it has been pretty quiet around here the past few days, the girls have been busy socialising and working, and Flash arrived home from Adelaide late on friday.
I pootled around on friday afternoon, visited the Salvation Army for books and waste yarn ( machine knitters often take their knitting off the machine on waste yarn, it keeps the live sts from unravelling until the next step - but it is difficult to find good smooth, cheap coned yarn - this was 4 ply cotton in a loud emerald green $2 a cone, perfect)I made bread, tropical fruit salad cake and yummy coconut bread.
Yesterday I finally put myself to bed with the new books, I have been nursing a virus for a few days, not sick enough to be "sick", but not well enough to concentrate for any length of time, I actually managed to stay in bed all day alternating between knitting and reading, it was bliss!
Today feeling well rested and much better, Flash and drove north for a look around, we drove on the new M7, after seeing the quality of the bike track which runs alongside this new motorway Flash proclaimed that we should go and buy bikes ( we sold ours when we moved to Oz - we used to bike through the Karangahake Gorge, including the kilometre long rail tunnel - in the dark, great fun!) I gave him a withering look and said "give me 5 good reasons" - ok, so it's a great bike track, and we love biking together, which we haven't done for 2 years... and I am enjoying the cross trainer and feeling a lot fitter, biking in the fresh air would be wonderful (remember - it's relative, living above Parramatta road means that biking beside a motorway in the country equals fresh air!) I basically gave myself the 5 reasons, and then said "no we can't afford it, new bikes are not in this month's budget - end of story" Husband pouts. I feel bad, after all - he is earning 95% of the income at present. I ignore his pouting.
We ended up at the Lane Cove national park, and settled ourselves on a blanket by the river and relaxed, watching the antics of the cockatoos and listening to the ballads of romantic parrots in the the tree above us.
Flash read the paper, and I knitted - see she does knit, and it's not stunt knitting - I did it myself! (just like the hair - which has run wild too...sometimes I wish I was a girly girl who knew how to do hair, and make up, and dress...) The t-shirt is from Threadless, it has a picture of a cloud crying as a plane cuts it in two, it's called "clouds are people too".
Here I am knitting two little cardi front's at once, I'm using Rowanspun DK, and it is knitting up cute and fast, I love this yarn, it has been in the stash for as long as I have had stash in Sydney - 2 years, it was one of my first purchases, and I have often wondered what to do with it, waiting for the perfect project for this special yarn, it is the "Rush" colourway, a lichen-ish gray with flecks of pumpkin, cream and bottle green, I am loving knitting with it, it runs easily through my fingers, is not splitty or sticky, and I know that the slight uneveness of the fabric will come good after a gentle wash.
I didn't design this pattern, I had a gauge disaster with some cashmere this week - it was mindblowingly awful - I won't go into details because I am still living the horror. For my sanity's sake I needed to take refuge in a tried and tested pattern, which I could just knit as written. Ok, well I couldn't quite knit as written, I substituted yarn, so had a different gauge, so had to change the stitch and row count - but basically I followed a pattern from the Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino book 2, a wee cardi with moss stitch borders, a perfect foil for such a ruggedly handsome yarn.
What lovely way to spend an afternoon, leaning against my husband reading his paper, as stitch after stitch flowed from my needles, the rhythmic motion calming my busy mind, the sounds of water flowing, birds looking for mates, and children laughing, fresh air and the scent of newly mown grass and native trees, the worries of the world evaporated as early morning mist surrenders to the kiss of the sun.
Then we went and bought bikes.
