mondays

Stuck in my head – wolf parade

Posted on July 31, 2013August 2, 2013 by bekswhoknits

I don’t get a lot of phone calls. And the people who do call all have their own special ringtones so I know who’s calling.
HeWhoFishes has Trail of Dead, although for the longest time he had Eartha Kitt – Girl from Ipanema
Midnitemoose has Cold War Kids – We Used To Vacation.
Hedgehog-onalog (my even though im not actually married to her brother i still call her my sis-in-law) has Hot Hot Heat – Bandages
My littlest brother has Mumford & Sons – Roll Away Your Stone
My middle brother has The Temper Trap – Fader
My Dad has Glen Miller – In the Mood
My Mum has Grandmaster Flash – The Message.

Mostly I choose ringtones because I saw that band with that person. That’s the case for the first 4 people on that list.
The last three are a bit more random. Mostly because to choose a song that reminds me of them would require me to put The Beegees (mum) or country music (my middle brother) as ringtones. Fortunately I’m quite partial to Glen Miller.

But my ringtone for everyone else is currently Wolf Parade – Shine A Light.
This week I’ve had more phone calls than all of last month combined. Real estate agents, valuers, and our mortgage broker all want to speak to me.

So every few hours I hear the opening bars of Shine A Light. Even while I was writing this post (because I do the majority of blogging on my iPhone) I heard the opening bars.

And it’s only now on reflection I think I should change it.
I’m not sure “waiting for something that will never arrive” is the vibes I want to be sending into the universe.

It’s a hard life, but someone’s got to do it

Posted on July 29, 2013August 2, 2013 by bekswhoknits

So the big news is, we’re buying a house!
Well, hopefully.

We’ve found one that we both really like, is in our price range and has ample room for fishing rods and yarn!

We’re putting in the offer today and if everyone crosses their fingers it will be accepted and we’ll both live happily ever after.

I’m not naive enough to think that this will just happen. There’s still mortgages to organise, equity to leverage and a lot of things to work out even before we can consider it a done deal. My previous house buying experience was horrible, complete with smarmy real estate agent, lost paperwork, and months of house hunting. So it can’t be any worse than that.

I don’t want to provide a link to the property in case we do buy it and then the whole Internet has my address, but here’s a little teaser.

I think I could get quite used to this view. It is a very happily situated house.

I’ve also set to work on a cushion for my youngest brother.
He’s moved into a place with some mates, and it’s definitely lacking some homely touches.

So I’ve done one side, and am still to decide what should be on the other.

I don’t know what I’m more excited about, a pantry, not hearing children (or pigs) running above us, or that I will have natural light!
I think the natural light wins.

Stuck in my head – the duke spirit

Posted on July 24, 2013August 2, 2013 by bekswhoknits

Every time I read a review about an album, or hear an interesting band name, or Shazam a song, I will find an album and make it a playlist.
Then I forget to listen to them.

So this week I started making an effort to listen to all of them.

It didn’t go to well.
I got two albums in before listening to The Duke Spirit on repeat.

I have also had the latest Editors album on repeat. It comes with a commentary which is pretty cool. I’m still undecided about the album though. I’m trying to give it a chance but it’s not the Tom Smith I know.

Jewellery for knitting

Posted on July 22, 2013July 21, 2013 by bekswhoknits

I’ve been putting off knitting Parcel for the silliest of reasons. The stitch markers I had were annoying,
A while ago, inspired by knitnrun4sanity’s; jewellery making adventures, I bought some supplies.
It was a half baked scheme which was concocted whilst in Spotlight. Ideas that happen whilst in the shop are usually half baked which means that I don’t actually know what I need, but I want to buy stuff now and not wait to research it properly.

So I bought a starter kit, a plier kit, and some pretty things that caught my eye. My first attempt was so unsuccessful that I gave up.

Now I’ve joined My Sisters Knitter’s knitalong to finish off all those pesky unfinished objects I figured I needed to do something about my stitch marker situation.

So I had a look in my big craft book which wasn’t much help. Well I didn’t have the right tools. The Internet was more useful with this tutorial on stitch markers.

I modified it slightly but I ended up with some stitch markers.

Now I have no excuses not to knit parcel.

Look at me playing wire and stuff.

I may have got a little carried away. I had only planned to make as many as I needed. Instead I used all the round things I had.
I think these mean that I can put Jewelry making basics on my new crafts to try list.

You Am I

Posted on July 17, 2013July 17, 2013 by bekswhoknits

I don’t know if You Am I were ever big outside of Australia, but for me they were one of those bands that you couldn’t avoid.
Even though I was never a massive fan they crept into movies I loved, hottest 100 CDs, and high school parties.

They played at the Astor on Sunday night and it was fantastic.

FO 17, 18, & 19 – loose ends

Posted on July 15, 2013July 15, 2013 by bekswhoknits

What a productive weekend! It was all about tying up loose ends and finishing off projects.

I found the perfect project for my Downton Abbey and tea yarn club yarn. This is some seriously gorgeous yarn, but it needed the right project.

The weeble wobble cowl was the answer.
I didn’t follow the pattern. I just did some short rows when I felt like it.

I also finally sewed some buttons on a chunky cable cowl that I finished ages ago but it’s a bit short. So I bought some buttons and sewed it together.

I also finished off a hat for a birthday present. When you immediately get a photo of the birthday boy I think it’s been well received.

I spun yarn!

Posted on July 12, 2013 by bekswhoknits

Last night I put on my big girl britches, went out, was sociable, and learnt something.
I spun yarn (sung to the tune of I Got Burned by the Bamboos if anyone’s curious.)

I met twitter friend and blogger Molly, who was teaching a spinning class at the Artifactory. I hadn’t even heard of the Artifactory before, but it’s an awesome space where creative people can hang out and make things.
While we were learning to spin, there was a band practicing, and there were people working on projects.

Molly showed us the most amazing yarn that she had spun herself! I was absolute in awe and even more determined to be able to do this.

Being the uncoordinated lady I am (so many unexplained bruises) it was an awkward beginning. But eventually it began to make sense. Words like ‘travelling twist’ started to look like something and not just random words.

And I was spinning!
I don’t think my yarn is going to win any awards, but it’s my yarn!

Stay tuned for more spinning adventures of Bek.

Stuck in my head – Dusted

Posted on July 10, 2013July 10, 2013 by bekswhoknits

I don’t talk about work often, mostly to keep some aspect of my life private. But I do have a full time job, which most days I thoroughly enjoy but always keeps me challenged and engages my brain.

Well yesterday was a tough work day. So I thought ‘what would Leslie Knope do’ and wrote down all my ideas and all my problems on sticky notes.

There were a lot. And eventually I retreated into a conference room to get more space. So no one disturbed me, or distracted me in went the headphones. Open plan offices are good for overhearing work related stuff you don’t get told directly, not so good for overhearing personal conversations and people saying stupid or enraging remarks. Headphones are in a lot of the time.

As I moved around sticky notes, I scrolled through all my spotify playlists, most of which are albums which I’ve saved for future listening.
I come across bands from so many different sources (twitter, radio, street press, websites) I lose track of which comes from where.

So I have absolutely no idea about how Dusted came to be on my playlist, but I listened to their album through three times straight.

Music to shuffle post-it notes to.

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.

Stuck in my head – The Shins

Posted on July 3, 2013 by bekswhoknits

Well if you have a look at my most played artists for this week you won’t find the shins.

We had a stereo on board, which we could both plug our phones into and there was no one around.
So when HeWhoFishes was out on the dingy I did leap at the opportunity to sing and dance around like the crazy lady I am.
And I wasn’t dancing to the shins.

But when we weren’t being nostalgic and listening to Jebediah, and I was enjoying the solitude of being away from society and on a boat, I was listening to this song.

(And just to rub it in, here’s my photo collage which I use as my work computer background. One of the reasons I use hipstamatic, Instagram, and the a beautiful mess apps is not so all my photos look twee [which I do like] but it makes it easier to put into collages because they all use the same dimensions. My work computer has no fancy unworkrelated software so I resize the photos to 7cm using microsoft word and then copy and paste them into paint. Then I can chop and change photos as I like )