good weekend

no not the magazine from the sydney morning herald. i am happy to report that a nice weekend was had here at home, starting with the 'ball' on friday night. like i said it was a chamber of commerce thing, celebrating their 70th anniversary. woo hoo. crack open the champagne. yes im being sarcastic. i would normally rather gouge my eye out with a spoon than attend such a function but its trents new role as a manager to attend these things and i tried really hard to be good. i dont think i entirely succeded, choking on your coke at the mention of 'work choices' as though they are a GOOD thing being not really best behaviour. anyway, we got out of there as soon as the band started with the abba covers. at least we looked nice:


trents bow tie kind of matched my lovely garnet beads but the lippie wasnt really dark enough to match. anyway the dress was comfy and i am also pleased to report that i have finally found a great hairdresser in canberra. i am very fussy about this - i finally found a good one in wollongong about 3 days before we moved here (kara at chelsea if youre wondering) and i have tried two here, both of whom charged over $300 to put yellow stripes in, which i removed earlier this week with a $12 box. anyway, the great hairdresser is andre at the edge in oconnor. i prefer male hairdressers usually, and he was very friendly and very good and the place was really nice. now we will probably move again and i'll never get to go there again.

on saturday we planted out the rest of the vegie garden:


chilli, 4 different tomatoes, beans, bok choy, two types of lettuce plus herbs. trent dug the trenches to aid water retention and the wire is to keep the king parrots and eastern rosellas off. as much as i like to look at them i want my vegies to grow. i havent mulched yet, i will just water everyday until the sun warms the soil a bit more and they are grown a bit and the mulch is easier to apply. fingers crossed.

the wisteria has also gone ballistic:



sunday we went to floriade, it was threatening rain but we arent home for about the next 4 weekends so this was our only chance. 'twas lovely, despite the wind:



this will sound weird but my two favourite gardens were the ones from holland and belgium. the dutch one because it reminded me of amsterdam and the way the fields as you fly in are all straight and narrow like this:


and the belgian one because it was all wild and was the most people friendly with the gazebo in the middle:

this was the most unusual flower there, very pretty:


also got to watch some dvds over the weekend, havent done that in ages, the mini series Empire Falls, awesome stuff, highly recommended, and History of Violence which had 'Aragorn' in it so was pretty nice on the eye but was a bit disappointing in the story department, considering the rave reviews. still, nice way to kill 90 minutes.

and now i am buried under a pile of articles i need to read to finish this chapter which just seems to go on and on but at least its going.

i think thats enough for one post.
k :)

looking for inspiration

at the risk of looking like a walking advert, the latest issue of yarn magazine is out. i like this mag, nice and simple, some good stuff about techniques. the patterns are a bit wacky for me tho, i must be a rather simple minded knitter! anyway, the cover sure got my attention - could there be inspiration to knit again within?


dont get me wrong, i WANT to knit, im just having trouble picking up the needles. it doesnt help that the two projects i have going are socks and they are both at the leg stage. boooooring. i need some other big project with lots of different elements to work on, but i cant really justify adding to the stash at this point, financially, and then i dont want to start a cardigan for myself over summer (although logically this is stupid because it might actually be ready for next winter if i did). but i havent found the right pattern for that either. anyway, there was nothing that really grabbed me in here.

except this which, apart from making me laugh out loud at the horror of it, made me think of a certain vague magazine and another certain caption competition winner:


something for you miss spider i think? the drunk naked sheep will be hard to beat though.

anyone got any good tips for plus size cardi patterns? and nice fine plain coloured yarn (like some 5 or 6 ply dark chocolate or wine? colour. not the things.)

next post will be pic of party frock after tomorrow night. (on that, im looking forward to dressing up but not looking forward to the actual do. its a chamber of commerce thing and me, the card-carrying communist, and chambers-of-commerce dont go well together. have promised to keep retching-during-speeches noises to a minimum. the things we do. sighs and thinks of pretty earrings.)

k

seasons

had a good weekend in sydney doing flyball stuff. no pics of that. no knitting done either. i got a photo of the sickinger wheel thats for sale but its an upright and i want a more traditional wheel, my first pick would be an ashford traditional, and im sure the sickinger is very good, it looked very solid, but i didnt like the look of it, so im going to pass. we decided on the way home that considering i am not likely to do any spinning over summer we will wait till next year and go down to cooma and buy me what i want when i submit my thesis in march. fingers crossed. speaking of which, a few more words have been written and i got a phone call from supervisor yesterday. he was very encouraging and apologetic about the last meeting. that was nice. of course he wants to read the chapter but i said only when i feel ready. it should be finished in a couple of days, although i also have to start writing a paper for the rethinking marxism conference in america in october, which i now can not go to (dont ask) but the paper is being co-written and the co-author is going to give it in my absence. upset about that, but the paper should be ok.

meanwhile, thought i would post pics of some parts of the garden because there are some very radical changes going on. the rose bushes all have leaves on them:



and the wisteria is about to burst into colour:



no pods margie! i am going to fully plant out the vegie garden this weekend so that will be fun, the herbs seem to haven taken well despite some four legged pests getting under the fence to eat blood and bone. fixed that up quick smart.

dress shopping for the do on friday night was successful and outfit now complete, jewellery, new lipstick, cute little handbag. will post pix of the finished look after friday.

now if only i could be bothered knitting!

later
k :)

first planting

i have been busy today. apart from swimming 1700metres and writing 800 thesis words (i have about 40 000 now, only another 40 000 to go..sigh...) i have also been playing in the new vegie patch. we werent going to stay in this house for another summer it being rather hot with no air con but with the drama and expense of looking for somewhere else to rent in this town, we decided to stay put. which means we decided to put some energy into the garden, which we didnt really use last summer. a fantastic raised bed already exists, so on the weekend i badgered trent into putting a fence around it so i could put fertiliser on and get the soil ready. i had some very good advice from my very own personal peter cundall, my friend deb who has the greenest finger ive ever seen. i even checked the soil ph, it was neutral, so apart from blood and bone it got a heap of really old compost dug into it. should be good i reckon, it was still lovely and soft today.

someone found a way to eat the blood and bone from under the fence, so today i raked it back from the edges, put some seasol on and planted some herbs:



possum here is guarding the seasol, when i went into the garage she lay down and stared at the cupboard with the blood and bone in it, curling her lip if jem approached. jesus.

anyway now i have laundry to do. never stops.

k :)

what the postman just bought...

look look look!!! my beads from margie have arrived!!!



margie has made these for me to wear to a formal dinner for trents work (some bloody corporate thing) and because i cant get to snb this month she has mailed them to me and they are the prettiest things i ever saw!!!

this photo doesnt do them justice, they are lovely heavy garnet type beads, and because i am a fussy thing she made me three types of earrings and they are all lovely, they look gorgeous on (no photos till the hair and make up are on) and i cant decide which ones to wear, although i am leaning toward the little cluster ones cos chandelier type earrings are in and these are very delicate little mini-chandeliers.

they are awesome margie, i love them all and couldnt be happier. surely i owe you more money for the three pairs of earrings?!!!

huge grins, squeals of delight and hugs for margie xxxxx

k :))))

sorting things out

yesterday we went up to farm sunday at belgenny farm at camden where we do our sheep herding schools. our instructor was judging some trials there so we went to have a look. they had all these other groovy old time stalls including a bunch of hand made crafts. yes there was knitting and spinning going on. in fact, there were spinning wheels lying around the place, so i went to talk to the ladies about the different types of wheels (i am in the process of thinking about buying this sickinger wheel - it's at least half what a new ashford would cost me and it has all the bits and bobs attached. the fact i have no idea how to use it is irrelevant at this point). anyway they ask about all the knitted things im wearing, my scarf and my jumper, trents lovely green nundle jumper, the first major thing i ever knitted. of course the lovely harmless old lady picks out the one mistake in the whole thing, a half row of weird stitches which i didnt notice until the whole thing was sewn up. trent was previously blissfully unaware of its existence. thanks, lovely old lady.

so on the way home im thinking, its an unacceptable state of affairs to be contemplating ADDING to the fibre working obsession when youre not actually obsessed anymore. of course i am obsessed, i think i just need a new challenge (hmmm, spinning perhaps?). but i decided that when i got home i would reorganise, a la taph, and this would make me feel better about everything.

no more sudokus for me:



ive been doing the easy ones but they arent easy and i usually throw the book across the room. (please note: vincent pencil bought in van gogh museuem, amsterdam when i was there in march this year.)

so i went through the works in progress basket and the stash basket and got rid of stuff i have next to no chance of using or finishing. starting with the inca/loopy blanket, which you may recall from earlier this year.

people at patons, you make some nice things but loopy mohair is not one of them. not only is it not really mohair (or as close to synthetic as mohair can be) its shit to knit with. my needle goes through the loop instead of through the stitch and the black string its plied onto is very weak. and the red doesnt match the lovely inca (of which i approve) so my idea of a warm autumn colour blanket was turning into some kind of freaky gelato striped thing. so it got ripped back. i saved the inca. this is what happened to the mohair:



i wasnt even going to bother trying to rewind that. its in the the bin. i have some more balls of it to give away if anyone wants.

i cleared out the stash basket and put my nice sock wool at the top (theres some hand died angora from india in there too that makes me sneeze everytime i look at it. if i ever get to another snb (sigh) i will bring it along to donate):



you will note there is plenty of space left in this basket for the superfine merino fleece that comes with the sickinger wheel. considering how much time we spend hanging out in paddocks and wool sheds i dont think trent can complain about the smell of fresh wool in the lounge room.

i also cleaned out the works in progress basket - no more blankie, only socks:


which i am pleased to announce are being knit again. a week off and im back into it. i think my issue is small needles actually, i feel like knitting something on big chunky wooden ones again.

i also tidied up 'knitting corner' and trent (clever boy) showed me how to keep my needles upright in this really old tin of his by sticking them into a scrunched up bit of wool i was going to throw out:



this morning i went back to the pool after a week off and did 1300m without too much effort. then grocery shopping.

who knows, i may even get some thesis written this week!

hope all is well with everyone.

k :)

(ignore the timestamp on this, i started writing this post before coffee and only just finished it now at 11.40. i know, its an epic.)

wherefore art thou?

something weird is happening. i am unable to summon any knitting enthusiasm, despite starting a whole new pair of socks which are self striping and therefore kind of groovy, and also despite the fact that a skein of gorgeous berry stripey sits waiting to be knitted. also despite the fact that someone is offering me a brand new spinning wheel and associated tools with a kilo of pure merino fleece for a mere $300. its so bad that i didnt bother buying the new creative knitting mag and i have flicked through the new knit simple and been less than enthused by the items on offer. even the plus size ones look very drab. is it some sort of seasonal thing - spring is in the air so i know its going to be too hot to knit anything substantial soon so i am weaning myself now so the grief is not too much to bear later? i do have a lingering lurgy and cant seem to concentrate on anything other than the easiest of sudoku puzzles but this started before the lurgy. there is snb tonight and i will come because margie has made my earrings but i feel like some sort of traitor in the midst....wherefore art thou knitting obsession and who am i if i am not a knitwit?

confused

k


later: my malaise is not helped by this STUPID flu like cold thing i have that will not go away and i thought was going to be ok this morning until i took the dogs for a walk this arvo and got all stirred up again in the freezing cold wind, so now i am being a complete loser and not going out tonight. cranky.

home again

home from a lovely weekend at kioloa, there was a flyball comp there that trent was judging. jem didnt get to run because we have left the canberra team we were racing with (dont ask) and have to wait four months before we can race again with our old club st george. but we hung around with the guys from st george and it was really lovely and reaffirmed that we have made the right decision to leave the canberra club. flyball is about fun, after all.

but stupid me didnt take any pics of the hundreds of dogs playing happily on kioloa beach or the beautiful weather or the gorgeous scenery, tho i did get some dodgy ones of some teams - this is norwest and southern cross:



this is a norwest thunderdogs team:

this is little arrow who is about the same age as possum and everyone says they look alike except arrows a border collie and possums a koolie and arrow can do flyball and possum, well we're working on herding right now!



this is trent judging, in white and a st george team, in red:



this is annette with cobber, first time competing and didnt make a single mistake!



and this is the awesome st george campsite:


possum had a GREAT time, she loves the dogs from st george, esp kobe and cobber the two kelpies who are her age, they ran around and caused havoc every chance they got. she is also madly in love with daves 11 year old jack, the show kelpie, who is the most good natured, calm dog ive ever met. even jem was in awe of him! i am so happy with how much better possum is in company now, she used to have major other dog issues but the only dog who bothered her all weekend was phoebe the doberman. and who wouldnt be bothered by a doberman called phoebe wearing a rhinestone studded purple collar? (i have so far resisted the temptation to knit anything for my dogs, if only because possum would pull it off bit by bit but i dont know if that restraint will last through next winter).

i do have some pics from the last herding to show. here is trent the cowboy and jem his dog who he is teaching to 'camp out' (i see trent has forgotten the piece of straw hanging out his mouth to complete his ensemble...)


and here are some of me and poss working out in the paddock, they were taken on the saturday so robert is still there helping us out.






i am glad there are none of me and poss out there alone on the sunday because they would have just been a blur as a flock of sheep ran past followed by a possum and me flailing around after them. we will do better next time!

of course i got no knitting done this weekend, i don’t know why i thought i would, i never do at flyball. and now i have either the worst case of pre-season hay fever ever recorded, or a slight cold/flu. hopefully it will be gone tomorrow and i can go back to the pool.

later
k :)