What will you do with yours?

This is the question being asked by CanTeen today for their annual National Bandanna Day.
CanTeen is the Aussie organisation for young people living with cancer, aimed at providing support to young people (aged 12-24) with cancer, their friends, families, and carers.
This year the bandannas have been designed by Industrie so they are fun looking, and since they're available at Woollies, they're super easy to get hold of so there's no excuse!

So the question remains, what will you do with yours? None of this boring tying it round your head or arm like everyone else. Sew or otherwise reconfigure it into something new and original that people will see! What will it be - a pencil case? a doggy jacket? a tote bag? (post a comment with ideas - no idea too daggy).

I've got mine and will be exhibiting soon.

101 uses for modern junk

These blurry little objects are my latest freebie knitting accessories. They're the little rings you get every time you buy a pack of electric toothbrush heads. You're meant to stick them on the toothbrush so you know which one is yours if you are in one of those big family type households with everyone using the same toothbrush and changing heads (that sounds a bit foul if you ask me). But in my little household I'm the only one who uses an electric so I always end up with the rings out of these packets floating around in the bathroom drawer, until the other day when I realised they'd make good stitch markers and can be cut easily in case of accidental knitting-in (don't ask, ok?). This means I can now take back my earrings which have been marking the cables on my Rogue, which I had another stab at last night at SnB. I'd had a bad day with work but was feeling fine and dandy after a good hit of bourbon neat with a beer chaser (the beer's St Cloud's - mmm...) - nothing like knitting Rogue under the influence. And it turned out that Meg has also had some luck in finding cheap stitch markers - little rubber O-rings from a hardware store that cost around a dollar each.

Turn up the heat

Hubby and I are trying to find a house to buy at the moment, and in our search the realisation has come to us that we can either fork out a frighteningly large amount for what we want in our area (Sydney's northern beaches) or move inland a bit and get to spend a slightly less frightening amount. No prizes for guessing which we've chosen! It's going to be a real shame to have to move away and this morning when I woke up I realised we have spent so much of our time recently trying to find a place elsewhere that we haven't had a chance to enjoy our last few months (good grief, let's hope it doesn't take longer than that - but I know it will) here. So I trotted out and walked down to Manly via the Manly to Spit Walk for a bit of gazing out at the sailing boats and a giggle at the endless tourists who just sort of stand on the last piece of concrete available and gaze at people enjoying the beach without venturing onto the sand themselves (sand in your socks can't be that bad surely), and met up with Hubs (who'd been out for a scoot) for brekky.

By the time I turned around to walk back home (three cheers for hills) the sun was starting to really beat down. It's perfect weather for lying around on the beach already, but the water is still freezing, so once you get yourself up to roasting temperature on the sand, that's it, there's no relief. Got back to our apartment just about to keel over with heat exhaustion - hey I know what I'll do - stick the oven on to 180 Celcius and bake myself raw! ('Grrrrreat idea' says heat-addled brain back to self). And the delightfully nutty result - Nigella's brownies (with pecans substituted for walnuts). Let me tell you they were so worth it!

Self-meming!

Somehow a meme has gotten wildly out of control, and people (ok, person) are doing this meme without even being asked! It's just too good to miss out on! Google your name and "needs" and see what comes up. Here's what I apparently need:

Rebecca needs enlightment - I could have told you that.

Rebecca needs to find out - what, I wonder? Knowing this would certainly help with the enlightenment bit.

Rebecca needs her food to be soft, or cut into small pieces - I don't technically need that but if a servant was to sit dutifully by me and cut all my food for me I wouldn't say no.

Rebecca is available for adoption - I have two issues with this, firstly that it could really upset my parents, but secondly who adopts their kid out on the net?

Rebecca needs help to enable her to come to terms with both her past and present - woah, this is getting heavy.

Rebecca needs just one good, meaty, dramatic role, and the chances of her skyrocketing into fame will increase tenfold - tell me about it. Blog, schmog, I'm ready for the big time!

I want to eat the yarn of the living......

Who in their right mind knits zombies?

Cakeyvoice, that's who.

Onward and upward

I went to Stitch n Bitch at Manly Wharf Hotel last night and did the first bit of knitting on the Rogue for a whole week (ie haven't done anything since I was guilted into it at last week's Stitch session). I was putting it off because I had to start the hood. And even though I was there for a good couple of hours I still only got about thirdway round the neck, picking up stitches. Mind you I'm feeling much better about it all now - much less worried about getting the hood to work and the jumper finished completely. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. And seeing as I'm at that finishing stage, why not start looking at the next project - haha. *sigh* It seems I am not the only person with the Finishing Problem - Carla from A Day in the Life of a Type A Personality knows first hand how the excitement of the new project can overshadow the already-started one (or ones in her case - hell, at least I've restricted myself to only 2 million things at once, haha).

Anyway, onto bigger and better things (sorry Rogue, I do love you, but can I see other people, er, jumpers?). Here's the pattern I have been salivating over for some time now (yes, Rogue, I fell in love with this one even before I ever knew you existed):

It looks so scrummy and cosy but I haven't been able to find the right yarn for it. It's a Gedifra pattern from their book Highlights #43. The yarn they specify is Gedifra Mouline, but I haven't been able to find it anywhere, and I'm not super-keen to order it on the internet without getting a look at it in person. I have a sneaky suspicion that it might look a bit too mottled up close. It's apparently "Polar weight" which I had never heard of. I guess that's just super super chunky! The gauge is 8-11 st/10 cm. The Elann site provides a really handy tool for looking for other yarn possibilities and this is what it brought up for me. I quite fancy the Jaeger Natural Fleece that it lists there, but a. it's likely to burn a pretty big hole in my wallet, and b. the mouline has a fair bit of drape to it that gives the jumper that nice cosy look and I think the 100% woolly chunkiness of the Jaeger might make it look a bit Michelin-y. Anyone got an opinion?

Sewing 101

It's a cold and rainy Sunday in Sydney so I've been indoors getting acquainted with my new Janome Memory Craft 4900. New in the sense that I bought it 8 months ago but apart from a couple of hand bags and knitting bags I sewed for Xmas pressies last year, it's been sitting in the corner on its lonesome.

On Thursday night I did a warm up with a fat quarter tote. You just fold a quilting fat quarter in half and chop a couple of strips off the top to make topstitched tube handles out of - I like it because it doesn't leave any waste (despite my hoarding of yarn and fabric, I actually have huge waste guilt! ...maybe that's why I hoard?).

I am calling it my chameleon tote as after I finished it I realised it's almost exactly the same as the doona cover we have on the bed at the moment. Can you spot Mr Tote in this picture?

Anyway, having got my toes wet on the chameleon (now there's a turn of phrase I can't see myself using again ever) I gave the promised apron a shot. I have had it in the back of my mind but couldn't decide on fabric/style. I ended up finding a Japanese fabric and figured something like that has got to be made into something cutesy. So here 'tis:

You can't see the fabric too well but it's got little Japanese fans and flowers and drum thingies on it, and some bauble type thingies too - what the hell are they?

It's still raining. Gotta find something else to do...

Edible knitting Part 2

It's amazing (as in strange amazing) what you can find on the internet...


How about a crocheted coffee cup that serves as a pin cushion?




Or perhaps a chocolate cream cookie as a tape measure cover?

Edible knitting

Turns out, knitting and scootering are not the only things you have to be very wary of combining. Here's what happens when you combine knitting and cooking. Warning: not for the faint of heart:

Finally...

I guess you could say I am now halfway through this journey called Rogue. It's time for me to get the hood underway, and I've gotta say I am a leeetle bit scared. I have been reading up on other people's misadventures with the Rogue hood and have convinced myself that something similarly unwelcome is going to befall mine. Not that I am the negative type. Just that I have already spent, I think, 4 months grappling with this thing like a wet fish in a bucket of jelly (and it really looks like it when I've got two cable needles and five left thumbs in the mix).

So as you can see I haven't done that much on the Rogue, and I thought why not do a little living vicariously through my fellow Stitch n Bitchers tonight.

Here you see the lovely Backyard Leaves that Meg has been producing in Noro Silk Garden (did I get that right Meg?):

You will also notice in the pic above that Meg is clutching the fabulous Ene in red, and a gorgeous jumper from Vogue Knitting mag...two finished products...it's a lot to live up to.

And here you see Susan's gorgeous jumper in the make - not sure where she got her pattern from but I want to know how to do this stitch!

And here is Belinda's super soft and fluffy white garter stitch jumper in action. She's using a vintage pattern for this one. I think at some points Belinda has had the same feelings of "Please someone remind me why I am doing this" during this jumper that I have had with the wayward Rogue, but she keeps going at it with amazing perseverence. I will be going to her for the motivation talks when I hit the hood madness!

And what better to finish off a post with than the modelling of a finished object. What perfect cabling. What peaked cuteness. Hermes, Givenchy, YSL? No, dahlink, SnB.

when worlds collide

Well, it was only a couple of weeks ago that I was wearing these trashy eighties leg warmers

under my jeans to keep the last of the winter chill out on scooter rides. Monday, however, Sydney hit 33 degs C, so I think we have seen the last of the colder months and I can now start looking forward to swimming, sweating, and trying to find a pair of shorts that my bum will fit into.

Hubby and I spent Monday on the scoots sweating up a storm in all the bikie gear. I love scooting but the problem with all that excitement and freedom is having to rug up in all the protective gear just in case some wanker in a Beemer decides today is the day someone else has to die for *his* deadline (a common problem on Sydney's north shore).

Still, there's nothing quite like it, and you can get awfully attached to the damn things too. Here's mine - a Bug Espresso, marketed in other countries as a Kymco People 150:

And it seems that I am not the only knitter with a scooter fetish. In my knitting group, Sydney Stitch n Bitch, we have another knitter (in the Manly faction) who has recently bought a scooter - in fact the red version of the Espresso - and in the City faction we have another knitter who is tossing up the pros and cons of getting one. (PS You'll have to go to the Days Full blogsite for the Sydney Stitch web link as my work browser admin has deemed it Violent and Unworthy of Viewing by Nice Little Worker Bees - must be that "B" word!).

We have to be careful though because things can get REALLY REALLY UGLY when the World of Knitting and the World of Scooting collide, as the following intarsia distress call will attest to. LET THIS BE A LESSON TO YOU ALL: