hot in the city

Except it wasn't because it's winter. But you know. I've got bad 1980s songs in my head.



During the school holidays the fifteen year old wanted to go to a rock concert ... a couple of venues in the city do alcohol-free, afternoon concerts for 14-18 year olds before the evening [adult] gig (and hurray for bands and venues that do that!). He's been to a couple before but this one wasn't due to finish until 6pm and the two friends he was going with were going home together on a different train line. We weren't keen on our boy alone on a train on a Saturday evening (it's quite dark at 6pm these days) - are we being over protective? He catches trains and buses on his own all the time, to school, into the city to meet friends etc, but not at night. Especially Friday and Saturday nights. He's petite and quiet and shy and I just think he's an easy target. Anyway, he didn't object when I suggested we all go into the city together, and while he was at the concert we'd go to the gallery or museum, and then all meet up in the evening and catch the train home.



Except the others, (surprisingly!), weren't too impressed at the prospect of going to the NGV to see the exhibition on clothing from Jane Austen's era. Huh! So the husband took them to the MCG to watch a footy match (pah), and I wandered along Flinders Lane until I reached Craft Victoria. Among other things they had a knitting exhibition which included little signs encouraging you to touch the exhibits. Nice.

On I went, past the cathedral ...



... past the spire ...



... and onto the gallery where I thoroughly enjoyed the clothing exhibition, plus a photography exhibition on NASA space photographs, and then back to the other gallery under the spire where there was an exhibition on the Ballets Russes' influence on Australian ballet. By then the others had joined me and we browsed around the costumes and sketches and watched a video of the whole of Graeme Murphy's Scheherazade, then met up with the rock fan at the train station.



The train journey home was uneventful but I was pleased to see a dark haired woman get on at Greensborough and proceed to knit a sock for the rest of the trip. I said to the teenagers See! I'm not the only one! They rolled their eyes in unison.

A couple of days later I dragged all the children back to the gallery for some school holiday culture and we went to the Salvador Dali exhibition. The boys were initially reluctant but conceded later it was actually good stuff. Son #3's favourite was the jewellery, #2 liked the lobster telephone, and #1 and I liked the film Destino that Dali and Walt Disney made together. If you go, make sure you don't miss that bit.



Actually I think my absolute favourite part of the NGV is the shop. God I'm such a philistine. But I bought my dad a fab Salvador Dali jigsaw puzzle for his birthday.

merry merry king of the bush

Thank you for all your offers of help with my yarn request! I now have some teal blue winging its way to me, and some purple will be heading in the opposite direction very soon.

How I love the internet.

Do you have this yarn?

I'm turning to the internets for help, as per usual.

This, my second shawl, is so very nearly complete, but for another half dozen rows and I've run out of wool. The yarn is the Bendigo Woollen Mills 8ply 'Rustic' in the colourway called Mariner. I only need a little bit and so it seems crazy to order another huge 200 gram skein for the sake of a few metres.

Does anyone out there have part of a skein left over or lying around? I'll happily pay, swap, or trade for it. I've put the word out on Ravelry too, but with no bites so far.

In other news, I've already cast on for my third shawl (for a friend this time), we lost internet access for six horrific days, and I'm sick.

I think that's all. Back as soon as I pack these children back off to school after two weeks of shenanigans holidays.

back on the horse

I think that might be the longest I've gone without blogging in four years (yes I missed my blog birthday again. 650 posts, four years, go me!)

Anyway I've been very busy wasting time over at Twitter, and playing Wordtwist on Facebook, and other important end-of-semester, end-of-term activities you know. And knitting, and indulging in a full on Festival of Jane Austen. I'm on a mission to watch all the different tv and film versions of the books, am about to read Persuasion, and yesterday I went to the exhibition at the NGV of clothing from the Regency era, featuring a plethora of empire waistlines and possibly, but possibly not, the shirt that Colin Firth wore in the wet shirt scene but the costume mistress can't quite be sure.

Also we went away to the beach for a midwinter weekend "minibreak" (as Bridget Jones would call it) with five other adults and nine children aged 15 to 5.

And I'm trying to come to grips with my new camera. I love it but I want to be brilliant at it instantly. Of course. Still hadn't worked out how to manually set the aperture and then I realised that the lens on the camera is a Sigma not a Pentax and doesn't have an aperture ring like my old style SLR. Okaaay. The manual is, of course, no help at all in a real life practical way. But I love the colours and the clarity and sharpness (except when photographing a speeding greyhound - he always comes out slightly blurry). Also iPhoto doesn't deal with these shots as well as I'd like so now I'm trying to learn The Gimp and that is NOT going well.

It's a huge learning curve and it feels very different from my old film SLR days. Anyway, enough with the whingeing and the first world problems! Stand by to be inundated with photographs you lucky lucky beasts!

First up, a winter weekend at Anglesea. Three families, beautiful sunny skies, a couple of fabulous op shop expeditions (including one that was just me and six children who told their parents they wanted "Suse to take us please!" Oh how wonderful to be considered cool by other peoples' children and to have girl children asking me my opinion on dresses and trashy op shop jewellery. Good times).


Seven of the nine children


Son #1 looking all teenage and pensive. Note almost straight horizon this time


Loving that Pentax colour


silvery sea at Pt Roadknight. That romantic looking cloud formation is from the Alcoa smelter I do believe


Sunset shots on the way home


The sky was dramatic

Next up, Suse goes to the City. Child free and with her new camera. I know you can't wait.

midwinter shawl

My very first shawl. I wasn't sure if I would really be a shawl person, but this has decided me. I most definitely am!











Edited to say: as I wrote on the flickr page, excuse my expression in that photo, I was concentrating hard on getting into the right spot before the self timer of the camera went off, and didn't think about smiling or even looking relaxed!.

Also, in answer to RW's question, that is our house I'm standing in front of. It's mudbrick.

The main body of the shawl is a Totem 8ply from the op shop, originally a ghastly beige and dyed by me a variegated olive, and the ruffle is the Bendy 'Rustic' 8ply, in 'Graphite' colourway. The pattern is the Wool Peddler's Shawl, with the lace section replaced with a simple garter ruffle. The Ravelry project page can be found here.

This shawl turned out exactly as I pictured it in my head. How wonderful it is to make a garment that I absolutely love and will get lots of wear from. I am so thrilled with myself.

It's the perfect winter solstice gift.

shortest day

Happy winter solstice.

a Friday, in no chronological order

Once upon a time Suse sat by her fire, drinking stout and eating fish and chips for dinner. Her eldest boy was spending the night elsewhere and she could hear her younger two in the adjoining room laughing with the hysteria of Friday night as they played table tennis on the dining room table. She watched as her husband wandered about the room, asking if anyone had seen his book, his glasses, his sanity.

Once upon a time, very close to midwinter, Suse got up very very early indeed and marvelled at the sliver of moon hanging in the ink-dark sky and its neighbouring glittery star. By the time Suse reached her meeting at the top of a not terribly tall building, the city was spread out before her, soft in a shiny mauve and apricot dawn. She watched seven hot air balloons hover above the skyline and laughed as her colleague said you have to have a birthday ending in '0' to ride in one of them. She wished she had brought her camera to the meeting, but acknowledged that it is not usual practice so really she shouldn't be too hard on herself for not having it handy. She daydreamed about the new camera that will arrive on Monday, and decided that at next month's wintry dawn meeting she will take the camera and tohellwithit.

Once upon a time Suse received a message that the dvd of Sense and Sensibility (oh, Mr Rickman!) was awaiting her collection at the library. Having been at work since the shiny apricot dawn, Suse thought it quite reasonable to leave work early in the crepuscular chill of pre-twilight, and she drove and drove and drove, planning a girly evening of knitting and Jane Austen confectionary by the fire.

Once upon a time Suse arrived at the library two minutes after it had closed. And so instead of wine and Regency frocks, Suse decided stout and a good book would have to suffice.

The end.

For Rae, who weaves her fairystories on the other side of the world.

lost in austen

While I was procrastinating writing my essay recently, I sent a link to my lecturer who I happen to know is an Austen scholar. (My essay, and the subject I'm taking, are not related to Jane Austen, I should add). Anyway, I thought she'd like it, and she did. You might too.

It was this. (You'll get it better if you know and love Twitter).

She sent an email back the next day saying Capital! Excellent! Now get on with your essay! and enclosed a link to this. Which everyone can enjoy, twits or not. It helps to be an Abba fan though.

Since I handed in the essay I've been on a bit of a Jane Binge. I watched the whole of Persuasion on YouTube in ten minute increments (oh Rupert!), and as soon as I hit publish in a min, I'm going to watch Emma on dvd to see if Kate Beckinsale is less annoying than Gwyneth.

At the very least it'll get Dancing Queen out of my head.

Edited to add: Oooh, look at this one! I'm having so much fun ...

the long and winding weekend

on the way to Lancefield

There's a particular bend in the long and winding road to Lancefield where the road dips as it winds and the landscape that spreads out in front always makes me breathe out a great sigh of satisfaction.


there were pretty clouds everywhere on Friday afternoon

I had promised myself that on this craft weekend (a long one, no less, as we celebrated the Queen's Birthday) (heaven knows why, and I believe Lizzie's big day is actually in April so go figure) that I would not be taking with me the essay that was due on Tuesday. But life, and death, and children's concerts got the better of me and so it came to pass that I headed off to craft camp at Sewjourn with my spinning wheel, sewing machine, needles, fibre, fabric, yarn, my laptop and a dirty great pile of books and journal articles and seventeen pages of essay notes.


oh it was cold and damp the next day

This was an "extra curricular" craft weekend that came about when Janet and I decided August was far too long to wait for the next weekend in the regular scheduled programming of craft camps. And so I investigated the options and found that the long weekend was the only available free weekend at Sewjourn. Being a long weekend and at fairly short notice, only a handful of the regulars could make it and while sad, this also meant we could open it up to some others who we'd wanted to invite in the past. And so the new Queen's Birthday Spin Off Craft Camp tradition was born.


that's the lounge room and the door with the little heart on it is where Eleanor and I slept. Aawwww, sweet. (My shoes).

I think I'm the last one to post about the weekend so if you've read the other bloggers you are all probably up to date with the goings on by now, as most people kindly listed all the participants and detailed all the action of who made what. (And yes, I made an essay). Eleanor, my delightful roommate, is blogging about craft camp all week, complete with poetry, I believe!

I can't not do a summary though, can I? A feature of the weekend was the wide variety of activities undertaken - leatherwork, sewing, knitting, spinning, writing, tapdancing, quilting, crocheting.


Eleanor and Janet drinking tea

Eating, laughing, talking, and staying up far too late. Hanging out by the fire, rescuing a frantic bird, grooving to Stevie Wonder, eating soup and other excellent foodstuffs, drinking wine, dancing round the lounge room to Echo Beach, laughing at all the purple (in a supportive way, mind), dodging the rain, celebrating a birthday and taking photographs.

I did put the essay together, but managed to intersperse sessions at the computer with a few sessions at the sewing machine during which I made a smock style grey linen top, complete with homemade bias binding around the neck, of which I am very proud ...



... a blue chenille wheatbag to wrap around my tummy while essay writing, and my feet while sleeping ...



... and a session at the wheel produced a skein of spun and plied yarn. I'm gradually getting the hang of this plying lark.



Oh, and I sewed a wrap around skirt in a sort of purply-grey-mauve stretch denim.



The essay is now in, and reading it in the cold light of day I'm pleased with it. There, I've said it. If I now disappear from the blogosphere forever you'll know I failed miserably and can't face you all again, having just said out loud I think I kinda nailed it.



I've been trying to think of a satisfactory concluding paragraph but have got brainblock. So let me just say a huge thank you to JanetEleanorCarolineEllenMagdaJennySuzieLeslie for coming along and making it so very ace. I'll come back another time and link to all those names. I'm being handed a cup of tea now which means time for bed.

Also, thanks to Jan whose amazing venue is like a dream come true. Every time.

intermission