Sickeningly hip

I'm quite in love with the Hipstamatic and Instagram apps on my new phone. I know, it's embarrassing. I'm becoming more of a stereotype every day. It's just that they automatically make everything seem more interesting/are more forgiving than normal photos. 

I started my new job this week, hence the first day flowers. I've got a new closest cafe (given I'm now down the other end of town) where I can't help but read the horoscope stuck on the coffee machine each day. I got last day flowers from my old job, which were very nice.

In between seeing the third year solos at Toi and the first STAB show at BATS and the opera tonight (which I quite liked, although it is weird hearing it sung in English, they seem to randomly repeat sentences and words, sometimes multiple times, which you don't notice so much when it's in a foreign language), I went bridesmaid dress shopping with my friend Hayley who I'm being a bridesmaid for next year (I always said I'd sing a particular song at her wedding so I'd better get practising), had Baby Knitters Club and babysat (which is where the second photo is from).

Thanks to BKC and babysitting, I have finally made some more progress on the Pebble vest. I'm really liking knitting it, it's very straightforward so far. I don't want to jinx it but I feel like it just might be ready before the baby is.

This weekend I'm going to Mary Poppins the musical in Auckland. I am very excited.

Bike helmets and poppies

Just when you thought this blog had turned into a floral tribute (and, let's be honest, it pretty much has - this post will not be without flowers), I actually make something. Granted it was only a card, but I was inordinately proud of it because I am terrible at drawing and I drew something that actually resembled the object it was supposed to.

It was a card for Alex and Cam, who had the best non-baby shower baby shower on Sunday.

There were so many cute and comedy presents and nice people (the booties and jersey above were knitted by Aileen and I was really jealous). It was at a 50s-style diner and the meals were HUGE. Then Alex and Cam and Kitty and I went home and watched Burlesque. I have now seen it three times and I'm not quite sure why.

Last night I cast on and knit six rows of my latest Baby Knitters Club project while babysitting a very cute almost three year old. I am knitting the Pebble Vest which I have seen a lot on a blog I read. It's knit across as one piece, which mean casting on 80 stitches. That is one long row.

And in floral news, the very nice florist at Bunches included some poppies in my weekly $10 bunch of flowers for my desk. So far only one has opened and it has been amazing to watch. I wish I'd had a time lapse camera taking photos of it.

How does it know to do what it does even when it's been cut off from its roots? It's actually incredible. I hope the other three buds open.

Everything. Again.

It's been a week since my birthday eve. Where does the time go? Age.

Those are some biscuits I made to take to work on my birthday. There's a weird semi-tradition at my current workplace in which people bring baking on their birthday. Which doesn't really make sense, but it meant I got to eat Nigella's extreme chocolate chip biscuits with the five minute quiz, so I wasn't complaining.

I had a really great birthday that included being taken out three times for cups of tea, gifts of novelty socks, necklaces (including a necklace with a tiny working harmonica and a necklace that looks like bunting), and home made fruit leather, pizza with lots of cool people, wine, and me getting angrily adamant about how long someone has to have their full license for before they can teach a learner driver. Turns out I was wrong. It is only two years. Fine.

Alex gave me these tulips which have been the gift that just keeps on giving. They started out all closed and lovely and over the past week, encouraged by the gentle humming of the fridge no doubt, they have opened up and become even lovelier.

On Saturday the weather was yuck but that was more than okay because a collection of people came to my house and played boardgames. Then I proof-read a whole lot of short essays for a non-fiction book my old manager is publishing. I learned a lot about early New Zealand tourism ephemera (namely posters).

Then on Sunday we had classic movie Sunday and I got to choose because it was my birthday and I chose Annie because I didn't think I'd ever seen it before and if I had I couldn't remember any of it and it's very important that I see a seminal redheaded child movie.

Oh Annie, you hilarious but too long musical movie. Daddy Warbucks is both creepy and the best billionaire adoptive father ever. Miss Hannigan is probably me in 20 years time, bathing in gin. There are some strange characters like Punjab, and I was pretty surprised by the sometimes quite intense sexual innuendo in a children's movie.

Monday night saw my flatmate Emma and I tucked up in her bed watching the season finale of Girls. I don't know if I've mentioned Girls on here before, but the season finale was amazing and I now love Girls unequivocally. I really wasn't sure for a while, I liked the first episode, I wasn't that thrilled by some other episodes, I was disappointed we didn't see more of my favourite character (Shoshana), I have read a lot of the criticisms (and the hype) of the show and I agree with some of them, but overall I think it's pretty impressive and I am looking forward to season two.

Tuesday night I saw All My Sons at Circa and was pleasantly surprised. I had low expectations, but the cast was impressive and the script was very good (when considered in terms of the tradition that it comes from). I got a fright at the end which was probably very naive of me, and it made me think about the wider effects of war - beyond soldiers dying and the effect that has on their families.

Last night I went to Flight of the Conchords at the Michael Fowler Centre. The songs were great, they played lots of classics and a few new ones. There were some excellent surprised (especially during 'Bowie's In Space'), and Arj Barker's opening comedy set was pretty funny. I did feel, though, like Bret wasn't that enthused about being there. He seemed to want to just get it over and done with. Someone at work went last night as well and she said, 'Oh I didn't think that, I thought that was just him, or his schtick.' But I saw them a few years ago in Masterton and I definitely think they were more generous with their between-song banter and general attitude. I'm glad I went though, it was so good hearing some old favourites, especially  'A Hilarious Misunderstanding' which isn't on either of the albums but is very good.

And now I'm going to Christchurch for the weekend. I want to take my knitting but I only have carry-on and I'm scared they'll take it off me and it'll be gone forever. It's a hard knock life, for me.

Family heirloom

On Thursday after work I caught the train to Masterton for dinner with the Jacobson side of the family. While I was there my two great aunts, Olga and Paddy, gave me a pretty amazing present. It came with a card that read:

Dear Cherie, As the oldest member of the oldest son I thought you were the rightful recipient of the enclosed... When John was sick I wanted something simple to do as we sat and talked to him or he slept! I picked up a piece of patchwork that my mother had nearly finished and completed it to make into this cot cover. As my mother had a very soft spot for Vic I thought it was also appropriate that you should have it. I hope you will treasure it as a gift from the past which contains lot of memories. I hope you or some members of your family will enjoy using it. Christmas blessings from Pat and Olga.

My great grandmother died in 1978, so it makes sense that some of the fabric is so clearly from the 1960s and 1970s. It's very colourful and very awesome. It has a matching pillowcase and I love it.

1st of December

There have been signs of Christmas approaching - the tree in Midland Park with its sad, faded decorations going up, this awesome Christmas village window display in Juniper, a pile of presents being bought and wrapped in time to make the postal deadline for getting to London (and Ed) in time for Christmas - but today is the 1st of December and I am officially allowing myself to get EXCITED.

That's right. A Very Cherry Christmas was back on the iPod this morning, I'm wearing a green dress and my red Christmas earrings, and upon arriving at work I immediately set up this CUTE tree from Swonderful. We have our work Christmas thing this evening so I am looking forward to gin and yum food.

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.

Your presence is presents enough, but...

When buying people presents of any kind, I try to put a lot of thought into them, from the actual present itself, to how it's wrapped and the card. So when I get a present that someone has clearly put a lot of thought into as well, I really really love it.

A few weeks before Christmas, my aunty Tricia emailed me checking that I didn't have anything planned on any weekends in May or June. I was very intrigued. Often I know what I'm getting for Christmas because people have asked what I want and my list gets increasingly shorter as the years go by, so I especially love presents that are a surprise. I thought maybe she was taking me to something to do with food, as Tricia loves cooking and she knows I love eating... So when I saw a present wrapped in an old pattern, tied in cotton with a pink button attached under the tree on Christmas day, I had no idea what it was. Needless to say I was very impressed by the wrapping and the thought that had gone into it.

Tricia is my Mum's younger sister and has always been the 'cool' aunty, sending my sister and I postcards from Egypt and Turkey while on her OE, regaling us with stories of her adventures (a favourite is running for help for her friend who'd been stung by a jellyfish in Bali and having a very attractive man follow her back to wee on the friend's foot, "Nikki said, 'Why did you let him do that?!' and I said, 'Well it was him or me and I figured you'd much rather have a good looking man wee on you than me.'") and occasionally staying at our house and borrowing my toothbrush after stumbling home in the early hours of the morning after a night out (that actually used to really annoy me, I have always been very concerned about germs).

She now has two extremely cute children, one of whom does not appreciate knitted cupcakes and both of whom love playing with my camera - this is an example of their photographic artistry from my Mum's birthday dinner the other night (they basically take turns dancing crazily in front of the camera while the other snaps away, often laughing hysterically at the dancing antics):

Tricia very rarely stumbles home these days, so my toothbrush is much safer. However, she is still definitely the 'cool' aunty. My present was a voucher for two classes at Handmade 2011. I hadn't even heard of Handmade 2011 before so it was doubly exciting!

This weekend I recived an email saying the programme for the event has just been finalised and it's actually going to be so difficult to choose two classes. I may have to treat myself to another class if I really can't narrow it down to just two. Knitting, stitching, repurposing, cooking, lectures, tours...I am so looking forward to it! It was such a great present.

Something else I am really looking forward to visiting a little sooner is Holland Road Yarn Company. A brand new yarn shop being opened by the tireless and amazing Tash of Knitsch Yarns. I am really disappointed I can't make it to the opening of the shop due to rehearsals (Auckland Fringe is one week away....) but as soon as I get a chance I am making a bee line for Petone. I have a feeling it's going to be knitting heaven.

Oh, also, look at this!

This was one of my Mum's birthday presents - wrapped in wallpaper I found on my way home from rehearsal the other night. It had been dropped off outside the Salvation Army shop and was in perfect condition. I felt extremely thrifty. It's a big roll so I have lots left - pretty much anyone getting a present from me in the next year or so can expect it to be wrapped in this paper. The card is by Katydid; I've decided this year when I don't have time to make cards I'm going to try to buy only NZ made ones. I got this one from Swonderful and it's perfect for my Mum because she loves pavlova. If we ever have pavlova and there's any left over, she will always eat it for breakfast. Yuck.

Sock it to me

On the Saturday evening that Tash and I arrived in New Plymouth last weekend, we were both so tired we bought a bottle of wine, cheese and crackers, and sat in our cute little cabin drinking, eating, watching TV, and knitting the night away. It was so nice and I got to start the heel flap of my first sock which I then continued at Monday night Knitting Circle.



It's a whole lot of slip one, knit one on the right side and then slip one and purl the rest on the wrong side. Tash said this makes it stronger and more durable because the heel is where socks often get the most wear and tear. I believe her because she's a knitting super star, but it's still pretty slow going.

At Monday night Knitting Circle a nice new Canadian girl came along and finished the first of a pair of these socks from Knitty. She said she doesn't know how long it will be until she starts the second sock and I said it doesn't matter because this sock is so pretty she could just hang it on the wall and admire it as a piece of art. I had to use the flash on the camera because the lighting isn't very good in our little knitting corner, so the photo doesn't do justice to the true colour of the socks.


At the beginning of this week I also got some lovely mail. I love getting real mail just as much as I love sending it.


One letter was from my old flatmate Lauren who is currently away being a camp counsellor at Camp America. The letter came all the way from Westchester, New York (see the postmark!). The other letter was from Steph. After visiting her when I was down South at the beginning of the month, I sent her a book of short stories and a little card to say thanks for having me for afternoon tea. The afternoon I visited one of the many things we talked about was reading and finding the time for it, which is more of a legitimate problem for Steph than for me, as she has twin little boys. Steph said another mother she knew had recommended that she get back into reading through poems and short stories, so I thought Steph could do with a shiny new short story book to get her going. I got her Relief by Anna Taylor. Relief is Taylor's first book and it won the NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award 2010. It's on my massive list of books to read. It was so nice to get a real live letter in the mail from Steph saying thank you!

Things that are visually appealing

A cupcake from Tempt given to me on my last day at work on Tuesday.



The fabric for the bag I am making in my sewing night classes - the fabric on the right hand side is for the outer, the fabric on the left hand side is for the inner. Now that I look at the outer fabric, it makes me think of 1970s kitchen wallpaper. Oh well. I love the inner fabric - I love how it's like the design drawings for a formal, stately garden. Both fabrics are from Arthur Toye Fabrics and were 50% off. This week at the sewing night class we cut all the pieces out for the bag and pinned the darts, I might try to sew the darts this weekend to get a head start on next Tuesday's class.


Beautiful leaf earings by Duncan Mackay from The Vault. I got vouchers for The Vault as part of my leaving present from work, otherwise I would never have spent that much on earrings! They are just what I was looking for though.

I don't start my new job until Monday so at the moment I am being a lady of leisure. The rain yesterday dampened my vision of gadding about Wellington under blue skies, but I did go to the City Gallery in the afternoon. The John Pule exhibition was good but what I loved most was a painting by Elliot Collins that is part of the Ready to Roll exhibition of contemporary New Zealand work. It's a huge painting with what I guess could be described as a poem on it. I copied the poem down as a text in my cellphone I liked it that much. It took quite a while. Then I googled him today and found this video about him and his work. He is officially my new crush. Even though his hair is a bit too hipster for me, he is so CUTE (as a person I mean) and he loves his Mum. And I love him. Sigh.

This afternoon I went to one of the Go Solo groups at Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School. The thing I love about solos, having only first seen them last year, is how different they can be in every way and you never know what to expect. Some are more polished than others and some might not be to everyone's taste, but they're each only 20 minutes long so if you don't like one then you know it's going to be over pretty soon!

Weekend in pictures

And some words. Because I can't help it.

My little brother Hunter's hockey (he's the one in the foreground)

My cousin Hamish's 5th birthday cake

There's still some orange in the Wairarapa

And a beautiful moon

Some belated birthday presents: Cath Kidston's Make!, Hadley Fierlinger's Vintage Knits for Modern Babies (which was on my birthday list from back in April, I'm so glad I got it, it's so pretty and the patterns are so cute!) and some lavender bags

Joined the girls from Outdoor Knit

It was out with the old

And in with the new...

More biscuits on another present, my very own cake stand in pale green glass (so now I can stop borrowing my Nana's one!)

Amazing cake with caramel sauce at my friend Ed's 'Baking, Board Games and Beer Birthday'

A strange game called 'Imaginiff' (why two 'f's?!)

Overall a pretty good weekend!

The Sound of Good Fortune and Crafty Buys

Last night I was very lucky to be able to go to a NZ International Arts Festival show for just $20.00. Ever since I read about Sound of Silence in the Festival programme and the saw the poster for it I wanted to see just how this whole 'three hour theatre piece set to the music of Simon and Garfunkel with no dialogue' worked, but at $78.00 for the cheapest ticket bought under normal circumstances for a lot of the shows, I had decided I could only go to one show and I wasn't prepared to make Sound of Silence my one show.

However, very luckily for me, Guy's friend Erina lined up at 10.30am in Midland Park for the ten $20.00 tickets available at 12.30pm each day for each show that is on that night. She got two tickets to Sound of Silence, her friend could no longer go with her, and Guy said that I wanted to go, so voila! At 7pm at the TSB Arena, Sound of Silence began with me in the audience!

(images above courtesy of napoliteatrofestival's photostream on flickr)

(image courtesy of NZ International Arts Festival website)

I'm so glad I went. It wasn't like blow-you-out-of-your-seat-amazing, it was quite gentle and slow but it had great humour and the costumes and set were amazing. These photos don't show some of the best costumes but man I would so love to raid their costume racks! Surprisingly, you quickly get used to no speaking and it was nice to give up trying to read narrative into every little scene and just enjoy what was happening on stage each moment and absorb the overarching narrative of the show as a whole. That's sounding a bit theatre-y so I'll leave it there... Basically, those Latvians from New Riga Theatre know how to make a beautiful show and I was so lucky to be able to go.

Then today Anita and I went on our first Baby Knitters Club field trip to Craft 2.0. So many nice things of which I purchased a few:

Pretty lemon cupcakes.

Something I had thought might tempt me...this is Cherry Ripe by Knitsch. Of course I had to buy it because of the name (and the fact that it's awesome colours). There were so many beautiful colour combinations, Anita bought 'Almost Iris' which was light purple and yellow. I think I'll try knitting my first pair of socks with it when I'm done with the Baby Shrug (so, in the very distant future).

I was looking for a present for my Nana's 76th birthday next week; she is very hard to buy for because she loves reading but borrows all her books from a friend who seems to buy one a day (and the library), she doesn't like knick knacks - she has one small display shelf with a few select items such as a wee vase she bought in Sweden, and she has a set number of photo frames on the mantlepiece (4) and a photo has to be good enough to replace an existing one to get displayed rather than adding another frame to the collection. If she was into design she'd definitely be a minimalist.

So I like to try to get her practical things, things that she'll use. For Christmas I bought her a really nice tin of English Breakfast Tea and some honey sweets. Today I bought her three tiny pillows filled with lavender. She's been having trouble sleeping and won't heed my advice to take up knitting again (she just laughs when I tell her that if she's awake at 1am she'll be able to whip out her knitting, knit a few rows, and she'll soon get heavy eyelids) so she can tuck one under her pillow and use the others as drawer scents. The fabric is cute and I love the design and image on the Tea Pea label. This evening I'm going to make a card to go with her present, a bit of an experimentation with sewing fabric onto card. If all goes well, it shall be revealed tomorrow.

I really wanted to buy one of the Sweet William prints but that will have to wait for another day (or birthday...I'll be adding it to the list).

So apart from having to leave lots of stuff I would have liked to have taken home behind, it was a nice little visit to Craft 2.0 and some very good purchases made. It also made me want to get out the sewing machine, but we'll see. As my 4mm 60cm-length circulars arrived in the post yesterday, I might try to get some Baby Shrug knitting happening. First I'll have to work out how to actually do what the pattern asks but like Maria, I have confidence...