the thing about football

Spot the dye job!

Posted on September 30, 2014 by bekswhoknits

The keenest of observers would have noticed I had bleach white hair on the day that my Golden Skein delivery arrived.

And my hair was bright pink and purple when my yarn from Ms Gusset arrived.

And then all of a sudden it changed to teal. I don’t actually have any teal yarn due to arrive any time soon (I don’t think so anyway – I haven’t made too many odd codeine related purchases).
It’s football related.

There were two live football games which I went to, both against a purple team. The second one was a knock-out final so there was a race against time to remove any trace of purple!

I also promised a friend that I would dye her hair teal just for the finals. So naturally at the pre-game function I became Beks the hair dresser and with the leftovers from the bottle I put streaks in two strangers hair and a beard.

Other than football watching and taking yarn selfies I also participated in my first Ravelry swap.
I sent a package of yarn and yarn related goodies to a randomly (but carefully) selected swapper, and in return I received a package from another swapper.

It was so much fun seeing all the awesome mail that was being sent all around the world. Since ravelry has been available through my work computer I have been spending some of my lunch breaks and sanity breaks in the forums. I’m still not sure that this is good or bad for productivity.
On one side looking at pretty yarn and pretty patterns and chatting with other ravelers about life the universe and knitting is a very good stress reliever and a good way to break up the day.
On the other side I’m not keeping up with my blog reading. A month ago I would have said that it’s also dangerous and I’ll waste too much time, but I’m barely getting a lunch break let alone wasting time. That’s when I’m at work and haven’t been deemed unfit by my doc.

Health wise this year has been rather shit. Fortunately I have the best GP who, as well as being a very thorough, qualified doctor with 4 daughters worth of personal experience, is a knitter and so every time I go and see her we have a quick chat about knitting before getting down to the medical stuff.

Still I’m feeling like a walking pharmacy, people sticking needles in my neck, the awful and not at all attractive hospital gowns, and quite frankly am sick of talking/whinging about it.

Although it has been a good excuse to go into Typo to buy a new neck support cushion. And while I was there I may have slipped and bought a cat purse, some chalkboard paint, a pompom maker, and an envelope template.
I was also sorely tempted by their Knit Your Own Cat Kit – even though I already have all of the supplies in the kit and have already knitted my own cat. That’s just what typo does to me.

Other achievements from September have included listening to 44 episodes of Welcome to Nightvale, completing 84% of Swordigo, and purchasing a giant Eeyore pillow pet.

Oh plus my parents bought a house, sold a house, moved house, Mum got older, the Boyfriend got older, we spent a long weekend in Bunbury with his family, I figured out how to make anklets, I sent off some surprise care parcels & postcards and got a surprise one in return, and you know did some knitting as well. Phew! I think I need a nap.

SOTW – Lily of Laguna

Posted on March 19, 2014March 19, 2014 by bekswhoknits

It’s Australian sportsball time again!!!!

Which means all my non-Australian twitter followers get really confused and probably ignore me while I swear profusely and talk about things like marks, free kicks & holding the ball, use hashtags like #weareportadelaide and #shutupBT, and overuse exclamation points, with the end result being something like “Woooo! Cmon Westy!!!! What a goal!!!!! #weareportadelaide #4inaquarter”.

So my Teal, Black & White team (Port Adelaide) won their first game on Saturday (WOOOOOO!!!!!) against Carlton denying them the chance to sing their club song.

Naturally I’ve been singing it instead. But not the Carlton version, the Bing Crosby version which fortunately is the less racially offensive version.

For those who are utterly confused about why a group of grown men in short shorts are ~~singing~~ shouting Bing Crosby, please see this post from last year about a group of grown men in short shorts singing Ziegfeld Follies

A loss, a cold, and some more embroidery

Posted on August 26, 2013August 26, 2013 by bekswhoknits

Saturday was both good and bad. I got to see my team live, and hold out the banner for them to run through. But we got absolutely thrashed.
Then with five minutes to go a cheer rang out when another games result went in our favour so we are playing finals for the first time in 5 years!!!
HeWhoFishes has never seen finals-Bek so this could be interesting. It’s like football-Bek but a bit more extreme and with more yelling / crying / drinking.

Sunday I didn’t go more than 2 meters away from a box of tissues.
With no voice (half football yelling / half cold) I invented a code so the other half knew when I wanted another cup of tea.
It involved throwing things and miming a cup of tea. And was surprisingly effective. I think he still felt bad for bursting out into raucous laughter every time he heard me speak.

I worked a little more on my black books embroidery. And I spent quite a bit of time surfing through Wild Olive.
If you’ve never visited her blog before, she does all sorts of really cool embroidery and makes the most adorable printables. (How cute are these pencils!)
She has taught me how to do french knots, and I now know how to do laisy daisies and chains.

I made an embroidery needle book which now lives next to my scissors and my brand new stitch marker holder (thanks again Keri!).
I also went through and put all of my embroidery floss onto cardboard.
This is about as organised as I am ever going to be!

FO 16 – a not so lucky cowl

Posted on July 8, 2013July 8, 2013 by bekswhoknits

This cowl has been on the needles for three weeks now. And in all those three weeks my football team have won.
But when I wore it for the first time yesterday, we didn’t win.
I’m still more inclined to blame the players, particularly as inaccurate kicking was clearly an issue yesterday so I’ll give my scarf another challenge next week against the team on top of the ladder.

But enough about football, and onto the knitting.

This gorgeous yarn is from ladybug fiber company.
I was researching for my birthday wish list (which no one in my family took any notice of anyway) and I found the perfect teal, grey, and black yarn.
A quick twitter poll told me to buy it and I obeyed.

The perfect pattern had to be found, and when I stumbled upon this cute but simple rib cowl I was on to a winner.

I made it longer than the pattern indicated because I wanted it to wrap around twice. And I’m super happy with it. Even if Port Adelaide don’t win every time I wear it.

Somehow I managed to get another piece of Port Adelaide merchandise in every single shot (except the back of the boat). Purely coincidence. Or proof that I own a lot of merch.

My Ode to AFL

Posted on April 18, 2013April 18, 2013 by bekswhoknits

For my lovely blog readers who are not from Australia, you may be wondering what on earth that video I posted yesterday was all about. Or what are the events leading up to a group of burly gentlemen standing in a circle singing (I use that term loosely) an old show tune and throwing around powerade.

Allow me to explain a few things about a sport I love, Australian Rules Football.

Apart from being one of the greatest sporting codes in the world (cricket is a close second, nearly equal first), it has it’s own set of quirks which I think make it pretty special, which aren’t found in a lot of other sports.

The Banner
Slogans are chosen and thought up, and each week the cheer squad will craft together a banner from sticky tape and crepe paper.
Then all of that hard work is promptly destroyed by the players running through it before the game.
Last year I was part of the crew to hold up the banner which was really awesome, but it’s a pretty strange tradition.
Here’s a video celebrating a players 100 games achievement.

The Crowd
With the record crowd numbers up at the 100 thousand marks, the crowds can be deafening.
But we don’t have set cheers, or songs to chant.
The only thing close to a coherent cheer is when the crowd come together to yell “ball!!” in an attempt to convince the umpire to pay a ‘holding the ball’ free kick.

This phenomenon even happens in pubs where yelling is very unlikely to influence an umpires decision, but we like to think we can try.

We also yell out players names like “Breust” and “Dew” so it sounds like we’re booing our own team.

The Point For Trying
You get six points for kicking the ball through the two big sticks, and 1 point if you hit the post or get it through the shorter sticks.

If we gave out points for difficulty, some of these would be more than 6 points.

The Human Step Ladder

When you don’t have quite enough players to go out and play a full game, it usually turns into step ladder practice or ‘king of the pack’, where one person kicks the ball to everyone else and they all try to catch it.
Kind of like the bouquet toss at a wedding.

Invariably someone will try and emulate the boys on TV and try and use a smaller kid as a step ladder.
The video explains the high flying mark, and why Mum’s everywhere don’t want their kids playing AFL.

The Song
After the burly gentlemen have run through crepe paper, had the crowd pretend to be expert umpires, been given points for trying, and used each other as step ladders, one team wins and one team loses. (Except if it’s a drawn grand final when we come back and play the following week. Seriously that happened once.)
After one team wins they all stand in a circle and sing a song. (See yesterday’s post.)
Each club has a song, and which songs are good and bad is a subject best left for Internet comment sections and arguments with strangers in pubs.
I (unsurprisingly) love my team’s song. I think it’s perfect for pub singing and fist pumping.

These are just some of the reasons I love Australia’s game. I plan social engagements around football games, will share a football opinion with anyone who listens, and I will judge you on what your football team is.

And just in case you think that this all sounds a bit namby pamby, I’ll leave you with a video which demonstrates just how tough these guys are (and without any padding, shin guards, or even cups!)

Stuck In My Head – Vivian Blane (or Prelude to my Ode to AFL)

Posted on April 17, 2013 by bekswhoknits

A week ago I hadn’t even heard of this song.
However a fortunate twitter conversation with @weareaustralia (australia’s curated twitter account) led me down a rabbit hole to find this song.

It tells the charming story of Johnny and Flo who have a regular Sunday outing to go “rowing”.
But best of all, it’s also the song which the Richmond club song is based on (but more on that tomorrow.)

Please compare and contrast the two versions.

And as always, here’s the full ‘Stuck In My Head 2013’ playlist.

The first post where I brag about my holiday

Posted on July 27, 2012July 27, 2012 by bekswhoknits

Well I though I was going to be a good blogger and update with photos and anecdotes while I was in Melbourne.

Instead I spent all my time stepping away from social media. Except to check-in using yelp wherever I went.
Last time I was in Melbourne I got home and didn’t know where I went, and wasn’t going to let that happen this time.

Particularly as we went to a few places, but one in particular (Trunk I’m looking at you) where the service was so horrible and we all left absolutely disappointed and sharing some Buscopan tablets.

But all in all it was a good weekend, way too short, and we’re now planning the next one (if you’re listening AFL- we want to see Adelaide at the MCG).

My knitting went on the plane with me and met no hassles. Not that I had any knitting time actually in Melbourne, but between the two flights I managed to get some uninterrupted knitting done.

I will spend more time on Melbourne and post some photos when I transfer them, but I didn’t take half as many photos as I wanted.

But thanks Melbourne and see you again soon.

This was the view from our hotel room.

~~~
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Sport, movies, rain

Posted on June 11, 2012June 11, 2012 by bekswhoknits

It was definitely a weekend to stay inside and keep cozy.

Apart from going to my local to watch my boys lose and wait for a non-existent roast, which only in hindsight wasn’t worth leaving the house for.

So inside I stayed and knitted. I finished off my Riff socks (but more on those on Friday) and immediately cast on anothe pair with the same needles and yarn and basic pattern (without the riff part).

I then wore said socks for the rest of the weekend.

I finished watching firefly. Cried at the appropriate points during Serenity. And wished that there was more.

Then needing more Joss Whedon (I finally got around to seeing The Avengers last Tuesday so I’m in a Joss mood) I started watching Angel.

It might take me a while to get into it.

So my weekend wasn’t spent with my nose in a book as I originally intended, but I did keep my (warm and cozy) feet up.

That’s the thing about football

Posted on May 14, 2012May 15, 2012 by bekswhoknits

Sometimes it goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t.
The only thing we can do as supporters is go to the games, support our club, and cheer on our side. And have a great time doing it.

I have no voice to speak of

Posted on April 23, 2012April 23, 2012 by bekswhoknits

Well the weekend got off to a bang when I made another hairpin skirt.
Then a yarn sale! Spotlight had all their yarn reduced so I picked up some more sock yarn (you can never have enough sock yarn!) and some Moda Vera Shiver in green.
Then it was back home to watch the football (port had a pretty dismal loss – with a very sickening injury in the last 30 seconds), and then go out to watch the football. The hawks – eagles game was very strange. And hawks lost which really sucked.
But at least it stopped raining after the girl next to me bought a $5 poncho. She was not impressed.

Then Sunday was spent In The Pines.
RTRfm is Perths community radio station, and they do a lot to promote local music. And in particular bands that wouldn’t otherwise have a voice.
And it was a tops way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Lieing on a picnic blanket with a couple (ok three) bottles of wine, some good music and great company.
In particular I think it might have been a first for a couple of the heavy metal bands to have someone knitting in their audience.

Dancing like a mad person to San Cisco, swooning at the sexy violin playing of The Kill Devil Hills, and rocking out to Sugar Army were the highlights of a wonderful day. Very impressed with the way it was organised and looking forward to going along next year.