Ironing

Ironing is not my favourite thing. Of all the household tasks, I would say it’s my least favourite except that I can at least opt out of ironing. Dishes, not so.

However, ironing is less optional when sewing. My ironing board is fine but it just had the dodgy cover it came with, which kept slipping off, and the foam pad was so thin that I would occasionally get a waffle pattern on whatever I was ironing, from the frame.

It was sad.

I also had to replace my old mattress protector because it had shrunk a bit in the wash, and had generally seen better days. I doubled it over, laid the foam on top as a pattern, and cut it out about an inch wider than the foam. Then I overlocked the edges. Just happened to have blue thread in there and couldn’t be bothered changing it.

The end bit with the iron rest doesn’t have anyway to fold it under, so I kept the fabric even with the board there. I read some tutes where people quilted their mattress pad fabric together but I didn’t bother. The back of the mattress protector was a bit sticky and I made sure I pulled it together when I overlocked it, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem.

I considered folding it over and using cord to cinch it in but I didn’t want more bulk. Instead, I just got some knitting cotton and did a big running stitch around it. Then I pulled it tight, did some fiddling to get it to sit evenly, and tied it off.

Couldn’t get a decent close up of the stitching since it’s beige, but it’s not really photo-worthy anyway. Here’s what it looks like with just the pad. I made sure to pull the cotton nice and tight so that the pad doesn’t slip or pull. I am really pleased with how firm it came out.

That’s my drawer of half-finished projects and my toolbox notions storage behind it, plus a washing basket full of fabric that I am determined not to let become stash. I WILL sew with it soon.

Next, I lay the board down on the fabric I wanted to cover it with – I could have used the original pad again but I wanted to be sure it was right, and the foam was actually slightly the wrong shape. I used some drill I had bought from Spotlight because I loved the print and wanted to make a skirt out of it, but I decided it had too much white in it to be safe. I catch the bus to work and I don’t want to spend too much time thinking about my clothes and what I might be sitting on – not to mention the things I smear on myself while eating, etc. I am not to be trusted with white things.

I left a good length away from the board, I think maybe 5″, but I could have done with a little less. 4″ would be about right, I think.

I turned the edge twice – once as a baby hem, and then a a 1″ hem to be the elastic casing. I just turned and stitched the bit at the end with the iron rest.

Then I threaded the elastic.

This is what I mean when I said I probably left too much overhang. I wanted to be sure it covered the pad underneath but because it’s so far away from the edge it doesn’t cinch in as tightly as I’d like. I might take it off later and fold it over again if I can be bothered. It’s a little bit loose but it’s only really annoying when you fold and unfold the board, it’s tight enough not to affect the ironing. I just tied the elastic in a double knot and trimmed the ends a bit shorter.

Tada! New ironing board cover that actually makes me happy to look at, and a use for some would-be stash fabric. It was a nice,  quick project that took me about an hour and a half all up, including thinking about how I was going to do it.

I read a bunch of tutes for this before deciding it was simple enough that I could just wing it – it really is a pretty simple process. But if anyone wants to ask me for clarification on anything I did, just leave a comment and I’m happy to help you out.

Saturday night in the craft room

These princess seams are fighting me, big time.

The weekend before craft camp I decided that I needed to completely rearrange my craft room. I took all the storage out and remixed it, instead of packing. When I got back I started sorting the drawers out. Had a big chuck-out – so many different bits and pieces for so many different crafts. Today I sorted my fabric stash. There wasn’t too much dross in there, actually, which was pleasing. I have a bit more sorting to do but it’s a vast improvement – and much easier to actually sew in! I still have to get some melamine to make benches out of the drawers, get a better thread-storage solution, and sort out the mending/current half-finished projects pile, which you can see teetering in baskets next to the bookshelves, here:

I reckon I might even have room to put them in a drawer. That’ll ensure that I absolutely never get to them, so that’s good.

I know that the new setup makes it easier to sew because I’ve BEEN sewing! Shocking, I know. I finished off the black dress I started at camp, and a pencil skirt of the same material – in fact, it’s just the skirt part of the same dress. I took in the yellow skirt and now I’m plugging away at that polka dot dress. I thought I’d sorted the fit at camp but the neckline was just too gapey, so I’ve had an evening of taking the princess seams in, incrementally, by about 3cm. I’m trying to avoid making it actually tight, because that’s less comfortable and my bust fluctuates a lot. I’m at the lowest ebb at the moment, if that term is allowable, so I don’t want to take it in too much. But I do want it to not be gaping or pulling. I think I’m there but I thought it wisest to take a break before final assessment. I know too well that if I try to push on I’ll end up with something not-quite right. That’s what happened to this dress the first time around. Besides, I really want to nail the fit because there’s lots you can do with a princess seam bodice that fits well.

Blues

I have a couple of long sleeved jersey shirts from Kmart, one black and one white, and I’ve worn one or the other almost every day this winter. I’m going to try to copy them and make some extras, but in the meantime the white one was looking a bit… dingy. So I soaked it in some sard stain remover stuff. Unfortunately I put it in the same bucket as a teal dress that I’d dropped some lunch on (I’m classy like that) and the teal bled. I’ve never had blue things bleed before! Especially not ones that have been washed multiple times. But there you go, it did, and it left a blue streak on one of the arms.

So I dyed it. I had this other top that I bought ages ago that was a minty green colour, with ivory lace. I loved it but didn’t wear it lots because it was too close to pastel for my tastes, and then the fabric got a bit sun damaged and faded, patchily. I’d bought some blue dye for something else, so I bunged them in together. It was Dylon hand dye, ocean blue. I’ve only dyed stuff in the washing machine before, so I expected this to be tricky for some reason. It totally wasn’t, but I think I’ll stick to the ones you can bung in the machine, in future, if I have a choice – I’m not neat enough, I’d rather have it all contained in a machine. I neglected to get a before, which makes this whole thing less interesting.

Dunno how well it’s showing up but the lace is still quite contrasty – it’s the same colour as the long sleeved shirt but the top is more like a light petrol blue.

Pretty pleased with my adventures. Don’t know how much I’ll wear the lace top, since lace is not really my style these days, but at least it has a chance. And if it doesn’t get worn, I can donate it to the op shop without it becoming rags. And I will get a whole lot more wear out of that long sleeved top.

And here is a photo of my living room, just because it’s neat, and looks like I want it to. This is rare enough that I took a picture. Feeling really pleased at how I completely accidentally lined it up so you can see the babushkas on my mantel, in the mirror.

Colour theme: consistent. Also notable:

• I won’t be seeing S for a while, which means I can buy flowers. He’s allergic, and considering that he puts up with my cat to which he is also allergic, it seems only fair to forgo them. But I do miss having flowers around.
• Pile of presents, for S, not only ON TIME but actually well before his birthday. He is so hard to buy for it’s ridiculous. Hopefully they are a sucess.
• I found Blue (oooh, also consistent with the theme! It’s the book propped in front of the dollhouse), after months of looking. It is excellent and you should read it all online for free here and then buy it (Dymocks has it).
• That sparkly blue Mary is a money box.
• The empty cubby hole is for my cat to hide in and ambush me from.
• I feel like I am having trouble ending these posts. I guess most things don’t have neat, narrative endings. So I guess this post will just finish when it stops.

September garden

Here is what happens when you mulch the garden beds and then don’t go outside in daylight for the next three months.

It goes mental.

Here’s what’s happening in this photo. In the foreground are some brassicas – purple brussel sprouts and sprouting broccoli - that started out in a garden bed to the left. This bed gets pretty much zero direct light, so I don’t know why I bothered planting in it – it’s great for lettuce in the summer but that’s about it. Anyway, because it gets no light the brassicas did nothing for three months, then escaped the beds to find some sun. Now they’re actually sprouting and I haven’t the heart to pull them up because they are finally doing something.

There’s a raised garden bed at the back of this photo. Behind all the seeding rocket. Also, three mostly-clear beds which you can’t see because they’re behind weeds.

(Please excuse the horror in the shed, and the drying washing looking for some sun)

In the ongoing battle with the three cornered jacks, if it’s not a three cornered jack, or in a place where I want to plant something else, it gets to stay.

I was going to just mow the weeds this weekend, but I’ve come down with some horrible disease (feeling very sorry for myself at the moment)  so the most I managed was this:

Hypothetically that’s a herb bed. There’s still some sage, and a parsley bush going mental – those are big stalks of parsley that I hacked off and used as mulch, at the front. There’s also a tonne of self seeded silverbeet, which is excellent. I’m mostly going to plant tomatoes and leafy stuff this year, since that’s mostly what I eat, and it’s also hard to buy good quality greens etc. I will eat pretty much 100% of all tomatoes and leafy greens I grow, so it’s a lot of bang for the gardening buck.

Tomatoes are stupidly expensive at the moment because of the Queensland shenanigans – I went to a farmer’s market on the weekend where there was a single stall with non-blemished tomatoes. They were $8 a kilo which is actually pretty good (it’s up the $12 in the supermarket near me) and there was an absolute scrum to get to them. I just bought blemished ones at $4 a kilo and they’re very nice, thank you. But not the same as home grown ones.

I’ve given up on curcurbits, even though I’ll eat all the zucchini I can get, because something nearby has powdery mildew – I blame my own and the neighbour’s frangipanis – and I just can’t fight it. Besides, they’re cheap in season and pretty easy to buy good ones. So I’ll concentrate on silverbeet, lettuce and rocket, all of which I’ve grown with great success. See: massive rocket weeds above. The flowers are very pretty, I think. They WERE moderate, bushy plants before I just went inside for winter, so these ones’ll come up but the next lot which are springing up now can stay, and I’ll see how they taste. And I’ll plant more from seed. My problem last year was that I got excited about all the different things I could grow and over committed. If I have leafy greens, a decent herb garden, tomatoes and maybe an eggplant and capsicum bush, I’ve always got dinner. That’s enough commitment while I’m working full time. If I’m sensible about it I might be able to plan it well enough not to need to bed it all down over winter.

I made it slightly further down the bed. Jeez, look at those weeds. Just ridiculous. I wasn’t kidding about not having been outside in daylight for the last three months, you know. In weeding this bed I found THREE secret chicken nests. Sneaky buggers. Who knows where they’re laying now. They’re so small they just look like shadows, and I just can’t see them when they’re hiding. They love the weeds, but were equally pleased with the grubs uncovered and the straw to muck about it.

Lunchtime, doubly so.

Jesus, they’ve changed the format of wordpress AGAIN? I can’t keep up. Shows how neglected this poor blog is.

Anyway, I just sort of accidentally signed up for a Make it In May skirt thing at Curlypops. I blame Tanya. Also, my need for more winter skirts. And my desire to go fabric shopping. This weekend is a free weekend, mostly, and I want to do some sewing. I need to take in my craft camp skirts – they’re wearable, just, but big enough that they actually work their way around sideways if I’m doing anything active. I also want to make another couple of the same skirt, maybe in corduroy, because winter is looming and I only have jeans, really. Not too many skirts that work with tights or stockings, and keep me warm. I also need some more footless tights, and the one pair that fits isn’t sold anymore, so I’m thinking of using it as a pattern. Plus, I have searched high and low for a fleece jumper that is thick enough to keep me warm, but not $1 million, so that I can wear it around the house doing things. No go. Nada. Zip. I’m pretty sure I can make one that’s daggy enough to get flour or soil all over it.

Speaking of soil, I need to get into the garden. I’ve decided to let it go fallow again over winter – I just don’t get any light during the week, and my weekends are usually too busy. So I’m going to revamp it and mulch it and bed it down. Maybe plant some things that can grow without too much attention – some lettuce and spinach and the like. My zucchinis keep getting terrible, fast onset powdery mildew. One day they’re fine, the next, irrideemable. Which is upsetting because I will eat all the zucchinis I can get. I suspect the Fragnipani tree which has suspicious white leaves. Another reason to pull the damned thing out (I hate it). Maybe when the tamarillo in the front yard is a bit bigger and can provide summer shade – if it doesn’t fall over, it’s leaning dangerously and I have yet to find time to stake it. And I need to prune and stake some other trees. Which I meant to do last winter, and didn’t find time to.

Time is mysteriously thin on the ground around here. There should be heaps of it, really, but there never seems to be.

FOs for the year

Here are most of the things I’ve knit this year. A few things weren’t big enough to photograph – mostly a huge stack of dishcloths.

1. Garter kimono 2, 2. Aviatrix hat, 3. Mr fox, 4. June 015, 5. Cowl, 6. Paired, 7. Pair, 8. July 059, 9. Hanging out, 10. Cowl 2, 11. FBS, 12. Cloths

It looks small, in that little mosaic. And the fox stole seems over represented. Only one (adult) jumper. I knit about three more, in ripped ones, though. Oh, well. Two on the needles at the moment, but I’m trying to churn out that baby blanket (it’s huuuuuge).

I’d love to show you some of the sewing I’ve been doing, but don’t have photos. Might have to have a shoot. Not today, it’s yet another 40 degree day out there. Yeesh. Only 35 tomorrow. ONLY THIRTY FIVE.

On the plus side, I did get the drip watering system in, in time to save my poor drooping plants and also to squeak in under the cut off for the State Government rebate. I win that one.

Post Holiday Haze

Back at work today after a long weekend in Melbourne and at the Bendigo Sheep and Wool show with S.

It was so lovely, despite every step of the way involving some sort of delay or drama. We flew in on Thursday morning (after a delay, obviously) and caught up with my cousin and her husband who are living in Melbourne now. They’ve spent 2010 travelling around Asia, so we sort of lost touch with each other for a while. I mean, we knew what was going on with each other, but we’ve always been fairly close and I missed knowing what was going on with her at a deeper level than what country she’s in, or what her job title is. We also talked about some family stuff that we were having issues with, which was so great. I’ve missed out on being invited to a few things, which has obviously been really upsetting. It’s not on purpose (well… I have my doubts about one of my aunts, but  I am giving her the benefit of the doubt in order to strive for the moral high ground for once) I think it’s just that the people organising things assume I will find out… somehow. The cousins I am closest with have been out of the country or interstate, and my mother is NOT a reliable source of information, so I’ve been out of the loop.  I’ve talked to people and asked them to contact me personally and it seems to be all sorted out, but I have to be careful what I say to my dad’s side of the family. They all love each other and have functional families, and they get upset if I hint that maybe I don’t have the closest relationship with my mother. Anyway, I got to talk about that and not have to pretend – my cousin never really had a relationship with her dad, besides begin pretty unsentimental, so I could say that I wasn’t close with my mother without it making me a bad person. Such a relief!

Anyway. That was Thursday. This is taken from the Vic Markets on Friday, before we travelled down to Bendigo.

 We had to go on the bus, because they were repairing or upgrading the line, or some such rubbish. It was NO FUN. On the way there the bus smelled of cabbage farts, and on the way back we had some awful man sitting behind us droning on with inane comments about the things we passed and racist comments. Luckily I slept through most of that.

We went down to Bendigo on the Friday night and stayed in a B&B called Jubilee House, which was LOVELY, and the people who run it were just fantastic. It also happened to be near the Bendigo Woollen Mills, so I went there on Friday. Bought a few balls of yellow and green for my crochet blanket, because nice yellows and greens are hard to find, and don’t show up well on screens for internet buying. I picked out some colour combinations for things I want to knit later, that it’s hard to do on the colour card. And I bought some balls of classic. I don’t like Classic at all, really – I don’t find it to be very warm, and I don’t like crepe plies in general, and I find it splitty when knitting. But I want to make a baby blanket, and it’s superwash, and it had the colours I liked. I loooooove luxury, but the colours aren’t very bright – at least not the cool colours. Frustrated, as usual, by the washed out colour palette of Bendigo.

Anyway, we went to the show early on Saturday, and had a quick look at things, and S and I patted goats. Then I left him in the lunch hall contentedly reading while I caught up with people, and then it was basically time to go, if we wanted to be back in Melbourne at a decent time. Which we did. I would have liked a bit more time – I didn’t make it to the alpacas or the craft hall or the bunny lady – but I did everything I wanted to. And it was much more fun catching up with people.

I seem to have only taken photos of goats. Here is a baby cashmere goat. It was a week old and is trying to eat my camera.

And here is a grown up mohair goat, trying to do the same thing.

And here is a two for one, a baby mohair goat AND a grown up one.

But I don’t think I git enough cute into that photo, so:

This is me being very pleased about patting a goat

The goat was also very pleased

Goats are the greatest. Especially because up close, they look like this

However, I did not buy any cashmere or any mohair. I didn’t buy much at all – I got a jumper’s worth of shiloh yarn and a pack of pear tree yarn that they were selling off by the kilo – my score was 100% merino 4 ply in dark blue. And I got a shawl pin and some buttons and a few other trinkety things. I carefully handled all of my lovely single skeins before I went, so I wouldn’t feel compelled to own any more, and it seems to have worked.

Saturday night we went to see Bridesmaids. It was hilarious, and also I started crying about a half an hour in and didn’t stop until after it was finished. In a good way. Sat next to a girl who reacted out loud the way I do – it was that kind of movie, anyway, but it was good not to feel bad about muttering ‘oh NO!’ any time something awful was about to happen. It was fairly slapsticky, mostly in a good way, but I am a chicken about that kind of comedy. Luckily I bought a GIANT tub of popcorn (it was dinner) so at the start I slid way down in the seat and balanced the popcorn in front of my face, so I could hide. And I watched most of the movie through my fingers. But now that I know where the cringes are, I would definitely watch it again – especially if I could fast forward one or two bits.

Sunday I caught up with Bek and had brunch with her, and then S and I did some wandering and some shopping. I found a lovely duffle coat in Retro Star Vintage, which was excellent as all my winter coats are either too small, too daggy, or are a massive heavy military greatcoat. And then monday we went out for breakfast and then decided that, really, we were done. So we went to the airport early and sort of stared at the wall for a while. Well, I listened to podcasts and knit and S read his book, but we were very much in need of down time. And then I got home and slept in my own bed and it was SO GOOD.

I was sort of hoping that the holiday would be able to kick me out of the cold, dark rut I’ve been  in – nothing major, just that everything seems to take more energy than I have. It sort of did that – I feel clearer and less under a weight. But it is still dark when I leave for work and when I get home, and it is still freezing in my house. I want to do things, but I want to be warm more, so I guess not much is getting done until either it warms up or my lean to gets fixed – which will not make my house warm, but it will make it less damp and chilly. And you know, it’s hard to keep your garden going when you can only garden in the dark, when it’s under 10 degrees. Not very encouraging.

Anyway, that final whinge is sort of to say, that’s why I haven’t been around much. Because I haven’t been doing anything to talk about. The holiday did make me realise that yes, when I have free time in the relative warmth, and when the sun is in the sky, I can achieve things. So I guess I’ll just wait it out. C’mon spring!

Gosh, I’ve been such a bad blogger. I’m going through a real enthusiasm slump lately – about everything. I suspect it’s hormonal. I’m having my implanon out this week, and I’m hoping that changes things. I know I’ve talked about my birth control here before, and I have.do love it. But it’s not needed now and I feel like I’m trapped in that week of the cycle when everything takes a bit of extra effort. I can MAKE myself do things, but it’s no fun and there’s a limit to the amount of MAKING myself I want to do.

So, I’ve not been motivated to do things like upload photos to flickr, so I can blog them. And I haven’t really been DOING much to photograph, anyway. Some knitting, not any FOs. Some mending and hemming, but nothing to show off. Some cooking and baking, but nothing particularly spectacular. Very little gardening. I have called some people to come and give me a quote about getting my lean to redone, but that’s still in holding pattern too.

I did have a job interview last week. I didn’t get it, and I’m not sure I’m sorry about that. I’m going to have to do some reflecting on what I want. I don’t want to be where I am now, but I can’t work out how much of that is that I am just OVER working. And I always get cranky about this time of year, when I am waking up and arriving home in the dark. It feels like all I do is go to work and come home and do chores. Add general slump to that and you get a big dose of dissatisfaction. There are things about this job that make it less than ideal, so I might keep an eye out, but wait for something that is actually better rather than different. I got really great feedback for my application and interview, though, which is nice – but there was someone more experienced. So whatever happens, it was good practice.

I have been doing a lot of reading. Read a bunch of the Little House on the [blank] books. Re-read a few pratchetts. Paid off a large library fine (to be fair, they DID send the late notices to a place I haven’t lived in six years, for no apparent reason) and borrowed some books for the first time in probably a year.

Oh, and my cousin gave me some Zhivago yarn that she bought for a jumper and only used one ball of. It looks like this:

(Here’s someone’s FO using it so you can see it knit up)

And beige is… not my colour. Plus, it’s tencel/acrylic and while it’s not an unpleasant yarn to touch, I just personally don’t like it much. I was going to give it to the op shop, but if anyone wants it, you can have it for the price of postage. It’s a whole bag, I think, or nearly anyway. I’ll count how many balls when I get home.

Anyway, this was just to remind you all that I exist and to hopefully encourage me to do some more blogging, because, as I say EVERY time I go through a no-blogging patch,  I miss it.

Stuff and things

I’m pretty sure I’ve used that title at least five times. Oh, well.

Feeling really brain dead today. Been a week of early mornings, and I’m fighting off a cold. Nothing dramatic, just… the theme of this month seems to be me whinging about being tired. I’m not even THAT tired, I’ve certainly been tireder. But everything seems to take just a bit more energy than I have. It’s probably fine, actually. I’m probably just projecting my Friday Tired onto my last month. PLus, you know, it’s not been a good news week. All the bad news is exhausting. Not to make it all about me! But the continual pounding of bad events does wear one down.

I’ve been a big lurker again lately. My home computer died – AGAIN. I think I know what the problem is, now. Which means more money to fix it. Not too much, thankfully, but it’s been on hold for a while. And I must say, I’ve kind of enjoyed not having a computer. I can do most of my internetting at work in my lunch break, or when I get in early. And my evenings are plenty full with knitting and gardening and house work and the occasional social event – although I’m still being a hermit most of the time. The only thing I miss is podcasts. I only have about 30 left on my iPod. Which is ok, I’m working my way through a reading of Northanger Abbey at the moment. I’ve read it before, but can’t remember how it ends. It’s making me snort quite a lot. I’ve had too many friends like Isabella, let me tell you.

Here are some things that I wanted to tell you about. Here is a photo of my spinning wheel that I took to show Suse and then couldn’t find my fecking camera cable.

I have yet to actually use it. I was waiting to get some large house jobs done, and then my computer died. I’m going to need Youtube to help me learn, so that’s on hold, too.

I’ve been doing some garden stuff. Like mulching the front yard. A friend found a bunch of carpet by the side of the road and nabbed it for me. As of last weekend my front lawn is carpeted – and I haven’t had time to put on the mulch. Looks quite strange.

I also accidentally neglected the tomatoes a bit in one of the heatwaves. It was just too hot to go out and tend them. Turns out, rain and then hot days are just what tomatoes like.

Oh, well. At least there are lots and lots of these.

Have to be a bit careful actually because they are SO TOMATOEY. I made a tart tatin, and it was just so acidic and zesty. Deliciously so, but one slice was enough.

tomatoes are pretty much where it’s at at the moment. I bought a bunch of struggling $1 punnets at bunnings a while ago, and they’ve just started to get going. I was sort of hoping that everything wouldn’t make it, because I sort of had too many plants for the space. It seems like the only things that died were the cucumbers. Boo, I was looking forward to cucumbers. I’ve got some zucchinis that are going to get picked this weekend, and some silverbeet starting to hit its stride. Some flowers on some eggplants (eggplant plants?).

And the herb garden is just taking off, which I think I am the most excited about. Basil! I have never been able to grow basil properly. It’s either just died, or straggled on so I don’t have the heart to pick it. But the basil in my garden is aggressively healthy. I picked some for my tart tatin, and left the leftovers in the fridge for a week. I found them this morning and they looked like I’d just picked them. It’s amazing.

There’s been lots of knitting. I keep knitting something, thinking ‘oh my GOOOOD that took me FOREVER’. Then I go into ravelry and it turns out it took me about a week.  Oops. I’m up to the last sleeve on Avalon, but I’m taking a break for baby knitting.  I’ll show you that when it gets to the reciever, but here is the February Baby Sweater (rav link) that I made for the general baby stash.

Seems like a lot of people I know well enough to knit for, but not well enough to deadline knit for, are about to procreate. So I might have to make sure I always have a baby garment on the go. If I am doing the 12 jumpers in a year, which I still like the idea of, this could work well. The official group does not include baby jumpers. But I consider that a me-sized garment + a baby sized garment = 2 small-adult sized garments. Especially since many of the things I want to knit are 5ply. Anyway, I am quite pleased with this top, even though the last bit seemed like it would never end. I think I need to keep a realistic eye on how long I actually have been knitting it. This took me just under two weeks. Hardly eternal torment.

(Although it did take me almost three weeks after that to sew up the underarm sleeves and sew the buttons on.)

I went up to Strath (where S lived) the other weekend and hit the op shops. The ones in town are getting expensive and picked over. The ones in Strath? BRILLIANT. There are a bunch of antique stores, which are pretty much like museums. This time we just went to the little pokey church op shops, though. I got some good loot.

Here are some of the highlights. Original Harmony Stitch guide for $2.  ’Growing Fruit in Australia’ which I bought for the section on Espaliering, but am reading cover to cover – I expected it to be all ‘you must plant your trees at least 5 metres apart’ but actually it’s all about ‘cram as many in as you can! She’ll be right!’ I know some of you have referenced a fruit growing book – is this the one?  Paper Bag Princess was 20c and I couldn’t resist. Pot is perfect size for two people’s worth of pasta and also unbearably cute.  Suitcase was $4, and is currently storing linens under my bed. The brand is ‘Long March’ which I find quite inappropriate.

I also bought this blue vest which I apparently cannot take a proper photo of, but am extremely pleased by. It says ‘Italian Merino’ on the tag (and also ‘dry clean only’, which is DAFT) and it is soft as kittens. Softer, even, because it doesn’t have pointy bits on its ends, and it isn’t nibbly. It is also the perfect me colour, as you can see.

There was some other stuff which I didn’t photograph and can’t remember off the top of my head. Some fabric bits and pieces, a scarf, that kind of thing. The price quoting isn’t quite right because it’s one of those places where they look at what you have and go ‘oooh… $10 will do’. I am quite pleased with my loot, and I’ll have to make a point of going back there.

Productivity

At the risk of jinxing myself, I am going great guns at the moment.  The last few after-work evenings have been very productive.  I’ve been out in the garden, weeding and sorting.  The three cornered jacks are back, but in smaller numbers, and I reckon I’ll have them cleared out by the end of the week – it would have been earlier but I was waiting for them to be big enough to weed easily.  I went to Bunnings the other day for miscellaneous supplies (why is it that I always remember something ELSE I needed, as soon as I’ve gotten home form a Bunnings trip…) and they had a whole bunch of sad-looking seedlings selling for $1 a punnet.  I whacked up some dodgy temporary fences around extra garden beds, so that the chickens couldn’t maul them, and whacked them in.  Now they’ve perked up and I’m sort of hoping some of them won’t make it.  Because I have seeds I planted in pots coming in, and if all of the Bunnings seedlings I got thrive, I won’t have anywhere to put them!

Well, maybe I’ll get the front yard mulched and then I can put some out there.  It is to laugh, I think I’ve been getting ready to mulch the front yard for about 6 months.  I even got halfway through before I ran out of mulch and oomph.  Still, I have something like 5 cubic metres sitting in my back yard, and if I do’t get a wriggle on, it’ll all turn to compost.

No photos of all this productivity, I’m afraid.  I feel like a post is so boring without photos, but I haven’t cracked my camera out for ages.  Might try to do that tonight.  I had a peep at my rav projects, too, and decided that some of the photos are inadequate.  Don’t you hate it when there are no good project pictures for something, despite 100 people having finished one?  So I’ll have to have a photo shoot session, perhaps.

Speaking of knitting, also going great guns.  I finished the FBS – barring one seam and the buttons.  S was over on Saturday and feeling poorly, so we basically spent the whole day on the couch.  I took the opportunity to power through, and I knit all of it from the sleeves down in one day.  For some reason I felt like this project took forever, but I only started it on the 2nd, so it took me just under 2 weeks to knit, including time where I didn’t touch it because it was making me feel pouty.  I think because the top bit with the yoke and the sleeves took so much mental energy to figure out, I felt like I was over halfway done.  So when it PURPOSEFULLY CONTINUED not to be finished, I lost patience.  I am feeling quite pleased with it, and it would already be seamed etc except after two hours of weeding an evening I somehow don’t feel like I can come at mattress stitching, even if it is only for an inch.  But I think there will be more of these – at a family do on Sunday my grandma gave me some leftover Luxury in a lovely purple.  It’s not enough to make an adult sized thing, and I don’t really wear purple, but it’s PERFECT for FBS or other baby things.

I am knitting Riding to Avalon like crazy, too.  I’m almost done the increases, almost up to the shaping for the sleeves.  Zooming along. I’m sure it will slow down when it’s too big to be bus knitting.  I’m also making progress on Phyllo, but it’s a bit slower, because it’s knit back and forth and I am slower purling.  Plus, I just don’t like it as much.  Purling, that is.  I did consider knitting this in the round, and I wish I had.  But now I’m 9 inches in, I don’t feel like ripping it.  Given that that 9 inches has happened in about 10 days of intermittent bus knitting (only when it has been too hot for wool), I think this will go fast enough that I don’t get too annoyed.  But from now on, I think I’m going to knit in the round whenever it’s not too hard to convert. It’s just faster, and funner.

I am considering doing something like that 12 jumpers in a year challenge that some people did last year.  I feel like I maybe said something like this last year (or maybe the year before?) and it never happened, (or was that sewing) but… I was thinking that baby stuff would count.  Given that I already have one thing off the needles and another one halfway there, I don’t feel that it’s too over ambitious. I’d like to be more deliberate in enhancing my wardrobe, this year.  I want to knit to the gaps in my wardrobe, and knit things that make me feel eager to wear them.  Or perhaps I could make it a 12-wearable-things.  I’m not making any solid resolutions because you know how these things go.  But maybe an unofficial challenge to myself?  I’d like to have enough FOs to make a lovely mosaic at the end of the year, at least!