OCD queen

I swear I had today's post all planned out.

It was all about the evolution of an idea

I was going to explain to you all how a really simple freebie headband pattern lead to a beret
[ that I haven't shown you yet, despite the fact that it was finished halfway through last year ] which lead to some wristwarmers
[ that I also haven't shown you because they're not sewn up ]
which lead to the leggies that I kinda slipped into the last post
and then to the current project ... which I was confident would be entirely finished, ends sewn in and photographable by tonight

except

in the long established tradition of best laid plans 'o mice, men and Catsmums going aft aglay

just as I was casting off, I noticed a row count error

90 rows back

and yes
I nearly said something less than ladylike
and yes
I did pull it all out
and yes
I have started again

but that will be a post for another day

this week

Nadie and I spent some quality time with Bear at the Castlemaine Botanical Gardens

I made a new bit of garden ... which has been subsequently rearranged several times by the cats

so I've temporarily given up my landscaping attempts until the irresistible attraction of newly turned earth wears off

I also designed and knitted some legwarmers for The Girl


Nadie made sushi for the WIP [works in progress] day that we had yesterday

and we marked Earth Hour 2011 appropriately [ Nadie and The Boy playing cards by candlelight ]

gorgeous little visitor

MissC is sulking because Nadie 'stole' her Bearded Dragon

do or do not ... there is no try

Why is it that as soon as I say ... well, okay,write ... that I'm going to tell you something in particular in the next post, other stuff intervenes ?

In this case, like a whole bunch of other bloggers, I have found myself just overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the continuing disasters in Japan.

It seems insensitive to blithely witter on about my latest knitting / gardening / singing, etc in the face of yet another horrendous natural occurrence

again

First it was floods in Queensland, and then in New South Wales and Victoria.

Then the horrors of Christchurch

and now Japan

so do I blog about my inconsequential stuff or don't I ?

Today as I trawled through my favourite blogs, and read about Bell's newest gorgeous shawl, and Sheepish Annie's ongoing battles with her students, I realised that reading ... and writing ... about the normal stuff is one way of dealing with the overwhelmingly big stuff.

So
as promised

the backstory to my Zen Shawl:

back in October of 2008, I was working on a pair of Broadripple socks for Nadie.
I'd already made a couple of pairs for myself and just loved - and still love - the pattern.
I had decided to dye some cream sock yarn with a totally random [ and the key word here would be 'unmeasured' ] mix of blues, purples and hot pink.
It turned out just as I wanted. So far so good
... until ... I ran out of yarn with just the toe of the second sock left to do.

Cut to frenzied gnashing of teeth

Granted I could have just unpicked the toe of the first sock and given both of them a contrasting toe. That trick has gotten many a savvy knitter out of a tight spot before this ... but did I consider that ?
Nope
Never even crossed my mind for a second.
Instead I attempted to duplicate the 'random' dye job.

First attempt: came out as a pretty but very pastel version.
Second attempt: surprisingly close.

If you look at the photo in the link above, you can see that one toe is ever so slightly paler than the rest, but as the person for whom they were made was happy, I decided not to listen to the OCD side of my brain, and to quit while I was ahead. Said socks were duly finished four days after I started them.

The full ball of attempt 1 and the almost full one of attempt 2 were relegated to the sock wool tub where they lived in complete harmony with all the other sock wool candidates for a couple of years.

until
October 23rd 2010

I was about to catch a train down to Melbourne to spend the evening-before-her-wedding with my darling girl.
As I headed for the door, bag in hand, 'She who must be obeyed' [ aka my BFF Beryl ] yelled "Take your knitting. You'll need something to keep you calm tomorrow morning!!"

far be it from me to argue with SWMBO

but what to take ?
the then current - and still unfinished - project was far too complicated.
I needed to start something new...
I needed to find yarn, pattern and needles ... like right NOW

Snap decision: lace, but something I could do with my brain in neutral. It pretty much had to be another a Forest Canopy Shawl
but what yarn ?

okay, that stuff leftover from Nadie's socks is pretty and I can dye a couple more balls darker for the border later

needles? these 4mm KPs will have to do. They're already screwed together. I don't have time to fiddle around changing the ends.

I cast on going down in the train and got a couple of repeats done

and of course this brings us to the next morning. Nadie's wedding day.
Amidst the chaos of hair and makeup people, I sat in my oh-so-elegant white, fluffy dressing gown, knitting fine lace

I only had to pull out a little bit when I lost the plot for a few stitches [ but I didn't tell you that ]

and that whole 'keep you calm ' premise ?
It actually worked.


Specs:

pattern - Forest Canopy Shawl by Susan Lawrence [ ravlink]
yarn - Arlaan Arwetta [ ebay purchase ] originally cream
needles - KP Options 4mm
yardage - 760m or 830 yds [ 4 balls ]
mods - 7 extra repeats of the diamond pattern and 8 extra eyelet rows in the border

and in case you missed it the photo is here

dum dum dum dum

... another one* bites the dust**



* unfinished object finished
**with apologies to Queen

edit:
I started this one back in October and just finished it this week. There's a story attached. I'll try to get back to you with that tomorrow.

The Great Muckleford Cat Rescue of 2011

Time - just after lunch this afternoon
Place - the BIIIIG tree directly in front of the house

The predicament - look closely at the centre top of the photo


that is the younger grandkitten, Suki, precariously perched - and extremely unhappy about it - almost 20 feet up a gumtree

Point the first: only Nadie and I were home at the time.
Point the second: my ladder is only 10 feet long ... and that's measuring total length to the top step upon which no sane person would stand.
Point the third: I am not good with rickety ladders.

While I went to the shed and lugged down the sturdier of the ladders, Nadie managed to entice Suki down about a foot, but have any of you ever tried to get a feisty feline to come headfirst down a sloping branch when she's 16 -18 feet off the ground and terrified ?

Did I perhaps mention that ladders and I are not friends ?

Anyway, I inched my way to the second top step, wrapped one arm around the trunk [ all the while telling the Man Upstairs that I would take it kindly if there were no Wolf Spiders lurking in the immediate vicinity ] then stretched as far as I could in any kind of safety and discovered that I was about two inches too short.

Deeeeep breath
Cautious realignment of my stranglehold on the trunk

and ...
managed to get a couple of fingers around Suki's fore-paw ... which she promptly and firmly dug even deeper into the bark that she was hanging onto like Grim Death.
After readjusting my own death grip on the tree, and several failed attempts, I caught hold of her paw again [ and remember that at this point I was balanced on the top of a ladder at full stretch, holding an overweight chat by ONE FLAMING FOOT.

I suppressed the momentary vision of myself scratched to ribbons, heaved and ended up wearing a Suki collar.

Poor baby was so stressed, she didn't even manage a decent hiss, let alone any claw work on my quivering carcass.

Result:
Suki, Nadie and I have all survived her little expedition [ even if my knees did go all wibbly wobbly once I was back on terra firma ! ]

This is becoming a habit

Part the first
Once again I've managed to go a whole week between postings ... and it's not like there's been nothing to blog about either ... but I think that certain things are conspiring to keep me from posting:
Of course the most obvious one is just the general upheaval of normal patterns that is the inevitable consequence of trying to amalgamate two separate households but we are getting there.

Mind you, there are definite benefits

All this cupboard reorganisation and rationalisation means that I've rediscovered a whole bunch of stuff that I'd forgotten I owned:
Things that I'd hung onto "just because I had the room" have been re-appraised and, where necessary, sent ruthlessly to the Op Shop.
That poor guy who works in Receiving at the local Thrift Store winces when he sees my car pull up.

Then there's the stuff I hadn't really thought about ... like the fact that Chris & Nadie would be hauling up the contents of their pantry.

Suddenly we had TWO huge tins of Milo to find a home for, two large jars of Vegemite, two sacks of Basmati rice [ and jasmine rice, and arborio rice and ... ]
and so began the Great Pantry Tidy of '11.
Past-Use-By-Dated groceries have been hunted down and terminated
Oh, I feel so virtuous

but all this virtuosity takes a toll on a Catsmum

hence the non-bloggage

part the second [with no attempt at a segue ]

about a week ago I did actually get as far as scribbling down a list of some of the stuff that I could share with you.
So with some additions from this week - and absolutely no expansions or explanations - here's the list:

garlic porcupine meatballs

feather and fan shrug [ which did make it into a post ]

ebook reader

weird weird weather [ okay, so I lied about no explanations. It's the first week of March. If the previous 6 years were anything to go by, it should be peak bushfire season. Instead we've had more rain, and mornings hovering only a handfull of degrees above zero ]


Fred-the-duck MIA

Lonely George. Tuesday. 4 degrees.

garden

Viva Verdi Concert

humungous blisters

cat politics

Bear and Chris

Flourless Almond Orange Cake

Chat Warblers

Peace Choir

Zumba

Purls Palace closes

WiiFit

WIP Day:

Bear-based yarn tensioning device


visitors

presents

any or all of the above may now form the basis of forthcoming Blogfodder if so desired. just ask okay ?

She's ba-aaack !

Quilting Mojo is still MIA, but as her sibling Ms K. Mojo [ known as Knit to her friends ] has returned to the fold, can QM be far away ?

Mind you, Ms Knit is severely displeased with me.

She expected to return to piles of finished woollies
and
what did she find ?
nothing!
not a scrap!

By the time she had finished castigating me for the pathetic lack of sticks-and-string related activity, my membership in the Knitterly ranks was in serious danger of being stripped from my wilting shoulders. Oh the shame !
There was no help for it.
I had to re-establish my credentials asap.

A quick rummage in the depths of the UFO basket under the coffee table produced a vaguely familiar bit of feather-and-fan. I seem to remember starting it around New Years with the nebulous intention of it being some sort of trans-seasonal long sleeved shrug for Nadie.
When I actually got around to showing her what I'd started, she was somewhat less than enamoured with the colour [ a subdued sort of bluey, mauvy grey] and it ended up in time out.

So now it's going to be for me

The yarn is an aran weight Patons cotton blend that I originally bought - cheaply - at the local supermarket, and then added to when I found some more balls of the same dyelot going for a song at the Salvo Op Shop [ Thrift store ].

No pattern as such: two identical panels of feather and fan with garter stitch border and a segue into stocking stitch for the back[s] and then joined centre back with kitchener stitch.

I could've also just seamed the two pieces together, or done a three needle cast-off ... or I could've just done it all in one continuous piece with the lace at either end and trusted that no-one would actually notice that the pattern on one sleeve was upside down.

anyway for those who care about the specs

yarn - Patons Washed Haze Aran
needles - 6mm KP Harmony

No promises about how long it will take me to sew up the sleeve/side seams.
Can't rush these things.

evidence...

Natal congratulations

Hippo Birdy
two ewes
Hippo Birdy
two ewes
Hippo Birdy deeeeeear Nadie
Hippo Birdy
twooooooooooooooooo ewes


Hard to believe that my 'baby' is 29 today !

Nadie circa 1990

so here's the thing

what with
the alternating floods and heatwave[s]
the running to and fro to Melbourne to get Nadie-and-The-Boy packed up and moved in here
the running to and fro to Melbourne because MIL collapsed and got dragged off to 'ospital the day after Nadie-and-The-Boy moved up here
the packing/unpacking/rationalising of two households worth of goods and chattels

all coming hot on the heels of the Great Annual Post Christmas Take-Down and Pack Away [ which was somewhat more prolonged and involved than expected due to the fact that some of my usual storage spaces were about to be repurposed for storage of the above mentioned goods and chattels ]

and let us not forget the garden ... repeated flooding rains after 15 years of drought equals rampant and unprecedented growth equals [happy] hours of pruning and weeding,

and then, naturally, Nadie and I had to spend some quality time sitting-and-contemplating-the-results-with-book-and-companion-animals



net result:
I have not touched anything involving needle or hook for over a month
[gasp]

and Bear would like you to know that he is still adorable

Ms Spiny Spider had just finished mending the storm damage to her web when Nadie decided to show us what her top side looks like. You may remember the recent pic of her nether regions

... and now that I read that sentence again, it does occur to me that it is, perhaps, open to more than one interpretation ... erm ...

Obviously, I'm referring to the arachnid she's nether regions, not those belonging to my darling daughter

Is it safe to come out yet ?

After innumerable trips up and down the Highway, and with the help of a few good men ... and women ... Nadie and The Boy, and their goods, chattels and livestock [ aka the grandkittens Sumi and Suki ] are here.

Not quite what you'd call squared away yet.
That's still a work in progress

mainly for my overseas friends: the floods

I'm aware from comments here and on Facebook, just how much coverage overseas has been devoted to the recent & ongoing flood situation, but I also know that my overseas friends don't really have a way of measuring the sheer SCALE of the disaster... or indeed any way of knowing where I am in relation to those scenes of devastation.

so
just so's you know:

Not just Queensland - which copped the worst of it - but also vast areas of New South Wales, Victoria [ which is where I am ] and even Tasmania have experienced flooding.
You look at a map of Australia and we're talking almost the entire eastern third of a country that is not that much smaller than Continental USA [ if you don't count Alaska ]

I'm one of the lucky ones.

Nothing worse than a bit of storm water through the big shed, and the frustrations of trying to get down to Melbourne the other day ... which by the way I succeeded in doing not too long after the last missive.
The creek that forms my neighbours-over-the-road's back boundary rose enough to cut about 100m of the dirt road that leads to the Pyrenees Highway, so I had to detour in and out the 'back way', but get through I did without risking life or limb.

Now, in a water related segue, according to my understanding [ via the Almightly ABC* ] the insurance industry apparently differentiates between 'stormwater' which is what came down the hill and through my shed, and for which I and many others are covered, and 'floodwater' which is what happens when a creek or river overflows its banks, and for which almost everyone is not insured.

Bloody semantics!

Am I alone in thinking that it totally stinks that people who have faithfully paid their premiums year in year out, thinking that they were covered for any and all eventualities, are now finding out that they will be refused their claims ?

and off the soapbox now



* National Television Broadcaster

change of plans

It stopped raining a couple of hours ago.
so I packed Dave, Bear and a load of cleaning products into the car, and set off for Melbourne.

In case you're unaware, Nadie is currently trying to clean and pack for the immanent move up here.
I think we can agree that moving house is stressful at the best of times, but imagine trying to do it with both arms in splints! [ work injury, long story ]
Hence the maternal visitation last weekend to lend a literal helping hand or two at the Pre-Move Garage Sale, and theoretically again today to do a spot of cleaning & bring back the Grandkittens.

That was the plan
but you all know about the best laid plans o' mice, men and Catsmums, don't you ?

things 'gang[ed] aft aglay' in a big way

all ways to & through Castlemaine currently cut by storm water to some degree ...

Police were diverting traffic away from one sheet of water, only to have those cars intercepted a bit further on by another lot of constabulary and sent circling back to the first lot ... and so on ...

I didn't have my usual desire to pull over and take photos, even though some of it was quite spectacular. I've just seen a little too much television coverage this week of people's lives and livelihoods being destroyed.

so here I am back at home
feeling fairly b****y useless

will try to get out to the Calder again later

Sorry if I worried anyone

No funny/witty posts tonight.
It's been a long and mostly negative week

Last weekend was excruciatingly hot.
I got badly sunburned [ sunscreen, hat, shade sail, the whole nine yards, and still I got scorched ]
I lost the stone from my engagement ring.

It took 5 days to get the Christmas stuff down and semi squared away

It's been raining pretty much constantly since Sunday.
The weather [ or possibly all the packing/unpacking ] is playing havoc with the FMS.

Like everyone else in the country I'm sick at heart about the incredible scale of the losses of Queensland floods, and trying not to whinge about the fact that my big shed just got inundated for the third time since September because it seems so paltry stacked up against what those poor people have to endure.

So that's it

Family and friends in Queensland are flooded but okay
Tomorrow - if the roads are passable - I'm going down to Melbourne to collect the Grandkittens.

Expect feline hostilities to commence shortly after my return!

an omission rectified

While she didn't exactly take me to task, my darling girl did express some surprise that I hadn't shared photos of these recent interesting garden visitors:

this moth was about 7.5 cm or 3" long, and presumably asleep clinging to the flyscreen.

I didn't manage to catch him awake but you can still see his beautiful barred wings

and this impressive mantis/stick insect thingy got him/her self trapped in my bug zapper, but managed to escape before I had to do something drastic like dismantle the thing to free it.

He/she was quite happy to hop a ride on my hand to the slightly more salubrious surroundings of a eucalypt and stayed there long enough for a photo session.

and The Girl herself took this last pic of one of my occasional guests ...

this totally weird, spiky, little spider, the Spiny Spider, Austracantha minax.

Despite numerous attempts, I've never quite managed to catch her in focus, even in macro, probably because she's really tiny ... about a centimetre across.

If you're wondering why I'm calling it 'she' with such conviction, the males are even smaller.

Anyway, Nadie had a go at taking the shot from a bit further out and I just cropped in closer.
Success!

booklist 2010 and breaking news

Back in August, Ms Gayle of Mangofeet - based on shared tastes - suggested Lois McMaster Bujold as an author whose work I might enjoy.
She was right
so I'm giving you my completed list for last year and, if you can be bothered wading through it, please feel free to suggest other authors that you think might be a good fit.

I haven't included textile or art titles as I rarely read every word of those so they don't count

January:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - JKR
The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown ( disappointing )
Loving Richard Feynman - Penny Tangey ( Young adult - okay except the weak ending )
From Dead to Worse - Charlaine Harris
Living Dead In Dallas - CH
Green Mill Murder - KG
Blood and Circuses - KG
Ruddy Gore - Kerry Greenwood
Urn Burial - KG
Raisins and Almonds - KG book 10
Death Before Wicket - KG
Away With the Fairies - KG
Murder In Montmartre - KG
Queen of the Flowers - KG
Murder In The Dark - KG
The Persian Pickle Club - Sandra Dallas
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams
The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul - DA
Cocaine Blues - KG
Forbidden Fruit - KG book 20
Dead Until Dark - CH
Club Dead - CH
Skin Trade - Laurell K Hamilton
Seventh Son - Orson Scott Card
Red Prophet - OSC
Prentice Alvin: OSC
Alvin Journeyman - OSC
Heartfire - OSC

February
Crystal City - Orson Scott Card
The Fire Rose - Mercedes Lackey book 30
Dead to The World - Charlaine Harris
Dead As A Doornail - CH
Definitely Dead - CH
Dead and Gone - CH
Phoenix and Ashes - ML
The Wizard of London - ML
Swallowing Darkness - LKH
Shakespeare’s Landlord - CH
All Together dead - CH
Shakespeare’s Champion - CH book 40
Shakespeare’s Christmas - CH
Shakespeare’s Trollop - CH
Shakespeare’s Counselor - CH

March
Inkspell - Cornelia Funke
InkHeart - Cornelia Funke
The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club - Gil McNeil
The Lover’s Knot - Clare O’Donaghue ( had trouble finishing this one … too contrived )

April
Handfasted - Catherine Helen Spence
A Knight Of The Word - Terry Brooks
Running With the Demon - TB book 50
The Patient’s Eyes - David Pirie
The Night Calls - DP
The Dark Water - DP

May
Jane Bites Back
Jane Austen Ruined My Life ( MEH! )
Turn Coat - Jim Butcher
Dirt Music - Tim Winton ( IRL bookclub )

June/July
The Science of Discworld 1
Last Continent - TP ( reread)
The Jerilderie Letter - Ned Kelly ( IRL bookclub ) book 60
The Magicians - Lev Grossman
The Sweetness At The Bottom Of The Pie - Alan Bradley

August
The Childrens Bach - Helen Garner ( IRL bookclub )
Jingo - Terry Pratchett ( reread )
Grave Surprise - Charlaine Harris
An Ice Cold Grave - CH
Grave Secret - CH

September
Grave Sight - CH
The Curse of Challion - Lois McMaster Bujold
The Paladin of Souls - LMB book 70
The Hallowed Hunt - LMB

October
Love In A Cold Climate - Edith Warton
Twighlight - Stephanie Meyer
New Moon - SM
Eclipse - SM
New Dawn - SM
Beguilement - LMB

November
Dead In The Family - CH
Unseen Academicals - TP
The Science of Discworld II; The Globe - Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen book 80
Legacy - LMB
Passage - LMB
Horizon - LMB

December
Real Murders - CH
A Bone To Pick - CH
Three Bedrooms, One Corpse - CH
The Julius House - CH
A Fool & His Honey - CH
Last Scene Alive - CH
Poppy Done To Death - CH book 90
Good Omens - Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
Dead Man’s Chest - Kerry Greenwood
Devil Bones - Kathy Reichs

reading
Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood

so suggest away!

and now to the breaking [ momentous ] news:

No, nobody's pregnant as far as I know

but

[drum roll please cos this is happy news ]

My son-in-law has snagged a job transfer to Bendigo and so, within the next few weeks, he, Nadie and the Grandkittens will be moving in Chez Catsmum for a period as yet to be determined but not less than 6 months, and possibly considerably longer.

happy dance!

racing towards the finish line

It has been a week of extremes
half the country is under water. Seriously under water.
Not here though.
After all the rain we had in October/November, the dams are still delightfully full, but there's been little evidence of moisture of late.

A week ago we had overnight lows of 4C/39F
... and today?
While it wasn't the hottest New Year's Eve I've experienced up here [ that distinction belongs to ... I think ... 2006, when it reached 48C, and was still over 40 at midnight ]
it did still get to 40.9. That's 105.6F!
4 degrees above freezing to " OMG I'm going to die of heat prostration" in less than a week.
Makes it very difficult to acclimatise
especially for the elderly.
My 90 year old, just-had-a-triple-bypass, darling Godmother came up for the day today, and I just kept thinking
"Thank God for the A/C"

After the visitors left, I was at a bit of a loose end, pottered around a bit, knitted some lace, browsed a couple of books ... your basic dithering
then I decided to make another of those wrap aprons. Ma-in-law liked her Christmas one so much, I promised her another for her natal day in March.
I'm not sure whether this will be it.


It might be.
Or it might be for DIL who said she'd certainly wear one.

At least this way I've got MIL covered :)


anyway
Happy New Year to you and yours, from me and mine
and I'll be back tomorrow with news of some big changes Chez Catsmum

sometimes ...

it all comes together

right place
right time

and with camera in hand: