crumb bum stupid head

The personal vernacular of hubby P and myself has of late been evolving to the tune of the opening skit of this portlandia ep…



…and we’re currently in the midst of calling each other and the doggles “crumb bum” and “stupid head” at an almost constant and ridiculous rate.  It’s quite fitting really, as I am at the moment lifting myself out of a state in which I felt I was a firm stupidhead and definite crumb bum a lot of the time!  Yes, I’ve been wrangling this darned PhD of mine into some kind of ok shape, and I finally feel that I’m getting there.  A fog has finally lifted, while the hazy melancholic autumn is setting in.  Maybe this is a phenomenon to watch out for…decline pushing other areas of my life into the hopefully sublime!

You might have noticed that this little old blog is looking quite a bit different…it’s been on the back burner for a bit, but the wrangling has been happening here too and it’s finally looking a lot more designerly!  The tabs up the top are yet to be populated…this will evolve over time.

I’m still making lots of lettuces as opposed to growing them, (there are some growing too)…I might make a salad…

back in not so black...again!

Back towards the beginning of my bloggy happenings I moved away from blackness and into blackness with the blog layout...for a while I've been tired with the black, and even though it is less lit pixels, a pal pointed out to me that a difficult to read screen isn't very sustainable either!   So I've taken the plunge to start redesigning the blog page in line with some new directions I'm taking...it's a work in progress...watch this space!

As I mentioned in the previous post, the uni semester started last week which takes me away from all routine things, and this week has been about developing a new routine...which is kind of nice - means some jiggling of priorities and attending to the really important things.

I didn't touch the garden last week...it has been a very disappointing season with the lack of a real hot stretch and all of the pests (aphids and rats!) that have just caused almost everything to fail.  Even the last hope for apples is out the window as these late season sturmers have been munched away at (I think rats...again!)  When I went to take a pic I discovered european wasps sucking away at the flesh too!

But I did manage to pick one, the last with no rat chews...and looking at the woodbridge link, it's reassuring that my apple looks the same as theirs, even though it is insanely early compared to the june/july ripening time that they predict...

There are always some lovely things in the garden though, like this orb weaver on one of the rose arches....

And the zucchinis and cucumbers I planted to replace those pulled out during the dog vs rat debacle are doing well...even though they are late in the season, hopefully I'll get a crop...

I'm starting some experiments with making vegetables in the studio...not sure where it will go, but I'm doing some plastic crochet Marjorie Bligh style with a twist.  I'm doing some hyperbolic crochet to make some lettuce forms...in this case using glad wrap from a bunch of organic celery...


From sheet to form :o)

new things

I have some new beginnings lately...although I'm not really sure where I'm heading!
I finished the latest baby cardi...a friends new bub is just about here :o)

I got onto my elbow patch project, using an old well loved printed cardi, and some of the crocheted grannies I was working on here.  This cardigan was my favourite "go to" cardi around 7 or 8 years ago (my fav now is a big oversized machine washable grey woolly that came from the op shop).  There's a nice narrative of remnants and mending within it...

I swiss darned across a little ladder in the cuff, and used the granny squares to stitch over the elbow holes.  These particular grannies were made using the remnants from first of the sock yarn cardies which I made for my niece.

In this last pic you can see the previous mending - the darning which my mum did lots of years ago.

I'm taking my everyday craft practice into other projects...using leather remnants stitched together to make a thick leather yarn which I have then crocheted into a massive granny square using a 20mm hook...

I'm unsure how this will be applied to a garment form at the moment.

New things are popping up in the garden like these dwarf beans, the last for the season...I hope we have some continued warm weather for the last of the summer crops...

And the water tanks (1 in the front garden, and two in the back) now have a wire mesh covering to grow some lovely plants on them.  This one behind the workroom is filled by the water from it's roof, and connects to the watering system for the adjoining patch which you can see in the pic above.  I planted two old fashioned noisette roses next to it - Lamarque, and Mme Alfred Carriere in the winter, which now are able to be tied up away from the trampling doggles!  I'm hoping that next spring will see them flourish and bloom and eventually creep over the workroom roof to create some nice living insulation :o)

back to a different kind of work

I'm finally getting around to doing my post christmas/new year catch up post.  P went back to work this week, and I was supposed to get back to serious PhD work, but this little beggar has gotten in the way a bit this week!

I finally took the plunge iphone wise and I've dressed my whitey in a pink bumper...I think I must have been subliminally channeling this vintage cloth I have on the table at the moment when I made this choice!

I wasn't really going to take a holiday break from study, but with the other half home and so many renovations in the pipeline, I had to give poor P a hand.  So it was a working holiday.  At home we had a fence to fix after Hugo did a runner on christmas eve (lightening induced)...all was well, he got picked up by the police, drunk and disorderly with a golden retriever pal he had found along the way, and taken to the local emergency vet.  That was a very relieving phone call I recieved at 4am!

We stabilized the old fence posts with star pickets and concrete then reattached the palings side by side with screws.  It doesn't look terribly pretty (hence no photo's!) but it does the job and it is down the back behind the workroom.  I did however glean the surplus palings and came up with a thrifty use for them.  I've been having probs with the vegie patch - it is divided into 4 sections, but as I mulch and the plants grow, everything spills into the other sections.  So, I used some long chunky stakes, malleted into the ground, and screwed the palings on horizontally.  It has made such a difference in feeling organised and on top of everything...I think it's a bit of an analogy for the PhD, which definitely is in need of some set boundaries and clear direction!

Other renos have included re-laying paving in our patio, fixing an outside wall and painting windows.  We also had a little getaway down to Rye to P's families holiday house, but also did renos down there too, so it was only a holiday for the doggles who got to have lots of lovely long walks, not for us!

The vegie growing is going ok, but a little slow, I don't think there has been enough consistent warmth.  I've only had a few beans and zuchinnis so far.  One thing I am excited about is a watermelon plant in the front garden which is looking promising - I've never succeeded in getting one to grow before.

And on the making front...
I finished the green tones baby cardi...
I joined all of my cardi knitting remnant granny squares together.  It's about the size of a place mat and I find it very lovely, it reminds me of Sophie Digard.  At the moment it's over the arm of the sofa...I'll keep adding to it and maybe one day it will be big enough to cover the bed...

 And, I have started another baby cardi...moving along swiftly with this one :o)

 There's a few other bits n bobs going on, but definitely time to get back to another kind of work!

privileging making

I've been struggling for a long time to work out what sorts of things I should be making and doing within this PhD.  You might have noticed that there's been a lack of designed and made stuff on here for a bit...a symptom of my lack of confidence and confusion over what I can responsibly bring into the world given the ethical issues attached to a lot of stuff...it's quite disabling...
Anyhow, I do make a lot of things for myself and the house which I fill my everyday life with and I'm thinking that it might be of use to start paying attention to and seeing value in these things.  It's pure love of making and/or transformation of ideas into reality that drives the creation of my more personal projects, which I think I lose when I try to get serious and more considered!  So my aim going forward is to privilege making...

So...I thought I'd start documenting and sharing some of my current/past/ongoing projects...

One of the things I always have on the go is a baby cardigan from sock yarn...I'm of the age where all my friends and family are having babies and this particular style goes down the best as a gift...

This is the second one which I made a few years ago (thanks to my pal for taking a pic for me...her second bub is wearing it now...I'm really bad at taking pics of these before I gift them!)  I must have made about a dozen of these now...They're made from 4ply printed sock yarn...

I always keep at least a couple of balls on hand...one ball makes one cardi...I think the cardi above was a smaller size as I had enough to make a beanie too...I love how the colours and stripes develop as you knit, it feels like a nice surrender to serendipity :o)

I usually make the 6 month old size...they're nice and versatile as the rib stretches out as bub grows...it's knitted sideways starting at one cuff and finishing at the other...

My latest making is something I've been thinking about doing for ages with the remnants from the cardigans which I've been collecting...it's been a bit of a guilty pleasure when I really have other things to do, but sometimes it's food for the soul and so satisfying to act swiftly on the desire to make something when you want to do it without any pressures...

I've been making granny squares, just a plain ordinary 5 round square, but so beautiful in this yarn...the colour changes take on another dimension and unpredictability in crocheted form and I love grannys in a thinner ply than you normally see.  This is all of the remnants made up now, so I'll join these to make a scarf or mat and gradually add to it over the years to come.  Also nice that I can pick out which squares are made from the remnants from certain babies cardi's...lovely!