Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Bearing Gifts We Traverse Afar......

I’ve been a little tied up recently (you can just stop thinking what you’re thinking, right now!). As you are probably already aware, the man in the (Coca-cola promoted) red suit (or if you’re into Victoriana, blue or green suit) is not far away. The Pre-Christmas frenzy of excitement is well and truly here.

I am basking in the virtuous glow of a woman who has done virtually all her Christmas shopping, posted all distant presents (one still needs to be posted – but it’s closer to home) and knows that goodwill and happiness will arrive in mail boxes soon.

I have not, as yet posted the overseas Christmas cards. Every year I swear I will do them in November and every year it doesn’t happen until I well and truly feel that Christmas is only just around the corner. How anyone manages to feel Christmassy enough in September to sea-mail cards, I have no idea.

Tasmania has been desperately dry – even here on the usually damp North West Coast, but the other night we had a belter of a thunderstorm and a most satisfying downpour and everything’s greened up again. My tomato plants are growing baby tomatoes, the herbs puffing away, local strawberries are on offer at the local fruit and veg shop, cherries should be ripe next week and raspberries can’t be far behind. I saw the first Australian grapes available at a price which didn’t involve selling my children to white slavers, and there’ll be mangoes for Christmas. Life (or at least, food) doesn’t get much better than this!

I have been working hard on editing Amy’s new book (which is just great and I am enjoying reading it as well as working on it – makes the job MUCH easier).

One or two things have slipped through on the yarn front – I did a swap with a fellow Raveller – some Rowan Yarn for a Rowan Studio book and was rather sucked into the vortex of gorgeousness generated by the Jolly Jumbuck. Some Fleece Artist Somoko sock yarn in Pinata, and some Hand Maiden Casbah in Rainforest seemed to have fallen into my hands.



I also have the most recent Red Bird Knits sock kit – which is in the loveliest yarn (I think I mentioned it last post – wool, silk, cashmere). I received a parcel from America containing a skein of Helen's Lace, for the purpose of knitting a Juno Regina Wrap (definitely the next Clapotis).

I also fell rather off the wagon because I put some Patonyle on layby at my local LYS and when I went to give them some money I slipped and fell onto some Zara being cleared and put that on layby too – in a dark forest green (10 balls) and a sort of eggplanty colour (10 balls). These have not actually entered the portals of my house yet, so they don’t count on my In/Out list!


I’m still waiting for my Bendi order (nearly 2 weeks ago), and I’m thinking I may be forced to do another order (before the sale finishes). I’ve been following a thread on Ravelry which insists that sale yarn, sock yarn, gift yarn and overseas yarn doesn’t count as stash. So by that logic, my stash has been reduced to about 2 kilos of Bendi in various forms. I feel much better now. It’s rather like the reasoning that broken biscuits and food eaten after midnight don’t count on diets (thanks for that tip, Ms 2Paw).

I had one dieting theory that food of the same colour had the same calorie count (but I’m not sure that was entirely true). Therefore, Top Deck chocolate had the same calories as mushrooms, green iced fairy cakes were the same as broccoli, white chocolate went with potatoes and red lollies worked the same as capsicum. As theories went, it wasn’t a bad one – unfortunately it bore about the same relationship to reality as the flat earth theory or ‘intelligent’ design.

I have almost finished the Silk Garden jumper – which looks lovely and I’m sure the Noro yarn must give obsessives who want to colour match their sleeves or the fronts and backs of their knitting conniptions. I enjoy the randomness – some of my balls had emerald and teal and some were only the fire/metal colours – one had several metres of the most glorious opalescent purple hiding. I tried to keep the balls with the emerald and teal for the front and sleeves and other than that made no attempt to match. I did check out a Noro group on Ravelry and one person spent ages turning her Noro into 36 perfectly colour matched balls, leaving aside some where no match was found.

I think I have too much going on in my life for that – I’m enjoying the fire colours living on the back of the jumper and the dashes of greens and purple on the front and sleeves – Gosh – I can’t control any aspect of my life right now – why on earth should knitting be any different?

Go with the flow, I say, go with the flow!

11 comments:

Rose Red said...

Mmmmm, lots of yarny goodness!

m1k1 said...

I really approve of the colour-food-calorie thing. THANK GOODNESS mushrooms don't have the same calories as TopDeckChocolate. How wonderful is the universe! And nah-nah to the mathematicians locked into the whole commutative notion of life.

Alwen said...

Oh that Fleece Artist yarn! I could lie down and just roll in it!

frog ponds rock... said...

Hi, that thunderstorm was teriffic wasn't it. I think I will have to post some photos of my 'new garden' as it is starting to actually look like a kitchen garden. mmm

I love the theory that red lollies = capsicum.. hehehe.

I don't have the patience to knit.. I like to crochet beanies and berets though.

Your talk of all the lovely yarn is making me think that maybe it is time I started to find some SIMPLE patterns and possibly attempt to knit my granddaughter a jumper..
we will see..

cheers kim (this comment was a lot longer than I meant it to be, oops)

Georgie said...

Haha, slipped and fell - I am SO using that one!

As for calorie-cancelling: you do know that opposite colours cancel out calories? Do a piece of very dark brown, say, mud cake, on a white plate, spectrally speaking, cancel out calories? You can make doubvly sure by having a big whack of white cream on it too!

Jan said...

And another food hint. Chocolate, popcorn etc eaten at the movies don't count either because they are part of the whole package.

I'm in Sydney and we have yet another corker of a thunderstorm overhead. It's as dark now, 4:41 pm as it was last night at 8;30 pm. Three cats are cowering under low armchairs. And the stuff in the backyard which passes for lawn is over my knees.

Amy Lane said...

Much laughter, and much yarny goodness! I'm as far behind on my Christmas shopping as I am on my paper grading, and yet my post-editing edit seems to be going just dandy! The yarn was gorgeous--and you are a top-notch editor!!! (I'm so tickled that you are enjoying the book:-) Last year we made our minivan into a Christmas card sweatshop because the usually dependable Mate forgot to address 1/2 our Christmas cards and we didn't realize it until we were on our way to mail them! (btb--this was two days after Christmas. Our family expects this from us. They understand;-)

Five Ferns Fibreholic said...

Now if only Santa truely knew where to shop for me, I would be a happy camper. Or maybe I'll just resort to Self Santa-ing. It works out much better that way anyways.

Thanks for the same colour/same calorie thing...with Christmas right around the corner, I'll need all the help I can get.

knightlyknitter.wordpress.com said...

OK, so now I'm a sad Noro obsessive who colour-matched her sleeves - it's good to embrace your flaws, and it made my hubby happy!!
I refuse to be jealous of the extreme gorgeousness of the sock yarn I saw in your post - there's a little something arriving this week from the JJ :P
And as for Xmas prep - if I hadn't made all these knittynet friends, I wouldn't have such a list of cards to send!!! Silver linings, my friends, sliver linings...

TrampledbyGeese said...

I love thunderstorms. I wish we had them around here more often as they seem to make the world new again somehow.

I love fleece Artist's stuff. I haven't' tried Noro yet, but I will one day soon (I heard a roomer that they are making sock yarn next).

Taphophile said...

Oh that yarn is gorgeous. It all counts as in, but it's so worth it!

I'm down with the broken biscuits. In our family food eaten as part of a celebration doesn't count, and everyone knows that fat grams and calories are scared of heights, so food eaten standing up also doesn't count.