Here a stitch, there a stitch..

I've finally found a little time to knit this week! I have a lovely cable swatch on my needles which is bringing me much joy, and I have managed a couple more rows on Talia, and I've even done enough brown cuff to switch to brown/purple/orange leg of the sock for hubby!
As for pictures, they are not happening right now. It is dark (almost - last light at 8.56pm). The tea has steeped. The absence of the MOMD and enticing tv has awakened thoughts of chickflick dvds and chocolate and knitting on the lounge all evening...Bliss!!!
I leave you with this mental picture - DS has decided to try ribbing - knit and purl as stocking stitch are too easy now, he wants to make patterns in his knitting. K3 P3 ribbing, in aqua. Boy in his Chesty Bonds singlet and Bart Simpson boxers knitting in bed. Fantastic.
PS he is miffed because I won't take him with me to Dysart on the 29th for our Knitting Retreat. He wants to have a bonus snb this weekend to make up for it. Any takers?

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At least the laundry floor is clean now...

First Monday of the two weeks of the spring school holidays - kids are alternately cranky/boisterous/singing/annoying/whiny/cute/hungry/crying/playing some nice game. There was much washing to do, leading to a bucket in the laundry tub, into which the washing machine's outlet hose was put. Said bucket was propped up so as not to block the plughole (previous flooding cause). Some little while later, I came back to discover that the hose did not like to have it's fun spoiled by forethought on my part - so it jumped out of the bucket, out of the tub, and flopped down behind the washing machine, thence to pump an entire 6.5kg capacity washer-load of water onto the laundry floor. Did I mention that whoever did that extension (laundry with large shower, spa bath, and basin and toilet) did not think it necessary to put a drainhole anywhere in the floor? Not even under/next to/ near the laundry tub?
So, after some mopping/swooshing/swiping, the floor was clean, only slightly wet, and the bedlinen which had been awaiting a turn was in the machine. 3/4 of an hour later I came back to discover that the rushing water noises were caused by the machine trying to fill and drain at the same time (thankfully on the cold setting). I sorted that one out. But I haven't gotten it out to hang up yet.

Aside from the marvellous tapestry of family life, I have been knitting a little - I am particularly proud of having finished the first wildly orange sock in 8 days - and no I did not knit at work, give up sleep, or run away from my kids and hide in the wardrobe with a torch. just lots and lots of nighttime knitting. Although it may not have been ideal for my ulna - or perhaps the other one - whichever is on the outside of the forearm - I am totally chiffed with myself! And the sock is pretty dang awesome too :>
Also, yesterday I cast on a baby bolero, 3mth size, to give to a girlfriend - I'd like to finish by Wed lunch. I've done the back, am partway through the sleeves, and this is a knit-in-one-piece pattern, so cruising along nicely. I'll do a bit more before bed tonight, with my ipod on; I was watching I am Legend but the MOMD was snoring gently and I didn't want to watch it alone - 30 mins in and I was tensing up waiting for the monsters to jump out of the darkness! Hopefully he'll be able to sit up to watch it with me tomorrow.
Not much else to report - oh, except that my DS came with me to snb on Sat! He was his lovely self (as opposed to the unlovely version that kept oozing out all over the house today), and did his knitting, and worked on some Sudoku, and had baby cuddles with baby Ezra. J seemed to have a nice time - we shall see whether he wishes to come back next month!
ok, so that'll do for now - must leave myself some knitting time ;>
More blogging when there are some kind of visual representations of knitting to share. Maybe.

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Breaking the Silence...

I am here to blog this important news: I'm still here!

Yes, I've been fairly busy - a few late afternoons/evenings, no early-morning blogging time. Thus the lack of blogging. But there has been some baking, reading and knitting. And snb today which was lovely - about 15 of us (excluding the toddler, infant and newborn!), lots of interesting projects around the table, and seriously tempting offers of a cheap spinning wheel!

Baking: Beer Cake, and also eggless banana muffins. Both excellent.

Reading: Contest, by Matthew Reilly. Rip-roaring read, so long as you are happy to add aliens to Indiana Jones, and suspend critical analysis for the duration (which was about 3 or 4 hours - like I said, rip-roaring read). Also, Awakening, by Bevan McGuiness; classic fantasy - several main characters coming into ancient powers/ trying to stop ancient powers, good vs evil, semi-feudal societies, etc etc. So far it is pretty good.

The segue between reading and knitting? The Rowan Book of Little Knits (or some such title) has some cute little children's knits in it....

Knitting: A few rows here and there on the everlasting Clapotis.
Onto the foot of a monkey sock.
Finishing off a pair of baby/toddler socks for I-know-not-whom because I want those needles.
Frogging of the Rattlesnake Creek sock #1 because a) I cannot stand cables in sockyarn on 2.25mm wooden needles a moment longer, and b) it won't go over my heel. Note the order of the reasons. It is an entirely accurate reflection of my thought processes.

Coming up: more sporadic Clapotis-ing.
Ripping and reknitting the toe of Berlin sock #1. Starting #2. (But not tonight unless I go all non-drinking-ish. Half-a-glass of chardy so far and my typing accuracy is about 36 wpm, 62% accuracy. Not even bronze-medal standard.)
Starting again on the Rattlesnake Creek socks with the newly released KP dpns.
Vesting for me.
Maybe even vesting for Miss 5 (she's been waiting long enough!)
Oh, and that hat that only needs two more inches.
And Miss 2 wants a Calorimetry. (Try typing that while tipsy!)

Where's my Tardis???
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What are we doing this for???

Later tonight I will have 1 Evangeline (Ravlink for pattern)arm-warmer done, and another started, but before I take pics and show you, I want to have a little moment to think about what I'm doing here.

On Sat we had a bonus snb meetup to try out a new cafe. While there were only six of us, it was still really enjoyable to sit and chat and goss and knit. At one point, following on from blackie's confession that she only joined Ravelry because we all kept on about it and she wanted to see what she was missing out on, I asked what people got from blogging, using Ravelry, and the internet generally as far as knitting is concerned. Two of blog regularly, two irregularly, and two don't blog. All of us are now on Ravelry, but we use it differently. Some only like it for the databases of patterns and yarns, and links to finished projects with comments about style, fit, finishing, pattern errors and so on. Some like to dip in to the Tassie Knitter's forum or display pictures of their projects. Some are really committed Ravelers, enthusiastic members of a number of forums, frequently updating their projects, stash and queues and checking their Ravmail umpteen times a day.
So why so much difference in how we use these online tools? The six who were there on Saturday might just span fifteen years in the age-range, all of us are (purportedly) adults, with homes, jobs, some have children, some have pets, (I have both), we all have internet access at home and cameras for digital pics and we all enjoy knitting, and often other crafts as well. We all find pleasure in each other's company once a month (and increasingly twice), we email or Ravmail in between times when we have questions or comments.
I am interested in the whys and wherefores from both a personal and professional perspective. Personally, I started reading blogs at a point when I was going on maternity leave for the third time, the end was in sight for my Masters degree, and I was increasingly turning to knitting as a creative outlet at a time when I had neither the time nor the energy to tackle longer term sewing or cross-stitching projects, let alone go outside and garden. I had no knitting friends, but I was enjoying the craft, so I went looking for books, magazines, and then the online community.
Then we had child number three and moved to Tasmania, and I knew no-one and had a non-sleeping baby and an active three-yr-old and a degree to finish and I just needed some relief, a connection to other adults who shared similar interests, and blogging gave me that. Following that, blogging led to bloggy friends like 2paw which led to meeting Penni and the Hobart SnB gals, and I now have a number of different folks to talk to about knitting and other stuff too.
So now that I know some real people, why do I keep blogging? I like the opportunity it gives me to think about what I have done, am doing and plan to do next. I like the sense of discussion when I pose a problem or ask a question and comments come back from readers. I like being able to show off to an appreciative audience (ie you) when I do something I am proud of - while the MOMD is excellent and increasingly clever at using words like 'swatch' and 'cable' correctly (he admired my 'pretty' and 'shiny' and 'smooth' harmony needles yesterday) he is not a knitter and cannot fully admire or commiserate. I enjoy the opportunity to play with words and combine them with the interactivity offered by the internet. Blogging connects me to an online community of bloggers and blog-readers, like a virtual snb where we can make a mug of our favourite beverage, grab the munchy of our choice, curl up in our daggiest houseclothes, and catch up with friends who might otherwise be hard to see, what with work and family and schedules and commitments and the general hassle of being presentable enough to take over part of a cafe for a couple of hours without upsetting the owners :)
And how is Ravelry different? As a different tool (or toolkit, perhaps, considering the number of different functions) it serves a variety of different purposes. Yes you can display your projects, with yarn and pattern and comments and progress - it is a little more organised than blogging about them, but also there is less room for the discussion aspects that I enjoy so much - triumphs and tragedies, inspirations and hesitations are lost in the data-driven matrix. The groups and forums (fora, if we are being persnicketty) are a way to meet and keep in touch with groups of knitters (and crocheters and whatnot) who share interests or characteristics with you, to have conversations on particular topics that are easy to follow and participate in. The pattern and yarn databases, and the opportunity to queue faves is wonderful, if somewhat unrealistic (and yes I am thinking about my own knitting fantasies here). Ravelry provides me with several different ways to enhance my knitting life, both technically and socially, but it doesn't replace either my personal multimedia gallery or my real-life knitty friends. I will never be devoted or unscheduled enough to photograph every skein, update every project, or follow every thread. Knitting is a creative, personally satisfying hobby which brushes over onto other areas of my life, but it does not rule my life (I have kids for that).

This really is a total ramblefest, but if you've come this far, let me sum up:
* online communities need to have a defined purpose, a shared sense of place, and provide some kind of benefit to members. They also need to respond to and evolve along with the needs of the community.
* a blog is kind of a personal representation of one's preferred online community - my blog, my rules, my content, my style, my time.
* a person's needs determine the kind of communities they will seek out, online or face-to-face, and so they will only participate in communities that satisfy those needs, and only to the extent necessary to make them happy.

And with that, it is time to put the kettle on, grab some chocky reward bikkies (for spending more than three hours in domestic martyrdom on this, the first weekday of my holidays), put Battlestar Galactica on the screen, and finish my first Evangeline.



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Holidays mean Selfish Knitting Time!!!

That is the sound of me celebrating the end of Term 1, the end of my first month of fulltime employment, the imminent end of my three week conference, and the beginning of three weeks of night-time freedom to K-N-I-T !!! (And maybe read and watch a little tv, but really, it is getting pretty cool down here, and I still don't have a hat or any Fetchings or Dashings or suchlike, and it is high time I got me some fingerless action!!!)

And although some domestic martyrdom cannot be avoided, my afternoon rewarded me with two hours of bonus snb cafe trialling, where I showed off my progress on this:

Isn't it going well? Do you want to see the pretty pretty Eye of Partridge heel I did?

I have done my duty - first blog post of my holidays. Now I can go to the lounge chair, guilt-free, with tea, bikkie, knitting and some kind of movie or podcast or something, and enjoy the rest of my evening under multiple rugs.

Yes, it is getting cold. The red tights were very necessary this morning as we headed into the fog and freezing breeze to watch DS play half-field hockey on the grass grounds on the other side of the river. Must make mitts ASAP - very hard to get very far with my hat while my fingers are freezing off.

And maybe I'll have some hat progress to show you tomorrow.

Maybe.

If you are very very good...

:P

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You Are Not Forgot!!!

So, my job application is in, so one less thing to worry about on the professional/income front. That just leaves the question of when exactly my registration will be approved, allowing me to be employed as a teacher librarian - will it come through by Tuesday, when I have relief work lined up??? Stay tuned...

Computer woes - apparently not woeful. After some faffing about with invoices, faxes, emails, phonecalls, a new itemised invoice, more phonecalls, emails and confirmation of continued warranty, it appears that the fix-it guys can't find anything wrong with it. I am so glad I didn't have to pay $$$ diagnostic fees to find that out! Picking it up within the hour - yay!! Likelyhood of blogging with pictures this weekend has just increased 100-fold.

Domesticity keeps happening despite my best efforts to ignore the mess. This will also include ferocious tidying and vacuuming of rumpus room, and determined mopping of the kitchen. There will be visitors this week, and my vestigial sense of hospitality includes removing the majority of health hazards from the living areas.

Knitting - there has been some, most notably the turning of the short-row heel on the Jacobean sock. Daughter Tunic needs to be measured against the recipient again to determine shoulder shaping. It is fun and fast and I have no idea why it isn't finished yet. There may also be a baby/toddler sock beside me at the moment, halfway through gusset decreases. I refuse to admit to extra-curricular swatching of Lizard Ridge Hats, nor to the supervising/making of pompoms from acrylic. You can't see it, so it doesn't exist in your reality.

Weather - after the most glorious Easter of warm days and slightly snuggly evenings, Autumn has decided to stop pussyfooting around and to get serious about raining on everyone's parade. We have had showers, drenching rain (specifically, it poured the morning I took the kids with me to the city to take the laptop in for fixing, we walked a block to the shop, back again, got library books, waited at traffic lights, came back out to wait at traffic lights again, all in lots and lots of lovely lovely drenching rain. Miss Nearly-Two had a lovely time splashing her hands in the puddles on the weather-shield of the pram.), more showers, more light and consistent rain, brief sunny and cloudy-but-not-raining patches stretching as far as 16*C (got most of the washing dry), and now another showery day.

And because I haven't got enough to do, I've got very interested in helping to organise a local event for World Wide Knit In Public Day, which may actually turn into a number of events simultaneously across the state, so that no-one gets left out. As soon as we finalise a venue, we will put details on the official site, on the Hobart snb blog, one the blogs of anyone involved, and on various Ravelry forums. There's nothing like teachers for effective spreading of the word, and at last count we have at least seven getting involved in the idea!!!

Ok, time to stop bending your eyeballs with all this prose, so I shall leave you with a Limerick the kids and I invented on the way home from our wet expedition

Humpty Dumpty sat in the rain
All the water gave him a pain
He said to his friend
"I wish it would end,
so we could have sunshine again!!"

:>
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My Feet Are So Pretty!!

Ta-Da!!!!


Pattern: Falling Leaves, from Knitty.com
Yarn: Cherry Tree Hill Supersock, colour 'Old Rose'
Needles: Knit Picks 2.5mm dpns (mm, pointy pointy!!)
Time taken: about 2 months; finished sock #two at snb today, immediately put them on to show off my pretty pretty socks!
Modifications: I used the Easy Toe, at the end of this article from Knitty, and used a Tubular Cast-off at the cuffs (s-t-r-e-t-c-h-y!!)
Verdict: LOVE THEM!!!

My modelling assistants:


In other news:
* be very careful how you hold full bottles of cordial with slightly loose handles. Ask me how I know.
* I've been setting up my Bloglines account with all the blogs I read, but am finding it hard to remember to then go to the blogs so I can comment. I was a bad bloggy friend in Feb, am hoping to be better in March.
* Sock Knitters Pentathlon started today, 4pm local time, so after I got home from snb I (eventually remembered and) downloaded the pattern, cast-on with 2.5mm dpns - too tight, so am starting again with 2.75mm circ to try the specified Magic Loop. Fun fun fun! (nb Ravelry group link)
* But the best news of all is that my rumpus room is festooned with boxes of children's clothes, racks of freshly washed small clothes, and sorted and folded baby clothes - because we have a new niece!!! Congratulations to my sister and brother-in-law on their excellent taste in offspring - their firstborn son receives the pick of my DS's outgrown items, and now their new daughter can have all the other stuff! I am also finding a few small things like cardi, bootees and socks made for my daughter/s that will be passed on and then perhaps brought back for eventual grandchildren (in 20 or 30 years!!)

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So before we get to this Saturday

Let's talk about last Saturday!

Tink and family were visiting Hobart for the weekend, which naturally involved a flurry of emails regarding going to stitch'n'bitch, the markets, and possibility of stash enhancement. Tink and co found our house mid-morning, our various offspring considered the possibilities for playing with great solemnity (ie they stared at each other for a while before remembering when our family visited Tink's house last year), and I put the kettle on. Tink, Her Accountant, the MOMD and I sat down to chat, drink, munch, and play show-and-tell - well, you can guess who was involved in that last bit! Tink produced her travel knitting bag, with glories such as the Noropup sock, the Mystery Sock, the Vog-Ons, the Red Bird Every-Other-Month Sock Club Kit, and a full range of Harmony dpns - and then expected me to Give Them All Back!!!! In (revenge) return, I shared some books from my shelves, a number of WIPs (making her drool with my L&L Clapotis), and gave her a little b'day prezzie. This had been a little tricky to achieve, as when I sat down to make the prezzie, I discovered that the presser foot was missing from my sewing machine! ARRRRKKK!!! Miss V was the most probable culprit, but has she hasn't yet learned to speak, the chances of a successful interrogation were miniscule. I gave up hope, rang various shops to no immediate avail, and sewed almost everything with teh zipper foot. (Don't ask me about the tension.) (Material or Emotional.) And on top of all this drama, Tink gave me a prezzie - the woman is nuts! (But welcome any time her generous heart desires!) I now have a new Liberty floral pot-and-cup set (pics later - if I try to do it now you won't get this till next Thursday).
Aaaaaanyway, we had a nice time chatting and giving the hubbies and children time to get acquainted, then Tink and I made a wild bid for freedom, and headed for the city! We spent a couple of hours wandering around Salamanca Markets, poking around in the Spindletree, and then made our way to the Feb meeting of More Stitchin' Than Bitchin' (click on over for some excellent pics - can you spot my Rav tshirt?). A fun time was had by all, WIPs were admired, styles discussed, and we welcomed a new person - Kirra, who was found on Ravelry! We headed home at 4, somewhat reluctant to return to lively children and no knitting time :P The hubbies had done an outstanding job, children were intact and still being cooperative (woweee!), and Tink and co stayed on for a bbq dinner with wine and talk and bursts of laughter.
I know our family had a lovely time, the MOMD at no point said 'never again' (which means I am quite happy to dob him in for babysitting in the future), and Tink seems to have enjoyed herself :>
SO much fun. I wonder what this weekend will bring?

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Today's News

Well, today and yesterday. Today I bought 2 patterns from Chic Knits, CeCe and Twist, both of which have been hibernating in my subconscious for many many months. So why the sudden decision? Well, yesterday at snb Jen was using some Bamboo/Cotton (70/30) from the Big Red Spot, and it was so soft, and she and Penni were discussing the currently discounted price, so before we headed home, Penni and I did the drop-in, and found a small range of colours at $2.39, so I ummed and ahhed and bought 11 balls of



(wait for it)



purple ;P

Penni is inclined to think that it is very close to the colour of the alpaca, but Purrr-ple enthusiasts know that you can never have too many shades of purple to choose from! And the chartreuse-y, lime-y green, the white, the mushroom pink, the mushroom grey, the black, the coral and the smokey blue were just not going to work for me. I like deep strong bright colours (no, really??), and am trying to put years of sensible, professional, teaching-wardrobe purchases behind me. Had there been a wine-red, a french navy, a forest green, I might have chosen differently, but I know that I love this colour, so I'm happy! (And I checked out the CeCe gallery on Ravelry, and there's a purple one in there, and I think it looks pretty good, so I'm double happy!)

Pics when there's a swatch!
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There was Knitting In Public this weekend!

Saturday afternoon was S'n'B, so I jauntily headed off, only 15 minutes late, to collect Penni and head into the city. About 3 blocks from my house I realised that I had not double-checked the directions to Penni's house, and couldn't quite remember the number either - all I had lurking behind my eyeballs was "turn right in front of the Caltex" and "about 300m" :{
But I had confidence in my ability to find her house anyway, and I was already late, and I didn't have me phone so I couldn't call home to get help from the MOMD, so merrily I continued along, found the right street and cruised along in it in as suspicious a manner as is possible in a suburban 4WD wagon. No joy, so around the block and back for a second pass - starting to feel pretty silly... Parked the car (after being looked at funny by the guy putting catalogues in people's mail boxes - the drive-by look as performed by scatty female on a Sat afternoon? weird...) and got out to walk back up the hill in search of a red car like Penni drove last time, or failing that, inspiration! I had an idea that #29 was close, so I knocked on the door and asked the lady, very definitely not a relative of Penni's, whether she knew a Penni who lived around here, has a young baby? She said hm, maybe, there was one living up there (vague wave up and left), but she didn't think that that was the name... So I asked if I could borrow her phone book for a minute, and discovered that Penni's house was number 30!! Furthermore, it was just up and to the left a bit!!!! (You wouldn't believe how difficult it can be to guess street numbers in Hobart - geographic proximity has little relationship with numerical order on opposite sides of the road!!!) So I ran straight back up the 45* angle path, blessing the past year's gym membership with every footfall, and started to dash down to the car so I could take it back up the road to Penni's place, but was halted mid-asphalt by Penni waving at me from her driveway ;P So I confessed my sins, and we sauntered down to the car (it's pretty hilly here, thus the ups and downs), and headed into the city to a trendy place called JamPacked (a cute pun which would take far too long to describe right now), to greet the peeps and get stuck into caffeine, cake and KIP!
At the s'n'b, I displayed my awesome Rock Candy Socks, to much admiration (thank you, thank you!), ordered tea and a brownie (and a truffle - but it was really small), and got out my First Ever Ballband Dishcloth, hoping I only had eight rows to go, so that I could triumphantly cast-off halfway through the s'n'b, and start my next pair of socks (printing out the pattern for which being one of the many reasons I was late). Penni, with painful truthfulness, told me that there are usually 13 brick rows, so I actually had 20 rows to go, not merely eight :P
I was not deterred: I had set myself a limit (a very tiny, barely there limit): no new cast-on till the dishcloth was done!! Then the tea and brownie arrived, and there was sipping and nibbling, there was scintillating conversation (yes Helen, I agree, the current Martha Jones was the chicky who became a CyberWoman in the previous series, and Saturday night's Doctor Who was excellent!!), there was knitting, there was tinking, and at the end of two hours, I had 1 row and the cast-off left to do:
An evening in front of Doctor Who (which was really really exciting so 1 row and casting off 45 stitches took the whole 45 minutes) and I have something pretty to show in the Sunday sunshine:
After Doctor Who I was allowed to start my next pair of socks - any guesses on the pattern? (not you, Penni!)




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Now that the Technicolour Dream Cardi is done...

Penni and I had a lovely time at the S'n'B on Saturday; tea, conversation, lovely lovely 'Poached Chocolate Mud Cake' (I have no idea in what way it was poached, unless it was done in a bain-marie like a baked custard??) and the chance to finish my Technicolour Dream Cardi in front of an appreciative audience! Would you like to see the picture that BlackCrow took?

On the way home, Penni asked what I would like to make next, and started laughing as I listed the numerous ideas I have floating around in my head, not mention the various half-done items and UFOs lingering in bags and boxes... So in front of the tv on Saturday night, I played with various piles of wool, and took photos yesterday:

(Sorry, 2Paw, I only had one ball of green:} But look! Lots of purple for Jess!)

And what did I start?

For Miss 4, a cuff-to-cuff cardi, which I am making up as I go along :)

Anyone want to guess what I'm (still) wearing today???
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