Hot in the city

We've had a week of hideously hot weather.  Over 33 degrees Celcius, most days much higher.

The absolute best part of knitting in public on really hot days?

Being able to answer the incredulous stares and comments by slowly smiling, peering over the top of my glasses and in a deadpan voice, saying

At the carwash, yeah

I'm sorry, our staff member has a lot on his mind right now - he can't possibly help you.

Aren't they though?

Carmelite Fete, Red Hill, 10/11/2012

Where else would they hold it?

Maribyrnong Primary School fete, Kaleen, November 2012

Knit Couture?

Picked this up from the blog Damn You Alexis. It's a D&G apres ski blouse.

Surprisingly - I think this is cute.  Certainly not for this little black duck to wear - the shape's all wrong - but cute.

I responded to the colour first, but the whimsy of the fair-isle print is very appealing.

Passioknit

TOF has set this as the wallpaper on his computer.

I'm a multitasker, but even I'm not that good (and TOF's just pointed out that my arms aren't that long)!

Chicken Soup for the Eyes

That allergic thing really sucked.

What sucked the most was the inability to do anything for days but sit on the couch and stare into space or sleep. I was too ill to knit much (what, lift my arms?), couldn't wear my glasses so reading was out, daytime TV is nothing to stay home for and I had no talking books at my disposal.

What I need is an emergency sick day pack of DVDs, tissues and teabags. But what DVDs? I used to have a video tape of the Laurence Olivier in Pride and Prejudice for such occasions, but it's long dead or lost. What's your DVD version of chicken soup?

We're not all hooligans

I was knitting at the bus interchange this evening. Knitting and waiting for the free bus to the stadium to watch the Socceroos lose in a lacklustre fashion to Kuwait.

The woman on the bench next to me asked what I was knitting, fondled the spare balls of Jet and marvelled over stitchmarker bling and told me about how her late mother was a knitter and how nice it was to see someone younger (than her late mother) knitting.

The bus for the stadium came. My neighbour let out a huge sigh and said "Thank heaven the stadium bus is here, now all these hooligans will leave!"

I smiled and said, gently, that I was leaving on that bus too. She blushed and replied "You? But I thought with the knitting and everything...."

"We're not all hooligans", I assured her.

Mind you, I think I like the sound of hooligan knitters.

Too tired to blog, but not too tired to waste time on stupid memes

The Name Game meme

1. YOUR REAL NAME: ah, now, that would be telling

2. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME (father and mother's middle names): Ian Elaine or for a woman Elaine Ian

3. NASCAR NAME (first name of your father's dad; mother's dad): Charles Clarence or for a woman Elizabeth Dorothy

4. STAR WARS NAME (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name): Bucant

5. DETECTIVE NAME (favorite color, favorite animal): Green Ferret (ok, so the ferret is my least favourite animal - but it's a fantastic detective name).

6. SOAP OPERA NAME (middle name, town where you were born): Maree Butterworth

7. SUPERHERO NAME (second fav color, fav drink, add 'the' to the beginning): The Blue Vodka

8. FLY NAME (first two letters of your first name, last two letters of your last name): Anan

9. ROCK STAR NAME (current pet's name, current street name): Peggy Collings

10. PORN NAME (first pet, street you grew up on): Ginger Sunny-Glee

11. GANGSTA NAME (first three letters of your real name, plus izzle): Antizzle

12. GOTH NAME (black, and the name of one of your pets): Black Rose

13. STRIPPER NAME (favorite perfume, favorite candy): Chanel Nougat

ETA - Certainly play along if you want to - I just don't do the whole tagging thing.

Summer lovin'

Each year the Friends of the Australian National Botanical Gardens arrange a series of concerts in the gardens during summer. This year there were musical interludes each Saturday and Sunday evening in January.

For a gold coin donation you get to sit under a canopy of eucalypts for a couple of hours and listen to some fine jazz, blues or swing music, depending on the evening. It's hugely popular, even with the local fauna.

The Old Flame and I managed to get to the last two, taking a picnic of hummus, bread, wine and knitting.

Although on this particular night, I'm not sure who was enjoying the evening more.

Funny ha-ha or funny in my head?

I passed a couple of Fitness First employees handing out membership flyers etc. yesterday.

The bloke turned to his female companion and whined "I hope we sit down soon, my legs are sore."

I was tempted to demand he drop and give me five for such a complaint (why yes, I have done boot camp).

Funny ha-ha or just funny in my head.

Industrial action

I'm as addicted to wool and yarn as I used to be to nicotine.

The two things are not unrelated. Knitting helped me give up smoking. Certainly one is much healthier than the other and the social benefits of, say, the charity hats, far greater than chucking cigarette butts on the ground. Economically, I'm sure cigarette sales exceed yarn sales but wouldn't it be fabulous if the opposite were true?

It is then, surely, reasonable to have the odd break during the day to feed my addiction in the same way the smokers in the workplace take time out for a smoke.

I wonder if I can get it into our next workplace agreement?

And hands the rustic stranger up to fame

There are many reasons for loving vintage knitting patterns. Last weekend's haul brought an unexpected delight.

Oh Aussie children of the 70s and 80s, do you recognise this male knitwear model from a Patons pattern from the very late 1960s?

Do yourself a favour, try imaging a large Akubra hat on him.

Yup, Ian "Molly" Meldrum . Hoot+

For more vintage pattern fun, read Chocolatetrudi's stories here and here.

And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil

Sometimes my work life and personal life intersect.


It may have been disconcerting for some people at a professional seminar last Friday, to see TSS sit down in the row in front of me in the last session of the day, casually extend an arm over the back of the seat, remove the TTWC from my hands and proceed to knit.

It certainly amused my old colleague sitting next to me, particularly when I photographed it.

Whose hearts the tide of kindness warms

I also like smart, funny, kind people.

My project bag of choice is the cotton rice bag - they work for me on lots of levels (thrifty, green, washable, good size etc...). A colleague saw me knitting from one the other day and offered to give me his; which was kind.


One arrived today, with this note -


I guess the reference to this year's Booker winner is reasonable for one librarian to another, but it's still smart and made me smile. I'm 45th out of 99 on the request list for this book in the ACT Public Libraries - more copies on order, so that should change pretty quickly.

I am my mammny's ae bairn

More Canberra stencil art. These are on another low retaining wall, this time behind the Salvos shop at Jamieson. The wee foetus has been there a while but the capsule is new.

What once was a butterfly, gay in life's beam

This stencil art is low down on a small retaining wall at my suburb's shops.

It makes me glad to see it there.

She talks o' rank and fashion

My Old Flame knows that the quickest way to a woman's heart is through the chest cavity and failing that, knit-related anything. See what appeared in my in-box this morning. Now, if we could just teach that model to knit...

Apposite

Completely tickled to see this particular company's van outside Vinnies Belconnen on Friday.

Who says you can't fight city hall?

A friend of mine is fond of saying "You might not be able to fight city hall, but sometimes you can shit on the step and run away."

When I was a little girl, maybe about 8 or 10 years old, Dad's idea of spending quality time with his eldest child was to take me to Question Time at Parliament House. I quite liked go but deeply resented the regulation at Old Parliament House that wouldn't let knitting in the public galleries. The reason given was that it annoyed the politicians and distracted them from debate. My opinion - my KIPing might have disturbed their kipping!

Today a fellow Raveler, librarian and vintage knitting pattern enthusiast took me on a private tour of some of the less public areas of new Parliament House and then into both chambers after a lunchtime pattern swap.

Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah - I win. I got picutres of my latest WIP (and yes, the use of that term in this context makes me giggle) in both galleries. Take that stupid regulations!

DW scarf in the House of Reprepresentatives

DW scarf in the Senate

Also got to go into the Budget lockup just hours before all the journos but didn't take a picture. Just imagine the scarf draped artfully over banks of computers in a large airless room.

The scarf is Jo Sharp's "Twisted Scarf" from Knit issue 2 in Jo Sharp Rare Comfort Kid Mohair (frugalled by TSS for $2, worth about $52.50) in a not quite smokey, not quite teal blue. Divine and all for me!