jenwren's blog

Yes, I have finally finished the Bob and Weave Shawl - about eight weeks too late to wear to the wedding I had intended it for...  No matter.  The ribbons through the dropped stitches have a habit of shifting about so that parts of the shawl gather and loose ribbon protrudes elsewhere, but I don't care.  It is lovely and warm and colourful.  And the weather seems to have finally cooled, so it may get some wear very soon.

A new online knitting magazine launched its first issue today - Southern Cross Knitting.  Go have a look!

I thought I had a quiet week ahead, but I've gone and made life a little more frantic by signing up for a professional development course at short notice that will see me in Sydney on Tuesday (and three other times later in the year - two of them also likely to be flying visits).  Unlike last time I flew to Sydney (in March, for a mere 6 hours), this time I'll get a whole 24 hours as I'm flying in tomorrow night and back on Tuesday night.

I'll be staying at Tim and Jenny B's and will catch up with Katherine between the end of the session and returning to the airport on Tuesday.  I'm sorry to everyone else, but on this trip I'll only have time to see family and none of the friends I'd love to catch up with...

I'm still debating whether to take any knitting as I can't knit on the plane, but I'm keen to finish the kid mohair scarf.  I want to just take my backpack as whatever I take has to be carted around all day on Tuesday.  But I doubt it will be light enough for carry-on luggage, but if it is then I'll have to remove the knitting as well as the scissors from my pencil case.  Heck, I've got enough marking I can do and will have even more after an exam is sat tomorrow morning...

Late.  That's a one word summary of my quick visit to Sydney.  Everything ran late.  The Qantas plane I was to fly on to Sydney on Monday struck a bird as it landed at Armidale airport and couldn't take off again without an engineer's clearance.  Eventually everyone from the flight was put on a Rex flight, which surprisingly, still wasn't full after both its original passengers and the Qantas passengers were added together.

So I was later than expected in reaching Sydney and Tim and Jenny B's.  On Tuesday, Tim and I set off in the car at 7.15 am for Wollstonecraft Station.  Epping Road was a carpark, so we didn't reach Wollstonecraft until 8.10 am.  Not that it mattered.  There were no trains, and no information about why.  Finally an announcement was made about the late running 8.05 arriving after the (late running) 8.13, but what I suppose were both those trains finally passed through, packed with passengers up against the windows, without stopping as the time marched on towards 8.30.  The first train that did stop was not worth Tim and I forcing our way onto.  We got on the second train.  I farewelled Tim at Town Hall and changed trains for Marrickville at Central.  I phoned ahead to say I was late, and finally arrived at about 9.15 am - about half an hour late - only to find that a third of the course participants were even later than me so they hadn't started yet!.

So the course sessions ran late all day (one session was skipped entirely) and we finished 15 minutes late.  And having made a mental note about where I'd be able to park my car the next time (late next month), they said at the end of the day "we'll let you know where the next session is" (grrrr!).  I caught a train back to the city and met Katherine in Martin Place at the Lindt shop and cafe.  We both indulged in Lindt brownies and I had an iced milk chocolate (can't remember what Kath's drink was), and yapped for a while until I had to make a move for the airport.  We each bought some chocolate and said our farewells, and I headed for the trains once again.

Thankfully the lateness stopped at this point - I made it to the airport on time, and the plane was on schedule (and without a single spare seat).  I spent the next couple of days totally exhausted from it all.

I might manage to post again tomorrow about Wool Expo.

So much for posting "tomorrow"...  Ahem.  Got too busy, as usual!

Wool Expo was last weekend.  I was in the woolcraft tent on both Saturday and Sunday and had a great time.  On Saturday there were lots of people coming to look at the display and there were other stalls selling a variety of wool and other crafty bits.  I ogled some spun recycled silk throwers waste yarn, but thought it was to impractical for anything I'd want to make.  In the end I bought some undyed Mulberry silk noil 10/1 yarn (all the dyed skeins were in horrible colours in my opinion) for which I have some ideas.  I had barely any time to knit the kid mohair lace scarf in between raffle ticket sales and handing out information on the spinning and weaving group.

Sunday was quieter, but I got no knitting done at all because I had to separate and fold all the handspun, handknitted rug raffle tickets for the draw in the afternoon.  We have been selling tickets since February, and I spent both the last two market Sundays selling tickets in the mall.  In the end it was won by a lady from the Central Coast, and I found out today the final tally was over $900 raised!  So it was well worth all the time and effort put in.

On Sunday night I finally reached the end of the ball of kid mohair, finishing the lace scarf.  I washed it on Monday after school and started wearing it on Wednesday.  It's a bit longer than anticipated as it relaxed on washing, but it is absolutely lovely to wear.  Pictures soon...

So I'm finally back to knitting the blue socks I started last October.  I thought I was going to have to frog back to before the heel because the foot was too long, but on looking at it again I decided that it wasn't that bad, and continued on.  It's grown a few centimetres already.

Alas, it is mid-year reporting season at school, so I seem to have endless work to do.  Sock knitting barely gets a look in.  But I got a new gadget on Friday afternoon - a digital set top box with hard disk recorder, so now I can record television programs on both the VCR and the PVR ("personal video recorder").  Just don't ask me when I'll supposedly watch the stuff I record...

So far I can only watch ABC and ABC2 on the digital box.  SBS is supposed to be broadcasting digital TV here, but I can't get a signal, even with manual tuning to the supposed frequency, and I can't find anyone locally who has a digital box and has managed to tune into SBS.  (Unless I can find someone who has actually tuned into SBS, I can't start blaming the aerial or other possible problems.)  The remaining channels (NBN, Prime and Southern Cross) aren't due to begin broadcasting digital TV here until October-December this year.

I'm really happy with the digital TV because the reception quality is substantially better than analog.  I mostly watch ABC and SBS so if I could get SBS I'd be really happy.  And yes, I have the set top box connected to the television through my VCR, as is my DVD player (I'm glad the VCR has enough sets of inputs!).  I will replace the 'family heirloom' 1978 colour television eventually, but it is still going strong with relatively good picture quality.  I've been waiting five and a half years for the picture tube to suddenly and catastrophically fail, and it hasn't happened yet.