I've been doing very little knitting or crocheting, or indeed anything creative. Sometimes I nearly miss having a long commute... but not really.
I did crochet a face washer out of organic cotton, and I like it, although I crocheted on the bias and it is definitely diamond-shaped, not square. Never mind. It still washes a face perfectly well.
I'm still crocheting a bag in cheap squeaky acrylic, just to prove that I can. Hopefully I will eventually finish, but it is easy to get distracted.
Speaking of distractions, I did succumb and buy the Vogue Knitting Stitchionary vol 1, which I have wanted for a very long time. As a result, I've been knitting a face washer in linen stitch. While the stitch is a pain to do since you both slip and knit every stitch, the results are lovely. I really like this stitch. I think the resulting face washer will be pleasantly smooth on one side and nicely nubbly on the other.
Cooking has been fairly standard, except for this weekend. I made two flourless chocolate cakes (from Delicious: Wicked), soaked them in run and sandwiched them together with whipped cream. I had a slice for breakfast this morning. I only do this about once a year, but there's something about starting the day off with dessert which ticks the little box labeled 'total decadence' for me. I remember the last time vividly: it was champagne trifle made on chocolate cake when I could still eat wheat without getting a migraine. Actually that makes it about 3 years ago. Clearly I don't indulge in total decadence nearly often enough.
Monday, 24 March 2008
Friday, 22 February 2008
Peering out of the burrow
It's a bit startling to realise how long it has been since I posted. I've been running around like some kind of nervous rodent trying to resume our life here. Being back in Australia is odd, working for the same company but in an office 1/10 the size of the previous one is odd, being back in our flat is odd, the way the city has changed but not really changed is odd. It's all a bit odd.
So to complement the oddness I decided to learn to crochet, firmly believing that one should never avoid taking up more crafts* because knitting, sewing, weaving, dyeing, tatting, macrame and needlepoint just aren't enough. I'm working on a small shoulder bag in a some rather squeaky acrylic and buying organic cotton for my next project.
I'm also in the middle of making a couple of iPod covers for my other half and one of her friends. Unfortunately work and dealing with the general oddness of life means the first one has been sitting on the bookshelf, felted and waiting for me to sew it up for several weeks. It's Kureyon, a yarn I've been thinking about for a while but never used. It does felt beautifully, but I'm not sure I like it all that much. The colour ways annoy me a bit, too. They all seem to be slightly off.
While some of the yarns I have grown to love aren't readily available here, there are other attractions, including a growing number of online sellers stocking organic yarns. I'm looking forward to working with organic cotton, hemp and nettle. I feel like making containers.
*Except possibly the kind of craft which involves a glue gun and diamontes.
So to complement the oddness I decided to learn to crochet, firmly believing that one should never avoid taking up more crafts* because knitting, sewing, weaving, dyeing, tatting, macrame and needlepoint just aren't enough. I'm working on a small shoulder bag in a some rather squeaky acrylic and buying organic cotton for my next project.
I'm also in the middle of making a couple of iPod covers for my other half and one of her friends. Unfortunately work and dealing with the general oddness of life means the first one has been sitting on the bookshelf, felted and waiting for me to sew it up for several weeks. It's Kureyon, a yarn I've been thinking about for a while but never used. It does felt beautifully, but I'm not sure I like it all that much. The colour ways annoy me a bit, too. They all seem to be slightly off.
While some of the yarns I have grown to love aren't readily available here, there are other attractions, including a growing number of online sellers stocking organic yarns. I'm looking forward to working with organic cotton, hemp and nettle. I feel like making containers.
*Except possibly the kind of craft which involves a glue gun and diamontes.
Monday, 31 December 2007
Finis
No, I'm afraid there are no FOs in this post.
This is my last post for 2007, and probably my last post from the UK. I'm flying home to Australia in 4 days (and due to the flight length and vagaries of timezones, will arrive in 6). My partner and I have spent the last week trying to clean out the house and get rid of various goods in a responsible manner.
I'm not quite sure why, but there seems to be far more a culture of the new in the UK than I'm used to in Australia. Maybe it's just the area we live in over here. It's quite difficult to get rid of second-hand but perfectly reasonable goods. We had to throw out more than we were comfortable with, but what can you do? We did manage to sell or give away most of our larger encumbrances and found a recycling centre for much of the rest.
Most of the stash left in boxes to sail the high seas just before Christmas. I had to inventory it and price it for insurance. Given how much I've spent on it, I'd damn well better start doing useful things with it. Hopefully I will see it again some time in March. Two pieces of knitting remain with me: the one row scarf I have been trying to knit for some time now, and a baby jacket for a friend whose baby is due any day now. (I am realistic: the jacket is sized for a 6-month-old.)
Unfortunately my hands and shoulders have been getting a cleaning workout, and knitting is not really on the agenda right now. I have an intermittently pinched nerve in my neck which started bothering me very badly a couple of months ago when I a) slipped on a nameless slippery substance on the footpath and jarred my arm and b) fell up the stairs at a client (I had only had 7 hours sleep in the previous 3 nights) a few weeks later. At the moment the last 3 fingers of right hand ache which isn't too bad: at worst I get numbness, pins and needles, my elbow aches and my shoulder aches. It gets worse when I get cold, so I'm trying to apply heat packs to it on a regular basis.
One more night in this house, and everything has to be out including us. We are staying the next two nights with some friends who put us up for the first month we were over here. The last night we are staying at the airport Hilton: I've spent so many nights in hotels of the Hilton family due to work that I've earned a couple of free nights.
I am still very ambivalent about moving back to Sydney. I've spent 2 and a half years living in London. I can't say it's where I'd choose to stay forever: between the insanely busy lifestyle and my allergy to London air it hasn't been the best time. I've learnt a lot over here, and done things I never would have thought myself capable of. I've overcome my fear of flying and can stand up in front of a client for 5 days on end either training or facilitating and enjoy it. I didn't get to explore London the way I wanted to: too much travel has meant that if I'm actually home on a weekend, that's where I want to stay.
I'll miss the cooler weather terribly. So far the weather forecast for the next week in Sydney isn't awful from my point of view, but it isn't great, either. I'm not sure what possessed us to return at this time of year.
Trying to pack up and go home has been a real pain in the arse, but one of the advantages of this is that it makes me view the long flight home and the fact of being home with more pleasure: we're so tired of packing and cleaning and making decisions that we just want it to be over.
This is my last post for 2007, and probably my last post from the UK. I'm flying home to Australia in 4 days (and due to the flight length and vagaries of timezones, will arrive in 6). My partner and I have spent the last week trying to clean out the house and get rid of various goods in a responsible manner.
I'm not quite sure why, but there seems to be far more a culture of the new in the UK than I'm used to in Australia. Maybe it's just the area we live in over here. It's quite difficult to get rid of second-hand but perfectly reasonable goods. We had to throw out more than we were comfortable with, but what can you do? We did manage to sell or give away most of our larger encumbrances and found a recycling centre for much of the rest.
Most of the stash left in boxes to sail the high seas just before Christmas. I had to inventory it and price it for insurance. Given how much I've spent on it, I'd damn well better start doing useful things with it. Hopefully I will see it again some time in March. Two pieces of knitting remain with me: the one row scarf I have been trying to knit for some time now, and a baby jacket for a friend whose baby is due any day now. (I am realistic: the jacket is sized for a 6-month-old.)
Unfortunately my hands and shoulders have been getting a cleaning workout, and knitting is not really on the agenda right now. I have an intermittently pinched nerve in my neck which started bothering me very badly a couple of months ago when I a) slipped on a nameless slippery substance on the footpath and jarred my arm and b) fell up the stairs at a client (I had only had 7 hours sleep in the previous 3 nights) a few weeks later. At the moment the last 3 fingers of right hand ache which isn't too bad: at worst I get numbness, pins and needles, my elbow aches and my shoulder aches. It gets worse when I get cold, so I'm trying to apply heat packs to it on a regular basis.
One more night in this house, and everything has to be out including us. We are staying the next two nights with some friends who put us up for the first month we were over here. The last night we are staying at the airport Hilton: I've spent so many nights in hotels of the Hilton family due to work that I've earned a couple of free nights.
I am still very ambivalent about moving back to Sydney. I've spent 2 and a half years living in London. I can't say it's where I'd choose to stay forever: between the insanely busy lifestyle and my allergy to London air it hasn't been the best time. I've learnt a lot over here, and done things I never would have thought myself capable of. I've overcome my fear of flying and can stand up in front of a client for 5 days on end either training or facilitating and enjoy it. I didn't get to explore London the way I wanted to: too much travel has meant that if I'm actually home on a weekend, that's where I want to stay.
I'll miss the cooler weather terribly. So far the weather forecast for the next week in Sydney isn't awful from my point of view, but it isn't great, either. I'm not sure what possessed us to return at this time of year.
Trying to pack up and go home has been a real pain in the arse, but one of the advantages of this is that it makes me view the long flight home and the fact of being home with more pleasure: we're so tired of packing and cleaning and making decisions that we just want it to be over.
Saturday, 15 December 2007
Ravelry
I love Ravelry. I love it for lots of reasons.
1. I can look at how a pattern has turned out for different knitters in different yarns.
2. While it doesn't replace reading blogs, it allows knitting porn viewing in bulk.
3. I find people I would normally never stumble across in my usual web-crawling.
4. I find patterns I would normally never stumble across in my usual web-crawling.
5. People are actually looking at what I'm doing.
I don't know why I find that last point so exciting, but I do. I don't know many other people who knit, and it's nice to have people randomly decide that what I'm doing is interesting enough to look at.
We're busy packing the house up to move. Lots of things are in boxes to be shipped, other things are in piles to be sold or given away. I've signed a contract with my current company's Australian office, and it's all becoming real now. I'm sad about leaving, but I'm also looking forward to lots of things: Christmas, New Year, not working for a month, living in our Sydney flat again, catching up with family and friends.
Mostly I'm just desperate to stop moving at such a frantic pace. I could do with a bit of peaceful slowness.
1. I can look at how a pattern has turned out for different knitters in different yarns.
2. While it doesn't replace reading blogs, it allows knitting porn viewing in bulk.
3. I find people I would normally never stumble across in my usual web-crawling.
4. I find patterns I would normally never stumble across in my usual web-crawling.
5. People are actually looking at what I'm doing.
I don't know why I find that last point so exciting, but I do. I don't know many other people who knit, and it's nice to have people randomly decide that what I'm doing is interesting enough to look at.
We're busy packing the house up to move. Lots of things are in boxes to be shipped, other things are in piles to be sold or given away. I've signed a contract with my current company's Australian office, and it's all becoming real now. I'm sad about leaving, but I'm also looking forward to lots of things: Christmas, New Year, not working for a month, living in our Sydney flat again, catching up with family and friends.
Mostly I'm just desperate to stop moving at such a frantic pace. I could do with a bit of peaceful slowness.
Monday, 26 November 2007
FO: Baby Kimono
I have finally finished the baby kimono: i-cord ties attached, garment machine washed and dried to prove indestructability.
Mason-Dixon baby kimono in Patons 100% Cotton DK in kiwi and orachard. 4 mm circular needle for garment, 2.5 mm dpns for i-cord. Now let's hope it still fits the poor child for whom it is intended!
Tuesday, 13 November 2007
In the meantime
Before I went to India in September, I bought some yarn to make some of the new and immanent babies in my life things to wear. I swatched on planes and trains and in airports, and I knitted in Norway and after Norway.
The sum total of my efforts is a few swatches and most of a Baby Kimono from the Patons from Mason-Dixon knitting: I just have to make i-cord ties now.
The sum total of my efforts is a few swatches and most of a Baby Kimono from the Patons from Mason-Dixon knitting: I just have to make i-cord ties now.
Knitting this was an interesting experience, and is a milestone for me: the first thing I have ever knitted with seams, or which is, in fact, a garment (I don't think hats count). I don't think I like seaming much, and I may have figured out a way to knit this pattern without seams. I'll see if I want to give it a try, but I'm not entranced by the way the neck turned out. If it fits the recipient and the recipient likes wearing it, I'll give it another go.
The recipient is my very first "other" family niece: the mothers are two of my friends, the biological father is another friend's brother. The poor little girl has more aunts than she's going to know what to do with.
Randomly, I have aquired some very sweet buttons and beads: the ceramic beads on the left were bought from Perlehuset in Bergen, and the wooden buttons on the right were bought from the shop of the Textile and Costume Museum in Barcelona (unfortunately I didn't get to visit the museum itself). No, I don't know why I have this sudden affinity with owls.
Last weekend I had a friend staying, this week I am in Amsterdam for business. We're flying directly home to Australia, having abandoned plans to go through Canada as too expensive, and we're likely to be too exhausted to enjoy it. We're flying home on 3rd January, which is much too close. I have very mixed emotions about going home. I do want to see my family, I will enjoy living in our flat, and there are things about living in Australia that I miss. I was going to list all the things that bother me about moving back, but I thought for two seconds and realised that compared to most of the rest of the world, I live in luxury and have extraordinary choices and freedoms. I think the only thing I can legitimately complain about is that my partner and I can't get married there.
Sunday, 11 November 2007
Twisted Threads
This post has also been written for a while, but was postponed for the same reason as the previous one.
I actually got to go to a fibre show!
Unfortunately I felt like shit, having come down with something deeply phlegmy which has made me lose my voice. I was determined to go, since I'd booked myself a day of annual leave, so I dragged myself out of the house and down to Ealing Common to sit on the Picadilly line for 45 minutes. When I reached Wood Green, there were friendly people in fluorescent green vests showing us where to catch either the W3 or the free shuttle bus. Now, there were enormous queues of elderly ladies at both bus stops, and I couldn't see myself determinedly taking my seat on a bus and preventing one of them from sitting down. I walked, which would have been fine if the phlegm hadn't been in residence. Fortunately the walk up the hill is rewarded by a view of London (hard to get. London is amazingly flat) and only one shuttle-bus passed me, so it was almost certainly quicker than waiting.
The show itself was mad and lovely and crawling with every type of fibre fanatic you can imagine. I bought some small leaflets and a little kit from some braiding people. I stared longingly at batik and shibori. I resisted Shilasdair yarn in both organic cotton and silk, and then went back and resisted them again at the end of the day when I still had money left. I did buy some insane knitted silk fabric (in the gum) from Texere, and I intend to play with it and dye it because I have Kool Aid and I can.
I also bought some yarn from Habu. I first heard of Habu in the context of stainless steel yarn, but I have never made it to New York. They have serious, proper, mad yarn and I love them. I bought some silk out of which to make a bag, I think, and a sample bag to play with. I love that they had sample bags, and I can imagine that I'm going to be sending them an envelope at some point with a letter which says: what is this? and can I please have some more? Although using their website I have figured out three of my 4 mystery yarns:
Clockwise from top left:
A-130 alpaca knitted yarn in 04 - Charcoal
A-110 tsumugi silk combination in 19 - pink/yellow/black
Unknown laceweight, smells as if it has wool in it
A-22 Silk Gima in 03 - Charcoal
The 4 balls of silk are
A-111 tsumigi silk combination in 7 - Navy, 10 - Camel
I was very systematic, and I'm pretty sure I went to each stall at least once. There were so many ideas, so many beatiful things to look at and so many lovely textures to touch. It's probably a good thing that I don't get to go to many of these, as I think the number of WIPs might grow exponentially if they were available more often.
I actually got to go to a fibre show!
Unfortunately I felt like shit, having come down with something deeply phlegmy which has made me lose my voice. I was determined to go, since I'd booked myself a day of annual leave, so I dragged myself out of the house and down to Ealing Common to sit on the Picadilly line for 45 minutes. When I reached Wood Green, there were friendly people in fluorescent green vests showing us where to catch either the W3 or the free shuttle bus. Now, there were enormous queues of elderly ladies at both bus stops, and I couldn't see myself determinedly taking my seat on a bus and preventing one of them from sitting down. I walked, which would have been fine if the phlegm hadn't been in residence. Fortunately the walk up the hill is rewarded by a view of London (hard to get. London is amazingly flat) and only one shuttle-bus passed me, so it was almost certainly quicker than waiting.
The show itself was mad and lovely and crawling with every type of fibre fanatic you can imagine. I bought some small leaflets and a little kit from some braiding people. I stared longingly at batik and shibori. I resisted Shilasdair yarn in both organic cotton and silk, and then went back and resisted them again at the end of the day when I still had money left. I did buy some insane knitted silk fabric (in the gum) from Texere, and I intend to play with it and dye it because I have Kool Aid and I can.
I also bought some yarn from Habu. I first heard of Habu in the context of stainless steel yarn, but I have never made it to New York. They have serious, proper, mad yarn and I love them. I bought some silk out of which to make a bag, I think, and a sample bag to play with. I love that they had sample bags, and I can imagine that I'm going to be sending them an envelope at some point with a letter which says: what is this? and can I please have some more? Although using their website I have figured out three of my 4 mystery yarns:
Clockwise from top left:
A-130 alpaca knitted yarn in 04 - Charcoal
A-110 tsumugi silk combination in 19 - pink/yellow/black
Unknown laceweight, smells as if it has wool in it
A-22 Silk Gima in 03 - Charcoal
The 4 balls of silk are
A-111 tsumigi silk combination in 7 - Navy, 10 - Camel
I was very systematic, and I'm pretty sure I went to each stall at least once. There were so many ideas, so many beatiful things to look at and so many lovely textures to touch. It's probably a good thing that I don't get to go to many of these, as I think the number of WIPs might grow exponentially if they were available more often.
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