Knitting, knitting, knitting

After a brief hiatus I'm back knitting madly, creating new stock for the store, coming up with new ideas. The cabling was going well - I had managed to complete the 6-stitch twist and started on a braid, but I'm not very diligent when it comes to keeping track of my rows. I ended up completely lost after 3 repeats and decided to frog it. I'm not very sentimental when it comes to ripping out my work. Once I've made the decision it's actually quite enjoyable.

Finished braid

If/once I finish the cabled stripes, I'm considering turning them into a cushion. I have oodles of hobby fill left over from a failed attempt at an amigurumi alien and I think it would look lovely on an armchair or couch. Of course in the soft squishy acrylic yarn it would nice and snuggly. Come to think of it, it would match this blanket really nicely.

I've just the pair of lacy handwarmers and posted them to the site and I've also been thinking about a few other ideas - I'm going to try the knit/crochet combo which is new for me, and considering making a few longer pairs for something different.



Lacy black handwarmers and scary post-gardening hands



The Big Clean

This weekend I joined in with the thousands of other Brisbanites who took to the streets of our city armed with brooms, mops, buckets and gloves to help out those hit worst by the floods. It was just stunning to see how many people had given up their weekends to help out complete strangers.

About 6 members of my family started off in one house that had been inundated up to just under the ceiling. We were gurneying out the mud and sludge that had settled in the house and cleaning off the silt that had settled on all of their salvagable furniture. We were there for about 5 hours and by the time we had left there were about 30 volunteers in this house, cleaning everything they could get their hands on. Not one person in this house had known the owners prior to the floods and most people still didn't even know what they looked like. There were just locating dirty things and turning them into clean things. It was wonderful to see and I have never been so proud to call myself an Australian.

By the end of the day our little team had mucked out three houses in the western suburbs of Brisbane.  We were stunningly filthy. Sewerage-tainted mud was caked onto our shoes, legs, arms, face, hair. My feet were the most impressive.


Those runners were white at the beginning of the day



Tide marks

I'm glad I was able to help out and I'm glad so many others are doing the same. Now I've just got to explain to my back that what we did was a good thing and hope it understands and stops punishing me soon.

Flood Horror in Brisbane

If you have turned on the news in the last 48 hours, anywhere in the world you will have noticed that most of Queensland has been swallowed up by record breaking flood waters. Higher than average rainfall over the Christmas period lead to flash flooding which then lead to even more widespread flooding, including what can only be described as an inland tsunami in Toowoomba.

When we were made aware of the impending disaster my housemate, her friend and myself headed off to the nearest council depot to join hundreds of other volunteers filling sandbags and distributing them to those in need. We were there for 3 hours and my arms are still sore.

The Brisbane River broke its banks on the afternoon of the 11th January and waters have continued to rise since then, peaking at around 4am on the morning of the 13th. As a result a huge number of Brisbane residents are waiting for the flood waters to recede and are about to be faced with a clean up a mammoth proportions.

Myself and my immediate family have been spared any damage and my boyfriend's family have sustained some, but not major damage. We have been some of the lucky ones. All we have to do is walk a few minutes away from our house and we are greeted with these sights:

This is the street behind (and significantly below) ours

This is the park I run in. It and the streets and houses surrounding it have completely disappeared.

This is the entrance to Coronation Drive - one of Brisbane's major thoroughfares. Closed to all traffic until the waters recede.

We weren't able to get any further down Coronation Drive, but you can see the level of Brisbane River in the distance - it's not normally visible from this point.

My heart goes out to all those affected by this tragic disaster. We are about to head off to the CWA in Spring Hill to donate spare towels and linens to help those who have lost everything get back on our feet. If you are in any position to help please do. Donate what you can, be it food, supplies or your time.

Kittens Climbing the Walls

Not long after my first post a momentous event transpired. I hung my very first piece of artwork - this is not a pencil scratching on the fridge - this is a purchased-from-a-gallery-created-by-a-real-artist-framed-grown-up piece of art.

Living in a rental means that I can't go drilling holes in the walls willy-nilly but thanks to the majesty of stickable hooks, the watercolour/ink kitty cat now lives next to the bed.

Isn't he pretty? (yes he's a he - don't ask why, he just is)

The pic isn't of the best quality but the light in that corner of the room is never great.

The artist is a lady by the name of Kate Mitchell - I can't find any references on the net that I am certain are her, but I think this piece is beautiful.

Cable Crazy

A supreme amount of unmotivation today has lead me to put most of the things I should have been doing to one side and do "fun things". The creation of pumpkin soup being one of those (Margaret Fulton rocks my world - her recipes are impossible to stuff up and taste fantastic), the second being teaching myself how to cable knit.

It's not that hard, well, not nearly as hard as I expected. As you can see I've only done 2 repeats of a stock standard 6 stitch cable (crossed every 8th row for those of you playing at home), but I expected much more drama than the occasional fumble with three needles - my cable needle is quite long.

These past few weeks of holidays have produced some exciting new crafty bits and pieces, not to mention the opening of my very own Etsy Store! Naturally after many months of zero research and lots and lots of thinking I just went ahead and did it. Hopefully as I bumble along I'll improve it, add items and slowly but surely take over the handmade world! Muwahahaha...*cough cough*... ahem, excuse me.

Have a quick look at what I've managed to produce this festive season- progress has been made on the granny stripe - it's so vibrant and colourful that even though it's so far from being finished it's still gives me a happy glow every time I look at it:

A new pair of handwarmers - my own design:

This is a ball of the kid mohair I used to make stoles for both my mother and my boyfriend's mother - it's spun from the wool gathered after the baby goat's first shear. A bit extravagant but it's like crocheting with a cloud. So soft! And the idea of the little baby goats getting their first shearing is too adorable.

Well, the cable calls - and I'm done fiddling around with these damn pictures to try and make the spaces between them and the text more aesthetically pleasing to my eyes.

Cheers,

Nik