Mildly Crafty

Handy pouches

2008-05-12T17:03:00.001+10:00

I made these late last week. The blue one was for my mum for mothers day. I spent an hour in Spotlight choosing the fabric. Then when she saw the one I'd made for myself she wanted that one! So I gave her both of them :) I used this tutorial but I bound the seams on the inside to make it neater (forgot to take a pic of that, will do next time).

Off to make another for myself now.

Dodgy crumpets

2008-05-12T16:36:00.001+10:00

Dodgy crumpets

I attempted to make crumpets as suggested by Pip but they didn't turn out so well :(

I think I didn't put enough yeast in, never mind, I will try again!

I went to a SnB on Saturday. It was in Ringwood East and organised by Angela via the SnB Melbourne group on Ravelry. It was so nice to sit around drinking coffee, knitting and chatting and the girls were all very nice. If you live in the area I'd highly recommend coming along to the next one on May 24th.

And have you heard that June 14th is World Wide Knit in Public Day! Some of the girls on Ravelry are organising a KIP, possibly at Fed Square so take a look at this thread if you're interested in coming along.

The Meaning of Life

2008-05-05T19:07:00.002+10:00

When I was at uni (about 12 years ago, yikes!) I had this really weird moment. I was walking to one of my lectures, past a patch of garden that I walked past every day, and I noticed that it was covered in hundreds of mushrooms that hadn't been there the day before. And it was like a flash went off in my head, I thought ... they weren't there yesterday and they will be dead in a couple of days, such a short life, so what is the point of their existence???? ie WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE!? That might sound kind of lame to you, everyone has wondered about the meaning of life at some time, but it was a really strong feeling, like I'd been shocked, it was really weird (and kinda hard to convey).

Ever since then I've been pondering this question, I used to like thinking about it on the way home, squished into Melbourne's overcrowded trains full of other people thinking their mysterious thoughts.

So far my pondering has led me to the simple conclusion that the purpose of life is ... to be happy, whatever that means to you.

What do you think?

Bamboozled

2008-04-27T22:08:00.001+10:00

Bamboozled

No not me ... it's the pattern name.

This used less than 1 ball of yarn and was quite quick and fun to knit. I love how it turned out. The cable stitches really stand up from the background and the slip stitch edges are very neat.

And it’s lovely and warm too.

Clapotis for Chelsea

2008-04-20T20:40:00.001+10:00

Clapotis for Chelsea

Last Saturday I went to Sunspun with my sister so she could choose a yarn for a scarf that I promised to knit her. I was trying to encourage her to choose a chunky yarn for a cable pattern I liked but unfortunately she liked the colour of this Rowan Wool Cotton the best. So I'm knitting my second Clapotis. Actually my first Clapotis was the second thing I knit after I started knitting in 2006. This one is going much faster than the first.

Pasta

2008-04-11T16:25:00.001+10:00

My new pasta machine

My sister gave me this pasta machine for my birthday. I've always wanted one of these! The machine feels great, it's really heavy and sturdy. We gave it a whirl last Saturday and found it was pretty easy. You just need to make sure you let the sheets rest for a while (eg 15 mins) to dry out before you try to put them through the fettuccine/linguine bit or you just get a gummy blob out the other end :)

And it was great fun turning the handle and seeing the fettuccine come out the other side!

Oh and an important point is that the pasta tasted great.

Hemlock Ring Blanket

2008-04-11T15:23:00.001+10:00

Hemlock Ring Blanket

I don't think I mentioned I was doing the Hemlock Ring Blanket. Well ... surprise! It's all finished. Sorry about the photo being a bit crummy but it's very bright outside today and very dim inside so this was the best I could manage.

Here's the stats:
Pattern: Hemlock Ring Blanket
Yarn: 7 skeins of Naturally Harmony in greyish brown
Time to knit: Approx 3 weeks (I'm a slow knitter though)
Verdict: Quite an easy pattern to follow and I'm very happy with how it turned out, two thumbs up

April fools

2008-04-02T09:02:00.002+11:00

Hi, it was my birthday yesterday! Yup, on April fools day. I'm the ripe old age of 34 now!

I was going to post yesterday but just didn't get time, I had a very full schedule.

MD and I left home for the city at 8:30am, he doesn't normally work in the city, he had to visit a client in the morning. I didn't have to be at my pattern making class until 10am but I wanted to get the train with him :). I was there at 9am so I sat in a little cafe in Degraves St and had french toast and coffee - yum. Pattern making went from 10am-1pm (we made a pants pattern). Then I met up with 10 of my old colleages for lunch, it was great to see them all again and hear what they've been up to. Then after lunch I met my mum who just happened to be in the city for the afternoon (my parents live in the country) and my sister who just happened to finish work early and we sat in a cafe and yakked and drank champagne! Very nice! And last night I went to my inlaws for dinner along with MDs brother and his girlfriend and my sister. And the weather was glorious all day!

I wanted to take pics of my presents but MD has taken the camera to work so I'll have to do that later.

I hope you all had a good April Fools day and didn't get fooled too much :)

Busy weekend

2008-03-30T20:25:00.005+11:00

I've had a big weekend. Yesterday I did my second screen printing class which was all about how to create photographic screens. The short story is ... buy a Gocco people. It is a bit of a PITA to create a photographic screen. You have to:

- degrease the screen (apply degreaser, leave a few mins, wash off)
- dry the screen
- apply emulsion to screen (kinda messy)
- dry the screen
- prepare the image (eg photocopy on to transparent paper)
- tape image to screen
- expose screen to UV light for 6 mins (using fancy rack to vacuum seal screen to glass and fancy big UV light)
- wash screen (very carefully, some of the screens we prepared didn't work, the emulsion all just washed off)
- dry the screen
- finally you can use the screen to print your images
- wash screen and squeegee

Phew! It was quite a process and frankly seems a bit too much bother for me to be interested. It seems to me that for a home hobbyist that a Gocco is really the way to go.

And secondly, today MD and I went on an architecture tour run by Stephen Crafti. It was great. We went on one last year at about the same time of year. The deal was that we met at 9:45am in the city and got on a bus and were driven to Toorak where we looked at two houses which were next door to each other. The first was a brand new house by Carr Design which looked pretty fabulous, it had a big courtyard in the middle and the main bedroom upstairs. The main feature was the amazing front door, it was probably 4 metres across and it pivoted on a hinge in the middle. It was cool but probably a bit OTT. The house next door was a much more modest 50's (I think) Robin Boyd house which was quite lovely. It was very modest but the owners had a great art collection and the living area had beautiful views of the garden. After lunch we we went to a fairly new house on Beaconsfield Parade by Buro Architects (the Middle Park House on their web site). It was VERY glamorous and very big. You can see their kitchen on the architect's web site but they also had a scullery kitchen behind it with another fridge, sink and oven. You can also just see in the photo their artwork on the left, there were about 10 Sidney Nolan "Ned Kelly" paintings. Not the kind of thing you see every day! And the last house we visited was the one featured on the cover of Stephen's book Making the Most of Small Spaces. From the street it looks like all the other terrace houses in the street but when you open the front door you see the view on the book cover. The whole downstairs is one open floor, it looks amazing. The kitchen is sunken by about a foot and all the storage, fridge etc is hidden under the counter top.

It was fantastic to see in person the kinds of houses that you usually only see in magazines, you can get a sense of what the house might be like to live in. I highly recommend going on the next tour if you're interested, Stephen can be contacted via his web site (and ignore the bit about the April tour being booked out, that's from April several years ago :). He said he might be running the next one in June.

(BTW we didn't take any pictures today, we didn't take the camera because we thought it wouldn't really be allowed but some people were taking pictures of every little bathroom, bedroom and kitchen detail, right in front of the owners even, seemed kinda rude to me).

Crafty people are ace!

2008-03-14T19:15:00.002+11:00

My stitching from the Stitches & Craft Show

I had such a good time today. The Living Creatively ladies were lovely and I met Hiromi, Angela, Bianca and Amelia and saw Fi and Jenny again.

I was sitting on my lonesome on the other side of the room in the morning which was a bit crappy, most people who went past thought I was just having a quiet stitch on my own! :)

But after lunch Jenny and Angela very kindly made some room for me between them and we chatted and demo-ed the afternoon away.

I'm continually amazed at how nice all the crafters I've me are. Working in the IT industry just wasn't the same - not that I didn't work with nice people, just that we didn't seem to have many things in common apart from work, and I suppose partly because most of my colleagues were male. I've just been having the time of my life over the past four months coz - a) I've met so many new people, b) they've been female, c) they love craft, d) they've been lovely people!

And to top off my great day Amelia gave me a (big) ball of orange cotton that she'd recycled and I'd been admiring - how generous is that! Thanks Amelia, I smiled all the way home (even in the 40 degree heat).

Stitches & Craft show

2008-03-12T18:05:00.002+11:00

I answered Pip's call for sublime stitchers to help demonstrate a the
Stitches & Craft show. It was a hoot! I didn't get much time to look at the other stalls but I did see some women making lace - freakin amazing!

Sorry I forgot to take pictures!! I will be back there on Friday so I'll take my camera then.

Stitchin'

2008-02-27T12:07:00.001+11:00

Stitchin'

Monday night was the inaugural Brown Owls meeting. It was so much fun the three hours just whizzed by. Pip and co have done such a great job of organising it, thanks guys, don't know what we'd do without you!

Unfortunately I didn't think to take my camera so I don't have any photos but you can see some that others have taken here. I sat and chatted to Corrie, Steph, Tish, Veronica and Cam who were all very lovely. It's so nice to meet other crafty people!

I had to do a runner at the end to make my train (they only run every half hour) and let me advise you not to try to walk through the park at night. It was pitch black, I couldn't see my feet! I had to backtrack and stick to the street instead. Luckily I made my train with 2 mins to spare.

Teddy

2008-02-25T12:26:00.001+11:00

Teddy

Made this little fellow at Sooz's Contemporary Soft Toys class.

The class was fabulous! Sooz was great, she was so friendly, enthusiastic and had so much great info to share. And the other class members were great too, sometimes you end up in a class full of people who don't talk to each other, that's so depressing.

Valentines

2008-02-15T18:32:00.002+11:00

I made this card and knitted heart for my husband and spent all afternoon making Lemon Pots de Creme and "Cannelloni with Spinach, Goat Cheese, Walnuts, and Roasted Garlic-Tomato Sauce" from Fields of Greens (sorry no pics).

I love this recipe book! I bought it years ago after I had to give back the library's copy because I'd re-borrowed it the maximum number of times. There are no photos in the book but you don't miss them because all the recipes just sound so delicious. Most of them involve a bit of work though, there's no quick after work dinners here. The cannelloni was fantastic (and there's enough left over for tonight, woo hoo!), the flavours were so good together. Roasted garlic is amazing, it has such a creamy, smokey flavour.

Quick tip: I used Latina fresh lasagna sheets for the cannelloni instead of buying the dried pasta tubes, they were so much better. Each sheet made 2 cannelloni so there's enough in the packet for 16 cannelloni. Just plonk 1/4 cup of filling on your pasta sheet, spread it out along the edge and roll into a tube - this also much easier than trying to stuff the mixture into a tiny tube!

Now time to go reheat the leftovers :)

Sorted for windy days

2008-02-06T13:33:00.000+11:00

Whipped this up this morning.

Not sure if it's heavy enough though. It's filled with rice that the weevils had gotten into :) Waste not want not! Perhaps sand would be better? But then it might trickle out through the seams ... hmm, I'll just wait until a windy day and see what happens. This is the tutorial I used, http://allittook.blogspot.com/2008/01/pryamid-door-stop-tutorial.html, very easy to follow photos and directions, thanks Rachael!

And check out my first post on I Op Therefore I Am.

Weekend wrap up

2008-02-06T13:00:00.000+11:00

So here's the results of my crafty weekend.

Firstly there was the screen printing class on Saturday.

The class was quite fun but it wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be. I suppose it's hard to cover much in four hours but she really just gave us very basic instructions then left us to print whatever we felt like doing. The above print was my first attempt, the stencil was made by cutting out paper. This next one was made by taking a rubbing of the fig leaf using wax crayons. The wax blocks the holes in the screen. I really like how this turned out, I printed two so I might make something out of them.

There's another class in March on how to use digital images/drawings etc to make a screen which is what I'd really like to know how to do so I've signed up for that. I got to talking with one of the girls, Maria, in the class at lunch, she's into knitting and all sorts of crafty things too so I told her all about Ravelry. Hi Maria!

On to Sunday! I went to Gemma's for the Kaotic Kraft Kuties meet up. We were having a tote swap. Gemma made one of these tote bags for everyone (thanks Gemma) and inside were the first two issues of MixTape and a choccy (... hey! it's not where I left it in the kitchen - someone has eaten it, grrr).

And this is the bag made by Pickle that I received in the swap. Beautiful isn't it!

Shopping bag finished

2008-02-01T18:10:00.000+11:00

Ta da!

Shopping bag

All finished. I figured out how to make this by examining an old one that my gran gave me. It wasn't too hard but sewing the vinyl was stressful as it can't be pinned (the pin holes would be visible) and one mistake while sewing would mean I'd have to start again with a new bit of vinyl.

Next time I make one (will definitely make more) I'll use thicker vinyl as this stuff from spotlight was pretty thin, or perhaps I'd use leather? I saw some of these in Douglas & Hope yesterday that used leather and they looked really good (I'd already started making mine with the vinyl though).

Anyone know where to buy nice soft leather?

I thought I might write up a tutorial if anyone is interested?

Crafty weekend ahead

2008-02-01T13:00:00.000+11:00

I went to morning tea at Meet Me At Mikes yesterday morning and met some new people which was nice. Pip is always organising something for the crafty types to do, she's so generous - thanks Pip!

I've also bought a membership for Brown Owls, also organised by Pip. First class in Feb 25th so I'm looking forward to that.

I'm looking forward to this weekend too, I've got two crafty things on. First is on Saturday, I'm doing a screen printing class from 11am-3pm at Olive Grove Studios in Sydney Rd, Brunswick (they don't seem to have a website). I'm really looking forward to this, I've always wanted to be able to do screen printing. I'd love to be able to print some fabric then make something from it :)

Secondly, on Sunday I'm going to the Kaotic Kraft Kuties meet up organised by the lovely Gemma. We have to make a tote to swap which I've been working on today. Actually I'd better get back to finishing it ...

2008-01-30T12:03:00.000+11:00

Hi! I've had a slack start to the year haven't I? I wanted to wait to post until I had my new year's resolution figured out and then time just got away from me I guess. Anyway, here I am. So what is my new year's resolution - well it's a bit lame ... the short answer is "keep house better". The long answer is

- keep the house tidy (mostly do ok on this already)
- keep the house clean (this is the main prob)
- make ongoing effort to make house look nice, ie new cushions, pics for the walls, etc
- do something about the jungle garden (it looks very bad, our neighbour said he was going to pour weedkiller on it!!! (how rude to say that to me!) It's not THAT bad but it's not good.)
- try new recipes regularly and eat healthily

you get the picture.

My second resolution is to get fit and trim. I got that started this morning by going for a 40 min walk with the doggy. I plan to do this every morning, we'll see what difference that makes.

On to new business now. This is supposed to be a craft blog yet somehow I haven't posted many of the things I've made so I'm going to redress that now.

Over Christmas I made the French Market Bag. I've been meaning to make this since I first saw it on Knitty two years ago. It was pretty easy to knit, good for knitting while watching TV. I'm pleased with how it turned out though it's floppier than I expected. Perhaps it just needs more felting.

If you are a Ravelry user you can see it here.

Right now I'm making a string bag. I started out making Elisa Nest Tote and got up to doing the handles but I didn't like the way the icord was attaching, it was kind of lumpy and the seams on the sides were a bit wobbly too. So I ripped it out and made up my own pattern. I decided to make a solid garter stitch base (like the one on the Everlasting Bagstopper) so that the corners of things like books wouldn't poke out the holes. I also wanted to knit it in the round to eliminate messy seams and so that I could attach the icord to live stitches rather than to cast-on and cast-off edges. The most challenging part so far has been converting the Star Rib Mesh lace pattern (from A Treasury of Knitting Patterns) for circular knitting. It's embarrassing to admit but it took me about 5 hours to figure it out (I was watching TV at the time too, that's my excuse). My husband asked why I didn't just give up but there was no way I was going to let it defeat me, I'll never advance at knitting if I do that will I?

So here it is in the flat and in-the-round versions.

Flat knitting:
Multiple of 4 sts plus 1.

Rows 1 and 3 (wrong side) - Purl
Row 2 - K1, * yo, sl 2 knitwise-k1-p2sso, yo, k1; rep from *
Row 4 - Ssk, yo, k1, * sl 2 knitwise-k1-p2sso, yo, k1; rep from *, end yo k2 tog

Circular knitting:
Multiple of 4 sts

Rows 1 and 3 - Knit
Row 2 - * yo, sl 2 knitwise-k1-p2sso, yo, k1; rep from *
Row 4 - Remove beginning of round marker, k1, replace marker, * yo, k1, yo, sl 2 knitwise-k1-p2sso; rep from *

Here's a pic of the bag so far, you can't see the stitch pattern well in this photo so I'll take a better one soon.

I'm off to do some sewing now. Promise I'll post more regularly in future :D

Merry Christmas

2007-12-24T11:27:00.001+11:00

sooty and amy

What a wintery week it's been. It's so cold in the house now, I've had to put the heater on. It was similar weather this time last year too, I remember having to put the heater on on Christmas day.

Well we are ready for Christmas day tomorrow. We have just got everyone small gifts this year and have also bought everyone a gift from Oxfam and we've asked that our family donate to charity instead of giving us gifts this year. You might think I'm being a bit of a grinch but the rampant consumerism at this time of year really bugs me. Buying presents for people who don't really need or want those things just because that's what you're supposed to strikes me as really wasteful. I'd rather give that money to someone who really needs it.

Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you have a lovely day tomorrow. (remember to eat lightly tonight, you're gonna need that space tomorrow :)

WAAAAKE UUUUUUP!

2007-12-16T10:09:00.001+11:00

Salvos

We live in a fairly quiet suburb. The only thing that wakes us up occasionally are the birds.

Well this morning it was a brass band! I opened my eyes and thought, that is not the alarm, that is not the TV, therefore there must be a brass band outside our house! So I opened the curtains and saw that there was! That got me out of bed fairly smartly.

Kids

2007-12-12T21:12:00.000+11:00

We went to visit my parents in the country on Sunday. Their neighbour has a few farm animals so we went over there to see their new kids. They had three, two were very shy but this one practically jumped into my arms! She was so cute, I really wanted to take her home.

The had sheep, alpacas and chickens too but I couldn't get close enough to any of them for a cuddle. I love animals, I grew up in the country and we always had a wide assortment of pets but now we just have a dog, Sooty.

I made tomato sauce for dinner tonight. It was good but not as great as I thought it might be and it was a bit too buttery. I'd definitely try it again as it was sooo easy to make but I think I'd put less butter in and probably add garlic. (Don't you think adding rocket to any meal just makes it look instantly gourmet!)

Done - just in time for summer?

2007-12-06T15:58:00.000+11:00

I finished my Hanami scarf this morning and it's blocked and dried already (it is 32 degrees here today!).

I really enjoyed knitting this, the pattern is interesting and the alpaca yarn is so soft. I can't wait to wear it ... next winter :(

It doesn't really go with a singlet does it?

Dukkah Pumpkin & Risotto

2007-12-04T20:20:00.001+11:00

Dukka Pumpkin & Risotto

I made this for dinner tonight - it was really tasty. Made a bit of a mess of the kitchen though.

Recipe from The Cook and the Chef, I love that show.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/cookandchef/txt/s1930652.htm

Why are people so unkind?

2007-11-26T21:11:00.000+11:00

I caught a bus today, I haven't done that for a while, I'm more of a train user these days. Anyway, I was enjoying the trip, looking out the window and daydreaming when the bus pulled up at a stop ... and the driver proceeded to very rudely tell off the woman who had mistakenly rang the bell to early and wanted to get off at the next stop. Then when she got off at the next stop he yelled out after her "next time try to get it right so you don't inconvenience all the other passengers!".

My pleasant trip was shattered and I reckon hers was too. How humiliating for her to be yelled at like that for making a simple mistake. I was so pissed off with the driver. I was tempted to go and ask his name so I could make a complaint about him ... but then I was scared he'd yell at me too.

I get so mad when people are nasty for no good reason. Why do they have to be that way, it just brings everyone down.