giant green gloop

I read somewhere someone said about the RMIT building 'A terrible disease killed off all the architects and Melburnians had to design their own buildings'. Architects everywhere are probably cringing at that quote but it makes me chuckle every time I pass along Latrobe St. Edited to add: I have just googled (after the event, of course) and it is known as the Green Brain. Apparently it explores the tension between ideas and materiality. I guess in terms of architecture being designed to challenge and stimulate, it succeeds. (Why is Blogger not recognizing paragraph breaks this week?)

wee

Ravelled.

From the phone archive

When I went full time recently and got the Very Important and Busy job they gave me an iPhone (secondhand; it used to belong to my old boss). Shortly afterward I discovered Instagram and I think I've barely touched my proper camera since. Of course there is also the whole being very busy thing, but mostly it's because the phone is always there, it's small and light and doesn't wear a groove in my shoulder etc. So, here is my record of the last few weeks. A visit to a local open garden, some Mothers Day flowers, a flaked out Burmese, and some lunchtime shots from a workday at the city office recently (a novelty for me as I generally work at a different location). I also had knitting to show you but Instagram decided it should be sideways so I am deferring. Perhaps I'll work out how to rotate it this weekend, in between polishing up my cv and tending my feverish and vomitty thirteen year old. And then you can behold the glory that is vintage scratchy wool in old man colours. What about you? How are you?

is this thing on?

It appears I've completely forgotten how to blog. I've been taking a few photos. But not many. Been knitting a bit. But not much. Just trying to get through each day and remembering to look up occasionally. Hunkering down for the winter, sewing a bit thanks to an invitation to join a very special bunch at Sewjourn, making travel plans to visit my pals, and working working working.

I'm getting boring now ...

I made another shawl.



This one's for Mary.



I hope she likes it.



Ravelled.

summer's last hurrah

Last beach day for a while, I reckon. Happy Easter everyone!

All work and no play

This being Very Busy and Important is severely eating into my blog reading and writing time. Not to mention knitting and sleeping and talking-to-my-husband time. Housework time went out the window weeks ago and I am on the search for a cleaning lady. The children's familiarity with the vacuum cleaner grows ever deeper.



There have been little pockets of extreme loveliness though, squeezed in among the frantic weeks. A (long) weekend away with the amazing Craft Camp tribe at Sewjourn, a visit to the boys' school's Art Show, and a leisurely wander around a local Open Garden where I greedily bought far too many plants two and a half minutes before the stall lady bellowed Three plants for ten dollars! Timing, I haz it.



I sewed some pretty things at Craft Camp and took terrible pictures of them, however they all turned out well (most unusually for me as i never have a 100% success rate with sewing)and I am pleased, although in my customary late fashion they are all summer clothes, just as autumn settles in. (Planning skillz, I haz them too). Still, that means I have a good nine months to finish the hemming and sew on the hooks and eyes, right?

I won the Op Shop Score of a Lifetime award while at craft camp. A trip to the Lancefield oppie resulted in a snazzy pair of red high heeled maryjane shoes that fit and are RED, and ... wait for it ... a sewing machine. In perfect working order. A vintage Elna. Better than my existing machine. (Its feed dogs can be lowered which many of you will know is a covetable feature in a sewing machine). The sheer appropriateness of buying a sewing machine from the charity shop while at craft camp just slays me. Brilliant. And one day I will have the time to use it, I'm quite sure.



I'm sure I have lots of other Important News to impart but many things have fallen out of my head in order to make room for all the work related business my brain must now hold. Let's see ... Son#1 is driving, did I tell you? It is truly terrifying being the Supervising Driver. Those of you with older children will feel my pain, I am sure. Son#2 is hassling me to let him sit the learners permit test too. I am reining him back, regaling him with stories of his babyhood and toddler antics. It is futile. Sons #1 and 2 both did a barista course to upskill, as they say these days. Both are now full on coffee bores. Son#3 came first in the long jump trials but last when it came to the real event. He bore it with a moist eyed stoicism. I deferred my studies for a semester due to the aforementioned sudden acceleration to full time Very Busy and Important at Work status. I am not bearing it with stoicism, moist or dry eyed. I am seriously disgruntled as I was soooo close to finishing the Neverending Degree. Still, it was refreshing to head off to Sewjourn with sewing and knitting, rather than a pile of notes and a half written essay. I turned 48 and received a pair of fancy pyjamas, chocolate, linens and a brooch. I enrolled in a grown ups tap dancing class (dubbed Nanna Tap). Can't link cos I'm on the iPad but I'm sure you know whose tap school it is. Also, soccer season started so it's goodbye weekends for the foreseeable future.

It's all rather too busy around here for a homebody like me.

puerperium

Nope. I don't know how to pronounce it either.



I call it the teeny tiny red thing for Baby A.

Teeny tiny knits for very small people are immensely satisfying. So quick! So teeny tiny! So quick!



My sources tell me the teeny tiny red thing has arrived safely in the wilds of Texas where my cousin, his wife and the brand new Baby A are currently living the oil mogul expat high life for a few years.

The pattern is Puerperium, a free baby cardigan on Ravelry, with buttons the length of one side for easy dressing in those early, floppy baby, nervous new parents kind of newborn days. And it's a beauty. A couple of evenings' worth of knitting followed by a week long quest for the perfect buttons, and it's done and dusted. I can see myself rifling through my stash and knitting a few more of these for upcoming babes. There are some lovely striped versions on Ravelry too, demonstrating that you don't even have to have two matching balls of yarn in your stash for this pattern. Win.

Baby A's unpronounceable teeny tiny red thing is ravelled here.

the apocalypse can come

My family will survive on my homegrown bounty.

PS. Turmoil, upheaval and more Life continue around here. Some is stressful, some is exciting, some is overwhelming. To sum up appropriately vaguely, we will not be selling and moving, it appears I have unintentionally landed myself a Career rather than a job, and squeee (!) I will be travelling this July. Big breath. Bring it on.

Dear Universe

Dear Universe,

fewer major life events, more pretty light, ok?

Yours,
Suse