Yarnivorous

G'day all! Thanks to those who have offered suggestions for the fleece washing. I shall follow them up tomorrow, when the shops are open again. Anzac Day 2007. I thought this year I would go to the march or the dawn service (though I am not exactly a godly type). After all, it is likely to be my only chance for the next couple of years or more. So I was starting to get a plan together. That is before Nathan got the snots, literally, and the hacking cough and then threw his back out (poor thing can hardly move), and merrily shared his disease with me. At least his cough is dying down now that he is on antibiotics (or it may have anyway) and he didn't keep *me* awake half the night..... So Anzac Day this year involves many tissues and much grumping at the people who are starting to develop a derelict block across the road. It is a public holiday, it is ANZAC DAY ferchrissakes and they are out with their chainsaws chopping down Even More Trees. Oh yes, we are very very und...

G'day all! Another Anzac Day has come and almost gone.  I can't believe it is almost May - no wonder the weather keeps pretending to be nice every now and then! Does anyone here not know about Anzac Day?  Aussies and Kiwis (and peoples from the islands surrounding us) do, of course - have a look at the letters in ANZAC.  Australia and New Zealand Army Corps.  Really, the corps is misspelt.  It should be corpse, because that is what Anzac Day commemorates, the day that thousands of young Commonwealth men stormed the coves around Gallipoli in what is now called Turkey.  Why?  Because it was part of a push to ensure that the Black Sea remained open to Russia (then an ally of Britain) and then capture Constantinople and thereby ensure the Ottomans (now Turks) did not back up the Germans. Well, it was an unmitigated disaster.  I won't go any further, but many thousands of men died (on both sides) for very little gain by the Allies.  If you c...

G'day all! For many years now, I've been saying I will get up early and go to a dawn service on Anzac Day . Well I finally did. I'm only over 13,000 km from home (and that distance makes me feel a bit heartsick to be honest) and there was no eternal flame, no lighthorsemen or soldiers standing guard, but there was a bunch of Aussies and Kiwis (and their American families) and I think maybe a few Turks as well, and we stood in the pre-dawn light, listened to the Last Post, laid wreaths and flowers, listened to a short speech or two, a song sung on such occasions by Maoris ( Maori men fought alongside their European brothers), and promised to remember the fallen and the returned. It is one hundred years on 25th April this year since the storming of what came to be known as Anzac Cove along with other beach fronts on the Gallipoli (Gelibolu) Peninsula in what is now called Turkey.  Australian, New Zealand, English, French, Indians and even some Newfoundland troop...

G'day all! Anzac Day has rolled around again. I swear it is happening more often these days. Anzac Day is now used rather like Remembrance Day, to remember all the wars that Australians have been involved in. It seems some people are worried that the resurgence of Anzac Day from being a half forgotten anniversary of the storming of a little cove in Turkey to a national day of remembrance means that we will glorify war. For me at least, that fear is rubbish. Ridiculous. My Pop fought at Gallipoli and then backed up for more at the Somme. Like many veterans, he didn't like talking about his time at the war. He talked a bit about the "good" bits - the gattling guns, the women - he very much liked the French women! - but you didn't get to hear about the horrors. A generation of men came back from the war struggling to cope with what they had seen and what they had done. How can you glorify that? How can you glorify trench foot , living for months in freezin...

G'day all! Another Anzac Day. April 25. It has already come and gone in the two countries that hold it most dear (that would be Australian and New Zealand - ANZ) but it is still the 25th here. This is the first Anzac Day I've "celebrated" away from Oz. Goodness, guess who forgot to do her minute's silence at 11am? I probably was quiet then but not in deliberation. Last year I wrote a very long post with pictures and quotes from postcards sent back by my Pop (maternal grandfather). This year I have not much to add except reading the coverage and the tales in the local newspaper Back 'Ome gave me a few more reflective moments. All those young men and women going off to places far that they had never dreamed of seeing - it would've been like going to the moon! Anyway it is very odd to be here, where Anzac means nothing. Then again, Americans in Australia would feel the same sort of dislocation when it comes to July 4 and Thanksgiving. Oddly enough...

G'day all! Whoops! No wonder noone commented - this was a draft not the published thing! Odd... So we go back to Tuesday. Today is a public holiday in Australia and New Zealand, the day when we commemorate a whole lotta Aussies, Kiwis, Poms and Turks getting slaughtered at Gallipoli in Turkey, plus all the other wars and spats we've been involved in along the way. It really is for the ANZACs though (and I don't mean the biscuits featuring oat and golden syrup). Long time readers might remember that my Pop, Mum's father, was an ANZAC. He fought at Gallipoli and on the Western Front in WWI, including at the Somme. He suffered some horrible wounds, being an early recipient of facial plastic surgery at one point, but always went back to the war - it was the best fun he ever had I think. He was a fruit loop I realise now but Granma loved him and he was my Pop. He's been dead 30 years in ?July? He scared me witless with his rough voice (the result of being mustar...

G'day all! Well one of the most sacred days in Australia (and NZ) is almost done for another year. Today is the 90th anniversary of a battle that is very close to Oz hearts. BTW, ANZAC - Australia and New Zealand Army Corps. I watched a bit of a documentary on the landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula, and the events leading up to it, on the telly last night. After 45 minutes, I was done. Nathan watched a later bit for 10 minutes and couldn't bear it. Mistake after mistake was made. Totally horrendous. Good men on both sides died because Churchill commandeered the British built Turkish battleships and didn't even give the Turks their money back. Which side would you go with - the ones that GIVE you two battleships or the ones that steal your money and the ships built for you? And out of the actions at one small cove, a legend that birthed a nation was born. Maybe two nations - I don't know how the Kiwis feel about Anzac Day except that they do commemorate it. T...

Lest we forget. (More on ANZAC Day in past bloggings .)

G'day all! I am sure some of you have entirely forgotten I started this blog to share my knitting conquests. It has gone a little sideways from there over the last while, and I fear it will go more sideways yet. But at last I have found the pics I took of the Tardis socks, though they are not the Best Evah shots. I embroidered on half the Tardis markings whilst sitting on a park bench at Glebe Point. Do you like the view the socks (and I) had? That's the Anzac Bridge with the Sydney Harbour Bridge underneath it.  I admit that there isn't too much of the seashore there, more just a border of rocks but it is still a very pleasant place. The finished socks do not have Police Box embroidered on them as the sock yarn was too thick.  As it was, I bollocksed up part of it trying to write police box on and had to duplicate stitch over the manky bit...  Shhh, don't tell anyone, ok?  :-) Hmm, blogger has a new interface and I am not sure I like it as much as th...

G'day all! I have been such a bad naughty girl! I deserve a good spanking! I've been buying loot cos a) Quiltsmith have 25% off fabric for all of April (except they are closed over the long weekend next weekend, boo hiss for Easter falling on Anzac Day and ripping us off a public holiday! Oh but I only work three days a week and miss them anyway...) and b) I don't have enough variety of loot to do all the things I want to, and c) I like to buy something from a place if I visit, like I did with Calico and Ivy. (and dang, I just realised that some of the homespun broadcloth at scroatfight yesterday would work well with some of the stuff from Calico and Ivy.) Here's a sample of my loot up to earlier in the week: I do have better pics of the various items but I'm saving them up to talk about as we go along. I am particularly delighted with these: The leather gloves I ranted about in an earlier blog post. They are just a wee bit small but I figure with wear will loose...

G'day all! Bliss! 1.5 sunny days and my solar batteries are all charged up again. Hooray! Last night I discovered that I still can't sleep if the TV is on*. Even if it is upstair's TV that is still on at 3am in the morning (and has been on since about 11pm - they keep odd hours). That is when I found a spare pair of DH's earplugs and BLISS! Interestingly, I can only find one of the earplugs now. I have NO idea where the other one went. I checked under the bed, under the pillow, by the bed, in the bedside drawers, under the tissue box... (*When I was a child I was convinced that the best shows were on after my bedtime. Mum would often find me peeking through the folding doors into the loungeroom where she was watching all of these best shows - Graeme Kennedy's "In Melbourne Tonight," "Mission Impossible," "Star Trek," (no original series needed as there was only one then), "The Avengers," all sorts of good shows, all we...

G'day all! We are at last getting some much needed rain here in Melbourne. We've had about 20mm (most of an inch) so far. Hooray! The downside is that it is cold and wet and I have to fix up my resume. I hate trying to sell myself. I have to get the resume done this arvo so that I can send it off to a temping agency before I have an interview and computer tests tomorrow. I don't want to do it, so instead I've been doing housework, etc. Once I start doing it hopefully I'll be ok but nyeh. Hateses this jobhunting stuff - it is one reason why I stayed so long at the last place despite it slowly draining the life out of me. The other downside is that it is cold and wet and dull - very grey. It is hard to get good pics when the camera says 1/30 and 1/15 sec shutter speed so I still don't have pics of my recent dyeing efforts (including yesterday's). I've spun up some yarn for a friend's birthday. It is pretty but barberpoled. Hope she likes it, ...

G'day all! Thank you for your kind comments regarding the yarn and the top. If you like the look of the top. go borrow Stitch and Bitch Nation from the library or buy it from your favourite bookshop. Be warned that there are some sizing issues for larger ladies, and that means anything over the 36" size. Here's a little something I found fascinating the other day. As I drooled over the stitch patterns in Stitchionary vol 1 I noticed something. Remember the cedar Creek sock? Currently all alone and by itself? Well check out the sock stitch compared to the stitch pattern on page 20. Umm, yep, they'd be the same then, just knitted in different yarn. I am still feeling a bit indifferent to the colours in the yarn. However, my centre pull ball of yarn looked like this after a week of travelling in my bag, and that I really like! It looks like reflections! Sometime ago, I made a butterfly out of some tops that I had dyed. I split it into green/orange and mauve/green/bl...