Make like a tree and...

I finally posted my leaves for 'It's a Tree!' today. I only managed five but I think they're a good five.

I also went to The Yarn Studio at Nancy's to pick up the goodies they are donating for Wellington World Wide Knit in Public Day. I hadn't been to Nancy's before and The Yarn Studio is such a lovely wee corner full of such yum-ness as Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino and examples of garments.

And something I'd heard about but not seen in real life, Noro.

Not sure I'm a fan, but it was nice to see it in real life.

The count down to the WWKiP Day event at Victoria St Cafe next Sunday is on! The information about it is up in the top right corner of the blog, hopefully we get a good turn out otherwise I'll have to take all the lovely donated goodies home myself...

Pretty things

As mentioned last week, this time of year seems to be birthday season for me. My friend Hayley is a primary school teacher and for the past few years I have bought her a picture book for Christmas and her birthday as part of her present. For her birthday this year I got her Old Hu-Hu by Kyle Mewburn, illustrated by Rachel Driscoll. It is such a beautiful book, from the story, to the way it is written, and the amazing illustrations. No wonder it won the New Zealand Post Children's Book of the Year 2010 award. It's the story of little Hu-Hu-Tu's search for understanding after Old Hu-Hu dies and while some of the ideas in the story could be interpreted as Buddhist, the conclusion that little Hu-Hu-Tu comes to (that someone lives on in the memories of others) is essentially non-religious. I definitely think I will have to buy a copy for myself.


Two weeks ago now I saw A Single Man at The Paramount. It is a ridiculously beautiful movie (unsurprisingly considering Tom Ford directed it). A couple of times I actually wanted to laugh because everything was just so attractive. All the men have chiseled bodies and when we first see the character of Kenny Potter he is wearing a creamy fluffy sweater and crisp white pants ever so casually, his hair flopping just so. In her dinner party scenes Julianne Moore's character has amazing hair (which you can see in the poster image) and a fantastic dress with what I can only describe as a cape attached. I want it. I loved the entrance hall full of orange trees in her house and in fact the early 1960s era clothing and decor in general is what I loved most about the movie. Overall, I thought the movie itself was a bit slow but I think it's worth seeing for the sheer visual beauty. For a more...considered review you can read this from The Guardian.

And that's my arts round-up for the day! (Clearly not a lot of knitting is happening at the moment)

"Goodbye Toot!", chorused his friends, chuckling.

Seeing this on the mornings that I walked to work this week made me laugh and I had to take a photo. Toot vs. The All Blacks. No prizes for guessing whose total audience number will be bigger. I am not a fan of rugby; maybe because I don't understand the rules, but I just don't see the attraction of watching people run into each other and come off the field with mangled ears and bloody faces. Then again, I never have been very sporty...

Our show ended last night and after packing out we had a few drinks at our fellow cast member's house. It was like an amazing crazy museum - there were two old Air NZ Business Class seats in one room, along with a weird and wonderful assortment of kitsch and strange objects all over the house. Charles and Diana commemorative china, beheaded My Little Ponies, china figurines with bionic limbs...just so much stuff! I hope they don't have to move house any time soon, packing it all would be a nightmare.

A wall in the R&R Museum - you can see the china figurines with bionic limbs sitting next to a spaceship on top of a china cabinet (that is full of funky old china like the stuff on the cover of this book - so jealous)

I baked some biscuits for the occasion that I have been wanting to try to make ever since my old flatmate Lauren's friend Marcy brought them around one weekend and posted me the recipe when I asked for it (I was so surprised when I got it in the mail - she lives in Timaru and was only up for the weekend - so often you ask people for a recipe and they say 'Sure I'll email it to you' and they never do; so big thumbs up for Marcy!). They are a Nigella Lawson recipe, called Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies. Honestly, SO MUCH CHOCOLATE.

The mixture

The mess

The biscuits

The recommended 18 mins at 170 degrees celsius was much too long in our oven on fan bake (especially because they seemed to spread out a lot while cooking, making them thinner than the ones Marcy made) so they were a little over-cooked around the edges after only 12 minutes, but not enough to worry about and they tasted amazing. Definitely only for special occasions though, the amount of chocolate, sugar, and butter in them is criminal!

The Challenge accepted

So before Anita left for England, I challenged her to go to one of the three yarn shops in London I found online that looked cool and to take photos. She is so obedient! 2 days into her holiday and I get this:

It looks so cool! I want to go IN there! The blackboard says 'Bar List' - they have a bar in a yarn shop?! Amazing! I Knit London is now on my list of places to go one day - it seems so crazy that only last week I was looking at the I Knit London website and telling someone to go there and then voila, through the magic of the internet a week later I get a photo of that person standing in front of it looking all happy and wearing summer clothing (not the above photo obviously because Anita is not a man who has a man bag and stands far away and oblivious in photos, I just decided not to put the photo with her in it on here because she might not be okay with that). Ahhh summer. You should come back.

Although the good thing about it being cold is that I've been able to wear my very first scarf. I finished it in early January which isn't an optimal woollen scarf wearing month so it's been safely tucked away, waiting for its debut.

Here it is, just hanging out being pretty. I can't say the same for myself in that photo so, as you can see, I cut my head out of it. The scarf's the star of the show anyway.

Speaking of shows (seamless linking of topics tonight!), we only have two more nights of Tea for Toot left. It's crazy, the two-and-a-bit week season seems to have gone so fast. We were saying tonight how we haven't become bored of it yet and are still having a lot of fun. And a lot of hysteria. There's one part where Alex and I improvise a bit each night and we are just getting more and more carried away with our hysterical hilarity. It's great. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself next week. I'm thinking a lot of knitting.

Stitches and seams

It seems birthday season has begun and as such I have been busily stitching cards.

This one took forever; luckily I had a lazy Sunday afternoon in which to do it. It looks like a 6 year old wrote the words because I wrote them back to front on the inside to hide the markings.


This one was a bit quicker and I think it's quite cute. Someone at work saw the card I made my Mum for Mother's Day as I was putting it in an envelope to post and said, 'Oh that's nice, we used to make those at Brownies when I was little.' It made me feel like I was in the remedial card making class...oh well! The present that went with the balloon card is also really cute but I will wait until the recipient opens it before I write about it here.

Last week I bought a little present for myself on payday because Knitsch was having a sale on some limited edition colourways and I couldn't go past Good Evening, Aviator.


I think I am going to try to knit a pair of socks when the show is over. I looked for sock patterns on Ravelry before I started the Baby Shrug but they all seemed a bit hard (and some of the ones that seemed really basic looked ugly). However, my Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's 'Never Not Knitting' page-per-day calendar had some wise words the other day that I need to remember when I start looking for a sock pattern again:

Sometimes I hear knitters say they are 'afraid' to try things with knitting, and I just don't get it. What's the worst thing that could happen if you fail? The yarn will rise up against you, resulting in injury or death? Other knitters (who never make mistakes) will find out and kick you out of the club? (Hint: All knitters make mistakes.) Be not afraid. It's only knitting. Be fearless.

I wish I could muster the same gung-ho attitude for seaming the Baby Shrug; I tried doing it this way again at Monday night Knitting Circle last night but again I wasn't happy with the results and ended up pulling it apart and continuing with a leaf for 'It's a Tree!'. A lovely Lynne from Marton emailed me some photos showing how she does seams so I will have to give her method a try. Failing that, I think a visit to my Nana or my two great aunts for some help will be necessary!

Wishing

I could stay sitting in front of the heater with my slippers on and a cup of tea.

Instead I have to go out into the the freezing cold wind and rain to BATS for our last show of the week. Once I get there it will be fun but I've already been outside once today and gotten soaked through so fingers crossed it doesn't happen again!

I love these slipper/socks. Guy got them for me last year when one of his classmates at Toi Whakaari was selling them to fundraise for her secondment (the acting students at Toi each have to go on secondment for a month or so in their final year). Her grandmother was making them for her. I pretty sure they're acrylic (although I'm not the most knowledgeable about these things), they're warm though and just right for pulling on as you get out of bed in the mornings. My flatmate has a similar pair from somewhere else and Anita tells me she and her brother used to get a pair every Christmas from their grandmother.

I'm sure there are lots of variations, some known off-by-heart by loving grandmothers; here's a pattern from Ravelry for cuffed slippers that I might try if I ever need some more. I really want to try making some proper socks at some point, I've heard that once you've made and worn hand knit socks you'll never want to go back to shop bought ones again...I think it might depend on the craft rage/love of finished product ratio though.

Anyway, for now, off to the show.

Open home

The other day Alex pointed me in the direction of The Knitting Room exhibition at the Salamanca Arts Centre in Hobart, Tasmania (Australia).

(image sourced from link)

Sadly I'm not going to Hobart any time soon, but if I was I would so go visit the exhibition! It looks awesome and the story behind it is so cool. Started by the residents of an aged care home it has brought a whole lot of people together. I loved this quote:

"Dot is one of the original members of the Strathaven knitting group. When interviewed for ABC radio she said, 'I don't think they thought we could do this kind of work. I think it's wonderful - it makes you feel good. You don't feel as though you're just sitting here doing nothing. That's the worst thing out.'"

Amen to that sister!