3 of 30: I can explain…

Sod! Well, that really went well. New record in lameness – three days in and I didn’t post. So, I’m posting twice today to make up for it. In the spirit, if not the letter, of the law, I reckon that if I can manage 30 posts in 30 days, then I think I win/complete the challenge/get the golden goose.

We met up with some friends of my parents’ yesterday, who are spending a few weeks in Australasia visiting old friends and relatives. They treated us to dinner at the Cinnamon Club Indian restaurant in Applecross – really fantastic food. We definitely need to start exploring a few more of the restaurants round here – Nepalese, Thai, Chinese, Japanese, so much to try. Nom, nom, nom.

2 of 30: Hello, Sailor!

Of course, it makes perfect sense that a country which is, as the song says, ‘girt by sea’ would have significant pride in its naval forces. Two weeks ago we watched as the crew of the HMAS Perth III exercised their freedom of the city.

The crew marched through the city “with swords drawn, bayonets fixed, drums beating, bands playing, and colours flying.”  In addition to this female band member, there were a large number of women sailors participating in the parade.  It makes you wonder, if we think it’s ok for women to work and fight on naval vessels, in the line of fire on the sea, why we balk at allowing women to join the infantry in many western  countries.  This certainly doesn’t seem to be a concern for the crew of the HMAS Perth; in fact, the current commander of the ship is a woman.

1 of 30: Sunshine

It may be the great British emigrant cliché, but the sunshine in Australia really is worth the move. In addition to the health benefits, both mentally and physically, of living somewhere with with an average daily sunshine of 8.8 hours, there are plenty of other lifestyle benefits. Not least environmental ones, as we dry everything outside and strive to grow some of our own food in this glorious Perth climate.

Oh, November

So it’s that time of year again. Time to push ourselves through thirty days of novel writing, blog posting, sweater knitting, and tache growing. I’ve given some thought as to which of these endeavours I would undertake this year (the tache growing might be a touch difficult, although I’d be willing to give it a fair go for a few tinnies). Although I like the idea of wasting my down time at work working on my first novella (did I tell you I’d got a job? I work in the admin department at an engineering company, which has nothing to do with my training or abilities, and thus leaves me with plenty of spare time to goof off.), although I found the concept fairly easily, any semblance of a plot remains elusive.  Being so far in the future, I’ve still got a few hours to think about it, so we’ll see.

The other challenge I considered involved knitting a jumper for nakniswemo. Now, most of you will remember my abortive attempts at cardigan knitting from last year, and wonder what fresh madness drives me to believe that this year’s efforts will be any more successful. I thought about that too, and eventually decided that what with the remaining Christmas knitting, and Sockdown knitting, and the Mystic Ice knitalong coming up, and knitting for Backtack, and there was something else but I’ve forgotten it, well, it just isn’t going to happen this year.

So, although a tache sounds tempting (and easy. I mean, really:

‘D’you wanna sponsor me, mate? I’m raising money for cancer.’

‘Good on yer. What are you gonna do? Run a marathon? Bike round Tassie? Do the Rottnest channel swim?’

‘Aw no. Sounds like too much effort, mate. I thought I’d just grow a mo, bro!’

‘Ummmm….right.’ Men!), I think I’ll stick to blogging daily for the month.  To help myself be more organised about the endeavour this year, I will be running a themed series of posts.  Inspired by Soulemama’s 30 Day series, starting tomorrow I’ll be bringing you 30 days of Perth, looking at the things that bring me joy about living in this lovely city.

Spunkistadors

Since signing up to the Spunky Eclectic fibre club in June, I find myself spending a large amount of time hanging out on the Spunky Ravelry forum. And if you thought knitters were a generous lot, those spinners are pretty hot on their tail. One of the spinners organised a Spunky Swap, where we were paired up with another Spunkistador and swapped 100g of handspun yarn and 100g of fibre, plus more if you wanted. My partner, Andrea, sent me a gorgeous skein of yarn she spun from 80% merino/20% silk fibre that she commissioned in my favourite colours.

She also sent me some of the coolest roving – Enchanted Knoll Farm superwash merino in “Esmeralda”. I have lusted over this colourway for ages, waiting on the updates, hoping that I would be able to snag some, but without success. So thank you, Andrea, for sending me this gorgeous roving.

Another Spunkistador is my mate, David. David graciously hosted me around Sydney on my way over to Perth back in September (somewhere on Flickr there is incriminating evidence of this event. I’ll leave you to find it for yourselves.) Last week, I received a beauty of a package from David in the mail, a preview of the goodies that will eventually become available in David’s etsy store, Come in Spinner, when it opens.

This is 100% Aussie merino in the colourway “Ulysses”. I started spinning this yesterday, and I’m going for a laceweight yarn – this very precious yarn deserves to become something special.

All the fun of the fair

A mere three weeks after our trip to the Perth Royal Show, I finally sorted out my paltry crop of photos for the blog. I love a good country show, and, in that respect, the Royal Show did not dissapoint.

We saw little animals…

…big animals…

…and champion fleeces

There were cat shows, dog agility competitions, and prize-winning lace shawls.  Down the hill, however, things took a more commercial tone. Couples and teenagers flocked to the sideshow stalls and the carnival rides.

And all about us we saw stalls selling the ubiquitous ’showbag’. This concept really saddened Tim and I. What had seemed to be a wonderful day celebrating traditional country life, animals and crafts, became yet another excuse to buy, well, crap. We saw hundreds of kids and adults alike toting around plastic bags filled with lollies, plastic toys, sports team merchandise, and other such tat. Not to rag on a good old Aussie tradition, but yeah, the showbag thing kind of took the magic off the show for me a bit.

Socktoberfest!

Once again, the annual orgy of socks, sock yarn, sock knitting, and more socks (just in case you didn’t get it the first time) is upon us.  My efforts this year, as in previous years, will likely be minimal, but I did decide to join in with the Through the Loops Mystery Socktoberfest Knitalong that Kristen is hosting on Ravelry.  Every Wednesday, Kristen plans to release the next clue in the series.  We reached Clue 2, the leg section, last Wednesday, so these are slightly further along than in this picture.  I took this once I finished the cuffs.  The colourway of this yarn strikes me as very apt for the time of year this festival celebrates (of course, now that I’m in the southern hemisphere, autumnal colours become somewhat redundant in October.  Clearly, my brain remains in denial about the move.)  I’m using Posh Yarn (what else) Laura in ‘Rapunzel’, which I bought off a fellow Raveller after I moved to Australia.

Although I’ve signed up to plenty of mystery knitalongs in the past, with varied degrees of completion, I think the key to my so-far-successful participation in this knitalong is that fact that I had the yarn pre-wound and ready to go.  I really need to have a winding party one of these days – I have a tonne of laceweight that jeers at me from its container, mocking me with its skeinyness and non-usability.  But frankly, the thought of winding 3000 yards of cobweb weight (the amount I need for my next big lace project) gives me the willies.

I really need a swift and ballwinder.

Oh, I do like to be beside the sea side!

Particularly when the sea looks like this:

I especially like to be beside the sea side on a weekday when the sun is shining and I’ve nearly finished my second September ‘08 Sockdown! sock:

These are done now – more on these later.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie…

…boy, boy, boy! For that is the flavour of my dear Clare’s bump, due at the end of next month. The australia:spun yarn that I proudly paraded several months ago went to create the second BSJ of 2008. Along with about six other yarns. Unfortunately, I somewhat overestimated my spinning prowess, and my so-called worsted weight turned out more bulky-slubby than I realised. The upshot of which was that the bigger skein just about covered the sleeves of the jacket, leaving me with an awful lot of yarn to find. Fortunately, I happen to hoard every scrap of yarn ever bought, so had plenty of leftovers to include in this effort.

My complete and utter yarn snobbery stands confirmed by this project, as the scraps include Malabrigo, Manos silk blend, Posh Yarn cashmere/silk, and Debbie Bliss Cashmerino. However, with the vast amount of different yarns that went into making this jacket, it weighs an absolute tonne, so Clare’s bub will either spend the first six months of his life pinned to the playmat or he’ll be the strongest wean ever to have lived. Either way, there’s nothing quite like gifting handknits to a knitter, if only for the assurance that they’ll know how to take care of it. I’m really excited for Clare and Simon, and can’t wait to meet the little darling when they next visit Oz.

G’day from WA!

Well hello, my lovelies! Did ya miss me? I missed you, but as you can imagine, life has been rather full on of late. But amidst all the furniture buying, and job hunting, and utilities arranging, we began to explore the city we now call home. So far? So good!

While a decent job still eludes me, I’m taking advantage of all the free time to crack on with the knitting and spinning. It took a while for the jetlag and initial discombobulation of being in an entirely new country to settle down, and I certainly lost my mojo for a little while, but I’ve been beavering away over the past couple of weeks and have a few things to show you. Then there’s the tour of the new house which I am dying to give you, but that might have to wait until we have a teensy bit more furniture (we’re currently plateaued at a bed, a couple of sofas, and some whiteware, although I do have a pretty tricked out kitchen, too).

What else? Oh, we’ve been out and about and I’ve a whole post on the Perth Royal Show for you, but that will have to wait until next time, my darlings. Safe to say, I couldn’t be happier to be back on the blog.

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Thank you for all the comments about the Monkeys and the well wishes for the big move.  I hope I have responded to you all, but if not, please know that I love to hear from you, and am always grateful when you take the time to write.