beanie bonanza!

it's beanie time! about 20 minutes after i wrote that post last week, i grabbed out my needle roll and started a beanie. isn't my needle roll the cutest? bought it in a sale at the haby goddess .

also got this matching one for my crochet hooks. they're both katie fleck designs and i love them to death! now, back to beanies...

beanie number one: green apple sorbet.

lovely sorbet wool that i got on sale at spotlight, $1.50 a ball! down from like $9 each.

the way that it's in a skein made it feel all special, something a bit different from a ball.

this was really great until it came down to actually knitting with it...

an hour later and it was rolled in an easy to use and manage ball. skeins are stupid.

out came my bright red number 10s. they're from the op-shop so one of them doesn't actually have an end, makes it a little difficult, but worth the care.

65 stitches, i cast on. after the first night, i'd knitted this much. i was proud, it'd been ages since i'd done any knitting, let alone knitted a beanie. the thick wool and needles felt strange in my hands, compared with the thin 3.5mm crochet hook and 8 ply wool i've been using for my big ripple.

after night two, little apple had grown substantially. this one'll be done in no time! unless of course you're an absolute tool like i am and you lose one of your needles!!! so green apple sorbet has been put on hold until payday, when i can nick to spotlight and buy another pair of 10mm needles.

beanie number two: airhead diva.

actually knitting a few wools up for this one, which is what i prefer to do.

airone, diva and kaleidoscope.

i decided at about 9pm thursday to start this beanie, it was finished by 1am friday. the airone knitted up amazingly quickly.

first beanie done, first beanie done! don't mind my stupid face though...

beanie number three (yes THREE): another mixed-up wooly one.
tammy and kid mohair blend and a random blue-green one that i found in my wool mess.
should end up a lovely blue-green textured lovely beanie.

75 stitches on 8mm needles. they're TINY in length though. i'm quite scared of losing half of them off the end when i put it down...

and that's the end of my knitting adventures for this week... three beanies started, one beanie finished. i'll have all 10 beanies done in no time. definitely have 10 ready this year by june.

UPDATE: i found my red 10mm knitting needle. it was in the middle of my front lawn. for 4 days. domestic blindness.

UPDATE (again): aaaaaaaaaaand i got 100 page views today! thank you thank you thank you! i added a counter about a month ago so it hasn't really counted the previous 11 months or so...
aaaaaaaaaaaaaand it was my first blogiversary at the start of february and i didn't even NOTICE! i fail at anniversaries...

wooly times.

yesterday i tipped out my wool basket. i've been meaning to do it for a while. it's been sitting under my dresser, dribs and drabs hanging down the side, getting under my feet while i do my hair or moisturise or put my face on.
so out it came, all over the lounge room floor.
tangled and unravelled and messy and untidy and horrid.
3 hours later, i'd re-rolled all the balls, sorted them out into colours.


much better don't you think?
i then preceded to sort out 10 beanies worth. and then tied them together. yup, beanie season is almost upon me again. and this year im going to submit 10! no excuses!!!
my fingers have been itching for a little while now to get click-clacking some needles together, mainly inspired by clara's knitted lovelies and the knitting olympics . i would really have liked to do something for the knitting olympics but i really quite fail at organisation. i can knit a beanie in 2 days if i'm motivated so it's not really an "citius, altius, fortius" type deal. and i fail at following knitting patterns. oh well, next year, er, the year after that i guess...

in any case, stay tuned for beanie bonanza... and maybe a little big blankie ripply update, it's getting quite big now.

pantry makeover.

oh hello!

i know it's been a little while, i've been busy working and then not in fact working, but holidaying at my parent's place.

i've been itching to get busy, to get done some of the massive holiday to-do list (seeing as how uni starts back in less than a month!)

let me introduce you to my pantry, it's cluttered and dodgy looking. it's a nightmare to find anything and i hate even having to open it to get anything out.

something needed to be done.

so off i trotted to bunnings, or as i like to call it, heaven-on-earth. $40 later, i had a litre of paint, 2 different sized paint brushes and some sanding blocks.

i emptied out all our food. quite a lot huh? everytime now when my boyfriend says "i'm starving and there's NO food left in the house," i'm going to show him this picture. we have so much random food!

after ripping off all the awful contact, i pulled all the shelves out, and the random hooks and thumb tacks that seemed to be embedded everywhere. gave all the surfaces a good sand-down. still looked horrible..

i did the first coat. the sides literally soaked up the paint. thirsty thirsty pantry. there's also a gross looking stain on the bottom shelf. i think it's some kind of oil stain because it shone right through the water-based paint.

after the second coat the walls looked much better. the colour was much more solid and looked quite lovely actually.

after all the paint had dried, i put the shelves back in. i also attached a basket to the bottom of one, for onions and potatoes and garlic. i bought it because it was supposed to fit over the shelf, it didn't fit properly though. so i permanently attached it with hooks. the real estate agent said we could do stuff without permission as long as it improves the quality of the house, it improves the quality of the house for us so hopefully they'll let it slide...

and voila. all the food's back in, neatly and tidily. the top shelf is like a supermarket shelf :D
there's so much of a difference, i actually keep the pantry door open now. it's pleasant to look at. love it.

bdo preparations.

it started with a hat. a hat full of lovely things, well just ribbon and some cotton quilting material actually...the ribbon was for the hat, so it would match my shoes, and the material? for a bag.

i started with the handle as i figured that would be the most gruelling part (especially after working 11 hours today and getting home at a quarter to ten!)

it proved to be just that. i think i made it a little thin, meaning it was an ABSOLUTE pain in the butt to turn in the right way... after about an hour i had it done though.

then i worked out my pattern, i wasn't really sure what i was doing and was kinda just working off the cuff...

then came the pressing. i'd forgotten how finicky sewing is.

"don't sew anything unless it's been pressed."

i kept hearing laments from my great aunt from when she helped me make my deb dress.

sew, sew, sew. stitch, stitch, stitch. the seams were almost too thick for my little machine to handle. i coaxed her on though, we got through it.

tying up all the loose threads. another great aunt lament.

"i'll charge you 20 cents for each one you don't tie off and trim."

after working out how exactly to attach the handle (i put slits in the back and sewed them in, back and forth and back and forth, on the machine), it was done! and look it fits all my stuff...

i found a nice little brooch to fasten it together too. not too bad for an up-til-midnight, night before job. much, much better than my attempt for chill island music festival, which was a complete mess and eyesore. this one's different, i think i can be proud of this one.

now off to bed to rest up for the big day tomorrow.

hope after a massacre.

my, my jasmine, you do look sad. wilty, like you need water. but it's been raining for most of the week, how could you possibly be thirsty.

oh now i see, you're not thirsty, you've just been completely severed approximately 10 cm from the ground by the utterly careless lawnmower man. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

seriously cannot explain my anger and sadness right now. i've had this little plant since before i moved out of home and it's travelled with me from place to place. it survived hot summers on a concrete 1m square balcony on punt road. and survived being knocked over again and again and again by the wind on the patio in narre warre. and now in the quiet suburbia of blackburn it's been destroyed.

soooooooooooooooo irritating as it was looking MAGNIFICENT and was obviously loving being in the ground after being in a pot for so many year.

but there's hope. of all these little cuttings, surely at least 1 will sprout?

and there's always the little stick the lovely lawnmower man has left me. my neighbour assures me that jasmine is a hardy sucker and it will most definitely grow back.

here's hoping...

hair cut.

before.

after.

poor little maiden was in dire need of a trimming. so much shaggy, shaggy, completely dead and dry growth.

i was trying to rationalize keeping it on but seeing as she lives in my bathroom, she can afford to be nude. hopefully she'll get nice and lush again like she was when i bought her and before i decided it might be nice to have her on my sunny, sunny windowsill.

falls.

falls festival 09/10. it was the first time we'd been to falls. and the first time we'd been on a holiday together. excitement plus.

i got really excited every time i saw one of these signs.

"look, look there's another one. WE'RE GOING THE RIGHT WAY!"

we got in ok. didn't have to wait too long in a car queue and despite the warnings didn't get our entire car searched. i clearly could've brought in heaps of alcohol! we were good and didn't risk it though. i didn't particularly want to get all the way to marion bay and then be turned around. it WAS the only reason we really went to tassie after all...

after setting up our tent we went and got our wristbands which MATCHED my nailpolish! THIS was something to be excited about! no not really, but small things entertain me.

i got my shoes ready for jumping around in a crowd of people. didn't want to be losing any shoes thank you.

when these guys came on, i went mental. i love me some philly j's. they played the good news and don't want to party last at which point THEY went mental. the roadies literally took apart the drummers kit as he was still playing because they literally would not leave that stage. it was amazing!!!

miss sarah blasko was quite lovely to listen to.

we lay down under a tree and listened to her blissful tunes. look how amazing that view is!

after a bit of a snooze under said tree, some exploration yielded the toilets. of the composting variety. do your business and throw in a cupful of sawdust.

fyi. sawdust in your undies or pants is NOT comfortable. take care when sitting down!

this was the view from our tent. just magnificent.

an absolute sea of tents and cars! there were so many people even for a festival in tasmania.

when night fell, wolfmother came out to play. they were awesome to listen to but reacted with and to the audience almost zero.

emiliana torrini was by far the most amazing! she was simply beautiful! and soooooo cute. some people in the front had a sign saying marry us emiliana and she went and got her polaroid camera and took a photo of them.

and her band was cool too. this drummer was playing a cymbal with a bow. it sounded really cool!

and so the sun set on 2009. yup that's a storm on the horizon. one last storm for 2009. and it was a spectacular storm!

we packed up all our stuff in the car that we didn't want to get wet and sat in the back seat of the car watching the amazing light show. i've never seen a storm like it. needless to say i didn't take many photos of the night. though we did venture out before midnight, caught some yeah yeah yeahs and the countdown before grabbing some yummy festival food and heading back to our tent to snuggle down for the first time for the new year.

bye falls! see you next year? hopefully but we'll have to wait and see if the old credit card's recovered from this one yet.