Why I'm not into Halloween

When I was a kid, we didn't have much to do with Halloween in Australia. It was an American thing. On the 31st of October, there'd be a piece at the end of the news with people in weird costumes standing around piles of pumpkins and that was just about all I'd hear about Halloween. It was an exotic custom that belonged to a different culture.

But not only that. Some years, kids would come around our house dressed up in white sheets and witches hats. (Never with their parents of course. It was a simpler time.) My Mum would give them a lecture on the Americanisation of Australian culture and then send them away. Any time Halloween was mentioned on TV or we saw a display of Halloween-themed merchandise at the supermarket, she'd embark on a rant about how everything American was over-running everything Australian.

With an upbringing like that, I'm sure you can imagine what I thought of Halloween. To me, it was just another overblown commercialised holiday designed to make money, like Valentine's Day. Plus, I don't like anything scary -- scary movies, practical jokes, haunted house rides, etc. Even mock-scary things make me feel uncomfortable.

It wasn't until I was older and did my own research that I found out about the older tradition of Samhain and how it's tied in to Pagan practices. I also learned more about the traditions of Halloween from a psychological perspective and how exposing yourself to mildly scary things can relieve greater fears. It was very interesting and explained a great deal, but I still wasn't into Halloween. While I have a different perspective now, I still don't think I can embrace Halloween the way everyone around me is.

I mean -- I live in the Southern Hemisphere. Why would I celebrate a harvest holiday in Spring?

Spooky Cheese.

The dissonance between my experience of living in the Southern Hemisphere and the Northern Hemisphere experience becomes particularly acute at this time of year. I've felt it especially in the last 5 years or so. I think it's due to social media. Whenever I log onto Facebook or Instagram, my feed is literally filled with photos of Happy Halloween graphics, pumpkins, Autumn leaves, carved pumpkins, people in Halloween costumes, pumpkin pies, Samhain spell suggestions, pumpkin spice lattes. (Seriously, people are obsessed with pumpkins at this time of year!)

We can't even buy pumpkins at the moment because they're not in season. And there's no canned pumpkin in Australia. It might not seem like a big thing, but it does have a tendency to make me feel isolated and out of step. (Not just the pumpkin thing, but the whole cultural phenomenon.)

So when I see the Australians around me wholeheartedly embracing Halloween, it's a bit disconcerting. I'm sure that Pagans who follow the local seasonal cycle will be celebrating Spring right now, so I can't help but think some of the people here who celebrate Halloween aren't doing it with the depth that would show a true respect for Samhain. I can't really begrudge them though and I don't want to sound like I'm complaining -- it does look like a whole lot of fun!

Yet Another Public Holiday

A new state-wide public holiday is coming up soon in Victoria, Australia. Unfortunately, its announcement wasn't met with the excitement and undying gratitude of the public that the Government probably expected. Grand Final Friday falls on 2nd October, the Friday before the AFL (Australian Football League) Grand Final. Yes, it's a holiday devoted to sport, and it's not our first one!

Picture source.
Objections to the new holiday came from various sources. Traders were not happy as they would have to pay their staff double-time wages, and business would drop the same way it does for other public holidays. Politicians from opposing parties called it a cynical grab for votes. Even the AFL weren't happy. You see, that day is reserved for the traditional Grand Final Friday parade through the city. Normally, city workers on their lunchbreaks make up a fair proportion of the audience and without them, the Grand Final Friday parade could be a fizzer.

And why am I putting "Grand Final Friday" in capital letters anyway, when it wasn't even a thing until a couple of months ago?!

Many others thought it was all a bit pointless, really. We already have enough holidays devoted to sectarian religions, racist colonialism and flimsy excuses for drinking and gambling. Not everyone likes football. Why add another holiday that will possibly only serve to divide the community?

Picture source.
The only one who seems to be pleased that there's a new public holiday is the downtrodden footy fan on the street. Despite our laidback image, Australia ranks near the bottom of the world when it comes to public holidays, with 9 national holidays per year, and 1 to 2 extra state-wide holidays per state. I'm certainly not saying that we don't need an extra holiday! To date, in the state of Victoria, there's been a big gap between holidays in Winter. Queen's Birthday is at the start of June. Melbourne Cup day, a statewide holiday and the other sport-related holiday that I referred to earlier, is in November. That's five whole months of Winter grind to get through betwen public holidays. It's been a source of public commiseration for years. So a new holiday that breaks the drought is very welcome, but we already have one based around sport -- perhaps we could have thought of something different?

Picture source.
As I mentioned, most of the other states in Australia have 1 or 2 state-wide public holidays a year as well, but none of them are sport-related. The ACT has Family & Community Day. Western Australia has Western Australia Day. Not very original, but at least it's something everyone can relate to. South Australia has Proclamation Day, though it falls the day after Boxing Day so I think they're just trying to get an extra day at Christmas! Northern Territory has Picnic Day. Picnic Day! What a wondrous thing! Not only does it celebrate picnics, but it also celebrates the freeing of indentured labourers. That's a holiday everyone can get behind.

Whether you like football or not, we have a new public holiday. I'm sure everyone will spend it doing things they enjoy, whether sport-related or not, so who am I to complain? All I know is, I have a three-day weekend coming up, it's Spring and life is good.

Picture source.

The Outdoors ... Fail!

Last weekend I (perhaps somewhat naïvely) decided that Husband and I should go on a picnic and forest walk at our local Gorge. We'd never been there before, but we drove past it on our way to a birthday function last month, and I thought it might be a nice place to visit. To prepare, Husband made some curries which he packed into our Tiffin picnic set, and I made sausage rolls for entree. I won't post the recipe as there isn't one, but here are some progressive shots:

We had some trouble finding the picnic area as the GPS kept wanting to take us around to the other side of the gorge. Eventually, after going down some bumpy dirt roads, we found it. There was already a large group there who looked settled in for the afternoon. Thankfully we hadn't brought anything that needed cooking on the single barbeque that was there. Unfortunately I didn't get any shots of the curries or of our picnic spread at all. The place was infested with wasps that kept flying in our faces and trying to land in our food, so we scarfed down our food as quickly as we could. It was also a little disconcerting when members of the other group kept staring at us as they walked past to use the toilet that was situated not far from our table.

I'd also wanted to go for a walk on some of the walking trails that the Intertubes had promised were there. The last few times we'd gone bush (Chiltern National Park, for example), the walking trails had been nicely signposted with the name of the trail and estimated time to walk it. Nice and civilised. However, there were no signs whatsoever and we couldn't really figure out where the walking trail started -- or even if there was one at all. It was a little disappointing. As we were walking back to the car to drop off our picnic equipment, we were still in the mind to possibly try and find the trail. Just then however, about 8 more cars-full of rowdy families arrived. That made the decision for us. We got in the car as fast as we could and went straight back home!

I did manage to get a couple of photos before we fled, though:

Perhaps I've been conditioned from a young age, or perhaps I just spend too much time on Pinterest, but I can't help thinking that the Australian bush is ugly compared to the majestic Redwood forests of the U.S., or the damp, moss-covered pine forests of Europe.

Next time, we might visit our local Scrubland, or our local Culvert.

Books Are People

From WeHeartItOr at least, they have many of the same characteristics.
Because I welcomed 8 new books into my life on the weekend, I decided that today my Declaration of De-Cluttering would focus on books. Of course, you would never just throw a book in the bin. That would be even worse than, say, covering it with paint and sticking bits of paper all over it. Ahem. Or ripping pages out of it and sticking them in your art journal. A-HEM!

No, I don't plan on doing anything that drastic, don't worry! I either give my books away to the Salvos or I put them in the Information Centre's book swap stand at work. I have an especially hard time letting books go. It's very rare that I would get rid of a non-fiction book - I might need the information again one day. And with novels, there might just be a chance that I want to read it again. About 5 years ago, I joined BookCrossing. It's that thing where you leave books in random spots for other people to find and read and pass on themselves. I released a few books myself, but I missed them too much and wished I'd kept them. A Wizard of Earthsea - that was a really good book. I wish I'd been able to re-read it before I saw the movie. It was a really old copy that smelled good, too. And Music and Silence by Rose Tremain. I might have read that again. Later I found out it was nominated for a Whitbread Award. I would definitely have kept it if I'd known that.

*sighs*

This morning before work I thought I'd choose a book to give to the Information Centre book swap (I actually owe them 3). I stood in front of (one of) my bookcase(s) trying to decide for about 5 minutes before abandoning the whole undertaking. I chose the wrong bookcase, obviously. Perhaps I'll throw away something easier today. It's only Day 3, after all.

There's one book though, that my mind keeps spiralling back to. I have a bit of a dilemma surrounding this book. I won't tell you what it's called - that would be a bit mean. You'll see what I'm talking about. This book was sent to me for free on the proviso that I post a review of it on LibraryThing. This is easier said than done. I received the book nearly a year ago, and I haven't been able to get past Chapter 3. It's a junior book in the vein of Harry Potter, mixed with some Alice in Wonderland. Sounds easy, right? Well, every time I open it up, I feel like my brain is melting and sliding out through my ears. The plot is derivative and stale. The characters are lifeless. The storyline plods heavily along. There are enough typos and grammar errors to give me an aneurysm. I don't think they even used spell-check. I'm serious. And the writing style ... imagine you're walking down the street and every two steps you stub your toe on a broken piece of footpath. That's what reading this book is like.

It's quite obvious that the publishers of this book were fishing for some good reviews by readers grateful to receive a free copy. But I don't even want to finish it, let alone review it! The whole thing is made even yuckier by the fact that there's a positive review of the book on LibraryThing already - written by it's author. That's just trashy.

Of course, you would never just throw a book in the bin, right? But the thought of a young child reading this book when they could be reading Ursula le Guin, Philip Pullman or even J. K. Rowling, sends cold shivers down my spine.

I don't know what to do!

Crochet, the Couch and Cups of Tea

Cat and a hot water bottle, originally uploaded by stripedtiger71.
What is the go with this extended cold??

Is is Climate Change? Have we entered a Nuclear Winter and no-one told me? Have I slipped into an alternate universe where it's always frikkin cold a la The Chronicles of Narnia? The cat hasn't started talking or anything, so that can't be it.

The cold has been making me kinda sad and grumpy, but this week I've been determined to get past it and get on with my life. I've started making a knitted scarf/necklace thingy, and I'm a bit excited about it because I got to start making it within 12 hours of having the idea instead of letting it slide away into the ether like so many of my ideas often do. I wonder if they're floating around out there somewhere, waiting to slide into someone else's head? Is that how they get into mine? Perhaps I should have a nice cup of tea.

Things I Want Right Now:
* cupcakes!
* tea from a teapot with a tea cosey on it!

Things That Irk Me #142

When instructions for a craft project say to use a certain material, but only say the brand and don't say what it actually is.

For example, I have seen a few projects lately that say, "use Elmer's to to attach the [whatever it is]". What is Elmer's? We don't have it here in Australia! They could at least say what it is! Is it a white PVA glue, a clear tacky glue, a school paste? Would it be so hard to add just a few words so that I know what SORT of glue to buy? Do I have to google it? Can I be bothered?

Egh!

Saturday Morning

I've spent all morning de-cluttering my laptop. According to Mike Nelson's Stop Clutter From Stealing Your Life, there is such a thing as computer clutter! I've organised all my craft patterns and stationery downloads into folders. Now, with only 4 clicks, I'm able to tell you that I have 7 different gift tag PDFs to choose from, so there's no need to buy any. I have 3 types of To Do Lists, but no Thank You cards. (What does that say about me??)

I was feeling pretty proud of myself! A few months ago, I cleared up my email and set it up to automatically sort different types of emails into folders. That was immensely helpful. Except for one little thing:

I really need to cut down on some of my email subscriptions!
Hope everyone is having a relatively stress-free pre-holiday time.

[Later:] I walked to the post office to pick up a parcel (I'm a complete advocate of online gift shopping!) and I happened to walk past the Wool Shop. It has 'traditional' opening hours and it's not normally open when I'm in that area. But it was today. I'm glad I travelled light, and I didn't have my credit card on me, or else it could have been a real disaster. I didn't go in, but as I glanced through the front door, I noticed a basket full of handmade hats and scarves with a sign on it saying "$15". Fifteen dollars?! I don't know much about selling through shops, but I imagine the maker would probably get $5 to $10 after the shop takes its cut. I'm more certain that each of the items in the basket would have taken at least 3 to 4 hours to make, minimum. That's practically sweat shop wages! I was a little outraged. I would not buy an item that I knew was handmade for that cheap. I have heard of sellers on Etsy having a lot more success after they increased their prices, and now I'm starting to understand why. If you want to feel good about buying something handmade, then you want to feel good about paying the maker a decent price for it, too.
Just my thought of the day.

Flurries of activity

Mini monster is finished!

Perhaps one of my New Years' Resolutions should be to take better photos!
He's a few days late, oops. I'm terrible with deadlines. I love to do things for people and send them things, but I'm no good at actually organising it to be done. I have an excuse this time, though. You see, Boy downloaded Sim City 3000 for me. I'd mentioned to him that I was a bit nostalgic for it. I'd been completely obsessed with it about 6 years ago. Then my computer died and I lost all my cities, as well as my not-quite-legal copy of the game. I grieved, and I moved on. Other computer games filled in the gap. None of them had quite the same charm, though. Now it's back in my life - and it's back with a vengeance! My first city is named Lennyville (after my laptop). I may never craft again. (Just kidding.) Actually, SimCity is quite a good game for the crafter, as you can leave it running on the slowest setting and do some craft while you decide what to build next. As long as I keep one eye on the info bar where any problems or complaints come up, I'm easy!

Anyway, monsty is finally done. I thought ahead a little bit and made all of his arms and legs first before I started on the body. That way I got the fiddly bit over and done with, and I didn't have to worry so much about running out of yarn and/or not being able to re-create what I had done before. I think I will do it that way from now on. I had some trouble with his hair. First I tried embroidering it with eyelash yarn for a fuzzy look. I failed completely. No, it wasn't me, it was the yarn. Grr! I DON'T recommend doing this. The fuzzies on it make it impossible to pull through the hole, and the yarn is very weak so it snaps when you try to pull it hard. Resulting in much aggravation. When I switched to plain black acrylic I had much more luck. It took quite a while to cover his whole head though, and I'm not all that happy with the result. To me he looks like an army recruit! The monsters definitely need hair, though. They just look naked without it. The three methods I've tried are:
1. needle felting (Monstrous Muriel);
2. embroidery (mini-monster);
3. holding eyelash yarn together with the yarn used for the body (Scary Selby)
(I know I've only shown 2 of those up til now, sorry!)
Needle felting is the most aesthetically pleasing to me and the least pain in the butt to accomplish. With this particular monster, I decided to use black buttons for the eyes, but I immediately regretted it. That indefinable aspect that gives the face personality was missing. I made a last minute decision to embroider on some eyebrows, and that helped a lot. It still takes time for me until the bits of haberdashery I've attached seem to meld together into a face and they 'come alive'. I don't really have time for mini-me to sit there and develop a personality - I have to send him off straight away and just hope the recipient can see something in him. I also sent my swap partner the green and purple Japanese braid that I showed you in progress in the last post. I couldn't think of anything to do with it straight away, so I neatened up the ends into tassels and put it in with the package. I figure the green is quite festive!

I got so excited about working on monsters that I even got out the long-neglected Scary Selby and finished off his head as well. I've only got his arms to go now! Selby has the most adorable face; I can't wait to show him off to the public.

Last Thursday I also went to the Kris Kringle Night Market at Northcote Town Hall. I'm so glad that some of my friends could come along as well and support the handiness. I picked up some neat stuff:

There's an elfy Christmas decoration from jellibat, a little pouch to keep my USB stick in so it doesn't get lost in my bag, and a giant pincushion from the MS Society stall. I did get a couple of other things, but I can't show them to you because they're gifts. Even though I spent a little more than I would normally on these items, I loved doing it because I know they're made by someone from start to finish, not just churned out of a pollution-belching factory somewhere.

My copy of Japanese Braiding for Beginners arrived on Friday as well. I'll talk more about that next time. That one was a reward to myself for achieving my first weight loss goal. I've been buying way too many presents for myself lately, though! I promise I will save up more money next month for travelling!

Work has been very very busy, and it's been annoying that I've had to spend my spare time organising things. Now that I've finally finished something though, I just have to decide whether to finish my current braid next, start a new mini-monster, or do the sausage dog with antlers embroidery I found on a blog the other day. Decisions!

Eight Great Products

I've decided to make like a poor person in the interests of my trip that's coming up in about 5 weeks now. However, this has made me even more excited about all the wonderful crafting equipment that's out there. Here's a summary:

Eight Great Products I'd Like to Get my Hands On

1. Padding Compound - This is the stuff that's used to glue notepads together. All you have to do is clamp some pages together, paint it along the edge and Voila!, you've made your very own note pad. For a compulsive list maker and increasingly enthusiastic re-user like me, it would be very handy. You could probably apply it to lots of other craft projects as well.

2. Diamond Glaze - It's a varnish that pours on thick, like a layer of resin, and it can be used on bottle caps, fridge magnets, paper, fabric, just about anything. You just pour it on, without the time consuming mess, faffing around with moulds and noxious fumes of resin. Well, probably not quite as many noxious fumes, relatively speaking.

3. Gel Medium - This medium is used with acrylic paints to change their properties. It can slow down the drying time and other stuff. I found out from the interwubs (bless it!) that you can also use it to transfer images. Paint it on the image, lay it on down face down onto your surface, and rub hard. Peel the paper off and whammo! The image is now on something else! I know this one is freely available, and less than a 15-minute walk away too, it's just that I don't think my credit card can take much more of a beating right now. But I want it!

4. Glitter - Oh sure, it's readily available in Australia, but have you seen how expensive it is? Why is that?? I wonder if I can make my own.... hmmm....

5. Temporary Marker - It's a fabric marking pen that magically disappears 48 hours after it's applied. How wondrous! I really need that cos I tend to go a bit overboard with the dressmaker's chalk and everything ends up with orange marks on it. You'd want to make sure you can finish your project in one go though. Often that's not possible for me!

6. Double-Sided Interfacing - I'm not sure what the official name for this stuff, but it's iron-on interfacing that's sticky on both sides. You'd think it would be easy to get a hold of, but no. The fact that Spotlight doesn't label anything properly and when it does, it doesn't specify one side or both, makes it quite difficult. Grrrr! (*busts a vein*) Boy and I were there just last Sunday, and we had a very stimulating conversation about why less people are shopping at big chain craft stores and how shopping online is much easier and more convenient. On that particular occasion, I would have much rather have spent a little extra on postage than spend money on petrol and parking, waste time wandering around the shop to find what I was looking for, paw through heavy bolts of fabric that were improperly labelled, spend more time in line waiting to pay, and finally leave with only one of the three things I was looking for.
Okay, rant over now!

7. Stencil Set - I never thought I'd hear myself saying that I want a tool that's used in quilting, but there you go! I can't for the life of me cut fabric into even squares or rectangles. They always end up looking really hinky and thus the end product does also! I'd really love one that can do circles and ovals of different sizes for both fabric and paper projects. There are times when I want my work to look handmade not homemade - and trust me there is a difference! I don't mind if a sewn fabric pouch that I'm just using myself is a little wonky, but if I'm putting them out there for public perusal, I don't want them to be too embarrassing. Not that I would try and sell pouches anyway, probably. There's about 3 trillion of them on Etsy already anyway. It must be a Thing. Anyway, I digress.

8. A photocopier - Colour, of course! Well, a girl can dream, can't she?

What I did last Winter...

... well, a couple of weeks ago, anyway.

I had so many projects in progress that I was determined to finish something. Even if it meant breaking out the needle and weaving ends in! I finally finished these:

I started them in March 2006. This was the most annoying, frustrating and infuriating project I have ever worked on. The pattern didn't make sense, it requires at least 6 double-pointed needles (which means you have to buy 2 sets), for a utilitarian project the back is pretty fugly (picture on the right), it has 12 ends to weave in (24 in my case as I was knitting with two strands), ... well, you get the gist. I feel like I've been whingeing and ranting a bit too much lately, so I'm going to try and cut back a bit.

On a more cheery note, I finished Monstrous Muriel!:

I'm not too sure about the shape of her body and position of her legs, but I love everything else, especially her needle-felted perm. I can't decide whether to keep her, donate her to Softies for Mirabel, or put her on Etsy (my craft inferiority complex being the main reason why I'm wavering on the second or third option).

Meanwhile, I'm mainly bludging of an evening, and failing to get up the motivation to do anything. I did a little work on Scary Selby earlier tonight - it took some courage to try to solve the top-of-head-looking-hinky problem, but I think I'm doing all right. I ran out of steam just before the end and swapped to the beret for a few rows.
I made up a list of things to do on the weekend. I love making lists. It's kinda the only craft-related thing I can do at work without looking obviously like I'm not working. (I did have an actual idea at work that I wrote down yesterday, too.) I have soooo many things on that list that I'm gonna do this weekend! I can't wait!

P.S.
Oh, I keep forgetting - when I was in Daylesford I bought this book:

It's very cool and inspirational. I really have to get out my sewing machine!

Magazines

I let my subscription to Creative Knitting lapse - because it was shit* - and I subscribed to Handmade instead. I figured that as I was branching out in my crafty endeavours, this would give me some ideas for different crafts. I received my first issue in the mail yesterday. Perhaps I should have put in a bit more research before I decided where to switch my loyalties to. Or perhaps it was just an unfortunate issue to be my first. It's the bumper Christmas issue!

Well, I don't celebrate Christmas, and I only like Christmas decorations for their kitsch value, which kinda cuts out anything made after about 1980. Now, if it had a Dias de los Muertos issue, that would rock big time! As if! At least there's some sites in the U.S. that cater to that, like the Crafty Chica. It also had a rather disturbing preponderance of teddy bears. I like most stuffed animals, and even beanie kids, but traditional teddy bears just don't float my boat. Sometimes they even make me wanna cry. I don't know why. I must have deep-seated emotional issues.
Anyhoo.

I've been having a lot of fun making my monsters lately. I like them a lot more than the kokeshi dolls. They can be lumpy and lop-sided and have 7 arms and it doesn't matter. I feel a lot freer and less pressure to make them perfect. In an effort to give them more personality, I've decided to write a new zine called 'Monster Stories' or something similar, with a half-page story about each monster and a drawing of her/him. I might make both black-and-white and deluxe colour versions. Maybe I'll make a little mini-booklet to offer with each monster with the same information. Course, this may take some time as it takes me forever to make each monster.

Meanwhile, my brain has been obsessed with how to turn this into a softie:

An individual of the species Brongla.
It's my first Spore creature! Isn't he cute!

*goes back to obsessing*

---

* Why was it shit? They take patterns from British magazines (with permission or not, I don't know) and Paton's pattern books for almost all of their content. There seems to be a lot of padding to make the magazine longer - unnecessarily large title headings, etc. Often, the finished item isn't shown from different angles; there's often just a single photo and you can tell the close-ups (when there are any) are all just zoomed in from the main photo. In the last few issues, there were no articles whatsoever. I buy magazines more for the patterns than the articles anyway, but many people don't. Also, the patterns were always pretty dull and uninspired. Yet another plain, stocking stitch jumper with a bit of froo-froo on the bottom hem. I've read similar complaints from other readers on their forums, which they don't seem to have addressed. And really, I already have more patterns than I could possibly knit in my lifetime. I've gotten much better patterns for free, Knitty being only one of hundreds of great sources. Then there's Twist Collective, a new online magazine where the articles are free, and you pay individually for the patterns you want. I must check it out sometime! But to be honest, I've gone off pattern collecting a bit. Even vintage ones don't excite me much anymore. I'm more interested in the pictures in them than the patterns. There's much scanning and printing and collaging fun to be had!

Something a bit different... (Ambivalent about the Olympics)

Normally, I don't go off the topic of crafting very much. But there's an issue that's been growing in my mind for the last few weeks, and in a few days’ time, I won’t be able to ignore it any longer. The Olympics are coming.

Now, I don’t like sport. I hate it. (Other than tennis, but that’s my own eccentric little hiccup.) Except for the Olympics. In the past, I had an unbridled enthusiasm for it. You might even call it a mania. It didn’t matter if it was the first round of the Handball or an elimination kayak race, I was totally there. In 2000, when I worked in a call centre, my shifts coincidentally left me with 8 free days of 24-hour Olympic madness. I would sit up until 2 or 3am watching the telecast. I would get up the next morning, switch on the TV, and watch it all again. Roy and H.G.’s wrap-up show The Dream provided me with my only link to normal human interaction. I did concede to have lunch with a friend at one point though, but I insisted on going to a foodcourt where I knew a TV would be on, and travelling by a route where I knew the telecast would be on display in shop windows. After the Olympics finished, I bought The Dream on video and watched it over and over until the tape died.

In 2004, I had more work commitments; my mania expressed itself in eating nothing but souvlakis for 16 days. This is true. I lived on my own, so I could get away with it. It didn’t matter if it was Molvania vs. Kraplachastan in the initial round of the Graeco-Roman wrestling, or if it was an Australian actually winning a gold medal in a sport other than swimming, and missing the first half because the broadcaster didn’t realise what was happening until it was almost too late. For 16 days, once every four years, I believed. I was a naïve and trusting devotee to the Olympic dream. Everyone is invited, everyone gets a go, everyone has an equal chance. Or do they?

I’m sure just about everyone has heard about the controversy in the lead-up to the 2008 Beijing Games. China was only allowed to bid for the Games because it promised to make improvements to the human rights situation in that country. Many people think it hasn’t kept this promise. Tibet isn’t free, millions of people are being summarily evicted to make way for dams and sports stadiums, Buddhist monks are being attacked, people are having their kidneys stolen while they meditate (if you believe that). And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s also the undetectable drugs, swimsuits which are more machine than garment, lung-damaging pollution, propaganda and restrictions on journalists, political positioning, histrionic withdrawals as athletes injure their little toe, and just today, there has been a suspected terrorist attack against the Chinese police.

The commercial television coverage just gets worse and worse every time. I don’t know how much more I can take of Bruce McAvaney verbally masturbating over some Aussie swimmer who came seventh in the qualifiers. And let’s face it, the opening ceremonies are pretty crap. (Except for Athens. That was brilliant.) I had a quick look at the state of TeeVee for this Friday night - Channel Ten are putting on Star Wars Episode 1. Whoever would want to watch that has already seen it. And SBS are giving it a go with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. At least that’s relevant! I however, have RSVP’ed to a friend’s birthday dinner, and it would be rude to pull out, wouldn’t it? Thankfully the Opening Ceremony is being repeated on Saturday morning. Saved by the blanket repeat! Phew!

I have to admit, I did start to get excited about this Olympics, and imagined myself plonked on the couch for a straight fortnight glued to the box (Boy withstanding), but then I started to feel bad about it. Is it wrong of me to watch it on TV when there are people wrongly imprisoned, tortured and beaten? I’m torn. How should I feel? It would sicken me to hear the slick banter about our Aussie’s chances in the pool, and what a shame Kieren and Cathy aren’t still around.

I think I’ll watch SBS’s ‘complementary broadcast’ (which I’m sure is just the leftovers of what Channel Seven doesn’t want). But at least we won’t be subjected to gushing descriptions of Australia’s valiant struggle to stay in the first round of the Softball. I might get to see other countries and hear balanced commentary. I might get to hear real sports journalists, who take the efforts of developing nations seriously. (Remember Eric ‘the Eel’? I feel so bad now!) Or I might even turn the TV off for a bit.

The Beijing Olympics:

Days to go: 4
Days to go until it’s finished: 20

And just to keep things craft-related, here is a site with Olympic Crafts! [defunct]

I ATE MY OWN WORDS...

...AND THEY WERE QUITE YUMMY.

NOM, NOM, NOM.

I was hoping to do a lot of crafty stuff last weekend, not least start digging in the hobby room. But I came down sick and spent most of the weekend pouting on the couch. I did manage to read nearly half of my new biography of Marie Antoinette, though. (It's the one by Antonia Fraser - over 600 pages.) I called in sick on Monday, but I'd had a sale from my shop on Friday and I felt like I had to send it out as soon as I could. So I printed out the zines, packed them up nicely and snorked my way down to the Post Office. (That's what you call it when you're stuffed to the gills with phlegm and you're only barely holding it in). The woman weighed it and said the cost was $6. Now, I had checked on the website and according to that, the cost for a letter up to 125g would be $2. That's what I've been charging for postage on zines. This person had ordered my two longest (and therefore heaviest) zines. I really hadn't thought about that before. But I noticed on the scales the weight was 126g. That's right people, it was 1 gram over!! I was mightily pissed off, but I didn't take it out on her. It wasn't her fault. I paid politely and I wore it.

Later on though, I couldn't help thinking - if hadn't included a Moo card, if I had printed them on 80 gsm paper instead of 100 gsm, if I hadn't tied them together with a ribbon. If I hadn't included the free postcard that my special offer specified that I'd include. If I'd written my return address on the back instead of using a sticker. Perhaps if I was a really hot guy with soulful, puppy-dog eyes, she might have bent the rules for me.... But then the next person along the line probably would have marked it Return to Sender. So what can you do? It could happen to anyone.

As Frida Kahlo used to say, there's no recourse.

More later when I have pictures.

How to NOT alienate customers and piss them off

* Charge the correct amount for postage. Even if you have to guess, there are calculation tools to make it fairly accurate.
* If you undercharge for postage, wear it. It's your own fault. Don't ask the customer to pay extra.
* If you do undercharge, and you get a quote, make sure the quote is correct before asking the customer to pay the balance. If the quote is twice as much as the postage really is, a good mail order operator should at least have some idea that it's wrong.
* Oh, and don't say you won't send the goods until after the customer pays the balance. That's quite insulting.
* Of course, asking for twice as much as the postage actually costs will result in you having to turn around and admit that you overcharged the customer and give them a refund. Leading to more confusion and less customer satisfaction.
* If you do say you are going to give the customer a refund, do it straight away!
* Don't ask for or expect repeat business.

Ok, rant over now.

The rumours of my death....

Ok, I won't lie to you. I haven't been beavering away industriously in the time since I last posted. Not at crafting, anyway! Just about every night for the last 2 months, my routine has been this: Go Home. Get changed. Drive to gym. Work my ass. Drive home. Collapse on couch. Grunt. Maybe work on something really simple and mindless. Go to bed.
My fitness level has gone up from near the bottom of 'Fair' to near the top of 'Average' on their incomprehensible yet whizzy chart. Yay!!

I'll keep it quite short cause I'm not really in the mood for blogging, but here I find myself. I started working on a new kokeshi doll, but things kinda petered out when it came to the part where I had to cut some felt decorations for the body. For some reason, I just couldn't be bothered getting out the scissors. Oh well. One day, I'm sure.

I made some zines for swaps on Swap-bot. I had a lot of fun making these, though I got a bit behind on the send-by dates and had to slog a bit. The first one is Randomnosity. The theme is randomness. There are experiments, activities, articles, stories and poetry. There are instructions on how to make your own dice out of origami. All hand-drawn by me. It took quite a bit of work, and I hope it makes sense! The second one was to be about a recurring theme in my life. I wrote it about a blue ute that I often see driving recklessly around Melbourne. It's a spine-chilling tale of fear and paranoia. And road rage.

I can't decide which one I'm more proud of actually. (*head swells*)

Available in the shop now!

I keep getting creative urges at work, which is great, except I'm supposed to be working! I've set up a little dinosaur diorama in my potted plant (which I've named Jeremy) and I always have my ideas notebook on hand, just in case. Last week, I was waiting for a batch to process on the scanner. A fine-liner pen had appeared there recently. There was an almost-full book of sticky notes. What else was I to do? I doodled some characters that have been swimming around in my head for a while onto the bright pink sticky notes. I snuck them into my bag, took them home, and incorporated them into a collage in my art journal. The full-page photo came out really blurry, so I'll only subject you to the detail:

It's on a background of discarded envelopes that I also stole from work. I coloured over them in pencil, then stuck on the doodles and random bits of ephemera floating around on my crafting desk. I also did a sketch of a cat in gold texta, airbrushed a couple of shapes and globbed some liquid paper on there as well for good measure.

Then, on the weekend I bought some stuff at the supermarket and I always forget to bring my enviro-bags, and I ended up with 6 plastic bags. Six! I was so environmentally ashamed! So I decided to revive an idea I had a few years ago to make a bag out of plastic bags! (I know, everyone and his canary has had that idea since then, but I don't care.) I read about the technique of cutting up a bag to get a continuous strip in a book a few years ago. I got out a crochet hook and did it:

It's been my 'brain-dead gym-junkie zombie' project for the last week or so, so it's coming along well!

I toyed with setting some goals to do with my craft and my shop, e.g. to have 50 items listed, to make so many amigurumi, etc. But time and motivation factors are very low at the moment. Oh well, what are you gonna do?

Oh, I nearly forgot. I'm working on a top-secret project that can't be revealed under any circumstances, under pain of death! It's a moderately big one, intricate and hopefully well executed. If it works out I'll be really excited about it. Just a few more days...

I'm such a good person *smirks*

I discovered the Kiva website a few months ago and I thought it was great. They're an organisation that broker microloans between cash-poor entrepeneurs in developing countries* and cash-rich Ordinary (albeit bloatedly rich and decadent) Joes in developed countries. Each lender contributes US$25 to a loan, of which 100% goes directly to the businessperson, and which is paid back within 1 year. You can also give a straight-out donation, or buy gift vouchers.

I decided that as soon as I had made my first $25 from my shop, I would lend it to a person/group on Kiva. I want my 'business' (as I'm still hesitant to call it) to be socially and environmentally responsible right from the start. Plus we all need as much good karma as we can get!

Check out my group of entrepeneurs! I can't wait for my first email update.

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* I actually hate the term "developing country". To me, it implies that every country should aspire to be just like the U.S. And that has a bad stink.

Actual stuff

Guess what? I'm not all hot air! All this talk about making a pair of socks - well, I've actually started one:

Needles a-kimbo!

I know it all looks pretty crazy, but double-pointed needles always do. The pattern is one I copied out years ago from a book called Homespun Kandknit: Caps, Socks Mittens and Gloves by Linda Ligon, which was at the State Library. It's just about the simplest turned-heel sock pattern you can get. It's still pretty hard though!
I got a little bit excited and finished about 2/3 of it before I took a photo of it. I'll document the other sock a bit more closely.
Speak of the other sock, I'm worried I'll come down with the famed "Second Sock Syndrome" that all the cool kids are talking about in their podcasts. Just when you've finished a lovely, amazing, fantastic sock (or mitten or ear warmer, etc) and are busy admiring it, it hits you! You have to go to all the trouble of making another one before you can wear it! D'oh!
That's why I got such bright, shiny variegated wool. I'm hoping it will keep my interest for long enough to complete the pair.

I've gotten a couple of knitting books from the library lately:

1. right: So Simple Knits / Hilary Mackin. Creative Homeowner, 2006.
The projects in this book range from the bizarre to the just plain fugly. A cardigan with large multi-coloured wooden beads around the neckline, an ankle length coat made with such large needles it makes the model look like a little kid wearing her Mommy's jacket.... Actually, there are a couple of interesting-looking projects that I'm going to photocopy - a two-tone tank top and a scoop neck jumper with lacy edgings.

2. left: No-Pattern Knits / Pat Ashforth and Steve Plummer. Milner Craft Series, 2006.
This book puts forth the intriguing craft of modular knitting, i.e. knitting small shapes (squares, diamonds, triangles, etc) and attaching them together to create any kind of project you like. Unfortunately, the name is a misnomer - you do have to follow patterns, it's just a different concept of a pattern. It's the kind of pattern that involves a ruler and a pencil and paper and a calculator, and a large supply of erasers. Actually, it's a pretty interesting concept. It's very similar to patchwork. Personally, I'm not the kind of person that would be caught dead wearing a patchwork garment but hey, everybody's different! I think some cushion covers, toys or even a hat would be very worthwhile. The book really encourages the reader to think laterally, work with different materials, textures and design their own projects, which is great. At the end (like a grand finale) there's an amazing jumper made of pale green diamonds that look just like leaves. It's so different to the thick, gaily bright, gartery consistency of the rest of the book that it actually made me gasp. The construction looks like a nightmare, but I'll photocopy it anyway and keep it for best.

3. middle: Alterknits / Leigh Radford. Melanie Falick, 2005.
I was quite excited when I picked up this book. It just looks so gorgeous. I suppose it was inevitable that I'd be a bit disappointed after going through it. A lot of the projects are just fairly standard patterns with a little something extra, like some ribbon threaded through, or fabric paint applied. Some are quite different, like a cardigan made of various panels of different colours and patterns, or a crown made of crepe paper. The exercises are supposed to make you think outside the square (e.g. choosing random needles, wool and pattern to make a swatch with).

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Rant: things that annoy me slightly #262:
I do have to say at this point, cause I've seen it in a few books lately:
it's hard enough to find felting wool at a specialty yarn shop, let alone old jumpers from op shops that will felt. Generally, commercially-made jumpers are made especially NOT to felt! So therefore finding 8 to 10 of them to cut up, felt and make a blanket, etc out of is not going to be an easy process! Heck, even finding jumpers that are made of any kind of real wool and not acrylic is gonna be kinda hard! I feel so sorry for the poor sods who don't know much about felting and are gonna wash their old op shops jumpers 20 times before they realise it's not gonna work.

It'll all end in tears. That's all I have to say at this time.

Weddings, Parties, Anything...

I've been a bit busy lately. But it's knitting weather again, and I just had to start a couple of new projects.

This is the 'B-Scarf':

It's a present for someone I know, for his/her birthday. Which may or may not be coming up soon. It's made of chunky green acrylic, pure blue wool, and eyelash yarn held together. I can't stand eyelash yarn!!!!! Or fun-fur, or feathers, or ostrich or whatever the hell you want to call the damned stuff. I have a few balls of it floating around, mostly given to me, a few I actually bought cause it was so cheap, I couldn't resist. What an idiot I was! It's such a pain in the arse to work with! Never again!!

I'm also doing a project in a charity that Boy's Mum is involved with. It's making vests for babies with AIDS in Africa. They are going to send over a shipment once they have a thousand. She gave me the pattern to make them with. Here's one I started:

They have to be made with 8-ply acrylic yarn and 4mm needles, which is a bit finer than I'm used to, and it's taking a while, but it's a worthwhile thing. I'm imagining churning out tons of them and using up my whole stash of acrylic! Yeah, right!

I'm also working on the Chunky Cardigan quite a bit, and I'm nearly finished! I'm onto the sleeves, which is the last bit!:

(I'm making both sleeves at the same time on the same needle, which is why they look like a pair of lungs!)
Well, I still have to join it all up of course, which is the hardest bit. That's where I usually end up making them look like utter crap. I really don't want to do that this time. I'm scared to finish the sleeves. The pressure is too much! Argh!

Woe of the Unfinished (Boring) Project!

I was doing something over summer! Really!

On a suggestion from a work colleague, I started experimenting with cotton, after complaining about how I don't knit in warmer weather because it makes my hands all sweaty. I hadn't seen many patterns involving cotton before, but I came across one for a facewasher that looked really pretty. I wanted to make a set of 3 for a friend for her birthday. Here are some pics:

Pink facewasher nearly finished; 'petals' for green facewasher

Close-up of pink facewasher
However, there is just one fatal flaw in the pattern - they are a PAIN IN THE ARSE to make! Each of the 5 petals is made separately using garter stitch, then they are attached together into a ring, and you use 5 double-pointed needles to reduce, reduce, reduce, until the hole in the middle is closed up. There are 3 main problems with this:

1) It results in a huge number of loose ends to weave in, which have to be done neatly because there is no 'wrong side' to the facewasher.
2) Working with double-pointed needles is bad enough, but FIVE of the damn bastards??!!
3) The method of increasing used to shape the petals seems very strange to me - it's one of the methods used when you want to make a decorative hole in the work. I reverted to the good old 'knit-into-front-and-back' method.

To make things worse, the author uses a special method of starting and ending each row, supposedly to keep the edges neat, but I found it made them look even worse, and was logistically almost impossible to do. I found the way the pattern was written was very wordy and confusing. Is this supposed to be for beginners? Phah!


Needless to say, my friend did not receive any home-made facewashers for her birthday. (It was last August.) So, it seems, the facewashers are destined to sit, not-quite-finished, in their little plastic bag for the rest of their days. I can't see me hating myself enough in the near future to pick up them needles again. The lady in the picture can press her own soft, springy chenille-cotton facewasher to her smug face all she likes. I'm moving on!!

On a more positive note, if not more interesting, I'm renovating my Works In Progress and Finished Projects pages in the next few days. (See the links to the left.) [this information is now defunct]

The Handknitter's Handbook

After about a year (seriously) of procrastinating, I finally did it. I borrowed Montse Stanley's The Handknitter's Handbook from the library. Now, this is a book I'd been reading about for years. Everyone was saying that it was the best book on knitting ever produced. I knew that one day I would finally have to bite the bullet, step up and read it. Move into the big time. It really came about as an accident as it slid through the chute into the check-in room at my library. But, by a fateful coincidence, I felt I was ready.

A number of misconceptions were blown away immediately. I always thought that Montse Stanley was a man (well, it does sound kind of masculine, doesn't it?) I'd always thought it interesting that what is generally considered to be the best handbook on knitting ever written was made by a man, and I was looking forward to getting his perspective and seeing if it was any different to the ones I'd read before. And, I have to admit, there was a little bit of daydreaming about 'him' sitting by the fire with a glass of whiskey, knitting away on a cold night. So I was a little shocked to find that he (she) was a woman!

Secondly, I'd gotten the impression that Montse Stanley was a bit like the Hitler of knitting. The Knitting Nazi, if you will. Perhaps the other writers who had written about her work had mistaken 'authoritative' and 'knowledgeable' for 'stern' and 'inflexible'. For a book of knitting techniques, I actually found it quite enjoyable. For example:

"When it comes to starting or finishing a piece of knitting, it is very tempting to learn one method and then stick to it whatever the circumstances. Many knitters actually boast of ALWAYS using such-and-such. How utterly boring! What would you think of a cook who ALWAYS starts with bringing water to the boil and ALWAYS ends by adding a knob of butter?"
-- Page 62.

(Okay, so it's a bit like university-professor humour, but I think it's quite cute.)

Each technique is accompanied by illustrations which are actually detailed enough for you to understand what the technique is, and how it will look. There is also a blurb saying in what situations it could be used. The illustrations are the clearest in any book on knitting I've ever read.

The colour plates showing garments she has designed using some of the techniques are placed in the appropriate parts of the book, so you don't have to flip over 50 pages every time she refers to them!
I'm glad there aren't any patterns or instructions for making whole garments. That might sound a bit odd, but I like that she's just given the reader the choices, and lets them make their own decision on what to create. She goes through the basics, but then moves onto so much more.

I didn't mean for this to becomes a book review, but I've decided - I must own this book! I just can't afford to photocopy all the pages that I want from it:

(That's when I was about 2/3 of the way through.)

I say Hmph! to your Stitch n Bitch! Before I read Montse Stanley's book, I thought there were only 3 or 4 ways of casting on. She has over 40!! 20 ways of casting off, and about 14 different selvedges, all illustrated as to exactly how they will look. That's what you want from a knitting handbook!