Malevolent dinner!

Well, Ravelry is down for maintenance and I need something to do while I give my hands a rest from sock knitting, so I figured I'd do a somewhat uneventful update...

True to my word, I've started on some socks with my lovely Live 2 Knit yarn:

This is a sock of firsts for me in many ways, so how well it will work out is a little up in the air. First time not knitting socks on dpns, first time using Magic Loop, first time I've tried colour work in a sock, and first sock I've ever knitted from my own pattern. So I guess we'll see. I still love the colours, but it's occurred to me now that this sock could be interpreted as a little bit, erm, Olympics-style patriotic (green and gold, anyone?). Oh well, there are worse things.

*sigh* There's so much knitting I want to do before I go away, but not nearly enough time to do it all when I consider all of the other things I need to do before leaving. I've wrangled the law faculty re: my enrolment for next semester (they were being difficult), and I've already pencilled in all of the people I need to see before I leave, but there's still buckets to do. Meh. The knitting will be here when I get back.


The weather over the last while has been archetypal Melbourne weather. Last Thursday - I was wearing a woollen jumper, hat and scarf out and still shivering. The Thursday before that - it was in the mid thirties and I was in a mere singlet top and still sweating. I suppose I should look on the bright side - at least I'm getting wear out of the jumpers I knitted so late in the year...


Hopefully I'll finish something interesting before I leave.
In the meantime, I leave you all with a picture of the Evil Avocado of Doom!

Is it obvious from looking at this that my parents never told me not to play with my food?

Pretty good, eh?

Survival!

Well, exams are over for another year. Thank heavens for that. So now I have nine sweet, sweet days to procrastinate before I skip the country. I'm seeing a lot of knitting in my future. Not to mention I need to pick a project or two to take with me on holiday - I guess it will have to be something fairly lightweight, and probably in a small gauge, as I need something that'll occupy me for as long as possible without being too bulky... *muses idly* Socks or lace, I guess.


There hasn't really been a great deal going on around here as far as knitting goes - exams sort of ate my brain, and when I was knitting, a lot of it was just random swatches of stuff - it was just pure knitting for stress relief. However, I have started a summery top - I was sort of in between projects and needed something to take to the Melbourne Ravelry meet up (which incidentally was about eighteen different kinds of fun, and I met buckets of awesome and talented people), so I figured I'd finally try out the design I'd concocted a while back.

(please ignore the immensely unflattering around-the-house pants - that's an order)

I started from the waist and am working upwards in an openwork rib stitch pattern. I wanted something airy and light, but also something that wouldn't be totally shapeless (I'm not a fan of the whole empire waist thing that everyone seems to be so enamoured with at the moment - the fact that I don't think that they do anyone any favours aside, I have a waist, and I'd like to make the most of it instead of hiding it, thank you very much), so a lace ribbing seemed like a good compromise. I'm also adding some shaping by decreasing in the purl sections. I quite like how it's coming along - it's quite loose, so should be good in the warmer weather. It's in a pretty cheap cotton acrylic blend, but if I end up liking how it comes out, I might end up trying another version in a nicer yarn.

Speaking of nice yarn: I got my post-exam reward in the mail this morning. It soothed my one-beer-too-many-the-night-before headache quite nicely too.

Yum. They're from Live 2 Knit and they are quite, quite lovely. And one of them is yellow! I never thought that I'd ever buy yellow yarn - normally, yellow is most definitely not a colour that I go in for. But I couldn't resist this, and it's so beautiful that I'm glad that I didn't - it's like summer time in skein form. They're going to be socks. I'm thinking I'll try my hand at toe-ups for a change. I just invested in a new sock knitting book, and I'm itching to try some of the techniques in it. I'm also idly considering some colourwork, because these two yarns do look beautiful together.

Oh, and again, speaking of yarn (but not quite as impressively gorgeous, to say the least):

My other post exam present to myself (hey, I need all of the bribery that I can muster) was a drop spindle. See this yarn? I made it! And I made it that colour as well! Yeah, yeah, I know it leaves a little to be desired - this was my second attempt at spinning (second to a five minute spree when I first got the spindle), and because I have a short attention span when it comes to following instructions, my technique still leaves a lot to be desired. Still, I'm very pleased with it. I do love doing things myself, even when the result is a little bit half arsed. The way that I see it is that when you make something yourself, you can either sit there and be dissatisfied with it because it isn't perfect, or you can make the choice to love it anyway because you made it and you enjoyed making it. I opt for the latter. I'm going to use it to make a pouch for my poor long-suffering laptop mouse...

Anyway, I'm off to have a quiet moment with a strawberry Freddo Frog, and then I'm off to bed.

Carefree and slothful

Eating: salted pistashio nuts by the handful (mmm....)

Listening: this afternoon it's been a few compilations, the Waifs, and Travis

Reading: The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch - far too much fun for just one book.

Yeah, I should probably be studying. But it's such a Nice Day... I'm fairly certain that this will continue to be the justification for all my brands of procrastination, at least for the next while anyway. Definitely until the novelty of sun wears off...

Anyway, since it is such a Nice Day, I walked home from my morning class - 3 kilometres of glorious sunshine! - via the market, where I acquired smoothie makings and chocolate biscuits. And now I've spent the afternoon with the television off and the stereo on, full of strawberries, banana, passionfruit, and general feelings of good mood. Hurrah!

Above is said smoothie (tasty!) with the beginnings of a Mrs Darcy cardigan (in my very favourite shade of green - the yarn is cheap and unimpressive, but I love the colour so much that all is forgiven). I started it yesterday, and ended up knitting quite a sizable chunk of it while sitting on the couch with a mug of tea, avoiding reality and watching back to back episodes of Stargate Atlantis (for I, my friends, am a tragic nerd).

I've been thinking the last while that I really want to get back into sewing. Well, "back into" might be more than a little misleading - I was never particularly proficient. I could make skirts, capes, and occasionally ill-fitting pants. But I want to get better. Working against me is the fact that my sewing machine is ancient and the instruction manual that came with it has long since been lost, but I am nothing if not determined... I've been reading a book on how to make skirts, and if I can learn how to do that, then I will be a happy camper indeed. I like wearing skirts, but I am not really shaped correctly for lots of shop bought ones to be flattering. One simple thing keeps thwarting me: my widest part is not my hips - it's my thighs (surely I'm not the only woman out there with this problem?). So if I can learn to make clothes to accomodate this I shall be happy indeed...

Oh, and speaking of happy, I have lovely yarn from Live 2 Knit. Figured it was about time I tried some of their yarn - supporting the locals and all that. So I acquired some 4ply 100% silk in the 'Seaglass' colourway and some 10ply merino in "Tidal". They're both so beautiful I don't even want to take them out of the skein. Behold my photo that totally fails to do justice to the beautiful colours (both skeins are much darker in real life):

I have no idea what I'm going to do with them (a few hazy ideas for the silk, but nothing too specific yet)... They're so beautiful that frankly I'm happy enough just to know that they exist and that they're mine...

Anyway, off to enjoy the rest of my afternoon. Tonight I need to go up and do the final clean of my old place. I've conscripted my Dad to help (well, by conscripted I mean he very nicely volunteered), so hopefully the cleaning won't take too long. Though it's not the cleaning I'm fussed about - it's being there. Too many bad memories now. Oh well, I'll just have to remember the good ones. After all - a whole lot of knitting took place in that lounge room too!