In which, surprisingly, Alexia comes good on her word.

I promised another post and some photos. So here goes.

I suddenly realised that the last photo I posted of Tivoli was back in April, when she was less than half finished. I can't remember when I finished her, but it was a while ago.
Anyway, here is a dodgy photo of me wearing her. [edited to add: I mean dodgy only in the sense of the fact that I didn't do my hair and makeup and wear appropriate pants for the photo, not in the sense that The Man took the photo badly ] I love how it fits although I think the Zhivago yarn, while it feels really silky, is probably a little bit flabby for a close-fitting top like this one.
Oh, and I wouldn't normally wear my pants untied, it's just that the bow from the waist tie disturbed the way the bottom of the blouse sat.

I don't think I've shown anyone this photo (below) of Little Petal, from Creative Knitting magazine, can't remember which issue. I made this for a friend's baby girl, and I loved the yarn it was knitted with, which I also can't remember....oh, hang on, a quick look in the overstuffed knitting drawer shows it to be Elle Caress wool/nylon/courtelle blend. Very nice and soft. And I was really pleased with how this turned out. If I made it again I'd be more careful with some of the work around the collar. I redid it about three times as it was, but just as I finished I realised that I'd made a serious misjudgement with some of the picking up stitches. By that time, however, the little petal it was intended for was well and truly born, so I didn't really have time to pull it out and do it again. The Man tried to point out that only a knitter would recognise the mistake but it still eats at me a bit. Oh well, apparenly little Beth loved it (which I think translates to Beth's Mummy and Daddy loved it - how much can a newborn love something that isn't their Mummy or Daddy ?) so I'm happy with that.

I have number two of the Christmas Booga Bags in the washing machine felting as I blog. It seems to be behaving itself and felting nice and evenly, which was actually probably too much to hope for, considering that I was mixing different brands of yarn, including one I'd never used before, and I didn't swatch and felt-test. Obviously the knitting gods are smiling on me today. When I think about it, it was probably the knitting karma (knitma?) I earned by starting to teach The Man's 8 year old neice to knit this morning. She had the good grace and tenacity to stick to it for a good 30 minutes and was starting to slowly get the hang of the knit stitch before she gave up with sore hands, and she insisted on taking her yarn and needles with her. I'm so proud!
Probably because his cousin was doing it (which makes it cool), The Boy firmly stated that he wanted to learn to knit also. I set him up with a pair of blue 6mm needles and a row of stitches, and showed him the knit stitch over and over, and then he took the needles, moved one backwards and forwards against the other and claimed to be knitting. I'm just over the moon that he was interested enough to do that much. He's only 4 - I've got years to indoctrinate him... BWAHAHAHAH HA HA HA. Maybe I should start using the subliminal message audio tapes while he's sleeping.....
Unfortunately, I forgot to get his Dad to get photos of us knitting, so this one of him hard at work at another artistic endeavour will have to suffice.



Oh, and this one of him holding a plastic fish over his nose at a recent birthday party....

And some gratuitous roses, just because they're beautiful.

One happy moment

I'm happy that the reserve bank didn't raise official interest rates this week. Some of the lenders have been raising their rates anyway so I'm hoping that the fact that mine raised them out of synch with the reserve bank a couple of months ago due to "rising costs" means that they will be one of the ones staying put just at this moment.

I've noticed how bare this blog looks at the moment with no photos. So I promise some photos of something later today. All of my recent knitting has been christmas knitting for people I want to maintain the surprise for, so photos of those will need to wait a bit. But I think there are a few things I can show you. Just not now.... Must eat breakfast before stomach initiates mutiny.

Lean, mean chocolate-eating machine.

Oh, the significant other reminded me that I forgot to mention this week's other major achievement. Well, it's not actually this week's achievement, rather this half-year's achievement, but since I started personal training and doing a weights session once a week earlier this year, I've reduced my body fat percentage from 26% to 23%. Yay. But it is proof that weight training makes you more dense.

Finally! An accomplishment or two.

The first software release I was totally responsibile for at work was completed this week. I'm proud of it, but it's hard to feel excited as I'm still a little fatigued from the long hours I did last week to get it all developed, and there are other big issues I still need to take care of at work this week. We are quite understaffed at the moment due to a bit too much work and a number of people who have left but have not yet been replaced. There's another great developer leaving at the end of this week, so it's going to get worse, but at least we are coming up to the slow period over Christmas when everyone goes into code freezes. That does of course mean that the next few weeks are going to be hell as every customer wants their work done before the freeze, but it's only for a couple of weeks. I also got a bit of a compliment on my work this week so I'm feeling pretty happy about that.

Plus, I worked out a design for my Christmas cards and so far I've got 11 of them done. Only 20-30 or so to go. !

Oh, and the Christmas gift knitting is going quite well. I'm not happy with the handles on the first of the booga bags, but I did do them on the clover wonder-knitter rather than a 5-stitch i-cord as recommended in the pattern so they're a bit thicker than designed. I will need to work out an appropriate replacement for the bulky knots on the handles, but that should be easy. I might try actually doing the proper i-cord for the second bag..... what? actually following the instructions? How novel! *grin*

Another year gone

Yesterday was the third anniversary of Doug's death. I felt pretty distracted and sad in the last few weeks but yesterday was quite a good day - I lit his candle and thought about him a bit, but I'm feeling a lot happier. It's quite strange to think that three years have already gone and that so much has changed. But nothing can change how much I love him and treasure the time we had together.

Nothing to see here

From the fact that I haven't posted any knitting pictures for aaages, you might think that I haven't been knitting. Well, you'd be wrong. I've been knitting like crazy, I just can't show you any of it. Partly because I forgot to take photos of my boss's baby's cardigan and pants (she loved them by the way, but the timing was so rotten that poor little Cooper would cook in them if he wore them now, in our Brisbane 30+ degree temps. Oh well, I hope the thought counts for something). But mostly because I'm knitting Christmas presents at the moment and the recipients are occasional readers of this blog. What I can say is that the knitting is going really well, the only tricky bits are of the "what colour to use next" variety and I'm really pleased with the results so far.

Frankie says Huh?

Waiting to cross the road yesterday, I noticed that the young woman next to me was wearing a "Frankie says Relax" t-shirt. The shirt was black and of a style and quality which clearly identified it as not being an original.
Now, I can imagine a market for a new run of such shirts among die-hards like me who fondly remember dancing to Frankie Goes To Hollywood in the Rock Eisteddford in year 10, whose music taste is mostly floundering somewhere in the 80's and who still have Relax and Two Tribes on their mp3 players. But young women who would be young enough to be the daughters of Frankie fans?
I wonder whether young people will wear t-shirts with anything written on them nowadays, or whether Frankie's having a comeback?