made for...self

when updating my ravelry notebook lately, i have mostly been putting ??? in the Made For field to designate its a gift, and im not telling who for. i have two items, however, one finished, one just started, that are made for me.

the first is the kai mei socks:

this pattern is from cookie a's sock innovation book. there are lots of bulky cables etc in this book that leave me cold, but this one stood out, and the way the pattern curves around the foot is really, truly, innovative. and really surprisingly simple. i loved knitting these, and the finished product is worth every tedious minute of 3x3 rib! the yarn is 'socks that rock' lightweight in 'mustang sally', knitted on knitpicks nickel dpns, size 2.5 i think. it was nice to finish a pair of socks for me, even tho i won't wear them for a while, but i now must cast on 2 more pairs, neither for me, and get them done by christmas. eep.

all this christmas knitting, especially being smaller projects, has left me itching for something large and garmenty and meant for me. its bad of me to want this, because i promised myself i would knit presents for christmas and time is slipping away. but i need something that is not a shawl and not on tiny sticks, and so when i went to my old snb in sydney on thurs night (sooo much fun, by the way), i saw jody knitting one of these, and suddenly, i knew what i must do.

so i cast on, yesterday, too many stitches so i ripped it out then cast it on again in a smaller size:

the yarn, my friends (you may start drooling now) is nz naturally 'atlante'. its 100% bamboo. if you touched it you would not believe me, you would swear its silk, or the softest most expensive italian spun merino. but no, its just plain old bamboo, black with a beautiful shimmer to it and slight variegation every so often. its going to be beautiful. i know this is not a top-down-raglan- knit-in-the-round, which is the kind of garment i swore i 'would only ever make from now on', however, for a larger size and in such a drapey yarn, i think pieces with seams is the way to go. it also means i can knit it slowly, in little bits, over summer, rather than have the whole thing in my lap at once. and the bamboo doesnt make my hands sweat, so its perfect for hot weather. it also has a lace panel in the back. i wonder if this means it also qualifies for 'long lacy summer' knitting? bells?!

k xx

summer socks and shawls

thanks very much everyone for the supportive and encouraging feedback on the last post. i was pretty nervous about putting that stuff out there, its a fine line to draw between too much info and being closed and secretive, but im glad i took the risk! also, in the line of taking risks, i survived the day long ordeal that was my presentation/lunch/interview and was pipped at the post for the job by one of those young white male middle class overachievers who does nothing except write articles. i didnt expect to get the job over him, so i am not surprised, and only a little disappointed. it was a good experience and i learnt a lot, and will help me renegotiate my current position, so its all cool.

and now for something completely different. and much more important, really. that is, knitting content! yay! i am again a participant in both the long hot summer of socks and lace. i was struck with shawl flu a while ago, and made one lovely aestlight and then started another (that one is just on the border and nearly finished). i then tried ishbel numerous times with the purple wollmeise but that didnt work so i went with damson, which i have made a mistake on and need to rip back about 10 rows, but otherwise thats easy. also easy, surprisingly, is a pattern i completely overlooked in victorian lace, but which i saw being knitted by a little bit crafty person and was smitten. i have started one in some baby alpaca. hmmm smooshy:


i have also finally finished my first pair of toe ups. these were an interesting learning experience.

the sock on the right was the first one to be constructed. after quite some time trying to get my head, and thumbs, around judy's magic cast on, i followed the instructions of others who had gone before. so the toe was increase every round until 40 stitches and then every second round until 72 i think. the heel is a gusset one but i followed the wendy johnson pattern that bells had given me off the internets thingy. i did a normal cast off and realised why you dont do that, unpicked it and did a sewn bind off, i think that was also off the internets. i liked the toe on this one, but didnt like the way the heel attached to the gusset, there is something about the stitch definition that was a bit off.

by the time it came to sock number two i had acquired the wendy johnson 'socks from the toe up' book. i used her basic gusset sock pattern and followed it to the letter. the toe is not cool. it was very pointy, partly because i started with two few stitches, and then the pattern says to increase every second row from the beginning. this made a long pointy toe which fits ok but not as good as the other one. i left it though, because i wanted these socks to be a kind of testament to my toe up learning experience! the gusset on this one is much better, and i did a russian bind off which was easy but a bit messy. partly because the cuff is in 1x1 rib and that bind off works better for stitches in equal pairs, so i will do that differently next time. i think i will get better with the cast offs as i do more of these.

the good news is that i love toe ups. hello, no grafting! i used magic loop, on a 2.5mm knitpicks fixed cable, and the yarn is lovely regia kaffe fasset, and i want to make a pair in each of the striped colourways! i have some green and blue stripey to make for my sister, and having seen a certain pair of knee-highs, i am so doing them as well. before then, however, my next pair of socks to cast on will be a pair of the traditional ganseys from the wendy johnson book, in a lovely chocolate patonyle. boy socks, for a christmas present.

however, i am not abandoning cuff downs, or DPNs either. the other socks i have OTN are the almost finished kai-meis. apart from being stunning, in all their 'mustang sally' goodness, they are fun, and DPNs feel great. my next pair of DPN cuff down socks are going to be embossed leaves, also for the sister, and i like the idea of having one type of each on the go at the same time. i do think magic loop toe ups make ideal car knitting however, so i am feeling quite pleased that i have added this new skill to my knitting repertoire.

all of this knitting is xmas present oriented. i hate xmas and hate the whole gift buying thing, so i am trying to go handmade for the most part (which equates to hand knit, as i am not a sewer or quilter or any other kind of crafter). once this is all out of the way, i have some very exciting lacy summer projects to blog about. they may involve cashmere, and maybe also nupps.

stay tuned.

k xx

significant milestones

summer approaches, and the garden turns into some kind of wild living green beast:

it seems inevitable that i am drawn to reflect on the huge changes that have taken place in my life, recently, and over an extended period of time. i used to hate change, i railed against it and tried to control it, but now i realise life is change. nothing stays still, nothing stays the same. the last week or two has really brought this home.

i am about to do something on this blog that people usually advise strongly against, and i have been thinking about it for a month or more, as a particular significant milestone in my life approached. people advise to not give away too much of yourself on your blog, and certainly to not identify your real-life self in any way. most of the people who read this blog know me, and some of them know already this thing i am about to share, but some dont and i am a bit nervous about how it may change people's perceptions of me. really, i dont think it should, but thats part of the reason im blogging it. people keep too much about themselves secret, and so we live in fear of each other, of what and who we dont know or understand. the other reason im blogging this is because it isnt actually something i should be ashamed of. i am, and should be, proud, and i wonder if the more people talked about this kind of personal stuff, the more we would realise we had in common, and the less judgemental we would all be.

so, lets cut to the chase shall we? november 2nd 2009 represented 15 years, to the day, that i decided to change my life for good. on wednesday november 2, 1994, i walked, voluntarily, in the door of what was then ward 25 at rozelle hospital (i think its been moved to concord now). i stayed there for 7 days and then checked into a long term residential treatment facilty in stanmore, sydney. i lived there for over a year as i kicked and screamed and laughed and fought and cried my way into a better life. i didnt leave there cured, or 'recovered', or even greatly changed. i just stopped using drugs and alcohol. there were so many things i needed to change about myself but to contemplate them all so early seemed overwhelming. sometimes i lay awake at night in a cold sweat of fear not knowing how i would get through the next day, let alone the rest of my life. i was terrified of being alone. i was terrified of my feelings, i thought if i gave in to the pain and anger and hurt and frustration inside of me i would drown. i didnt know who i was, or what i wanted to be when i grew up, i had major issues with my mother, was scared of women, didnt know how to relate to men in anything even remotely resembling a healthy manner, was 26 on the outside and about 10 on the inside. i had no job, no career, had screwed up at uni more times than i could count, had a large amount of debt, was wanted by the law, had bright pink hair, a nose ring, and wore flanelette shirts with either doc martens or bare feet.

but i was alive. and free. by all rights i shouldnt have been. i had flirted with death and the police more times than was wise. i had seen other people disappear down either path, sometimes both. i tried to reconcile with my family but made a mess of that, and i moved in with someone, into a relationship, when all advised against it. we survived 14 years together. sometimes it was a close call. but i dont think either of us would have made it on our own.

but we have. we separated, and both survived. once i had thought a process like that would kill me, but i handled it so well! and now we are living together again, as friends, sharing the custody of our dogs who have brought so much joy to our lives.

i think i regret not having kids, but it was probably a wise decision. instead, i do crazy weird shit with my dogs, and put up with crazy weird dog people, who make me realise how far ive come, how much ive changed. and now i am 'over 40'. i pay tax. i get angry at the world. i fear for the environment, for young people. i wish i could smash the capitalist system and we could all go back to living in grass huts! meanwhile, i live in a lovely house.

i have lots of stuff. i drive a good quality car. i have a great job. i have a phd. on tuesday i am being interviewed for a proper permanent academic position at a university. i have a 1 in 4 chance of getting it. i have so many friends i cant believe my luck. i have learnt to knit. and to be good at it! i have some of my family back. i am loved, and i love.

this is the most amazing part for me. that now, i can cry, i can feel anger, joy, pain, frustration, and it doesnt frighten me anymore. i embrace it, because it means i am alive. 15 years ago i stood at a fork in the road. down one path lay insanity, imprisonment, death. it looked inviting. down the other lay a complete unknown, fear, loneliness. it looked terrifying. but something made me take the second path and im so glad i did.

i am writing this because i want people to know that there are many like me, who have not walked an easy path, who have strayed from the straight and narrow, but who can, and do, get their lives back together. we are not bad people, we just made bad choices, and sometimes circumstances did conspire against us! i am not now who i was then, but i am the sum of my past and the future still to come. and for others who still struggle, and i know there are many, i promise its worth taking the path into the unknown future. it has so far exceeded my expectations, i cant believe i wasted 10 years in the wilderness for fear of what has turned out to be only beautiful and amazing.

if there are people reading this who need help please reach out, there is help if you need it.

k xx

world dog games

its all over. four long days of travel to and from homebush and acer arena, the site of the inaugural world dog games. there were 4 dog sports showcased, flyball, agility, canine disc (frisbee) and dock diving. you had to qualify in order to compete, both jem and possum tried out for the dock diving and jem decided he no longer wished to jump off a tall plank into 4 feet of water. possum loved it, and qualified, but because her flyball team also qualified they wouldnt let her do both. so flyball it was. they only took 4 teams, and the total team time had to be under 19 seconds. there are currently only 4 times in australia that run less than 19 seconds and possum was already in one of those teams, but because you had to have 6 dogs (4 to race, 2 reserves), and our usual team only had 4 dogs, we put in a make up team with a dog from the south coast and a dog from victoria. it was fun and challenging to have people and dogs we usually dont race with, and they fitted in really well.

there was 2 days of preparation before the event and then two days of performance. you can see a snippet of the rehearsal here, the people wearing red shirts are my team (im one of the people putting the balls in the spring loaded box. this is called box loading. despite what some people think, this is the most important job in flyball, cos last time i looked dogs couldnt load their own balls. right? right). when you see a guy yelling 'possum, come on baby', thats trent and our very own possum. trent got teased about the 'baby' for the rest of the weekend.

we spent most of our time backstage, in our very own team room:


our room was opposite the 'talents' dressing room, the human talent for the event being grant denyer as the host, and leah mcleod doing the commentary. dr katrina was there, and so was farmer dave. hello. grant denyer is very short and very friendly, but looks silly in a dracula costume. josh, our victorian team mate, was quite fond of leah, but she never seemed to want to interview him. maybe he needs to call his dog baby? she did interview trent, you will probably see that on the tv show which goes to air in december.

personally, i prefer production types. here are some of them in the backstage corridor:

there was the usual contingent of film and tv wannabe girlies being runners and thinking they were important, but for the most part the crew were great, very professional and friendly. the production company usually do big sporting events, like the rugby and v8 supercars, so the show-business wank factor was pretty low, and they were good with the dogs. i couldnt get photos of the actual show but here are some of the rehearsals. this is the agility equipment all set up in the arena:

and here are two of the other flyball teams practising:

behind them is the huge pool for the dock diving.

the actual competition part was short but great fun. normally at a flyball comp you run 6 races a day with 5 heats in each race. this time we only ran 2 races per performance (one performance each day) with 3 heats in each race, and we got points for heats run, tied and lost. our team, the hellfire hounds, won all three of our races over the two days and was the top seeded team into the 'final', which we lost to 6Pak, a team made up mostly of the chocolate border collies that we usually lose to in regular competition. all of those dogs have been in a team together before that hold the current australian record. we did beat them in the round robin though, so we thought were in with a chance but they were too good and were the deserving winners. it was close racing though, and just great fun to be a part of.

there are some changes afoot in our flyball world and i have mixed feelings about that. change is always hard and some people handle it better than others. i am not happy about some parts of it, but relieved about others, and there are always new and exciting challenges around the corner.

i certainly hope another world dog games is part of that!

k xx

People Like Us

i have had one of those weeks with Other People that makes you think becoming a hermit might be a viable life choice. thank god for People Like Us, with whom i celebrated my birthday a few days early this saturday just gone (bday is tuesday and next weekend's a write-off so early it was!). just a nice quiet lunch at the burrawang pub, with Some Really Great People.

it was just what i needed and totally restored my faith in humanity. bells was truly inspiring with her myrtle leaf shawl and we had great fun playing at being stylists. here is a behind the scenes shot:

it takes a lot of work to look that good you know. even miss gracie got in on the act:

thats a tomato sauce sachet shes into there, giving new meaning to the 'fair suck of the sauce bottle' saying. we all met the sock victim too, who was truly lovely. the knitting talk was nicely balanced with discussions of the relevance of new social media, the merits of the iphone vs the google phone (and other assorted geekisms that i didnt understand), and an analysis of john safran's race relations.

but the thing that really gets me about People Like Us is how amazingly thoughtful and generous they are. it takes a lot of effort to get in the car and drive somewhere to meet for a few hours, in the middle of busy lives, and i am truly grateful to have people in my life who will do that. and who bring with them so many beautiful gifts that i feel like the luckiest person in the world. here they are all together:

there was a Tower of Presents beautifully wrapped from rosered, which consisted of an entire tea set with not one but TWO teapots with those groovy little infuser baskets inside the pot. i have been coveting one of those ever since i first saw bells'. there were also three new sets of knitpicks points, which i was in desperate need of (and even more so after last night when i snapped one of the harmony 4mms!). lyn couldnt make it but she sent me a beautiful book by anne fadiman, a collection of 'familiar essays'. its so beautiful, and after reading trashy vampire novels for the last few weeks reminds me how inspiring it can be to read something well written!

the other book you might notice there is a little volume entitled 'knitted lace of estonia' by nancy bush, a book i have been drooling over ever since it came out. everything in it is beautiful, i already have two on the shortlist! thank you lovely georgie. the little baggie with the pears on it is courtesy of missfee, hand made even:

and i think its the grooviest project bag in the entire world, with one long strap that you slip through the short one, and then it sits nicely on your wrist. i already took it on a car trip with me yesterday, and its perfect for yarn that is not tightly wound and needs room to move. it is so beautifully made, lined inside with red, and a pear on the bottom:

when it was gifted it also had this on the bottom:

alchemy mohair/silk. i dont think i ever seen anything quite like it! i am in awe of it, its like a living breathing furry creature that should be patted not knitted! and continuing with the yarn pron theme, i am the extremely lucky recipient of surely the COOLEST yarn around at the moment. from bells, malabrigo silky merino in 'ravelry red':

thats right folks, ravelry has its own yarn, and ive got some! the red is breathtaking, i have it in a basket but i stop everytime i walk past to admire it some more. i want to knit it right now but it needs to be something special, so i will think on it some more.

how lucky am i? this is a pretty big year for me, it has been tumultous, to say the least, and there is big milestone coming up that i will blog about in another week or so, and it makes me realise how i never thought my life would be like this, how i never thought it possible i could live through so much pain and change, that i could emerge stronger and maybe a better person, mostly because i have People Like Us.

thanks guys

k xx

worst. day. ever.

knitting wise that is.

you may have heard me mention ishbel recently? it has not been an easy knit, despite the fact that it looks like it should be, and others have gone before and had no trouble. i am perhaps a bit literal with the whole lace charts thing. i like to get a picture of what the whole thing is supposed to look like, but by breaking the charts up into sections that dont line up, she gives me no idea how the sections flowed on from each other. see what i mean?:

(thats 0 from 2 ysolde. my patience is wearing thin). i ripped back the first section once and had trouble picking it back up, a combination of slightly splitty wollmeise and slightly sticky knitpicks harmony points (i much prefer the nickel). it was messy, but i persevered, figuring i could block it out nicely. i got through the main charts and repeats ok, and it started to click and then i looked down at the last section, which is obviously doing something different to the ones before, and i got that sinking feeling where you just know thats not right. see what i mean?


i thought about it for a while but could see no way around taking it back at least a repeat. and then i noticed this:

that would be a dropped stitch right next to the centre stitch there, obviously part of the messy picking up after the first frogging. i decided to rip it all again. at the same time i thought i would wind up the mess that my centre pulling yarn cake had become. but no sooner did i try to fix it then it became severely entangled. in a very nasty way. attempts at untangling led to tears of frustration. i used scissors instead. then as i was ripping the whole thing, one of the cable ends pulled right out of the join, making that cable completely unusable. i was left with this:

at that point i think my polite thoughts were 'screw you ishbel'. lets just say ishbel is no more.

i did have a bit more success with the gusset and heel of the second toe up sock over the weekend. unfortunately, the same can not be said for our team at the flyball nationals, which suffered some equioment and dog failure. we ran the third fastest time of the comp by 5/100ths of a second (18.039) but just couldnt win enough races and came 4th (out of 4) in division one. (there were 7 other divisions but you only race teams about your own speed and division one is the fastest). a disappointing result, but a fun weekend. we will try and regroup for the WDG.

meanwhile, i think i need a cup of tea and a good lie down. both shawls and 'people' are driving me crazy today!

k xx

dog season

no no not for hunting, for dog sports. summer is crazy when it comes to dog sports. and it kicks off this weekend with the national flyball championships. they are in sydney this time, so not too far to go, but its a lot of racing with early starts. we are hoping to avenge our 'technical' loss of last time, where we won the most races but got dudded by a tallying loop hole. that hole has been closed now, but we will be hard pressed to beat our main rivals. sometimes flyball at that level, when youre the fastest teams in the country, can get kind of stressful. its not supposed to be. its supposed to be fun. but you put competitive humans in the mix and it can get downright nasty. funny the dogs dont seem to notice that stuff.

for some reason most of the dog sport stuff in this country happens in the summer, which is stupid cos its not like winter is cold and snowy, whereas summer is just mean. so we have some kind of dog thing on almost every weekend between now and xmas. including, in two weeks times, the world dogs games. not that there's anything 'worldly' about it, as its just aussies competing, but someone wants to talk it up obviously! possum tried out for the dock diving and did really well, but they wouldnt let her compete cos shes in the flyball. grrr. we are one of only 4 flyball teams competing there, and its a 4 day tv event thing, with $10k up for grabs. just to up the ante a bit. again, the dogs dont seem to care about that bit. they have more important things on their mind:



so i will be M.I.A for a few days. hopefully next week i will have good news to report. and even better will be if i get time to finish some socks! southern summer of socks is on again, and i need a head start!

k xx