I took Na Craga in to work today (since I’m hoping to finish it off at the Stitch & Bitch tonight). I was showing it off to a couple people in the office.
Co-worker: How long have you been knitting for?
Me: Oh, five or six years. This jumper’s taken me about four months.
Her: Can you purl too?
Me: Yeah. I can purl too.
Only two more seams to go on Na Craga! I’m hoping to finish it by Thursday night so I can give it one more wet block before I drop it off at the Show on Saturday.
UNINTERESTED CAT IS UNINTERESTED BY YOUR CATALOG POSES.
Sally is doing a FANTASTIC job organising this year’s WWKIP Day in Sydney. I’ll be doing an order for T-shirts and swag from the Cafepress store in a month or so, so let me know if you want to combine shipping.
I thought I was over my sock knitting addiction… until I saw Absinthe. And I even have the perfect yarn! (MUST. NOT. CAST-ON until Show jumper is finished!) Also, I covet those shoes. Does anybody know what brand they are?
Edited to add: They’re Dansko Marcelles. Now I just have to figure out how to get a pair.
Today was my first meeting as Convenor of the Knitting Guild’s Inner City Group, and it was also our first meeting at our new location in Customs House Library. I was stressing out a little bit beforehand, but I shouldn’t have worried. It was one of our best meetings ever. Everyone was in such a good mood! We had 31 people in attendance (plus Rae’s adorable baby Zara), and several of those were brand new members. Our new meeting format worked well, and folks seemed to appreciate our aim of finishing off the business quickly so we could just knit and chat.
Of course, the best part was that Fiona made me special cupcakes for my birthday! And then she made the whole group sing to me. It was very sweet. Thanks, Fee! Kate also brought a cake, and I made a Spanish tortilla. (I used these two sites for tortilla recipe guidance. Flipping that thing on my own was, like, the scariest culinary feat I’ve ever attempted. It came out really good though!) Thanks to everybody who came to the meeting, and to my fellow officers Rosemary and Geraldine for all their help. I’m looking forward to next month!
Easter Bunny Washcloth knitting pattern. Super cute.
(Ha! I just had an email asking if I was all right, seeing as how I hadn’t blogged in two days. At least I know I’ll never go missing with you folks around.) Anyhoo, I spent most of Saturday afternoon working on a new knitting project: Rusted Root. It’s a little cotton T-shirt with a puffy sleeves and a lace panel down the front. It’s knitted from the top down, which is nice because you can try it on for size as you go! I’m probably a third of the way done with it. Saturday night we headed into the city for a friend’s surprise birthday party. Unfortunately it was also Mardi Gras, which meant fighting our way through crowds of slutted-up freshers in sparkly cowboy hats. (Theory: Mardi Gras in Sydney is like Halloween in Sunnydale. Most of the actual gay people stay far, far away, and you’re just left with kids playing in costume.) We had a fantastic meal at Bar Reggio in Darlinghurst. I walk past there every day on my way to work, and it always smells fantastic. The service was execrable, but the food made up for it. (Excitement! The Snook spotted the Critic from The Chopping Block unsuccessfully trying to get a table.) We got home very late, and Sunday we slept in as long as the cats would let us. I spent most of Sunday setting up my new Macbook, which we bought Thursday night. The Snook managed to remove the hard drive from my dead iMac and set it up so I could transfer everything to the new computer. Then we took the iMac back to the Apple Store where they – as expected – quoted me like $1500 to fix it. Eek. I spent hours futzing around with iLife ’09, including the fun “Faces” feature within iPhoto. I also got DeskCam working again, in case you missed it. I had planned to go for a long run this evening, but the skies opened and it poured rain. So it was a quiet night in for me.
And did I mention that the Snook has a new job? No? It’s pretty cool. He starts in three weeks. 🙂
Saturday started with a bang with the 2009 Knitters’ Guild of NSW Annual General Meeting. I’m always a little nervous for these, seeing as how I have to give an official report on the state of our website. There was added tension this year due to various guild-related scandals of the last six months: Ravelrygate, allegations of election fraud, members of the Executive Committee openly insulting members, secret spies tattling to the Guild about online discussions, etc etc. After all was said and done, three of “our people” had been elected (well, there weren’t enough nominations so no election was needed) to the Executive, and it seemed unlikely that some of the Old Guard would be willing to let go gracefully. I decided to embrace the madness with my outfit. I wore my Ravelry T-shirt and “Hello my name is: webgoddess” badge, along with my Guild lanyard and convenor’s pin. I also wore my Space Invaders socks (with a skirt so you couldn’t miss ’em). I got there to see that our folks had pretty much stacked an entire aisle across the auditorium, right down in front. It was a veritable who’s who of the Sydney Ravelry community: me, missfee, redambition, RandomKnits, knitabulous, WittyKnitter, yarna, Pompom, KatieV, GrandmaFlea, diane, gemma, sandrah, 1funkyknitwit, and probably a few others I didn’t even recognise. It was on.
Sally fired the first salvo. Fifteen minutes in, we were asked to approve the Treasurer’s Report for 2008, and Sally (quite reasonably) asked how we could be expected to approve a complicated financial document that we’d only just seen. It went downhill from there. After nearly every report, someone would raise their hand to ask why the information wasn’t available on the website. I could hear both mutterings of approval and whispered insults in the rows behind me. My turn eventually came and I gave my website speech. (They all made me show off my socks first.) I could see some nodding heads when I talked about ideas for the site, which was heartening. I thought we were going to make it through unscathed. Then out of nowhere, a scandal erupted over a seemingly-harmless motion to add some wording about the Guild archive to the Constitution. Apparently the rules state that all new motions have to be sent out to the members at least two weeks before the AGM. The submitter had sent it in plenty of time, but the Guild newsletter was delayed and it was only sent out 12 days before the AGM. Ergo, no motion. The submitter was (rightly) pissed. Other people were (rightly) pointing out that the Constitution allows for members to request a special general meeting in cases like this. And some people like myself were thinking that we were lucky the motion itself was so non-controversial, otherwise we’d be wondering if the Executive had killed it on purpose. So yeah, all kinds of craziness. Issy and I were both twittering from the peanut gallery, as seen in the photo. Finally the new members got “pinned” and it seemed like the worst was over. It was time for lunch, so I mingled a bit before making a break for home. It was nice to catch up with all my buddies though, including Ailsa and Donna (who’d made a special trip to attend). I figured that – all things considered – the meeting went better than I expected.
I should’ve known I left too soon. Apparently after I left, things got even worse. The President and the Secretary got into an argument that left the President apoplectic and the Secretary nearly in tears. (She resigned later that day, probably setting a record for the shortest time between inauguration and resignation.) The special afternoon speaker never even turned up. What chaos. Mary-Helen has a big run-down of the problems that were exposed. Sally and Kate have their work cut out for them…
Venks just sent me this list of knitting apps for the iPhone. I knew about StitchMinder, but the others were new to me. I did a search on the App Store and there are even more now! I just downloaded Yarn Pirateer, which is a free stash organiser.
I started these socks back in November as a prize for the Colony of Gamers charity raffle. I sat them aside in December to wait to hear who won (so I could knit the feet the correct size). And I waited… and I waited… and no email! I contacted them a few weeks ago asking what was happening, and still no reply. I figure that means they’re mine, right? Right. So this weekend I finally finished ’em.
The pattern is from Knitty. I happened to have a lot of black and white 5ply in my stash, so I used that instead of traditional sock wool. (I took the needle up to a 3mm.) They look pretty big, but fairisle doesn’t stretch much and they fit me well. I knit them on two circs and followed the pattern pretty much exactly. The shooter was done in duplicate stitch. Cute and retro, huh? (More pics and details on Ravelry.)
