Time Travel

Okay, so I can't actually time travel. But the start of another semester of university always makes me feel like I can. Weeks can pass in the blink of an eye - weeks in which I tragically neglect my poor little blog. But here I am, back again.




University started last week, and it looks like it's going to be a good semester, as I've lucked out with teachers and subjects. Very soon I get to start my internship, and that should be a really good experience as well. And I've been catching up with all of the university friends that I missed when I was travelling. One of them gave me some lovely beeswax candles that she had acquired on her own travels - aren't they pretty!

Now, I have actually been managing to fit a surprising amount of knitting into all of this. However, I don't have photos. Partially because I am too lazy and/or busy to take them, but mostly because pictures of half completed projects are just never really that impressive. Or not when I take them anyway. I've seen some lovely shots of works-in-progress on other people's blogs and Ravelry pages, but if there's a knack to taking them, I don't have it, and I don't feel like subjecting people to a blurry shot of my single completed hand-warmer today.

Rest assured, however, that the handwarmers are coming along swimmingly. I've finished one bar the thumb, and the other should follow very quickly since I can just brainlessly copy the first one without having to turn my mind to questions of length, width and ribbing. Hurrah for mindless knitting.

I've also been working on a top down wrap-style cardigan out of some dark blue tweedy yarn that I've had kicking around for a while. The top down style is of course very familiar to me. The wrap style however is not, so it will be interesting to see how that one pans out. It's probably near to half finished, at any rate, so we won't be waiting that much longer.

So while there is indeed knitting progress, unfortunately it doesn't lend itself well to photos. Thankfully, however, other things do! The Boy and I celebrated our anniversary last week; we made celebratory pizzas and had Floor Picnic in front of the television because the weather in Melbourne in July is nothing to write home about. But the pizza was lovely (if a little poorly lit in this photo!).




The cold weather has also brought some of the local wildlife into the house. A recurring guest in my abode is a tiny little gecko, who made his first appearance a few weeks ago in the laundry/toilet area of all places. So it was only logical to christen him Mr Toilet Gecko. Ridiculous name aside, he's a cute wee thing:




Well, I think he's cute anyway - look at that little beady eye!

Next post: finished handwarmers!

Posting from the US: North Carolina edition!

Greetings all! I am officially still alive, and haven't been swallowed up into the pit of travel oblivion. Right now I am in the abode of the lovely Rebecca, resting after a spot of baking. Oh, and it's the 4th of July, which is a complete novelty to someone not from America, so I'm looking forward to seeing what the day holds. But first, a (brief!) outline of what I've been up to.




Alas, my experiences in New York City were not what they could have been. I believe I mentioned in the last post that I was experiencing blisters? Well, they only got worse, until it finally got to the point where one got kind of infected, and I actually couldn't walk more than a block or so. If that wasn't fun enough, I also managed to come down with a very lovely case of strep throat (which eventually meant a trip to the doctor, something I had very much been hoping to avoid, as I am a spoiled - and obviously not insured in this country - Aussie who is used to free health care). Still, what are you going to do? Not much, really. I did my best to enjoy what I could of NYC. On the day I couldn't walk, I took the subway down to the Staten Island ferry and rode that around for a little bit. On my last day I went out to see the Chelsea Market and the Highline Park (pictured above), as these were two things I'd had my heart set on, and they were a short train ride from my hostel. Alas, I didn't get to do museums, or even see as much of Central Park as I wanted to, but these things happen I suppose. Guess I'll just have to come back!




After NYC, I made my (feverish) way to Washington DC, where Rebecca finally carted me off to the doctor and supplied with antibiotics (and man, was I grateful). The next few days were spent convalescing and staggering my way feebly around the Smithsonian museums and the Botantical Garden, but by the weekend I was well enough to take in some of the sights properly. We were there during the Smithsonian International Folklife Festival, which was fun, and we got to see some traditional dancing, cooking, and even spinning (which was exciting to two fibre nerds like us). We also checked out the American History Museum and the Holocaust Museum. The thing is however that I don't tend to take many pictures in museums - I've never really seen the point. You can find a much better picture of a triceratops skeleton by Googling it, after all. So above is a picture of the DC subway system, which I thought was super cool and vaguely reminiscent of the sets of 1970s/80s British science fiction shows.

Oh, and we went kayaking on the Potomac, which was as awesome as you'd expect.




After DC it was off to North Carolina and then to the Smoky Mountains National Park, which was just as awesome as I'd hoped. We camped and hiked our arses off - we did over 20 miles in the three days we were there, which is none too shabby considering I'd been feverish and virtually unable to walk only a little over a week earlier.




I took a whole pile of photos, but all you really need to know is that the mountains are completely gorgeous. Go see if you don't believe me. We even hiked a small part of the Appalachian Trail, which was completely awesome. And, as you can see, I did not get eaten by bears. I didn't even see one, and I'm still not sure if I'm relieved or disappointed about this.

Anyway, so now we're back in North Carolina. We went to the baseball last night. Baseball! Can officially say it's more interesting than cricket! And then tomorrow it's off to New Orleans for a few days, and then to Texas for the last leg of the trip. Can't wait!

Oh, yeah, and I've knitted stuff too. I promise! I'm still going on my shawl, but I've finished two other pieces - I'm just too lazy to take their picture, or rather, I've been saving my camera battery for things like the Smoky Mountains!

And apologies to all of you whose blogs I haven't commented on in a while - there's just too many other things to do here, but I'll catch up when I get home, I promise!

Hats and Fish

Well, uni went back yesterday, so I am now officially Busy again. I picked up my Restitution handbook only to find that I'd been assigned four chapters of the textbook as reading for the Wednesday class. Erm, yay for starting off slowly. And this is for just one subject! It's going to be a long semester. Not surprising though - I'm doing mostly electives, which inevitably means a gargantuan amount of reading (it's the trade-off for fewer contact hours and more specialised subjects).

On the upside, I have yarn and a hat! The yarn, retrieved from the post office this morning, was from The Loopy Ewe (again! I think I have a problem...), and here's the hat:



Ha - the downside of hat shots is that you can't crop out your face like you can when you're taking photos of jumpers, scarves, etc. It might be a shot of the hat, but it is also undeniably a picture of yourself. A mug shot. Not for the faint hearted when you're a little sleep deprived, a lot overheated, not really one for makeup at the best of times, and you know the thing is going on the internet... Oh well...

I designed the hat myself, mainly because I wanted to use this yarn (it's from Wired for Fibre, in the 'Tidal' colourway, and believe me when I say that it was far, far too beautiful to leave languishing in my stash), and I'd found some buttons that went with it rather nicely. I'm mostly happy with it - the problem is the one that comes up whenever I design my own hats, being that I mess up the crown decreases. I am improving - this one came out much better than the last, because at least the decreases are even. But I started too late, and then did them too close together to compensate. Oh well, I'm learning, and that really is the main thing. Unfortunately, I've always been better at learning from my own mistakes than by those of others. At least the yarn and buttons are cute enough to distract me from my inadequacies:


I'm not done with this idea though - the buttons-and-varigated-yarn-hat-thing, I mean. I'm going to take another few bashes until I get it right... I can be very stubborn sometimes...

Also, as promised by the post title, I have a fish! Working at a pet store was beginning to be a bit of a problem for me, because I kept getting distracted by the aquariums. I'd be trying to go and make the most of my meagre lunch break, and then find myself snagged in front of the fish tanks, staring with a glazed expression. Eventually the fishy temptation became too much...


Now, I basically fail at taking photos of fish - or at least I do at the moment - but here is the critter in question. He's a betta (aka Siamese fighting fish - to go with my ancient Siamese cat!) and his name is Titus! The above photo, for all that it isn't very good, actually shows his colour quite nicely - he's a lovely shade of cool blue with red on his fins. He's got his own little tank, all to himself (spoiled brat), and he seems quite happy in there so far. He's spent plenty of time exploring, and he's eating very well for a betta. I am quite enamoured with him, if you can't tell...

And now it's time to go to uni and plough relentlessly through textbooks. And staunchly ignore the new yarn - I'm not allowed to so much as ball it up until I've finished my Liesl cardigan...