200th post

I have several hobbies (addictions) of which knitting is one. Another is the English girls' boarding school stories of the inter-war years. Authors such as Elsie J. Oxenham, Elinor Brent Dyer and Dorita Fairlie Bruce produced long, endearing and enduring series with tantalising references to, amongst other things, knitting (there are obligatory chapters centered on hockey or tennis matches). For example, this excerpt on the power of knitting and colour to transform a dour neighborhood and create a sense of common purpose:

"Jen ... realised that her vivid jumpers and jerseys must indeed be unusual spots of colour in that gray neighbourhood... "Even the 'Tin Town' girls don't rise to jumpers like mine... I believe they'd like to wear them if they had them"... and at her next class she proposed to the girls that they should knit their own jumpers, in the prettiest colours they could find. The village girls had been apathetic about knitting but they had, indeed, been eyeing Jen's greens and blues and pinks and yellows with longing eyes...

Her suggestion was adopted with enthusiasm, and her help demanded on every side... in the intervals of dances, Jen was surrounded by an eager crowd, intent on stitches, borders and intakes; and she looked forward laughingly but eagerly to the summer, when the lanes would be full of girls in every colour of the rainbow." The Abbey Girls Go Back To School", EJO.

How's that for a S'n'B: folk dancing and knitting!

I would like to celebrate my 200th post by asking for people to cite a knitting reference in one of their favourite books. People can just leave the book, author and chapter or leave a link to a post on their own blog or, if short, leave the whole quote in a comment. I'll then randomly choose someone from the comments and they'll receive a mystery yarn prize from my ridiculously expanding stash!

It's done at last

I give you the Rigby Stripes jumper: Stats:
Pattern: generic raglan with round neck (#1). Stripes in an odd-number repeat (7, 5, 3, 1, 3, 5, 7) with 3 yarns.
Yarn: Purla 8ply by Panda; colours 3, 5 and 7
Needles: 4mm straights and circs for the neck

But wait, there's more:

I put together a quick little Andean-look hat with the same yarn and approximately the same stripe pattern:
Same stats except using the pattern from this book I got the hat finished during the morning event of the WWKiP day and tried it on a passing 18mo - "Awwww" was the general consensus so I think the recipient's mother will enjoy it, even if the recipient thinks it's not hat weather! [edited to add modelling photo:

WWKiP was great fun. Lovely photos of the gang on the website and a few below for your enjoyment: Bec, Elizabeth, Kelly, Isobel and her Entourage. Obviously, I'm holding the camera!

The hardest thing about the knitting choices for the evening was that I had nothing that was suitable to take out for an evening of peripatetic knitting (we were doing a regressive dinner of the main street restaurants). I ended up picking up...
...the sock! These socks were last seen in this post - and it was heralded as an intended WIP to be knocked off for the Knitlympics. Well, that didn't happen.

If there looks like way too many needles for a sock there it's because at one stage I had 6 needles and a working needle. I was doing a fold-over picot hem and had to line up all the stitches for the picots to stand up. First attempt I just picked up the stitches freestyle, as it were, but I ended up with a misalignment and the picots didn't pop. This was solved by picking up the cast on stitches on another set of dpns and then knitting aligning the cast on stitches with the 'live' stitches and knitting them together in a kind of 3-needle knit stitch (as opposed to 3-needle cast-off). Sorry if that was a completely pitiful explanation! I've just finished the heel flap and will start to turn the heel tonight over a nice dose of Ghost Whisperer (thank heaven we're just about over the whole Sam amnesia thing).

To market, to market

A lovely market day was had. All my bikkies went within the hour that I was there; I had several nice cuppas, bought lemon butter (look out lemon curd friands, here I come) and marmalade for The Biggest Morning Tea event I'm planning for work, and purloined (really, there's no other word for it!) these two craft books for 75 cents each and the 2 family Circle ones for $1 each (shows where people judge value lies!):

Kaffe Fassett's "Glorious Colour: Sources of Inspiration for Knitting and Needlepoint, with 17 Projects" is on ebay for around $20. Bargain, I call it!

It's a pity I'm not a quilter as I'd certainly have gotten my money's worth - there seemed to be a gazillion fat quarters - and lots of embroidery stuff, books, frames and threads. I think that someone must have given up a hobby. The sad side to these things being on the tables is that it's a reflection of the age and infirmity of the general congregation. As they're no longer able to keep up a hobby because of various physical difficulties or space reasons (i.e. downsizing their living quarters) more and more treasured collections and unfinished projects hit the trestles. I was discussing it with the Minister, who's a contemporary of mine, and we reflected on what a lovely feel the market had - really a 1950s undertaking.

Tilly look gorgeous in her new Sunday best and to celebrate our gladrags we went for coffee at Mate's Gully cafe before church. I may even be able to convince H.I. to have breakfast there one morning.

Last night H.I. and I went on a date. Woot! We went to see Star Trek Origins and found it exciting, fun, good prequel material and wonderfully funny in places (not always intentionally). I'm not sure who designed the stunts but there were a two themes for poor Capt. Kirk. If poor young James T. got clunked on the head many more times he'd have permanent brain damage, not to mention the 'hanging-off-a-precipice' fetish the stunt writers had. If it were I, one more precipice and I'd've started carrying a grappling hook.

Largely non-knit

That title's taken from one of my favourite blogs, Jean's Knitting. Jean's long-term endeavor has been to knit the Princess Shawl. She's currently setting it aside in order to begin on her Highland Games entry, a child's cardigan. She's doing a BSJ for those who are interested in tracking progress of both these fin projects. All this reminds me that the Wagga show will be on in another few months and I haven't done anything about even thinking of an entry, forget about starting it. Ulla Vulla (transylvanian for 'oh well').

I note that Taphophile is on a WiP mission - Wipeout 2009, to be more precise. I echo the sentiments and shall do likewise - I've threatened myself with dismemberment if I don't get a wriggle on with various projects. But there's so much to distract one...

I went to Melbourne for work from last Sunday until Tuesday night and had an absolutely fabulous time. There were restaurants - LOADS of them - and cool shops and Haighs and lots of people and cool hotel room service and... excuse me, just got to calm down a bit. I got myself some lovely clothes, albeit for work, a Haighs fix for H.I. as he didn't get to taste any of the fabulous take-away food, and a new dress for the Tilster, which she'll hopefully be wearing to church this Sunday.

Came home with bitter, deep-seated lurgy and am now dosed up with erythromycin. Am slowly coming good. Today Til and I went to molest the ducks in the Memorial Garden and after her nap we commenced on market baking. This Saturday is my church's 5th Saturday market. I'm contributing gluten free Tollhouse cookies, thanks to the cooking genius of Rebecca Reilly. I've mentioned her before; if you're G.F., her cookbook is a wonderful investment. Til helped beautifully with spooning in the flour, which needed to be gradually added. She took to the whole mixing, adding and mixing routine with aplomb, as you can see.

Folks know about the Knitting in Public celebrations here in Wagga. We're having a knit in at the council chambers followed by a regressive dinner (desert, mains and appetizers). Please leave a comment in the KIP2009 - Knitting and Knotting Share and Show. If there's any out-of-towners who are interested, please let me or Kylie know, too : )

Mate's Gully Organics

Sorry folks, my writing was too convoluted. The cafe is Mate's Gully Organics and it's next door to where the old St Vinnie's shop got burnt out. Apparently they're applying for a liquor licence, which may change their hours of operation. Currently they're open Wed-Sun during the day only, early for brunch on the weekend.

When The Toad Came Home!

I've always thought this such a lovely declarative lyric - almost victorious and certainly celebrational. I'm home and very happy to be so. I got away from work in Can'tberra with just enough time to creep into Til's room while she was still awake and get a delighted chuckle. Such a lovely welcome! H.I. gave me a nice, satisfying cuddle and trudged back to the research treadmill. All is back to normal.

The stripey cardigan is, at last, making real progress. One sleeve down, thanks to an impromptu knit night at the local gelateria with Kelly, and good progress on the second. I'm hoping that when I get a nice visit from the prospective recipient in mid-June, all will be sewn, washed, blocked and wrapped.

The hexagonal rug has been languishing badly but I met up with the mother of the recipient who assures me that it will still be very well received whenever I finish it. And even if the recipient has graduated to a big bed, there will be another bub toward the end of the year to take up residence in the cot.

So what have I been doing over the last month? Recovering from the first molar (sleep back to what passes for normal, although I really object to the 6.15 wake-ups!!!), having visitors from our old Pasadena, CA, days (although Elena is a San Francisco girl nowadays), preparing for a house inspection (you'd think they'd trust us after 3.5 years?), having my first ever Tupperware party (yes, I am embracing domesticity that enthusiastically), attending the Rotary book fair and going to the new cafe in town for morning tea. The book fair apparently raised more money than last year - not bad for a community in drought for over 10 years and now hit with a recession. I got lots of books for Tilly and a few 80s knitting books for me. Apparently batwings are coming back into fashion; I am now armed with the necessary patterns...

The new cafe is a spin-off from a organic growing venture at a property, Strathmore, near Tarcutta. Mates Gully Organics have had a stall at my local farmer's market for a while now and I've always enjoyed buying the produce there, which has often included 'heirloom' or little heard of produce such as cavolo nero/curly kale, first introduced to me by Maggie Beer, and tomatillos, a comestible I've not seen in Australia before. Now they've started a cafe in town and, from the coffee drinkers present, does very good coffee and lovely cakes & breakfast. Methinks that I'll drag H.I. down for brunch this weekend.

For pity's sake

How did that happen? A month went by and I didn't write anything. There were a few highlights such not going to the Royal Easter show but going on a rellie rally to Newcastle and Sydney instead. Classic comment from H.I. on the way home, "I don't feel like we had a holiday at all", reduced me to pitiful giggles. Apparently he thought the interstate rellie rallies I've done over the last 6 months with Til were relaxing! I had to explain to him that we weren't going to have a holiday for about the next 7 years plus, we would have trips instead. He looked glum. I felt glummer. This is the problem of living so far away from family that your child barely knows their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins - you can't just plunk them with them for a weekend away. Despite the down grading of holiday to trip, we did have a good time if not a relaxing one. The next trip away will be for fun.

Til's also cut her first 2yo molar. H.I. and I are knackered. She's been clingy and whiney and off her food since January and waking up several times in the night. Now I have at least one reason why this has been happening.

Additionally, I had my 40th. Woot! Had a cocktail party in three courses - cosmopolitans, sangria and cointreau frappes - with accompaniments: crostini with red capsicum salsa, twice baked potatoes, home made raviolis, etc. For 'cake' I made the torta di Verona from May 2007 delicious. magazine - fantastic as usual. Despite requests not to, I had some very lovely presents, one of which as been appropriated by Til: a knitting bag in the shape of a sheep!

Knitting - nothing done. Oh, a few inches of sleeve but that's it. Sleeplessness and clingy child have reduced me to automaton status. I'm going to a knit night this week so I'm hoping another few inches will be done. Stay tuned for more non-knit action.