Well earned...

Friday on my mind in da hood

It's the end of my first week interning and I feel like a walking zombie (So does Miggs, I suspect!).

But I cheered up when it was declared we'd have a class outing to Global Fabrics this morning to fondle some fibre...Then we went to Wellington institution Midnight Espresso for some Super Nachos.After which life back at the sewing machine looked much more alluring...

Especially when I was told I could move on from men's merino tops to making a merino knit hood and scarf combination. Since my aim while I here was to learn to make a hoodie, a hood is a pretty exciting thing to make. And I was chuffed that THERE WAS NO UNPICKING!

Two footloose and fancy free females on a Thursday night*

Nick's in Auckland for the next few days so after Tracy and I dropped him at the airport we drove home round the Bays (it's a Wellington thing).

I love Tracy. When I cried "Oh isn't that beautiful!" she

stopped

the

car!

Then we re visited an age-old tradition of "Going up the Hutt" late night shopping before heading home

where we started our first knitting class.

Topsy (*the third female of the title) was intrigued and Tracy did very well!

Stretching things

Today I used some Merino wool knit fabric to made this*:and this*:and, more importantly, this:and its twin brother (not pictured)

I've also done a lot of unpicking. That's the bad news. The good news is that most of it wasn't my fault...

(* Miggs thinks it's hilarious how I keep myself amused creating things out of the rubbish bag when she's busy doing other stuff and I'm waiting for her to check something I've sewn.)

Window on Wellington

Brain tired. Can't write.

Instead you can look at pictures of some of my fave bits of Wellington that I took on my way to work this morning and at lunch time...

Not at all thread-ened

Today I learnt lots more about fashion. In true Intern style I was sent out to get coffee:then sat in on the meeting where it was decided what we were going to do today ("Me? Sew knit leggings? Are you sure?!!!").

A little later in the morning we went on a field trip to buy fashionable music. Obviously it's frightfully important that your CDs match what you're working on...

(The leggings were fine. Now I'm sewing Merino knit...)

Sew tired...

Today was my first day playing intern. I think I did OK but my brain hurts something horrid.

I got to use an industrial machine and sew round and round on scraps of calico until I could manage to get the wee beastie to do pretty much what I wanted it to do. 

Alas by the time I got to back stitching ends it had all been too much and after sewing up and down approximately 30 lines drawn on the cloth I still hadn't managed to complete one correctly but had kept Miggs entertained with the escallating range of swear words coming from the corner..

So Miggs took pity on me and got me to cut out some very expensive Merino stretch wool. Which was pretty scary. Miggs is taller than me so I had to resort to the old stand on a pile of phone books trick to reach properly.

Since I didn't balls that up she let me play with her overlocker. This is the first piece in The Shopping Sherpa's winter range for artists' mannequins: a lovely merino hood. 

Look out for the matching one of a kind scarf, available soon by special order...

Over the hill and (not) far away

We spent the day in the Wairarapa yesterday, doing our best to support the local economy.

I almost bought a pear to add to my collection but it was a little expensive ($200!) and rather big and fragile to wrestle back on the plane. So I just took a photo instead:Then we visited Waiohine Gorge and the longest suspension bridge in the Southern Hemisphere

which was a bit scary

but worth it for the view:

A colourful night

I went to a birthday party in Mount Victoria last night and ended up crashing instead of coming back out to Petone.

But I fear I may be scarred for life as this is where I slept:The rest of the room looked like this:I think I'll be OK though as I came back to this:plus there's Topsy the black and white dog and Spook, the black cat...

Getting a Friday night drink in Petone, New Zealand

Nick and Tracy collecting their weekly supply of Petone artesian water. This is the only well in the whole village. Luckily it's not too far from their house...

On my desk

This has been knocking round the Australian blogosphere for a week or so and I finally traced it back to Kootoyoo via Meet me at Mike's (sorry, I have to add the apostrophe!)

It's supposed to be done on Wednesday but I've taken poetic license and posted it on Thursday because I think it fits in nicely with Corners of My Home (the real honest version!)

The time is 11pm, Wednesday March 5th. I should be packing for my trip to New Zealand but instead I'm taking pictures of my messy desk.

To the left:and to the right:Notes here and here.

It'll be cleaner by the time I go to bed. And look about the same tomorrow night before I clear it away again...

Wednesday was...

1. Me still grinning widely after a rather generous gift of wool I received yesterday afternoon for which I'm most overwhelmed and grateful. And because I'm not doing Seven Things Spring/ Summer anymore that's all I need to say here. Which is a very weird (good) feeling. 2. A silly sign I spotted outside the building we were having training in. Being a good girl I made sure I obeyed it (and thus proved to my colleagues who weren't already aware that I was rather nutty)

3. A photo I took of a creature made by our receptionist out of spare electrical wiring and bits she found left around the place by the builders. Unfortunately I had my "new" camera with me which doesn't cope with macro as well as old faithful so they all came out too blurry to publish. Sorry, Sparky Rattler. Hopefully we can do better upon my return to work...

4. Joy at spotting the Thai Garden sign out on my way home after a late phone conference. Which meant my favorite Thai restaurant in the whole city was finally back in business after being closed by storm damage late last year: The only gripe I have is whoever chose the bright orange feature wall must have been colour blind as I don't see at all how it goes with the colour of the new carpet. But my tummy was happy and that's all that matters. It's looking forward to having the fish when I get back from New Zealand...5. A little sock created out of the leftover balls from the big socks. I'm hoping they'll fit Little E feet otherwise they'll be off to another small person in town. Like I said to Taph - knitting socks is just like knitting over sized booties...

Twinkle toes!

OK, I take it back about not ever getting round to making the second sock.

But during the knitting of sock number two it became clear they're not destined to stay with me and have already been delivered to their new home...

Treats on Tuesday

A rather fat Global Priority envelope was waiting for me at the Post Office this morning courtesy of Vacuuming in High Heels & Pearls (who took pity on the fact I live so far away from a Michael's and arranged a wee swap)

I love fat Global Priority envelopes, especially when they're full of black and white goodies (and chocolate!) There's a little something heading back in the mail this week which I hope she likes as much as I liked the contents of this!

puɐן uʍop ǝpısdn uı ɐdɹǝɥs ƃuıddoɥs ǝɥʇ

¡ʇno ʇı ʎɹʇ oʇ pɐɥ ʇsnɾ ı sʇɹɐʎןɹıʍs ʇɐ ɹǝʌo sıɥʇ ʍɐs ı uǝɥʍ os

˙puɐן uʍop ǝpısdn uı ɹǝʞɔǝdpooʍ ʎpooʍ puɐ 'ʇɐɥ pǝɹǝuɹoɔ ǝǝɹɥʇ ǝɥʇ 'uıɐɹʇ ƃuıʞןɐʇ ǝɥʇ puɐ ʎʞɹɐds sɐ sǝʇıɹoʌɐɟ ɥɔns oʇ ƃuıuǝʇsıן ɹnoɥ ʇuǝɔǝp ɐ ןıʇun pǝq uı ǝןdoǝd ןןɐɯs ƃuıʞɐʍ-ʎןɹɐǝ ʇdǝʞ ʇı sɐ ʎןןɐǝɹ 'ʇdǝɔuoɔ ɹǝʌǝןɔ ʎɹǝʌ ɐ ˙sƃuıuɹoɯ ʎɐpuns uo oıpɐɹ ǝɥʇ uo ɹnoɥ ʎɹoʇs s,uǝɹpןıɥɔ ɐ sɐʍ ǝɹǝɥʇ puɐןɐǝz ʍǝu uı pıʞ ɐ sɐʍ ı uǝɥʍ

Muppet mayhem on Monday

If the thought of Monday is making you glum,watch this video for happy fun:

(Thanks to Wanda Harland who found it first.)

Seven Things Spring/ Summer Week 26: The final installment

Wow! That's it then...

Back in September last year I decided to join Taph on her Seven Things Spring challenge for one month. Six months later I'm finally putting the challenge aside. It's going to be weird not obsessively counting stuff each week after six months but I suspect the habits I've picked up will remain with me long after the official challenge is over.

There have been weeks where it's been easy to meet my figures. Weeks where the last thing I've wanted to do (or had time to do) has been finding stuff to cull. And then there are the times where I've gone to deal with a pile of stuff and realised it's not the right time. And that's one of the things I've really appreciated about Seven Things - because I'm the one making the decision about what's going each week I've not had the pressure to cull stuff which I'm not quite ready to get rid of. And instead of feeling like a failure I simply move on to find something else whose time has come.

Sometimes the hardest thing has been dealing with unexpected gifts from friends - although very welcome I did have to approach, with a sense of humour, the "problem" of having friends who are "too" generous just when I think I have my figures for the week sorted!

Without any further ado, here are this week's figures:

In:

* 1 1950s placemat, 1 pair cream knitting needles, 1 black & white flowery box.

* Gift from Taph: another pair cream knitting needles, 3 more balls wool for the Koolhaas wristwarmers.

Total In this week: 7

Out:

* My favorite black and white spotty bra which has started trying to stab me in the chest while I'm wearing it: bin

* Angel swap for one of the participants in my Swap-Bot January Black & White Swap: 16 items

* 6 black and white scarves (I don't wear scarves so, pretty as they are, it's silly keeping them), 2 headbands (I had 4. I only have one head. I only use headbands to keep back my hair when I very occasionally use a face pack. I really should have got rid of 3 but I gave myself a break), 1 white sunhat which makes me feel like a cricket umpire when I wear it (and not in a good way): op shop

* 6 broken bits of dolls house furniture which I'm never going to bother mending, even if I could: bin

Total Out this week: 32

Shake-it-all-about:

* Socks

Net items out so far during Seven Things Spring/ Summer: 366.5

(which means I averaged nett 2 items out per day over the six month period!)

I ran some other figures and discovered this rather interesting (I think) statistic:

Items In Sept 2007 - Feb 2008:

Which makes me happy for so many reasons...

Eeny Meeny Miney Mo

Hang a sock up by the toe:If it squeals, let it goEeny Meeny Miney Mo

(I'm thinking my blog should be called Socks and cupcakes at the rate I've been going over the past week...)

A spot of morning tea

Gluten and dairy-free cupcakes, iced using the icing thingy I bought *blush* two years ago and finally decided to try out (in true TSS style, a mere half hour before I was due out of the house to work). I think they worked out OK.

My wheat-free colleague certainly thought so...and was rather excited that she had a choice of not one but two sorts of cake to eat, neither of which were orange and almond. Plus a selection of gluten-free crackers and dips: