Sometimes life gets in the way of blogging ....

Sometimes life gets in the way of blogging - and the jetlag from that knitting trip around the world didn't help! But it was fun. Kathy should receive her prize soon - I only posted it last Friday (sorry, Kathy) - but there has been a lot happening. I hope you like it - a small possum is involved!
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The three big Fleas accompanied by various partners and baby Fleas congregated here, recently, to work out what they wanted to take from the various pieces of furniture that won't fit in our new, yet-to-be-completed, downsized home. It was lovely to have them all together, for the last time, in the home where they grew up. The eldest Flea was three weeks old when we moved in. The builder had gone bankrupt early in the piece, and we had lost money in the process. I was pregnant and had to work until later than we had intended and had no sooner left work than I was put to bed with toxiaemia. Meanwhile, Grandpa Flea would come home and tell me that the tiles (or whatever) we had chosen weren't available, so "choose one of these" that the builder had given him. The builder who finished the house was a darling and let some of our friends, who were tradesmen, do the electricals and plumbing, which meant that Grandpa Flea could labour for them on holidays and weekends to save money that way. We were on a short term lease in a small flat, in a house which had been sold, so we HAD to move out just after the baby was born. Again, another darling, the bank manager, came to our aid and let us move into the house before it was painted. And then our friends came and helped do the painting. So, despite the financial hardship, we were very lucky.

But I've become distracted - in the process of prowling around the closed-in storage area under the house, yet another possum guest (pictured above) reared his/her head to inspect the intruders, then went quickly back to sleep - although I suspect it was operating on the principle that if it couldn't see us, we didn't exist!

We have had a bit of a possum party recently. One night there were two little glider possums on the feeding tray with a rather nose-out-of-joint brushtail, peering down from a higher branch. I haven't seen this particular little glider possum before - it has a long tail like the brushtail, but is much, much smaller. I think it is a squirrel glider, but have to check it out further. Squirrel gliders are on the "vulnerable species" list.

Glider possums have a flap of skin between their front and back legs. There is different fur on the underside of the flap.If you look carefully at these photos (below on the right) you can see the edge of the flap - it looks white/cream along the side of the possum.




I haven't cropped the first photo so you can see the difference in size between the brushtail (the large, blurry shape reaching the feeding tray on the left) and the glider (in focus on the lower right). The other little glider hid on the other side of the tree when the brushtail buzzed them off.
Our new house is taking shape - slowly. There has been a lot of rain which has delayed things, but after beginning to believe that the end of the world was nigh, with the lengthy years of drought and the water crisis, I am not complaining. We are able to stay in our present home until the very day we leave to go to India, as the new owners wanted an extension to the settlement date so that has been very fortuitous for us.

On the knitting front - I started to knit the jacket that Kate did - have a look at it on her site archive (http://bluemountainsknits.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html). However, (does this sound familiar), in my haste, I knitted the two sleeves, then started the back - which was HUGE - and I'm no small person. On reading the pattern (notice I say "reading" the pattern - why didn't I do that first!) I discovered that the biggest size (the one I started) was in fact for a much bigger bust size than I could ever hope to achieve - my spare tyre would fit, perhaps, but they don't make bras for spare tyres! So after frogging the four inches or so of the back, I couldn't face it again. It's now on its way to becoming a jumper for Ms 11.

I finished one sidewinder sock from Nona's site, but will unpull it, and do an ordinary pair as I'm not too happy with it. I had a lot of trouble with the pattern, despite every other blogger in the world saying how well written it was. It may have had something to do with the fact that I tortuously followed the instructions - "do this and that for thousands of rows" - then when I'd begin the next part, it would say "AT THE SAME TIME ..." - get the picture? I'm a slow learner!!

I will put knitting photos up, next time. I have been using Grandpa Flea's camera and have managed to destroy the download port. The photos above were read off the card at the camera shop. It appears that the damaged port is part of the ?motherboard which costs $500 to buy! So things have been what we might call "a little tense" here. However, fortunately, I can get a card reader for only a few dollars and access photos that way. As I'm the only person who uses the download to computer feature (GP Flea always does it with the card at the camera shop), it really doesn't affect him, but it IS his camera. I will have to resurrect my smaller camera I think - but then again - his camera does take much better photos!

Stash ....gulp ..... enhancement ....

You know how it is - one minute you're vowing that you'll reduce the UFO pile, that you WILL NOT start anything new until you have finished more than one UFO - and then, across a crowded yarn shop, your eyes see - someone else, holding THE most beautiful combination of yarns that you have ever seen .... all the good resolutions run out the door. You feel the silver tongued devil sitting on your shoulder whispering in your ear - go on girl - you KNOW you want it - what harm can come from a little bit of wool? - the little Flea will look bee-ute-i-ful in those colours - you know she's been asking you to knit her a pink shawl FOR MONTHS - and you haven't even started one - how can you look into those big brown eyes again and tell her that?? And if you're careful, Grandpa Flea need never know!!

Five minutes later, you're walking out the door, bag heavier, purse lighter - justifying yourself, as the guilt slowly creeps up to meet you - it wasn't very much - less than $50 - only $49.99! - of course I'll need to put some other yarn with it - but little Flea will LOVE it - she'll be so pleased - I hope Grandpa Flea doesn't see the bag ..... he'll say "I thought we were decluttering" - "you've already got more wool than you can ever knit" - "you could knit all day, every day until you die and you'd still have wool left over" ....."where are you going to put it in our new house - it's smaller, REMEMBER" ... "you should be selling it, not buying it". Who needs self generated guilt when Grandpa Flea's around? But he does have a point .... just a small one, but a point, nevertheless.

Once home, a quick flick through the SMALL amount of stash that has not been packed away during the house sale, and the yarn for the prospective shawl has grown to this.
An hour or so later, and a shawl is on the needles. What happened to the UFOs? I hear you ask - ah, well, um .. it's like this - the squares for an indeterminate purpose have been hastily put together for a doll's blankie - and the remaining yarn returned to stash. The long socks - half knitted in New Zealand last year, have made some progress - one is finished and the other is up to the heel. It would have been finished except that two balls of Patonyle were not enough! and I had to join another ball in, half way along the instep, so I decided to frog back and make the join before the ankle. The last sock should be finished very soon and it can then go to the elderly gentleman with cold legs who lives near my daughter (I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I did buy him a pair of long possum fur and wool socks while in NZ as it was clear the socks wouldn't be finished last winter. Possums are a protected animal in Australia, but they are an imported pest in NZ and cause a lot of problems for the NZ wild life - destroying the native habitat with their voracious appetites, and breeding like fruit flies because there are no natural predators to keep the numbers under control).

Speaking of possums, there has been a lot of fighting going on over the last couple of weeks, and the shy possum who nested in the tree house opposite our deck disappeared and there was quite a lot of possum fur around on the ground all over the yard. I'm not sure if the possum was taken by a cat or fox, or vanquished by a superior possum and gone off to sulk somewhere. The possum box is inhabited again, but I think it is a newcomer - it's a bit hard to tell. The other night the inhabitant of the second box, who is REALLY shy, was making its appearance, well after dark and I managed to catch part of it with the camera. It's hard to take photos at night as I can't see anything on the little screen, and just have to point and click and HOPE!

Meme correction ...

The Knitting Curmudgeon recently gave some good links explaining the term "meme". Until I read these, I had thought "meme" was a symptom of the current social order - ME! ME! ME! - as they all seem to be about the tagee. The word is not in the third edition of The Macquarie Dictionary (Australia's National Dictionary) though, which makes me think it is a word originating in the internet. Maybe the links I mentioned actually say that, as I have a bad habit of only half reading things. However, to come to the subject of this post (ME!) - No. 6 of my seven random facts is something you could know about me from reading earlier posts - i.e. I have no spatial ability. So here is a replacement:

6. I learnt to knit when I was 18. The first thing I made was a bright red crew neck jumper in bluebell crepe. It had crossed and split stitches all through it but I thought I was so clever. The second thing I made was a large dark green cardigan/coat in a boucle yarn. This was my first contact with the world of intuitive knitters. One of the girls in my year of training had knitted herself this cardi/coat and lined it with a some sort of polyester satin material. I was absolutley amazed that she did this WITHOUT A PATTERN FOR THE LINING! She explained to the rest of us, that she just put the pieces of knitting down on the material and cut around them - and bingo! she had a lined cardigan. Back then, (in the olden days) it used to be VERY cold. I had a two hour journey to and from classes, with long waits for connections on windy train stations and bus stops and I was ALWAYS cold. So I followed the instructions and had a wonderful warm jacket to wear. It didn't have any ease in the lining but I was as skinny as a rake in those days, and it was a big loose fitting garment, so it didn't really matter. I don't think any other piece of knitting I've done has ever given me the same sense of achievement.

FO sighting! Rare & unusual event!

Before I got Ms 11's jacket in the post, I had an unexpected visit and was able to give it to her in person. It fits well - a little bit long at the back, but she's growing quickly. The sleeves would not have wanted to be any tighter though. She was thrilled. The yarn is Paton's Zhivago - a tencel and acrylic mix. It is beautifully soft, but not a happy yarn to knit with. The colour in the photo isn't true - it's really a mauve/light purple, not jacaranda blue. And I still need to find a brooch or a matching ribbon for the front (it's held with a pin in the photo).

Chapter 2: Confessions of a Serial UFOer

At last, a UFO which is nearing completion - as I knit the edging I keep breaking into that Johnny Cash song - And the Road Goes on Forever!. I still have about a quarter of the edging to do, but it's not the edging shown in the pattern photo - it's off another jacket in the same book.

This jacket is for Ms Just 11 - I know she'll love it (provided it fits) because when I asked her what colour she'd like, she said "Grandma Flea, it doesn't really matter because I love everything you choose for me ..." and my heart nearly broke with love for her. She is a special little Flea, our first grandchild, born the day after Grandpa Flea came out of an extended hospital stay for his bowel cancer operation. She was the "light at the end of the tunnel". I hope to have this one finished in the next few days so that I can post it to her.

Confessions of a serial UFOer

Yes - that's me. I didn't mean to do it ... and I'm really sorry .... but somehow it all got away from me .... but what's a girl to do? You know - you're happily knitting away and suddenly you're bored - that snazzy new ball of yarn winks at you - or maybe the subtle mixing of colours in the stash catches your eye - and before you know it, you're flirting with a new relationship - you vowed it would never happen - that you'd be faithful until the last seam was sewn - but now you're dancing with a new partner and your old love is lying discarded in the corner .... how did it happen?

I didn't mean to confess - but the enormity of my sins became apparent when I started to rationalise my knitting supplies in preparation for the move. Well, that's not quite true - it really started when I was rationalising the toys in the little Fleas' room - deciding how few dolls ' beds we could survive with - how many bedtime stories were past their use by date - how many toys, how many boxes of old calendars and Christmas cards, old wrapping paper, assorted pieces of ribbon, foil, pieces of cardboard, half used vials of glitter, toilet roll inserts, empty cardboard boxes (all for drawing and snipping, stamping and glueing) etc, I could palm off on my eldest daughter and the littlest Flea. And there, in the wardrobe, were two boxes of yarn I had totally forgotten about - odd balls of cotton that I had left in the house for TV knitting of washers and kitchen cloths. The rest of the stash had been secreted in boxes wrapped in garbage bags and hidden in a large cupboard under the house when we were pretending to live a life of elegance and ease while our house was being sold .....

So, leaving the little Fleas' room in total disarray, I decided to investigate the other places where I knew knitting things to be, with a view to finishing a few UFOs and tidying things up in readiness for packing into boxes for the move. Note that this is not stash we're talking about - that's another story - this is the accumulated baskets of projects etc that seem to multiply in corners at night. What a mistake. Mea culpa, mea culpa. How could one person have so many baskets? and how could so much stuff fit into so few baskets? And how could one person have started so many projects without finishing any? Of course, it isn't really my fault - no, I blame Grandpa Flea. If he hadn't had the temerity to RETIRE, I would still be happily knitting all day until about 5 o'clock, at which point I would run around and start the dinner and make like I'd been very busy all day - well, I had been, hadn't I? just not with housework ....

So, here it is - the results of my investigation - mind you, it may well take the next ten posts to document it all ... but it may spur me into action - well, they do say, while there's life there's hope .....

Some of these photos are not too good - but they tell the story ... first, the relatively empty looking basket in the study:
How did all these things come out of that basket?

My Montse Stanley book (I've been looking for that), numerous printouts of downloads from the internet of things I'll(never) make one day , a ball of mohair (I wonder what I'd been doing with that?), an odd coathanger waiting for a cover (part of my plan - the first part, actually - to cover all the wooden coathangers in the house ), an old Guild newsletter and ..... a bag of yarns I keep forgetting to give to a friend of mine so she can knit herself a shawl ... OKAY! I'll put it near the front door so I remember to give it to her - better still, I'll ring her and ask her over for lunch and so I can't forget, I'll ask her to remind me!

Now, while I was in the study I remembered that the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet had a few things in it .... including: a half-finished bag knitted in the back of the car in Western Australia about five years ago after I saw a sample in a shop in Albany - I lost interest when it didn't look like I thought it should ... OKAY - I"LL FINISH THIS .... the beginnings of a mitred hat. I think the pattern was in a Knitters' magazine - we know what's going to happen to this, don't we? a small jumper I was knitting for THE SHACK's street stall. A friend gave me a lot of yarn to use for charity knitting when she was moving - OKAY - I"LL FINISH THIS .... and some crocheted squares started to use up some left over yarn from a granny rug I made for the littlest Flea when she was tiny. This new rug was going to be a capsule cover but I forgot what size crochet hook I was using and the squares are two different sizes - and now I have NO idea what size hook to use - BUT I'll finish this by turning into a rug for one of the doll's beds I'm giving away ... and another half-finished capsule cover started out of sock yarn in the stash after I decided that I would never master the art of sock knitting... hmm - this will either be finished or become another doll's blankie ... and some little squares that I'd started to do for a back-pack ... looks like a Barbie sleeping bag coming up ... or a doll's cushion .. and a scarf being made to use up some donated yarn (for The Shack again) - not that I can imagine anyone buying it - that's the problem with a lot of donated yarn - it's useless/horrible/too little/etc. Maybe I'll finish this one, or donate it to the rubbish.

And that's only scratched the surface of that drawer - it's like the Magic Pudding - cut and come again. I know you can hardly contain your excitement, but you'll have to wait until another day for the rest of the filing cabinet drawer to reveal itself. Just in case you're in lorikeet withdrawal here's a more cheerful sight to finish with: and a Mother's Day gift from my eldest daughter - a vintage needle gauge -

Day 25 - Where Has January Gone?

At last I have managed to reset my email address so that Blogger recognises me and lets me in - I'm exhausted - it's been a hard battle! But that's not the reason I haven't posted for days (and days). We've had two grandchildren staying - one for two days and the other for seven. We picked them up the Subday before last but Ms 10 had to go home early to meet her obligations with Nippers (junior surf life saving) so we put her on the bus on Wednesday afternoon. She has been travelling alone for the last year now - it's a two and a half hour journey. It's a local bus company and if no one is there to collect a child travelling alone, they take them on with them while the office tries to contact the family.

Before Ms 10 went home, Grandpa Flea took her and Master 7 to see "Walking with Dinosaurs" - they loved it - Kate from Blue Mountain Knits has given a very good description and photos of it on her blog. Then I took them to see the movie "Arthur and the Invicibles" - they looked pretty bored during it, but came out wanting it on DVD so they must have enjoyed it. I was not that impressed with it, but then who am I to know the workings of little minds? The rest of the week was spent playing "Bub & Bob" with Master 7, taking him to swim at a friend's house, raking huge piles of dry leaves with him - which he really enjoyed - watering the garden with a watering can on the days when we can't use the hose (which he also enjoyed) and taking him to see "Badjelly the Witch" - a Spike Milligan play which he seemed to enjoy. I say "seemed" because anything other than computers is second rate entertainment in his eyes. Master 7 does love to knit - albeit in a rather gung-ho manner, so this holiday I had a French Knitting thingy for him. He spent hours making i-cord on it - 6 and a half metres! which he wanted me to sew into a draw-string bag for him to keep his money in - and, like the good Granny I am, I obliged.

Another major undertaking was a BLITZ on table manners with both, and GRAMMAR with Master 7. Using your knife and fork(!) and PROPERLY, eating with your mouth closed and wiping your fingers on a serviette were the main manners we attacked. With some success.

Grammar was a different story. I only attacked "them" as in: "what are them things?". Not much luck until I introduced an incentive - $1 when he used the right word spontaneously, and 50c when he used the wrong word then self-corrected. You have to be quick though - he started introducing "those" into the conversation at every opportunity! So we had some success, but I'll be interested to see if he maintains the change when he's been home for a while.

During this time the weather was atrocious - 40C degree days - the tree ferns have browned right off, and some of the bird's nest ferns are severely sunburnt, as is the mondo grass. I'ts impossible to give them enough water by hand. Still, if it's a choice between the plants and having water to drink, I'll go for the drinking water, thank you.

Not much knitting has been done - probably an amount equal to the amount of FROGGING. I've been doing an Annie Blatt baby cardi for Sue at Cherryhills, and I've found the pattern very confusing - even more so when I am working from the graph and reversing the shaping for the other side! In the end I had to write it out, and I'm still not sure it's right.