non-alphabetical; heretical!

Aside from the fascination of rediscovering the books themselves, getting them sorted alphabetically was very satisfying. I love sorting and putting things in order, including alphabetical order. Though you might not know it to look at my generally messy living and working spaces.

The other night we were at a little party at a friend's place. We talked about how their huge DVD collection was shelved in no particular order. I wondered how they find anything; why not put them in alphabetical order by title? My friend had us all in startled laughter when she stated baldly, "I hate the alphabet!"

Hate the alphabet? How can you HATE the alphabet? It was bizarre enough that we had to investigate further. It emerged that our friend is a numbers girl (well we knew that already), a whizz even. The full alphabet, however, is a challenge to remember and doesn't come naturally. Fair enough. I know many people who've never mastered telling left from right instinctively, and that's only two items, rather than 26.

The very next day I happened across this infinite alphabet wrist tattoo. It's beautiful and I kind of wish I'd thought of it myself. It belongs to an ex-librarian, who along with the literary implications, found it very useful when faced with 'the hard parts of the alphabet'. The comments on that post indicate it's not such a rare affliction.

As well as books, we have a lot of CDs in the house, and have always kept them in alphabetical order too (with a few broad genres separated). I've always been surprised at the number of people who seem to marvel at this organisation. Honestly, how else would you do it and still be able to find anything? I do remember Rob from High Fidelity had other answers for that - chronologically by order of acquisition? That would be very interesting....

Booklust.

I have finally done the last part of book unpacking. Note: we moved in at the end of December. The books were by far the most enjoyable part of packing and unpacking for me, though there was also some challenge in working out where everything would go. I've had to split my fiction: A-K downstairs and L-Z upstairs. Other downstairs shelves include K's fiction and all sorts of non-fiction belonging to both of us. I'm intrigued to find that I have almost twice as many books in the first (less-than) half of the alphabet; and that bookshelf is overloaded in many places. I'm still not entirely sure I won't find several more L-Z boxes in a corner somewhere, as there are still lots of boxes in corners around the place.

I am in a whirlwind of booklust now. I want to read about 50 books 'next'. I'm amazed at the number of dusty old paperbacks that cost me a dollar or so 15 years ago, many that I haven't managed to read yet, but that I am still absolutely eager to read.

This lust never really goes away. I am always reading at least one novel which goes with me on the bus every day. I always have a pile of stuff in waiting, loans from friends, recent purchases, and older things I've pulled out of the shelves.

The current bout of booklust has also been stirred up by a couple of rounds of bookshop browsing on recent trips to Adelaide and Brisbane. I go through phases where I don't go to bookshops, new or secondhand, much, because I'm trying to read what I've already got. But I can't really resist when I'm travelling, especially when I'm with like-minded friends who point out things I wouldn't have looked at. You'd think book browsing was an essentially solitary activity, but it doesn't have to be.

I always loved books, and was provided with many books as a child, as well as lots of library access. Of course I never owned as many books as I would have liked to, though there is something magical about those old favourites and even not-at-all favourites, including some quite impenetrable books, all of which I read and reread uncountable times, just because they were there. And I still treasure all of them.

As soon as I started earning my own money I went headlong into a long, very indiscriminate book collecting phase. I bought second-hand almost exclusively; I've never gotten into the habit of buying many books new (I do occasionally like to support a favourite author though). Second-hand books were cheap and you could never have too many books in the house. I was interested in so many different things. I bought things just because I recognised the title, especially 'classics'. Because I'm a born collector and hoarder, I was drawn to collecting multiple books by the same author, often even before I had read a single book of theirs. Sometimes when I finally got around to reading one, I had to admit I didn't love that author as much as I had expected to. Nutty? Well, it was partly just the thrill of the chase.

I long ago acknowledged that I didn't have enough space for all the books (while secretly kind of liking the books-stuffed-in-every-nook-and-cranny aesthetic). It's only relatively recently that I've really been able to do any serious weeding out. I used to go in intending to make some space, spend an hour looking and come out with three books I could bear to part with.

I think I will always keep a lot of books, but I am much more willing now to read something, realise I'm not likely to read it again, and find someone or somewhere to pass it on to. I've had much more success than I expected with exchanging books for credit at a couple of my favourite second-hand bookshops. Anything they don't want goes to Lifeline or op shops.

If you were in Big W at Civic today you might have heard the Hallelujah chorus breaking out

For weeks I've been casually sauntering through Big W at lunch times, wondering if they were ever going to get new wool in for winter. (Although I don't agree that creating things with yarn is a seasonal activity, the mainstream retailers clearly do - and probably have the sales figures to back that up). Finally, today, I came across a small chaotic display of Sean Sheep yarns. 'Rockpool' 'Rockbank' (oops, thanks Karen) was the only new one I could see, a wool/soy blend which actually screams 'Felt me'! right there on the label. At first glance I don't love the colours as much as Armytage. I hope there is more of the range yet to appear, because only one of the options appears to have the long colour repeats I love, the others are either variegated or plain. It's a finer yarn too, more like an 8ply.

Still, a new feltable wool is so very welcome back in the Sean Sheep range, which didn't include anything much feltable last year.

I headed back to summer for a few days

Last Thursday we went to a wedding at Glengariff Historic Estate at Dayboro, north of Brisbane. The wedding was beautiful, the weather was beautiful, and the location was beautiful. And I always like a wedding with ceremony and reception all in the one spot.





After the wedding we only had to cross the road to reach our lovely accomodation at Dayboro Cottages and Llama walks.

This is the view that greeted us in the morning.

It was a truly beautiful place to wake up, on a warm sunny day.

We said hello to the llamas (and one maybe alpaca-cross below) and then we had to be on our way.

K had to head home but I stayed the rest of the weekend, spending time with friends and family. When I told them about the llamas, my friends insisted on continuing the theme by taking me to see the alpacas near their place.
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I thought these white ones looked a bit like sheep with stretched out necks! They were not at all shy to pose for my camera.

Scattergun; but someday soon

This Easter long weekend has mostly been devoted to spending time with my family and catching up with myself (chiefly sleep, music and felting). The extra hour at the end of daylight saving last weekend disappeared almost without a trace. Actually I lost that hour of sleep again when I forgot to change the time on my phone, and on Wednesday morning when I needed to get up at 5:10 am for a flight the alarm went off at 4:10am. Sheesh. By Thursday night, I was so ready for this extra long weekend.

Family highlights include seeing my little niece wearing her dress. Seeing it in action, I'm certain now I'll knit that pattern again, soon.


I've been spending lots of totally excellent time with my Dad's mother, D, who is visiting for Easter. She's been knitting me jumpers all my life. We have a lot in common, and love swapping notes on knitting and books. She gave me a book for an early birthday present; 2-at-a-time-socks by Melissa Morgan-Oakes. Intriguing. Will try it of course, but whether the technique takes or not, the patterns are lovely (and adaptable).

And music? Well, last weekend I saw Lucinda Williams at the Canberra Theatre. Love her: slightly awkward stage presence, huge sexy voice, fantastic songs.

In the past couple of weeks I've acquired a lot of new music. Although my purse is supposed to be more-or-less closed, I keep stumbling across things like a magical sale shelf in the country section with 'Strange Country' compilations and all Alison Krauss' back catalogue discounted; someone hassling me to move on to Scott Walker's 4th solo album; then another of Lucinda's (West) and Michelle Shocked's Texas Campfire Tapes, both too cheap to leave behind. Before I'd had time to digest much of that, a good friend gave me his duplicate copies of a couple of tasty morsels: The Walker Brothers and Dead can dance. Oof. Meanwhile, Neko Case's delicious new album hasn't been out of the CD player since K brought it home a couple of weeks. I feel like hibernating.

I sucked in my gut, and still she said, that she just didn't want to

Last Friday I angrily stuffed my freshly finished Coachella into the back of the cupboard and tried to forget about it.

My sulk didn't last too long though, and yesterday I tried it on again, taking some (unflattering) photos to assist with my analysis. I'm not posting those photos, but gee if I could somehow quantify the difference between what you see in the mirror and what is revealed in a photo, wouldn't THAT be a heck of a post. I'm tempted to start snapping a quick picture in the morning to check if I'm really dressed the way I think I am!

I looked carefully at those photos, looked at my own shape and other tops that fit well, and made a plan of attack. Now I'm in hopeful, getting it done mode.

It's knit in Cleckheaton bamboo. Yes this is a much finer yarn than the one for which the pattern was written. Yes there was maths, and some guesstimation too. Yes I still think it will work. Maybe with a bit less negative ease. It's a nice drapey yarn, and really doesn't look its best holding a deathgrip on my midsection.

So far I have to report that I still love Elizabeth Zimmerman's stretchy sewn bind off, but it is a total (slow) bugger to undo. Well, it's kind of meditative.

I thought I had taken a pretty cautious approach to this. I thought I had insurance.

I swatched.
I washed the swatches.
I did maths.
I took the garment off the needle multiple times to try it on.
Not one, but two of those times, I washed it and waited for it to dry and then tried it on. (Because of what the washed swatch told me).

But still:
The swatch mislead me on how much it would stretch sideways and shrink up. I guess a tight tube behaves differently to a small square, who'd've though?

Also:
I deluded myself that it was fine, when it wasn't.
And I put in waist shaping (per the pattern) where it was already plenty tight enough for my waist.

What I need to do now:
- Finish undoing the cast off (nearly done, thankyou Wednesday night ABC TV line-up)
- Rip it back to before the first decrease. This will almost certainly involve some shenanigans (also known as cutting the knitting) because I already wove in all the ends except for the one on the hem. The 'knitting surgery' tag on Flickr might see more use yet. Luckily, I have lots more yarn as I bought a 10-pack.
- Knit it again with more increases.
- Finally, stop about 20 rows shorter. (see, a silver lining!)

If the finished item never does make an appearance here, it might be better NOT to ask what happened.

Familiar ground....

But still a little bit different each time. I never get sick of it.


Though it does sometimes it takes me a few evenings to get the felting done, cause I optimistically make a start and quickly run out of energy for the plunging & agitating. It doesn't hurt them to sit half-done in the bucket til I next get around to it.

You call me sweet like I'm some kind of cheese

I used to buy a lot of beads and make jewellery pretty regularly. Other creative pursuits have now taken over more of my time, but a few factors have conspired recently to get me back into it.

1. I have a desk now. It is so much more inspiring to be able to sit up at a desk rather than crouching at the coffee table at the old house. I can also easily leave works in progress sitting there and come back to them when it suits me. Some years ago I bought a small mobile computer desk to work on and store all my beads. The idea was that it could be shut away in the spare room and brought out to the living room as needed. And it worked for a while but it was a hassle and we were so cluttered in the living area that I wasn't inclined to bring it out and add to the general claustrophobia.

2. Mum asked me if I could rejuvenate some of her earrings made by me over the years. We're replacing the findings with better quality gold plated stuff and the results are very pleasing.

3. I fell in love with these beads at an African drumming stall at that festival I went to recently. I dug them out of a big bowl of mixed glass beads, and isn't that the BEST way to buy beads? You feel like you could unearth a treasure. I get much the the same feeling diving to the bottom of bargain bins full of wool. Before I made them into a necklace they really looked pear-shaped to me. Now I'm not so sure. I'm also not sure this necklace actually suits me perfectly, but I love it anyway.

It was so good that we got bored

You might just want to skim or skip this post if you've seen and heard enough from me about this year's Womadelaide festival. I hadn't yet reflected on the music this time around, and I like being able to look back on posts like this later on. So here are my micro-reviews of most of the artists I saw and heard during the weekend.

Arte Kanela - flamenco music and dancing. Show-offy fun.

Andi & George Band - we turned up at the end of their Friday night show. I had heard the buzz about this large, fluid Canberra group, but had never seen or heard them. We really enjoyed their range of mostly upbeat reggae, soul, and roots-influenced music. Unfortunately they are finishing up as a band (I gather George had already made his exit) - we also went along to their final show on the Sunday night. There were about 14 or 15 people on a small stage looking like they were having the best time ever. Towards the end they found room for a bunch of Canberra groupies to dance around on stage as well. It could have felt cliquey but instead it just felt like the party expanded to include the whole crowd.

Ska Cubano - interesting idea, though I didn't fully get into it - an innovative combination of Jamaican ska and Cuban mambo music.

Paprika Balkanicus - gypsy music Balkan-style, with members from Romania, Slovenia and Serbia. I like my gypsy music any way I can get it; in this case the fiddle count was low - only one, but smokin' - yet there WERE two accordions, yay. Youngish guys with a slightly wack sense of humour.

Lo Cor de la Plana - a big highlight, six blokes from Marseilles singing beautiful harmonies accompanied only by hand claps and hand held drums/tambourines. My rudimentary French skills were not a lot of use, as their thing is to revitalise songs from the ancient Occitan culture and language. Oh and their jokes and comments between songs were about as dirty as their singing was angelic.

Rachel Unthank & the Winterset - another favourite, Geordie folk music. One of our crew is always seeking Celtic music, and this was the closest she got this time around. We all loved the Unthanks, very cool girls with beautiful voices, providing translations of dialect where necessary, and judicious use of the 'safety cardigan' - worn over a strappy dress to avoid wardrobe malfunctions during vigorous clog dancing.

Speed Caravan - Algerian Mehdi Haddab plays his oud electric, we loved it, went back for more. The one in our group who normally likes his music heavy found most satisfaction here of all the womad acts.

Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara trio - Justin Adams is a guitarist who works with Robert Plant, I knew his name from the Festival in the Desert CD (how much would I love to go to that festival?). He has teamed up with Gambian griot Juldeh Camara who plays the ritti, a one-stringed fiddle. That's him in picture at the top of the page. I loved this show, bought the album, got it signed.*

A workshop with the Andi & George girls - the three female singers were down for a workshop session - in this case they just took turns playing and singing their own songs, handing one guitar back and forth, and sometimes providing harmonies for each other. An absolutely lovely, intimate show, some great songs, and lots of love for Andi who is fairly new to the game herself but obviously a real encourager for others to give it a go. All very warming for the heart's cockles.

Black Jesus Experience - Australian based fusion group with Ethiopian and other African singers - good fun times.

Kaki King - she does a lot of different things with guitars, which I found interesting, cool, densely layered, and inexplicable by turns. She has serious pretty rock cred, and is obsessed with Australian netball players - it must be the appeal of tall athletic girls in skirts (else why wouldn't the basketball players in her native US thrill her so?).

Neil Finn - with his sons Liam and Elroy. Liam looked like he was having the most fun. It was a great show including songs from all parts of Neil's catalogue; I would have liked to hear a Liam song included (unless there was one and I missed it?)

* I actually went away from this signing a little bit (ridiculously) introspective about whether lining up to get something signed and telling the person "gee I really loved your show/book/whatever" is actually a nice opportunity or just a dispiriting failure to make a real human connection. This is a continuation of an ongoing conversation with myself. See I have this fantasy self who is outgoing and can actually make interesting connections with artists who mean something to me. And, you know, that fantasy self is not actually ME (a classic introvert).

Whisper your name to me

Here's a little baby cardie I just finished this week. I used Carole Barenys' top down raglan again, with slight modifications to make a v-neck (fairly easy with a little bit of maths - cast on less stitches for the neck and then increase at both ends of every other row until the stitch count 'catches up') and to add a bit of width, just to make sure it would be likely to fit in winter, for a baby born mid summer. I also changed the ribbing at neck and hem to garter stitch to match the button band. The wool is Naturally Haven Merino 4 ply. The light in these last minute morning photos makes the colour look a bit lighter than it really is. It's quite a strong, but still soft, green.

Baby's name begins with an S. I had an idea that some sort of motif incorporating an 'S' would be nice. Something personal but not quite a monogram. I think this worked out quite well first try! (at the last minute of course) I admit the daisy was not intended to be there, but I had left too much space between the two Ss. I quite like it though. I did do a little bit of swatching first to make sure I could do duplicate stitch. It turned out to be so easy and satisfying, I may never bother with colourwork again!

I don't know why my stitches look so wiggly. They aren't normally like that. Maybe I should have knit this stuff at a tighter gauge, but I liked the fabric.


The duplicate stitch working out was such a pleasant surprise, because colour work (fair isle-esque) was not my friend on this project. This is how the cardigan looked when I first finished and washed it.

I was lazy/hasty, and realised too late that swatching would have saved me time. I decided about halfway through that I should have reversed the positioning of the lilac and the white, because the lilac did not 'pop' enough against the green. Colour theory experts are welcome to correct me here - I think it is because they have a very similar level of brightness, ie if you converted a photo to black and white, they would be indistinguishable.

The lilac wool was also too thin. I could see this before I even started, yet I pressed on thinking I could get away with it. When I steamed it even before washing, I was able to block it out so the cinching in affect was hardly noticeable. But when I washed the cardie, I could see that each time it was washed it would look bad again. It was ok, certainly wearable, even cute. But I knew I could do better.

So I did this kind of thing again. I had already woven in all the ends, so ripping out wasn't worth trying. So I put a lifeline in the last row of stitches before the ill-fated colourwork, snipped a stitch in the row below, and pulled out that row, neatly detaching the lower part of the cardigan. Reknitting it plain was relatively quick and easy.