This is REALLY impressive. So damned simple !
An obvious question (which would be received in silence were I able to put it): to all the town and city Australian Councils – why haven’t you taken this up ?!
Oh, and P.S.: when I grew up in Perth, Kwinana was, like, a completely different part of the topography. The thought of its ever being listed as part of Perth would’ve had us in fits of laughter, scorn or amazement …
Thank all the gods I don’t ! Stringer and I only ever had two: the first was the house he built for us from the ground up to the roof of the second storey on Dangar Island in the mighty Hawkesbury River, on the northernmost fringe of the Sydney suburban area. The second was the semi-detached we bought in Sydney’s Inner West, a suburb called Annandale, after we sold the Island house. He made astonishingly wonderful changes to that one, putting in a cellar office underneath and a stairway up to the loungeroom, as well as building a new bathroom and loo, that enabled us to sell it when the bottom fell out of the corporate video market.
ANYWAY.
My favourite blogger and her husband are in the throes of selling theirs so as to move to the kind of area they now seek; and all the usual crap is coming down about their ears. This includes real estate agents telling them what their house “has to” look like – pulling out the lovely poppies that grow along its little frontage, e.g., and adding pretend things to the interior for photographic porpoises.
They are now contemplating parting from large amounts of moolah in order to make their house match what the RE agents reckon it should look like. Personally, I believe RE agents and those companies that titivate one’s house for selling are closely linked – possibly even related !
Writing about all this brought back very strongly to mind that super little house that Stringer built; and I am unable to prevent myself from inserting some photos (taken by moi and therefore mostly ghastly):
It was a wonderful time, back in the late ’70s and early ’80s, when I was working at TCN9 and Chic was building our new house … On my days off I used to sit in an old director’s chair where he was working and sleep amidst the cacophony of his power tools.
I’ve been really lucky in my life.
That’s 600m of Scheepjes Colour Crafter, the start of a lapghan.
I’m pleased with this WIP: it has shown me that I can crochet pretty well; and I don’t have to yearn to crochet like anyone else !
THE HYPNOTIST VISITS THE SENIORS’ HOME
It was entertainment night at the Senior Citizens’ Centre.
After the community singalong led by Alice at the piano, it was time for the star of the show – Claude the Hypnotist.
Claude explained that he was going to put the whole audience into a trance – “Yes, each and every one of you, and all at the same time !” said Claude.
The excited chatter fell away as Claude carefully withdrew from his waistcoat pocket a beautiful antique gold pocket-watch and chain.
“I want you to keep your eyes on this watch” said Claude, holding the watch high for all to see: “It’s a very special and valuable watch that has been in my family for six generations”.
He began to swing the watch gently back and forth while quietly chanting, “Watch the watch — watch the watch — watch the watch …”
The audience was becoming mesmerized as the watch swayed back and forth, the lights twinkling as they were reflected from its gleaming surfaces.
A hundred and fifty pairs of eyes followed the movements of the gently swaying watch.
They were all hypnotized.
And then, suddenly, the chain broke!!! – the beautiful watch fell to the stage and burst apart on impact.
“SHIT !” shouted Claude.
It took them three days to completely clean up the Senior Citizens’ Center and Claude was never invited back.
I have a friend who’s a serial emailer: he never gets fooled by these before he broadcasts them worldwide.
I do, every time. Sighh …
The two latest mix-ups propagating the Web right now – and over the past month or so – are being used to the point where I could SCREAM.
That one first, as it’s been picked up by anglophone dickheads all over the world and used instead of
Frankly, where any of the halfwits using the word even came up with ‘discrete’ amazes me: I wouldn’t’ve thought they’d ever come across it.
If you experience this misuse in your Web wanderings, feel free to quote me and my choler. If users get crapped on enough they might eventually correct their word usage (yeah, and accompany those flying pigs to market).
In getting settled into my new abode, I left the yarn sorting till almost last (the end will be the arranging in alphabetical order by writer the few books I’ve hung on to, and the DVDs, too: what, me ? – anally retentive ? – rubbish !).
And amongst the skeins and balls and cakes and semi-frogged articles I found an AusPost parcel, still in its bright red and white plastic (ugh !) envelope. Why had I not opened it, whenever it arrived ? – I have no idea. Not the foggiest. But there it was, so I opened it.
It contained two balls of Scheepjes (oh, if only I knew how to pronounce that !) Color Crafter yarn in a shade called ‘Wolvega’ – a most beautiful grey. It came from a Perth, Western Australia on-line company called Yarns for All that I buy from every now and then; but still I haven’t a clue as to the porpoise for which I bought it ! Nothing has jogged my memory; not even the fact that it was sent to my second-last address when I’d been there for only a month or so. It’s a BEEG MEESTRY, that’s all I can say. Well … ;)
This is what I decided to do with it. Unhappily, my being the world’s worst photographer holds true on a permanent basis; and the wide shot of the whole blanket – thus far, I mean – has simply vanished. This was taken as a closeup to show the ‘wrong’ side of my foundationless single crochet cast-on. Is it not a thing of beauty ?
whereas that one shows you the ‘right’ side of it. I think the three kinds of foundationless CO – sc, hdc and dc – are all so much better than making-huge-chains-and-then-painfully-going-back-over-them-with-whichever-stitch-is-required that they should be MANDATORY ! There now !
This is a stitch from my hoarded collection of same, ‘Crunch’ stitch. Maybe it has more than one name: I’m fairly sure that Donna Wolf calls it by another name – hang on, I’ll check … Good GRIEF ! She doesn’t: everyone calls it Crunch stitch ! Well, I’ll be !
It only remains to see how far I get with this before growing tired of it and adding it to the pile of unfinished things. If I’m that mindless. But this Scheepjes yarn, the first one I’ve ever used, is wonderful ! It’s a joy to use, as it slides effortlessly through the fingers, never splitting and always unravelling gracefully back to the point where I did two hdcs next to each other and thus mucked up the whole row … You never know: I might pull my finger out and actually finish this blanket: I could certainly use it during winter instead of turning on the split system …
I have very recently found a Geelong area online supplier of Scheepjes, and she might be going to get all my business if all of their yarns are as lovely to use as this one !
The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go and not be questioned.
—Maya Angelou
There have been times – many of them, I think – when I have felt strongly that someone was about to hector me about something. Not Chic: he hectored me on so few occasions that I can no longer remember them. This feeling goes back to my youth – to my home and my school. Why it wraps its hood around me at this stage of my life is pretty weird and says a fair bit about me, alas.
But now …? Now I still experience the daily early morning waking up believing myself not alone, just for a second or two; but the – ahh – haunting hectoring :) has gone. Deo gratias (there had to be some usefulness obtained from my Catholic upbringing !). Just as well: it used to enrage me that a woman of my years could allow herself to shrink from being lectured again, just as she was 60 years and more ago. Seems to me that the greater part of my childhood was spent in having fingers wagged at me. Sighh …
ANYWAY !
The point I’m getting to so obliquely and slowly is that I’m in seventh heaven in my new place. I sit in any one of my recliner chairs with my laptop – once Lui has gone back to bed, this is – with the sun pouring in through the front window and the little side yard that has all my pot-plants in it deriving as much pleasure from this as do I … I put all last night’s dishes into my wonderful little Domain dish-washer and it’s just finished; I’ve had my second coffee for the morning from my totally excellent Breville Dynamic Duo – earlier than usual; I’m amusing myself with inserting all these unpaid ads, sort of; my doted-on handyman is coming this-arvo to hang all my photos and put up towel-rails and hand-towel rails; the MACS handyman has just brought back my rubbish-bins from whatever place they were taken to last evening …
Tomorrow I start taking photos. Be warned. :)
Ah ! – life is good. La vita è bella, vero. It matters not that I am ancient: there is much joy to be found in the most ordinary, everyday things. I am finally home.
When a post from a followed blog – Pippinpoppycock.com – pointed to Lucia’s Fig Tree and her Vintage Walrus design, I gasped: if that isn’t a summation of everything glorious about motif crochet, I don’t know what is.
One can say “such colours !”, but any colours would do: the original for this beauty is almost monochrome, and it still looks wonderful.
Am I going to have a go at it ? – what do you think ?!
It’s going to cost a motza for the yarn, because what would be the point in creating something like this from mediocre material ?
Anyone similarly struck by this blanket / throw / afghan / article of joy should follow my link to Pippin Poppycock so as to find out about its creator, the amazingly dual-nationed Lucia (would you believe Italian and Scottish ?!), whose output one wishes were twenty times as great.
(Can’t even contemplate buying yarn until the despicable previous agents release my bond: there’s a hearing set for the end of this month, after which life will once again become liveable.)
