Bright and happy -






























It seems silly to be taking a photo of a photo. I've ridden all through these mountains, now I can see them on my wall. Little wonder I feel all full of longing.














I love the way it looks like the ocean... anyone feel like going hiking?

Old Friends -

It seems amazing to me that people I have known for only a short time can feel like old, dear friends.

This is a birthday gifts post. Here we see a new set of bookends holding some of my favourite books, now sitting on my Grandma's writing desk which was also a gift this week.















Lost or stolen or strayed.















I gave taking a picture of myself wearing the necklace and these earrings a go, but it ended badly. They remind me of many beautiful things and make me feel more beautiful when I am wearing them.


















I like this 30 business.

Because it's a grammar wonderland -















Sometimes teaching is the best job evah.

Cobblestone and flowers -

I'm really enjoying the mindless nature of this knitting project. There is too much I am supposed to be doing with my brain at the moment to have any left over for complicated things.















My little plants are flowering, this is the first time I have seen blooms on both these plants.















All the succulents are flowering, I have been slipping them a little bit of worm water, not so much that it goes to their heads, just enough that they all seem in a jolly good mood.















Wherever I live next is that there must be space for my worms and plants.

Mum's Fruitcake -

Ingredients
1. 150g butter
2. 200g sultanas
3. 200g cup currants
4. 100g brown sugar
5. 2 tsp allspice
6. 250mls water or orange juice and brandy or pot-brewed tea

7. 1 tsp bicarb soda

8. 2 eggs
9. 2 cup self raising flour

Put ingredients 1-6 in a pot and bring to boil.
Turn off heat and add 7.
Cool.
Add 8, mix.
Add 9, mix with a light hand.
Pour into 20cm cake tin.
Bake for 15 mins in at 180º then 55 mins at 160º.

Afghan squares -

Guest project.















Many of the individual squares have names, like 'musk rat' and 'gangrene baby', but it is late, I am tired from a week of camp, and I can't make my brain work to remember.



















I love the contrast of the crochet border. I mentioned this is not my project of radness, but Nell's, right?



















Action shot.



















The important boots and all shot.

Wish me good sleeping.

Seahorses -











































































The camera doesn't "see" what I see.

Gifts -



















A tin for socks.

Cobblestone -

I cast it on Saturday night at Sockmonster's. It is a lovely grey blue. Already, I have slowed right down, but already I am planning the next one.















I got a chance to try one on in the flesh, and I loved it. I will make one for myself. I found enough of one colour that I like in Classic Elite Skye Tweed, but then I remembered a recent purchase that will work well for it. I want one exactly the same as the one I tried on, but feel like the stash needs attention.

Long time love -

The scarf I wear most often is the simplest. I found three skeins of rainbow-y handspun at the Handweavers and Spinners Guild. I loved the combinations of blues and greens and purples.















I knit it up in a plain stocking stitch on my Grandmother's broomstick needles.



















And chucked it through a cold wash to felt just the littlest of bits.

The colours make me happy when I wear it and it can be a scarf or an open wrap and it is often just enough to ward off the chill.

Spindleshanks -

I felt really shy about explaining why I wanted him to pose like this.


















Perhaps when I feel more confident about taking photos, I'll see if he'll go to the park and let me indulge in photo experiments.


















The finishing of this jumper fortuitously coincided with his 30th birthday. I have crossed fingers of hopefulness that I will be able to finish Cobblestone for Ashley in time for Christmas.

Explosion of postable things -

First thing, new stash. Very exciting, huggable stash. The green will be a shawl. The other, not so sure yet.














And a new jumper, yes, I have begun and I am two balls down of the Rowan all seasons cotton. I am totally going to get this puppy knit by Christmas (or so).















Today was the best sort of day full of sunshine and friends and gifts. More on the gifts soon (given and received).

Negative space -



















The best thing about this course has been other people's designs.















Maybe it is easier to appreciate the beauty in something when you can see what you imagine it should look like.















I should really bring my finished piece in from the car and have a look at it in decent light. I feel a bit reluctant. I loved the smooth finish of the 'arms' before I welded the cups on. My welding was a bit crap and I'd be disappointed if I'd spoiled them.

Hitting things with hammers -

As with every Thursday for the past five weeks, I have come home filthy and tired.















Unfortunately, I will miss the final class because I am going on camp.















Fortunately I chose a relatively simple design and managed to finish it tonight.















He is going to run the beginners course again in the next 'term', and he will run a follow on course from this one as well.



















I think I want another go at this. The finished candelabra is in the car. It got coated in a clear lacquer to finish it. Better to stink out the car than to stink out my little apartment.

Shower now, to wash all the soot off my face.

Ghost town -

Everyone went on strike today, the weather was really dark and still, half the lights in the building were off, the library was closed. It was spooky. But I managed to get done a whole lot of stuff I have been meaning to do.















I saw this on the way to blacksmithing class last week, and because i have the sense of humour of an 11 year old, I took a picture.

Flagging -

Nell, perhaps sensing that I am flagging in the relatively minor task of blogging daily, offered me a meme. Nell will be appearing soon with a guest post to introduce her blanket.

"These are the top 106 books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users. Bold what you have read, italicise that you started but couldn't didn't finish, and strike through what you couldn’t stand. Add an asterisk* to those you’ve read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights*
The Silmarillion*
Life of Pi: a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey*
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre*
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad*
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods*
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a Memoir in Books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Canterbury tales
The Historian: a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave new world*
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula*
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King*
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible: a novel
1984*
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility*
The Picture of Dorian Gray*
Mansfield Park*
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes: a memoir
The God of Small Things
A people’s history of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A short history of nearly everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake: a novel
Collapse: how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an Inquiry into Values
The Aeneid* (and in Latin)
Watership Down*
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit*
In cold blood: a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers”

I changed 'couldn't finish' to 'didn't finish', I might get round to them one day (Plus, I just worked out how to do strikethrough and don't want to pass up any opportunities to use it. This list suggests to me that I should stop re-reading. I might do another list of the books I intend to read one day (when I get round to it).

37 -

No craft. Too hot.















Potential Christmas wreath?

Brooklyn worship -

I have been thus far immune to the charms of the Cobblestone pullover, in spite of the reverence I feel for its designer (up there with xkcd). I liked it in the pictures, but didn't feel the 'I must make that' urge. Until today.

I have the sudden overwhelming urge to knit it for my step-dad for Christmas. How many days is that now? 36? Not counting today and Christmas? I could even knit it from the stash.



















I'd have to put off Venezia.

I had a go at knitting with the Serenity. It makes a lovely fabric and feels great under your fingers. But there wasn't enough for a hat, so it is ripped and I'll find something else for it.

Roiled -

This is how I feel at the minute:














There has been a dearth of craft and a metric butt-tonne of things to do. I feel like I am riding the wave with the fear/thrill of catching a face full of sand lurking.

I did 'finish' a project.














Lovely yarn, but cursed, this is the third time it's not worked out in a project. Maybe I will save it for the kitties.

Observation point -

On camp we went to Point Nepean. Stories about this place are woven through my childhood, but I have never been there before. Yesterday I got to discover it with 50 grade 6 kids.

There was an observation point, but the dune must have built up since the last time observation was required














In one of the amoury rooms, you could see where the shell casings had been sitting against the floor. It looked a little like a quilt pattern.


















There was lots of screaming and running around, but you still got a good feeling for how isolated and boring it must have been to be stuck out there waiting for the enemy to come attack Victoria.

I finally saw Cheviot beach where Harold Holt disappeared. Seeing the kelp beds and the force of the surf made the Chinese submarine theory more challenging to believe.

School Camp -

I went on school camp yesterday and today and went to blacksmithing tonight. I am tired and sooty and the pizza shop was shut. I'd like to curl up with my book and pretend that tomorrow is not going to happen.

I finished this in my crazy finish phase:


















There is a glass blowing place near home and he makes the most beautiful pieces. I keep buying wedding presents there because I can't justify getting one for me. Still, he does the occasional little piece, like the whale on the left, and his son made the piece on the right. I like to think it is a sea creature.














Children are tiring, but endlessly amusing.

An Ode to Fluevogs -

I saw these in the shop and they were on special and they fit:














Unfortunately I also tried these on 'just to see'. I love them. They come out with me to every appropriate occasion and then we come home and I put them away in tissue paper specially:


















I went back this year for a pair of boots for work. I can wear these all day and feel like I have had ug-boots on:


















Again, on the same day I tried these on 'just to see'. They feel like a dream and they are cute (and they make my feet look small):


















Monnsqueak just discovered them and is singing their praises. I add my voice. My next pair, please.

Invigilation -

It is exam time and exam moderation is tedious. But the tedium gives me time to think about learning and authority and motivation and talent.

I have tried to balance carrots and sticks this year. I would prefer to just use carrots, but either my technique is off, or some people only respond to the stick. I have also being trying to work out what motivates cheating and what is the best way to deter it.

It has been nice to see my students in the context of their other subjects. Even if they are crap at my subject, maybe they are good at Physics?



















I was a bit conflicted about knitting during exam supervision. However, I tried marking today and couldn't divide my concentration. I don't need to concentrate on knitting.

A logical series of events leads to an inevitable conclusion -

I started the phoenix last night, but didn't have some of the floss colours. So after work I went home via Clegs to get them.



















In Clegs I discovered that Cleckheaton and Patons have released new bamboo yarns, so I got one of each, partly to play, partly to encourage more bamboo yarn. Plus, the Patons one is called Serenity (and is gaiman black)



















And I broke the yarn rule of not buying yarn that is on sale, no matter how good a bargain it is.



















Not even if I love the colour and imagine myself in a new snuggly cardigan next winter.