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Monthly Archives: December 2005
A Little Holiday
I have been at home during the last week, but haven’t felt like doing much of anything, including blogging. I have been doing a little bit of knitting, and a fair bit of spinning. But the effort of getting the camera out etc, is just too much LOL
It is HOT here today, as it was yesterday, and will be tomorrow. I’m using that as my excuse for my lazyness 🙂 Continue reading
A Welcome Cocktail Hour
I blocked the lace this afternoon and safety pinned the ‘arms’ up so I could judge its suitablity as a shrug:
I am thinking that it will work AND I wont have to knit cuffs since the edges have a lovely picot effect from my shoddy blocking… this deletion also means it would be easier to re-convert it into a scarf at a later date! Geez I’m smart LOL
We only had to work a half day today. Well actually, most people didn’t work, they were mainly trying to overcome the effects of our boozy work thing last night. I had my last day with the space cadet grad I’ve had to endure for the last 6 months.
I had started to think maybe I’d over-reacted, or misjudged. but no. He proved today that he was a complete moron when I sent him to measure the width of some driveways and he couldn’t cope when the sides weren’t well defined, he just kept on walking up the shoulder, he was well off up the road before I realised and had to call him back. And he walked out in front of a car. This bloke fell asleep in a (short) meeting on his first day with us, and things never improved.
I could rant on all day about his fuckwittery but I think you get the idea.
Thank the gods – Its the cocktail hour. I’m enjoying a nice cool glass of New Zealand Savignon Blanc, very welcome, since it is still boiling hot. May indulge in some Bailey’s later.
I still haven’t organised any food for Christmas, I’ll go for a mosey down the street tommorow morning. I’m thinking prawns, oysters, salmon and maybe a huge big thick filet steak (I like it rare YUM).
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Orange Lace Crossroads
I could probably make this into a reasonable length scarf with the remaining yarn in this ball and the other (smaller) skein I spun, but the idea of converting this into a shrug is quite intriguing and even a little scary since I don’t know what I’m doing. It is only a vaugue idea based on my experince knitting two One Skein Wonders.
I’ll resolve it soon though, since I’m on a roll.
The sky has been fascinating here recently. I wish I could show you ALL the photos I have been taking as the clouds have been mesmerising. Here is one:
I love photographing my roses, here was one I took on the same night as the above cloud photo.
This is much more yellow than a previous photo I posted from this variety. It is faded and nearly blown, but quite beautiful nonetheless.
Riscy is now in Tasmania and I’m batching it for a week. When he comes back we will go car shopping. His 1988 Honda Civic is DEAD, he has been nursing it for 3 years since the head gasket blew and now the radiator has cracked right across, a wound that no amount of super putty is going to heal. The good thing is that over the years he has been saving up like crazy and now has enough to buy a virtually new car. It’ll probably be a Subaru Forester so we have enough room to pack camping gear, the dog and put a kayak on the roof 🙂
Talking about kayaks, Riscy and his dad Jeff are taking a Dusky Bay double out tommorow for a spin. We paddled one of these in Fiji for a day and I found it really comfortable and fast, but Riscy found it too cramped in the cockpit for his long legs. I think he is hopeful that modifications can be make it work for him. We will probably get a kevlar one so we can more easily lift it onto the roof of a car. We tossed up for a while between a double or singles, but I like being able to chat away to Riscy through the day and as he is a VERY strong paddler so singles might have been a bit ‘inequitable’. Continue reading
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Aquisition and a bit of knitting
I treated myself this year. I bought Angels in Stone from Dijanne Cevaal. Dijanne is a well known textile artist in Australia and I’m very pleased that we have been able to connect through our blogs 🙂
So here are a few pictures (check out the link to Angels in Stone above, it takes you to Dijanne’s post about the work).
Angels in Stone by Dijanne Cevaal. I bought this as a treat for myself this Christmas.
Yesterday Riscy and I cleaned the front half of the house and today we will tidy our bedroom. I don’t want to spend my precious days off at Christmas feeling crap because the house is untidy and feeling worse because I’m procrastinating about putting the washing away.
I picked up my knitting again after taking a nearly 2 month break to concentrate on making art. This was going to be a very open, lacy scarf, but I’m thinking it is going to be too wide so I’m seriously considering turning it into a shrug, perhaps with purple cuffs!!
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KrisKringle
My Spinners and Handweavers Guild met for a Christmas lunch today. Pot Luck style. I cooked a potato fritatta using a recipe from Stephanie Alexanders Cooks Companion which I bought on the weekend. I can tell this will be a much used recipe book. It is all encompassing at 1100 pages it even has a chapter on parsnips LOL. I did tweak the recipe to include some moroccan spices, dill, and since I didn’t have spinach handy I threw in some frozen peas and beans (I’m not a gourmet!). It was even tastier than I imagined it would be.
We did a KrisKringle present exchange which was meant to be worth around $5. This was the gift I gave:
Robina picked it, and she seemed pleased 🙂
We had our long awaited meeting with the architect today and we are very pleased with our progress so far. He has based the colour scheme on some funky greeny bluey floor tiles which have coloured glass embedded in them.
So our renovated interior will be greeny/blue/gray. Which Riscy particularly likes. I’m going to accessorise with orange though!! I had to veto the initial light yellow splashback tiles and pale yellow walls though. I do NOT like yellow and blue together, just too kitchy marine themeish, if you get my drift.
The carpet colour (which is not decided on) is pretty far out. A dark Teal…. I’m thinking it will be too dark. especially given our dark blue couch, our dark redgum dining table and all our other dark timbered furniture! AND our dog is white and orange, this could be a real dog hair disaster!
This is fairly basic redecorating/refitting project and we could have done all this ourselves and saved money. But, we have discoved this about ourselves since we bought our house 4 years ago – we don’t like DIY. It is a wonderful thing to realise this and let go of all that weekend angst. It isn’t for us.
Come up and see my …
Etchings.
I did a printmaking workshop with Jenny Peterson today at her studio in Boolarra. She has a lovely house and studio slightly out of town.
I was her only student today, so I could take things at my own pace. Which was good since I was feeling the effects of the big Christmas party last night.
We also had a BBQ with some of Riscy’s collegues tonight. I am pretty tired though and the drunken bullshitting and talk about work started to grate at me so I’m relieved to be home. Continue reading
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Look. New Banner!
Stating the obvious. I have made a new banner for my blog. The photo was taken from my friend’s house in Kingston (south of Hobart in Tasmania). That’s what I miss the most about my home state (apart from family and friends, of course), the views were good. Her home looks over the D’Entrecasteaux Channel and it was a bit rainy when I took the shot.
I think this one is a bit more restful than the last banner but I’m thinking of changing it more regularly anyway (now that I have worked out how to!)
We have Riscy’s work Christmas party tonight, they don’t skimp. It is a seafood buffet with drinks and a beatles cover band. Yeah!
I’d better go work out what I’m going to wear! Continue reading
Tinkering
This scan doesn’t accurately represent the metalic parts of this assembly, but I quite like the effect I get here anyway. I cut up and painted (then rubbed) the edges of foil BBQ trays.
I am taking a printmaking workshop this Saturday. I had planned to preprepare collograph plates and really USE my time at the press. But the enthusiasm waned and I didn’t start anything ’til tonight and I’m not happy with what I have done.
But I was playing around with some aluminium foil which is a beautiful and delicate material, then remembered that I had cut up a heap of BBQ trays to use the bottoms for inscribing and printing (which reminds me, I must find them so I can take them over to the workshop)
I had saved the crinkled edges of the trays and cut them roughly into squares. Tonight I discovered that I can unfurl the tightly curled edges and I really liked the patterns… so the above thing is a result of that play. I like play.
I am getting phyched about the big wall piece I want to do. I’m thinking that I will get the layout onto the paper then pin it to my dining room wall and work on it insitu. Riscy might have other ideas LOL, but he’s going to Tasmania for Christmas, so I can do what I want (mwhaaa mwhaaaaa haaa hhhaaa)
I am currently reading a transcript of an interview with Rosalie Gascoigne, recorded in 1998 the year before she died. The LRG owns one of her pieces which is made of old road signs. It is quite spectacular when lit as the material is retroreflective. (this means the work loses about 85% of its zing in reproduction, which is why I think it strange that it is featured on a huge banner hanging on the building!!)
Gascoigne, seemed to have led an isolated existance from the time she landed in Australia (from New Zeeland) living on the outskirts of Canberra and having difficulty making friends with the other women in her small community. Loneliness seems to have forced her to start creating. She came to prominance in her mid to late 50’s!!! You don’t have to be a child prodigy to be good. (thank goodness)
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My Favouite Restaurant Reborn!
Today we found out that our favourite restaurant, Rasa Satay, which closed about 3 years ago, has come back as Rasa Thai!!! Same owner, new chefs, and located in the next town over. We went there for dinner tonight, it is seriously BETTER than before… I’m in heaven.
I’m exchanging Christmas cards with Bertha. I thought I’d supply a sneak peek here 🙂
Back of the Christmas Card I made tonight
Hope she doesn’t mind contour drawings of feet and hands! LOL. Continue reading
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Contour drawings and some flowers
I’ll start out with my first modified contour drawing:
Maryellen (who left a comment yesterday) could you please email me by clicking the ‘Contact Me’ section on the right hand side of my blog, I couldn’t get your email address from your comment…. Thanks :o)
Now, to give your eyes a well deserved rest from the ugly drawing:
Tonight we (Reflex Raiders) were beaten at touch footy for the first time this season. It was a clash of the two top teams in B grade and a very fast moving game. We had no male subs and had to play 3 females all game so we (and especially the blokes) were stuffed by the end.
The other team used their girls really well and I think that is an area we can make improvements. I’m not good at asserting myself into the play, probably a result of never playing team sport as a kid – we were more into camping and bushwalking. But I did join in the ruck more this week so I think I’m improving there.
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