Feather and Fan Scarf

Feather and Fan Scarf
Pattern: Feather and Fan stitch.
Method: Cast on 40 stitches and knit, knit, knit until all yarn gone
Yarn: 4 balls of Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk Aran (approx 320m)
Needles: Size 4.00mm

Unblocked 150cm long

Blocked: 200cm long (!)

The finished scarf.

School Holidays, Day 13: Sydney Aquarium

It's been a while between visits...

21 March 2004

26 April 2008

...the kids have grown a bit in the meantime.

365 Days and 229 Posts on an easy.to.remember anniversary

Twelve months ago today on an important Australian holiday, ANZAC Day, I entered the blogosphere with this post. At that point this blog was intended for family and friends only and was set to private. That soon went by the wayside and I was exposed to the full impact of the Blogosphere.

And I'm glad I was because not only do I "talk" to fabulous bloggers but I've lurked on blogs that open up windows to worlds I had no idea about. It's like having loads of pen-pals without having to walk to the post-box. Actually, it's like having a Magic 8 Ball - you throw up a question, shake it into the Blogosphere and the answers come rolling in.

The blogosphere is responsible for re-igniting a wish to knit (it was this post in fact that did it) and therefore getting me involved in that ultimate time-fritterer, Ravelry. Now, if I'm not careful I'll fire up the sewing machine again sometime soon and it will be this blog's fault. And to celebrate my first Blogiversary I've started Twittering, so now you will be able to read my every thought in my sidebar. How thrilling for you.

There are so many fabulous blogs out there, each revealing a part of a new world to us. It's the ultimate in un-edited publishing. Who wouldn't want to be a part of that?

So, 229 posts later what have I written about? According to my labels I've spent my time chatting to you about my home, my family, my holidays, knitting, books and school. Very suburban, but that's my life at the moment; who knows what I'll be writing about over the next 12 months.

Thank you for coming along for the ride.

Show your weekly food basket: A Dare (simultaneous post by M and Fairlie)

Two weeks ago, Fairlie emailed me this link to a photogallery at Time magazine showing the weekly food consumption and cost of that consumption for families from all corners of our globe. The photos come from the book Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Menzel. The photos show families standing behind their weekly food "shop" with a caption showing how much it cost them in US dollars.

We were so struck by what we saw. One family from Chad feed themselves on US$1.27. A family from Egypt on less than US$70. What was also striking was what people were buying. I couldn't help but gasp out loud at some of the products displayed by families from Western nations as compared with those from less-developed areas.

The Dare:

Fairlie and I want you to show a photo of your weekly food shop

Here is mine (Check out Fairlie's here).

I bought the items in this photo today. It represents what our family of four will eat for 7 breakfasts, 5 school lunches and approximately 4 evening meals. Not shown are items already in my pantry such as onions, rice, pasta & flour; and items already in my fridge or freezer such as frozen meats,cream and pumpkin. We would usually have one take out meal per week (Thai) which costs about $25. Our total expenditure based on this would be AUD$197 from this shopping expedition plus AUD$60 in additional purchases throughout the week. Lets just round that off to AUD$260 or US$246.

Will you take up the dare and show your weekly shop?

School Holidays, Day 9: Happy Feet at Taronga Zoo

It is fashionable, amongst us Mothers, to detest the school holidays; however, I love them. School holidays represent, to me, a slight sleep-in, no school lunches and less requirement for me to be a taxi-driver. By comparison I find the whole palaver of making school lunches, dropping the kids at school, picking them up, delivering them to various activities and homework all a complete bore.

So when Padawan Learner said he didn't enjoy tennis camp I said, stay home with Blossom and I tomorrow - we're going to check out the Great Southern Oceans exhibit at Taronga Zoo. However, this morning he chose to return to tennis camp (what does that say about our company I wonder?) and Blossom and I headed off to the zoo.

The new exhibit is great. Fabulous swim tanks for the seals and penguins and a variety of keeper talks and shows to go to. Did you know all 17 species of penguin live in the southern hemisphere? So if you want to check out these guys nearby their natural habitat go to Antarctica, or make your way to Sydney's Taronga Zoo.

The Leopard seal, Brooke, was so fast and graceful in the water but I couldn't help giggling when she struggled on the land during the keeper demonstration. I kept thinking of the scene in "Happy Feet" when the Adelie Penguin was taunting the leopard seal who was so tough and vicious in the water but a lumbering beast on land.

Leopard Seal: Come here, sausage. I take you with ketchup!

Ramón: Yeah, but first you gotta catch up! [laughing]*

And in other news, not at all related to seals or penguins: if you liked the look of the choc chip cookies Blossom cooked yesterday here is the recipe:

Barbara's Chocolate Chip Cookies

125g butter
1/2 cup
caster (superfine) sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
extract/essence
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 3/4 cups Self-Raising Flour
155g choc chips

1. Cream butter and sugar
2. add egg and vanilla
3. sift flour and fold in
4. add choc chips and stir
5. roll into small balls
6. bake at 180 degrees C for 10-12 mins

Enjoy.

*quote lifted from this website.

School Holidays, Day 8: Drizzle, Tennis, Cookies and Mr Strange

Today Padawan Learner went off to tennis camp. By camp I mean a day of tennis at the courts 5 minutes up the road.

Meanwhile I was content to hang around the house because I was determined to finish Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell at some point this holidays.

Blossom, however, had other ideas. Blossom's idea of a holiday is not sitting around reading a book. Her preference is to go shopping. Any kind of shopping. Instead I convinced her to try her hand at cooking. She knows Queenie cooks and even though Queenie comes from superb cooking-skill stock she thought she could give it a go.

Here is the result:

Choc Chip Cookies. Yum. The recipe was sent to me by a great college friend. It's her mum's recipe and it has just the right combination of crunch and softness, if that makes sense. Blossom did everything herself and I think she did a great job. However, she wasn't so keen on the cleaning up bit.

I did eventually get back to my reading. Padawan Learner was so exhausted from his day of tennis that he was in bed by 6.45pm which meant that Blossom and I had a few hours of quiet activity downstairs. The TV went off, the music went on, Blossom did Sudoku puzzles and I finished the book.

I loved this book (all 1006 pages people, 1006). A definite 9 out of 10 from me. I've never shied away from fantasy and this combination of fantasy with the linguistic stylings of Jane Austen and a slow-revealing impossibly detailed depth really drew me in.

The book is set between 1806 and 1817 and is described in the blurb as: "...an epic tale of nineteenth century England and the two magicians who emerge to change its history". It's skill is being set in an alternate reality that is so close to the actual historical reality that you want to believe it is reality.

Oh, and it also has humour. One of my favourite bits:

When he awoke it was dawn. Or something like dawn. The light was watery, dim and incomparably sad. Vast, grey, gloomy hills rose up all around them and in between the hills there was a wide expanse of black bog. Stephen had never seen a landscape so calculated to reduce the onlooker to utter despair in an instant.

"This is one of your kingdoms, I suppose, sir?" he said
"My Kingdoms?" exclaimed the gentleman in surprize (sic). "Oh, no! This is Scotland!"

It always rains when Fairlie visits

True. It does. Poor Fairlie. But at least she was here for indoor pursuits (to see the Diana Exhibition before it leaves in May). I'm sure a full report will be on Fairlie's Blog soon.

Fairlie will be back soon for the Sydney Writers Festival. Yay.

Aged Blogger takes on 20-somethings Food Meme

Guera tagged me for this food meme which started at Smoky Mountain Breakdown. It's trying to get me to talk about that bloggy-hip notion of food porn. Whatever that means. Food is food to me. Do I bite? Read on to find out.

The Rules

Here are the rules. Answer each of the five questions. Tag five bloggers you would like to pass the meme to. Have them link back to you and to this post as the source meme. You and they can take the graphic from here if they like.

1. What food do you consider the best “date” food? In other words, what meal or food item do you think is sexiest to eat in the company of someone you would like to look sexy around?

I’m not sure if I’ve been on anything that resembles a “date”. I met my husband at the University college we were both living at and our first meal together was probably in the college dining room (steamed Swede and unidentified meat product), or perhaps it was a packet of Samboy BBQ Chips from the munchy machine. Or, since we couldn’t stand the college food it may have been a Chelsea Pizza (Hawaiian, with bacon, cooked twice).

Despite Firegazer once chucking a piece of pizza to me from the other end of a room (in 1986) I still married him, so I was pretty easy to please. Then. Now, I would want a meal at a restaurant with well put together food and attentive but un-fussy service.

2. What well-known person would you like to share a meal with—with or without clothing. (saying whether or not clothes are involved is optional).

Now this is getting tricky because I can’t remember ever fantasising about meeting, or eating-a-meal-with, any famous person. And if I did I would definitely prefer to be in the company of others because I’m shy. So, if I was holding a dinner party I wouldn’t mind at all if The Chaser team came along because I think they could be persuaded to be funny. Viggo Mortensen and David Tennant could tag along if they wanted. Oh, and I would be fully clothed. What sort of blogger do you take me for?

3. What does your perfect breakfast-in-bed look like? (Food AND the details, please. Candles? Music? Flowers? Hot tub? Dancing girls?)

What is this? A meme for 20-somethings? Date food? Candles? Forget the candles, music, flowers and hot tub. Just a cup of tea please. And a book. And no-one bothering me. It would be best if Firegazer would leave the tea and then take the children to the movies/park/zoo for a couple of hours.

4. What do you consider the best application of whipped cream to be?

Whipped Cream? I can see where you’re going but I am over-forty people and whipped cream is so last century. But a dollop of King Island Double Cream on mud cake/cheesecake/chocolate brownie or hot apple pie would be excellent.

5. Oh-God-No, Biff, the yacht is sinking! You are sent to the galley to retrieve the food. What luxury food items do you snatch first? The champagne? The caviar? Smoked Salmon? Truffles? Chocolate? Or something else?

If the yacht is sinking I am certainly NOT going DOWN into the galley. I’d leave that to the 20-somethings. I’d instruct them to bring me the milk chocolate and make it snappy.

OK, so now I need to tag 5 people. But I'm not much of a tagger, 'coz my list will end up 10 people long (like my first try) so if you if you want to have a go at this -do so.

School Holidays, Day 4: In Which Padawan Learner is Poorly

The school holiday activity fest comes to a screeching halt when Padawan Learner comes down with some sort of undefined high temperature thingy forcing a day of rest. There are lots of I'm boreds and there's nothing to do coming from the Tween.

I, on the other hand, see this as an opportunity to knit some washcloths. As I am in stay-at-home Suzi Homemaker mode, why not. The washcloths are a quick project even for a slow, uneconomical-of-movement, knitter like me.

From pattern: "Grandmother's Favorite Dishcloth"

On Tuesday the kids' knitting teacher suggested washcloths as an excellent first project for beginner knitters rather than the traditional scarf. So we hot-footed over to the cotton yarn section and bought some Jaipur Egyptian Cotton in cream and pale pink. The pink cotton was for Blossom's projects but I fear she may have to buy more as I am going to use it all up very quickly

"Awareness Ribbon Cloth", Pattern by Donna Burgess

I found these washcloth patterns on Ravelry. If you are a member the links are here and here.

In case you're wondering - these work very well as a face-washer/flannel. Apparently they also make excellent glass cleaners.

School Holidays, Day 2: The Great Knitting Experiment

On Day 2 it is still raining on and off. We catch the train to town and meet Firegazer for lunch at the kids' favourite lunch meeting place: Dymocks George St. The kidlets like to pick at their food then race down the escalator to the children's floor where they ask incessantly for new books.

At 2pm I drop them at Tapestry Craft for the children's beginner knitting class. I am assured that my children are in excellent hands and encouraged to disappear to the shops for two hours.

Which I do. I head off to The Strand Arcade and stare wistfully at the clothes before going to Myer and buying Padawan Learner new PJs. This is not at all in keeping with my mid-life crisis goal of getting.a.new.look.

I come back just before 4pm to find three little girls listening attentively to their knitting teacher but no Padawan Learner. Oh, she says, he got bored after about twenty minutes and has been wandering the store ever since.

I did think it was a long shot that he'd sit still for two hours and congratulated the teacher on keeping him there for as long as she did. Blossom, however, learnt to knit, purl and rib and had a fabulous time.

Product of Australia: Nana's Jam Drops

On our most recent grocery shopping expedition I greatly annoyed my family (one of my mid-life crisis goals) by reading all the labels to ensure we were only buying product that stated Made in Australia. However, I have since found out that there are a couple of labelling quirks* that one must be aware of:

Made in Australia means that the product was "substantially transformed" in Australia. More than 50% of the cost of the product occurred here. The ingredients can be local or imported or a combination (this is usually stated on the packet).

Product of Australia means that the product was made, manufactured and grown here and is 100% Australian.

So, I can claim that the Jam Drops the kids and I baked yesterday are Product of Australia. I used Australian flour, sugar, jam, eggs and butter. I was made in WA and the kids were made in Victoria. The recipe came from the kids' Nana, also 100% Australian. Eat with impunity.

Depending how "Quick" (hot) your oven is, 15 minutes might be too long. Try 10 mins first.

Beware the quick fingers that hover about the freshly baked biscuits.

* check out labelling questions here

School Holidays, Day 1: It Rains

At 7.30am this morning a truckload of blokes turn up to remove a Camphour Laurel from our yard. We have two Camphour Laurels. One is big, and one is enormous. I'm sure that the enormous one can be seen from the moon. So, these blokes are staring at the enormous one at which point I say - that's not the one you're taking down. Crikey, that's a relief one guy says, That's not the sort of tree you want to take down on a Monday morning.

So in between rain showers these guys spend the entire day slicing into the big Camphour Laurel. Our council is very reluctant to give permission to pull down a tree, especially one this size, but it was suffering from Dieback and was dropping branches - the most recent on Friday night. As you can imagine from the size of the stump (above) the branches were not small.

While all that was going on a friend and I took our kids to an Aquatic Centre. Not a local one you understand but one that I needed to test out Firegazer's new Navman (GPS) getting to and from. The GPS worked. It was even fun and I may not give it back.

As it was still cold and rainy in the afternoon after we got back from the pool Blossom and I made some of Nana's Jam Drops.

They went down very well with Padawan Learner who has eaten 5 at last count.

Tomorrow: the kids go to a knitting class...hee hee (while I spend their meagre inheritance in the store)

I'm gonna have a mid-life crisis, and I'm gonna enjoy it

I’m 40 and I think it’s about time I had a mid-life crisis.

I know that by the time I’m old enough to be considered “old” my life expectancy will be at least 100 which means I shouldn’t really have this mid-life crisis until I’m 50. However that would mean I’m in crisis at the same time as my kids are hormonally crazy and sitting final exams, and stuff, and that wouldn’t be at all funny, or fun. So, I’ve decided to get it over and done with NOW. And I really want to enjoy it.

Problem is I can’t decide what crazy stuff to do.

If Firegazer was having one of his (many) mid-life crises he would buy a sports car, climb a mountain, take up golf, again, or buy loads of sporting/camping/hobby equipment that he would use once and then leave lying in the back shed. But nah, that’s not me. I'm hoping to REALLY annoy people.

So what do you reckon:

Shall I ...

Re-live the days when I thought being a Mod or a Punk would be fun?

[image courtesy: http://thesartorialist.blogspot.com/]

Get a whole-new-look?

Convert our yard into an eco-friendly-environmental-showpony?

Drive a completely un-eco-friendly-unenvironmental showpony?

Or, heaven-forbid, get a job that will pay actual money?

Maybe I'll just sit at home, ignore the washing, ironing and cooking and watch the family flounder while I amuse myself reading, knitting,blogging and looking up useless facts on the Internet.

Does anyone want to join me?

Slouchy Weekend Sweater by Sublime

Pattern: Slouchy Weekend Sweater by Sublime
Size: 0-3 months
Yarn: Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk dk
Colour: 008 (Sage Green)
Knitted for: Friend's baby (due May/June)

This little jumper is for my friend/neighbour's new baby due in May/June. Both her previous children were born quite premature so I felt that knitting the smallest size was best.

I actually finished the individual pieces some time ago but have been having a terrible time with the sewing up. After checking out knitting books and loads of how-to websites I finally took the plunge last night. I realise now that the real art of a great looking knitted garment lies in the finishing and while my job is passable I will book myself into a specialist "finishing" class asap.

I haven't sewn buttons on the shoulder yet. I don't know what the gender will be so my plan is to use chunky wood buttons if it is a boy and gorgeous girly buttons if not. If a girl I'm also considering some embroidery somewhere on the squares or sleeve, maybe.

I'm going to visit this amazing shop for the buttons.

No offence to the Mexicans but surely we can find Aussie Garlic?

Last night my bookgroup discussed Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I chose the book, so I had to lead the discussion. This book follows the experiences of Barbara and her family as they attempt to eat only what they can grow on their property or source locally for 12 months. It also extends its discussion to the state of food production in the US generally and tangentally to experiments such as the 100-mile diet.

Being the ever dedicated bookgroup host I spent many hours (ha) researching the topic. This consisted of:

• Querying Fairlie on her buy Australian food campaign
• Reading the book
• Sifting a dodgy research fact or two off the Internet (there's a rumour that the contents of the average Aussie shopping trolley have travelled over 70,000 km to get there)

and then I tallied up how many of the ingredients from last night's Spag Bol were from Australia.

Oops. I didn't do well:

Tinned tomatoes - Aussie

Tomato paste - Aussie

Mince - Aussie

Onion, carrot, zucchini - Aussie

Garlic - Mexico

Oxo beef cube - England

Barilla Pasta - Italy

Dried Herbs - Local and imported

Parmesan - Italy

The salad wasn't crash hot either:

Salad Greens, tomatoes - Aussie

Balsamic Vinegar - Italy

Mustard - France

Olive Oil - Australia

And the thing is - I could easily find an Australian alternative for each of these things. Except the Parmesan. I am fussy about Parmesan, it only comes from Italy. And it can travel here by Hummer for all I care.

So (and here's the point of my story), I go down to my favourite reputable vegetable retailer and look for the Australian options and I could only find garlic from China or Mexico. No offence to the Mexicans and Chinese - I'm sure your garlic is excellent - but surely we can grow garlic here?

I eventually found Aussie garlic but I used up an extra tank of fuel to find it. Would it have been better to buy the Mexican one?

IN WHICH Blossom's perfectionism is tested

On Wednesday morning, 8.45am, I went to Blossom's parent-teacher conference at school. As I sat down Blossom's teacher (let's call her Ms Frizzle) beamed at me and said "aaah, here is the mother of the girl who runs our classroom".

"Ha Ha" I say "She runs our house as well. In fact she thinks she's Padawan Learner's mother".

I look down on Ms Frizzle's hand-written notes and read the word "Perfectionist?".

"Are you telling me this because you think this is a good thing or a bad thing?" I ask.

"I- I'm not sure" says Ms Frizzle. "I think mostly a good thing. I think. Is she super tidy at home? I mean because children at this age usually don't notice mess"

I think for a moment and the truth is, I don't know. I've always grumped at her to tidy her room so it's always been spotless. But is she naturally like that?

So, I'm conducting an experiment. I'm not touching Blossom's room. I'm not going to ask her to tidy it. For as long as I can bear it. Here are the results so far (apologies to true scientists I forgot to take the control picture but believe me she had a VERY tidy room to start with):

Day 3

I can't tell you how relieved I am to see that mess. I think she's fine.

edited to say: Oh God, it's getting worse. Now there's Saturday Mess. I.must.keep.strong.

Breakin' all my rules for a Dare

Well here you are Sussanah, because you dared. And Tracey and Stomper Girl, because you emailed.

Sussanah made an excellent point in a recent post that we Mums don't like having our photos taken. That's me. Hate photographs of me. She dared us to post a self-portrait.

My son says in the morning "Mum, why do you put that stuff on your face? I like you without it". He's a good boy that one. My daughter doesn't like photographs of herself. I'd rather that she was comfortable with her image. So this one's for her.

Blossom, if Mummy can put her face out there in all its seasons, so can you.

So here, at great expense to my photos.on.blogs.rule, is a collage of about every photo I have of myself in the last year or so. I'm usually on the other side of the camera and actively avoid photos of me.

I had to scrape around a bit. (I hope you like the shot of my ear. I really did have to scrape around a bit ot fill the collage.)

The first two photos were taken last night. They are out of focus because I was using the timer thingy on the camera and stuffed it up. It was 11.3opm, I'd just turned off my computer and I'm still in the clothes I walked out of the house in at 8.30am (this is what I wear to Pilates). At 8.30am I had mascara and lip gloss on. By 11.30 it was long gone.

The other photos of me were mostly taken by my children.

Beauty Circa. 1982

It may amuse you to learn that, in 1982, I was awarded a prize for being the "overall top student" in my school's Grooming & Deportment class. Some of you may need a moment to pick yourselves off the floor and stop laughing. Ha ha yes, very funny.

The prize was the above book. A bible for those young women who were about to go out into the world. Women who were encouraged to choose the largest shoulder-pad available and break through the glass ceiling.

But not before being passed a few time-honoured messages:

Start thinking thin early. Obviously we are not bombarded with dieting books early enough. Kindergarten is clearly the go. Perhaps there should be home readers on the subject?

Oh, and by dieting we mean constant dieting lest we allow a single "fat cell" to be born.

And, of course, the most important message. Put down that strawberry sundae, there's a size 6 dress waiting for me. In an alternate universe.

I imagine I was reading this while lying on my dorm room bed eating a bag of mixed lollies from the corner shop.

Help! My son won't ever, never, eat a vegetable!

Padawan Learner is 7 1/2 and still will not, never, ever eat a Vegetable. Or a fruit. Or the crispy bits on chops. Or the skin off a sausage (but that's an entire separate post).

• I have tried hiding vegetables in food.
• I have put them on the plate in appealing arrangements.
• I have made vegetable skewers.
• I have covered them in sauce.
• I have given lots of choice.
• I have given restricted choice.
• I have read him books about other children eating vegetables.
• I have deep fried them, mashed them, diced them and provided dipping sauces.
• I have forced him to eat them.
• I have not forced him to eat them.
• He doesn't care about missing dinner, dessert, his favourite tv show or having computer time restricted.
• He doesn't care about stickers, star charts or pats on the back.

In short I have followed every reasonable and crack-pot idea in every book. I have followed sage advice, and not so sage advice. He just won't budge. The other mothers are starting to notice. And you know how that can be ("ooh, my son has always eaten his vegetables, but you know it's all about discipline").

And this is from a boy who until he was 2 years old ate EVERYTHING. I rejoiced that I had a child who would simply eat mushed or chopped versions of whatever Firegazer and I had for dinner while our daughter sat with her mouth clammed shut to all food. Daughter now eats everything. Mmmm yummy avocado mum. I love the way you do the broccoli mum.

Who or what is playing a trick on me?

And before you ask...no, he doesn't prefer junk food. This boy is not a fan of the pie or sausage roll. He hates chocolate. He only likes vanilla ice-cream. And when I gave him gorgeous bunny-shaped gingerbread for Easter he picked off all the glace icing before he ate it.

So my question is? Did you have a picky eater? And I mean a real picky eater not just a slightly stubborn one. My daughter was just slightly stubborn and all the usual enticements simply worked, after a while.

If you had a picky eater and then turned them around I want to know your secrets. Please. Now.