07:57:00.005+11:00

...of my thirties. well i think so anyway. today i am off to the shops to buy all the goodies for munchies for the party - without wanting to spoil anything lets just say ingredients are things like wanton wrappers, crab meat, sashimi tuna, proscuitto, smoked salmon and blue cheese. i am a bit nervous about making fancy canape type things but i went so far as to buy an actual cookbook, and have had a few tips, so i think i should be right. then i must return to clean house properly, and finish making up guest bedrooms, and trent will be setting up gazebos and scooping leaves out of the pool etc. it has been pouring rain the last two days and everything is pretty damp and wind blown, but today has dawned sunny and clear. i take this as a good sign.

in knitterly business, bells and george and donna blogged about their favourite knit things and even tho i am a blogtoberfest loser, this is a nice moment to pause and reflect. i dont have to reflect too far - while i am quite proud of the jumpers that i have made trent along the way, the favourite thing of mine is the shetland shawl version number two. i like it so much i have taken to using it as household decoration:

this is going to necessitate a wash and reblock, but now that i know how to block lace properly i am not so worried about that.

i am being a bit quiet on the southernsummerofsocks front because i am making secret christmas present socks, and i cant blog them. i like how they are coming along tho. and because life doesnt feel right unless i am making socks for trent, i cast on these last night:

gentlemans sock with lozenge pattern (from knitting vintage socks - i think i want to make everything in this book), in heirloom easy care. he wears his knit socks so often they really need to be machine washable. he also needs many more pairs.

with three pairs of socks on the needles, things were feeling a little unbalanced. i cant start my lace just yet because i need to wind up the skeins of alpaky and i am hoping the fact that someone rang me the other day saying 'where is tapestry craft and what is that swiffer thing you want?' means the birthday may bring something to help in this department.

so i told that someone last night that i needed to start a new garment and i wanted to make him another jumper. i had shown him the cobblestone pattern when it first came out but he ummed and ahhed, i pulled it out again last night and he was like 'oh yes thats nice, make that' so i go get shade cards and he immediately chooses jo sharp dk in brick (the fifth colour in that shade card). you dont want to think about that? no he doesnt:

i am very happy about this, it is legally sanctioned stash enhancement, and a new big project. im a happy camper today. see how easy it is to make me happy honey?

see you on the flip side...

k xx

slacker....

2008-10-21T08:35:00.005+11:00

in case you hadnt heard, i turn 40 soon. this means i was born in 1968. (and what a year it was). my point tho, is that i cant help being a slacker, im a gen x-er... stupid and contagious, as someone once put it. this is not my only excuse for busting the blogtoberfest bubble so badly, and i apologise profusely to my diligent blogtober-mates, but i cant commit, so im out. just in case you hadnt noticed.

apart from all that other stuff going on in the last post, (thank you for your kind thoughts, things are being sorted! and the good news is the stack wasnt our fault so there is no insurance excess to pay. for once), there is just too much to do this week!

yesterday was my last teaching day at that uni, and i wont be teaching there again, which really is cause for a major celebration (i may be a slacker but gen y are something else!). i also spent an hour and a half with the dean of nursing talking about our little research project, which we now have some big wigs in nursing in the UK wanting to work with us on, and for which i now have to write two abstracts for a conference in cardiff in march. we have decided to do one short paper, and also to run a larger workshop on the problems facing the development of adequate nurse educators (this is the basic gist of the project, why a lot of nurses dont want to become researches or teachers), so there is still some work to do on that. i dont know how i will fit that in if i get the museum job, which i really want, but i wont complain about having too many work choices!

and i am trying to work from home as much as possible this week because there is a big party to organise and a big house to clean for said party, and i have a plumber coming today and a bathroom guy coming later this week, and a mattress to pick up and a fridge being delivered and the pool guy coming, and i have been asked to write a review of an article being considered for an international journal and then suddenly there is no time for anything else! there is a lot to be said for student life where all you do and think about is centred around one thing, not trying to juggle all sorts of odd shaped balls at once!

anyway, here is a pic of the 'blocked' clappy,

i started to pin it like i would lace but soon discovered this wasnt going to work, it being far longer than any surface i could pin it too and its not going to stay flat anyway. so i tried a bit of steam ironing but that did nothing and frustrated, i hung it over a coat hanger while i emailed bells about what i should do. i was going to follow her advice and stretch it out on towels but when i came back to it next morning, it had kind of blocked itself in the hanging, so i will stick with this for now. it is lovely and soft, it is in fibreworks alpaca/kid mohair/merino blend, they say its 8 ply but its not, i used 5mm knitpicks circs, and i nearly stuffed it up in one place by not doing the proper stabilising ktbl stitches, but hey, it wouldnt be a kylie project if it didnt have a drama attached!

the rest of the weekend we spent at the cemetary place handing over vast sums of money in exchange for bob's ashes and then choosing a memorial site, we are going to keep the ashes at his old house for a while though, not inter him, and then maybe he will come live here eventually as this was where he most wanted to be in the world. the memorial site for the plaque is lovely tho, and it was a nice thing to do, we managed to laugh about him as well which was good. it is still weird that he is not here, i cant quite get used to that fact, because in some ways its as though he is, and staying in close contact with his family has helped with that.

sunday we went down to wollongong for a flyball comp, our last one of the year, and it was stinking hot, and the phoenix ran their fastest time ever, 17.752 seconds, which isnt quite the australian record (that would be 17.33 seconds) but makes us the fastest team in the country at the moment. well, the dogs are anyway. we got beaten by our arch nemesis team because of a few handler errors on our part, but had a great day anyway.

and thats me all caught up. i am sorry for bailing on blogtoberfest but it was silly of me to think i could do it with everything going on at the moment.

hopefully i get some time today to catch up on what everyone else is doing!
kxx

magicness

2008-10-17T16:07:00.003+11:00

i have to start this post by admitting i am not feeling very Zen right now. tinkingbell reminded me that magic happens, and she made me laugh out loud because i really am one of those people who would go rip those stickers off peoples cars if i could and wants to smash a radio everytime it plays 'dont worry be happy'. in other words, i am not much of a pollyanna.

and i am really pissed right now - i dont understand why some employers think it is ok to go into receivership and not to pay their employees their wages and superannuation - why does the government let it happen? do i get away with not paying my taxes because things are a bit tight right now? no i dont. so you know, im pissed. its theft, plain and simple, and its really put a lot of strain on us right now when we could really do without it.

and i am really pissed at some people right now. i am a good friend really. it takes a while for me to open up but when i do, i am pretty much 100%. but i am a scorpio...if you hurt me, i might forgive once, but not twice. and there are some people who have tested my patience sorely this year. one of the benefits of turning 40 appears to be a feeling that life is too short to deal with that sort of shit. i am not an emotional prostitute. so, enough already.

that said, there is a lot of magic around at the moment. a party to plan and some good strong people who make me laugh. and look, i finished clappy!

i have been so busy finishing off my nursing research project today that i havent got around to blocking it yet, but it really is lovely. i made it narrower than the pattern but did more straight rows, so it is very long, longer than i am tall (but then, i am only 5 foot), but its a lovely light weight scarf and will come up great with blocking. i like how sophisticated and modern looking a pattern it is, interesting without being busy, clever without being hard.

also, i did frog the floating blossom socks, sorry tink, but have started something else that is much better suited to the yarn.

this is the start of the cuff and about as much as you are going to see as they are a christmas present.

and check this out for magic, a very big fog on the hawkesbury the other morning came rolling in and surrounded the house completely:

magic indeed.

k xx

oops

2008-10-16T08:55:00.002+11:00

my bad. i completely forgot. its knittings fault, i am really close to finishing clappy and i just kind of got lost in it last night and remembered blogtoberfest only as i was brushing my teeth before bed, and i felt a moment of panic and then the quiet calm of resignation. i did have a bit of a post planned about 'pilgrimage', it was going to be about the phenomena that is facebook, and how i have managed to get myself on there despite my insistence that i never would, and how i am not entirely sure i like it, and how where it asks for your religion i put 'chocolate', which would mean my annual pilgrimage to mecca (ie lindt cafe, martin place) is overdue.

but on my way here this morning i was thinking that i should just opt out. it is not entirely accidental that i should forget, i have a whole lot going on at the moment, and i have found the challange of blogging everyday difficult and confronting. i want my blog to be an honest reflection of where i am at, in life and in knitting, and there is stuff happening that i cant or shouldnt blog about.

in the big picture things are great. life has taken a turn for the better, and i love being back in sydney and we have a new family life i cherish, and there are exciting work prospects on the horizon, and i am healthy and loved.

in the little picture, there is lots of STUFF! for one, i am about to turn 40. only 11 more sleeps. i am not your usual 40 year old. i do not own multiple investment properties, or have 2.5 kids, or a stable corporate career, or any of the other things that are meant to be signposts of a successful grown up life. i am happy about that, i dont aspire to any of those things, i dont think they mean success at all. but i am aware that if certain things hadnt happened in my past, i would in fact be a lot more stable than i am, and at this time and with everything that has happened this year, i cant helping thinking about those things and feeling a lot of anger and resentment still.

then there is all the other stuff, the stuff about moving and being in transition, and not knowing what the future holds job wise, and the stuff about how leaving my old uni has become a bit like leaving a cult where i can see the dysfunction from a distance clearly and the people i have left behind dont speak to me anymore (weird, that one), and the stuff about crap going on within the dog club and other friendships changing, and the stuff about struggling with motivation to get into a regular exercise routine.

there is also stuff about it being 6 months since bob died and we finally got the ashes, and some of the half brothers are being arses and contesting the will and all the CRAP around that (there are some really nasty pieces of work in this world, let me tell you), and then in the last week trent left his old job and took a new contract but was owed money from his old place, and instead of getting the money he got a letter that they had gone into voluntary adminstration and he was now on a list of creditors!! and then this morning, we get rear-ended by a tailgater on the way to work. while we were having an argument, no less.

so i dont know how to keep a blog that doesnt touch on those things, and if i am to write every day, it must touch on those things, because there is little knitting to report - clappy is nearly finished and i am embarking on a several christmas surprise knitting projects that i cant blog about.

you can see my dilemma, no?

k xx

its only tuesday...edited

2008-10-14T20:07:00.005+11:00

i wrote a very pathetic post last night that no one will bother reading, and then this morning i saw georges' day in the life post and thought, thats what i should have done. so there being no rules in blogtoberfest about editing a days post, here goes.

day 14 - october 14 - a day in the life.

5am: woke up to the irritating sound of one those annoying koel birds and the crash of the garbage truck. trent gets up, makes coffee. i snooze on and off till after 6.

6.30am: rush into shower, quick blowdry of hair (really these shiny silver streaks are getting a bit out of control), pack bag etc.

7am: give dogs pigs ear treats! get into car. trent is driving today as he has moved workplaces to the city, so its not too much of a detour to drop him there and then i proceed to my work.

7.40am: take control of car, wind through back streets of chinatown, up harris st, onto cleveland st (funny how the cross city tunnell hasnt really improved things here) onto anzac pde, turn into high st, then botany st, then in gate 11 and the botany st carpark.

7.55am: rush to bathroom. why is it morning coffee goes through me like that?

8am: buy tall skim latte (a freebie today because i have filled in my coffee card) from the charming boys at the coffee cart, they even stir in my fake sugar for me. nice. go into building, walk up three flights of stairs.

8.10-10.30am. get to my office, turn on computer, wade through pile of emails that have built up since last thursday. this is the problem with only working 2 days, there really is a lot to do when you get in there! have a rather heated email chat with one of our members in the US who wants to know why he is being sent a reminder to renew by next feb when he only joined "your god-damned organisation" in august (and i quote. i find it hard to believe any deity cares enough about our little society to damn it, but anyway) and i try to explain membership procedures etc, and tell him he doesnt have to be so rude. he apologises, i explain what a good deal he is getting given the fact that the aussie dollar was worth 70 US cents yesterday, and we agree that we have not strained US-Australian relations too badly. but sheesh, some people are amazing!

10.30. start processing membership renewals (i have had 3 complaints and 30 renewals, so some people dont have a problem), only to find that i have no idea how to use the little gizmo my tech support has added to my database over the weekend. ring said tech support. breathe deeply. we get through that ok without a major argument. continue processing memberships.

12.30 stop for lunch. i managed to remember to give trent a left over stir fry for his lunch but forgot about myself, so i go downstairs to the southern wok and buy 'two choices, steam rice'. sambal vegetables, beef in black bean. coke zero. eat at my desk, reading the sydney morning herald online. decide the world is indeed going to hell in a handbasket.

1.30pm shuffling papers when my boss walks in. i give him a pile of contributors copyright agreements (we publish a little journal) for him to sign and then we talk about what i need to do while he is away for 2 months and i basically run the shop. there are some interesting things coming up, including the premiers history awards on oct 27, i dont know if i want to go tho, it being birthday day and all.

3.00pm, take an early mark, because i have to get home in time for the lawn mower man who is coming to look at the ride on which stopped suddenly in mid-mow on sunday.

3.10pm get really annoyed at the petrol station because its supposed to be cheap tuesday but it isnt, and there is only one petrol pump working, and now i am late.

3.20pm nearly run over renegade student pedestrians crossing anzac pde against the lights. fookin' stoodents, as noel gallagher put it so aptly once.

3.50pm arrive at my local shops, run in and buy bread, cereal and margarine, rush home, get out of car just as lawn mower man arrives. i dont even have time to pee or say hi to the dogs, because he is busy explaining the under-engine pulley system to me and how this belt has come loose and you really have to watch out for sticks. um, der. but anyway, he fixes it so im happy.

4.30pm let dogs out for run, go back inside, forget to close gate. turn on oven, defrost chook for dinner.

5.15pm peel veges, put in oven. go downstairs to hang towels out on line to discover two dogs missing. ask possum where they are, she looks across the paddock. sure enough jem has seen me and comes running, huge grin on his face, followed closely by his mortal enemy (but now his bestest buddy), kostya, the adopted dog, who is also grinning like he just saw something totally cool. they get close and i cringe. they have rolled in something. something vile. evil beyond words. they think they are the cleverest pair of dogs ever to put paws on this earth.

5.30-5.45pm wash dogs.

5.45-6.30pm iron some clothes.

6.30 dinner is ready and trent arrives home (we are storing a car here for someone, so he had to go pick it from her on his way home). he tells me to come outside, says that our someone has been clearing out her pantry and wonders whether we want some stuff. there are four milk crates and two cardboard boxes full of grocery items, unopened, including breakfast cereals, microwave popcorns, canned soup, jars of plum sauce (??), tin vegies, and an alarming amount of canned beans and lentils. we eat dinner first (roast chook and vegies) before packing it away.

8.15-10pm. finally repair to the couch. trent does some ironing, the phone rings, first australians start. i start the decrease rows on clappy - i am not sure if i have enough for another set of straight rows so decide not to risk it. i discover a potential problem with clappy - some dropped stitches have ravelled across ways in two places ( i must not have done the ktbl stitches there properly). i pout a bit, but i think it will be ok. during this time i also write a very pathetic blog post, which only bells has commented on, and i have now edited away).

10 something. get ready for bed, get into bed, watch rush, go to sleep.

kxx

friends, romans, countrymen...*

2008-10-13T20:45:00.005+11:00

you know where im going with that of course, and its all i can think of whenever i think of todays word for blogtoberfest, ie, LEND.

but you dont need to lend me your ears, or your umbrellas, but i did want to take this chance to talk about how much lending has become a part of my knitting experience.

someone once said you keep what you have by giving it away and i think this is really the case when it comes to knitting. i have become a much better knitter because of the willingness of others to lend me their expertise, from ms spider with her sock lessons in civic starbucks (i hope she is proud of her protege who is now seriously addicted and can knit a sock sans pattern), to the pattern designers i will never meet in places likes knitty.com and ravelry, who sweat for hours working out their clever designs and let us download them for free.

as a writer, this is the most generous act for me, to lend your intellectual property. i am not good at it. i noticed a sign at uni today for a seminar being presented by one of my former, um, colleagues. the ideas he is going to present seem rather familiar. a little bit too familiar, if you know what i mean. a part of me wants to go knock on his door and throw a little tanty (esp given he gave me grief about those ideas) but another part of me just shrugs and thinks, well i knew they were good!

so thank you to all the knitters out there who lend me their ears everytime i have a problem, or the pattern reading fairy strikes, or i run out of inspiration, and to all the knitters who share their creativity for our benefit, and to all the knitters who have given up their day jobs to create the websites to facilitate our addictions :)

oh, i got an interview for 'that museum job', by the way (its not till november 10 so dont hold your breath). and i had one student out of 30 who had watched first australians. it was great. go watch it. go. now.

k xx

ps. as i type this, i am watching people on 4 corners talk about predatory LENDing in the US mortgage market, which im sure i could find a way to incorporate into todays post, but i will refrain. im sure we've all had more than we can take on The Global Financial Crisis, which our PM has recently likened to an on going act of terrorism. chickens come home to roost more like....

* Julius Caesar Act 3, Sc II.

a day in the wild

2008-10-12T19:57:00.003+11:00

welcome to day 12 of blogtoberfest. nothing as poetic as yesterdays effort im afraid, but we have a button!

it was a beautiful sunny day here but i didnt get a chance to take any more photos of adventure boy on his mower again (yes its that big. 5 acres big and those mowers take a bit of getting used to!). and then just when you get used to it, it stops going forward. there was some belt thing that fell off, and we were in the middle of fixing it when the strangers-into-family arrived.

this also meant that i didnt get a chance to take a photo of the goanna that appeared in the long grass left around the fence line. it sat in the sun for a while and then disappeared. yesterday we fished a small lizard out of the pool. a week ago a duck flew in and swam around in the pool for a while. the spiders are out in force. everyday there are cockatoos and lorrikeets hanging off the bottlebrush trees. and then there are the pests - the bush rats and the rabbits. its a jungle out there!

so the rest of the afternoon was spent with the kids in the pool, and then chasing rabbits, and then cooking dinner together, and then the washing and wiping up, and now we are exhausted, waiting for the first australians to start.

briefly on the knitting front, i am joining bells in her long lacy summer, apart from my usual lace socks to which i am so utterly addicted, i have some special yarn set aside for a particular project that i will blog about when i start it. in other news, i have frogged the floating blossom socks, the design is too pretty to be lost in a busy yarn, but i had a brainwave about what else that yarn should be and it is perfect, i cant believe i didnt think of it before, but i am saying no more as they are going to be a gift, and i have already nearly spoilt the surprise.

tomorrow i am back to wollongong for my second last day of teaching. i did get all my marking done finally, but i cant wait for this semester to be over and to not have to have anything much to do with Gen Y for another summer. maybe even not ever again. some of them are lovely. some of them are really frickin' painful.

whats the bet when i ask them tomorrow in their first year australian history class that ZERO percent of them watched the first australians?

k xx

word of the year

2008-10-11T20:35:00.005+11:00

transform – verb (used with object)
1.to change in form, appearance, or structure; metamorphose.
2.to change in condition, nature, or character; convert.
3.to change into another substance; transmute.

a student into a doctor
an adult into an orphan
a possum into yarn
yarn into a cardigan

two dogs into three
one sock into two
singles into couples
and back again

friends into aquaintances
avatars into friends
strangers into family
the beach into the bush

thirty into forty
a computer geek into adventure boy
a paddock into lawn

kxx

none here either....

2008-10-10T21:15:00.002+11:00

a couple of days ago bells lamented that her inspiration for blogtoberfest had all dried up and i think mine has as well. perhaps it was all that deconstructing yesterday, but my brain is pretty shrivelled today. i hurt my neck swimming this morning (just had to push it that little bit too hard) and its stiff and sore and computerising is not helpful.

knitting probably isnt either, but i dont care, i am on to skein two of clapotis and am very happy with how its going and how long its going to be and i want to finish it soon. i have socks to be going on with and the summer lace project to start and i really do need to start a garment in summer so its ready for winter for once. i would like to make another lily because i learnt a lot from the last one and there are some things i would change, but also trent is due a jumper this year.

and there are christmas presents to be thinking of as well. already. where does the year ago? where do the decades go, even? another 17 days and my thirties are gone. only 15 sleeps till the party tho. catering is booked. accomodations arranged - ideas for easy finger foods that can be prepared earlier and served cold are welcome. george?

on that absolutely thrilling note, i am back to clapotis and a bourne repeat. i think i will steal some of janes suggestions to bells for more interesting posts over the weekend.

or else i can opt out of blogtoberfest and go for 'blogging without obligations' instead....

k xx

deconstructing wall-e

2008-10-09T15:30:00.005+11:00

i have been having some interesting discussions at home lately about the importance of sub-text - how does one know how and when to read between the lines etc - and have been castigated for all my p0-mo deconstructing mumbo jumbo. i get into trouble for this quite often, like when i lived in a share house and we all went to see that bridget fonda version of nikita (or la femme nikita), a perfectly good french film rendered unwatchable as 'the assasin' by hollywood, and on the walk home i bemoaned long and loud the anti-feminist sub-text, which did not make me popular with my blokey action loving house mates. sigh.

anyway, there is no such danger in the deconstruction of wall-e, mostly because the sub-text is not entirely sub. its a kids movie for a start, so you want the message to be kind of loud and clear, which it is - ie, clean up your rubbish and get off your arse. a perfectly legitimate message for a kids movie, actually i wish more kids movies had messages of this kind rather than the be a princess or a brat kind.

there was a sub-text tho, aimed at adults, and those who know the back room dealings between pixar and disney, evidenced by the fact that when wall-e starts up he makes a sound like a mac. this had me and only one other adult in the cinema laugh out loud while the kids looked at us like we were retarded. of course, wall-e is the reliable, break-proof, sturdy robot, while the white shiny ones developed by the company BNL (buynlarge - get it?) are either defective, soulless or mutinous, while BNL has branded itself on everything. so the sub-text is about capitalism and the commodification and disposability of modern life, the emptiness at the heart of consumption, the insidiousness of branding. it is possible that the CEO of BNL, the only non-animated character, could be said to look like a certain microsoft philathropist, but im sure the resemblance is purely co-incidental. that sub text is writ large in the closing titles, which the kids i was with didnt get, but show the re-evolution of the human species as it returns to earth through the changes in artistic styles, starting back in the stone age and becoming animated again. really very clever (altho of course there is a potential sub-subtext here of 'will we just make the same mistakes all over again' but that would be mean spirited of me).

but the real message was about love and loyalty, and sticking by your friends, no matter what, even when they shut down on you, or have some other 'directive' (wall-e in joke).

it was a really great movie, not just a good animation, (the graphics are beyond anything ive ever seen, the light and detail are amazing) but a really good plot and character driven, emotion laden, movie with a message, and you should go see it.

and no, i am not a mac user by nature, tho i love my nano. the irony of wall-e being yellow and dirty and not cute like an Eva-Ipod was not lost on me mr jobs.

k xx

wall-e wednesday

2008-10-08T08:59:00.004+11:00

i am blogging early today because i am going out soon and will be tired when i get back.

one of the legacies left us by trent's dad is his adopted family, and today i am taking three young people to the mall and the movies. we are going to see wall-e. i am excited about it, it is supposed to be great.

we may also stop and have something sweet from here.

so three sugared-up young people. in a shopping mall. during school holidays. egads!

meanwhile i am nearly half finished clappy. yes yes i know im slow. i thought it would not be long enough but i am getting good yardage from this fibreworks alpaca merino blend that feels like silk, and it gets longer everytime i do a row of drop stitches.

i only want a light scarf, so i think once its blocked it will be sufficient.

i have not resolved the sock dilemma re solid v variegated. i have been given interesting but conflicting advice. i am going to put it aside till clappy's done and worry about it then.

have a good one
k xx

hysterical wars

2008-10-07T19:02:00.003+11:00

it was another ordinary day at the australian hysterical association, as some people i know have taken to calling it. it seems to fit, oddly, historians being a bit passionate at times. they like to dig out the knives every so often and stick them into the back of 'some old queen or other' (oooh look, smiths lyrics in the BODY of the post!)

fighting continues in the history wars, with our best and brightest being appointed to the prime ministers curriculum board, bringing out the usual charges of pinky leftie commies under the bed, again. like really people, didnt we do that one already? its all so last century...

meanwhile, 40 years since it was first named, the great australian silence continues. i am looking forward to seeing what rachel has to say about it.

but otherwise, as someone clever once said, nothing interesting happened today.

kxx

the morning after...

2008-10-06T11:28:00.005+11:00

this blogtoberfest thing makes me feel like i no sooner blogged than i have to blog again! who will have time to keep up?! what will i say tomorrow when i am doing nothing interesting but going to work?!

anyway, today is a long weekend, which some people think is appropriate given the result of the football game last night. let us speak no more of that.

it has been raining all weekend in lovely heavy showers followed by constant drizzle, last night we went outside before bed to find the house encircled in a true scotch mist. all this wet is making everything so green, its the type of green that hurts your eyes:

it is also the type of wet that has me inside on a holiday doing this:

i believe this will be penultimate lot of marking ever, if i am lucky. (i have applied for another 2 day a week job doing some research for a museum but i dont want to jinx it so am not going to talk about it anymore...). regardless of how that turns out, i am determined to not get sucked into the trap of academic jobs, which are all about teaching and not about research these days, and i didnt spend 10 years at uni to become a glorified babysitter.

meanwhile, i have a knitting question. i have restarted my tinkingbell socks with the cherry tree hill yarn on 2.5mm needles because the pattern wasnt working on the 3mms and such fine yarn. thing is, i am not entirely sure it will work with this yarn, it being variegated. the pattern is not standing out like it would in a solid colour, but even so, there is something about this i quite like:

the colours are darker than this in real light and it has a lovely aztec feel to it. but im not sure. what do you think? should the floating blossom socks only be done in solid yarns, or is this worth pursuing?

kxx

mixed emotions

2008-10-05T16:36:00.002+11:00

we are home early from another day avoiding the rain and chasing sheep. if me and my possum worked sheep everyday i think we'd be pretty good at it, she is a natural of course but her stupid handler often gets in the way. like today, i felt like my brain was as thick as the mud i was wading through. partly this is because we stuffed up on the daylight saving switch thing, thinking that our mobile phones would make the change automatically. wrong. so we got up at 6 instead of 5 and had to shower and leave, no coffee. in the haste to leave we forgot to take our mobile coffee pot. it was at least 9am (or is that 8am?) before i got some caffeine. this set me back all day!

and now we are waiting for the kickoff in the rugby league grand final, in which trents team is playing. his team is the manly sea eagles. they are possibly the most hated team in the league, but considering he was born in manly hospital, he gets to go for them. now we are living deep in manly territory. houses and shopping centres and bridges and people have been walking around all this week draped in manly colours, maroon and white. i cant tell you how uncomfortable this makes me. i was born and bred on the southern beaches, my dad played for the rabbits and i grew up in cronulla. cronulla are my usual team (tho they are so useless i gave up on them years ago). the thing is, cronullas mortal enemy is manly. everytime we have been in a grandfinal, it was against manly, and we have been always denied. hatred of manly, if you live in cronulla, is a way of life. so it makes me queasy to be around so much maroon and white.

my problem tho is two fold. the other team today is melbourne. why would i want a melbourne team to win? i wouldnt. and i want trent to be happy. but i cant go for manly. i just cant. so there is no joy for me in rugby league today, either way. but its 2 or 3 hours where i get to sit and knit uninterrupted, so thats what i'll be doing.

the problem there is i dont know whether to do socks or clapotis....

sigh

k xx

and again....

2008-10-04T20:08:00.004+10:00

today it rained. we got wet.

instead of staying out of the rain like smart people, we left home at 6am to go sit in a wet and muddy paddock to have our dogs chase some sheep around.

here are the sheep:

as i mentioned yesterday, these are descendants of the orignal merinos bought to australia by the marine-turned-criminal-turned-farmer john macarthur and his wife elizabeth. they are kept at belgenny farm, the macarthurs first sheep farm, as a piece of living history. behind them is the original belgenny cottage, part of it dating back to 1810.

while i have my own rather contrary opinions about the legacy of white agricultural ventures in colonial australia, if it werent for the macarthurs and these sheep, i wouldnt be knitting, so i will keep the self-righteous hypocrsiy to a minimum.

as you can see, the dogs worked hard.

we are going back tomorrow for more, and considering i am about to lose an hours sleep with the advent of daylight saving, thats all folks.

k xx

the bleeding obvious...

2008-10-03T18:22:00.005+10:00

it was hot today.

i went for a swim:

this was after we got back from a long drive to mittagong to pick up some beds from a friends place. they will come in handy for a certain Event being planned for later this month.

this weekend we are off to herding school at camden to run around a paddock with a dog and some crazy sheep descended from the original macarthur merinos and so inbred they dont know how to act like sheep. should be fun anyway.

so long as its not so hot.

k xx

blogtoberfest

2008-10-02T12:33:00.004+10:00

everyone else is doing it so i think i will too. it makes sense because october 2008 is the month of my 40th birthday. 25 days to go of my thirties.

my hair is going grey.

k xx

if youre happy and you know it clap your hands....

2008-10-01T18:14:00.003+10:00

well the smiths didnt write any songs with the word 'clap' in the title, and that was the only one i could think of so...

but i am happy, and i am clapping - see:

i so love how this is turning out, but i absolutely will not have enough yarn to make it as long as i would like, so looks like a little spending spree at fibreworks is in order....

not right now tho. i think we spent enough today at a certain little swedish variety outlet....

trent quit his job yesterday because he got a new one starting next week. so we went shopping. he has also been playing with his pool. like, twice a day:

at least i can say i do have a cabana boy!

on the tinkingbell sock front, i had to frog them because the cherry tree hill yarn wasnt working on the 3mm needles, so i went back to 2.5s. it is a variegated yarn which is usually a killer for lacey patterns but this one is working, in an odd kind of way. will show more when its further advanced. i might even post it over on the SSS blog, which i am very pleased that bells and rosered have decided to get going again this summer. i will try not to put so much pressure on myself this time tho!

speaking of pressure, i got an email yesterday from that place where i teach a bit, telling me i had been nominated for a teaching award. get this tho, you have to then APPLY yourself, so you have to put together a portfolio of your teaching experience and explain why you should get the award you just got nominated for. does that seem like a seinfeld moment to anyone? i am SO not going to bother, just on principle. stupid unis. what do they know about anything?!

k xx

mall rats

2008-09-26T15:30:00.003+10:00

i am still not settled with my new grocery shopping routine. i like to have a set day and place so i know how long i will take, but there are so many options around here and each has advantages and disadvantages. like at one mall there is a great harris farm produce store, but a crap woollies. at another there is the worlds biggest woollies but no harris farm and i really hate woollies for fruit and veg. and then there is fresh produce market up the road, and another separate meat and fish market, let alone the fantastic bakery at our local village shops, and then suddenly youre running from place to place all day!

today i settled for the really big mall with all the shops but no harris farm. i took trent with me. he is 'sick' today (cough cough). we bought shoes.

well what are you supposed to do when rivers sell their $13 thongs for $1.90. mine are the pink and red ones. i also bought a pair of sandals:

i have spent the last few summers looking in vain for sandals that are practical and comfy without being daggy and i walk into colorado and there they are. on special, $49, thanks very much.

and you know how i said i was going to finish clappy? well clappy got frogged three times because i kept reading the KTBL as 'knit the front and back' and then wondering why my stitch count was going mental. but i did finally figure it out and now i have done three lots of the drop stitch rows which was freaky but cool!

however, just working on clappy and the rib socks meant only two WIPs and thats just not right. three feels better. an object, easy socks, and fancy socks. so last night i cast on what i am calling Tinkingbell Socks - they are the floating blossom socks designed by our very own ceri and featured in yarn 11.

i am using some yarn that was gifted to me by the lovely bells, cherry tree hill in 'serengeti'. i think they are a perfect match.

this weekend we are watching lots of football, tending house and having the in-law family over for a bbq on sunday. and maybe i might have to go to the mall again for something.....

k xx

FO Shetland Triangle # 2

2008-09-22T07:40:00.006+10:00

i was first inspired to make the Shetland Triangle because of brooklyntweeds creation. i am not a big fan of angular lace patterns, preferring things to be circular and flowing, so this one really stood out. my first attempt was with lace weight and it was lovely but too slight for my tastes. the second attempt was more like mr brooklyn's, in an 8 ply on big needles and a lot larger than the pattern, 13 body repeats but only about 10 rows of the finishing edge because it came off the needles with very little to spare - this is all the wool i had left:

the yarn is a nundle classic 8ply merino. i used 6 x 50g balls. i also used the yarn harlots blocking method, thank you yarn harlot, although the mattress nearly wasnt big enough (we havent made this bed in the spare room yet):

i didnt bother with the points as i like my shawls to have rounded edges and it spent a long time, over 24 hours, on the rack, because i never was happy with how my first attempt blocked and this one was going to be flat if it killed me. and flat it is:

it has come up lovely, and is modelled here by 'some anonymous guy i pulled off the street' (joke):

it is long and wide and the pattern and colour are lovely. this has taken me a long time to get around to finishing, but it is worth the wait.

this weeks project is to finish clappy which has also been languishing in the WIP basket while various socks and cardigans came and went.

k xx

the tag

2008-09-20T06:52:00.002+10:00

right so i was tagged for the the 7 random things meme which is kind of like the 7 weird things. i will try to be random not weird.

1. i am a scaredy-cat. it pains me to confess i am scared of the dark outside at night time. still. the house where i grew up was surrounded by bush and up on short legs and it was always my job to go turn the hose off at night time (back in the days when you were allowed to leave your hose or sprinkler on the garden all day) and i was always scared something was going to come out from under the house and grab me. the fact that i still harbour this fear is probably weird.

2. i am a waterbaby. despite my pathological hatred of the australian summer i was born and bred on the beach and would spend most of my summer in the water if i could. i won backstroke races at school carnivals but never really learnt to breathe for freestyle properly. i am teaching myself to do this now. yesterday i did laps in a 27 degree heated indoor pool and then later tried to swim in my own pool which is not indoor and not heated. 18 degrees doesnt have quite the same zing to it. so thats weird too. (i am going in again today tho).

3. i am a bookworm. i learnt to read before i went to school. i collect books, i can not throw them out and couldnt possibly do bookcrossing. once ive read it, i keep it. my favourites are classic fiction, george eliot in particular. i have not read a fiction book since i started my phd which is a terrible state of affairs and something i hope to remedy over summer now that i am finished and can free up some brain space. not so weird, that one.

4. vegemite. love it. must have it everyday. crave it if i dont. that would be weird if you are american but then you eat jam with your peanut butter so.....

5. i am allergic to cats. i quite like them as a species, something about the independence i quite admire. i love that the dogs go ballistic everytime i get home but sometimes a nice quiet 'hey' would suffice.

6. i dont like gold jewellery on me. yellow gold i mean. just doesnt suit my colouring (i am a 'winter' apparently) (there, two random things at once!). so i wear white gold or silver. i mention this because last night trent gave me my graduation present. it is a handmade remake of an old el-cheapo silver ring that broke. this is one is 9ct white gold. niiiiiiiiice. (i will post a photos soon)

7. i am an early riser. i have never been a big sleeper-innerer. 6 is normal, 7 is a sleep in, 8 is after a night out and rare.

perhaps i am just weird after all?!

k xx

today is pool day

2008-09-17T07:15:00.005+10:00

its raining here this morning,

which is kind of ironic, because i am heading off for my first day of lap-swimming. this is the one and only form of exercise i enjoy, and there is a big aquatic centre nearby, so i am availing myself of its services.

also ironic, because we have a pool here, and its a biggun. we have no idea how to look after it, it is a salt-water chlorine pool (where the salt reacts with some sort of copper mineral to make chlorine, rather than adding the chemical stuff), and it has been let go:

i have a pool guy coming today to look at it. shame i dont have a cabana :) so today is all about the pool.

today is also the day the red shetland will be finished. this is where its at:

and thats all the wool i have left. its from nundle, so i could order some more, but i dont want to, and last night i started on another set of body repeats only to realise i also needed to do a 14 row edge to finish and wouldnt have enough wool to do both. luckily the first row of the body (where i was up to) is almost the same as the third row of the edging, so i should just be able to do row 3 of the edging now and carry on. it is pretty sizeable, and when blocked i think will be about as big as i want it, and the colour is a gorgeous deep red, not the bright pink i am getting on my monitor.

today is also day-of-working-from-home. trent has spent a lot of time and money to set up the wireless network in this rather cavernous place, (its working great, thank you honey!) so the office, which is downstairs, is now all set up and i should be able to do my research work from here.

in reality i feel like crawling back to bed and staying there all day. i am not, like almost the whole entire rest of blogland, sick (i had mine earlier thanks) but i am tired from not sleeping well and thinking too much. in the excitement of the move and the fun of settling in, it is easy to overlook what a huge change this is for us. i have had lots of other feelings since we got here, which im sure is all perfectly normal. but some old insecurities have emerged, which is a bit surprising, and i am also kind of sad about coming to the end of an era by leaving wollongong. glad about part of it, but sad about other parts. see, there i go, thinking too much....

in other news i have been 'nommed' and 'tagged' by some lovely knit-bloggers, but will make a seperate post for them later on. i will also, i hope, get some time to read and comment on everyone else!

k xx

la de da

2008-09-13T08:54:00.003+10:00

just a quick one. no knitting, the red shetland is moving along nicely and grows by the day but it is still a few days off yet.

now that we are back in the big smoke we get to go out at nighttime like civilised peoples. for our first big adventure, we went to the opera house.

mozart, don giovanni. absolutely breath-takinginly spectacular. i have a little history-crush on mozart but this is the first time i have seen an opera live. cant wait to go again. they are doing the magic flute next year....

tomorrow we are off to a camping show. you know, looking at all the gadgets you need to make your rustic camping experience more like a 5 star hotel experience. im a bit yawn about that stuff but at least there is good car-knitting time involved!

and today, before we settle in for a night of football extravangza (my team, his team AND the wallabies, go the wallabies) trent has found a new dog training club for him and jem to do agility at, and then because its warm we are going to clean the pool, but not before i set about cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms which were left a little bit less clean than i like. like, better to just nuke them unclean.

anyway, we are nearly all unpacked, here is the living room taking shape.

that bookcase took a whole wall, floor to ceiling in our old house. looks kind of small now. did i mention that trent works within walking distance of ikea.....

have a good one
k xx

transitional s.e.x

2008-09-10T11:05:00.015+10:00

someone commented that once i had packed up knitting corner in the moving preparations, that perhaps i would use this as an excuse to do some stash enhancement, a la 'some people we know'. (it is not without reason that stash is now called 'george').

i scoffed at the time, but events did transpire that forced my hand on this front.

firstly, i felted the lichen rib socks (ravelry link) and had to order more burrawool to make another pair, because it really is spectacular wool and it made fantastic rib boot socks. i couldnt get any more grey but the brown is lovely - i already blogged about that anyway.

secondly, a long-forgotten order for some Socks That Rock arrived. my enabler was kind enough to post them to me so that they arrived on my very first morning in the new house. i got three skeins, some medium weight in 'knitters without borders' colourway, for the cause, and also for the colours, which are a lot brighter than shown here:

i think this might end up a one-row scarf (rav link).

some raven:

for boy socks (and because good dark colours are hard to find),

and some atomic:

because this is a perfect winter sock colour for me, and i dont have very many dark socks. i dont know exactly which socks these will be, tho i quite like the bacchus socks (minus the bobbles?) in the latest IK (which i finally received. speaking of which - what the hell is this? i dont mean to be mean, but i just cant get past the devo thing).

and thirdly, someone decided she had to pick RIGHT NOW to dye up some bruised bloodwood which i had been lusting after forever and couldnt let slide this time:

it is in luscious alpacky and is not going to be socks but something large and lacey to work on over summer. i quite like this wrap (sorry another rav link - sign up people!).

and just in case you think i am acquiring a rather large george (not that theres anything wrong with that), let me show you how modest it really is:

this is all my good wool. i have another basket that has odds and ends, some bendy, some patons etc. but thats it folks. you see how small it is really? see how desperate i am for more? see?

k xx

FO bonanza

2008-09-08T07:23:00.006+10:00

our first weekend at our new house was not spent at our new house but on the road to and from kioloa beach on the south coast for a flyball comp, where the phoenix (possums team) came first in division one, making the humans very happy, despite the fact it was freezing cold, blowing a gale and pouring with rain. ah yes, the beautiful south coast. it was fun anyway.

the travelling time meant i got my second pair of thuja socks finished and they are lovely.

they are in Colinette Jitterbug Copperbeach colourway (the colours arent so great in this pic), slightly modififed pattern, 60 stitches, 2.5mm needles, longer in the leg. i really love this pattern.

also i may have mentioned that i finished the lily cardigan last week. i have worn it twice already and am very happy with it. here it is hanging in knitting corner:

the yarn is touch yarns possum merino, i used about 3 and a quarter skeins, and it is a beautiful soft fabric with a slight haze and a flash of silver in it:

i wanted it light and slightly open so it was on 4mm needles, and i got pretty good gauge with the recommended stitches for my size which made life a bit easier. i did continue with side increases for a fair part of the body to make sure it flared out over the...um....hip area, and when i make it again (because i will) i will make it slightly longer.

i will also try and figure out how to make the ties at exactly the same spot on either side of the front because my guess work was off on this one and i have to move one of the ties, but for now it is perfectly wearable and the perfect weight for this time of year.

now i just have a shetland shawl and a clappy to finish! i did do a little bit of stash enhancement over the moving-transition period which i will blog soon... it may include some rather scrummy sock wool and a little bit of pretty alpacky for my summer lace project. more on that later.

k xx

what spring brings

2008-09-03T09:59:00.008+10:00

so it has happened, we have moved back to sydney. it is very weird, i drove in to work this morning through the northern suburbs and felt very surreal. i was born and bred on The South Side and the north side of Sydney harbour is like a whole other planet to me! trent however was born in manly hospital so its like coming home to him. the move itself went relatively smoothly, apart from trent having to wait till 430 in wollongong for the f*%$wit real estate agent to 'inspect the curtains' which we had washed ironed and folded but not re-hung, before he would release the bond. yes thats right, we ironed the curtains, and they want to argue about them. thankfully that is the last real estate agent we will be dealing with a for a very long time. why is it that if you rent you get treated like crap?!

anyway, i have lots of pix. firstly, this is the view from the back porch at 5am on our first morning (we are still getting used to being able to sleep in):

nice picture trent. that is mist rising from the hawksebury river as it winds its way through the kuringai chase national park. (on that map, we are the bottom of the cottage point section). this is the traditional lands of the garigal people, whose land it always was and always will be, and it is a truly beautiful piece of bush, classic australian, sandstone, fire-prone bushland, full of kookaburras, rosellas and wallabies.

here is the front of the house:

it is the original house built in the 1970s for a family with 4 kids, so it has 5 bedrooms. one of them has yellow painted walls, and there is yellow daisy wall paper in one of the bathrooms. in fact, the bathrooms should be demolished, but we are going to spend some time painting and fixing up things that have been let go.

one of the first things i set up inside was, not surprisingly, the new knitting corner. here it is in all its glory!

this is the view from knitting corner, thank you very much:

cup of tea anyone?

this is the view of the back of the house, that fence-y thing shields an in-ground pool - i am actually looking forward to summer now!

here is the back yard for the dogs to run in (4 or so acres of it):

i think they like it:

and here are some of the first signs of spring - a bottle brush:

and some bulby-type things. bells will know what they are!

there is still a lot of unpacking to do, and the place has been let go a bit so we have a lot of weekends at home to look forward to, and if i had known that garbage night was tuesday morning i would have been a lot happier, but so far its going well and i am trying to shed my disbelief that this is our place, this is where we live now. the only sad thing is that bob is not here to see it, he would have been very happy.

on a final note, before i go do some actual work, is that lily is well and truly finished and i am wearing her as i type and am so happy with it i keep stopping to admire it! my only problem is that the ties dont line up making one side look shorter than the other if i tie it tight, so i will have to fix that, but otherwise its come up so much better than i expected. here it is blocking,

i will take better pix and blog the whole project soon.

thanks for all your moving well wishes, hope you are all well and happy.

k xx

eta: lily pic re-added - bad blogger!

one sleep and a sneak peak...

2008-08-31T07:09:00.003+10:00

it is raining today, for our last day in The Gong. seems fitting somehow, as i am a little sad today.

but also excited. here is a sneak peak of our new backyard....

i may have mentioned the 'lots of grass' thing before.

we were up there yesterday pottering around - lots of work to do but lots to look forward to. you will not BELIEVE the new knitting corner!

but more on that to follow.

i did get the bulk of Lily finished yesterday, and now just have to pick up and knit on the front band and tie and then try and block it a bit. no sneak peak of that, but i will say that i am pretty pleased with it. 'loving myself sick right now' as i heard someone say once :)

we have lots to do today and tomorrow and probably no internets for a day or two, so there will be a short break in transmission but i will return from a different part of the world soon.

k xx

five sleeps...

2008-08-27T08:48:00.006+10:00

today i thought i would post some pics of what we are leaving behind in five sleeps time. the scenic photos are courtesy of trent.

if you walk across the road and look south this is what you see. thats wollongong in the distance.

if you look north you can see people like this:

if you turn around and look back towards our house you see this:

we are behind the little blue shack, which is the only original house left in this street, built by friends of ours parents, before there was even a street here and they used a bobcat to push the sand away so they could get in the front door. the mcmansions are 'progress' apparently. personally i think they suck.

if you go down the driveway beside the blue house, you can see our house (currently a mess):

as you can see, we have no grass. this is about to change dramatically. when i post pix of the new house you will see what i mean. i do love living here and often take the beauty and the beach for granted, but in summer its a tourist nightmare, no dogs on the beach and its a fight to park your own car. i wont miss that.

in knitting news, lily needs only another couple of inches of length and the front band and tie knitted on. possibly by the end of the weekend?

even though i have to finish thuja first, and have some ranco and cherry tree hill to be getting on with, i picked up some of this to replace the grey lichen rib socks that i felted:

kate doesnt have any more of the grey 5 ply left. i can not recommend this wool highly enough. grown on the southern highlands, processed organically, no dyes (apparently sheep come in this colour). look at it up close:

scrummy.

did i mention five more sleeps....

k xx

seven sleeps....

2008-08-25T06:17:00.004+10:00

i should apologise for the rant. trent said he didnt like it because he thought i should be happy about the move, which of course i am, and im not one to rain on anyones parade, but ranting made me feel better. and really, it was all because of that bloody tape cutter that kept scraping my knuckles and making me bleed. packing shouldnt make you bleed.

anyway we got heaps done over the weekend, including cleaning the kitchen in all those hard to reach places (good lord, what goes ON behind the stove when you're not looking?!). we crashed early last night and i missed the closing ceremony, but like rosered, there have been lots of 'lympics highlights for me. i always get addicted to the 'lympics, and end up all teary about sports i normally couldnt give a toss about!

of course i love the underdog stories, and the hard luck stories, i do really think anna meares should have got to carry the flag at the closing, because who the hell comes back from a broken neck 7 months ago to cycle like a demon losing only to the world champ? i love that pole vaulting guy, steve hooker, and that young diver, micheal mitchum, watching him cry made me cry!

but the real highlight for me was the BMX. i know, its a travesty and probably not an olympic sport, but there was something so much fun about 30 year old guys with ear piercings on tiny bikes crashing out and claiming 'that was rad dude'. i think i liked the subversiveness of it, so anti-establishment!

and the low light of course was losing to england too often. nothing worse than an ego-inflated pom doing better than the colonists at sport.

but at least the wallabies beat the boks.

and there are only seven more sleeps to go and i really am very excited!

k xx

not happy jan

2008-08-23T14:02:00.004+10:00

i am not happy about packing. this is just a fraction of what we have done.

i am not happy about fighting with this stupid instrument that is supposed to make taping easier but doesnt.

i am not happy that i cant reach the decorative tea-making things that have been on a shelf for a year and now need a jack hammer to get the dust off them, and that i have to wait till trents finished washing the outside windows to get him to reach them so i can wash and dry them all, which is why im in here blogging not packing.

i am not happy that the car battery just died and will cost $175 to replace which is NOT in my moving budget.

i am not happy that knitting corner is packed away, and that the lily cardigan is so close to being finished why arent i sitting there finishing it?!

and i am not happy that i am enduring this torture while others hang out in groovy caffs in The Can, and i miss them and wish i had never left.

oh im sure there will be new knitting groups, and new adventures and it will all be worth it in the end but right now im just jack of it.

thats a rant and i dont care.

kxx

up down turn around please dont let me hit the ground

2008-08-20T08:16:00.004+10:00

i have been listening to new order on my ipod while riding my bike this morning. new order lyrics dont have quite the same zing for blog post titles as smiths lyrics really do they, although they are excellent songs for bike riding, especially the 10 minute version of confusion.

god i am such an 80s tragic. i still wear my converse sneakers nearly every day. i still listen to new order and the smiths and simple minds. i suspect this whole turning 40 thing doesnt quite agree. for example, on the weekend i bought cute japanese girly bling for my phone. it was red. it matches my hello kitty watch. sigh.

anyway, i have goodies to show. firstly, the lovely little bit crafty jen sent me this last week for a blog comment competition:

it is so lovely, trent thought it couldnt be hand made! it came with a gorgeous book, perfect for knitting days!

thank you jen xx

and the postie also brought a large parcel while i was at work yesterday. when he told me it had arrived i told trent it was probably my sunnyboy. he asked if he should put it in the freezer. funny. not:

two of them remain unopened as they are being gifted, but the sunnyboy is already in use!

and i was totally thrilled to find the needle book came with two shiny new needles in it! how thoughtful is that. i stuck my own in there too:

i think i want more of these. more of everything.

todays tasks are pack up what i can of this office, and do more of my nursing research. i have a meeting scheduled in three weeks to go over my latest findings. i just havent found anything yet....aaaaagh

k xx

what happened...

2008-08-18T17:15:00.003+10:00

this weekend? the bunnies beat the sea eagles and i was there. with a sea eagles fan. vengeance was mine this weekend.

to thuja? number two got started at said game. i had sworn off all other forms of knitting until lily was complete but given i managed to felt a perfectly good pair of lichen rib socks, i owe Him another pair. immediately.

to lily? as donni has already pointed out, blogging a garment is boring. it has grown somewhat. thats all i'll say.

to knitting corner?

obviously it hasnt been dusted properly in a while. but this is where it is now:

my life, surrounded by boxes.

k xx

this is...a work in progress

2008-08-13T16:57:00.004+10:00

this is my first time with the 'this is' meme. i was going to do the 'where i live' one but thats about to change and the new place is more photogenic, so that can wait.

and, like the clever caffeine fairie, once i would only have been able to think about the pensky as my work in progress.

but now i am free to work on bigger things, like the Lily cardigan.

it is made from touch yarns (new zealand) possum/merino blend, and is lovely and soft and drapey - i cant wait to wear it.

despite the fact that i seem to have been talking about it forever, and despite the fact that it looks like i am not getting anywhere, in reality, it is not that far off finished. it just needs a whole lot more stocking stitch. the hard part is done, sleeves finished etc, now its just getting it to as long as i want and then doing the bands for the tie at the front.

i estimate another week, depending on how much the rest of my life gets in the way with annoying things like packing boxes. grrrrr.

k xx

why do i constantly smile at people i would much rather....

2008-08-13T09:38:00.003+10:00

i have been checking out drewzel's blog this morning while i am supposed to be writing a history of nursing research in the british royal college of nursing, and i came across a part of her blog about things she likes, and i saw this cartoon, which i have linked to rather than putting the picture, because its SOOO funny and so relevant and you just have to check out the rest of his cartoons and we all need something else to do today rather than what we are doing, right, unless of course you are home knitting - er, resting....(hope you are feeling better bells).

k xx

ps another way to procrastinate from work (as opposed to pensky-procrastination which just took the form of knitting or daytime tv watching) is to finally figure out how to subscribe to bloglines. well der! where have i been for the last 2 years?!

oh has the world changed or have i changed

2008-08-08T12:14:00.008+10:00

anyone getting tired of smiths lyrics yet? i'll just say that i didnt start it so you cant blame me...

seriously tho, there are some major changes afoot, in fact the last 6 months have basically just been one change after another, and a lot of it has been a change in the way i see things, and a change in what i consider important in my life.

what has been most interesting is watching how other people react to my changes. i am lucky to have as many good people in my life as i do who only want shiny happy things for us, people who have been unwavering in their support over the last year or so and who i hope i get the chance to support in like manner when required.

but of course there are some (not anyone reading this) who see the changes only in terms of how they affect themselves, as though what i do is about them personally.

it has always been hard for me to move on from people, sometimes i dont do it very well, but as i have gotten older i realise that moving on from people is what happens in life. you dont have to say goodbye and that be it, never speak again, but you dont have to live in someones pocket to still be friends.

the best friends i have now are the ones who understand that life changes and you might not talk very often, but that doesnt mean you dont think or care about each other, and when you get together there is no recrimination, no guilt, no making anyone out to be a bad friend, just catching up. maybe its because those people also have things happening in their own life, and dont need to focus on how i am living mine.

i say all this because we are on the move again. a big move. like, a really really big life changing move.

on monday september one, we leave the Gong never to return. i do love it here, with our little shack by the sea, and the easy laid back kind of life, but there is so much else on offer its impossible to refuse. i cant give too many details publically, but 'the gods' (in whatever form they might take) are currently smiling on us, and we are headed back to sydney - to a very nice part thereof, and a very large piece of land, where i will be able to grow tomatoes and have my chooks again, and where the dogs will have more room to run in than they know what to do with.

it is on the outskirts of the city, but still close to everything, and while some may think we are moving a long way, when you travel two hours to get to work from here, thirty minutes from there will be a luxury!

so things turn to chaos here again as the packing starts, and now i am working i dont have to do it all myself (yay) so posting may get erratic but i think there may be some finished objects at least to show soon, eg two pairs of socks and a cardigan i might get to wear this season:

trent thought it was funny to point that one arm was longer than the other and he could get me a pair of scissors if i needed, but those of us who read bells' blog know that its not funny at all.

k xx

freedom and discipine

2008-08-04T08:52:00.003+10:00

well i managed to get out of one of my teaching days without annoying anyone - there was a ready substitute and an understanding course co-ordinator, so no harm done. the sense of relief is huge, now i just have two hours of australian history on monday afternoons with a much more manageable 50 students. i feel free!

this leaves two days a week now to work on publications and the other research job, so i still need to be disciplined with my time but teaching is such a mental drain, i think i am much better off without it.

speaking of discipline, some of that was required in relation to knitting. i have this little thing where because i was disciplined to within an inch of my life as a child, i still, at nearly 40, feel the need to rebel whereever possible, even if it is counter-productive to myself. like, not getting any knitting finished.

so i decided that socks were car and small space knitting, the shawl was good outdoor knitting (nice big stitches, big needles, easy pattern) and the cardigan, if i had any hope of wearing it this year, needed to become the night time knitting project. if i didnt submit to boring rounds of stocking stitch it would not get finished, so just submit and get it over with.

hence, a lot of the shawl got done this weekend at herding practice (there are some pics at trents flickr, i think there is one or two of me and poss, its been a while and we had fun - trent even hopped back in the ring with jem who is a much improved herder!) and i am going to run out of wool before thats big enough (necessitating an order from nundle at some point in the future).

and lo and behold, last night, sleeve one of lily was complete:

because its stocking stitch its curling up a lot so i have pinned out the sleeve so you can see the picot edge:

the yarn, a possum/merino blend is so soft and lucsious and the possum gives it this silvery haze, its gorgeous. i want to wear it NOW!

but i must be disciplined and do the washing up first. oh, and the other sleeve. and the body. and block it. but you know what i mean....

k xx

i was looking for a job and then i found a job....

2008-08-01T14:38:00.008+10:00

(and heaven knows im miserable now... as the song goes). like knitabulous, i have been inspired by quiltingmicks idea of using the smiths lyrics for post titles.

i am not actually miserable, but some decisions have been made around the job thing, like opting out of some of the teaching because of the ridiculous conditions now being offered by your nations' institutions of higher learning (did you know i am now expected to teach 25-28 first years in one class and do all that extra marking and extra consultation with NO commensurate pay increase). i dont think so.

also, we have found out that we are in fact on the move to the far nothern suburbs of old sydney town sometime in the next month, and with the two days at UNSW i just cant manage the travel down here twice a week. so i will be putting some noses out of joint by withdrawing right now, but i am afraid i care more for my own nose, so to speak. i have plenty of other work to be getting on with (incl some interesting new prospects which could include a trip to wales UK in the new year) and i need time to do it in.

what made me miserable about work today was that just now trent and i were out in the car and there were people on the radio talking about the knit-in at the abc studio in ultimo and trent asked me why i wasnt there. i wailed that i didnt even know it was happening because i had NO TIME TO KNIT anymore. its true. i have not touched lily in ages and have managed only a centrimetre or two on the madder rib sock one, and have not cast on thuja two. as for the second shawl, aaagh dont even ask....

plus, like i said the other day, i have been a bit obsessed with socks, mostly cos its cold and i obviously dont have enough of them:

and here is a pic of the little detail on the madder rib heel i wanted to show you, it is just what she calls a 'german' heel, and all it is is two purls and two knits at both end of the heel flap rows but it has made a lovely effect and has inspired me to try developing the feature in my own sock design (more to be revealed):

(btw, i apologise if the pics are really big, i am on the laptop and dont have my usual image-tweaking software).

meanwhile in the mail today i got some little goodies. i put in some custom orders at buttontreelane for a slightly larger project bag for the shawl and in her infinite wisdom msquilting-clever-mick decided i would like this one (modelling assistance from miss possum):

and you might remember i brought some lovely japanese fabric at the craft and quilt show and i am so inept with the whole sewing thing it was easier to ask QM to make the kind of bag i was after rather than stuff around with a sewing machine and probly break it. this is how it turned out, and it fits the lily cardigan in there with ease:

so now i have a whole collection of project bags:

the two little ones from amanda are perfect for sock yarn in balls but not yarn cakes, and now i have three from QM. woot.

thats kostya in the background by the way, totally unimpressed by the whole thing.

now i had better get back to the work-that-could-take-me-to-wales thing.

k xx

treading water

2008-07-29T09:34:00.003+10:00

or flailing about...pick your image.

i dont feel right not blogging more often, but i dont feel right blogging sans pictures, and i havent had time to take any pictures. i want to show the groovy new heel i tried on the knittery socks, and i wanted to talk about how socks have ruined me as a knitter. i am now, it seems, incapable of doing anything more substantial. lily, clapotis, and the red shetland wilt away in their respective baskets while i am consumed with the construction of one sock after another, to the point where i am itching to start on a THIRD pair so i can try this idea i have for my own design.

this is really the equivalent of imbibing only mills and boons and calling yourself a reader, and i am ashamed of myself.

i am also rather put out by the whole two-jobs thing which means i am basically working full time and i do not like it, no i dont, not one little bit.

will try and manage pics tomorrow

k xx

history has computers*

2008-07-23T08:04:00.004+10:00

what is going on with the time-flying-by thing?! i thought life was going to slow down a bit for me now but noooooo

so we went to albury on the weekend where we got the dogs to do some of that flyball bizo, they had fun, the team came second (losing only to our perennial rivals the national record holders) so a good result. it was really fun actually, we have not travelled for dog stuff for ages and it was great to be with everyone and eat cake and knit in a big tin shed while dogs barked their heads off and the humans huddled around scott's tiny little camp heater that wouldnt stay alight.

i did get lots of car knitting time, and have finished sock one of trents jitterbug thujas:

this colourway is copperbeach and it is divine! i have never knitted with wool like this before, the spin on it is so tight that it makes this perfectly rounded stitch that looks like something other than plain stocking. i am greatly looking forward to knitting myself a pair in this (i have that gorgeous red vatican pie colourway) and am going to knit plain with a picot edge to really just let the yarn do all the work.

when i finished this one i started a pair of rib socks for myself:

these are the madder rib socks from vintage socks in knittery merino/cashmere in midnight colourway. hmmmmm knittery.....hmmm cashmere....this yarn was a gift from george and i love it. speaking of which, we took a little detour to canberra on our way to albury and paid a visit and i held little grace for a very long time and only let her go when she screamed about something. food i think it was. she is gorgeous, and mum is looking pretty good too. trent took some great photos of pj as well, i think he will be flickering them at some point?

and do you see that little bag that the knittery socks are in? yes thats a buttontree lane exclusive and i love it to death. i had to catch the train up to sydney on thurs night last week and it sat beautifully on my lap and even held my ipod. noice. i have commissioned some more.

and in between all that, i officially started my new job yesterday. i am blogging from there right now, as i got here early to try and avoid traffic. i have some pix - this is the lawn outside the library. whats with the 'passive recreation' thing?

this is my building:
this is my corner of a large shared room which no one else has appeared in yet.

yes thats right, this is where all the history action happens. when i got here yesterday there was no computer, and i spoke to a school manager who yelled at an IT manager who suddenly appeared with a very groovy little machine. (*hence the post title, which was trents response to my first email from said computer). they are very civilised here, itunes, streaming radio, everything you need really....

here is the view from my window if i lean over my desk and look backwards:

here is the other view if i push my chair back, thats botany bay in the distance (takes me an hour to drive around it to get here. sigh.):

anyway, i had better actually go do some work now. i am trying to get around to reading everyones blogs as life is not about to get any simpler with teaching starting again next week (i am doing two days at wollongong again for what will be my last session there). time flies....

k xx

gifts

2008-07-17T08:28:00.004+10:00

i have spent a lot of time in blogland bitching and moaning about the horror that was the final stages of the pensky file. it helped me a lot to be able to do that at the time, and although i havent forgotten the terrible times i had, i am also aware of how amazing it is that little old me, with all the skeletons in my closet, yesterday was admitted into one of the highest levels of academia. (dont get me wrong, i am not interested in all that elitist status stuff, but it means a lot because of where i have come from and what it took to get there!). so now this hangs on the wall:

i have been very lucky. i couldnt have done it without a whole lot of support, and i had a great day yesterday celebrating that. trent took some great pics of the actual ceremony with me giving my Vote of Thanks speech (which everyone seemed to like) and having fun at lunch afterwards.

and as if the gift of the phd and the company of great friends was not enough, i got given some lovely presents. i am not usually a label queen but i am a little excited about these two:

and the most stunning flowers:

and of course love, support and friendship. despite the horror, it has already been worth it. i hope trent starts to realise its all over now. there will be no more. i promise! now its his turn....ha ha ha....

k xx

no cards up this sleeve

2008-07-14T19:16:00.003+10:00

i am slowly recovering from the lurgy, i have not been knocked around so bad by a flu in a very long time. i am sick of being sick. enough already.

while too weak to do anything except cough, i got a long way on the lily cardigan. here is where it is at (finally approaching end of first skein):

how much do we love our knitpicks options? the pattern says to put all the bits on different bits of waste yarn and to knit the sleeve in 4mm DPNs but i dont have any of those, so i took my knitpick points off and put the cable on one of those holder things, and the first front bit just on a stitch holder. seems to be working. i cast on too many extra for the sleeve, i have been a bit worried about size, but its bigger than i need so i am decreasing rapidly-ish. i am pretty happy with how this is shaping up, but i dont know whether its exhaustion or drugs, but the endless rounds of stocking stitch make me very sleepy.

meanwhile i technically started my new job today. i moved boxes of files from one uni to the other, coughed my way through my HR induction and started setting up the new office which has no computer in it (dont you love uni admin?) and have to go back briefly tomorrow to hand in more forms - we had kind of agreed that i wouldnt actually start work this week as Il Papa is in town and they are busy setting up the stage at the racecourse right next door to my entry gate. there will be no access at all later in the week. they are trying to bring in some new laws where people can be arrested for offences such as 'annoying pilgrims'. does this mean if i am irritated by someones god-bothering i can have THEM arrested? hmmm.....

on my way home tomorrow i am going shopping for a new outfit with a skirt involved as it is graduation on wednesday and i have to give my little speechy thing. i wrote it last week, it is short and sweet and not overly political, hence the powers that be have 'approved'. i decided against a three word speech (vive la revolution) as i did not wish to be dragged off the stage while the chancellor had a heart attack.

maybe next time.

oh wait, there wont be a next time! thats right, no more studying for me. not ever. i swear.

then friday we are going to albury for our first flyball comp in ages and yes, we are taking a little detour via The Can to go say hi to someones ex-bump that is now an FO. cant wait.

k xx

ps did you see these? so gorgeous....i already bought stuff!

under attack

2008-07-09T09:44:00.003+10:00

people warned me when i finished the phd that i could expect to get sick. they did not tell me that my body would become the site of some apocalyptic germ warfare. a couple of small colds were followed by the gastro-from-hell, and now i have been hit with the flu-from-hell. usually i only get mild bouts of flu, in fact, i dont think ive had a serious flu in the 5 years of doing the phd. but im paying for it now, big time. its annoying more than anything. i am happier, less stressed, eating well, doing more exercise, than for the entire last 5 years, and here i am moaning on the couch with flu. aaaaagh! and all the drugs in the world dont help either:

i have another week before i start my new job officially, but i do have a pile of owed research work to finish that i can not think straight enough to look at. however, i am not so weakened (as i was by gastro battle) that i cant knit. lily is coming along nicely:

i am almost at the part where i divide the sections and do the sleeves etc, im pretty confident about the sizing so far, and it is kind of cool with the top down thing that you can just keep making modifications until its wide and/or long enough.

and i am very impressed with the wool, its knitting up so light and airy and soft, like cashmere, and i have made all this with about half of one skein

and i had four skeins to start with, so i dont think im going to run out anytime soon.

anyway i must get back to the couch before my head implodes.

k xx

what conference?

2008-07-06T14:02:00.006+10:00

i was in melbourne all this week just gone to launch the book i co-edited. the conference at which the book was being launched was for the asian studies association of australia, so it was pretty big. it was called 'is this the asian century?' my cynical colleagues and i looked at each other, said yes, and repaired to the bar. this was the view therefrom:

i did get out a bit, to the espy quite a few times, i must confess:

found some decent coffee in this little lane:

and a cute shop or two:

the markets were pretty cool:

someone told me to try the bratwurst man and it did look good but it was only 1030 in the morning so i refrained:

i did schlep all over town looking for a little shop that was supposed to be quite near my hotel:

not. cute little village tho:

i didnt buy wool, just some odds and ends to replace bits i borrowed at knitting camp:

i did actually get quite a bit of knitting done, started this just before i left and came home with a turned heel:

and i am now humming along on Lily after getting some excellent advice on how to lengthen the bodice without ending up with 600 stitches. thanks girls:

i quite liked melbourne, the architecture and the dinging of tram bells reminded me of europe, but good lord it was cold. am glad to be home, another busy week ahead.

k xx

this one time, at knitting camp...

2008-06-29T16:45:00.005+10:00

(well someone had to do it)

seriously tho, i am home from knitting camp and it was just great. i am supposed to run my photos past someone for their approval first so i will be generic.

this is the view from outside the lodge:

this is the inside of the lodge after trivia contest, which came after 'christmas in july' dinner:

my table didnt win but we did get a perfect score on the Yarn Knowledge set of questions, largely because we were able to confirm that Lang Carpe Diem is made from baby alpaca and extrafine merino. so you know... the important stuff and all that....

these are the stairs that i fell down:

yes i did it, the first night, and im the only person in the whole bloody knitting world that doesnt drink!! after that we were all supposed to walk down the ramp, but we didnt, and i managed to work out how to stay upright in ugg boot slippers which i have never worn outside the house before. thats my defense and im sticking to it.

i got my moses fire 'swirly girl' socks finished, here they are with all the other self knitted socks people were wearing (bottom centre):

this is Room Number One of the Chalet, blurry to protect the guilty (we cant show you her face):

let us not speak of what took place in here.

i will just thank my roommates donni, bells, rosered and mel for the best laugh ive had in ages, and also the lovely ladies from CR&K who organised the whole thing, with the great food, and a huge thanks to all the lovely knitters i met, including finally putting some faces to bloggers, and also for the help i got from knitabulous with the ball winding and advice on the top down cardi which has been cast on (twice so far).

i am now madly washing and packing for a week in melbourne, i have the important information with me (ie, how to get to woolbaa from my hotel), and i probably wont post again till next weekend.

by the way, i SOOOO knew george would have the bump while we were at camp. hi grace!

k xx

ps thanks for the lovely comments after my last whine, you all made me smile :)