Busy Busy

Its not that we're just too busy, its more that at the moment when I get home from work, the last thing I want to do is go online, and real life is getting full enough without the online life too.
I'm beginning to wonder if we should keep this going, or just let things die out.
There may be pictures, there may be more knitting updates, but at the moment, we'll just see how things go.

More Stash and UFOs

I've realised that its been ages since I actually posted here. We've just been too busy knitting, and I've started a new job.
That was one crazy ride. My job at the State Government finished the week before the wedding. The Wednesday before I got a quick 4 question interview on the phone. Friday I got a call back to say I'll be having an in person interview on the Monday (just after the wedding). Monday I had the interview. Tuesday I got a call to say I got through to the next round, which was an interview on Wednesday with manager in the finance section. Wednesday at the interview I was offered the job. As of Monday the 23rd I've been working for Anglicare SA as part of the IT team. It's a great place to work, I work with some pretty crazy people, and I really fit in well. Definitely feels different to where I was before. And they seem to have cake for morning tea almost every second day.
So back on track with the knitting.
For our wedding we got a $50 voucher to IKEA, which we just had to spend. Denise has had enough of the stash all over the ground in a pile, so we bought a second stash tower. And it all fits in, well that was until the new Bendigo order arrived.
Thankfully someone through Anglicare needed donations of yarn, so I got rid of all my scraps of yarn, and those odd balls of fluffy stuff that seems to breed when I'm not looking.
It's scary how much I'm beginning to hoard, and the different types of wool we have. There are at least two tubs full of Bendigo Mills wool. And the large tub at the bottom of the front tower is full of sock wool.
So, apart from this, we've also joined up with the UFO competition through the GLBT-Knit list.
This was my UFO list as of the 29th of April:

1. Red Baby Jacket (my oldest project at 3 years old)

2. Purple Baby blanket (about 2 and a half years)

3. My baby wool socks

4. Red baby socks

5. Red fluffly beanie

6. Brown & pink wrist warmers

7. Green sock wool wrist warmers

8. Maroon baby socks (although I may frog this as I've made it too short)

9. Yellow children's slipper

10. Purple & white socks

11. Tubey jumper

12. Brown granny square blanket

13. Dress for baby gift

14. Pink and blue stash slashing beanie

15. Socks for Denise's Nan

16. The square for Brooklyn's blanket (does that count? Its only been on the needles for two days)

17. Coronet beanie for mum

18. Origami Slippers

And Denise's list:

1. Alan's socks
2. Mum's socks
3. Blue Tubey
4. Ang's Adapted Tubey
5. Green Cable Jumper
6. Wave Alpaca Scarf -
7. Frog - 2004
8. Dad's Footy Scarf - early 2005;
9. Blue and Yellow Gloves
10. My Socks
11. Teddy Bear
12. Baby Suit
13. Cable Coronet;
14. Blue Fetchings;
15. Dad's Water Bottle Cover;
16. Cathy's Fetchings

Well, I'd like to show off our first things finished.
The boob tube Denise adapted from the Tubey jumper pattern. I modeled it for Denise, otherwise it just looks like an odd tube. Denise gave it a picotted cast off along the bottom, as well as giving it a folded down top to hide some elastic in. The last thing Ang would like is to have her top fall down while she's bouncing and jiggling on the dance floor. Might help her to pick up though...

And my Merino Bambino socks. There would have to be the best socks I have made so far. The wool is sooooo smooth and warm. I think I might try the new dye lot that seems to arrived this season. It has more blue and yellow in it. Well that's my excuse for making another pair.
Thankfully they seem to have mostly kept their pattern. Jessica made a pair that had two different patterns, despite making both identical.

Oh, and to my surprise the other day, I noticed that Spotlight have sock wool, of sorts. Its their Moda Vera range, the wool is called Adore. It's very fine, but seems to be the same 25% polymide, 75% wool that most sock wools are comprised of. Was rather shocked when I read the recommended needles and tension for the yarn. 4.5mm needles! The example they hang by the wool was so loose I can imagine that it's not going to attract too many people to it. Anyway, I've got a couple of balls, especially since they were only $3.95 for 50g. Denise's Nan is getting a pair of socks made out of this. So far they feel nice. It will be interesting to see how they wear.

We Did It!

Wow, we did it!

Denise and I got married on Saturday (and I promise I'll stop talking about it soon and get back to the knitting talk).

The day was perfect, the weather was just right, and the company was great. And Denise looked absolutely stunning in her dress. I can't believe how smoothly the whole day went. It was amazing, and everything just felt right.

Our parents were fantastic, and the amount of relatives we had attend was heartwarming. No negative feelings from anyone. We had lots of people comment that it didn't matter about laws or society, everyone could see that we truly loved each other and belong together.

I'm still trying to take it all in. Wow!

We've got an online photo album where all my friends and family who had digital cameras are uploading their pictures for us. There are just too many pictures to post them here, so it will be best to just give a link. http://s177.photobucket.com/albums/w210/geekandlawyer/

I hope you drop past and take a look.
Some of the details of the day. If anyone wants the contact details for any of the businesses we used, leave a comment and we'll pass on what we know.
Denise's bridesmaids/mates/attendants were her sister Angela, and friend Frances. Mine were Tessa, a friend since Kindergarten, and Peter, who is a mutual friend of ours. Poor Tessa was standing in the path of ants for a fair bit of the ceremony, so the pained look on her face in the photos was from the ants biting her legs. If it had been me, I would have being doing my ant slapping dance.
Our Celebrant was Merrilyn Williams. She helped make the day fantastic, and we've had a few people asking for her details. Although be warned, we had her booked for over 18 months, and we didn't get the exact time we wanted because someone else had already booked for same the afternoon.
The ceremony was held at Waterfall Gully in the Mt Lofty ranges. It was absolutely magical there, the ceremony was held with the lake and the waterfall in the background. Wikipedia has some great pics of the area and a bit of history too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_Gully,_South_Australia
We also at the reception up at Waterfall Gully, in the restaurant located about 200m from the falls. The meal was beautiful, and the room was just the right size for everyone. It felt so cozy and warm and from what we heard, we got the seating arrangement pretty spot on. Everyone was talking. Some made some new friends. Someone, who will remain anonymous, went out drinking with her new friends, until 5am.
My mum made our wedding cake. She's been doing professional wedding cakes for... um... a long time. The bottom tier was chocolate, the middle was orange and poppy seed and the top tier was a fruit cake which we plan to save and use when we legally get married.
And the shawl, I'm sure there are pictures of it somewhere. Denise didn't get to wear it for long, the day was nice and warm, and indoors was quite comfortable. I decided two days before the wedding that I was going to edge it, and ended up almost upending the stash tower to find the right shade of green wool. I did manage to finish it, about the same time as Denise's hairdresser finished her hair. Talk about cutting it close.
And those beautiful cars are '57 Chevvy's. The people who live across the road from us do wedding cars, I've been eying them off since we moved into this place. I got to ride in the red convertible, and Denise and her bridesmaids got the sedan. A smart move with all that styled hair. The strange thing is, the owner of the cars, is also a builder, who helped build our townhouse. Very small world.
Anyway, I hope to return to our regular programming soon. Suddenly we have a lot of knitting projects and due dates, so I'll be back with plenty of photos.

Almost Married

The date is getting closer, and we're beginning to realise, shit! we're actually getting married.
The certificates came through yesterday for our name change. So officially and legally we now have a joined surname. Although we're not going to use it until the 14th. Denise's dress is almost finished and I had a fitting for my shirt on Monday. Unfortunately with a week before the wedding also comes the due date for a lot of the payments.
Denise has finished my wedding socks, and was so pleased with the stretchy bind-off she's found. I think this will now become 'her sock pattern' she loves it so much. I've tried the socks on to make sure they fit, but I don't want to ruin or dirty them yet. The little hearts on them are so cute.
I stuffed my jumper sleeve in one of the socks so the pattern shows up a bit better.
And I've got the shawl finished. Thanks to advice from people on the GLBT-Knit list, I blocked the shawl last night, and it does make lace look a look nicer. I don't know if I will bother doing it for everything I knit, especially socks and beanies. Now I just have to add some edging to it. I'm thinking a crochet edging, something that won't take too long either since there is only 9 DAYS TO GO!
You can see the hearts a little clearer in the second picture. I was going to do smaller hearts, similar to the ones on the socks Denise made, but I think this is just as nice.
I'm currently writing this blog from work. It's my last day here, and I'm just cleaning up my desk, deleting old files off my computer and finalising things here. Unfortunately no further work has come through yet, so when people ask me where I'm going to next I'm telling them Centrelink... as a customer. I've had a couple of job interviews, here's hoping I get a job from one of them.
Anyone need a computer geek with good technical hardware and troubleshooting skills?
Pictures to be added when I get home.

Grrrrr!

Denise is really really really pissed off. Her last two wisdom teeth were meant to come out on Thursday. There was an appointment booked with the Dental Clinic for the yoinking of these teeth, we'd spent a restless night beforehand, and had prepared the icepacks and DVD's for days worth of resting, and recuperating, and me running around being nurse. Plus I had planned all my knitting I would do while looking after Denise. I had even booked a flexi day off work to take her in.
And we get there, the Dental receptionist wanted her to pay for THREE teeth to come out (seems this dentist is very insistent that her wisdom tooth on the other side should still come out, despite what our regular dentist said, and wrote), and we get in there and find out IT WAS ONLY A CHECK-UP!
Normally I'm a very nice person, I don't swear at people unnecessarily. I think this was necessary. I was damn furious, Denise was quietly seething. Possibly plotting to nut him.
Needless to say, once we know Denise never has to see this dentist again, we're making an official complaint, not just to the hospital, but also our local politicians. I can't understand how they can get away with treating people in the public system like this.
Even writing this has made me angry again. GRR!
We had some retail therapy after though. IKEA, and this great underwear shop for women with... well larger than usual boobs. Found some great clothes. And this sexy little corset.
Needless to say, that being so angry, very little knitting has been done. Don't want to knit something too tight.

Teeth and Traumas

Poor Denise is in the wars at the moment. The wisdom teeth came out. Actually, it was only two that came out, the next two come out in a week. And she's taking full advantage of the sooky time. My poor girl has been sitting on the couch for the past 4 days, with an ice pack against her cheek watching Buffy, and Star Trek, and the Muppets, and lot of other things in the DVD shelf.
But it's been a good excuse for me to join her in sitting around, watching TV and knitting.
I've got another repetition of the shawl done. Although I mainly knit that on the bus because I can concentrate on the stitches. No one talks to the crazy lady with the knitting needles.
Instead my TV watching project has changed from stash slashing beanies to a acrylic/mohair crochet granny square rug. It's finished dimension is 120cm across. It might add to it if I find any more yarn later. But at the moment its a throw rug that we'll keep on the back of the back of the chair for when we're cold and too lazy to get a blanket from upstairs.
As you can see, the correct way to use the new rug. It's surprising warm, if only the weather wasn't.

Beanies, Beanies, Beanies

These are my beanies I started the other day on Australia Day when I cleaned out the stash. This has only been two weeks worth of knitting too.
Starting with "I hate the colours, but my sister loved it and I bought one too many balls for her scarf, so what can I do with it?"
It's nasty and chunky and acrylic, but it's one less ball in my stash now. It was knitted on a 6mm circular needle, but I think I should have gone up higher to 7mm. It was the excuse I gave to justify buying a pair of Addi Turbo's.
Next is "too much of the ball left over to throw out, not enough to make anything on its own, what else goes with it?"
The orange is a bit of Zhivago I got in a bargain bag from Spotlight. Next time I won't knit it on 6mm needles. The purple and green are nice and firm, but the orange is a bit loose. And the beanie is too big for my poor model.
And this is "What the hell was I thinking when I bought this yarn?"
It probably doesn't show up in the picture, but its boucle type fluffy acrylic. I can't even remember why I bought it in the first place. Well it's all used up now. I added the pompom to finish off the last bit of yarn, and because it seemed a little too pointy.



I know what you're thinking. Is that Feathers yarn I see knitted in this beanie. Sadly, I say yes. I called this monstrosity "what to do with the Bargain Bag yarn you didn't really want, but bought because of the three balls you did want."
See, even Teddy was trying to get away from this beanie. But while I may hate the beanie, its fluffy and soft, and I'm sure someone will love it.



This is the leftover yarn from Denise's cousin's drop stitch scarf. I tried not to make the top of the hat such a sharp decrease so that it puckers and turns into a BHH (butt hole hat). I think I ended up with the other extreme.



This is my first beanie like this. The purple fuzz over the top is some fluffy stuff that originally was going to be for a beanie. When I started knitting this into a beanie I realised that despite using 6mm needles, I was getting no where fast with it, the beanie material felt more like polar fleece, but no where near as warm. So I frogged it, and found the pink wool (Denise swears it is red, I claim deep pink) and started knitting it double. I love this beanie. The really nice wool combines with the not so nice fluffy stuff, and makes a nice soft woollen beanie with a fluffy coating.
I loved the previous beanie so much, that I had to do it again. This time I used a ball of green wool, and some purple fluffy. Unfortunately I ran out of purple/blue fluff halfway thought, so I went back to the other purple. Actually, I meant to do that. It's part of the style.


And number eight is in the same style as the last two, I'm using the same fluffy purple, I started with the green, but ran out, out I went back to the deep pink. I'm tempted to keep it, but do I really need another beanie?
And lastly I had to show off the shawl I'm knitting for Denise. I've got the pattern mostly written up now, although I've had to re-write it a couple of times. I still haven't figured out how I'm going to finish it, if I change the large heart pattern to smaller heart mixed with a few big hearts, or if I just continue on. I'll wait for another few repeats and see what Denise thinks. I also have to figure out how to edge it. It's got a nice edging that will be easy to crochet and edge to, or create stitches on. Here's hoping inspiration will hit soon.

Dyeing Fun

Denise and I decided that despite the torrential tropical rain we had in Adelaide over the weekend, that we would finally do something about all the white wool we've been hoarding.
So I pulled out the first edition of Yarn Magazine that has dyeing instructions, and we started skeining all our wool, using the back of the chair. Then a quick trip down to the supermarket for 9 bottles of food dye and 8 litres of vinegar.
And this was on the morning when I finally decided to do some FLYLady cleaning, and fling out the crap in my plastics cupboard. All those margarine and take-away containers we don't normally need, got turfed and then retrieved to be used as dye containers.
Anyway, this will be fairly picture intensive, but we have to show off our creative work.
Helen's purple and green 8ply Bendigo Wool, 200g. No plans for this one yet.
Helen's yellow and purple (although its more blacky mud), 12 ply. Possibly will be made into a beanie.
Helen's rainbow wool. 5 ply, 150g or so from two half used balls. SOCKS, Socks and more socks til I run out of wool!
Denise's rainbow wool. 8ply 200g ball of Bendigo wool. Just waiting for inspiration
Denise's mottled 12 ply. Looks better in the ball than the skein. This will become a few pairs of Fetching wrist warmers.
Denise's yellow, red and black (although more a browny purple colour), 5 ply Bendigo Mills wool, about 100g of it. This is also destined to be socks. We used black dye, but the colour kept on running, and by the time the water ran clean, it was more a brown colour, which has dried to a deep purple. The colours still look good together. I see socks happening here.
Denise's red, blue and white Bulldogs wool. 12ply, so more Fetchings, and other football things. Possibly a scarf and beanie, depending on how much is left.
Denise's rose pink and green wool. 5 ply Bendigo wool. This is already currently being knitted into socks.
And this is what happens when we decide to go hunting through the stash for more white wool. We decided to pull the buckets in the tower out, tip wool all over the floor and sort while watching Star Trek. (Did I mention I'm a Trekkie? And I'm trying to convert Denise). I found some oddments, pulled out my 6mm circular needles and cast on for a beanie. By the end of the evening I had these. And the third beanie sits next to me on my computer desk, slowly being knitted as I wait for pictures to upload.
These will be sent off for the Guardian Angle charity knit. Anyway, the top one is called "I hate the colours, but my sister loved it and I bought one too many balls for her scarf, so what can I do with it?", the second one is call, "too much of the ball left over to throw out, not enough to make anything on its own, what else goes with it?" The purple one I'm knitting at the moment is call "What the hell was I thinking when I bought this yarn?" You'll understand when I post the picture.
Ooh, and we're about to go out to IKEA and buy a new stash tower. Denise has conceded that I have too much yarn for just one tower. Yay!

Ahhh!!! Holidays

Yes, I have been on holidays, my first real Christmas break in years, no pre-Christmas/
post-Christmas sales, no Back-to-School orders,
And we did very little of what we planned to do. And many things we didn't plan.
Like go to Mt Gambier. I haven't been there in 5 years, since my grandfather died, and its been good to go back there. It was even better to go with Denise and see everything new through her eyes. Having grown up visiting there every Christmas when I was little, I've seen all the tourist attractions, yes the lake is blue, caves are dark, pine forests smell nice and limestone has fossilised shells and bones in it. You start forgetting how interesting the place is.
The only problem with our holiday was that we decided to travel on a 38 degree day, and I've realised that my air-conditioner must have a leak in it, as it was re-gassed last year, and now just blows hot air. It was a welcome rest going for a tour down the Naracourte caves, where it was at least 15 degrees cooler than the surface.
So the first thing I had to show Denise while there was the infamous lake. We went to the look-out, and found that there is an even better look-out, just up those steps!
At the top of the steps is one of the main water holding tanks, where water is pumped from the lake to, and held before going down to the city to use. The reason for it being so high is to give decent water pressure to the city.
And of course, once you climb up, you have to climb down again!
While there we also had to go on a guided tour down to almost to the edge of Blue Lake. The first time I did this tour we actually stood on a small platform just over the water, however since then the level has dropped 2m, making the metal steps too step.
The tour was very informative, and a damn sight cooler than anywhere else unless it involved ice.
We got a lot of the history of the area, as well as a lot of the science behind how it was formed and why the water is blue.The reason for the blue is because the water is filtered through kilometres of limestone as is flows down to the coast. The water that is in the lake is actually still moving, just really slowly. So the water is ultra filtered, and very pure, and also contains tiny particles of the limestone. In winter they tend to be denser, the water has a vision range of about 17m, and the lake appears grey. However in summer they seem to drop away, the water has a vision range I think about 25m (I can't remember the numbers), so when you look at it from above, you can see so much deeper, and the water appears much bluer. The tour guide explained it so much better than me.
Understandably with all this heat, there hasn't been much knitting.
I'm currently trying to find a nice heart pattern to make a shawl for Denise for our Commitment Ceremony. I've got a few, so I'm trying them out, see which one looks the best, which ply wool to use, which size needles, then ordering a couple of balls from Bendigo. I can't find a shawl pattern I like, but I've got an idea on how I want it to look. Let's hope I can draft something up.
Denise has cast on a Tubey Jumper of her own, so I'm now compelled to get mine finished before she does. I've only got another 20cm to go, but that damned 3x1 rib is making me not want to finish it. It's boring, but you need just enough concentration to remember to purl every fourth stitch.
Now I'm back at work I need a small traveling project, and I have almost finished my first Merino Bambino baby wool sock. The wool is so soft, and the colours are so bright. I love these already. It's bad manners to take your shoe and sock off in public to test your sock length? Right?
Denise has cast on for another pair of fetching gloves. She's getting to be quite the project whore. She has almost as many projects on the needles as I do. I'll have to do a count later when I update the side bar.
Oh, and the last big thing since I updated this, I've hit another milestone in my life, the quarter century! I am now 25, although I was feeling old before the numbers changed.

Christmas, Stress and other Stuff

I guess this is the time of the year when everyone's blogs are looking a little bare and neglected. It's only because I've been so busy.
So, last time I posted, Denise was in Melbourne doing her law placement, and loving it, and I was in the middle of Nanowrimo madness.
Denise is now back, has had her graduation ceremony (doesn't she look so smart!) and is now enjoying being a lady of some leisure (with Christmas also comes the mad Christmas house cleaning!) Now she just has to wait to see what happens in regards to a placement for her graduate diploma, and if this placement she's just done also nets her a job. Fingers crossed.
I was happy with my Nano effort. I knew I wasn't going to finish, but I did get more words up than I was expecting. I did hit the 30,000 word mark, expecting only to get to 25,000. On the last friday of November I joined some of the other Adelaide members at the 24 hour bakery for an all night write-in, where I stayed until 2am writing. It was great. I was in such a good space, physically and in my head, that I got a lot written. Now I have 10 months to prepare the plot for my next story. I had inspiration on the 14th of November for a novel that I may actually work on enough to publish. Here's hoping.
At the Adelaide KTog group we had an end of year Kris Kringle type of gift giving. With a $10 limit I decided to make stitch markers. Someone on the glbt-knit list made some and posted pictures. I loved the idea so much I realised I just had to give them a try. Lincraft were having a sale on beads, and I found these beautiful little charms to add to the end. I tried taking pictures, but shiny things reflect flashes. I've ended up taking them so far away so not to cause reflection, that a lot of the detail is lost.
Anyway, the charms on the end say Unite, Inspire, and Imagine.I hope the people that received them liked them.
Despite all the Christmas crazies, I've still managed to get a fair bit of knitting done. I tried making the Origami Slippers in the 2007 Knitting Pattern a Day Calendar. I had no idea what I was doing, and Denise had to give me a hand figuring out how I had to sew it up. I may go looking to see if there are any pattern corrections for it. It doesn't seem quite right. I'm also 80% through a pair of socks. I'm surprised with myself. I started these last week, did a fair bit of the knitting on the trip up to Renmark for work, and have almost finished both. No second sock syndrome this time. I'm getting happier with my standard sock pattern. I knit them top down, do a short row heel, and shape the toe down and finish with kitchener stitch. I tried toe up socks, but didn't find a cast on that I liked. Plus I like to think that my kitchener is pretty good, and I like to show it off when I can.
Denise is currently working on a pair of socks for her grandfather for Christmas. Yes, a bit late, but we'll just put it down to Christmas postage. This is the second pair of socks from this ball of sock wool, although the cuff, toes and heel are done in a different yarn. She also made two crocheted baby hats for my cousins' kids for Christmas. The kids looked quite cute in them. With the rush on the gifts, the arrowhead scarf has been put on the back-burner for a bit.
And now with Christmas over, we're spending a day doing... well, nothing. Denise is currently playing Transport Tycoon on her old computer, which I finally got around to fixing. And later we've got plans to set up the new TV table we bought together for Christmas. We may get around to it.
Anway, only 4 more sleeps until my birthday. I'm turning 25 on Saturday. And realising that without warning I've grown up. Shit! Who made me an adult!

Quick Update

Wow, its been ages since I wrote here. Well ages for me at least.
Well Denise has finally finished her exams, and assignments, and University. Yay. She graduates mid-December, and there will be lots of pictures posted to the blog of her in the graduation gown.
But since she's finished her exams, it means she's now over in Melbourne doing her legal placement. It's four weeks of working in a law firm to see how it all runs, what they do, and basically work experience, but it sounds fancier. She's having a great time (well except for being apart from me for the past 6 days and 6 sleepless nights), they've put her in the property law section, so she's loving it.
She's coming back for this weekend, where we get to celebrate Picnic in the Park together, as well as my work Christmas BBQ. Then back for another week of work, then I go over for a visit and some great shopping. I've got plans and an itinery. Bridge Rd, St Kilda Markets, and Queen Victoria markets (if we have time). And there's a party that Denise has been invited to.
So that's our life in a nutshell.
The rest of our life is in those little green bars on the side of the blog. You can see how many words we've written for the nanowrimo. I know I won't make it to the 50,000, but I'm aiming to get to 25,000. Next year when I have a good plot and my own characters to play with, I'll have a better crack at it.

Multi-Directional Scarf

Here's a dodgy paint-brush altered picture to show the knitting direction of my scarf. I know, there are thousands of better picture editing programs out there, I have plenty of copies of such software, however they all tend to eat into my precious hard drive space I use for music. Which is more important? Hmm?
Anyway, I put some further details in the comments to the last post in response to Tallguy. As you can see I'm not knitting with two colours at once, but more in rows of green then purple. When I start a new colour I have two stitches of that colour, and I increase one stitch on the outer edge, and pic up another on the inside. Two get the two colour effect, I've changed colour when I change direction. If you click on the picture you can see a bit more of the stitch detail.

Nanowrimo

There's a new icon that's popped up on our side bar. It's for Nanowrimo, or National Novel Writing Month which is running in November. The goal of the month is to write a 50,000 word novel. And that doesn't have to be 50,000 Pulitzer Prize winning words, but whatever drivel you can pull out of... well wherever you can pull it from. I'm a little behind my daily allowance of about 1600 words, but I'm slowly gaining momentum, up to 1400 in total. And its guaranteed not to be an award winning novel of any type. Denise persuaded me to try and get back into writing again after not having written for fun since the beginning of uni. Denise is also writing something and she's written about 3000 words. Not bad as she's studying for her exams too. Makes me feel soooo slack!
So the posts may be a little brief for this month, because I'm trying to focus my words towards my novel.
I'll make up with pictures though. This is the diagonal scarf I'm knitting at the moment. It's a multi-directional diagonal short row scarf. I've modified it for two colours, the original colour suggestion was to use a plain yarn or a yarn with a large verigation. This was some yarn I saw at Lincraft that just screamed out 'KNIT ME' and it's not often that Lincraft yarn does that.
Denise is knitting a wave pattern scarf out of two colours of alpaca wool. This is from an Alpaca farm we visited a few weeks ago.
And normally Frankie doesn't look this evil, but she was sitting on the bed, and I had the camera out, and this is the pose that turned up on the camera. Or maybe she's still annoyed at me for taking away her bug she was trying to eat. I don't mind her catching all the moths she can find. They are hatching from the pantry at the moment, and I still haven't found the source. And I prefer the moths to enjoy the taste of flour or lentils or popcorn, than all my yummy wool.

My Computer Shows Me No Respect

I hate dial-up Internet. It's slow, and fussy, and at the moment it's not having too many good days. It's taken to dropping off for no reason, so now I have to figure out the reason. On a good night we only drop off twice. Needless to say, our phone bill has gone up, as has my frustration.
This week Denise and I were in a hurried knitted gift making frenzy. My cousin's daughter was being baptised and we were invited. While we knew of this for a while, I thought last week that a knitted something would be very meaningful. So Denise got out the crochet hook and made a baby's sun hat, I went downloading, and got the pattern for the Katja baby top from Knitty. We'd have pictures of these items, but I finished the top 10 minutes before giving it to the baby. Denise's sun hat was a hit. Everyone loved it, and as little bub was being passed from person to person, she needed something on her head. I'm sure Denise will be making another for her friend in Ballarat with the little one, so I'll grab a pic then.
One thing that has been finished is my Christmas stocking. It's a great big fluffy stocking, and I can fit plenty of wool in it (I know, I tried it to take the picture). Now I'm hunting down the next pattern to try for Denise's stocking. Denise suggested doing a Picot Cast Off so that the stocking has points on which to hang small bells. Although I think it may be so she can hear Santa putting the gifts in her stocking!
So far I've tried Wendy Johnson's Generic Toe Up Sock. Not bad, although I don't really like provisional cast ons, I never feel like I'm catching all the stitches. So next time I'm going to use the Figure Eight Cast On from Knitty's Tiptop Toes article.
Still have to figure out how to cast off loosely enough. Denise had this problem with her first pair of toe-up socks. Asking around on GLBT-Knit, Fiberqat suggested a row of single crochet to cast off. Have to give this a try, although it probably won't matter too much with the stockings.
Anyway, this was just meant to be a short post as I managed to get on and to say that we're still here. Denise is busy studying for her final university exams. She sat in her final lecture ever, and is looking forward to the 11th when the only thing left to do will be to walk across the stage and get that certificate.
Yay Denise!

I'm Back and I'm Knitting Again

I’m trying to get the blog updated a little more often now. Blogspot isn’t designed for a dial-up connection. Some days it takes me 10 minutes to get to the front page, then another 10 to navigate to write a new blog. And don’t ask about photos.
To top it off, I just found out we have occasional interference on our phone line which has caused it to drop off. Hopefully they have fixed it and we can be online for more than 30 minutes at a time.
I figured if I load the pictures up at work I’ll be able to post a little quicker. So no more saving drafts of this blog and posting it a week later when things finally work.
On a positive note, I think things with my shoulder are finally working out. I figured why my recovery suddenly went bad. I was given an exercise to strengthen my neck muscles, and I got it wrong. I’ve been strengthening two at the front of my neck by accident, not the one in the middle. I’m glad my physio worked this out, because I was at the stage of ‘well it aches when I knit, and it aches when I don’t know’ so I rationalised that I may as well do what I enjoy. Which has been really bad, because I’ve picked up my knitting with a vengeance.
My mum loves her toe-up sock pattern, and while I want to try it, I’m not able to commit to two toe-up socks. A while ago Denise and I found some nasty sparkly yarn on special in green and red, and I got inspired. Christmas Stockings!!! I don’t mind the pattern, or the toe, or the heel, I just really don’t like all the stitch wrapping in the pattern. I’m using Wendy Johnson’s Generic Toe-Up Sock pattern.
At least by experimenting with the patterns on christmas stockings I don’t have to commit to that second sock. And I can experiment with gauge too. The yarn I’m using is by no means a sock yarn. It’s a nice big chunky yarn, and I’m using nice big needles (5.5mm). So while I’ve cast on the amount of stitches the pattern says, I’m getting a nice big sock I can fit both feet into.
Denise is also trying the pattern. She hates kitchener stitch used for top down socks (where as I love it, my stitches always look so perfect!) and anything that can avoid it is great. However she doesn’t like the heel and is looking for a toe-up pattern with a flap heel. So it’s not the perfect pattern for us, Denise thinks she is closer to that pattern that is just made for her.
Last week one of the women in our local knitting group has brought along some sock yarn with the proceeds going to charity. And who can argue with that. Denise got three balls, her favourite in red, blue and white, which is the colours of her AFL football team, the Western Bulldogs.
At least she finished off her last pair of socks before starting on these ones. Yay, now I have a pair of purple cotton socks knitting by my love. For some reason the pattern didn’t continue through the second sock. Nothing changed, same dye lot, same amount of stitches, same size needle, but it gave a different pattern. I love them though. Excuse the scary hairy legs though. I don’t believe in shaving, it would make my morning routine so much longer, and people don’t notice the operation scars on my knees when all they see is hair.
One thing I’ve been meaning to show off for a while is the magpies in our area. Whenever we have stale bread (or we find a loaf with freezer burn hidden in the freezer) I’ll throw it out the front for the birds. We have two families of magpies in our area, and they seem to be well fed by everyone. Our neighbours also love putting bread out for the birds too. Rather cruel since we both have indoor cats who love to watch the birds out the front. Its funny to sit out the front when the magpies come in and see Frankie, Chakra and Cashmere sitting in their windows, staring at the birds.
The magpies are just beginning to bring their young down for a fly around the area. These gray squawking little teenage magpies are so cute, but so demanding. We also have one with a broken beak. The ends of both top and bottom beak seem to have snapped off. She doesn't seem to have any problems though. She's the one in the foreground of the picture.
The other day we decided to be decedent and buy a banana. Whoop-dee-do you say. That banana cost us $4.05. For ONE banana. But it was so worth it. It’s amazing what you miss when you can’t have it. By the looks of some of the odd shaped bananas beginning to arrive down here, the first crop of bananas after Cyclone Larry seem to be ready. Bananas and strawberries for desert were wonderful.

OKC (On Knitting Content)

Looking back over my past few posts I realised how little knitting content there is. I've been trying to help my shoulders by not knitting, a hard task when there is a stash tower overflowing in the living room that is begging me to pay attention to it, and project deadlines.
Well I got the bag finished for my work colleague. It was a struggle to finish it on time. I took the photo with the scissors next to it so I could get some perspective when I felted it, but then I forgot to take the second photo. Idiot!
The bag was basically two pieces, a flat piece with the beading in it, and a cord made with a home-made tomboy stitch. Yes, that is the top of a juice bottle, four nails and lots of tape. It worked quite well, and not as easy to crush as a toilet roll is when you sit on it. Once I felted it, it made a really thick cord, much thicker than anything I could have knitted or crochetted, and it doesn't seem to stretch as much as the handle on my satchel does. My problem was that I finished sewing it up at 12midnight, ran it through the wash, and it felted slightly. So I got up early and ran it through the wash while I was in the shower. Worked fine, but now it was wet. So I thought a low iron would be okay. I would have if I'd kept the iron moving the whole time. Burnt one side of it. The good thing was that Terezia still loved it. I asked her to send me a pic. She used her phone so its a bit out of focus.

So I sit here with my cup of mint tea made from fresh mint I picked from my 'edible' garden, as Denise likes to call it. The garden is coming along nicely. I'm hoping that the next few days with the heat wave we're expecting, doesn't kill it. The lemon tree has just pushed through a few new leaves and they are looking really healthy. Its amazing what a lot of chicken fertilizer will do. The beans love it too. They're about the start galloping up the fence frame. And my seedling nursery on the kitchen window is getting bigger. The dill has its second leaves, I FINALLY have basil growing, the cherry tomatoes are ready to go outside.
Yes, this last bit had nothing to do with knitting, but what the hell, if I can't knit, I'll garden!!!

Whale of a Time

Denise and I have been going stir crazy recently, and we just had to get out of Adelaide for the day. After being washed out a few weeks ago, finally had decent weather to go to Victor Harbor.
Weather was warm, although a bit blowy. We went for a walk around Granite Island, although we didn't see any Fairy Penguins. I'm offended, the name of these cute penguins have been changed from Fairy Penguins, to Little Penguins. Why? Because it might offend gay people?!?!?!?! That's political correctness gone overboard.

Some of the rock shapes on Granite Island are amazing. This picture of me isn't to show how small I am, but rather how big the rock is. It's quite an large hole that I've sheltered myself in.
Denise found herself a similar hiding place, although it seemed to be a well worn path. There were trails all over the island, some leading dangerously close to the rock edge or cliff, some going over the middle of the island, and one we took led right into a collection of rocks, with no sign of which way to go. I'm writing this, so we did figure it out.
And after all that exercise we just had to reward ourselves with strawberries and cream. And had to endure music pumping out of the kiddy ride.
We also went down to the Whale Centre to see if there were any local sightings. As luck would have it there were 3 in the next bay around, a 10 minute drive away. They would have been maybe 200m offshore. Thankfully I had my binoculars, so we were able to get an even closer view. Seems there was a family out there, two adults and a calf in the shallow surf playing in the waves. He surfaced several times, riding the waves, rolling around and blowing water into the air. The zoom on my camera isn't the best, but the black mark in the water is a whale fin as the calf went on a spin.Yes, I know its been a long time since my last blog, and the date stamp is really out on this. I've been saving and adding to the post several times, swearing at how long it takes to log in and load up a picture. Finally managed to do it.
Will try to post a bit more often. Have plenty of pictures waiting on the camera.