The Knitting Revolutionary

Libraries, a haven for the weary

I don't use libraries so much any more.

Oh, there's the uni library, but that's sort of different - that's compulsory, and not exactly for the fun of it. But I'm talking about local libraries, wonderful little havens of relaxation and happiness.

When I think of libraries, I remember with fondness my teen years spent in Cessnock. Cessnock is, on the whole, a pretty revolting place to spend your teen years in (*cackle* I'm getting sooo old!), no public transport, plenty of drugs, delinquent kids and not much else going on. But what it does have despite all of this is a good library. As a family with 6 kids struggling through the interest rates crisis of the 80's, we didn't have much money, and what we did have was not spent on new books, especially since I could easily much through a sparkling new $20 book in 2 days flat. So I used to borrow from the library. My exploration meandered mostly fantasy fiction, meandering from Victor Kelleher to Tolkien. I discovered The Two Towers first at age 13, and found myself very confused by the 3rd page, but pressed on. I then devoured Return of the King and got around to Fellowship some time later. I decided afterwards that this just wouldn't do, borrowed all three of them over the holidays and gorged myself on words, re-reading from start to finish in about a week. We didn't have a television, and books were my world.

When I started work after year 12, I still didn't have much money because I was only working about 3 days a week. So on my days off, I'd drive into town and lose myself in the library. The Eddings series were still being written, and I ordered them one by one, sometimes waiting months for a book. The Seeress of Kell very nearly got drooled on when I finally got my notice in the mail that it was THERE AND WAITING FOR ME OMG OMG *sleep who needs sleep wow what a fantastic book great ending ooh is it really 5am?*... there's no way I could have bought a ten-book series new for myself. The librarians knew me well, and would collect the bits and pieces that I generally left in the books and give them back to me the next time I was in to borrow. I had a crush on a young guy who used to hang out there too, who looked about the same age as me and must have spent even more time at the library than I did. We smiled at each other, we even said hello and compared notes on reading tastes a few times, but I never found out his name. The warmth, the welcome feeling, the smell of the books, (the clean toilet!), and the rows and rows of pages just waiting to be caressed by my eyes, this was what made me smile, it was something to look forward to on my days off. And the hours and the days disappeared, happily watching the people walk by on Vincent Street as I sat curled contentedly on the lounge chairs in the reading area.

There's quite a tempest in a teacup going on at the moment in Canberra, because of libraries. A few months ago I heard that (this may be slightly incorrect, if it is I apologise) that the Belconnen library was having its parking changed so that there would be no more free parking for library customers. I was pretty outraged, even though I only have a vague idea of where the library is and haven't been there yet, but as a student I tended not to read much for pleasure. Even Waverley Council offers free parking for an hour for its library members, in the middle of Bondi Junction! If they can do it there where it's so incredibly busy and parking is worth $6 an hour, why not in the rather low-key Belconnen?

But the real fuss is over the closure of Griffith Library. The decision to close was somewhat sudden, and apparently the minister John Hargreaves has made a pretty outrageous statement at a protest rally: "There was no point in public consultation because I knew what you would say. Is there anyone here who would support the closure of the library? No? That proves my point". (Thanks to Geoff Miller of the Canberra Times for his article which can be found here).

I'm not much of a Canberra fan, despite the fact that I've been here a year now. And the thing that I'm finding is that there seems to be much less of a community spirit here than in Sydney, despite the popular belief that smaller towns have a far superior sense of community. I think that's crap, and this sort of thing really infuriates me, because a place which cared about its community members would not do these things! I see libraries as a way for people, and young people in particular, to access a world that would not be available otherwise. This does very little to make me happier with this town. Why is the (supposed) capital of Australia putting its youth behind the eight ball and moving backwards???

The Fair Isle is ready!

Mmm.

It makes me want to actually make something fair isle, even though it's not usually my thing. I have made four sets of wool, and you can buy one if you like from http://tinyurl.com/7hts9 which is the page showing my current ebay listings.

I really struggled with the pricing of it, so I've only listed one for now. I've set it at $120 starting bid, for 23 x 50g balls of wool. (I'm putting a couple of white balls in just in case someone wants to break up the colour a bit). Now, selling hand made stuff, be it dyed wool, knitwear, artwork, is always a difficult thing when it comes to the decision of "how much do I charge for this?"

There are things that I've made which cannot be priced. For instance, a very fine cross stitch which took me about a year to sew. I estimate about 300 hours of work in it - about an hour a day on average, where some days I worked for 3 hours solid, some days I worked an hour and a half on public transport and some days I didn't do any. So if I charged, say, what a kid at Macca's might get paid to offer you fries with everything, like $10 an hour or so, I'd be charging $3,000 for it. Or, if I charged what I get paid at the medical centre, that'd be $6,600. Plus a couple of hundred for the very lovely frame. And whatever the materials cost.

A knitted jumper? Well, let's say you get cheap wool, you can get away with materials for a nice jumper for under $100, the pattern a few dollars depending on whether you've flogged it from the net or actually bought it. That's easy. Once again, the difficult thing is labour. I think (and here I'm just guessing) that if I sat down and went like a crazy thing, I could rustle up a jumper in about 40 hours or so. A full working week. So again, basing a price tag on my current hourly rate as a medical receptionist, $880. Plus the wool and pattern cost.

Know anyone willing to pay these prices? Send 'em in my direction.

This is where my rule of knitting requests came from. People ask you to knit for them. "Oh, that's so nice, if I bought the wool could ya knit me one o' those?" Sure, honey, I'll work for you for free for a week if you'll do the same in return. You're an accountant? Cool, that'll cover my tax returns for the next 5 years. Of course life doesn't work like that, so yeah. Unless you're putting out, you get no knitty knitty from me. Lessons are free, but I don't generally knit on request. Which doesn't mean I don't knit for other people - I sometimes do, but it will be the pattern and the yarn I have chosen for myself as my current project, and I won't tell them about it until it's finished. No deadline, no knitting stuff I don't wanna knit. Which is.... probably why I don't finish anything.Hehe!

But the balancing act is charging something reasonable for something that is hand made with skill and love and thoughtfulness. I always feel torn when I think "what will I charge for this?" For most of my stuff I tend to charge about twice what it costs me in materials, and from this profit pool is taken my ebay fees and my labour. In the end, I probably get "paid" about $5-$8 an hour, depending on what I've been dyeing. The fair isle set was a struggle to price, because it sounds like SO MUCH! But I think it's good value considering the amount of labour that went into it (works out at just over $5 per ball). I'm not sure I'll do it again, I literally spent HOURS winding balls, about 100 balls in total when it was all finished. But... I think it's gonna be worth it. This is delicious quality stuff, and I'm trying to work out whether I'm going to keep a set for myself or not. Hm! Decisions, decisions. In the meantime, it's back to my dreadfully demanding life of going to the gym, dyeing wool, playing warcraft and smooching to my bird. Yay!

Strawberries!

Mmm. I now have strawwwwwwwwberries. This is the first one! They are destined for champagne, I just know it. I've been gardening quite a bit, I'm trying to get some coriander going, and have some rocket seedlings in the kitchen *droooool*

The other thing I've been doing is dyeing lots. My first batch is now up on ebay, so have a look at http://tinyurl.com/7hts9 and see if there's something there that tickles your fancy. Mmm.

I have a fantastic new dyeing project underway, and as soon as the wool dries (tomorrow arvo) I'll be winding it up and getting it into batches. What I'm making is a fair isle colour set, with three shades of seven different colours, so you can have awesome fair isle patterns with matching colours. Mmm. No more trying to match reds with pinks or oranges with peaches or browns with beige. I'm using the same colour dye for each three-shade set, with more dye used for the darker shades and a smidgen of dye for the paler ones. Yummmmm!

The initial batch of olive, logwood and citrus orange looks awesome, and the rest of it (sitting in the bathtub doing the long cool-down) is looking pretty good too.  This first set is of seven earthy sort of colours, and the second set will be pure lurid rainbow colours. Yummmm!

Finally, I got an email today and thought I'd share this to see if the total can't get boosted. Yeah, it's free advertising for this real estate bunch, but if you click on this link and it gets to 100,000 within 4 weeks they're going to sponsor DOCS to have Sydney's biggest billboard for the rest of it. Good cause, huh? Hopefully they'll get it for more than 2 days.

http://www.realestate.com.au/do_something_big_for_kids - click and forward! :D

Colour, continued

....where was I? Oh, yes. Colour.

I have a new colourway, which I originally put together for my fibre swap partner, I still haven't decided what to call it, but it's fun and bright and I'm tempted to keep it for myself. Hehe. I know, I always say that. It's a brighter more intense combination of the same colours that Margie's just made her most recent beret from. Yum.

I was mucking about with some new colours and threw together some black, purple and green, and this is what I got. It looked revolting in the skein, so I thought I'd ball it up and perhaps even overdye it. I wound it, and it started looking nice, so I started knitting and... voila! just like magic, gorgeous colour emerged. It seems it's pretty difficult to make a true mistake with colour experimentation, just... a violation of expectations, I suppose. I like it. (my inner philosopher is grinning with glee right about now)

And finally, just cos it was such a cute photo, and because it's so fantastic how well my birdy and my boy get along... actually, these days I think she likes him better than me. Tart.

Life, in full technicolour

Colour brings me an enormous amount of joy in my life.

I can almost hear the laughter now. What, you? Wearing all that black stuff? Hey Monica, you're a pretty funny girl... *hysterics*

OK fine. I wear lots of black for several reasons, one which involves a story, but it's a short one, so I'm gonna tell it quickly. See reason number four. Mostly these days I only wear all-black in a work situation, but again, that's coming up soon. Patience, grasshoppers!

Reason number one to wear black: When you eat laksa (or spill coffee or whatever it is that you tend to do because you're a grot, like me) it doesn't show. Hallelujah for instant clothing repair.

Reason number two to wear black: It's easy to pick outfits in the morning. Does this colour go with this colour? Of course it does, you nit, the top's black, the skirt's black, the stockings are black and bugger me but those black undies are gonna keep you feelin sexy all day long. Yum.

Reason number three to wear black: Well duh, it's slimming. Hello! And that actually is true. Though if you're gonna wear black hipsters 2 sizes too small for you so your flesh resembles top of an overfilled muffin pan, that's your own fault, and black ain't helping you, honey. Actually, nothing and no one's helping you. But. Most of the time it works. As long as you admit that while it's slimming, this works within the reality parameter.

Reason number four to wear black: Less people give you shit.

The fourth is one I discovered by accident during my working life as a receptionist (secretary, PA, EA and other associated roles). Picture this: (or dig if you will... mmm... Prince...) anyway. There I was, all of 22 or 23, much cuter than I am these days and about 20 times more clueless. Standing behind the reception desk at AMP, shooing the advisers away (no Harry I don't want to hear your girlfriend jokes again and Michael I don't want to learn how to say "take me f--- me" in Turkish, ok), and wondering, do I have a magnet on my head that invites every moron in the building to leer at me, flirt at me (not even with me, that takes skill and it becomes fun then), and give me shit, day in and day out.

Fast forward about 6 or 7 years. I'd noticed that if I just wore a bit more black, which I started wearing for reasons one to three, pretty much in that order, people (sleazy men, in particular) gave me much less shit. Then I noticed that if I wore slacks instead of a skirt, the results were tripled. Fantastic! Add a bit more makeup (young freshfaced harmless girls don't wear makeup. Women-not-to-be-messed-with do) and voila! I was a practically impenetrable fortress. So to speak. Ahem.

So one day working for Bernie, our particularly charming and flirty computer repair guy who I'd known for some years, comes in to the office and is flirting outrageously with Nada (gorgeous, blonde hair, great bosom, why wouldn't he really) and he compliments her on her hot pink top. And, as usual, she did look very feminine and glamorous. He rolls his eyes at me, grinning, and says "so Monica, why don't you wear pink a bit more often?"

I smiled my sweetest and most dangerous smile. "Because, Tony", I said, "Men don't flirt with girls who wear black."

He looked thunderstruck. "Well," he said thoughtfully, as though digesting a morsel of divine insight "I think you're right." He looked at me carefully, and backed away slowly, returning to the other, safer side of the room.

It hadn't really occurred to me that the reason why I wore black to work every single day was exactly that. Or mostly that. But I rarely wore colour to work again after this happened, although since moving to Canberra, where it's very conservative, I try to wear a dark coloured shirt (red, olive green, whatever) to the medical centre so I don't scare the locals too much *evil laugh*. And I tend to not get half as much crap as I used to. But maybe that's also because I've gotten older, fatter, and generally less worried about telling someone to bugger off and really meaning it.

What started this again? I've gotten off track. Oh, yes. Colour. Doh. Maybe I'll come back to this...

Mmm.

The podcast didn't load fast enough, so I hit the weeds armed with Cast-On Episode 33. And I have a big fat bucket of dead weeds, and about 10 times as many still in the dirt. And... I'm about to start David the Astrophysicist's podcast now. :D Hm. Will I spin the caramel coloured llama or the lolly-coloured corriedale? Such are the tough decisions for someone thoroughly enjoying NOT studying and NOT working. *happy sigh* Actually, I might just start the scarf for my (now ex) supervisor, which I dyed the other day in mannish tones of violet-grey and deep green. While listening to my podcast. *faints with joy*

Oh, and if any brilliant gardeners out there can tell me what disease my yellow rose has... feel free to point it out. Most of this is still a mystery to me, mostly just being, stick stuff in the ground, put this liquid fertiliser stuff on it sometimes, water when you can with water restrictions being what they are, and pull weedy things out. Yep. High tech gardener, that's me.

Podcasts and happy days

I've recently discovered the world of podcasting.

Well, not discovered as such, because of course it wasn't like an Antarctic bay waiting for someone to come along and poing excitedly and say "in honour of cockatiels everywhere I name this place Squeak Bay!"...

...and not even discovered as in I had no idea that it existed until now. Because I did know, but just never really looked into it. Firstly, I knew about podcasts, but because they were called *POD*casts, I originally thought (ok this musta been 2 years ago now) that you needed an iPod to play them, before I realised that they were just regular old sound files and they should be called mp3casts or something like that, so that idiots like myself... ok I'm just gonna stop there. *whew, that was close*

...and finally, there was no motivation to actually look into podcasts and to see if they were worth listening to. And then, I got a very cool and thoughtful birthday present from the lovely Emma... the whole first season of Cast-On, burned onto a CD. Coooool. So I started listening. I've listened to quite a few audio books over the years, and like the listening-while-knitting-or-spinning thing, but this was something new.

So, there's a new one. A local knitter (well, Sydney) called David, putting his voice and his heart on the line to talk about what he likes doing.

Interested? http://www.sticksandstring.com.au/ Go suss him out. I'm in the process of downloading, and will be taking my little mp3 player outside to weed the gardens once it's done.

Oh, and the obligatory birty photo. I have no idea how she got to be this cute. I guess it's just a talent of hers.

update: omg! he's (sticksandstrings) an astrophysicist! I can just imagine it... yeah whaddayoudo? I'm an astrophysicist. No, really. I promise! Look, here, I have a little card wot says so... *pulls little gold-deckled card from back pocket*... yeah. So, am I hawt, or wawt? (sheesh, I think, another scientist called David... I could start a collection! Woot!)