Taueret

FO: Branching Out Shrug

Have I mentioned that my partner's nephew is getting married in the UK next week, and my hub, T and R are going to the wedding and doing a bit of sightseeing for 10 days?  Not long enough, but it's all the time J could take off work.  I'm staying home with baby L, I don't think the world of international air travel (18 hour flight) is quite ready for her.  And to be honest... well, let's just say I'm a homebody.

It's going to be a posh wedding- and while T isn't going to be in the bridal party, she still needs to look nice.  I was going to buy her a couple of new dresses (there's the wedding itself, and also some dinner thingy the night before), but a colleague happened to bring me a box of hand-me-downs with the two perfect dresses in it!  All the one for the wedding needed was a shrug (something I swore I'd never knit- ha!) to cover miss T's shoulders.  I surfed around looking for a pattern, and didn't find anything I loved, so i decided to make the Branching Out scarf into a shrug.  I love lace that looks like leaves!  Knit up in soy/bamboo that I got on clearance the end of last summer for $1.00 a ball, I am really pleased with the result.

to B or not to B?

As much as I hate reading blog posts about blogging (actually no- what I hate is reading blogs where the blogger has become a Celebrity Blogger and starts making a significant percentage of posts about how hard the lifestyle of a jetsetting celebrity blogger is- cry me a river, yaknow?), I'm feeling like the longer I go between blog posts, the less inclined I am to ever write one again.  Not only has the world continued turning just fine without my updates, but kind of forgetting about it has left me with time to say yes to some  other writing requests, to make good on a pre-paid research committment that has been heavy on my conscience since about January (!), and take a prolonged wander down the primrose path of wirework. 

There's an element of... not instant, but speedy gratification to basic jewellry making that I'm finding soothing right now- although, as fate always seems to have it, my dad, who was a master metal-worker, passed away quite suddenly last weekish and I now find myself thinking "I must ask dad... oh..." several more times every day than I would have otherwise.  Ah well. 

I've been knitting- lost interest in the Central Park Hoodie with about half a sleeve to go- I'll finish that one later.  Am hurrying to knit a shrug for T to wear to a posh wedding- I'm basing it on the "Branching Out" lace scarf, and it's going to be lovely.

Finishing my nursing course (the second one), I finally got a casual job.  Tomorrow is the orientation, after that I'll be able to be rostered, which is great.

All in all, business, life, and absorbtion in work has made me pretty antisocial, I haven't seen or spoken to anyone in ages.  It's not anything personal, it's just that I'm basically a solitary bee. 

Hopefully breaking my vow of silence today, I'll feel less awkward about posting again soon. 

Edited to add- jewellrylessons.com is a fantastic resource!

Working with wire, SSVE, CPH updates, and some recycled books.

When I read blogs- if someone I follow writes a long post with a lot of "chapters", I will read the whole thing.  I know other people may prefer to read short posts with a lot of good (good being the operative word) photos.  Myself, even if I am very interested in a blog/ger, I find it hard to keep up with very frequent (even short) posts- and I may skip, or even inadvertently miss content if there are suddenly 8 updates from a single blog in my feed reader!  So... I tend to save up and write big, multi-topic posts relatively infrequently.  Bear with me, ok? 

First, I finally wove something.  Meg was good enough to host the Small Scarf Virtual Exhibition again this year, and I really wanted to support her effort by submitting something.  So, on a day when it seemed like the whole universe was aligned against me ever getting anything accomplished, I warped my trusty rigid heddle loom for a 6" wide freeform scarf. 

Mine is mostly thrums from other projects, a shredded silk scarf, some ribbons and some handspun black alpaca singles.  You can view the exhibition here.  There are a lot of proper, grown-up weavers there too, with beautiful work, so check it out.

I'm still working on the Central Park Hoodie whenever I watch TV (which isn't that often).  I'm nearly finished with the first sleeve- so just one sleeve and a hood etc to go.  If I manage to make it to our Ravelry knitting group this Sunday (hint, if you're local and would like to come please let me know- it's not at my place this time but I can hook you up!) I should make a good dent in the remaining bits.

Also, I made these little notebooks.  I hoard cereal boxes- any kind of thin cardboard packaging, in fact.  Using this general method and some of the many reams of gently-used office paper that I bring home from work, I whipped these up.

 
 

As you can see, the original branding is visible inside the covers.  I kind of like it this way, but there is another tutorial on thelongthread.com for making them all pretty.

There-see?  My intention was to talk about wire jewellry making, and the books/resources out there, but my 'quick' update has absorbed all of my energy.  Never mind, maybe next time.

SSVE weaving, magazine reed basketry and so on.

1) I love weaving baskets, but I am averse to buying stuff to do same.  When I lived in Townsville, I used to cut  strangler fig vines and make crazy, misshapen, moss encrusted baskets.  Down here, I would like to attack a weeping willow for canes, but haven't done so, as I've been busy doing OTHER STUFF these many a year.  For a while now I have been background-processing a way to recycle paper into baskets.  I tried spinning newspaper yarn, which worked okay... but it wasn't quite right.  When I saw Sister Diane's tute on making magazine reeds, on Craftstylish I knew that would work.  Then I had to wait until a pile of colour glossy mags crossed my path on the way to the recycling (I have a no-junk-mail sign, so I miss out).  As soon as they did I had a fun few hours remembering how to do something that I think I last practiced back in about 1990- basketweaving!

The magazine reeds I made are really a bit too heavy a gauge for a project this small, but the concept works and it makes a really cool, sturdy basket.  I will be doing this more, even though my itch to make a basket again has been scratched for the moment. 

Also, I got a new chair.  Found it beside the road!  (People put household stuff outat the kerb  for rubbish collection, and good things are usually placed prominently so other ppl can harvest them).

Isn't it awesome??  It was sitting there beside the road for about a week, I think because its a hard spot to pull over, but eventually I managed and I am sooo glad I did.  That Kermit green vinyl makes me smile every time I look at it.

Finally, I got off my butt and am weaving for the SSVE.  I am glad I did, thanks for nagging me Meg. I fell back to my good old rigid heddle loom, because I could warp it fast and can carry it around the house with me (I have like 3 days til the deadline).  I really think my other looms are wasted on me, I might sell them.

While I was weaving away this morning, baby L was dressing and looking after her shuttle  baby. here it is.  That is a singlet and nappy it's wearing, I'll have you know, not the ball band from some yarn and a post-it note.
'
She became very irritated with me each time I tore another strip off of her baby's blanket.  My kids have a LOT of toys and a LOT+1 of dolls... so this is even funnier to me than it probably looks to you.

it's still wearable art.

I've been busy doing, just not blogging about it.  A few weeks ago I decided that I needed some more stitchmarkers, and I really like the kind made from tigertail and crimps.  So I went to Spotlight and $123.00 later, had my stitchmarker making gear.  Thank goodness I was going to save $7 by making my own stitchmarkers!  I jest, I just kind of slipped and fell and whoosh.

For years, I've been almost grateful that "I don't do beading".  I can cruise past most parts of the craft store and craft shows are so much less stressful when you 'don't do beading'.  Of course I bought beads sometimes because I like to use them in my weaving.  Playing with the beads and tigertail was fun, but not satisfying like making something totally from scratch is, you know?

But then I had a few hundred beads left over, and all those extra crimps and tiger tail, so I made myself a necklace (I stripped and recycled an old broken necklace for its silver spacer beads).



And I dunno... then I thought I should really try to use up all the beads and things I had purchased, but that required, of course, the purchase of yet more supplies.  Because you totally need more spacer beads, and findings.  And well... you need a lot more kinds of beads.  Really, you do.

So pretty soon I had all this stuff and the beads are really pretty, but I actually found that playing with wire is quite fun and not that different to playing with fibre... not really. 

You can twist it into shapes, and then if you bang on it, it changes its character entirely, just like newly spun yarn.  So while beads and putting them on wire or headpins is fun... I am quite besotted with wire wrapping. 
 
You can get the kinds of weird organic shapes and asymmetry that I like to look at, so it's appealing to me.  I have some books coming and we'll see if I manage to make anything nifty.

Meanwhile, I finished the 'Simple Knitted Bodice' (Stephanie Japel) that I started last winter!  It only had a sleeve to go...not sure what was going on there.

I also started the Central Park Hoodie (Heather Lodinsky), which has been in my queue since it was published. I have purchased he pattern TWICE. Once because you had to pay for the plus sizes, and now because I lost that one and you have to pay for it in any size! I'm knitting it in Bendigo Woolen Mills something or other (!). In graphite. Which is way bluer than I wanted it to be, but nevermind.

This is a really fast knit- even with all the distractions it will be finished after a few nights in front of the TV.  I had better pencil that in.

Oh, and I knit my friend Meg a cowl, because she asked me to! I need to send it off. It's kind of a funnel shape so you can wear it up either way or pull it up over your ears and hair. The yarn was coils I spun a couple of years ago and it's so insanely gorgeous I couldn't bring myself to use it til now. Wow, can I say that about my own yarn? heh heh.

Closure, at last.

The popular vote was for a zipper.  It was suggested by some of the gals on Twitter that fusing a velvet ribbon to the inside, hiding the zipper tape might be a nice finish.  Great suggestion. 

I went for a slightly chunky metal zipper (I just don't like plastic, mmkay?) and a green velvet ribbon, fused using "Heat and Bond"- which didn't fuse that successfully (probably my fault, I lost the instructions that lady at the shop gave me), so I whipstitched the ribbon down for good measure.

Yes, that's a potty.  I didn't see it at first, but it's staying.

Couldn't be happier, and proud to have taken the trouble to finish the job nicely.

Thanks for all the help, internets!

FO: Tweedy Aran Cardigan

Norah Gaughan's Tweedy Aran Cardigan (Interweave Knits Winter 2001/2002 and 'the top 5:The Best of Interweave Knits Readers’ Choice Awards') is FINISHED. I love, love LOVE this cardigan.

 I need your help - the front closure is a problem. I eschewed buttons (shut up, that is too a word) because I thought I'd prefer a zipper. I'm still not sure. One friend says to just use a couple of those hook and eye closures here and there. That looks good on her (and she and I have kind of the same body type) but I always feel like a gaping sack of spuds when my clothes are only partly buttoned, so I'm not sure. I am tending towards zipper (which I would only zip up in the coldest weather, but it's nice to have the option), or maybe some kind of "frog" (are they really called that?) closure- something simple. I'm not a fan of cardigans with no closure option (don't like the shawl pin or chopstick option much for me). What would your vote be, please?

So, details... I knit this in Patons Jet (70% wool/30% alpaca).

I knit the fronts as one piece with some extra stitches in the middle, and steeked it.  I did this because knitting one big piece seems more tolerable to my goldfish brain than lots of small ones- and because I was afraid the variegations would stripe differently enough on the two fronts that it would bother me.  Looking at the FO, I don't think it would have mattered, but I still am pleased I did it this way.

Because the fronts were done that way, it means I forgot the neck shaping!  In turn this led to great angst surrounding the collar which I knit and frogged no less than 5 times in the end.  Halfway through that number, at my friend Marie's suggestion, I stitched the neck edge into the shape it should have been when it came off the needles... and it only took 2 or 3 more goes to get the collar right after that!

Things I learned- relearned cabling!  Learned to do that "fancy rib", which looks really cool.  Took as many tries as I needed to take to get the collar really right, and now I'm glad (thanks Marie).  Best of all, this took less than a month to knit- which is awesome, and ENTIRELY a consequence of re-jigging the way I purl.  Thanks Vivian.  It really has made knitting new again for me. 

Also, this is the first cardigan I have knit for myself that is the right size.  I normally guess at a size, going for a BIG one, and then if I err, I err on the size of BIGNESS.  I end up with unwearably huge knits.  This time I actually bit the bullet and measured my bust, and knit a finished size an inch or so *smaller*.  Ending up with a nicely fitted cardi with a bit of negative ease that will still fit me when I've lost the rest of my weight was great. Lesson learnt!

These are a few of my favourite things...

I get a lot from having a blog, from being a citizen of Blogland.  I learn LOADS (I used to say that everything I know I learned from Usenet, I should update that statement), I've made some amazing friends who I would never have even known existed otherwise.  I get the pleasure of having a place to "show n tell", be inspired, be egged on to complete things- the list goes on!  So, in the absence of on-topic content, I want to share a few of my favourite things with you.  They are intentionally not related to the regular content of this blog- maybe something new will occur to you.  Please share your favourite things in the comments?

1) My steampunk necklace.  This was made just for me by Industrial Fairytale, an awesome Etsy artist.  We traded and I only hope she loves her scarf as much as I LOVE my necklace.  My only request was that I wanted something that looked like it was assembled by tree creatures who came upon the ruins of our civilisation... and that is exactly what I got, interpeted in a way that I never would have imagined.  I LOVE this piece so much I can't even tell you.  There is even a wee hand carved leaf as one of the pendant pieces... My photography is the weakest link here, you have to believe that this is a once in a lifetime piece of jewellry.

2) Shopping Trolley Tokens.

I hate shopping at centres where they lock the trolleys to one another and you have to insert a coin to get one out, and then go back and return it (which I do ANYWAY) to get your coin back.  I hate it because I never have cash on me, and coins get SPENT.  My friend gave me one of these little beauties:

 

Can't really see it, can you?  The holder part goes on the key ring, and the token's always there, you can't spend it.  I recently managed to lose the token and went back for another and learned that they cost $1.00 and $0.50 goes to Landcare.  And they're made from recycled plastic bottles.  What's not to like about that?  

3) People who shed sanity, clarity and illumination wherever they go the way I shed bits of thread and lolly wrappers.  I can think of three off the top of my head, who are yours?  Mine are Dan Carlin , Tim O'Reilly (Twitter is worth signing up for if only for Tim O'Reilly's feed of interesting links) and I can't be thankful for people without thinking of Jon Stewart, who more or less single-handedly kept me sane during 2008.  Malcolm Gladwell.

4) Stanza (ebook reader for the iPhone).  Other iPhone apps I love: iRecorder, Say Who Lite, Skype, and Tweetie.  Google Docs.  Oh, and while I have always loved my iPhone, since setting it up to use Google as a Microsoft Echange Server, I have one email, one calendar, one contacts- whether I'm at my desktop, online via Google docs/Gmail, or on the iPhone.  If I make a change to my calendar while I'm walking down the street, it's instantly pushed out to all my other calendars.  I learned to do this from the 'iPhone: the Missing Manual', which has detailed instructions.    Even though I have had my iPhone since July 2008- I only feel like I am getting the most out of it since reading the missing manual.

I'm pretty sure that I love other things too, and I'll share them later on, that's enough for now.

 

k5tog

What, 2 posts in a month!?  Crazy, I know. 

2 things:

1) The Central Coast Ravelry chicks are a real bright spot for me.  I am always a little shy about blogging RL meetups- for reasons which now  sound silly even to me, so I'll skip over them (whistling, nothing to see here....).  To NOT mention how much fun  always have when we meet up (gosh, has it really only been 3 times, this time around?) is to somehow do it an injustice.  It really seems slightly miraculous to me that several women of different ages and backgrounds, thrown together by nothing more than liking yarn and living within about 50 km of one another, would actually hit it off so well. 

Here's Vivian spinning some of the gorgeous Navajo Churro she got from Charlie (eep, I only know Charlie by reputation as the bunny lady...someone clue me in and I'll link to her).  I always expected Navajo Churro to feel like Icelandic or something- not be so soft and gorgeous with looong staples.  It would make super socks, I reckon.

And Salihan  plying her very first yarn.

Let me tell you, this lady is a natural spinner.  Last seen, about 8 weeks ago, she had just started spinning a few yards of our normal "first yarn"- you know, thick and thin, slubby, overtwisted in places... she returned a few weeks later with TWO bobbins FULL of lovely, even yarn that plied to about a sportweight.  Awesome.  In fact her spinning looked so good that I completely FORGOT that she had only started a couple weeks ago, and therefore didn't remember to say "your spinning looks great" for quite a long while after seeing it- it just didn't look like "L plater" yarn.  Anyway- she's very clever.

I didn't get photos of Cath or Jenny (she with no blog, but gets mentioned often on mine!), but it was great to see both of them too- Cath making blithe alterations to her Origami Cardi on the fly, and Jenny choosing a pattern for her yarn (I know "we" chose something... not what it was though!).  Not to mention eating, drinking, and general merry making.  Thanks for coming everyone, and if you didn't make it, hope you can next time.

2) Finally- I frogged the left front of my Norah Gaughan's Tweedy Aran Cardigan- I realised that I was bound to be annoyed by the way the yarn variegated across the two front panels differently- so I re-jigged it to knit the two fronts at the same time, and cut a steek up the middle.  I am happy now with that- not only from the point of view of the colours repeating, but also I think I'm less likely to bungle the mirror- symmetry of the two fronts if I knit them as one piece (you know- putting the armhole where the neck edge should be?).

That's enough  blather for a post with hardly any pics!

the waiting...

You know that feeling in your stomach when you're wondering if "HE" (in my case, maybe in your case it's been "SHE") will call?  That OCD checking of the dial tone, carrying your phones with you wherever you go during the day?  Turning the vacuum (or maybe in your case, music) off mid-room (or mid-song) to listen... was that the phone?  Nope.  It never is.

No, I'm not in lurrrve (not with someone who never calls, anyway).  I'm job hunting.  I never enjoyed the dating-related roller-coaster ride of emotion and adrenaline when I was single, and I am not enjoying its employment-fuelled sister now. 

The fact that I am twisting myself into knots over something as mundane as work is probably kind of sad, but there you go.  I never, EVER want to go through the experience of looking for a mate again.  EVER.  I could probably do without job hunting too, since as far as I can recall the emotions are strangely similar.  Optimism, excitement, fear, dejection, wild hope, waiting... waiting... fretting, imaginging scenarios, waiting, fretting.

The relative triviality of my upheaval is evidenced by the fact that I am finding knitting enjoyable and soothing.  That doesn't work for me when I'm REALLY scared or upset.  So you know.  I have finished the back of the Tweedy Aran Cardigan, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it.  Once more I must say, being able to purl fast really makes knitting fun again.  Looks like one repeat got away from me a little there, huh?

Not to worry!  The yarn is Patons Jet, a wool/alpaca worsted weight 2 ply that is just delightful.  Best of all, I think I may have actually made the right size- often my knits are so gigantically oversized that I find them more or less unwearable- and since I've lost weight they'll be even worse.

In other textile-oriented news, I sewed a couple of little skating dresses for my girls- the first with moral support from my friend Jenny who is a super seamstress, the second all on my own!  They were easy to make and fun, I can't wait to make more and the girls love them:

On twitter today I mentioned that in an attempt to make myself look grown up and employable, I dyed my hair what I thought would be a natural looking dark brown.  How my natural hair colour can look so weird, I do not know- but I think I look like some kind of cross between Robert Smith and Tim Burton.  Here, it really *is* that bad (if you look, I will even let you laugh, as long as you read the next bit where I explain a boring saga about course codes and interviews that I may or may not get- also, please pretend those hideous curtains are something less hideous.  I didn't buy them):

Ok, you looked.  you laughed.  Now you have to read the next part.  There will be a test at the end.

So- in a nutshell, I applied for a job in a public hospital/facility.  I was able to address all the many criteria in the ad, and thought I would therefore probably get an interview.  I didn't, I was rejected by email!

I was sad!  I was embarrassed.  In spite of this I rang the person they gave as the contact to get some feedback for my next application.  Today I finally caught her- turns out that there were 97 applicants, and I was on the shortlist of 5 (yay).  The bad news was that when the selection committee sent the shortlisted resumes through to HR to have references checked etc, my qualification wasn't on the LIST of codes that they had approval to hire from.

[boring explanation- my course supercedes a course that has been around forever... but while both courses are accredited in the way of Australian vocational qualifications, the course code of MY course wasn't on THE LIST.]

When I rang I had a good talk to two of the people who were on the panel, and the second lady said that if I could demonstrate how the competencies in my course "map" to the competencies in the course they wanted, then they *would* want to interview me.  YAY.  Because we had such a good talk, I feel like if I do get an interview, I have a real advantage, yaknow?

So I spent the rest of the day chasing this info, and I HOPE what I got is what they need.  If it is, then I am happy, because I will get an interview and hopefully that will lead to a job.  If it isn't- then I am NOT happy because when I signed up to do my course, it was "sold" to me as having complete overlap with the old qualification.  If it doesn't... well I am going to have to insist that the training organisation "tops up" my training free of charge. 

So that's the story of my day!  I will hopefully know soon whether I can get an interview.  Thanks for reading to the end, or at least pretending to!

Here's a pic of my girls buying sushi for dinner this afternoon while I stood in a queue at the ATM nearby: