Tuesday, July 27, 2010

So it begins again...

I'm well known for my inability to settle in one place. True, I lived in my amazing flat in St Kilda Road for four years straight, but I gave up it all up to run off to Scotland. I've now lived in 9 houses/flats/hovels since I first moved out of home at the age of 21, and we're about to move again.

The weird thing is that the number of addresses doesn't change. We're all moving back to a house I first rented in 2000, and it's available again, so I jumped straight in and grovelled until the real estate agent gave up and laughed. The house tour was great: "Oh the lounge is still blue! The kitchen's mint green! The bedroom is still purple!" "Oh, were they like that when you last lived here?" "Um... I painted them that way...".

Now the reason I'm blathering on about this on my blog rather than Facebook or general email is a simple one: to cause complete jealousy. You see, my new/old house has a two room bungalow in the back yard. It's pretty big. It's almost the size of the hobbit hole we're renting now. It has a kitchenette, bookcases and a LOT of room. It's all mine. Felix likes the idea of never having to move another knitting project off the couch, so the bungalow is all mine.

The front room (where the stove is) will be the knitting room, complete with cushy armchair and boxes of yarn (plus the bookcase full of patterns). The back room will be set up for my sewing machines, cutting table and knitting machine table. I'll be buying an overlocker once the tax money comes in. As soon as it's all set up I'll be posting many many pictures.

So...anyone jealous yet?

Monday, July 05, 2010

How many unfinished projects is too many? Or projects in potentia?

You see, I have a pair of socks for my sister's partner's mum (seriously), a cream cabled jumper for Marcus, a pair of skull socks for Felix and the ever-eternal christening shawl which needs to be finished to enter the Royal Melbourne Show. I suspect a repeat of last year's 2am blocking fiasco will occur.

Now, normally, this wouldn't phase me all that much. I just spent two weeks knitting up an entry for the Patons baby knitting competition (if I win I'll post about it. You'll be able to hear the screams of joy from where ever you are anyway) and now I need to get back on track, so I have to sort out my knitting priorities.

The bedsocks for Anna (or is it Ana?) are halfway done, and need to be finished asap, but I've only got the front of the cream cable jumper to go and then I can sew it up and Marcus has a finished cricket jersey with a shawl collar. Felix hasn't had a new pair of socks in over a year and I'm almost ready to shape the toe on his first sock.

I also frogged my old green jumper to make a cardigan for Marcus, but first I have to wash and weight the wool to get the kinks out. I think it might work, and it is a pretty good idea as the jumper was always too short and my mother's hints over the years about extending it were driving me a little batty.

Finally, I had to buy some yarn last Monday (yes, had. It was for the competition!) and when I walked into Spotlight they had yarn at half price. The Entwine bulky was $1 a ball! I have no willpower in the face of that and now own another 32 balls of yarn. Oh, stop judging me. I was planning to make Felix a jumper from it, but when I got home with the stash I remembered that I just bought 16 balls of grey Zara last month to knit him a jumper as well.

So my problem is that I have four main projects on the go, and five waiting to be started.

Oh, did I mention that my dad and my nan both need new bedsocks? Sigh...