music to mop by

thought you might like to know that i have found good music for cleaning to be public enemy's 'fight the power' (helps work out your anger and puts thoughts of your own oppression at the hand of cleaning in perspective), and then new order 'substance' - all those great oldies, makes you feel happy again, despte being up to your elbows in a toilet bowl.

justt thought id share that.

spring cleaning

having lived mostly in sydney and on the coast, living inland, and in a place like canberra, is a hard thing to get used to. but i do love the real seasons, and am enjoying spring, apart from the constant hayfever. the vegie patch has already taken off, only lost one bok choy and one lettuce and one bean in the planting.

and this morning i have been inspired to clean the house properly, ie, moving things and dusting/polishing the surfaces underneath. washing cushion covers. rearranging book shelves. putting knitting away. yes thats right, i have dismantled knitting corner and have put my spare needles and pattern books away. still have the stash basket and the socks-in-progress basket out but they will probably stay 'in progress' until after the warm weather has passed now. i just cant get into knitting at the moment so i may as well stop pretending.

instead this weekend i allowed myself to read a book, as in a novel, rather than some 3 tonne volume of psychoanalytic theory badly translated from obscure french. i read 'girl with the pearl earring' - i saw the movie ages ago and loved it and have never read the book but it has been reissued with colour plates of the pictures and vermeer is one of my favourite artists, and it was great, as good as the movie. and of course, it reminded me of amsterdam and standing in front of real vermeers in the reijksmuseum. the girl with the pearl earring is in the hague which i didnt get to but i saw the milkmaid up close, it is actually really small, maybe only a4 and dwarfed by this heavy wooden frame, but the detail and the colours is exquisite, even after 400 years.

and it was lovely to read something for pleasure again, so i have replaced knitting corner with book corner where i have put my catalogues from the fantastic exhibits i saw in amsterdam (esp the rembrandt/caravaggio) plus other novels i want to reread, eg portrait of a lady, to the lighthouse (there seems to be a painting theme emerging here!).

i am still exhausted from last week which was the most intensive writing session ive ever done, 5000 words in 3 days to finish the mammoth theory chapter by friday. its now 10,500 words with no conclusion and i am meeting tomorrow to get some feedback. *gulp* but it felt good to get it done, and by the time i said i would, and it was so hard that surely the rest will be easy in comparison!

vacuuming calls.

k

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 :)

because i can

the only problem with socks that i can see is that you need to make two of them. no sooner do you stop glowing from the joy of completing something that you can immediately wear without having to agonise over seams, comes the realisation that ordinarily two, as in two that match, like a pair, are required. despite this, i dont think that there is actually a rule that says you have to complete a pair of socks before moving on to the next pair, so i have. moved on to the next pair. because i can.



hmmm. so now i have sock startitis. i suspect i am not the first. i really dont like the feel of having only one thing happening, so i bought another set of DPNs and have started these ones for trent...my rationale, other than 'because i can' is that spring doth too fast approach and i want him to experience the joy of wearing wool socks before its too warm.

these are heirloom jigsaw, no cute name for the colourway unless 'someone' wants to think of one? i started them last thursday to show the girls on friday down in wollongong, esp miss dr fern whom we bought that lovely sirdar town and country sock wool for her graduation, but i was very unhappy with my cast on over the three needles, so in the process of showing fern i decided that casting all stitches on to one needle and then dividing them worked better and gave much better corners. this is nice stretchy yarn too so its holding together well. even the single rib wasnt too painful.(speaking of the lovely dr fern, she has decided that this blog thing is cool and has started her own before she heads off overseas next year...cool, a sock and a blog convert!).

i didnt get to do any of it on the weekend, sock knitting and herding not quite compatible, but i should get a lot done this coming weekend when we head down to kioloa for the annual 'surf and turf' flyball comp.

speaking of herding, possum and i were suddenly graduated out to the paddock. i have never worked with her outside the ring, and now it was our job to bring the sheep up from their holding pen to the ring where everyone was working. robert took the reins on sat and i tried very hard to watch everything he was doing but those guys they just work off instinct and years of practice, so when it was my turn on sunday, possum took off after the sheep across the paddock a few times! i finally got her to slow down and we worked them up the fence together and into a stop, so it ended on a good note tho i still have a lot to learn. it was fun though! forgot to take the camera so have to wait till i see the rest of the gang on the weekend to get pix from them.

back to the bluestripes.

k :)

raining purple part one

here is the first 'purple rain' sock, made using waratah handpainted 5ply.



something weird happened in the cast-on and i can not bring myself to do 4 cms of single rib over three needles, so its a little loose on the leg, might make the second one a bit smaller. also i am still nervous that i dont have enough wool for the second one. it's supposed to be 100g and the pattern should easily fit that, but my ball kept dwindling before my eyes. but "spider says" it will be ok, so it will be ok.

also i was a naughty girl and did a three needle cast off instead of grafting but i dont think you can tell really. i have laid the sock twisted here so you can see the cast off. looks good on, like a big hairy bruise!

swam 1500m today in 40 minutes. at least i was faster than the 80 year old man in the lane next to me. not headed for the olympics anytime soon!

off to wollongong on friday (no supervision. yay) and then herding this weekend so until next week, ta ta.

k :)

berry happy

happy girl today, lovely weekend celebrating jo's (or 'the duck' as trent has taken to calling her as her last name is drake. ha ha) birthday in sydney on sat evening after some flyball training with her and the st george mob who jem used to race with before we moved down here (we have not been overly happy with the flyball scene in the ACT and miss our old team so it was nice to get back amongst it with friends). they a great bunch of people and dinner was lovely. jo has ten dogs in her little inner city house, she keeps rescuing them off death row! 6 of them are small, 4 chihauhaus and its like a mad house when you chuck our two in there as well. crazy fun.

came home sun morning and left trent to nap on the lounge while i finally made it into stitch and bitch after missing weeks! which was lovely. the very clever miss spider made me something:



yes its made to order self striping sock wool called Berry Stripey. looking at it makes me berry happy. i am working on these socks in a similar colour:



they are lovely but they are not stripey and i am all about the striped socks. esp the self-striping kind!

i also ordered some earrings and a necklace from margie for a work function of trents i have to go to, and am very excited to see what she comes up with.

great conversation and awesome hot chocolate (thanks sherpa) made for a lovely afternoon. tho i am a bit worried about spidey. take care miss p.

this morning i swam 1300 metres on my fourth swim in a week - up from the 800 i started back with. i did 1300 today in the same time it took me to do 1000 last wed so thats good progress and i feel like i want to go every day now!

meanwhile i got offered 20 hours of research work to be done immediately which means i have a legitimate excuse (ie the making of money) not to look at my chapter for a week. what a shame.

so i am berry happy all round today. nice for a change.

k :)

quickie

well its all happening here...the jumper is finished and word from the fashionistas is that the sleeves look ok in person. i have gone back to my purple rain socks but i feel weird only have one thing going at a time....thanks spidey! words have been re-written on the chapter that narrowly missed the bonfire and they are low in quantity but high in quality. also i have started swimming again...got myself up to 2kms a day at the end of summer but need to work back up to it. makes me feel good, tho i dont know if the chlorine is good for my skin but hey, what am i supposed to do, become a hermit? i think not. meanwhile we finally splashed out and bought a new computer - just the tower part cos the monitors fine but the machine we have is too slow for the nerd. and then theres that blue screen of death thing. this new one is silver and black and really really fast but might take a few days to get everything transferred across so if i disappear thats where i am. have saved chapters etc onto cds so all should be fine. i thought of not doing that and then going to my supervisors and doing that 'the computer ate my homework' thing but thought better of it.

going now. back soon.
k :)

todays creations

have returned from a lovely few days in the 'gong...caught up with some people, got some advice. think everything thesis wise will be ok now, so long as i can keep writing! was nice to hang with deb as usual. long drive home tho, didnt stop the whole way and now im tired but glad to be home. who would have thought you could miss your dogs so much in just two days? oh and trent of course.

speaking of which, here he is in his new jumper.



handsome devil isnt he :) the pic doesnt do justice to the jumper, youd think id notice the slight shadow and make him take his hands out of his pockets but you get the idea. heres a closer shot of the actual garment!



i am really happy with the seams, my neck-artistry still needs some work and i think the pattern is much too generous in the upper arms. its not just the fact that the once gym-junkie is now a desk-bound computer nerd - the picture in the book shows too big arms as well. i might think about getting some help to take them in. or else make him go back to the gym.

i also made a cake this arvo - i took the ingredients down to debs but didnt get a chance to make it. its an almond, cherry and yoghurt cake.



it has no butter and hardly any sugar hence it gets served with cherry syrup over the top. no trent you cant have cream with that!

anyway thats enough for this weekend, i think i need to sleep for about three days straight now.

hope youre all having good ones.

k :)

grrrr

so i get all excited about my lovely nearly finished jumper with the perfect invisible seams of which i only had to redo one section on the sleeve because the ends didnt match, and i manage to pick up and knit the perfect amount of stitches around the neck and i set off my circular needles to do one round knit, one round rib: k3 p1 k1 p1 repeat (which is the opposite to the rib pattern in the body and the sleeves because now its in the round and knits become purls and purls become knits - what the?). i think its going pretty well:



until i take a closer look:



yes thats right there is rib along the back of the neck and plain old stocking stitch along the front of the neck. how did i achieve this feat of knitting wizardry, i hear you ask? easy. i marked the wrong place for the start of the round and started the plain knit too early, doing too little of the rib. yes yes very clever i know. so now i have to rip it back. ive never ripped back in the round before and i really dont want to have re-pick up all those stitches so it will require some attention and fine motor skills, of which i appear to be sadly lacking at the moment. note to pharmaceutical companies: where it says 'dont operate heavy machinery' it should also say 'dont try to knit anything too complicated or you'll get really upset'. hmmm.

but at least i have cute puppies. yesterday:



i had put their beds outside to air out, thats possums blue one turned upside down that jem suddenly decided he found quite comfortable. well it was 11am and there was still frost on the ground. love those minus six starts to the day.

this morning:



jem has decided that having possum close to him (which he usually hates) is the lesser of two evils, the other being forced to relinquish his favourite spot by the window from which he can observe my every move.

i have set myself a thesis related task this morning and will not touch the jumper until its done. also i heard from someone that one of my supers is giving his other students a hard time as well so that helps to know its not personal!

have a good one
k :)

slowly slowly...

ever so slowly things are improving...the rash is fading and the medication is not having such a strong impact as at first. did i mention i really f***ing hate being out-of-sorts? i have been feeling very anti-social and as though under my doona is the only place i want to be but thats starting to shift as well and am starting to look forward to a few days at debs in the gong this weekend.

slowly the words are returning - yesterday i read an article and today i have added some stuff to the abandoned chapter....had visions of burning it all and dancing around the bonfire in some kind of frenzied pagan ritual but have busied myself with housework instead. which i also really hate but it seems like more fun than the thesis right now! but i figure it doesnt really matter how i feel about it, i just need to write it anyway and i do feel better for having done some this morning. i have organised a meeting with the head of postgrad studies for this thurs to 'get some advice'.

trent started his new job and seems to have slotted right in, i always knew he would be good in a leadership role so im very happy for him.

and most importantly the jumper is so close its excrutiating. now that i figured them out i think invisible seams are the best thing ever invented and it really looks awesome, although they are hard to do on the increases on the pattern sleeve. socks are put aside for now, eyes are a bit too sore for such minute detail but as soon as the jumper is done i promise to return to my sock fetish with renewed vigour...and also to get me to an snb sometime soon.

k

seams and things

the excessive amount of blogging this past week or so has nothing whatsoever to do with any form of procrastination. stop that thought right now.

but while im here i might as well tell you whats been going on. firstly i am not going to SnB tonight AGAIN because i went to the doctor this morning for this rash ive had which i thought was just from excessively dry skin or some kind of allergic reaction and she said its an actual skin infection of sorts exacerbated by stress and i have to have this cream and these pills that make me woozy and make your eyes really light sensitive and you cant go out in the sun (not that thats an issue in canberra at the moment).


so no 'operating heavy machinery' for me! that includes a ford falcon and a swift and ball winder. *sob*

BUT, i had another attempt at my invisible/mattress/running/edge-to-edge (will everyone please just agree to call it the same thing) seam and got it right this time:


look no seams! the fact that this kind of seam seems to be contra-indicated with my medication (ie, makes me dizzy) is of no relevance.

also, i am posting this close up of the sock-in-progress to show ms spider some of the colours i would like to incorporate into my custom made berry-crush self striping sock wool (eg, the burgundy, the lavender and some kind of pink).


cos i dont have enough sock wool to go on with or anything. (cough) no. not nearly enough (cough cough).

so sorry i will miss the frivolities tonight, i was hoping to see margie in her floppy hat! go dr margie.

back to the seams.

k

works in progress

while i wait (impatiently, tapping fingers) for my motivation to write to return, i am distracting myself with all things fibrous. hence, trents jumper parts:



i dont think i will block it properly, it says in the pattern to just press with a damp cloth and then sew it using edge-to-edge (mattress?) stitch before knitting on the neck band. i hate sewing, im too impatient, but i am going to try and do it properly to do justice to the wool and pattern which are lovely, and also because ive had to frog back too many parts of this to be slack with it now!

i have also started my next pair of socks with some of the hand dyed i bought at the markets, i was originally going to knit these for someone else but i like the colour too much and as ms spider says, i now need handknitted socks for every day of the week. i was too impatient to wait for thurs night and the swift and ball winder so i wound it by hand, only got one tangle at the end. i call this 'purple rain':



sorry its blurry, the flash drains all the colour out of it. its lovely and soft. my casting on in a round needs some work tho!

pressing of jumper parts awaits...

k

happier monday

no not a revival of a certain english club band.

yesterday things took a turn for the better because trent got offered a permanent full time job he wanted, in the private sector rather than govt, good package, more leadership less 'code monkey' (yes hes a geek). we havent seen an official letter of offer yet so we're still a bit nervous (why is that?) but im sure its all fine and he will start there on monday. hes been looking for a few weeks and on top of everything else its made life a bit stressful!

so now it looks like we'll be in canberra for another couple of years at least, unless i get some amazing post doc in england or america.

which, considering this requires the finishing of a thesis, is perhaps less than certain.

on that note, have done lots of processing, lots of talking with friends, incl ms d who was here for the weekend with her dog tali, (which was great fun for my possum) and we decided that the issue is that its like im trying to make a chocolate cake with some chilli in it (or some other weird ingredients) and my supervisors arent really sure why you would do this considering chocolate and chilli dont go together and no one has ever tried to do that before and the tasters will probably spit it out in disgust and what sort of chocolate cake has chilli in it anyway? i am extending this analogy by saying that my supervisors are a bit like some types of grandmothers who enter the same chocolate cake (sans chilli) in the easter show each year and get the same kinds of responses and arent aware that over in the other pavillion the chilli stand is all the rage, esp where they're putting chocolate with it.

so im determined to not be swerved from my course and will deal with the consequences as they come.

meanwhile the jumper sleeve has only about 20 more decreasing rows and looks exactly like its counterpart. i will put up photos of all the pieces when done before the sewing commences. i might need some help with 'edge to edge' stitch on thurs night.

hope all is well out there in knitting blog world

k.

ps later tuesday: confirmation of employment received. yay.