Adolescent Angst...

so I am considering that I may be ready to start thinking about looking for some part time work. (Yes - I know that is a frustrating sentence. Perhaps I should have said the thought of regular employment no longer fills me with unrestrained panic.)

In order to take a few baby steps in this direction I have began to look at jobs on seek.

I have decided that my 'reasonable expectation' wish list would include the following:-

1. Definitely NOT anything hospitality or retail
2. Preferably permanent part time - 2 to 3 days a week
3. Something somewhat involved with the Textiles industry
4. Relevant to my experience - I worked a Navy 'office job' for two years, so an administration type job would suit perfectly.

The though of going through the interview process freaks me more than the responsibility of a job. So I emailed a few resumes. The plan was to apply for lots of jobs-even some I may not particularly want so I could get used to going through the motions. That way I would get some sort of dress-rehearsal before I pinned my hopes on securing employment. I've applied for any sort of administration/ customer service/ data entry/ assistant job vaguely associated with Textiles. I know that I will not be quite what they are looking for, and that the jobs are not quite what I am looking for - so I can expect, and even hope for, rejections without bruising my self-esteem.

I had one call returned from a recruiting firm, and was asked to come in for a discussion. I thought I was ready for this stage - but the night before I could not sleep. In order to distract myself from not being able to sleep, I took a book to bed and decided to read until the letters and words started to turn into ants and crawl across the page (my usual way of getting to sleep!)

However, it didn't happen. Lately I have been reading historical biographies but Wednesday night I read a lovely adolescent fantasy novel lent to me from my sister. Of course - adolescent fantasy sounds rather sophisticated. I have also heard this book call 'Vampire Smut' by one of my favourite Sydney bloggers. Either way - I finished the novel, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, in one night and was rather shocked when I heard my housemates banging round the kitchen and heading off to work or lectures.

I had read through my whole nights sleep.

Nevertheless I got up and went through the motions of getting ready to head into Melbourne to meet with the recruiting Agency. And I miss the train. I was looking for a park as the engine pulled out of the station. Luckily - no great loss and a phone call sorted everything out (okay -I'll admit I did suffer a bit of an anxiety attack. I quite foolishly tried to race the train to another station to try and catch it there. May have made it if I didn't get stuck behind a 'Driver under instruction' truck going at 20kmph.) I got to go home and try to catch up on a little sleep...

Of course - After devouring Twilightin one sitting I was keen for more. I did stop by a few places in town thinking to buy the others, but rational thought took over and my sister had the rest of the series for me to borrow. Over the weekend I finished New Moonand Eclipse, and am currently up to the third book of Breaking Dawn

Apparently I am a little obsessed, because I have watched all the movie trailers and started looking into the careers of the actors in the movie. After discovering that Kellan Lutz, who will be portraying Emmett, started in the first episode of 90210 (he was George Evans, the guy who started the fight at lacrosse practice and snogged Naomi) - which was conveniently shown on channel 10 last night I have come to the realisation that I am regressing to a teenager again. I am becoming quite nostalgic for my adolescent angst.

So the job searching is on hold for the moment - but I was beginning to feel a little 'numb' (which I'd blamed on the happy pills), and these books have taken re-connected me to a whole range of emotions I haven't experienced for quite a while, some not since I was a teenager (and had an on again/ off again goth boyfriend who wanted to be a vampire). I am filled with a little hope though - that if I am able to regress to being a teenager again, perhaps I can try 'growing' into my adult self and correct a few of the mistakes and flaws I have developed along the way. I am going to give it a try anyway - try and relieve a bit of the fun and amazement and potential I experienced on a daily basis. Perhaps I can once again be happy-go-lucky, rather than sinking-down-depression...

A perfect day...

Yesterday The Man and I went to Melbourne to drop in to both the Handknitters Guild Expo and the Spinners and Weavers Guild open day - 

I have to say I was very restrained... this is all I cam home with:

I  x skein of Collinette Jitterbug in Slate (I'll be using that to seam up a jacket in Point 5... and then make some anklets)

I x second hand book (pocket sized) on woven tapestry. This book will live in my handbag to show everyone who thinks that tapestry can only exist in it's needlepoint form... (And I think it will get me some bonus points if I add it in to my Tapestry portfolio when I hand it in... extra research and the like!)

The Man was very well behaved - while I made a beeline for yarn in the Brunswick town hall, he went hunting coffee (I sent him down to Moka GiGi - best coffee within a 10min class break) and he brought me back a cappuccino. 

A mere block from the Spinners and Weavers Guild we found one of our favourite restaurants, The Calabrian, so we had a late lunch al fresco enjoying the last of the Autumn sunshine.

We rounded out the day with dinner at Big Mouth in St Kilda with Sis and her new hubby (they eloped in Los Vegas), did some late shopping down the street and picked up some sweets at a patisserie to take back to sis's and enjoyed them with some espresso before The Man drove us back to Geelong... all in all, a perfect day!

Shoesday - odd button shoes...

CAMPER TWINS...

Way back when, when I first joined the Navy, there was some sort of hiccough in the system and I didn't get my full pay for the first 6 weeks. When I finally did get paid I happened to be in Canberra with all this cash burning a hole in my pocket...

Given that the epitome of style in Jervis Bay was the Kmart three quarts of an hour drive away, and that I had spent the past 6 weeks in GP (general purpose) boots - I was keen to spoil myself a little.

I found some beauties just like these during a shopping marathon in the ACT - (these photos were salvaged from an ebay action) 

Can you see why they are called Twins? The are off the fraternal type - complementary but not identical. Oh, and incidentally, I have to say that Camper, originally made in Portugal, manufacture the most comfortable shoes evah!
I have literally loved these shoes to bits - these were the first pair of non-uniform shoes I polished when they began to get scuffed (a solid black leather background made the bright white 'thread' and silver 'needle' embroidery stand out better). The first bit to go was the the little rubber 'Camper' tabs on the side near the heel. The sole got quite worn down. Then Pierre chewed through the elastic mary-jane strap when he was a young pupster. Early last year, about 4 years after I first bought them the button finally fell off. I still have it somewhere, and the shoes are still completely wearable and comfy, but they just didn't have the same sole soul...

Knowing this, when my Sis went to Europe for a holiday last year, she brought me back a brand new pair of Campers...

Funky bright red ones! The only problem - they were just a tad bit too tite - these are a 38 when I needed a 39, and I couldn't take them back and exchange them.  What to do, What to do??
I am sure that any shoe-fetishes out there would be telling me to 'suck it up and remember that style = pain', but considering that the reason to wear Campers is because they are incredibly comfy shoes, that seemed to be a rather ridiculous reason to hang on to these gorgeous shoes...

However, being a gift, I was worried I would offend my sister if I were to offload these, so they sat in my closet for a long long time... until I decided to exchange without the blessings of the Camper company. 

I couldn't get the exact same shoes, but these cuties are on their way to me as I type this...(photo also stolen from ebay)
I won these on ebay last week, and put my red Campers up for auction... I can't wait until these arrive! 

Oh... and anyone with feet slightly smaller than mine that want to bid on my bright red campers can find them here...

And now for something completely different...

No pictures of things I have knitted, either on or off the needles today. However, I still have lots of pictures...

First of all, I forgot to mention yesterday that my sister gave me a hank of gorgeous NZ wool she picked up on her recent holiday across the Tasman - it is spun from both white and black sheep so has a natural colour. My mum also got a ball (bottom left - which I wound up for her with my new toys) and has started to knit a satchel with it. She loves it because the colour perfectly matches this cute NZ sheepie scarf she found at a football game last year so she will have a co-ordinating set.

Secondly - here is the tea-cosy that sis gave to Mum yesterday, used as intended (rather than Nico's interesting interpretation of the item). My sister has a really funky modern tea-pot. It looks great, makes a HUGE pot of tea but unfortunately doens't fit stock standard tea-cosys - that's how mum ended up with this one. And by the way, this isn't made in a self-striping yarn, but Patons inca, which has three different colours plyed together, and each ply changes colour at a different place in the yarn from the others. It is just the flash photography that makes it look like this.

Also, on cool things my sister has done- she made me three funky stitch markers that spelt out my name (two are on the far left - the third is marking the Dale Ladybug Sweater) and inspired me to make my own. I don't have the talent for making my own jewellery like she does, but I think I have done okay with the stitch-markers. You can't read it in the photo, but those small round green ones have "I <3 to knit" written in the middle. (hmm, just checked the YarnHarlot, and we are both posting about beads today - kooky, eh)

And finally, some cute doggie pics, as I probably won't have a chance to post again until after the weekend. From left to right:-

- Pierre and his "uncle" Max - not growling and chasing each other round my parents house for a change,

- Pierre enjoys a good yarn (it's a length of Totem left over from Dilby's jumper - I used it to distract him from the toy Max was playing with)

- And my baby, looking oh-so-sweet-and-innocent, sleeping on my lace panel sweater.

Humble Pie...

Well, it was bound to happen. I was bragging about finished objects so early in the year.

You see, yesterday, after I had completed the Almost Tiger Socks I immediately cast on for yet another pair of socks for Tuffers from that final ball of ONline I ordered specifically for his socks.

My Mum and I drove to the other side of Melbourne today to visit my currently health-challenged sister. My Mum was driving, so I was guaranteed at least two hours knitting time - before we got stuck in the citylink carpark for at least half an hour and being delayed slightly for Westgate Bridge roadworks - and went driving around to closed yarn shops (we were going to check out Marta's Yarns, and when we got there, there was a sign that said "closed until further notice" - we had a good peek in the windows, and I now remember reading somewhere that Marta is sick?) so by the time we were heading back into the outskirts of Geelong in the afternoon I had completed the heel (I still want to say turned the heel, even though I use short rows) and completed a good three inches above that when I looked at the sock and thought

"That foot looks a bit small"

I then tried the sock on, and it fit my foot quite comfortably. And then, being in denial, I got Dad (who has the same size feet as Tuffers) to try the sock on when we got home, and sure enough - it was at least an inch to small...

So a frogging we went. I appear to have gotten a tad bit overconfident with all the socks I have been knitting lately.


This is the current state of the sock. This is going to be the "Very Manly Sock" - the colours could only mean it is a mans sock, and I am using a nice manly wide 5x1 rib. And most of the knitting has been done whilst the cricket was on the TV or radio, so it has been absorbing manly sporting vibes. I was going to take a picture of it next to manly objects such as powertools and beer mugs, but thought we might avoid anything that could damage the sock I obviously had such bad karma around me. (I was scared I would get a rogue drill that would attack the sock, yarn and my favourite DPNs even without being plugged in)

Anyway - the visit with my Sis went well. She has a shocking cold / flu, but the drugs kicked in enough that we were able to check out a couple of LYSs - As already stated, Marta's was closed, but we went to a button store on Glenferrie Rd (creatively named The Button Shop) which has heaps of yarn in stock - it doesn't have any fancy displays, the store isn't user friendly, the prices aren't particularly cheep and the customer service wasn't the best, but boy did they have some yarn there. There were different Patons labels from the past three decades on some of the yarn sitting in bags on shelfs. I got some loopy mohair, and plan to make some funky teddy-eared beanies for winter - and Ladybug buttons for the Dale ladybug sweater. If you are looking for staple yarns from Patons, Cleckheaton, Panda or Shepard I'd recommend checking it out - there seem to have all the different types of yarn each produces, including discontinued lines and colours.

Sis, spending her ill days on the couch in front of the TV, has been keen into the knitting - she gave my Mum a cute tea-cosy from the latest issue of Yarn, finished the Bejewelled scarf while we were there, and we saw one of her hiking socks from a previous issue of yarn. She said she was going to put pictures up so go visit her blog and check it out (and if there aren't pictures there tell her to stop being so gawdamm lazy ;))

Mecca!

Oh yes - my sis and I travelled to Bendigo woollen mills to go shopping in the infamous back room...

This is the 'seconds' or 'clearance' room... my oh my... Bendigo Woollen mills sells cheep natural fibre yarns... but it gets even cheeper here....


No... your eyes are not decieving you. They do sell it by the kilo!

Yes... sis and I went home with a few kilos of yarn between us. More than worth the drive out there.