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You say you want a revolution well, you know... ...we all want to change the world |
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Sponsor my private revolution:
What am I selling on Ebay today? Let the Revolution begin... *You can be any age to join the knitting revolution. It's not just grannies any more. *To join, just grab the nearest pointy things, and tie them to the nearest string-like substance. Wave them enthusiastically in the air, yelling passionate cries such as "och aye the noo!" *The revolution requires that you supply your own weapons. Er, needles. *Knitting can be sexy. Sure, it can. Go to knitty and be inspired! *Knit in public, and if anyone looks at you funny, you've always got a sharp metal thing handy with which to poke their soft bits. *Get all knitting-zen on people. Then when you really let your hair down, you can get away with it, because you're "that nice person, who knits". *insert evil laugh here* *Oh, yeah, almost forgot. The revolution will not be televised. Or... something like that. I moved to Canberra last November, and am now involved in the best Canberra knitting group! ... so any locals or visitors interested, go on over to Canberra Stich N Bitch yahoo group and join us in our dark endeavours! I mean, creative meeting of minds... er, yeah. Something like that. We meet at Starbucks in Civic on the first Thursday evening of every month, and the third Sunday of the month at 2pm. Come along! If you feel shy, feel free to post online first, or email someone to ask a few questions. :):):) If you want, use the contact button and I'll give you my details so we can get in touch. Always happy to get the interesting people of Canberra out of the woodwork... I know you're there, ya just hard to find sometimes *chuckle* Sydney Knitting Adventures continue at "my" previous knitting group in Newtown: Meet up for coffee, cake, and knitting adventures galore at Barmuda Cafe, Australia Street Newtown. It's opposite the police station, and across the intersection from Newtown Train Station. See the SSK Website for details :D You, and this many other people with a cramp in their forefinger: Interesting in knitting, and what other knitters are doing? Or are you just bored, or farting off at work while the boss ain't watching? Well then, I have just the thing to keep you busy for hours on end... go exploring the wonderful world of knitting blogs. Can you believe there's so many of us? I have my favourite blog-days, and these are some of them: A hairy tale Horn-y knitter Musical tongs God on the brain Blogging from behind a mask Creativity and productivity I am SUCH a nerd Deliver me from Swedish furniture Feminist backlash Modern beauty is a myth Instant karma’s gonna getcha Go feminism Harris the Well Clad Fish The love is in the food Embarrassment, Humiliation and Joy Booty The birth of a grammar avenger Beetles Traffic Lights, part 1 Spawn of Satan Traffic Lights, part 2 A long time ago, in a knitting bag far, far away... And my other blog, complete with a few little patterns: http://miscsqueak.blogdrive.com  
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The other Monica, and the other fleece! My highlight of the day was meeting a famous Aussie chick, Monica Trapaga, at the local pet shop today. She is soooo nice! I didn't realise it was her at first, I just thought, hey, she looks just like Monica Trapaga, until the Bald Man called out "hey, Monica, look at this" and we both turned around. Very funny moment. Maybe talkative just goes with the name, but she was as much of a chatterbox as me, poor Bald Man couldn't get a word in sideways. And man, she's so pretty. No makeup, and she looked fantastic. Very cool lady *doffs imaginary cap* Today just got better and better. Not only did I get some study done, but also got a bit of knitting done over a rather lush brekky this morning...  AND my awesome mum-in-law Judy brought me back from Queensland a beautiful silver-grey alpaca fleece! Oh yummy! The Bald Man's cousins have a small farm, and promised me a fleece quite some time ago, and they came good, just in time for the holidays in just over a week. Please, holidays, be here now... (11 sleeps til exams are OVER)  Mmmm. Now all I need is about 6 extra hours in each day... So. Tonight we hung out at home, and celebrated... the Bald Man's first day off in... well... ages. We opened a bottle of Cascabel Riesling -  - which you can see has been hanging out in the wine rack getting all dusty for quite a while. Yummmm. Oh yeah, and that's my text book. Like I needed reminding. Yick!
Glovelies! The gloves are begun! Yes, of course I'm supposed to be studying for exams, which is why I'm posting so often and knitting so much! Tsk tsk I know, I'm just a wild animal out of control *snicker*  ...or would you rather hear about how my developmental psychology study plan is going? Want to enter into a discussion of how to calculate degrees of freedom in a factorial anova for my stats exam??? No, thought not. Now, be off with you! I'm off to continue pretending that I can't find my text books. PS - I'm terribly sorry to all of the people who come to my site looking for "round booty" and "big booty" and "J-Lo's big fat booty" as per my little bravenet stats tracker. Ain't life just full of disappointments? *mwahaha...*
"enable" - To supply with the means, knowledge, or opportunity; make able I feel a bit of an enabler thing coming on. I love the feeling that happens when you look at what someone is doing and think "ooh, I could do that. Actually, I could really enjoy doing that..." and this is what an enabler makes people think. Stacie commented on her interest in spindling, and I took off in search of my favourite links for getting someone going. The neat thing about spindling is that you can make your own from a piece of dowel, an old cd, a grommet and a cuphook. There are good instructions at http://www.interweave.com/spin/projects/cdspindles.pdf for making a spindle, and a great online resource for learning spindling is http://thebellwether.site.yahoo.net/spinspinandf.html . Also worth looking at are the instructions for andean plying http://users.mindex.com/~sharon/andean/index.html since it makes life a whole lot easier if you are spinning in small amounts, or have a small amount of singles left over, or if your pet hate is having leftover singles after plying from two bobbins. (that'll be m). Anyway, just thought I'd share these resources with anyone who's interested in giving spinning a go - you don't have to invest in a wheel or an expensive spindle, you can start off with your little recycled number, and that gives you enough of an idea of whether it's something you'd want to pursue. Some people decide they like spindling so much they never want to try spinning with a wheel. Spinoff has a couple of articles from two such people this issue, one guy who has an enormous collection of spindles and likes it that way because it's more mobile than wheel spinning, and a woman who spindled an entire shirt's worth of cotton while working (customer service phone line) and then wove it into a shirt. (She also grew, prepared, and dyed the cotton herself. Rather cool article). In regards to Andean plying, I saw this fantastic tool on a website, and wouldn't mind getting myself one. My hands are quite small, and I always have trouble with numb fingers when I Andean ply (grammar??? ah well) my yarns, because my hand "fills up" so quickly. (click here for a look at the extremely nifty andean plying tool) Hmmm... do you think if I send enough hits their way, they might send me one??? LOL... yeah, sure. I wish!
Icky! I was hanging out with Angel and Cynth last night, and spinning some alpaca for Cynthy from two alpacas called Griselda and Zane. Seriously, that's how they sell the stuff. You say "I'll have 100g of Zane, thanks". Neat. Cynthy was working on a very cute little matching scarf to go with this hat (the pattern is from www.knitty.com):  Angel was trying to get her earring through her ear piercing, which has almost closed up. She asked me to come over and help. "Can you see the earring?" she asked. "Sure", I answered, "I can see a bit of metal. There's a bit of blood there", I noted as an afterthought. She made a halfhearted wailing noise. "Don't say that!" she said, looking queasy. "Oh, okay", I replied calmly. "There's a heap of blood there!" Neither Angel nor Cynthy appreciated the joke. I think I was lucky not to have received an immediate and unwelcome piercing in my own face. *cackles evilly* I was pulling apart the alpaca fleece (Griselda) and Cynthy said that it looked like old woman's hair. It does, actually. Which, of course, prompted me to put the fleece on my head and pull an ugly face for the camera. Och! Anyone who wants to know what I'll look like as a dazed senile old woman...  She's an oldie but a goodie, um, actually, an oldie but an oldie. This is the future. Feel very sorry for my poor husband. *snort*
A wound up rainbow, and preview of parenting I finished that rainbow wool, yeah! This is what it looks like:
 Lily was a big help with the spinning of the thread...  while Phoenix preferred to supervise, and yank on my glasses from time to time...  I'll probably put it away for a while, as I'm a bit sick of the sight of it, and make a scarfling out of it some day soon. I got a preview of parenting yesterday, when I went to Angel's school for "parent"/teacher day. Most of her teachers were really cool, with the exception of one. God help me. Preferably a vengeful and violent god if possible. *grin* Me: Hello, I'm Monica, how are you? Teacher from Hell: Oh, Angel is not handing in her work. Angela talks all the time. Blah blah blah. Me: Okay, well, she's missed a bit of school so she's behind a bit. What can we do about it? Teacher from Hell: Why didn't she just repeat last year? Why didn't the person who interviewed you for the school just repeat year 9? Me: Well, she's in year 10 now, what can be done to help her catch up? Teacher from Hell: Oh, she'll never catch up. She's missed too much work. Are you sure you don't want her to do year 9 again? Me, starting to feel like ripping my own eyes out: Well, rather than talking about what's happened in the PAST, what can Angel do NOW to get through this year??? But fricken stupid Mrs Negativity just raved on and on about how she's never going to get through year 10, and how the principal should have made her repeat last year. AAAARRRGGHH!!! How can her other teachers be SO supportive and positive, and this woman be so bloody god-awfully NEGATIVE? Way to go to encourage the students. Not to mention answer my bloody question in the first place. *tears hair out* I got absolutely nowhere with this teacher, and still have no idea how Angel is going to get up to speed for this subject. This does absolutely NOTHING for my ovaries. *shudder* ... just when I was starting to think motherly thoughts, too. I think that nursing and teaching are probably the most under-rated and under-appreciated professions a person can choose. But for every good teacher out there, there seems to be one just like Mrs Negativity, who just couldn't be bothered with a kid who needs a bit of extra time. "I can't be expected to be helping you so much", she said to Angel during our interview, "because I have special ed students in your class who need more time. Sit next to one of the better students and ask them if you need some help." Thanks for your time, you dried up, bitter, lazy bitch. What the hell are all those tuition fees for again???
I love a good rummage... Lookit what I got for $4 at the local op shop today...  Och, but I LOVE a good rummage!!! *gloat gloat gloat* Got lots of other nifty stuff as well, but the shoes were definitely the highlight. I tend not to be a big shoe-collectin' kinda gal, and usually buy only one new pair of shoes per year. Mostly boots. And then there's the cutesy odd ones that I pick up at the op shops :-) Tres grooveeeeee!!! Now I just need to make myself some more knitted sockies to go with them. Those nice stripy black and white witch's britches that I've been promising myself for a year might be in order...
You will only find this entry exciting if you are also a handspinner. In which case... I have a few new little projects on the go... one of them is turning this into yummy yarn to make into a nice lacey scarf:   FANTASTIC colours. I have been drooling over it for about a year - I bought it in Bendigo last July and have been doing lots of practice on white merino sliver in preparation for the big moment when I finally pulled it out of the bag for spinning.  This is a two-ply thread. with a 2mm needle for comparison of thickness. I just can't seem to navajo ply nicely, so I've given in and started with a view to making a two-ply. I've split the sliver down the middle and weighed it so it's exactly half, and am going to spin the whole thing in two lots straight from one end to the other, ply them together, and hope that the law of averages makes it approximately even. I'm also wanting to start my gloves, but can't get gauge on 2mm needles, and am going to get some 1.5 or 1.75mm. Insanely thin! But they're gonna be LUSH. With any luck I'll have that rainbow stuff finished by the time Cynth brings me over her grey alpaca sliver that she wants spun up. Yummmm. Where's the sharp wit and excitement, you ask? It's Saturday afternoon, dammit, and I'm vegging. Now, go amuse yourself somewhere else! :-P
the finished cap on the lucky recipient :-)  Well, okay, you can't see it very well, she's a bit blurry but hey, it looks grrrrreat on her! We just walked down to the video store to get a movie (we got Nowhere in Africa, yay) and took some truly nifty photos...
 More knitting and spinning stuff tomorrow, since I'm spinning up some stuff tonight. A little less blogversation, and a little more action A finished lace cap!  With any luck I'll convince the lucky recipient to have her photo taken with it on, though she doesn't much like having her "picture took". I was thinking about prayer today. There's been a decent whack of writing done on "infusing" items (like knitted things) with your prayers for people, and it's a pretty old concept, though less utilised these days, especially in Western culture. Zen and the art of knitting talks about this sort of thing, and I'm sure the subject will come up when I do my little spinning and knitting workshops at Hollyfrost later this month. Basically I believe that spellwork, intention, and prayer are different cloths woven from the same thread. They look slightly different in the end product, but are basically the same thing. The short of it is that this little thing that I've knitted for my little sister is pretty much drenched with intention - support, strength and calmness for a really difficult time. At 15, she's done an enormously brave thing leaving all of her family and friends behind and coming from a public, country, all-white, co-ed school to a catholic, city, multicultural (really multicultural) girls school. There's bound to be difficulties, and she seems to be rising to the challenge. So, whether you have a few seconds for a christian prayer, a witch's candle, or a moment to connect to the earth mother, spare a thought for my little sister who's navigating her ways through the murky waters of a new school.
hehehe... Here's the update on Angel's knitted cap. I stuck it on my head to try it on for size, and this is what I looked like, pulling the silliest face that I could:  Och! I think I accidentally hit myself with the ugly stick this morning... *snort* but it's been a big week, and Angel and I both needed a bit of a laugh *grin* I got home yesterday and Angel had done all the housework. Yay! So I'm trying to get her little cap done asap, and the other reason is that I'm wanting to start on my green and white gloves, now that I have this (thanks to my friend Jewel's fantastic online store):  Whee! I can't WAIT until the holidays!!!
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