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?

I’m still here

I thought I’d better pop in and let you know that I’m still alive and still doing stuff, I just haven’t really been able to put enough cohesive thoughts together for sensible blog posts.

Work has been extremely busy. The job I do means that we have a rush towards the end of every year and it has been particularly hectic this year. I’ve been very stressed out and probably haven’t been the nicest person to be with, but I work with a great team and they keep coming to work and just getting it done, so I keep going, sometimes more for their sake than mine.

I have the worst case of startitis… on the needles at the moment I have a lap blanket for my Nanna, who’s in a nursing home, a jumper for The Man, the very beginnings of a shawl for me, a Sack-Boy for The Boy, and a short cardigan/shrug for me. I still haven’t finished my Margot or my knitting olympics cardi.

I’m concentrating on the cardi shrug at the moment as I’ve found it hard to find reasonably priced tops that I like for work in summer, but I’ve found heaps of great singlet tops. I don’t feel comfortable leaviing my shoulders bare at work so I’m aiming to make a number of little shrugs and short cardis to cover my shoulders. This will be number two in the collection (the first being my February Lady).

The other big thing in my life at the moment is choir. I’ve been a member of Vox Populus, the community choir of the Queensland Youth Choir for almost a year now. We are in final rehearsals for our Gala Concert next Saturday and I still have a bit to learn. It’s all sounding amazing though – I just hope I can learn the two last songs well enough to be confident without my sheet music next Saturday.

If you’re in Brisbane next weekend and in the mood for some great choral music, we’re singing at Brisbane Boys Grammar next Saturday from 6.30pm. It’s not just my choir, it’s all of the QYC ensembles, plus a number of special items. Tickets are available at the door (Adults: $20, Concession: $15, Children: $10 ).

My cunning and devious plan for the christmas knitting season

Yesterday’s Yarn Harlot page-a-day calendar page contained a note that there were 9 weeks till christmas, which was a fairly strong hint to get on with the christmas knitting.

I know that a lot of knitters get worked up over the whole christmas knitting thing and I think that it’s brilliant that lucky people will be getting lovingly hand-knitted gifts, but this year my cunning and devious plan to deal with it is this:

I don’t think anyone is getting a knitted gift from me this christmas.

There. I said it.

Now please don’t think I’m evil, or uncaring, or a scandalous blight on the knitting world. (Well – you can think those things of me if you want – but I’d rather you didn’t)

My reasoning is this – If I want to knit something for someone, usually I just do it, regardless of whether there’s a birthday or christmas or other officially sanctioned gift-giving opportunity involved; there’s enough going on in my life for me not to want to take on the stress of knitting many gifts in time for christmas, and a lot of the smaller gifts knitters often make for christmas (like hats, cowls, mittens and scarves) just don’t make sense here since it is the middle of summer, and it’s too hot for mittens here even in winter! (and before you start, I don’t knit socks. Ever. For anyone. Not even The Man. Or my Mum.)

Although….The Boy has asked for a Sack Boy, and I have two nieces and a nephew for whom I haven’t made christmas stockings…and…

If anyone needs me, I’ll be hiding in the stash room, hyperventilating about how I’m going to get everything done now that there’s only really 8.5 weeks until christmas……..

It Gets Better

I was shocked and saddened recently to read about Tyler Clementi, an 18 year old gay man from Rutgers University in New Jersey, who died when he jumped from the George Washington bridge after his roommate secretly filmed Tyler's private life and streamed it on the internet.The statistics around all the young men and women committing suicide because of persecution related to their sexuality are staggering.

I can't imagine what it must be like to be so persecuted for something that to me seems so natural. We can no more choose our sexuality than we can choose our skin colour, or whether we like the taste of capsicums. 

Please go and read this post by the gorgeous and talented Franklin Habit on his blog, The Panopticon, discussing his experiences and the It Gets Better project. As a straight, Australian woman, I can stand on the sidelines and shout about how abhorrent anti-LGBT sentiment is to me, and I can quietly provide my support to anyone who needs it, but I can't speak from experience. Franklin can, and does, so very eloquently.

Proud

This is not the first yarn I've spun on my spinning wheel, but it is the first that I'm really proud of. It's 19.5micron merino from Highland Felting and Fibre Supplies, which I hand-dyed with Queen's food colouring before spinning. It is incredibly soft.

I'm not certain what this is going to become, but I know it is going to be something for me. I think a nice soft drapy scarf will be nice.

ps - I've been writing a long post about my spinning wheel but it isn't quite finished yet - I need to get a couple more photos. Hopefully it will be finished soon.

What?!!! No allen key?

These bookshelves (Billy, by IKEA) disappointed by not containing one single fastener that required the use of an allen key. I thought EVERYTHING at IKEA, even the swedish meatballs, required assembly using an allen key. Obviously I'm wrong (and despite the fact that the restaurant was almost full when we left the store, not one single person was eating their meal using an allen key, so I must be wrong there too!)

But, they are proving their usefulness by allowing me to turn this...

Into this...

Well, not quite.  I still have about 5 boxes of books to go, and three more 80cm wide Billy bookcases. Of course, we measured incorrectly and at least one of the bookcases, and possibly two, are not going to fit in the room. We hope the lovely people at IKEA will take them back and exchange them for other attractive and functional Scandinavian self-assembly furniture with unusual names. 

And now I can start using the emptied moving boxes to try and organise the craft room. Currently it looks like this.

...which is completely unmanagable, but at least is serving to remind me how much cool stuff I have in the stash.

One of the reasons I love my family

I had a rotten day yesterday. Crazy busy, trying to manage about 5 or 6 serious problems at once, and to top it all off, our new staff member, who has been with us for under 2 weeks, decided that it wasn't the job for him, and resigned.

I had to stay late to take care of some of the issues, and stumbled in the door at home at 9.30, tired and cold from the walk from the bus in the wind.

When I got inside, The Boy was really excited and told me that he had made something to cheer me up after my bad day. I walked into the games room to find this:  

It's a Doctor and TARDIS made from Lego. Some artistic licence, and some forced by the available Lego pieces, but just gorgeous nonetheless, and just perfect to cheer me up after a nasty day.

Have I ever told you I love my family?