Weather to be moody by...

This was the weather in Canberra last night, as seen from Yass.

Angry and dark. And amazing.

Edit: Everyone's talking about the rain and hail - neither of which we got on this side of town...

Curse the universe

I'm a little sick. A little tired. A little pissed off with the universe and fate and luck and all that bollocks. I'm considering changing my twitchy fingers logo to be an extended middle finger. Anyway, rather than wallow in my cornucopia of unpleasant feelings, I thought I'd make a knitting needle roll. I think its pretty.

When I finished it, it was sitting in the sun and the reflection was bouncing of my daughter's green beaded butterfly shoes...

Another project I'm undertaking at the moment is the restoration of this lovely chair. We were driving through Exeter the other day on the way to Nowra and this masterpiece was sitting by the side of the road with a whole lot of junk.
I've wanted to restore a chair for a while, but didn't really want to spend any money on it! And there is was. I'm in the process of removing the varnish at the moment, and I'll need to repair a split in one leg. Nan gave me some lavender velvet to recover the seat with so I'm on my way. I love the idea of a chair with a story and history, even though I don't know what the story is! I'll post when its done. When I'm finished I think I'll drop a picture of it, and a thank you, into the letterbox of the house that it was sitting in front of. You know, just saying thanks for the chair...

Anyhoo. I'm going to try and do some cleaning or something so that I get rid of this nasty fug. So that I don't get to tonight and realise all i've done is wallow. and make a knitting needle roll.

Admiration of others

We went down to Nowra last weekend to see my Nana for her birthday. While we were down there DH's aunt gave Lily a 'Jemima'. For anyone who doesn't know, Jemima is a doll on Playschool. So this new Jemima is actually Lily's third Jemima.

Each of them is handmade. The non-knitted Jemima (known as 'other Jemima') was made by my Nana for my little sister. Its about 20-25 years old, and barring the lack of elasticity in her knicker elastic she's doing pretty well. Occasionally her hair becomes detached too... Her dress is beautifully made and I know was made with love. I'm grateful that my sister has shared her with my daughter.

The smaller of the other two is 'Jemima'. She's one of those reversible dolls. The other end is called 'Princess Fiona'. DH's great aunt picked her up at a church fair.

And the big 'Jemima mummy' was the gift from Aunty Jayne; provider of cuddles, kisses and fun, as well as piles of books and toys.


In terms of detail and craftsmanship, these two knitted Jemima's are just incredible. Jemima Mummy has roses, and hair ribbons, and picot edging on her clothes. Jemima and Princess Fiona even more so with individual flowers/patches on the dress, hair and hand ornaments and many-coloured clothing.

I know they're a little old-fashioned and some of the yarn is a little '$2 shop' in colour, but the work that must have gone into these... well I'm speechless. And I just want to throw out to the blogmosphere my thanks to the two old ducks that I don't know who are the artisans who crafted these treasured toys... as well as to the old duck that I do know (hi Nan!) another artisan who has inspired me so much to try and replicate her talent. And has given me half of her sewing room under the guise of 'cleaning out'.

We saw another talented old person, my Pa, on the weekend too. He's been bragging about the bag I made... saying it's 'bloody beautiful'. This is high praise from Pa - not that he's not generous with his praise, but its usually reserved for when I grow something he's struck for me, or bear him a great grand-child. And better yet, he's made a template of the handles from the bag and is going to make a stack of them for me so I can make some more! You rock Pa.

And to finish off this mammoth post, I attach a picture of my bubby girl with her two new miniature favourite toys - Sleeping Booffie (Beauty) and her Daddy-boy (Prince - but a pretty high accolade as she calls her father Daddy-boy. I'm just Mummy). She waltzes around the house singing the theme from Sleeping Beauty 'I know you, I've walked with you, Once Upon a Dream'... She possesses at least two of the things I prayed for in my child - a great imagination and a love of singing. She's also a very happy child so I guess I got the bonus deal!

Uh oh....

I've made the move into the new Blogger too... cross your fingers for me.

Busy busy

I've done quite a few little projects in the last couple of weeks that I haven't posted. The first was a gift for the lovely Josie. She was clearing out her stash in preparation for her move to China and offered me some lovely mohair-y type wool which I snaffled very quickly. I wanted to knit with it immediately and somewhere between casting on and row four it struck me that I could make a stole type thing for her with the wool to take with her to China! I knew she'd like the wool - she did buy it after all - and I did one of those "wind the wool around needle twice then knit" stitches. Any way, she loved it. And it can be worn as a stole, a scarf, a shoulder warmer or a snood! Talk about versatile. Better photos will follow...


Then I made this bag.

Nan had given me an old bag from her next door neighbour's mum, who had just gone into a home. It had these beautiful old handles.... so i unpicked the fabric, painted the handles and used two materials from Nan's stash (which seemed made for each other) and voila! I love it.


And finally, Golden Sun Moth (Synemon plana) - an attractive moth with green eyes, clubbed antennae, and no functional mouth parts. It lives for about 2 years, which they live almost entirely underground as larvae. They emerge after about 1 year, 11 months and 29 days, with their fully developed eggs, search for a mate, lay their eggs and die. They only live for two to five days, as they cannot feed. Its another of my threatened species series... this poor little mite is critically endangered.


Anyway, got to run - meeting the girls for Indian - Yum!