01.26.08
We Are Growing Well
Mary, Mary, quite contrary,How does your garden grow?
Very well thank you.The tomatoes have taken off, we are wondering if they are the indeterminate type, that keep on growing. At the rate they are going they will be up to the eves in no time. The lettuce is also going strong. 
We are away for a week now so no one will be here to water the garden. We are hoping while we are away there will be some rain to keep them green and we will be able to have minimal losses to the plants. It’s a shame our back yard is only accessible from the house, so we can’t get any neighbours to water the garden. Speaking of going away, we are heading down the North Island on a bit of a road trip. We are hoping to get to Wellington by Tuesday. Should be nice as long as we can find somewhere to lay our heads at night, and it doesn’t rain. We haven’t booked any accommodation, instead hoping to wing it and turn up at campgrounds and they will have room for us. When we get back I will be sure to fill you in on how it went and share the 100s of photos I’m going to take. Until then I hope you all are safe.
01.24.08
Progressing Well
I am progressing well after a shacky start to the Silk Slip. As the below photo shows, I am up to the left cup having completed the right cup and midriff. I have also just finished my first ball of yarn. I purchased 4 balls so I’m thinking I will be able to make another one of these little slips for a lucky friend, or perhaps myself, would a slip and a camisole be too much?
It’s a great pattern to knit as it so fast and easy, I say that now after working out the lace pattern, still don’t know what I was doing wrong with that. I intend to finish it tonight bar the skirt part, as I have not found the fabric, a trip to the fabric shop is in order I think. I’m not intending to go for a silk or even satin, I’m thinking a nice viscose knit would suit me. If I have any luck finding it I’ll be impressed.
On a side note I have added a new link to the sidebar. How About Orange is a great site by Jessica Jones that shows lots of lovely design “stuff” I enjoy it so thought I would share the Orange-ness.
01.21.08
Decision Made
I am a little concerned that the cups may be a little too pointy for my liking, but I’m hoping I can get around this by sewing the dart slightly curved. I also toyed with the idea of somehow using short row shaping to avoid both the pointiness & seam, but I am far to inexperienced with short rows to be able to visualise how to do this. My short rows are limited to a Nose Warmer & a three socks, yes there is a UFO sock floating around my house.
Big Day Out, Auckland, 08.
OMG it was the best, although I did feel very old! Got there nice and early, headed to the beer cage, as I nicked named it, so Best Friend could get her first beer of the day, listened to some crap band while she drunk away and DH & I waited. Then off to see things, and there was so much to see.First band we checked out was Operator Please I only knew like 3 of their songs, but they were good! I really really enjoyed them. We then headed over to Lillyworld to check it out and chill a bit we saw Northshore Pony Club which I enjoyed, surprising, not really my thing.Then over to the main stage to check out Anti-Flag who know how to work the crowd. Then Op Shop who we weren’t getting into so headed back over the other side to check out Tiki Taane, then we had Kate Nash not that I could see her at all but I was there, and god do I have the sunburn to go with it. My shoulder are fine as is my back, but I seem to have missed a lot on the front. I think I will be wearing halter neck tops for the next few days.After Kate Nash I was feeling rather bad. It was a hot 28 in Auckland and although I had already had 2 liters of water I needed more so we went to look for free water. This involved getting stuck in crossroads of 1000s of people all going different ways. OMG it was horrible! I hate being short & having a short DH in cases like this. I lost him in the crush. Found a fire hose which was being used to fill bottels and filled our up (3 in total) I got completely soaked down the front, but within 30 minutes I was dry again, was mighty cooling! After this we wanted to get to Dizzy Rascal but I was not going back threw that crush for anyone, so we went and found seats in the stand at the main stage for the rest of the night.Arcade Fire, well they were just amazing. I had never heard any of their stuff, but darn I had fun. Then came good old Shihad. They are just the best, never get sick of seeing them! By this stage I think I was suffering somewhat from heat exhaustion as I could have so easily gone to sleep!It was then time for Bjork, she had a great show visually, and I would have loved to see her at her own concert. She was put between Shihad & RATM which might not have been the best, but really there was no where else to put her. Very good still.We then come to THE main event Rage Against The Machine OMG well, Was amazing to see so many people all rocking out to them. We then joined the crush trying to get to see Supergroove who recently reformed. We only got about 3 songs unfortunately but it was good.Then home and sleep. I felt so hung-over on Saturday, I think although I didn’t smoke any of NZ’s finest green stuff, I may have inhaled a lot of other peoples, as it seemed everywhere we sat it was right by people indulging. All up it was a great day/night! I don’t have any of my own photos to share, but if you check out flickr there are a few over there.
01.19.08
Decisions, Decisions.
I don’t have any active craft projects on the go currently, (notice I say ‘active’), I do have a lot of hibernating ones. I have queued on Ravelry, the ball band dishcloth, along with this Ribbed Baby Jacket, and finally Pretty Puffs Slouchy Hat. But just to confusse matters on Thursday I received Knitting Lingerie Style, which my DH so kindly brought me for New Years (yes we do New Year present, but that’s a whole other story) and there are so many things in there I want.
One-Piece-Wonder, originally uploaded by whitelies.
I am thinking I may first start with the Silk Slip, I already have the yarn for it, although I will have to change a bit as the gauge is a little off.
But first I really should get some good photos of a couple of my other FOs that I have lying around. Mainly the daughters Corn cardigan, which she loves, even if I don’t. I’ll work on that tomorrow, before I start to swatch for the Silk Slip
01.15.08
Yummy Biscuits
The other day, while waiting for the jug to boil at work, I happened upon a box of cereal with a tasty looking recipe.And here is the result!
Yummy Biscuits, originally uploaded by sbub.
It called for “Crunch Nut Corn Flakes” but we don’t have any of those, new fangle type cereals in this house, so I just used good old fashioned corn flakes.
And if you want to try for yourself, The Recipe.
110g Butter
1/2 c Sugar
1 3/4 c Plain Flour
1/2 c Sultans
1 1/2 c Corn Flakes
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 c Milk
Cream the butter & sugar, add the rest and mix up. Pretty easy!Bake at 180 c for 15 minutes and enjoy!
01.12.08
We Grow
Two years ago my daughter and I built a square foot garden for DH as a Christmas present. That year we grew Tomatoes, Capsicum (bell peppers) and Lettuce. It did really well, but we didn’t really have enough room, as you can see . 
The following year we moved, picked the square foot up and brought it with us, were it sat unused. Then three months ago, I undertook to extend it to fit between our patio and fence, under our bedroom window, the theory in placement being that it is so close to the house we can pop out when cooking meals to pick the food and that the extra large eves of the house allow us to garden while it is raining. Here it is when we were putting the stuff in the bottom so that it had aeration. I read somewhere it was good to put do this, so it’s what we did. Was a great place to put the flax we had cut and an old tree branch that had fallen from our tree. I’m new to this whole gardening thing, as is DH so we learn as we go. 
So far we have parsley and tomatoes planted which are doing well, as the photo shows.
Today we headed to the garden centre and got some more seedlings, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cabbage, Lettuce, and Capsicum. So tomorrow the job is to plant these. We also purchased 3 bamboo stackes for the tomatoes plants as they are getting large and need support. I was hoping to pant sugar snap peas, but as they grown rather tall, the placement of our garden does not really make it a good place for them. I’ll keep you up to date with how our garden grows.
01.09.08
First FO To Share
I would like to share my first FO, not my first FO, but the first I’m sharing with you. I present you with the Back to School U-Neck vest from Fitted Knits. 
I knitted it up in Patons Zhivago on size 9US Denise Interchangeable needles. I did some modifications which I think worked rather well, these included, starting with a second size for the bottom and decreasing at side seams to the smallest size for the bust. I also lowered the neckline a little and made the straps narrower. All up I think think it is a great pattern and I’m happy with the FO, however the real test is how much wear I get out of it. As it is summer here in NZ, it has a few months of it sitting in a draw before it will be worn, but I will update on its wear-ability come winter.
01.06.08
The bottom
I have got to the end of the top down cardi body and I have no idea how to finish it off. Do I do a rib band, maybe some lace or a picot bind off? I really don’t know how to finish it off, I guess I could put it on stitch holders and move on to the sleeves finish them then go back to the body.
Maybe that is what I will do, must have an early night tonight though, last night it was 2 am, the night before 12 am, and for the week before, it was about the same. I get so carried away with knitting I forget to look at the clock. I haven’t been hung over for a very long time (over 6 years) but this morning, I could have sworn that I had been out on the turps.
01.05.08
Top Down Raglan
This is for my girl, she fell in love with the yarn, Moda Vera “Corn” 100% corn fibre, while at the LYS and put a guilt trip on my about how I haven’t knitted her anything for “ages” (yes, this could be true). I purchased 4 balls, knowing that I would make some sort of cropped cardigan for her, lets just hope now that this is enough. I did a little research on Raverly for top down raglan patterns, as this way if I run out of yarn at least the top will be finished lol. I came to this pattern, which is more of a formula than a pattern, but which ensures a perfect fit (I hope). So I did my measurements, cast on 3 times before getting a neckline that looked like it was going to work, and was under way.
As only the second Top Down Raglan I have ever knitted I think I am doing rather well, although I did find that nearing the end of the raglan increases it seams to take a good 5 minutes to do one row. Here it is up against the daughters back nearing the point of joining. 
I’m a little worried about the joining as the “pattern” says to “add 1 inch of stitches to the underarm. I’m not too sure how I am suppose to apply this direction, but I’ll give it a go and if it doesn’t work out I’ll frog back and give it another go.
