October 2009 Archives

The house is finally resembling some sort of order both inside and (amazingly) outside now, so I have the chance to update my knitting progress.

I have plodded away on the "not Calvert" cardigan since April, putting it down while I finished a baby blanket, picking it up again in the July break, putting it down again while I packed and moved, and finally picking it up again and plodding on to the finish line in the middle of the school holidays just gone. A trip to All Buttons Great and Small in Newtown and an afternoon at SSK sewing on four perfect buttons finished the job.



I have been wearing the finished product off-and-on over the last two weeks with Sydney's changeable weather, and I'm very happy with the resulting garment. The yarn, Sublime's extra fine merino 8 ply, was not cheap. I bought more than I needed for Calvert, being unaware that Berroco add an extra margin to their published yarn requirements. So I had added an extra extra margin. So I had 18 balls. I used 14 balls, but not very much of the 14th. The leftovers will make a child's jumper somewhere down the track. The yarn was well worth it though - beautifully soft, it holds stitch definition well, and is pilling only very lightly (I expect this will settle down). Ripping out Calvert and starting over was a very good decision.

The pattern I based the cardigan on is Mr Greenjeans. I changed the cable and rib to 'Double Lace Rib' (p129 The Harmony guides Lace and Eyelet Stitches Erika Knight ed.2007), and it is this feature that seems to generate the most positive comments. I made the neckline a tad wider than it perhaps should be and the V-neck is a bit lower than I would have liked, so if I wear the cardigan over a summer shirt, it tends to slip off my shoulders a little. No problem with my winter tops which seem to grab the knitting more, preventing this.



I'm now planning another cardigan in a lighter yarn (4 plyish) and open lace pattern for summer wear (I wonder when, since there is already so much on my mental to-do list!).

My current knitting is another baby blanket, for another expecting work colleague. The first one was so well received, it seemed somehow wrong not to do the same again. Well, not the same, since that would drive me insane (the zig zags were annoying me by the end of that last one!). The baby's sex is not known, so I decided on bright colours. Which meant dyeing up some Bendigo cotton. I couldn't find my dyeing records folder (and still can't!), but mixed up the colours and ran with it anyhow and am very pleased with what came out of the dyebath.



The "pattern" is the Ribbons Baby Blanket, though I haven't actually got a copy since it is pretty easy to work out what to do. I started out doing all stocking stitch though, and that didn't work - it wasn't going to come out as a flat blanket. So I had to rip back and start again in the alternating stocking stitch/reverse stocking stitch stripes. I changed my increasing method too, which is also helping make it more square. I'm back to the same stripe I was on last Thursday when I ripped back.

The big challenge will be finishing it before she goes on maternity leave - in six weeks' time. I couldn't start sooner because of moving house and really wanting to finish the cardigan. It will either be tight or not achieved. I can manage to finish it by her due date in early February though. I may regret working in the round - as I know from the pinwheel sweater, those rounds get *very* long!

Three years ago, I promised myself a cat. I had wanted a cat before then, but had been turned down by my then-landlord. I moved back to Sydney, passing up the opportunity of a free Burmese kitten about a month before I moved. I asked the FLA and owner's corporation if I could keep a cat. The owner's corporation said yes. The FLA did the whole black hole thing (since I put it in writing) and I eventually got a 'no' (by email). So I became a naughty tenant, and got a cat anyway.

In the long time frame between deciding to get a cat and actually getting it, I decided I wanted a Burmese cat. I found my cat through the Burmese Cat Society of Australasia (their site doesn't appear to be working today). When I first met her, she was called Sally, but I named her Calli. When first I met her, she was a tiny thing:


She was the runt of the litter and was rejected by her Mum, so she was hand reared. Her Mum was not very big, and Calli has always been small - 1.7kg when she came home with me in December 2007, and now at 2 years and 1 month old, she is 4.2kg. She's been getting herself into all sorts of trouble from the start:



She jumped into my work backpack one morning after I put my phone charger in there. I got to work and pulled out the charger to start charging my phone... and found she'd chewed her way clean through the cable. She has since destroyed a USB mouse cable (these days I use a wireless mouse) and my work laptop power supply cable was damaged twice (the IT staff at work were not impressed!). The power cables were live, by the way, which is why I call her "Calli the Wonder Cat" (as in "wonder why she's still alive!"). She has plenty of toys I encourage her to chew instead, but thankfully she hasn't shown as much interest in chewing cables lately. Or yarn. She chomped her way through the leftover yarn from the Noro Scarf and the Earl Grey Tea Socks. Works in progress are always kept safely in drawstring bags to prevent her getting her paws on them and the stash is all cat-proofed.

Of course I've knit for her:



...but of course that photo was staged - she prefers the cat bed from the Reject Shop. Or lying on any of my jumpers. Or on my lap.

She is my constant companion, telling me when the heater should be turned on, when it is dinner time, when it is bed time, following me around the house. And, being Burmese, she can be very vocal about it. She always wants to know what is happening:



(The computer blows warm air out that side where she's standing.)

A few weeks before we moved house, she suddenly fell ill. She was in the Vet hospital for five days on a drip. Neither of us enjoyed it. The vets couldn't diagnose anything specific and labelled it 'gastritis'.



Due to her hospital stay, she couldn't go visit my parent's place for the week while I moved house (she loves staying at their house - her toys slide around better on the tiled floors and there is more sunshine). She found the house move fun. It gave her new vantage points:



She is very happy at our new home. At the old place, there were seven other cats living within 30 metres. She's an indoor cat, but was bothered by the other cats outside. Here at the new place, all the neighbours have dogs, but I saw a cat over the back for the first time today. She should be a lot less bothered by other cats though. She loves watching the birds outside and I have built an enclosure so she can sit outside but not try catching the birds. Now the chaos of constantly changed surroundings of mixed up furniture and boxes everywhere has given way to long expanses of cork flooring (rattle balls roll better and louder...) and glorious sunshine, she's a happy pussy.

It's a boring rant, but I need to vent, then I will move on.

I finally got the bond back on my previous place on Monday. I wasn't keen on posting about the whole ordeal until I had it.

A couple of issues simultaneously made living at my old place a nightmare. There is an issue with a tree (noxious weed species) in the back courtyard that drops berries for 6 months of the year, rendering the courtyard, and particularly the clothes line, unusable. I had been trying to get my former landlord's agent (let's call them FLA - no, I won't name the agency) to act on removing the tree for 18 months, but at the inspection I had in July, I was told to put it in writing. I pointed out that I had, *twice*. I got only a sarcastic comment in return. I would have thought a business dealing with written correspondence should provide a written response. Writing to the FLA results in a black hole. Oh, and don't bother ringing them, they tell you to put it in writing. The same day that this occurred, my immediate neighbour made a complaint about the tree (without knowing about the exchange I had just had) to the owner's corporation. Cue the FLA black hole...

The inspection also set off another chain of events - the FLA did not communicate anything to me at any time, but sent two tradesmen to make quotes on the carpet and replacing a vanity unit and the toilet cisterns. The complete lack of communication meant I had to come to the worst-case scenario of what would happen next - that the place would be put up for sale. This made me very uneasy, and it was at this point I found my new (current) place, but I had to wait a month before I could move. I ended up putting in writing to the FLA that no tradespeople could enter the property, since nothing had been communicated to me (to stall until I could put in my notice). That went into the black hole too - they didn't even communicate to at least one tradesperson what was going on, and I had to tell him.

Another issue that continued to grind away in the background was a particular 'problem' neighbour. She is legendary for her need to come over and 'chat' such that you cannot get rid of her for three hours. There's more to it than that, this is the short version. For much of the time I lived at my previous place, the blinds on the front window were permanently shut. Problem neighbour was causing more than average grief in the block near the end (and since I left).

There's all those little things that build over time - the place was impossible to heat or cool, received very little sunlight, I was knocked back on keeping a cat, the carpet was knackered, and on it goes. And the rent had risen steeply within the first 18 months I lived there. For the same money I was expecting the rent to rise to (now proven), I could have... exactly what I have now - a free-standing house closer to work.

The weekend before the removalists moved most of my belongings was very stressful. I discovered that the driveway was more of an issue than I had thought when I had inspected the place a month earlier. I could not get my car into the garage, and put a dent in the side of car to prove it, as well as putting myself and the car into a situation in which I was in fear of my life! My parents visited, and I had help from them in moving some of my belongings. My Father got their 4WD stuck half-way up the driveway at one point. It was not pleasant. Thankfully, when the removalists came in, it all ran relatively smoothly. The only damage was a dent in the microwave (which had been damaged moving to Armidale in 2003 anyway - Yay! I now own a dedicated dyeing microwave!).

I cleaned the old place out - leaving it cleaner than when I moved in, as usual. I had a professional carpet cleaner come in (despite suspecting the carpet would be ripped up) as I'm fairly certain FLA had the carpet cleaned a second time after the tenant before me. I did not have time to attend the final inspection as I was deep in exam marking that I was running late with. FLA sent a list of what they were not happy with. It ranged from items that were not clean when I moved in, to the petty (the toilet roll holder being dusty was my favourite!). They clearly went looking for issues (they picked up that I had cleaned the outside of the front window but not the inside - that was because of the 'problem' neighbour trying to 'catch up' with me!). I had no energy to either try cleaning what they wanted or to engage in argument, so I paid what they said a cleaner would cost to do it (especially as what was quoted was probably half what I thought it would really cost). Their final parting gift (or not, can't prove a thing of course) was to leave the last digit off my back account details so that the rental bond board was unable to return my bond (hence my only getting it this week). Charming. Pleased to be rid of you, FLA!

My former immediate neighbour rang me on Monday. The vanity unit or the toilet cisterns were only installed on Monday - the tradesman turned off the water to the wrong unit - while she was in the shower! The carpet was replaced, the tree is still there... And despite my arrangement for any addressed mail to be collected by her (only unimportant stuff as I have a PO Box), the 'problem' neighbour has got hold of it! I lodged a mail redirection with Australia Post yesterday to end that!

I actually have sympathy for the owner of my previous home - I suspect she is not aware of what has been going on, particularly with the tree (the owner's corporation are unable contact her to deal with her directly), and is presently out of pocket at least a month's rent (and the place has been advertised for the past fortnight for a new tenant without success!).

It is much better now it is over. I'm loving the easier trip to work, the neighbours being a bit further away than right on top of me, and the cat is now legal. (Cat? She gets a post of her own. Next time.)