Remember, Simba

That we've had the shortest day of the year. It will get warmer.

Wellington from Petone in March

It's been really cold this week. Although, there is something nice about wrapping up in gloves, hat, coat and scarf and walking to work in the morning or home in the evening (provided it's not raining). Even if my cheeks are like round pink ice cubes by the time I get there.

What the world needs now...

I love old buildings. This one has such dreamy latticework (look at me, pretending to know architectural terms). And look at that moody Sunday Wellington sky.

I also love Vampire Weekend at the moment. There's nothing like some new (to me) music to bring out my obsessive personality trait. I have listened to their first album at least once every day since I bought it last Wednesday.

Lace, movies, and a strange game

On Monday night I went to a beginner's lace class at Holland Road Yarn Company. Turns out lace itself isn't that scary at all, it's just making holes on purpose (although my first lot of on-purpose-holes can't be seen in the photo, they're quite tiny). I was surprised to see that I'd already done all of the things on the sheet before as part of various patterns. I guess lace just looks scary when it's done with fine yarn. Maybe an Ishbel isn't such a crazy knitting dream - except that I still haven't quite finished my first ever socks and have a scarf for my sister to start.

This past week seems to have been a week of movies - Bridesmaids on Thursday, The Rocky Horror Picture Show on Friday and Sixteen Candles today - with a wee bit of contemporary dance thrown in for good measure - Thricely? Precisely. A Pocket Full of Pips.

Bridesmaids was fun, I didn't have high expectations so I enjoyed the fact that it was a comedy with all female leads, most of whom looked like real people rather than botoxed supermodels. The Rocky Horror Picture Show was a very different kind of fun, it was an interactive time for which lots of people dressed up. I'd seen the stage show many years ago but never the movie, and while you couldn't really watch the movie with much focus as people were saying all the dialogue along with the characters and throwing rice and toast and streamers, getting to stand up and do the 'Time Warp' with everyone else at The Embassy was a great time. Tim Curry as Frank n Furter was awesome and I especially loved Richard O'Brien as Riff Raff and Susan Sarandon as Janet. It's such a crazy movie though.

Today for classic movie Sunday we had a birthday theme in honour of Ed's birthday tomorrow. Sixteen Candles wasn't quite what I expected. The plot was a bit all over the place and there was some quite offensive stuff in it - the 'prom king'-type guy giving his very drunk girlfriend to 'the geek' to drive her home and do what he likes with en route - which may have been considered risque for the age group it was aimed at at the time but now just seems crass. The young Joan and John Cusack were highlights.

I also went to a baby shower and played 'pinned the sperm on the egg in the uterus'. It has to be one of the stranger games I've ever played...

Boom!

On Saturday night I managed to make it to a band I have wanted to see since I heard about them last year. They were awesome! As the poster says, they play 50s rock 'n' roll, R 'n' B, and rockabilly, and they play it extremely well. The different vocalists were great, but I especially loved the charisma of Matthew Pender, the husband of Monday night knitting Penny. He was clearly having the best time. Everyone was having such a good dance and I wish I had been able to make it from start to finish, unfortunately I couldn't get there until about 11.30pm. Still, it was worth it.

And now, I think it's time for a classic movie Sunday recap.

A couple of weekends ago it was Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. This was my choice and I chose it because I recognised the title and was sure I'd heard about it before (I think because it has Sydney Poitier in it). It seemed like it could be interesting and it kind of was, but overall it wasn't a great choice. It was a pretty good reality check in terms of how much of an issue inter-racial marriage was in America only 50 years ago. And I hadn't seen a Katherine Hepburn or Spencer Tracy film before, although I still want to see one of their earlier ones. What was more interesting though was reading about the making of the film. It was Hepburn and Tracy's last together and Tracy was so ill he had to film all his scenes in the morning and died only 17 days after shooting wrapped. Hepburn never saw the finished film because she said it would upset her too much. And Hepburn's neice played her daughter.

Two weekends ago Ed and I watched Amelie, as part of our countdown to our Parisian holiday in August. I've definitely seen Amelie at least once before, I think even twice, but it was such a long time ago I couldn't remember how it ended. So this time around it was like I'd never seen it before. It's such a beautiful, funny, quirky movie and Audrey Tautou is such a babe. Ed and I are going to be staying in Montmarte so I can't wait to see it all in real life. I think we will have to have some photos in a photo booth, as a cliched but necessary tribute to Amelie.

Spmething not so classic - on Saturday I went to see The Green Lantern. I would never ever normally see something like that but I wanted to catch up with my friend Janet and she had $3 tickets that had to be used on Saturday. We laughed a lot - it was so cheesy. And no doubt there will be a sequel, as the little scene at the end of the credits implied...

24

My birthday really started on Saturday when my Mum arrived to hang out with me for the weekend.

We had brunch at my favourite cafe in Newtown, Pranah. Their oat and walnut pancakes are too good.

We had dinner at The Ambeli while it absolutely poured with rain. I can't rave about the food enough, it was so amazing. Just thinking about it now makes me want to do a little shiver of yumness. It wasn't cheap but it was so worth it. It's such a cute little place as well.

While having brunch at Sweet Mother's Kitchen on Sunday we saw some knit graffiti that must have been done as part of International Yarn Bombing Day (I went back later on Sunday night to take some more photos).

And then my favourite street jazz band even made an appearance as we walked along the waterfront.

My actual birthday yesterday had some strange but nice moments (thank you Coffee Man...) and more good food followed by the Wellington finals of the V48 Hours 2011 film competition. And this cake:

Thank you Beth and Ed for the best knitted sock cake ever (when they first carried it over I panicked thinking, 'I have no idea what this is; is it a caterpillar? Why?!' but then I think I clicked at the same moment Beth cried out 'It's a knitted sock!' Thank goodness.)

Also, looking over this post, I might as well rename this blog, 'Wellington, I love you'. Because I do.

Keeping it in the family

While finishing the second sock of my first ever pair is progressing at snail's pace (but progressing nonetheless, I'm just about ready to start decreasing for the toe), my Nana is back into knitting in a big way after a hiatus of a few years.

In August there will be a new arrival in the family (my aunty is having her third child), so Nana has been knitting booties and is making her way through a cardigan; a pattern she has apparently knit so many times she almost knows it off by heart.

However, my sister is currently living with her as she settles into her first proper teaching job in the Wairarapa and Nana has been telling everyone that Megan forced her to watch a 'pornographic movie' (Love and Other Drugs) and she was so distracted that she knitted an extra row on one of the pairs of booties. She's very worried that the extra row is noticeable. I couldn't tell.

Blanket coverage

On Sunday I got an early birthday present. When I looked in the bag and saw what it was I was very pleased because in January I was feeling a bit left out. For my sister's 21st birthday, my two great aunts gave her a blanket they'd woven. At the time I said to my sister, 'Well, I'm pretty jealous of this blanket, now every one of their great nieces and nephews have got one except me.'

When Olga and Paddy gave me the blanket on Sunday I said, 'Yay! Thank you, I was hoping I'd get one of these some day...' and Olga said, 'When we realised we'd never made you one, we were mortified!'

I really love it and it's so warm, I came home and put it straight on my bed. I'm especially pleased it has some green in it and I like how every blanket they've made is different. This is the blanket they made for Megan's 21st:

Both are blankets that will be well looked after, for sure.

Sitting on top of my blanket in the first photo is another piece of my great aunts' handiwork. In April there was a family reunion (I was in Hamilton performing Tea for Toot so I couldn't go) and Olga and Paddy produced a whole lot of copies of the Jacobson family creed for those who attended and some for those who couldn't (calligraphy being yet another of their many talents). The creed was written by my great great grandfather in both Swedish and English.

Dear children, remember that all labour is honourable, necessary and useful: whether you sail across the ocean to foreign countries, or till the soils in your land as your fathers did before you.

I prefer to think of the creed in a more metaphorical sense considering I'm not likely to be tilling any soil in the near future.

Handmade

On Saturday I went to two classes at the inaugural Handmade at Te Papa.

The fibre seems to have an angelic glow about it in the photo. Well, looks can be deceiving.

In the first class I learned that spinning with a spindle is really really really really hard. I was especially gammy at it so after about half an hour the tutor said, 'Okay Cherie, come and sit up here by me.' After that I improved a little bit, but not very much. And at the end of the hour and forty-five minutes I was so tired from concentrating I wasn't sure I'd make it through the next class.

A reviving few hours in the Knit Lounge perked me up though and I got to covet an amazing crocheted blanket that someone had found at an op-shop and brought in to contribute to Tash's knit graffiti installation (which, unfortunately, I didn't get to see as I had to zoom off to the Wairarapa on Saturday evening, but hopefully she'll post some photos on the OutdoorKnit blog). I badly wanted to steal it. The colours are so great and the pattern is enough to make me want to learn to crochet.

In the 'Learn to Make an Embroidered Needlebook' class I got to do two very exciting things: meet Melissa of Tiny Happy, and learn how to chain stitch! Here is my not-quite-finished poor excuse for an embroidered needlebook next to one of Melissa's beautiful ones:

I was very pleased with my new found chain stitching ability though, I believe I said, 'I'm chain stitching! It's like magic!' aloud a few times. Well, it is. I also got to use a magic sewing machine that was all electronic and flash. Want to change the stitch length? Just push a button. Want to make sure the sewing machine doesn't run away on you if you accidentally put your foot down a bit too hard? Adjust it to a slower maximum speed. Magic!

Overall, my Handmade experience was a good one. I think some of the classes needed to be longer than an hour and forty-five minutes (I heard quite a few other people saying so and I definitely agreed in terms of my embroidered needlebook class) and that the cost of materials should be included in the class cost so that people know the total cost up front, but apart from that I will try to go again next year if it's on and hopefully have time to hang out a bit more. I wish the Knit Lounge was there every weekend!