The Puppy belongs to us, we’ve named her Kira. She brings out the little boy hiding in the mister. It’s been great, she’s very very intelligent, and I’m positive she knows she’s got us wrapped around her little finger (paw?)

She has kennel cough at the moment, so her temperature flares and she gets a nasty cough every so often, but she’s been great.
My only wish is that I kept fit, as a family we used to breed huskies, and I used to run them twice daily for at least a half hour, 15-20 dogs that are bred to PULL, and I used to RUN with them. My god was I crazy.

Now? I can barely run for 5 minutes before I’m huffing and puffing.. We’ve got it down to an art form for now though, the mister runs one way and I run the other, and we alternate calling her to play (He’s even more unfit than I am Ha!)
And that was only 3 years ago.. I’ll get there again

Lots of Christmas knitting, but as we stayed home this year I can’t post anything yet because gifts have not yet been given (and knowing me I’ll forget to post later, but hey, wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise)

The Ivy League Vest (or Green League on Ravelry) is sitting unattended in the cupboard, I dropped a whole bunch of stitches on our way home from Anglers Reach a week before Christmas and I got so incredibly disheartened – I’ll pull the stitches back up and hope for the best, but with all that colourwork…. *sigh*

Anyway, this is a little before the terrible events

The Cornstalk concerns me a little (The creamy/yellow) I’m considering giving the whole garment a tea bath to mute the colours a little when it’s finished, I’m not sure yet.. I’ll take it to the next SnB for an overall executive decision.

And thus concludes todays blatherings.
A Belated Happy New Years and Merry Christmas to all.
So many things have changed in our lives this past year, I’m grateful to all the old friends who stayed with us, and to all the wonderful new friends we’ve made.

I thank all of you for the richness you have brought to my life.

Christmas Day, I was relaxed, calm and looking forward to christmas with my mister, in the afternoon we opened our home to those who have no family close by, those who want to get away from family, and those otherwise not encumbered with the fiasco that is Christmas
(There was possum pie.. Don’t look at ME like that, I’m a vegetarian)

This time of year is ‘traditionally’ not a good one for us, in years gone past many terrible, terrible things have happened either right on top of christmas or just after. But this year has been different, and I’m really really pleased with everyone who came and enjoyed Christmas evening with us.

I made some sneaky pre-christmas purchases last week, the Crafty Frog out in Kambah had their re-opening sale, so I went all out, 15% discount on all stock.. Who could say no?? Grabbed some white Laceweight, some Chocolate Bulky singles, some olive/greeny varigated wonderfulness for a cardigan of some description, and some bamboo to have a go at (so soft!!)

Tomorrow I go out and pick up our puppy, we have saved this beautiful little puppy from an abusive home on the other side of town. After she was found we held onto her for a few days hoping to get in touch with the owners, She absolutely wonderful, a little anxious -but based on what we know now of the previous owners she’s lucky to be able to interact at all (and therin lies another fiasco for another day) but she’s safe, she’s been at the pound since Saturday last week, and they need to hold her for 8 days before she belongs to us.

We’re both very very happy about it, although  “Hey Mum, you’re going to be a grandparent” isn’t exactly the best way to inform the MIL that we’d be getting a puppy. (Mister’s words exactly, and do you think he could get a word in edgewise after that??)

Now that I’ve finished procrastinating I really should be studying, so here I leave you
With the only two pictures I have of our beautiful little girl

(PS, We want to rename her, if anyone has any suggestions?)

I should be studying.. but how adorable is he? There’s two of him now, I’m going to mail one to a friend in Melbourne as a part of his Christmas Gift.

Things are still a little crazy. And again, I’ve been writing posts and not actually posting.
Just call me Daft.

My Marketing Exam was yesterday, it went alot better than I thought it would. (Especially being as I despise the subject) and there have been some.. *ahem* issues with this course

I’ll explain briefly, because it still makes me quite angry, but I initially completed Assignment one, and left it in Sydney. So I re-wrote it, submitted it – and on a whim, decided to make sure they’d recieved it, the following day (A Saturday of a long weekend no less) the lady in the office tells me she’s the only one in, there’s a bit of a backlog, but she hasn’t seen it yet, best to resend it before the end of the weekend.

BUT. I can’t get back into the office which is where I’ve left my assignment. So I rewrite the thing AGAIN (Counting.. that makes 3 times I’ve written the thing, twice that I’ve submitted it)
I submit it. I forget about the hassles I’ve had. I email on the Tuesday asking if it’s been received and I’m told they have THREE copies of my assignment.

and you know what – “Whatever” I thought, probably the fax machine trying to send it through and it managed to get it through twice at some point. -Meh

I get my mark back two weeks later, and it’s a FAIL.

I sit on top of my letter box waiting for my marked assignment to rock up, and it does, and the assignment in that wonderful little envelope was… My first draft, my VERY FIRST DRAFT – How the F&%^ did my FIRST DRAFT get faxed through?

Weeks and tears later, one of the EA’s at work comes to me and apologises, she had seen the print on hold on the printer, had printed it and seen the Fax Cover sheet, and sent it through thinking she was doing the right thing. I thank her for telling me. And curl up into a little ball under my desk.

The university refuse to acknowledge additional submissions, the fact that it had been sent through three times is acknowledged, but they shred the additional copies. They have been nice, and sympathetic.. But haven’t helped me at all. The first copy, is the only copy, is the marked copy, is the mark you get. Tough.

But, I’ve plowed on with the course, I submitted my second assignment, I sat the exam, and I think I’ll pass them individually, but I have no idea if I’ll pass or fail this course. Since the entire Assignment one fiasco I have put in little to no effort. That is not something you want happening in the first 4 weeks of a study period, it makes for one very uninspired student.
Anyway. I’ll find out soon I guess. If I only ‘just’ fail the course I’ll ask for a full review. If I fail by miles I’ll leave it and do the course again in 12 months when my temper dies down.

To reward myself for sitting the exam I have gone and purchased myself some lovely Bendigo Woollen Mills goodness.

I’ve been drooling over everyone’s Ivy League Vest (Ravelry Link) for AGES, and figured I could make it in 5ply with some of the wonderful greens and creamy tans that Bendigo have.

I’ve ordered a WHOLE LOT, but I’m thinking I might use these colours

I’ll be working off a different gauge obviously, but I will need this to be much longer than the original pattern, and figured out that if I completed this vest in the specified 4ply I would need to go down a size and repeat parts of the intarsia pattern (3 of the colourwork patterns to be specific)
This way, I do one repeat and make the ribbing longer and I’m pretty much done… I hope it works out.

It’ll be a fun experiment anyway. I’ve never done any ‘real’ colourwork before, and steeks.. My god do they look scary.

Whoot.. Just waiting for the postie to drop everything off..

There are so many things that have happened -

Study has started, Intro to Law and Intro to Marketing (Can’t get motivated with Marketing for the life of me – It’s too much common sense to be interesting)

Organised a study group and some awesome people

Met up with the Canberra knitting group (Ravelry link)- Such a fantastic group of people!!

Started working in my job here, looking for something more challenging though.. God am I bored in my job right now (It’s not worth whining about it really, but I’ve gone from training people, to doing the work I used to delegate on. I have the ability and the level of delegation to complete and approve my own work. But I’m not allowed to. it’s a little demoralizing.)

Watching Plenty of Doctor Who, Magyver (My god how did I miss out on ever seeing Magyver!?)

Lots of cartoons and new media that we’ve accumulated recently.

The guy we live with left for vietnam for 3 weeks, and returned safely.

I’ve failed my driving test 3 times (Next time on the 18th of Nov)

Mister got himself a real job (Finally!!)

I’ve been spinning (woohoo!!)
It really is so incredibly relaxing to do once you get into the swing of things, and so satisfying. I’ve been spinning every evening for the past few days and it’s been my one point of sanity in a very very hectic life right now.
And after a couple of fumbling attempts to stop the fibers twisting into the roving I was holding.. Or becoming so thin and over-twisted that it snapped the minute it went through the orifice.. Or so un-twisted that it pulled apart with the smallest pressure or… So many other stupid mistakes were made, but eventually..

I turned this:

Merino

Into this:

YARN!!

YARN!

My God am I proud of it, there’s 50 something meters of it, and it knits up like 8 ply (most of the time)

I started knitting a cowl out of it but don’t have quite enough for the amount of stitches I put on the needles, so that’s been ripped and it held up remarkably well (no pictures, got carried away) I think I’ll try something a little more straight forward, a ribbed scarf maybe..

So that’s very very brief overview since our move, I’ll update again soon, I need somewhere to vent, and I missed SnB this week at Tilley’s due to one very grumpy mister.

Anyway, for now – Back to the wheel, I grabbed some magnificent alpaca at the Bus Depot Markets (I’m talking MASSIVE bag – HUGE) so I’m going to try and get some more singles out of that before bed

todays inspirations

Nothing much to say, Lately I’ve been scouring flickr for ‘pretty’ pictures. I’ve been keeping tabs of the pictures themselves, but not where they’re from, so please note, none of the above pictures are my own, they are all freely available and I am not looking to make any money from them. I -quite simply- find them inspiring.

Joined the Ravelympics which starts soon, I’ve decided to try and do Laminaria and the Amelia Earhart beanie.
For Laminaria (Ravelry Link) I’ve printed out the charts in the correct order and put the instructions next to everything so that it’s easier to complete.
For some reason I find knitty’s patterns to be quite difficult to follow straight off the site, I always have to re-arrange everything for it to actually make sense in my head.

And after re-looking at the instructions now – it’s all quite simple really. I mean. It’s lace right? It’s difficult. But, the instructions themselves are all really straight forward

I think I’ll enjoy this.

I hope so anyway…

Moving is full steam ahead, we’re moving a week ahead of schedule! Found ourselves a place in Braddon to stay, we’ll be moving in with a good friend of ours, it’s a mutual favour really, he needed housemates, we needed a house etc. etc.
Last day in Sydney will be Wednesday next week -Holy Crap!

I turned 21 recently. (A month ago)
yup-yup. Milestone birthday
This is meant to be the best year of my life. (apparently)

Move from NSW to ACT has been confirmed for Friday the 15th of August -So if you’re travelling that way that weekend -yes that will be us in the truck doing 80kms p/hr down the M5 – Wave!!

So we’ve been busy, packing, organising etc..
My head is about to explode.. I have so many things to think about I feel crippled right now, incapable of constructive thought.. It’s not a nice feeling for a person who arranges her day by the hour (yes including all possibilities, tangents and potential disasters)

First things first, I need to get my tax done. (shiver)
and Mister needs a job
and we need boxes
and we need somewhere to live
and .. the list goes on and on and on..

and so.. To keep myself sane, I have been knitting.

Mindless knitting to be exact
Flat, Stockinette, minimally shaped, mindless knitting
I started by running through a couple of random top-down free cardigans online, just to see how they were done, and I cast on, and off I went

this is what I wanted…

draft of pattern

and this is what I’ve got so far

and I realized while looking at other cardigans, as a general comparison (remember I’ve never done this before).. that mine was identical to Cosmicpluto Knits! Cavern Cardigan!
Numbers, marker placement, everything. Except the diamond pattern, (although there is another cardigan of hers that has it) but I decided to ditch that because it took up more yarn and base on my calculations I didn’t have enough to finish it (grumbles) Whereas without the garter diamond pattern I will finish with just on 100 metres of yarn left

So sitting at home, comparing my notes to the Cavern Cardigan, I felt reasonably sorry for myself. I thought I’d come up with the simplest, easiest top-down pattern EVER.. and there it was, right there in front of me, done already.
But I eventually came to the conclusion that it was a good thing. A great thing in fact. Just because I didn’t come up with it first doesn’t negate the fact I figured out how to do something on my own, and the fact that it’s been tried and has been successful before is flattering.

So there

I like it, I grabbed some studs from Lincraft yesterday for buttons (nice brassy ones that go nicely with the Flecks of tan and white through the Navy) I had some wonderful wooden buttons I could have used… but I honestly didn’t think about button holes for some reason.. just knit my little heart out. So studs it is!
I’m a third of the way through the first sleeve, which I’m planning on making full length with the moss edge.
I’m going to stop decreasing for the arm just after my elbow for a slightly open wrist.
I’ve also done some fairly dramatic shaping, shortrows around my boobs, darts just under the bust and 2 for the centre of my back

I’m happy with how it’s turning out so far.. Just hope my swatch is true to what the yarn will do once it’s washed

Been busy keeping up with Venture Bros.
Just keeps getting better and better!!
Loved last weeks episode – *Bring on more Brock Samson!!!*

Love him. Most awesome character EVER

I’ll leave you with more knit content.. I saw this guy on the Train recently (World Youth Day/Week)
wearing the most magnificent felted hat that had been quite obviously knit.. the pictures really don’t do it justice -He took it off at one stage and I could see the stranding on the inside, but missed the photo opportunity

Your loyalties change or are firmed. Your beliefs become tighter within yourself. You cling to loved ones and dream of better days.

Fighting draws on our need to survive. War; when it has occurred in the past has devastate countries, economies and lives.
But in the end, once it’s all over, we find ourselves picking up the pieces and trying to make heads or tails of what to do now with all the dangerous equipment we made to keep ourselves alive.

And because of this -we invent. We create new and wonderful ways to continue our percieved way of life.
So many of our daily household objects have come about because of war.
The Cold War gave us the microwave; World War 1 gave us penicillin, WWII gave us superglue..

But, in the absence of fighting… What do we have?

I’ll tell you what I think.. I think we entertain.
Entertainment is what so many people live for in the absence of a cause. TV, Movies, Games.. Consumerism.
And it peaks JUST after the fighting stops.

We revel in our luxuries. We sit back and smile at one another over the daily paper that tells us to be proud of our heritage, our legacy, and our freedom.

I am no different. I am a Consumerist. I buy games and hoard the little luxuries that come my way.
The difference is that throughout my generation. We have had no fight. No war. No need to survive.

I’m often ashamed of telling people how old I am (or how old I’m not).

We’re such a fickle generation

ANYWAY.

Working away on my Hemlock Blanket (Ravelry Link) I’m much further along than this photo shows, but our camera has died I’m in the process of knitting on an edge now (I think it’s called Granby’s Lace) hopefully it will turn out large enough for my misters 6’5″ oversized frame.

Also working on my ‘Train project’ the Spiral Boot Socks from Interweave (Ravelry Link)

Look at that magnificent Yarn, I’m using Araucania Ranco Solid (Ravelry Link) and it’s beatiful and soft, doesn’t pool but has these light verigated sections that provide interest both in knitting and in wearing.
I think I may have done the one I’m working on now too short to peek out from the top of my boots (well anything except my doc Martens anyway) -but that just means I may need to make 2 pairs

I quite enjoy socks.. it’s just the tiny needles that put me off -and I can’t find any circulars that suit sock knitting.. I’ll keep looking, maybe try and pick up some lace needles or something..

Now.. nearly finished one.. halfway through another.. I think it’s time to start the next one, don’t you?

I am amazed sometimes at people’s talents.. It”s phenomenal..
My very own handspun!!

*Shrieks into a cushion in glee*

Look! isn’t it amazing!!

AND…

I am so incredibly surprised… Stitch markers (Hand Made ones!!!) and HAND DYED yarn.. Hand SPUN even!!!!

-I haven’t put anything down since taking the photos, swear!

Core-Luv-a-Duck! Holy Dammit Christmas!

My partner officially thinks I’ve gone mad.. I have checked our mail box every day (even non-post days mmmhmmmm) since I knew this was on it’s way

and it was so incredibly worth the wait!!

*runs off giggling and doing squishy/cheek rubbing little dances*

My First swap infact

It happened to be on one of my most favourite subjects of all

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland to be slightly more specific

I’ve wondered about swaps for a while now -how they work, what to expect, what to send.. and I realised, it’s up to whomever creates, and who is recieving

So I dove in -head first, with little concern for large rocks, tiny needles, and perfectionistic tendencies.

I quickly had a look at the other potential swappers, their projects, favourites etc. and thought to myself “I could make one of these lovely ladies something they may actually enjoy”

And this is how the story began. Then I got scared.

I sketched, and searched, I rechecked techniques I know so well.. I fondled my stash, I wandered aimlessly through craft stores, I could not for the life of me think of what to ACTUALLY knit.
I checked, rechecked and re-rechecked my swap partners projects.. I sat, with my laptop on my lap for nearly a week solid researching.
I know the story of Alice back-to-front, I used it for my end of school English exam, I own several copies of Lewis Carroll’s complete works. I love his stories. fanatically.

But I couldn’t think of what to knit.

In an act of desperation I opened my first copy of Alice in Wonderland that I received when I was six or seven, and I wish I could take a picture for this -but one of my favourite sections of this book is where Alice comes upon two card painting roses red, and just below a wonderful picture drawn by the ever talented Tenniel a six year old had drawn a fence.
That’s right. A Fence. This little fence was black and pink texta, it was wobbly, and it was missing pickets.

A month of frantic knitting ensued.

And from that wonderful childish little fence, I somehow managed to knit these. (Ravelry Link)

I was so desperately pleased with this -I knit two

And when I was finished. I sat back and nursed my cramped and tired hands.

And realised -no-one else would know of a little girls hand drawn fence, and how they eventually this fence inspired a much older girl. Much as Alice continues to inspire myself and many many others.

So this here is that little girl’s grown up story. And grown up gloves for a grown up view of the world, with that little bit of Wonderland caught inside.

There were other handknit items for this swap, but they can wait. They have their own slightly different stories, that deserve to be considered on their own.

But how about a warming effort to de-clutter?

Lately I’ve had the urge to get rid of useless items sitting in drawers and cupboards in our home. So, with that thought running riot I have in the past few days done the following

• purchased large plastic boxes for all knitting paraphernalia (so the then unorganised stash at least LOOKS organised)
• Removed books I’ll never read a second time from our bookcase and exchanged them at Goulds for books I’ll read over and over or have never read before
• Purchased piano accordion paperfile (ok, so it’s just ‘expandable’ but piano accordion rolls off the tongue much better) Arranged all paperwork by date, company and who it’s relevant to -me or mister. Figured it was a good idea with tax time coming up!

and all this -believe it or not, has soothed the riotous noise in my head that claims it enjoys ‘organisedness’ as it calls it.

All this has kind of got me thinking about how my head is actually arranged.
as in.. if i could put a picture to the way my head is organised what would it look like?

this i think suits my mood majority of the time.. but add rows and rows and rows of archive shelving and filing cabinets just beyond the edge of the pretty picture

It makes sense to me to have an image like this for thoughts. there’s space for the little things that daily enter our lives -things that are merely spacial or fleeting.
The semi-permanent shelving for regular thoughts and processes, points of reference that are used regularly, or that we like to have around, and then beyond the screen rooms full of thoughts discarded for the moment, lessons from school that we have been conditioned to keep, familiar frames and toys from childhood that may have disappeared in reality but are never forgotten.

I like this view of what appears and disappears.

I’m going to keep it

knitting has been rather quiet lately.. Lots of purchases

The latest haven’t quite arrived yet, but I can’t wait to dive in when they get here (means I have to finish my Hemlock Blanket before they get here though, or it’ll never get finished before it’s warm again)
anyway, these are recent purchases that have yet to arrive at my door

Lornas Laces -Motherlode (times 2!!)

Cleckheaton 8 ply in a wonderfully odd ‘Cane’ colourway -there’s alot of this.. WAY too much of this, I bought all 20 of them.. thank the eBay gods the seller didn’t have 30 of them up there for less than $40.00

3,400 yards of this stuff.. Mongolian Cashmere blend (I had to try something slightly cashmere, it’s only a 20% cashmere blend.. but i had to try it… right?)

and finally this:

Which is -as far as I can tell a light sock or fingering weight yarn from Lion Brand

Can’t wait!