Yarnivorous

G'day all! The second Elfine is nearly done! Hooray! In time for the end of the green project spectrum month. Photos tomorrow or Thursday, if I remember to take the socks into town and can find a spot to get a good shot of them. Plus I have a great project spectrum project to show you. Nutmeg is on my lap and demanding intensive patting - very hard to type when the cat puts her head under your hand... Plus I've put a muscle or two in my back into spasm, so it is hard to sit down at present.... (yes I saw the physio tonight and we did work on the spasming back not my elbow - hooray!) I've started working on something for Nathan - a special request actually. No details yet - let's see if it works first. But today is all about this woman, seen here on her wedding day some 50-odd years ago. 15 years ago, at this time, I was wandering around with a feeling of numbness and grief and relief. After a second battle with cancer, my mum had finally breathed her last. We d...

G'day all! I promised this days and days ago now, but things here are a bit busy. I never know where my weekends have gone cos they go by in such a flash and I wonder why I haven't gotten lots of things done... Anyway, last week, on a very opportune day (being Thursday and the day after my spaz), a box arrived in the mail. It was Saturday before I got some pics of it (and may I say that the photographer should be shot for doing such a poor job! Some of the closeups are about as clear as some of my prose). The box came from Mrspao (oh dear - Mrspao had to have one of her moggies put to sleep! How sad! Gosh, now I feel a bit embarrassed posting this!) and lookie what was inside! Yummy yummy yummy stuff! Two boxes of my favourite biscuits in the whole world! (The bourbons are nice but the custard creams are like eating pure sugar only nicer!); a little cat ornament, hand and lip stuff (smelles edible!), some toys for the cats (our cats must be retarded cos they haven't re...

G'day all! Woman dangles sock over river, (knitblog) community shocked A member of the knitblogging community was seen on Friday dangling her newly-completed sock over the Yarra River in Melbourne, Australia. Black-clad passersby rushed past, hurrying on their way to work, ignoring the plight of the innocent sock. Said knitblogger recovered her senses and put the sock away in her bag. When interviewed, knitblogger said, "I was trying to show sock a Good Time and the river, just like Steph shows off her socks." No charges have been laid despite a remarkable lack of sense being shown.. I won't run the alternative headline. In other breaking news, said knitblogger followed up her vicious attack on the poor newly completed sock with another attack on some innocent sock yarn. In the words of the knitblogger: "On Thursday one of my friends gave me a skein of self-striping sock yarn. She had two skeins of it. On the screen of the online shop it looked like a stra...

G'day all! Gosh you've all been so nice to me! I feel all warm and fuzzy. Thanks for your comments and concern. Something will work itself out, I am pretty sure. I've got some good ideas from you :-) It is interesting seeing how I regain balance, even if I am a little lower in the water than I was. Things that help me are crafting, music and getting outside, even if outside means walking from the station to work via the Yarra path. These two little cormorants were duckdiving for fish as I walked to work today from the station. A third one popped up but I couldn't get a shot of all three of them. Remember the knitting? Remember the pink jacket I was knitting? I give you: TA-DA! (Wiggly butt shot, blurred cos it was sunset when the pics were taken)(Is my hair really that pale? Or is it washed out by the bluish sunset light?) Knitted in three weeks (yarn bought on the 5 May, started knitting at a social thing that night - I don't care if people think it is ru...

For I want to crawl into a corner and shrivel up and die. Y'know I've long known that I am different to other people (well we all are individuals, even the clown up the back who says "I'm not") but I am starting to really get my nose rubbed in it at the moment at work. I'll try to illustrate what I mean. Years ago I worked with a lady called Sueli. I believe it is a Portuguese name. I don't speak Portuguese or Spanish. I speak English. that is it. And understand a teensy bit of french and some written german and italian and stuff but I'm a native English speaker. I could never say it to her satisfaction. I could not hear the difference between what she said and what I said. It was something to do with the e in it. It is somethign to do with being English and not havign that sound in our language. She never picked on anyone else and told them they were saying her name wrong in my hearing. That is how I am at work at the moment. I am doing some...

G'day all! Well the sleeves of the jacket are about to be blocked. I finished them before going off to the physio. I am a naughty naughty girl cos I am not stopping doing things that could aggravate my elbow, but like what am I supposed to do? Put it in cotton wool and not use it? It's my dominant hand, and if I should stop aggravating it, in particular repetitive movements, I'd best stop typing and writing, which means I can't work! Stop knitting? Hell NO! It doesn't hurt at all. Honest! So I block the sleeves in a little while, after blogging. Yeah. The rest is already blocked, except the collar cos it is still shaped like a ball of wool - odd that cos I haven't yet knitted it. Now yesterday I got a little something in the mail. OK I had to pay (lots) for it but I got this nice thing. It has a card with yarn samples and a postcard for me, but you don't see the inscription cos it has my proper name on it. That is Too Much Info for the web. Wh...

G'day all! I had a little oops yesterday. Y'see I tested some of that cheap wool I bought and found it fulls like a champion! All I did was get some hot water and some soap and rubbed it like billy-o against the scrubbing board built into the laundry trough. Within five minutes it was all matted together. Ha ha! So we went back to scroatfight and bought ALL of the remaining stock. I am such a greedy pig! Ahem. There's at least 15 balls of each colour in that pile plus some fancy yarns that I couldn't resist... Nathan likes the two greens and wants something patterned made out of them. Oops. And now I am told Kmart has a yarn sale on - between 25 to 50% off yarn, including my current favourite, Jet. Argh! How can I get to Kmart this week? How can my budget stand it? Will I get my yarn and stitchmarker page set up this week to offset some of my mounting yarn bill? I bought some lovely fine silk from Marta - I intend to dye it and cut it up and blend it into fle...

G'day all! You know those almost perfect days? Well yesterday was one of them. The only thing that stopped it being perfect is I found too many bargains to buy, so I spent too much money.... No pics of those yet. BTW, Melburnites, check out your local Spotlight. Mine (Sandown Park) has just refurbished and is throwing out yarn for 99c a ball. I bought a heap of pure wool that is rough but not scratchy, if that makes sense. My skin tells me it is rough but then doesn't get irritated. Why was yesterday perfect? Well I got to see SUN! And lots of it! The forecast was not that good - 15 and cloudy, but whilst it only was 15C it was sunny for most of the day. My car heated up like a little greenhouse. Ahhh toasty warm without the heater on! (I actually had to wind the window down at some points to get some cold air!) After the 3 or 4 weeks of totally dank weather we have had until this week, it was lovely to get some sun. And in some miraculous occurrence, I managed to...

G'day all! Thanks for all your well wishes - the old gut is settling down a bit now I think. It's knocked me around a bit (I could've killed for a good nap or a sleep in today). Well I've been doing two socks on one circ until today. Then I suddenly realised a problem. The pattern on the Elfine's on the cuff means that I have to swap stitches from one needle to the other. The stitches travel a bit. I can't swap stitches from needle to needle on the middle stitches where there are no two needle ends (this isn't making much sense, but trust me that the addis have a very strong cord and I can't make it disappear to get the stitches off and onto the other needle and using another holding needle seems dumb). So say goodbye to each other my lovelies! Ne'er again will ye snuggle toge'er on the needle! Here they are on my desk at work, the only place I can get daylight shots of my knitting now unless it is the weekend and the weather is ok. Enjoy ...

G'day all! I am a naughty naughty sinner tonight. Y'see yesterday I joined a gym. Membership active as of that moment. Tonight I was getting ready to go when well let's put it this way - I've been visiting the smallest room of the house a bit more than I'd like to. Dunno if I got overexcited or whether I should've washed the salad at lunchtime a bit better or what. Anyway, there's been lots of weirdness happening and I've been plonked in front of the telly for almost three hours now, in between trips. Anyway it is peeving, particularly since I bought some Expensivos Shoes to replace my last pair of runners which decided to start eating my socks and my heels ravenously. Heel counters had broken. I need to get good value out of these new shoes cos they cost a bomb, but they are the first pair of runners I've tried ont his year that felt Right. It was like coming home when I put them on. I've tried probably 20 cheap pairs and none felt Righ...

G'day all! Well it is official. I now leave home before the sun rises and after the sun sets (though I did my best to get home by 5 tonight but no dice - some dude on the train got sick and delayed it by like AGES and I had to swap trains. At least they got sick at the multiline interchange station, not one of the little tinpot stations. DOOOODE don't get sick on my train! Cos then it has to wait for the ambos....). (Ambos = ambulance) So no pics cos it isn't light enough when I am home and my only indoor light that is bright enough to get reasonable shots by is small. Why not use the flash, I hear you ask? Well the flash on DH's camera (not mine any longer - it is technically his, though I take 95% of all pics taken on it these days) doesn't care if you are doing a macro shot, which makes for all sorts of fun with tissue paper over the flash, etc. Otherwise you end up with black yarn that looks washed out grey and all the colours wash out. Boring! Wonder i...

G'day all! It is Mother's Day here and in the USA - England too this year? This is for all the mums-to-be and for all the mums-who-are: But the best of it all is for the mums-who-were. For my Mum: and a close-up for Jillian 's Mum: and another for my non-blogger friend Cathy: who is both Mum and Mum-less. I love these chrissies - they are flowering just down the road. I love the obvious small flower formations in the centres - makes it really obvious that they have hundreds of individual flowers in the centre of the "flower." Why chrissies? ChrysantheMUMs are the flower of choice for Mother's Day here. They hit the peak of their flowering around now and the disbuds are so spectacular. Treasure your Mum - you only get one. Even a good mother-in-law can't make up for a mum who will kick you in the backside and tell you to get on with it, or pick you up and take you shopping when things are tough, a mum who can embarrass you with tales of your lack of d...

G'day all! Ah, what a week. Dunno where it went. Dunno where all my time is going at present - it just seems to go. It is already 20 to 11 on a Saturday night as I write this and I haven't blogged yet, haven't blogged for days! So here's what I've been up to this week: Yep, that's the jacket and the socks. Progress has been made! I have now finished the other front, the one on the needles in the pic, and started on a sleeve. I am vaguely contemplating doing both sleeves at once, just to get them even. I've been talking a few pics along the way this week - I shall bore you with them tomorrow, plus then I have to do a special Mother's Day post. Australians won't be surprised by the flowers that will feature, but a lot of people from the northern hemisphere probably will be! Here's your obligatory pussy shot. Yep, DH trying to keep both cats on his lap. The next picture that I haven't blogged shows the Nut making a grand escape, but it ...

G'day all! Well it has been both a slack and very busy time here at the Modest Manor (speaking of which I really must update the house blog with Stuff). I've been crook sorta - I stayed home yesterday call all I wanted to do was sleep. Today I didn't need to sleep all day so I went to work and did a catch up with my now boss who used to be a team mate. We talked on the phone for an hour cos she is in Perth (that is like, hmmm, say I am in NYC and she is in Seattle, except it doesn't snow here and Perth is more like LA than here is only without the smog). Then I ran an info session with the toughest lot I've faced so far - the group is full of cynics. After that I discovered that I had said to someone they could borrow our team's laptop because we didn't need it tomorrow morning, only it turned out we do need it - my team mate hadn't written the booking in the book. Sigh. I spent an hour on the phone ringing around trying to find a phone and trudge...