I can’t brain today; I have the dumb.

• Got home from Bendi mid-afternoon yesterday.
• It was awesome, as always.
• Today is a Designated Recovery Day (if you capitalise things, they seem more official).
• I took hardly any photos.
• I bought lots and lots of stuff.

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Did I mention there’s Noro?

Mission accomplished.

The other day, in my Bendi post, I made mention of a Noro mission.

A few weeks ago, when the new issue of Knitty came out, I fell hard for this hooded cardigan. It called for Noro Silk Garden, a yarn I’ve long wanted to knit with, but never known quite what to do with. And I was just a couple of weeks away from Bendi, where there would be several vendors selling Noro – it was kismet!

Photo by Lisa Kay

Once I got my haul home, I got started. This is a first for me – I don’t think I have ever in my life knitted a pattern in the recommended yarn, even back in the day when all I knew was Patons and Cleckheaton. Even weirder, I’m using the same colourways as the designer used for her version – a blue/green/purple and a pink/orange/bronze. And why not? It’s a beautiful thing.

This pattern is so beautifully simple – a two-row stripe that really lets the long slow colour shift of the Noro shine. I’ve almost finished the back of mine; here’s how it’s knitting up:

Happiness.

Beautiful Bendigo

It’s more than a week since I got home, so I should probably post something, yeah?

I arrived a day early, to get a good night’s sleep before the festivities began, and so I could get to the show nice and early and bogart all the Noro Silk Garden before anybody else got there. After checking in to my motel, I went out for a wander with my camera.

There’s just something about a Gold Rush town.

I suppose when you are the civic authorities of such a town, and all your inhabitants are either actively digging gold out of the ground, or dedicated to the proposition of fleecing those who are, you have plenty of taxes to spend on public buildings.

 Add to that it’s the Victorian period, the era that restraint forgot, and you get a big-arse Court House:

And an even bigger Post Office:

And of course, no boom-town is complete without a statue of Victoria herself, “Queen of Earthly Queens”:

After two hours of wandering (while mentally keeping tabs on where I was in relation to my car) I was completely wiped, so I bought some take-away soup and a loaf of most excellent sourdough from The Good Loaf bakery (they totally earned a plug), and wended my weary way back to the motel.

 On Friday, I got to the Showgrounds bright and early. Shortly after, my Noro mission accomplished, I met up with Leonie (Dr Bones) and Kate (Knightly Knitter) and we hit the show hard.

This is the point at which the wool fumes overcame me, after which I didn’t take many more pics, and what I did get were blurry and awful, so if you want to see more of the show, you should go here and here. Friday night was the Ravelry dinner at the Old Town Hall. Lots of lovely Ravellers to catch up with, good food, and prizes! Then back to our little house at Hustler Street with the rest of the Posse (Donyale, Tinkingbell and Zephyrama, Rav-links all) where we knitted and talked long into the night.

Saturday was more of the same, with a leisurely breakfast at Posse HQ, followed by the show again, where I picked up a skein of handspun Corriedale in “Purple People Eater” (purple and green). I wasn’t going to buy it, but it just sang to me, and really, it’s not Bendi if you don’t have at least one impulse buy, is it? After lunch, Kate, Leonie and I headed back to the house where we parked ourselves on the back deck for knitting and Cointreau-soaked chocolate brownies (Kate’s idea – she truly is an evil genius!). With a little help from Leonie’s swift and ball-winder, my corriedale was on the needles quick smart, and by the time we got to the pub for dinner that night, it was half a hat already!

Sunday morning was the now-traditional brunch at t’Hooft, which has had a bit of a re-do since last year – they’ve added an indoor caravan where baristas perform their feats of awesomeness,

…and this magnificent beastie, which had us all (even the tea-drinkers) mesmerised while we waited to settle the bill:

Then there was just time for one quick piccie of us all together, before we had to head for home.

Back row, L-R: Me, Dr Bones, Donyale, Tinkingbell, LibraryLass; Front row: Zephyrama, Knightly Knitter, Betsy Bookworm.

 

 

Whose Idea Was This Motherhood Lurk, Anyway?

So here we are at the halfway point of the school holidays, it’s been raining and blowing an icy gale for days, and the House of Frog has been the House of Flu for almost a month. Sasquatch brought it home from school and promptly gave it to me. We spent the better part of a week sitting side by side on the couch, coughing a duet and watching endless hours of cartoons (well, he watched; I snoozed). Of course, he bounced back much quicker than I did, but Wednesday last week I had just brought home a much-needed load of groceries, and was putting the frozen food away when the school called to say that Boyo had thrown up (he’s a puker – his first response to any illness is to yurk up the soles of his feet). So he was off school the last two days of term, much to his disgust – not only was he missing out on two days’ worth of maths, but they were having a class reward of a movie-and-games day on Thursday, and he missed that too.

Now that Boyo is finally starting to come good (which means he’s feeling well enough to pick fights with his brother), Tech Support has come down with a bad case of Inevitability (his own fault – he was bragging that everybody else at work had gone down, but he seemed to have dodged it. Why didn’t he just wear a t-shirt saying “KICK ME, MURPHY, KICK ME HARD”?), and has spent the last few nights alternating between coughing, moaning in his sleep, and sneeze-splosions.

I was a bit worried that I might have to cancel my Bendigo trip, but T.S. insists I go, so I have been washing woollies ready for packing. Knitting has been a bit thin on the ground, because although I have spent a good deal of time on the couch, I have yet to learn to knit in my sleep, and I’ve been practically narcoleptic until this week. Nonetheless, I’ve managed to finish the body of my Ingenue (rav-link), and have got the sleeves to elbow length, so I just need to knit two half-sleeves by Sunday at the latest if I’m going to have time to block it before I leave.

Anyway, if I’m going to have any hope at all of getting that done, I need to get knitting. I just wanted you all to know I’m not dead.

Snow on Cherry Blossoms, and a Finished Object.

The weather is behaving oddly again – last night we got snow!

So this morning the boys got rugged up and went out to play in it.

There were attempts at snow angels…

… and attempts at snowmen…

…right up until the snow melted through their sneakers and they realised that snow is cold! So now they are back inside, with dry warm feet, curled up on the couch watching cartoons.

It’s a funny thing how much circumstances affect attitude. This snow is very nearly as unseasonal as the fall we had almost two years ago, but whereas that time it pissed me off to no end, today I’m finding it absolutely charming. Two years ago, we were moving house in the snow and sleet and rain and wind, whereas this time, there’s nothing we have to do today and nowhere we have to be, so we can park ourselves in front of the fire and listen to the wind playing jug-band music on the chimney-top while we watch the flakes fall through the sunshine outside the window.

While we were outside with the camera I recruited Tech Support to take some pics of the Yarn Love Cowl, so here ’tis:

 

The Vital Statistics:
Cast On: July 12th, 2010
Finished: September 28th, 2010
Pattern: Dew Drop Cowl by Kelly Kingston
Yarn: Yarn Love 4-ply(ish) handspun, by the intimidatingly clever Donyale
Needles: 5mm Knitpicks Options nickel-plated circular
Modifications: I threw in six rows of double moss-stitch by way of an edging, so it wouldn’t curl quite so much. Then I just went round and round until I was sick of it.

This was my Bendigo knitting – a super-simple project that I could just knit on autopilot while talking and laughing (and drinking) with those wild women at Hustler Street. It was a perfect pattern for the job, and every time I wear it or even look at it, I’ll be reminded of the fun. Not to mention the pretty pretty colours – I could hardly look away while I was knitting it, in case I missed the next colour change. There was nothing about this knit that wasn’t lovely.

Here’s something funny – you might remember a couple of months ago, I said that my original plan was to use up the whole skein of yarn, but I’d since changed my mind, I felt that it was big enough and I was just going to finish out the pattern repeat and knit the edge.

Well, this is how much yarn was left over once I’d done that:

…all four meters of it!

Road Trip!

So, last Thursday I loaded up my baby car and headed off on my annual Epic Voyage to the Australian Sheep & Wool Show in Bendigo.

I have no photos of the actual fun and games to offer, as I was suffering my usual bout of camnesia, but if you go look here, there is a pool of photos displaying various acts of wool-fueled silliness.

A gorgeous time was had by one and all, the Hustler Street Posse (AKA Tinkingbell, Zephyrama, Donyale, TwoLittleFish and K-Girl) was once again the bestest group of girls who ever shared a house, plus I got to hang out with Dr Bones, LoomMonkey and the completely awesome FiestyWench, who has organised all the Bendigo Ravelry events for the last three years, and done a spectacular job of it. We ate too much, drank too much, laughed and talked and knit and laughed and talked, and I indulged in a little retail therapy:

Enough BWM 12-ply for a cardi for me

Sock yarn from EGMTK! Mandie

More sock yarn from Ms Gusset

Noro Silk Garden for a husband scarf

Some wool/silk, destined for a dip in the dyepot

A knitting book. 'Cause I don't have nearly enough of those.

Then I packed up all my goodies and came home. It took a couple of hours before I could peel my children off me, and about another 24 for my brain to reboot, and today I am back to reality. Reality looks like this:

Pegs, frozen into rainwater.

Sigh. Only 358 sleeps ’til Bendigo.

There was this one time? at band camp?…

What happens in Bendigo, stays in Bendigo. Unless there’s Rohrspatz & Wollmeise on the line.

Last week, I mentioned I’d had some good news… well, this afternoon, it landed in my mailbox:

Here’s how I got this particular skein of needle candy – there was a game of Bendi Bingo played at the eponymous S&W. The rules provided for people to collect the signatures of fellow Ravellers, merchants and stall-holders on their cards, and then scan or photograph the results and post them on the appropriate Ravelry forum for judging purposes. Time went by, not many people had done so, and last week Zephyrama was asking for funny stories to go along with the cards, because there were prizes going begging. So I bit the bullet and posted the harrowing tale of my jeans (that noise you just heard? That was the rest of the Hustler Street Posse sniggering). This is what I posted:

Well, the only funny Bingo story I have isn’t actually about getting the cards signed. I dropped my card on the ground, and when I bent over to pick it up, I ripped the arse out of my jeans. That was about 10.30ish, so I spent the rest of the day at the showgrounds with my bum hanging out. Thank god for long coats, is all I can say.

I don’t know, is that worth a skein of Wollmisery? 😉

This was Zephyrama’s reply:

Um, having seen the flesh, YES IT IS. so pm me your addie my dear and a skein of Saami is coming your way.

 (Just to clarify, when we got back to Hustler Street and I told the Posse of my mishap, they demanded to see. There was wine. And wool fumes. Shut up.) So, for the bargain price of flashing a little(ish) sliver of arse-cheek, I now have my very own skein of one of the most coveted yarns in the Blogiverse!

It was worth it.

The post-Bendigo post.

EGMTK! Sock yarn

FeistyWench at the Ravelry breakfast

Dr Bones and Knightly Knitter

BWM Rustic 8ply – to be a jumper for Boyo

Hand-carved bone buttons

Big chunk ‘o tree buttons

BWM Rustic 8ply – to be a jumper for Sasquatch

My Bendi Bingo Card

Winnings!

Dr Bones, Zephyrama & Tinkingbell at the Ravelry breakfast

RoseRed, Tinkingbell, Donyale & Ms Gusset at Posse HQ

EGMTK! BFL Roving – blue/green/purple

Moggy & Me sock yarn – Sir Walter

Clothes from Wraptya

KnightlyKnitter does her famous Happy Shimmy Dance

Apologies for the crappiness of some of the photos; I took them on my phone (which has been known to take good pics, but not when I was using it).

Not sure where to start: there was so much happening – the people, the shopping, the food, the fun, the knitting.

Highlights include:

• The Hustler Street Posse: Donyale, Knightly Knitter, RoseRed, Tinkingbell and Zephyrama – If you ever get the chance to spend some time with any or all of these girls, don’t even hesitate!
• Meeting the extraordinary FeistyWench (Rav-link), who organised all the Ravelry events over the weekend. She did a stellar job, and hopefully is now catching up on months of lost sleep.
• The Friday Night Ravelry Baa at the Shamrock Hotel – a gorgeous old Victorian pub, where the upstairs dining room was full of talking, laughing, eating, drinking, meeting-up-with-bloggy-friend knitters!
• Bendigo Woollen Mills and the legendary Back Room… so much woolly goodness!
• The Ravelry Breakfast on Saturday morning: 140+ Ravellers all crammed into a Girl Guide hall, eating pancakes, drinking coffee, fondling knitwear and winning prizes – that’s how I came by my beautiful little Spinning Woodie spindle and the bag of Ixchel bunny-fluff.
• Eating wood-fired pizza for lunch with the girls, while comparing shopping hauls.
• Catching up with some old friends – EGMTK! Mandie, Suzi, IxchelFibres’ Charlie  and meeting some new ones – Dr Bones, K-GirlKnits, LoomMonkey (and her brand-new hubby, Dave – they came to Bendi on their honeymoon!), EcoKnitMama, Ms Gussetting (and her fabulous Fluevog boots – I am SO getting me a pair!). If I missed anybody, I apologise; so many people, so few brain cells…
• Bendi Bingo – ’nuff said.
• Dinner at the Hustler St house on Saturday night – we stayed in with a select few guests, and ate and drank and laughed and talked and knit.
• Sunday brunch upstairs at a funky little cafe called T’Hooft – I ate way too much, but it was sooo good!

It’s a very good thing to be able to spend time with your people. Just 358 sleeps until it all starts again.

You can see better pics and more eloquent reportage at Donyale’s, Dr Bones’ and Knightly Knitter’s blogs.

Next time I’m taking the good camera.

I am home.

• Bendi was HUGE!!!!!
• People were fun.
• Wine, coffee and chocolate were consumed.
• Cash evaporated.
• Yarn was purchased
• Full update later – children are refusing to let me out of their sight.
• Here’s a teaser:

Since last we spoke…

I have (in no particular order):

• Finished re-knitting the back of the Fireside. I cast off last night at about 10.30pm, then pinned it out on the ironing board and gave it a light steam-block. I generally prefer to wet block, but I don’t have the time for the two-to-three day turnaround. All the pieces are packed, and I hope to be able to get some of the seaming done while I am away.
• Obtained a very cute new haircut, if I do say so myself. With the added bonus of the hairdresser saying “Oh my god! You’ve lost a ton of weight!”. Gotta love that.
• Filled the car with petrol and had the oil, water and tyre pressure checked at the service station.
• Packed my bags and loaded them in the car.
• Wound off a skein of Jitterbug for Bendi knitting. The colourway is “Sahara” and I bought it last year at Bendi, so it seems appropriate I should take it back. I have yet to choose a pattern, but I’ve narrowed it down to two or three, printed them off and they are in my knitting bag. I’ll swatch during rest-breaks.
• Filled the fridge with good healthy food for Tech Support, even though I know perfectly well that he will eat take-away the whole time I’m gone. Tonight will be pizza, because it is an unwritten law that pizza must be consumed during the State of Origin match. I was unaware of this until I married him (despite the fact that I also grew up in a League-loving household), but there you have it.
• Now I’m just killing time until Sharon calls to say she’s on her way. We are driving down convoy-style (and now you’re singing the song, aren’t you? You know the one I mean).

I’ll catch you later, peoples. I’ve remembered my camera, and I’ll attempt to blog from Bendi. If not, I’ll dish all the dirt next week.  😀