Foxie

He is finished.

The mister is pleased. 

Ravelled here

Quick April Post

Life in dot points:
*Cooler nights, sunny days, leaves turning gorgeous tunes of red!
*Ms Mabel is practicing her cello inspired by Jacqueline du Pre. Makes my heart glad. Last night I enjoyed her youth ensemble performing the riotous Comedy of Errors and the "killed it".

*Foxie nearly finished..a morning knit with Kirti, of Lavida Rustica, Madame of the sock.  

*Longing for a reprise of knitting nights with the ladies and a return to the spinning wheel!!!!! 

*Percy and I spent a week at the safari zoo!!

*Ivy reminds me what a sublime age 12 can be. 

*Full on life of supporting my very lively three. 

*Day dreams of a fibre filled Autumn.

Autumn

I'm not going to talk about the fact I have neglected my blog. I'll just break the drought.
here...

knitting has been slow for a while, but a fox is in the making: pattern is Sophisticated Mr Fox

The cooler weather is on it's way and I turn my mind to woolly things, knitting, spinning, cosy nights creating. I even read a book which whet my appetite for the cool inner creative evening: Burial Rites by Australian writer Hannah Kent. set in Iceland in 1829. Wonderful read, and the best part was being immersed in the domestic world of this time and place. scenes of knitting, mending, even gutting animals was so goooood!

 I loved it so much I was grieved to finish, so I used a gift voucher which had been sitting around since last year (from my choir of seven years I finished up with) to purchase some fluffy clogs, so I could feel I was still in Iceland (there was no mention of clogs in the book I might mention, but even wearing Swedish shoes was close enough).

my girls have been keeping me very busy as their "mum-ager" of Charm of Finches since mid last year. There were videos, paper mache boats, shows upon shows and vintage dresses. We spent a lot of the summer going to Folk Festivals so they could perform. It meant seeing and meeting many wonderful musicians and having adventures. And it continues. as does school, driving kids around town, juggling my work....

I took over directing a community choir last year, and I love them so much. they are there for the joy of each other and singing together. We have a ball! half of them showed up for a community event to perform some songs, and they fearlessly and joyfully sang their hearts ourt and filled the room with the most heavenly atmosphere. that's me at the front introducing a song.

time to knit mr fox!!

joining the yarn along with Ginny here.

the quickest post ever!

Midwinter! See the exquisite lanterns my eleven year old and all her mates made!

 and I have been so busy with my dear girls and their music I have scarcely had a chance to knit!! But in the park I sat and took up the second sock of the pair I started three years ago!! Yes, three.

birthday post

::today is my birthday.
I really wanted to cast off the jumper/sweater I have been knitting for my big girl before my birthday arrived.  I cast on in February!  It's finally off the needles and she wore it to school this morning happily! The "misti alpaca" is divine and squishy and warm and an amazing rich toasty brown.  I added length by picking up stitches with a pale grey silk/merino/angora for a rib, though it's very hard to see in the photo.
Annabel Sweater by Carrie Bostick Hoge
Ravelry notes here.

::the reason I was so keen to cast off the jumper was that I really wanted to cast on a new project with my new wool, some divine Shibui Cima in the fjord colour which I bought from our local; yarn store (LYS) just for the colour!!! yep. I am planning a Woodland Shawl after a glorious coffee date with my dear friend oggling together over my knitting patterns, which hilariously someone mistook for my PhD!! I have more patterns from Ravery than I could possibly complete in three lifetimes! I quite like the sound of Doctor of Knitting, don't you?

:: my birthday table which greeted me this morning with my present: a Tibetan singing bowl! It's divine, literally, and sings most mysteriously and enlivingly a perfect mellow C sharp!

::of course I treated myself: to a membership to the Australian greens, because they speak for me and are incredible and I want my children to have a real woodland to walk through with their children; and, a subscription to pom pom quarterly...what a great mag! not just eye candy, oh what eye candy! great interesting inspiring articles! what's not to love!

::my life has been rather dominated by my role as unofficial band manager for my dear talented singing birds. It's all been happening, with their crowdfunding campaign being a stunning success, their recording done and dusted, and the artwork for their EP being created by a beautiful and generous local artist this week! It's all very exciting and inspiring, and sometimes time consuming. So my knitting has been on the back burner.
Here are my pics of the cold wintry photo shoot on the beach last Sunday morning with Mara Ripani, our dear friend and photographer of young girls extraordinaire!

 bbrrrrrrrrr...the things you do in the name of ART!
connecting with Ginny for her Yarn Along

life.pacifism.needles

I watched a play reading last night as a conscious effort to find my own resonance for what is regarded as a huge deal in Australia: Anzac Day. We have a public holiday and people get up before dawn to go into the War Memorial in droves to remember the soldiers, raise/lower the flag etc. While I have much much empathy for the soldiers who have returned from the horror of war and have to somehow continue their lives, I struggle with the air of nationalism, glory and heroism war and soldiering. Like most of humanity, I feel so averse to the idea of governments sending men to slaughter each other in fields and forests. I am newly horrified this week by a photo of our irrefutably unhinged prime minister sitting up in a war plane costing several billion dollars grinning like a boy with a new toy.

Well, last night I went to a play reading my friend Mark invited me to. It was "War Hero" written by Michael Galvin, a New Zealand actor and playwright. The play is about Archibald Baxter, who in 1916 was a pacifist conscientious objector and was tortured and punished terribly for it. I loved the experience of sitting there in the theatre with the actors all sitting in chairs reading this beautiful, funny, moving story. The experience was akin to how I remember listening to radio plays and story records as a kid. I watched the actors with fascination, but part of me could see every scene as well.
At the end, I felt so heartened that there are people telling the story of non-violent resistance to sanctioned murder. I look forward to spending the next Anzac day in a similar way, perhaps even watching the full production or listening to it as a radio play.

I have been knitting up a storm of little leaf bookmarks for the Creating a Welcome (blog here) market at Chalice Uniting Church, Northcote. It's so lovely to have something tiny and portable to knit wherever I find a spare moment. Simply an i-cord with leaf pattern from here.
Think I'll yarn along with Ginny and Natural Suburbia.

shoulder thingy

fresh off the needles: a shoulder cosy for my dear friend who loves sea glass green. I am so so please I chose this project for my first handspun, and so thrilled and enchanted by the greens resulting from the Landscape Dyes chamomile and fern (the second photo is more true to the colour).
it's a very easy knit (took 2 days of occasional knitting): Shoulder Cozy by Churchmouse Yarns
ravelled here

yarning along with ginny

and keep calm craft on with nicole

ferny

ta-da!
my first, freshly dyed-up hand spun skeins! gloriously nubbly and unintentionally thick and thin, which I'm told is quite the fashion. I used some landscape dye shades fern and chamomile. First time dyeing wool too, and oh sooo much fun!

my knitting::the annabel pullover in misti alpaca tonos worsted (leatherly), almost done.
I'm modifiying it, because the length in the pattern was too short for my kidney-conscious girl ("I want it to cover my kidneys...wow),  and she wants length.
my idea is to add a rib in another colour, either grey or bird egg blue...I'm knitting the sleeves in the round using two circular needles.

I found this book at an op shop. Pearl S Buck's The Big Wave. As soon as I saw it, I was struck by what I can only call a memory-feeling or feeling-memory. I can't remember what age I was, but I remember reading this book and it fascinating, or maybe, haunting me. That's all I remember, nothing about the story itself, but when I saw it I had a faint rush of awe mixed with fear, and fascination.
It now waits for me...it's kinda spooky.

also, yarning along with Ginny

knitt'n' swatch'n' spinn'n' read'n'

read'n'::Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier::so tasty, but why oh why did i watch the movie first...nicole or jude ever present on each page...

spinn'n':: I finished spinning by first bobbin full:: excitement::it's 'interesting", thick and thin and nubbly::smells like a sheep!

swatch'n'::annabel sweater/jumper for my lass:misti alpaca tonos worsted, leatherly colourway

lov'n'::the sunflower forest planted by my beloved and now making us all happy outside and in.

knitt'n':: finished Mama Vertebrae in cleckheaton merino angora silk 8ply::love::open front but covers the kidneys::ravelled here

 

 

yarn'n' along:: with ginny

in between time

days of drifting, children reading and making up songs, playing with Christmas presents, me, dreaming into new knitting books, catching up on stuff around the house, forgetting what day it is...wondering how on earth we will ever eat all the shortbread and chocolates we brought home from Christmas gatherings....doing nothing much...those in between summer days

k n i t t i n g
progress on the Vertebrae; very fond of  the twisted rib edging.

h a n d m a d e  g i f t s :

the night before Christmas Eve, I decided I couldn't let Christmas happen without at least one handmade gift.
These pencil rolls were so quick to whip up, possibly because I was a little slap dash and didn't do any measuring! The girls absolutely love them. I checked out a few tutorials online for ideas by googling "pencil roll tutorials". The pencils are Lyra Giants, our all time favourite pencils for drawing. There's an extra layer of flannelette in the middle to make them padded and the ties are wool "twisties".

o h

and here's the gingerbread shack we made for fun!

getting into the spirit...

I must admit I  have been lagging behind in the Yule cheer, personally, even though I love Christmas. However, today, even if mostly for the sake of my dear wee excited full-of-wonderment 3 year old, a surge of Christmas enthusiasm swept over me. Or should I say, I dug a little deeper to attempt to invoke enthusiasm by simply partaking in Christmas preparations.

 Star making, the intoxicating smell of a freshly cut Christmas Tree, some bling and lights and a bit of Sufjan Stevens carols and I'm feeling a lot more in the mood for the season! Hooray! Thanks to my three ever willing Christmas elves.

 

 And on the knitting front: I've started a cardi for moi. It's called Mama Vertebrae, a little frontless number for summer.  I'm using a surprisingly delightful yarn (sadly being discontinued) by Cleckheaton containing angora, silk and merino.