mall rats

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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...

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...

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....

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

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

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...

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

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....

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

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