banglerama

We are drowning in vintage knitting needle bangles here thanks to the constant requests from a certain young lady to make more.

We have so many. Even if we were a house of centipedes we would still have some sitting on the bench unworn.

So it's time to share the bounty.

Miss Zgal has decided that we must have a competition to give some away and she is going to start selling them too.

Her idea was a limbo competition, but after explaining the issue of getting everyone to the same location at the same time would be a nightmare and would cut into her pocket money account, she decided on a different theme.

She wants you to think of a name for her new store. Yes the enterprising dear is going to sell her bangles at a craft market but she realises she needs a name. As I've already appropriated Zephyrama for the clothing business we run, she needs one for her own 'stuff'.

So you friends and lurkers you have a month to leave a comment with your ideas for Miss Zgal's new business venture. She will sit down and read all the names and pick three finalists and a winner. I'll then contact you for a postal addie and she will handpick a bangle and send it your way.

b'day gal

There is a birthday in the house. And she's excited cause she is seven on the seventh.
And as usual the princess in the middle has been spoilt. Wrapped up ready to be opened after cake tonight is some Meccano. She already has her new DS Lite on charge and will no doubt be opening more presents from T (uncle) and grandparents tonight.

And then there is the bowling party on Saturday. Spoilt, yes, is there anything I can do to tame her Dad, no.

You may notice a lone top front tooth in this pic, well she managed to wiggle it so much that she lost it the day before.

"Guess what Mummy, I'm a song, it's All I Want For Christmas Is My"

you can sing the rest.

As for knitting, almost finished the daycare jumper for the fella and the Jet cardi I have been knitting in secret for the Zgal will be finished for the party. Hopefully.

study in brown

As I spent most of the past few days in trains and at conferences I decided some mindless knitting was in order.
I'd already cast on and had done the 3k2p rib for this jumper for Jar, so I took this with me.
It almost disappears into the unpolished floor boards, it's a mix of earthy browns, with the occasional flash of yellow or red.
This is my standard, oversized pattern for Jar, done in the round, divide for front and back, short row shoulders and a three needle bind off. The sleeves are knit from the top down, firstly because I'm worried about running out of yarn, and secondly I want to finish these just after the elbow.
You see the Jar has a habit of getting sleeves wet, then off comes his jumper at daycare.
The yarn is an old Sirdar candytwist which is 57% wool, 38% courtelle and 5% nylon and fingers crossed no one will be felting this one.
I picked up five 50gm balls from an opshop and it's knitted into a nice fabric on 4mm needles, tight enough not to catch on anything but loose enough to be soft, well as soft as the courtelle can be.
I'm doing both sleeves at the same time with two balls, one the last full ball, the other a half ball and the way it is knitting I'll cuff it at the end of the partial ball and use the rest of the other ball for the crew neck.
Fingers, or needles crossed, I'll finish the sleeves tonight and knock over the neck and seam in the sleeves tomorrow night at knitting.

My trip to the big smoke wasn't just knitting or work, I did manage to head to the Town Hall pub in Newtown. Once again I've discovered another part of my history has been gentrified. No longer can you hose out the pub, there is carpet and it looks and smells clean.

red shoe day

I've always had a shoe problem.
Not as bad as Rose Red, but a problem still.

For years it was suede pointy shoes, ohhh big silver buckles like the flat points I was married in. And there is my 20 year, whoops, make that almost 30, fascination with Docs. Purple, cherry, black, patent, boots, shoes, I have them all.
And then there were the heels.

But now with a gimpy neck and arm, if I wear bad shoes I end up with a massive head ache.
So about two years ago the search was on. I tried them all. I spent a fortune on different 'sensible' shoes to no avail.

Until I went here and discovered clown shoes.
I have brown suede, black suede, oil coloured and red parchment ones. The kids even have sandals. I love them, I wear them everywhere. In kitchens, in the garden, at home, at work. With or without handknitted socks. I've plunged into thigh high flood waters to get a child home safely and my shoes have survived.

And last week I got some new ones.
Pretty lolly red ones and deep red with a black floral swirl pattern. Oh oh, I love my new red shoes.

Next, purple and berry coloured ones.

Sorry about the photo, totally crap, new camera for my birthday?
And now the time for decisions has come, which colour will I wear tomorrow as I'm heading down to the BIG SMOKE.
Which means a meet up with some lovely Rav girls, including Bex who tipped me off about the gothic snb, the wonderful Spiraling, Webgoddess, Tango-lovin Miss Fee and I'm not sure how many others.

And Spiraling has hinted at Thai for dinner.

Oh I love how my baby-eating work that takes me to Sydney.

more nostagia - the nanna-list

After the wonderful time spent bending knitting needles into bangles, an activity that has been done quiet a few times in the past few days, my Zgal wants to know what else I used to do with my nanna.

It wasn't just my nanna that I did things with, there was also time spent with Grandma and other elderly women who taught me a huge range of things, from french seaming for babies clothing to how to get pastry just right to how best to peg out clothing.

It was all fun back then, but lessons were learnt so I've decided to try and work out a nanna-list of activities to do with my daughter.

I'm not going to do water colours with her and I don't have a massive art studio complete with a wheel and kiln, but I do have a french knitting 'thingo'. For years I've been looking through op shops trying to find old wooden spools with a hole in the centre big enough for french knitting. Of course I couldn't find one with a big enough hole, but then I realised that my french knitting was probably done with the left overs from the dresses she used to knit for herself and her daughters which was of course, 4ply, fingering or finer.

When the craft show swung into town and the wood turners had a bit of a show there too and I found a hand carved french knitting spool (could that be what it is called) so next on the nanna-list is to learn to french knit properly. She has already done french knitting at school over paddlepop sticks stuck to toilet rolls.

Also on the nanna-list similar to the knitting needles, is melting a record to make bowls.
I remember doing this as well with nanna who then turned them into pots for plants, cacti if I remember correctly.

So I'm going to go through my huge vinyl collection to work out what can be donated to the nanna-list. The Dead Kennedys, Kraft Work and my rare Nina and Frederick records will not be given the oven treatment, but I do have some first rate shockers (Tiffany anyone) that were bought to be spun at drunken parties.

So what did you used to do as a child with older people, what else can I include on the nanna-list.

what my nanna did

Often during school holidays I'd go and spent time with my Nanna, the one that taught me first to hook then knit.
She also showed me how to paint with water colours properly and to throw a pot, glaze it and how it was 'baked'. Along the way she also taught me to embroider and read music and some where during one of those school holidays we made knitting needle bangles.

How long ago I have no idea, just like how she made them. So I scratched that empty head of mine and gathered together some old plastic knitting needles, my oblong (now is n't that a word from my childhood) fish steamer which I use for dying wool and some tweezers and Zgal and I set to work.

So here is how you do it. Boil the water, throw in the needles, give them about five minutes at a rolling boil, grab a needle out with a pair of tweezers and then quickly wrap around a tin or a bottle, plunge into cold water and you have a bangle. If it doesn't work properly, just throw it back into the water again to soften and then have another go.

Yes the needles are hot, but wear gloves to do this, and no, you don't put marks on the needles when handling them, they are soft, but not that soft.

So we made 17 using needles that were in a tin in the kitchen. Yes there are needles all through the house, and I can see some more school holiday bangles being made.

when i go out

This post was going to be all about the knitting I've been doing, the sewing. But there really hasn't been much of that lately. I've been under the gun to squeeze several week's worth of work into my days as I'm off on holidays for a fortnight, which of course means covering as much of my work for that time off. It isn't written down anywhere that I have to do it, let's just say it is expected.

Often it is best to do it, rather than leaving it for relief people, because when I have I end up spending the first week back ringing and saying sorry for the messes that they have created.

But something has been happening when I've been out of the house, the boys decided to cook.
You see the fellow is a marvelous cook. He'll look at a recipe and without physically doing it, he knows what he can change, how he can improve it, and he is usually right.
Yesterday he set about making his famous chocolate mousse cake, which involves fresh eggs from our girls, sugar, cream and plenty of dark, dark chocolate.
It is a favourite in the house and goes down a treat. But the best part of cooking with Dad is the licking of the big bowl and the saucepan in which he melts the chocolate.

Yes Jar Jar loves cooking with his dad. He doesn't really like the showering afterwards to get it out of his hair and from his ears and nostrils.