This is what Spring in Brisbane looks like

You know you've done well when...

Your Mum, to whom you posted the cardigan you knitted for your Grandma, loves it much that your Dad is concerned that she won't give it to Grandma*!

And here, because I have no photos of Grandma's cardigan, is a totally random photo of some lovely oranges from a colleague's backyard tree.

*there is exaggeration here. My Mum loves my Grandma so much that if Grandma liked a sweater I had made for Mum there would be a reasonable chance she would give it to her. There's no way Mum will keep the cardigan. The fact that Dad reckons the look on her face said she wanted to its pretty good validation though!

Monogamy works

But I can't prove it to you. 

I finished Grandma's cardigan last week, sewing on the last of the 12(!) buttons while I was at home sick with a head cold. I washed and blocked it this weekend and put it in a postage satchel and dropped it in at the post office yesterday. 

But I forgot to take a photo! Aaargh!

It is finished, I promise!

Memories

When I was little, on special occasions, my Mum and Dad would make pancakes for breakfast. Mum would get out the cookbook and it would fall open to the pancake recipe (it was the only recipe she ever used from that book, and it had been used so often that the spine was broken at that spot). Mum made the batter, and stood at the stove and cooked, and the rest of us sat on stools at the bench along one wall of the kitchen. Mum would pass the cooked pancake to Dad, who would pour on a little freshly-squeezed orange juice and a sprinkle of sugar, roll it up, cut it into pieces and pass it down the line. My sisters and I would fight over who got the next plateful, and it always seemed like nobody got enough before they ran out. (Looking back, of course, we were all really well fed, just probably a bit greedy!) I suspect that Mum and Dad got none.

I make pancakes for myself about once a month, and I still use that recipe. I think it's the only recipe I know off by heart. It's not the best pancake recipe ever - they tend to come out a little bit rubbery - but it's got something no other pancake recipe has - a huge serving of wonderful, happy memories.

And the best thing about pancakes nowadays? I get as many as I like and I don't have to fight anyone for them!

Is there a food that brings back happy memories for you? I'd love to hear your story.

Monogamy

I am still attempting to finish the cardigan which appeared sans sleeve in the previous post. It is a Sprout-growing roots, in the long-sleeve, longer-body variant, knitted with Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury 10 ply. I'm knitting it for my Grandma, and while she would never put a deadline on it, by my own standards, it's already getting way too late.

It is starting to get pretty cold in Sydney where she lives - not cold compared to parts of the world that spend a good part of the year under 10 feet of snow but cold enough for a woman in her 90's to make good use of another woolly cardigan.

I'm making reasonably good progress, but there's still three quarters of the sleeve, both button bands and the ubiquitous sewing-in of ends to go.
So, in an attempt to get this cardy finished before we're back into warm weather again, I'm trying something completely outside my comfort zone, something I don't do very well.

Monogamy..... Craft monogamy, that is, restricting myself to just this one project until it's done, or until I just can't take it anymore.

So I'm not going to do "just one more row" on the charity knitting- the crazy colours blanket or the camouflage blanket squares.

Bebe, my spinning wheel, is all folded up, sitting idle in her resting spot next to the Couch

The Man's Hero pullover is languishing in its bag

 

And this penguin is going to have to wait for his feet, wings and beak. 

 

I'm going to be busy working on my Grandma's cardigan. 

Affirmation

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of sleeves, I will fear no evil, for I am a knitter, and even though I hate knitting sleeves and I've already knit this whole sleeve and unraveled it because I got the tension wrong, no stinking tube of knitted fabric is going to beat me!

Surprises

It was rather cloudy and dark outside this morning, and then a sudden rain squall decided to dump on me on my walk to work so I wasn't feeling at my happiest, but then I looked up and saw this.



It's just light shining through raindrops, but rainbows make me smile. How about you? Are you a fan of rainbows too?