Category Archives: Photography

Books, book art, bookbinding, paper craft, paper making, box making,
journaling, design, print & patterns, textiles, origami, art events – the blog of a bookbindery.

Design?DNA: The blog of Amy from Nashville; I love the mix of stuff that has come up on Amy’s blog – especially the textile and architecture related bits 🙂

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I have borrowed this book from Dianne at Spinners and Handweavers.

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I’ve been slack on the spinning and knitting front lately because I needed to spin up some more yarn for the jumper and had more fun things to do, like make a quilt. So tonight I finally plied up around 500m of yarn and it is having a bath.

The beginning of the jumper… look at the beautiful hem

Riscy is competing in a triathalon this weekend so I suspect I’ll get a fair bit of knitting done at the event.

I have been in a bit of a knot regarding how to to quilt the big dredger quilt. I do have ideas, but they are not fully formed so I don’t want to start in willy nilly.

Fulvia suggested I step back from it for a few days, and not put myself under pressure about it. And I think she is right.

I will, however do some work away from the quilt because I have an idea to use text related to or written by John Monash (who was a big force in the state electricity commission, which has now been privatised).

I realised last night that this quilt has some passing similarities to a bag I made last year and traded with Sophie:

 

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First ever sock complete!!!

I even successfully kitchenered the toe, how cool is that? I had to refer to the net (see link below)for the ankle shaping because I didn’t quite get what Elizabeth Zimmerman meant by knitting up the side of the heel flap. This How-To site at Knitters Review seems to have excellent instructions on the basics of sock knitting, so I think you could easily follow it and get a decent sock, you don’t need EZ’s book.

I’m also trying out something with my quilting. Not sure if it has potential yet, but I will persist a bit more:

I’m using watercolour at the moment, and I had trouble controlling the ‘bleed’ so it looks pretty crumby, but I have plans to cover the background areas in acylic paint and stiching so it shouldn’t be a problem.

I blogged about these pods back in September (I think), I’ve been drawing them and looking at them ever since and I really wanted to make a quilt based on them because I love their shape so much.

I penciled the shapes onto the fabric then sewed the outlines in black thread. I even found I could get excellent detail/drawing by looking at the pod whilst sewing. My only fear is that I will sew my fingers (done that before) so I can only do this for small areas, I did it for the stalk ends and the tips of the pods.

Riscy is in the ‘negotiation’ stage of the car buying project. Looks like we will have a black Nissan X-Trail in a few days. Black was not a colour we wanted, but that’s the one they are offering the discount on. Continue reading →

Scarf knitted lengthways in the Diamond Mesh lace pattern from A Treasury of Knitting Patterns. It is very meshy but also very soft, knitted from some superfine merino that I spun.

This was a filler knit and a gift for my sister Megan, it is a lot longer than shown in this cropped pic, enough for one neck wrap and not quite breast length tails.

I am currently spinning like crazy for a possible sock project. This wool I’m spinning though, I think I must be spinning something like an 8ply then I wash it and it thins up and I think it is even less than 4ply and then I’m all confused. maybe it will plump up when it is dry! I am spinning in the grease, so that may explain alot as the lanolin and crap come out in the wash.

Back to work tomorrow. I’m well set, the kitchen is clean and the clothes are put away…. BUT not only that, I have all my outfits for the week sorted and ready to go. How cool is that!

Riscy and I gave blood today. I’ve been a regular donor this year but it was Riscy’s first time 🙂 The Red Cross had called us before Christmas to make the appointment then called again the other day to remind us, then we almost forgot.

I was knitting, Riscy was fiddling with the laptop. Luckily he’d programmed a reminder into his mobile phone – it went off at 11am, we were still in our PJ’s. The appointment was at 11:10am LOL it all worked out though 🙂 Although I must say that the hole in my arm seems enormous this time around.

The only real bummer of this wonderful 10 day break was that I did not do ANY art. zip. I think I need work stress to bring it out of me otherwise I potter around doing other stuff and generally wasting time. I needed a good wind-down though, so I’m not feeling guilty. Continue reading →

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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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 →

I finished some more knitting this week. Another One Skein Wonder but putting a wider rib around the edge and put a wide rib on the sleeves instead of moss stitch.

I used Noro, which is the first commercial yarn I have bought since I started spinning. It looks a lot better with a black top as the pink shows through too much.

I’ve taken some more photos on the new camera:

Even without a macro lens I think the new camera does a reasonable job:

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