On the second day of Advent…

…I got my invite to Pinterest.

I have a somewhat quixotic relationship with social media sites.  Technically, I’m on Twitter, Facebook and Ravelry, but I can’t remember the last time I tweeted, Facebook is a glorified email system for me, and even on Ravelry I lurk more than I post.

The reason Pinterest might hold my interest (groan) for a little longer is that it combines two of my very favourite things: trawling the internet for hours looking at shiny pretties, and making lists.  The list thing is almost a compulsion, actually.  So, a site that consists of hundreds and hundreds of visual lists?  Mind-blowing, awe-inspiring wonderfulness.

And what, you ask, is the theme of my first board?  Why Christmas, of course!

On the first day of Advent…

…I stayed up way too late, given my 4.30am start (Tim is on a new fly in fly out roster, and needed a lift to the airport this morning…yawn!), listening to the Folk Alley Holiday Music Stream.

Every year, the wonderful and generous staff at FolkAlley.com put together over fifty hours of seasonal music and run it as a separate stream to the usual, and no less outstanding, stream of modern and traditional blues, roots, folk and independent music.  If I told you that I get giddy as a schoolgirl about the Holiday Music Stream, that wouldn’t be the half of it: it’s one of my very most favourite things in the entire world.  Beautiful carols, jaunty folksy-versions of favourite songs – it makes my heart sing, sing, sing! FolkAlley.com is entirely free, runs no advertisements throughout the stream, and is community-focused and supported.  If you happen to like what you hear, please consider sponsoring Folk Alley, to keep this astonishing resource flourishiing.

The Cat seems to like it too; she has been unusually present this evening, rather than running off and hiding.  I think she can tell how special this time of year is in our house, and is trying to fit into the Casa Esmerelda Yuletide Extravaganza.  One can only imagine what she’ll make of the tree…

Can it be?

My goodness.  How, tell me, how can it possibly be December already?  There is so much to do, to ready and prepare for Christmas: gifts on the needles to be finished and distributed to the four corners of this Earth; baking to be done; trees to be decorated; and winter clothes to sort for a keenly-anticipated trip back to the UK on Boxing Day.

Given the current weather in the UK, though, gift-knitting my have to go by the wayside, as I’m sure to need new jumpers, gloves and warm, woolly socks.  Good thing I’ve almost finished this one:

‘Emelie’ by Elin Berglund, in Sanguine Gryphon Bugga!, “Cuban Cockroach”

Time to Relay!

Hello, hello! I’m still here, I promise, and I have knitting news to share, but we’re in the midst of a time crisis here at Casa Esmerelda (we’re moving. Next weekend. And I have exams this week! Panic, much?)(Also, this is my last set of exams, I swear – I know it seems as though that’s pretty much all I do. At least, it seems that way to me.)

But, big news: those crazy knitter types are at it again. On October 23-24, the Knitters for a Cure will be participating in our second Relay for Life, a 24-hour team relay event to raise funds and awareness for the Cancer Council of Australia. And just like last year, we’re holding a raffle to tempt and titilate and to part you all with your money in support of a great cause. (There’s a post in why the Relay is so important to me, but that will have to wait until I’m more composed and can give the topic the weight it deserves – I’m feeling a bit manic and glib at the moment.) We raised over $4,000 last year, $1,000 from the raffle alone, thanks to you all and your generosity.

This year, rather than putting up the raffle details and prize pictures here on my blog, we have decided to use Ravelry as the forum for the raffle. All the details are in this thread (it’s free to join if you haven’t), but in essence, entry can be effected as follows (argh, too much legalese, apologies):

Step 1: Go to our team page and make a donation of $5AUD or more (about $4.50USD or £3.50). Each $5 donated gets you one entry in the raffle; this year, $20 gets you five entries, and $50 gets you twelve!

Step 2: Email us at knittersforacureATgmailDOTcom (replacing the AT and DOT with their respective symbols) and let us know how much you donated.

Step 3: Cross those fingers and hold that breathe until October 31 when the prize draw (utilising the handy-dandy Random Number Generator) takes place.

Prize donors are invited to post their prize details directly to the thread, or to pm me on Ravelry (or comment here, if you want) and let me know what you would like to donate.

Last year, there was apparently an issue with U.S. donors trying to donate through the Cancer Council website, although friends and relatives of mine donated from the UK without problems.  If you would like to donate from outside Australia and have issues with the donation system on the Cancer Council website, please email the Knitters for a Cure email address and we’ll try to work something out.

To tempt you, here are my contributions to the prize pool:

Wollmeise! Twin (80/20 merino/nylon) in ‘Herzblut’

Southern Cross Fibre Merino/Silk in ‘Claudia’ (named after meeeeee! Squee!)

Enchanted Knoll Farm Merino/Silk/Sparkles Batt in ‘Bog Witch’

Sanguine Gryphon Bugga! in ‘Red Spotted Butterfly’

Skein Queen Plushness in ‘Oberon’

Spinnanigans

I took part in the Tour de Fleece again this year. As usual, my grand plans of spinning up pounds and pounds of fibre came to naught, but I did manage a few skeins:

Fingering weight singles, Spunky Eclectic Shetland in ‘Selfish’, an old club colourway, approximately 300yards

Sport weight 2ply, Enchanted Knoll Farm Bliss in ‘Chai’, a gorgeous, drapey yarn, merino and silk blend

More Spunky Eclectic, this time ‘Rocky Mountain High’ merino singles; a bit thick and thin for my liking, but it will do

This was fun: Southern Cross Fibre Polwarth in ‘Pandora’ in a bulky 2ply. I challenged myself to spin 4oz of yarn in an evening, and succeded with this chunky, squishy yarn.

Finally, more Shetland, this time a top from Southern Cross Fibre, in ‘Evil Temptress’, although I seem to have renamed it ‘Evil Enchantress’. This is a lace/fingering weight single to be proud of, even if some of the less well spun sections drifted apart when I wound it off the bobbin.

Shadowpants Meowington McFluffybottom

The first two pictures are really quite old, but are just far too adorable not to share with you. Shadow came to live with us about six months ago, when a workmate of Tim’s had to give her up. Over the past month, we’ve really seen her come into her character – sweet, demanding, feisty, companionable, gorgeous.

Oh, and the ‘show’ name? Totally Tim’s idea…he is utterly, helplessly smitten.

Try, try, try again

I’ve found it hard to come back to the blog this past six months.  For some reason, it feels incredibly difficult to find things to talk about.  It shouldn’t really – plenty has happened, both good (we got our permanent residence visa, I celebrated my 29th birthday) and bad (two of grandparents passed away within six weeks of each other, one of advanced old age [he was 94], the other of cancer) – but nothing seems to have inspired me to put pen to paper (or rather fingers to keyboard) and blog.

And it is such a shame to me – I remember how much joy I used to get from blogging.  The wonderful sense of community, and the pride I felt in looking at my pictures, my words.  It seems odd that I would not want to recapture that.

Perhaps part of it has been a byproduct of finally settling into life over here.  Through Ravelry, I joined a couple of knitting groups and have made some fantastic friendships.  I no longer feel as though coming to Australia was the wrong thing to do, and while losing two family members did serve to challenge my resolve not to throw everything in the air and rush home, I now know that this was the right choice for me, for my marriage and for my future.  Things seem to be slotting into place, work-wise, and my character and confidence have certainly developed and matured in leaps and bounds over the past two years.

So perhaps, then, after such an intense period of metamorphosis, the blog is no longer something I need, but should rather be something I want to do for me and me alone.  Not to find a community (although I am thankful for the time each and every one of you has spent here, and would be humbly grateful if you would stick around), not to find some sort of self-worth, but to mark the passing of my days, content in all the little graces and beauties that life has given me.  It may not be a regular thing (although my hope is to come by at least once a week) but I will try.  And perhaps that will be enough.

Creeping Forward

As of today, this is pretty much all I have to show for myself.  Which kinda sucks, really.  The plan was to have the sleeves and body done by the end of Sunday, but with one round on the body taking me at least 20 minutes, I’m not sure that’s really feasible.  Nevertheless, I carry on regardless.  I’m liking the colour scheme though.  Even though it’s a disappointment; not because it doesn’t please me, because it does, but simply because it doesn’t match up to the vision in my head.  Like so very, very much in life, eh?  Oh well, I guess that’s what comes of trying to design a colourway based on the way a certain film makes me feel about a beloved country, rather than on colour theory and patient swatching.

The satisfaction that come from knitting fair isle, however, really cannot be matched: each glorious row developing under my fingers like a photograph.  A pattern followed :: a picture emerges.  Modernity and tradition bound up in a single garment.

Going for Gold

Four years ago, the idea of participating in a mass knitalong remained an alien concept to me.  I’d been knitting for just under a year, and had yet to immerse myself fully in the world of internet knitting and knitblogs.  Not until a few years later, as I caught up on back issues of the Yarn Harlot’s blog, did I realise what an awe-inspiring event I had missed.

The Knitting Olympics.  A concept so bizarre, so ridiculous that you cannot help being swept up in the possibilities such a concept can inspire.  An event to ignite the fire in any knitter’s heart: what can I achieve, what can I hope to dream, how far can I push this knitting thing?  I vowed to participate the next time it came around.

So, for four years I have waited, I have planned, I have schemed and I have trained.  I’m no longer the unconfident, fresh-faced knitter I was in 2006.  In the past four years, I’ve tangled with cables, danced with lace and brushed up on my colourwork.  And now, the event I’ve been training for is here.

At the official WA torch party on Saturday, I took time to prepare.  I consumed appropriate fuel:

Made sure I had the appropriate equipment:

Prepared mentally:

Consulted with my teammates:

And cast on:

Autumn Rose.  1 jumper.  16 days.  Wish me luck!

Catching up…

In the past three months (didn’t that just fly by?!):

• I passed my exams (woot!)
• I went on holiday with my luvverly husband
• I visited family and bounced on a trampoline:





• I knit some stuff:







• I spun some yarn:





• I tried something new:



• I joined some knitalongs
• It got really bloody hot
• I stepped back and took a breath
• I came back.