New look, old friends

On impluse I had my hair straightened, and amazingly, it worked. What is IN those chemicals?

I have started knitting a vest. In a old-fashioned shop in Redcliffe I found some Sirdar Donegal Tweed that was heavily discounted.

So there we were, the old library ladies, Janet, Helen and me, at the local Woody Point pub on Friday night. Two of us drinking cocktails and one knitting. All I'll say is, my project gained many inches.

Textile Arts Expo, Brisbane

The workshops were a bit patchy. Helen attended a workshop on making a felted tea cosy. Here's her creation, with it's rasta tassels. Love it! I did two workshops, one on shibori dying and one where we experimented with a free-form screen-printing technique using Procion dyes, run by Louise Snook from WA. She ran out of dyes soon into the workshop which was a bit frustrating. I was tired by the end of the afternoon and didn't get as much from the session as I had hoped. One to try later, in my own time.

Coming to you from Malany

Sorry about the gap! Have been too distracted to update this blog. This post comes to you live from Maleny, up in the hills back of the Sunshine Coast. A little internet cafe in the main street, a pot of tea, and a piece of almond barfi from the shop over the road where I just bought indian block-printed sheets and pillow/cushion covers for the van. They are Anhoki block printed fabrics, imported from India. I do want to visit them in Jaipur, they have a textile museum. I was just looking at a very heavy (as in weight) book on Indian handcrafts - Handmade in India. I could do a road-trip following all the block printing and embroidery clusters. Meantime, just pottering around on the Sunshine Coast, staying at Coolum for a few days.

Hamilton

I'm staying with Margaret and Keith in Hamilton, in their house overlooking the Lake. Have been knitting a scarf out of some cream wool that appeared in my stash. Lovely activity for sitting by the fire in the evenings with old friends.

I bought some Tahki Rio, a merino/alpaca/silk mix, from Creative Outlet in Tauranga. The shop is always inspiring, with the yarns arranged by tone and colour, each box holding a wide variety of different types and plys. Gayle who owns the shop hand dyes yarns. She makes sure that there are examples of made-up garments in a good range of the products she stocks, so you can see how they are going to knit up. I say say 'see', but it is all in the touch - it is the feel that is more important for me.

I'm hoping the Rio will work for the sleeves of the jacket I'm making with the Rowan.

The scarf project is an accident. I set out to test a pattern from a library book, but I only have one set of needles with me in the house-on-wheels. So now I want to finish the piece so I can get back to the jacket.. .

End of autumn

Queen's Birthday weekend marks the start of winter, but signs of autumn linger.

End of day, Lake Rotoiti

Queen's Birthday weekend.
Enjoying the last of the sun with Loretta down by the lake.

FairyBaby

FairyBaby arrived! Turns out she's a little girl after all.

She's Annie Jean, and she came home yesterday. She was born in the very early hours of 2 June 2010. Just about the time that I snuggled in beside Eva for a long chat. "There's a fly in my room!", Eva called out. I said, I'm here, because mummy has gone to the hospital.

"FairyBaby is getting born at the hospital", she said. "All the doctors will be running about, won't they? And the midwife will be there, everyone will be helping. At Kindy, I tell secrets to my friends. My teacher's name is Sue. Sometimes mummy and me go to the hairdresser. She's Jen, and Jen just cuts the all ratty bits out of my hair. Wellington is a long way isn't it? In Wellington we had a different hairdresser. His name is..." We were still talking when Tom got back from the hospital, so we looked at some photos of FairyBaby.