Is that a cupcake I see before me?

I knitted a cupcake! From this pattern. It took me about four and a half hours and it's vanilla with white icing and a blue case (to go with the Royal Garden Party theme). The cherry on top looks more like a deformed red blob and I was a little over zealous in my stuffing, but I still like it. I intend to knit another. And maybe a third. With all that spare time I have... Tonight we planned the menu for the Royal Garden Party and it is ambitious but achievable. Yum!

Tomorrow night is the season finale of Project Runway and my friend Janet is having a little viewing soiree. I am so excited! I have really enjoyed this season and while I already know who wins due to google stupidity, I am still really looking forward to seeing the collections and hearing what the judges have to say. Because, as you know in fashion, one day you're in and the next day, you're out.

Then on Friday morning I'm off to Auckland for the weekend and when we get back on Sunday we have the annual Wellington Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards, for which we have been nominated for Outstanding New Playwright of the Year for our show Tea for Toot and Alex has been nominated Best Female Newcomer of the Year. I have a new dress and Monday off work. Yay!

Aaand on Wednesday I start a new job. I'll still be doing the same thing, just in a Ministry rather than a Government agency. We had a restructure and some of us got the opportunity to transfer. So it's goodbye excellent harbour view and hello ground floor dungeon. You win some, you lose some.

Decorative doings

Today I cut out a million fabric triangles to make bunting. I ran out of time to actually sew the bunting onto the tape but there's time enough for that before the tea party on the 11th of December (I'm being very organised as am in Auckland next weekend, time is disappearing scarily quickly at the moment). It's a Royal Garden Party themed tea party, inspired by the fact that my friend's sister is returning from England and Prince William and Kate Middleton announced their engagement the other week. I bought some blue material (blue blood/Kate's ring has a giant sapphire in it) in the Arthur Toye Fabrics remnants bin for $4 and used some vaguely blue scrap fabric I already had. My triangles are crooked but it doesn't really matter.


Also, lamest photo ever, but I knit a leaf in record time! Maybe it was just due to the relief of knitting with fatter yarn and needles (my first sock is ready to be kitchener stitched closed but The Bible tells me I need to do it in a quiet room with no distraction and lots of concentration) but I honestly knit it in like an hour. And I didn't have to mark off all my rows, I managed to just know where I was up to! I want to knit some more red and green leaves and use them as Christmas decorations, probably strung together on a ribbon or something. I have green and red acrylic yarn that isn't going to be used for anything else so I might as well.


And a random 'I love Wellington' photo. My first Kaffee Eis gelatto in many many months, on the waterfront, in the sun. The weather here has been actually amazing for the last few weeks, not absolutely brilliant every day but pretty close.

Half mast

I had been following the Pike River mining disaster news and, along with everyone else, hoping for the best even as the days passed, so I got a bit of a shock yesterday when I read about the second explosion and the announcement that none of the men could have survived it. But it wasn't until I looked out the window at work this morning and saw flags flying at half mast that I really felt the enormous tragedy of it. I can't begin to imagine what those families are going through. Even though it's so close it seems really far away.

I might as well call this blog 'Places I Go & Things I Eat'

On Saturday I went to the Rathkeale College Christmas Fete. There were whitebait fritters for $8. This was a bargain compared to Sunday's prices. There was also the cutest little Devonshire tea set-up which was also a bargain - $4 for a cup of tea and two things of yumness. The brownie was actually amazing, maybe the best I've ever had and I've had a lot of brownie.

Maggie takes some time for contemplation at the amphitheatre. It was probably about 30 seconds worth of contemplation. Being 3 years old means you don't contemplate for long periods of time when you could be doing better things, such as antagonising your 5 year old brother.

On Sunday I went to Toast Martinborough. It had rained all night and was still looking pretty grim in the morning, so Hayley and I bought and wore gumboots. They were actually the best idea ever, even though the weather cleared after a while and it turned out to be a really nice day. Hayley is off tripping around the world soon so it was nice to have a dance with her in the middle of a vineyard with the Wairarapa hills surrounding us. I love the Wairarapa (in case you hadn't noticed).

Exhibitions and so close sock

Isn't nature clever? Pink and purple flowers on the same phallic plant... I noticed it on my walk to work this morning. It's probably been in flower for days, but it's funny the different things you notice on different days.

On Saturday I went to Te Papa to see the 'Brian Brake: Lens on the World' exhibition. I hadn't heard of Brian Brake before, but I recognised his most famous image 'Monsoon Girl' - which apparently caused a bit of controversy as it was a staged shoot. It was a great exhibition, pretty big, with a huge range of subjects including another of his most famous images, Picasso and his son at a bull fight. One thing I was struck by was how many of the images looked like they could have been taken today rather than the 1960s or 1970s, especially those from India and Asia. Partly because some of the photos are of traditional festivals and places where obviously clothing and architecture remain constant, but I was still surprised by how many images wouldn't have seemed incongruous at the World Press Photo exhibition I went to the other month.

Also it was nice to find out about another internationally successful talented New Zealander.

While I was there I had a look around a small exhibition on some key events in New Zealand's social history from about the 1950s. It had bits on women's rights (legalising abortion in NZ), the homosexual law reform bill, and the 1981 Springbok tour. All things I know a bit about already thanks to history at high school and my Gender and Women's Studies major, but seeing footage from those events is still pretty confronting. I got a bit emotional watching the video about the homosexual law reform bill. Some man was standing on stage denouncing homosexuality and saying 'that sort' should be kicked to the gutter and left to die etc and it was so upsetting, to see people standing up and cheering at his words. And to think that was only just over 20 years ago.


There were some nice things though, this made me smile because that Crown Lynn dinner set is what my Nana still has. And I love the wedding dress.

There was also a small exhibition on fashion ('Enriching Fashion: An Eye for Detail') which included this amazingly detailed embroidered christening gown. I can't even imagine how long it took to embroider such tiny details. And it's white on white which must be hard on the eyes.


Not so hard on the eyes, but hard on the patience is my first sock. So close to being finished! Speeding down decrease lane I can almost taste the kitchener stitch (which I'm slightly dreading). And I'm feeling vaguely enthused about casting on the second one - even though I can't remember how I did it the first time around, considering it's been about 5 months.

A picnic, a knitted bed bug, and more movies

Picnicking on democracy

The weather has been pretty lovely in Wellington for the past week or so. Every fortnight Ed, Adrianne, and I have our payday lunch (aka Government Workers Who Lunch) and last week the weather was so nice we had a picnic on the grass outside parliament.

Bed bug (photo courtesy of Katherine)

My knitting protege seems to be well on the way to surpassing my rudimentary knitting skills. A week after learning to knit she made this little bed bug, from the book Knitting Mochimochi. In other knitting news, I have started the toe of my sock!


After a short classic movie Sunday hiatus due to busy lives, Alex, Ed, and I watched To Kill A Mockingbird last night. I read the book about nine years ago so I vaguely remembered the story and that there were some scary bits. There were definitely some scary bits in the movie. I really enjoyed it, it's definitely not fast paced - it has to have the longest court room scene in the history of film (okay that's an exaggeration, I'm sure there are longer) - but Gregory Peck who plays the Dad, Atticus Finch, has an amazing voice so I could happily have listened to him all night. And the girl who plays Scout is very grounded and believable. Apparently in real life she is now an art restorer and 'college testing coordinator'.

I have seen too many movies lately to report on them all (Made in Dagenham - a very cliched and stereotyped portrayal of an underdog triumphing story but great 1960s hair and costumes, and Jules et Jim - very strange French movie from 1962) but I highly recommend Animal Kingdom. I wasn't sure it would be my cup of tea because it's an Australian movie about a Melbourne crime family, but it was so well done. There is nothing gratuitous about the murders or violence, in fact you actually see relatively little of that. It is more about the relationships in the family and the characters - who are all very complex and well-drawn/realised. I loved how some parts were handled in unexpected ways - when the armed police burst into the house and arrest everyone it's not the usual high-energy, loud, face-paced scene, it's in slow motion with a love ballad playing. See it!

C'est fini!

Finally, on Saturday night I had a bit of a craft time at my friend Beth's house and finished the baby pinnafore (she made a toast cushion - I wish I'd taken a photo, it's very cool). I had machine sewn the buttonholes a wee while ago and they didn't go so well. They were lumpy and when I opened them using the fabric cutting part of the quick unpick, it nipped the edges of the sewn buttonholes and the thread frayed. So I had to painstakingly handsew the edges of the open buttonholes to make sure they didn't fray more. They don't look that great but they are done and I think it looks very cute. Now I need a baby to give it to, or it's going to be waiting a long time in my wardrobe.

I saw this on my way to work this morning and I had to take a photo:


It was so mega it went right around the corner. I bet by the time whoever drew it had finished drawing, it was time for them to go inside.