Swooshy skirt

 Here is the skirt I made last month - it is plaid and swooshy and I wore it to work.

I used McCalls 7022 again because I know it fits, but view F this time so nice and swirly. The material is a fairly boring brushed cotton but I like the plaid and I like that it is a medium weight. In my head it is Alexander McQueen circa 1995 but in reality it is probably more overgrown schoolgirl. It was slightly too short so I hand-sewed a bias binding hem, which looks better anyway, although it seemed to take forever.

Swooshy, swooshy.

Weekend walk

 It rained both days on the weekend, so I mostly sat inside and wove. Weaved. Woved? Sunday I needed to stretch the legs so did a 10km walk and only got slightly sprinkled on. I decided to stick to pavements and parks rather than bush tracks to avoid the mud ... it was lovely but the scenery is looking most un-Canberra like. All the green!

This is very unusual. It is good for bushfires but bad for grass fires - the lush greenery will be brown and crackly dry by Christmas, and the Canberra government is not well set up for prompt grass mowing. Or any grass mowing really, we are not used to it growing beyond ankle high. The storm front came through Friday night when we were happily tucked up in an Indian restaurant with friends. Dining out twice in one week!!!! Hedonism.

My walk took me past another Floriade mini garden, with roses. Our roses at home are starting to bloom, which is a bit later than usual, but that might be because I pruned them so late. At least they are looking very happy with the rain, and not sad dead sticks. Speaking of, the pittosporums are covered with little bumps that look promisingly like new growth ... not actual new growth of course, but potentially they could come back. Or they could be covered with a bizarre fungus, who would know.

Yarn!!!

My Ice Yarns order arrived in record time! I have no idea why, I thought shipping was taking ages at the moment, but I am not going to complain - according to the label it came via Istanbul, Liege, Dubai and Sydney. From my Postal Industry Ombudsman years I retain some interest in international postal hubs, mostly because they are often places you wouldn't expect. And, given 2020, they all sound ridiculously exotic at the moment ... I would be delighted to have a week in a three star hotel by a commercial airport in Belgium right now. DELIGHTED.

And this is the haul. Mostly I went with no-fluff lace weight or fingering weight wool that would sit nicely on a warp. However that blue is a self-striping alpaca blend, and the pink is the beautiful silk-merino blend that I've had before. The light blue is also alpaca and very soft and fluffy so only wefts I think. The cream is an interesting wool-cotton blend that I had hoped to be able to dye for warps but on closer inspection I don't think it's strong enough, so will use for wefts.

That cost me just under $200 Australian including shipping, which is a bit of a bargain. Certainly enough to keep me quietly weaving for many months - I am still mesmerised by putting together different yarns and making them into a length. And yes, I know have dozens and dozens of scarves. I am justifying this by deciding (in my head) that when we retire and move down the coast I will have a stall at the Moruya markets where I will sell them. This may never happen of course, but it has nicely moved my frame of reference from "pointlessly making more scarves I will never wear" to "industriously building up stock for my future cottage industry". Much better.

Sweet sixteen

My littlest baby had his sixteenth birthday, which is quite a shock, even though I knew it was coming. Because he skipped a year of high school he is the young one in his friend group, so he's very happy to have a birthday and catch up a little bit. Until next year.

We went to his favourite Japanese restaurant which was a hit all round (it is truly delicious, I had a lot of tofu, which appears to have gone straight to my CHINS) and they put a candle in his green tea and black sesame ice cream (which was not truly delicious, I don't understand Asian desserts) and everyone sang him happy birthday. Which he tolerated very well.

His father had made him a lovely chocolate cake with chocolate ganache for second dessert when we got back home. Unfortunately in the kitchen reno we have lost the birthday candles - I think I threw them out because we have been re-using them for at least twenty years - but husband says no, they are around somewhere. We couldn't find them, so he ended up with a sparkler on his cake, which he refused to go near or try and blow out. The cake itself was amazing.

I will go out with him on the weekend and buy his present - he wants a pair of Doc Martens!!!! I was so excited when I bought mine in the early 1990s to wear with black woolly tights and a tartan miniskirt. Everything old is new again. His main present was the 16th birthday trip - we offer two weeks, one parent, anywhere in the world - and I was a bit sad when he chose to forego the parent and go on the school trip to California in January instead ... but in hindsight, absolute genius. He would have been a very sad birthday boy if he'd planned an adventure for this month with no chance of going anywhere for the foreseeable future.

Another beach weekend

It was grey and windy over the weekend but I didn't care, because I was at the beach. No swimming (not just grey and windy but COLD) but several walks, several books and I made two sundresses in a fit of optimism. That there would be sun! After last summer's unbelievable heat and dryness, everything is looking very green and damp. I know it's early days yet for summer but even this time last year it was  brown, and it's just not the case this year. Fingers crossed we keep getting decent rain.

Oh, except for these people of course, beautiful spot for a wedding (other than it being a public pathway, hello random strangers!) but it would have been gale force and a bit nippy by the afternoon. October, what can you do.

This storm didn't come to much luckily because our skylight in the bathroom has started leaking. The lovely neighbours whipped up on a ladder and did some siliconing if you can believe it - so nice. And so handy! We are very hopless desk pushers who can barely hold a hammer but will buy them some beer.

And there were two elections to watch; the ACT and New Zealand, where both Labor governments got easily re-elected. Canberra is a very lefty town so by the end of this term Labor will have 23 unbroken years in power. Although I should say 'power' because it is the government of a single city of 400 000, so we are not exactly at the forefront of world domination. And neither, to be fair, is NZ. But it was interesting to watch with one eye while sewing, and a nice relief from right-wing extremism and lunacy. 

A longer walk

On Sunday I finally did the big loop walk - there are a few points on the big loop where I can cut for home, and every time I start out intending not to do that and do the whole loop ... but I don't. Until Sunday, which was sunny but not too hot and I put one little foot in front of the other for about 13 km. Which took 2 hours 45 minutes because I am not speedy. And according to my phone I then did another 2 km around IKEA in the afternoon - I kept forgetting things and having to backtrack....

This is another noxious weed - Patterson's curse - it kills horses. But again, the purple is very pretty, if you're not too worried about your livestock.

This photo is me trying to get a picture of the fluff flying. Happens every year about this time (it's from poplars apparently) and it's pretty. Especially if you don't have to worry about hay fever. But it is also very hard to get a photo of. 

The other thing that usually happens this time of year is Floriade, but it was cancelled. Sad, but they decided to go with "Floriade in the suburbs" which seems to involve little beds of tulips scattered across Canberra. Not a bad idea, if you can't get people together may as well still enjoy the flowers. Speaking of cancellations, the National Folk Festival 2021 has already been cancelled. I am a bit traumatised, I do love the folk festival, but the artists can't come in from overseas and honestly? lots of old people in tents? Very bad idea. The boys kindly offered to host one in the back yard, where I sit on a broken plastic chair and listen to folk music on a speaker and they whinge about the terrible music and sell me $13 gozleme. Bless their hearts. 

The wool I dyed

 Here is the wool I dyed - it started as just a plain cream four-ply that has been in the cupboard forever. 

Dyeing wool has many advantages over cotton; it doesn't matter if you leave white bits, you can use different colours without it being splotchy and even red doesn't look too much like blood splatter. And the dye exhausts when you use it, which means when it's done you pour off clean water. As opposed to the endless (endless!!!) rinse and squeeze and repeat of cotton dyeing. 

This is what it turned into- the photo is a bit blue. The turquoise of the top photo is probably more accurate. There is a plain reddish-brown alpaca blend on the weft that has appeared in my scarves before many times. Many many times - I think I bought six 100g balls from Ice Yarns and they seem to be breeding in the cupboard. Not that it's a problem because it is a lovely soft yarn that it is beautiful to weave with and I think it's a pretty colour. Speaking of Ice Yarns I may have done a massive yarn order during a weak moment at work last week. I have been so good with not adding to my stashes! But I fell to temptation, and much yarn is slowly meandering its way to me from Turkey as we speak. I think it will take a very long time....

A peg board

Close to the most exciting thing that happened on the weekend was putting up the new peg board from IKEA. I had to drill holes in the wall and use a screwdriver! So a little bit of swearing was involved. You are also supposed to use a level to make sure your peg boards are level, and measure things, so there's no gap between them, but I didn't do that and it all seems to be fine. And they haven't fallen off the wall yet either, unlike my coast curtain rod debacle. This is the before shot of the dead space behind the door. Random things on coathangers on command hooks. It's been thirteen years since I painted the room that blue-grey. I still really like the colour.

I took the opportunity to chuck stuff out and to do a re-arrangement of the sewing room which has been giving me the shits for some time now. My problem is actually big storage not little storage - I have heaps of drawers and tubs (and now a peg board) for the little things ... it's the looms and the warping board and the tapestry frame and the roll of batting that's the problem. So I shoved some more stuff under the bed, and some other stuff in the corner of the wardrobe behind my wedding dress, and vacuumed and dusted and generally got things in order. 

It was very satisfying, and then I organised my peg board to take the long awkward things like weaving heddles and shuttles. It's not completely done yet because IKEA didn't have any of the short hooks and little pen tubs - apparently everyone is organising their life in lockdown - so I'll have to go back this weekend! Yay!

New walking shoes

I've been doing so much walking that my shoes have worn out! When does that ever happen ... they have rubbed away at the back so Saturday morning I went and bought some new ones and tried them out on Sunday. And went too far of course, and gave myself blisters, but I did take a photo of them looking pretty. Unfortunately it was hot, even early in the morning, so between the blisters and the sweating I can't say I had a wonderful time. It might be the end of the afternoon walks for a few months. 

We had a long weekend and husband and number two son went down the beach, while number one and I hung out at home. Lazily, mostly. I went round and had drinks with friends who are having FAR too much fun in retirement - bees, chickens, vegie gardens, watercolour lessons and gin drinking. I am very jealous. 

Sunday number one and I went to IKEA, which we both enjoy every now and again, to look at the furniture layouts, buy unecessary things (me) and have a hot dog (him). IKEA sells little speakers now, which they like to put in the different rooms all playing different music. Loudly. It drives me insane because you can hear multiple types of music at once and I find it beyond distracting. So I turn them either off or right down quiet as I go around ... number one son agrees with me completely (we have a very quiet house). My personal best is six speakers in one walk through, but I think I can do better. 

This was the sky on Sunday - hot, windy and a high cloud that made it feel like weather was coming. And there was a huge thunderstorm on Monday night at about midnight - I was still awake (curse you daylight savings, my six am alarm this morning was a terrible shock) and number one was coming back from his regular dungeons and dragons evening - he reported massive lightning and thunder and rain. It's still raining today on Wednesday which is very nice and very welcome.

The yellow is cape weed (Arctotheca calendula), an environmental weed that flourishes in crappy soils (i.e. all of Canberra) and crowds out the grass and is generally undesirable ... except for two weeks in spring when it is a very pretty carpet of yellow flowers. Pam asked about the bug spraying - no infestations to report luckily, we just have the house sprayed every six months or so. Mostly for redback spiders, which we get a lot of around the house. The spraying keeps them reasonably in check, although we are also happy to live three minutes drive to the hospital.

Not much going on

Having to spend five consecutive days working has about sucked up all the available energy from this week. We had a day's solid rain, but otherwise very pleasant spring weather. I walked home twice which was lovely (yesterday I got a phone call from a friend who was driving past and saw me - do you want a lift? No, I'm walking. You're WHAT? WHY? Is your car broken? - I do not think my friends have a universal commitment to exercise).

It's school holidays and number two son has spent most days this week down at the National Library studying - which he says is easier than studying at home. His last term's results were good but not as great as he wants, so he's feeling some motivation at the moment. Long may it last. Both boys had to get up early this morning because the bug sprayer was coming at 8 and they had to take the dog out for two hours. We gave them money so they could walk slowly to the bakery and sit and have a bun with the elderly retirees at the local shops. Dog will love it.

I had another job interview here at my work for a different position - it's the first one since my absolute disaster of freezing and blanking last November so I was very nervous - but it was fine. Not pleasant of course, because what job interview is? but I blathered my way through it and that was a huge relief. I thought I might be jinxed to disastrous interviews forever but looks like was just a one-off. Phew. It might be because I'm not 100% sure I want the new job - I very much like my current job - which is a good situation to be in. 

I did some more wool dyeing last weekend for the first time in ages. It was fun! Unfortunately none of my dyeing pans will work on the new induction cooktop so I used the microwave for heating the wool; it works just fine but there's more of an element of guesswork involved. You can't watch the dyebath exhaust in the same way - where the water goes clear - but I just nuke it until it steams and that seems to be working. I'll take photos at some point.