A Little More Holiday

I never did finish of showing you the holiday snaps - largely because I hurt my back again and have been avoiding sitting at the computer, all is on the mend now after a bit of rest.

After Auckland we went to Rotorua where there is boiling mud:

and thermal pools with geysers:

Of course the pictures don't really do justice to the amazing eddying movement of the steam, or the plopping and hissing and whooshing, or the sulphureous smell for that matter.

Rotorua is also home to the Te Puia school of Maori carving and weaving where we saw lots of amazing work and I had a great discussion with an Aunty about working with New Zealand flax which has resulted in all sorts of interesting ideas.

Maori are the only polynesian culture to carve spirals and curves rather than just straight lines, and are they ever good at it.

After Rotorua we headed down the west coast making our way towards Wellington. I was very excited by the sight of my first snow covered mountain. In Australia you have to go up and up and up to even get near the snow, but in New Zealand you can be trundling along through farmland minding your own business - and bang all of a sudden there is a bloody great mountain.

We spent most of a day driving around this beauty - it was spectacular. We ended up in a tiny little seaside town called Otaki, no phone signal and one corner shop. Dinner was horrible but there were other things that made it more than worth while.

Once we got back I finished Scott's rug. Before blocking...

...and after...

A Little Holiday

I know it is kind of sad to reach my age without ever going overseas before, but we just had our first holiday away together in years and my first trip overseas. Not terribly adventurous, only New Zealand but it is a start. It was also the first time we have both been away from the dogs, but thanks to some magnificent house sitting by Wendy and Bevan (thanks so much guys) it all went well.

The first three days were in Auckland where Scott was attending a conference. He usually seems to end up staying in horrible places but this time the organisers recommended some nice apartments. We were up on the hill with a fabulous view of the bay.

We were at the top of K'Road which is arty and funky like the Windsor end of Chapel Street when in was cool. We found a cool lowbrow gallery called Rebel Yell where I met Polly Zee who makes totally cool monsters. You can see more of her work here (I so want the Two Face toy), I could not resist bringing Cyril & Cecil home.

Scott wagged the second day of the conference and we went to the Zoo and saw lots of cool animals.

A Galapagos Tortoise enjoying the morning sunshine.

A Spider Monkey. The Zoo has a quite a large population 0n an island and they were playing like crazy in the trees jumping and wrestling and swinging off each other. A bit hard to get pictures as the sun was in the wrong direction and they are very fast.

Golden Lion Tamarins are my favourite monkeys ever they are so tiny and have such wicked little faces. You can never get good pictures at the Melbourne Zoo because they are always behind mesh.

Cotton Top Tamarin.

A baby Orang Utan.

An insolent Lemur, although lets face it they're pretty belligerent.

For once the tiger was not sleeping up the back and had quite a boisterous play session with the super heavy duty cat toy hanging in the enclosure.

A beautiful elephant (I love elephants) we want to go back because they have a close encounter scheme where you can pay lots of money (which goes to elephant conservation) to help wash the elephants - how cool.

Rhinos are so adorable when they play, they get all prancy and gambol around - there is something about an animal of that size bouncing around all perky (Corto is bit the same).

Anyway that was Auckland, next time bits and pieces from the rest of the trip and some knitting projects finished.

Finally Cthulhu Gets Out of Bed

I forgot that I never got proper pictures of Cthulhu all finished to put up here - he went straight to the exhibition.

From behind you can see his butt dimples.

I also finished the Wool Leaves throw from a pattern by the always amazing Jared Flood. I blocked it but it looks like I did not stretch it tightly enough as it has started to wrinkle back up again.

New Things

Nothing finished since the exhibition went up, I have been madly nesting postponed knitting projects over the last couple of weeks and now have about 6 on the go at once. The exhibition has been going well, I have had lots of positive feedback and even made the front page of the local newspaper.

I had a birthday along the way and scored some lovely things. Mum made me a mosaic house number, which she and Greg installed when they visited for the exhibition opening. It is beautiful, although you can't really see the details in this picture.

Greg came home with this fabulous metal mermaid who has made a home in the garden.

Scott found this amazing Victorian watch fob, apparently you clip it to your pocket and attach a little upside down watch to the chain (like a nurses watch). It is hard to see the detail here but it has a little goblin like bulldog face on it.

Until I make myself a steampunk waistcoat with a fob pocket it is living on my hat.

Tonia gave me an original zombie picture which I love, she also bought be a completely cool bear plate but I forgot to take a picture so it will have to come later.

Plus on Saturday we were in the Silver Compaq (the coolest second hand shop ever) and we found this:

Looks kind of ordinary but wait till you see inside:

The most fabulous 1960's Italian picnic set ever (it even still has the stickers on the base of the glasses). Of course picnic weather is still a way off but we were unable to resist its modren (as Norbert would say) fabulousness.

I promise by next week I will have finished something - the Wool Leaves rug is drying from blocking as I type so that should be done for sure.

The Stars Have Aligned

It finally happened, the stars aligned the terrible Cthulhu arose and the exhibition opened on Friday night. Foolishly I did not take a picture of the finished Cthuhu before we set up on Wednesday but mum sent me her pictures from the opening night.

If you came along and are reading this thank you so much for all your support, enthusiasm and well wishes. I was so nervous about the whole thing but everyone has been fantastic.

Super extra special thanks have to go to Scott who started the whole mess by asking for an Innsmouth Golliwog, plus he puts up with my obsessive crocheting and always takes brilliant and thoughtful care of me.

Cthulhu Stirs

I really wanted Cthulhu to rise from the deep but he just rolled over mumbled a bit and went back to sleep. I honestly thought I could finish the sculpture this weekend but there is still quite a bit to go. You may wonder what I was doing gallivanting about on a road trip with all this work to do but I promise I was crocheting all the way in the car and in the motel that night.

Road Trip

I cannot remember the last time Scott and I managed to go away anywhere together which made our road trip over the last couple of days extra special. In preparation for our upcoming week in New Zealand we went away for a night to give our excellent friends Wendy and Bevan a chance to practice looking after the terrible two.

We drove up to Bendigo on Good Friday under some of the most fabulous cloudscapes.

Every so often a really heavy squall would come through.

When we got there we went to the Chinese Museum which was full of the most stunning embroidery unfortunately the lighting was too dim to get pictures of most of it but I did manage this one.

We also fed the goldfish in the garden.

We had a fabulous dinner at The Dispensary Enoteca I highly recommend it if you visit, especially the Cucumber Martini and the Gorgonzola Soufflé.

After a not too comfortable night owing to a soggy mattress we had a yummy breakfast of poached eggs and headed off to the Bendigo Woollen Mills. I mail order a lot from them for my monsters but this is the first time I have been to the factory outlet. Needless to say my stash has been enriched and my wallet depleted - now I just have to figure out where to put it all.

Next we went to the chrysanthemum and goat show. I had no idea chrysanthemums were so big some of the flowers were almost as big as my head.

The best bit of course was the goats, they had these beautiful Anglo-Nubian goats with totally amazing colours and spots.

This particular goat loved Scott she put her hooves up on the fence and lent over to give him a big kiss, she was beautiful and we would have smuggled her home in the car if we could.

Then we discovered there is such a thing is a miniature goat - I want one so badly they are adorable. Apparently you can keep them in our area if you get a permit from the council.

Then we went back to the centre of town for lunch and a wander round the art gallery. We drove home the back way via Kinglake and Yarra Glen. All in all a fun journey and the dogs were not too evil while we were gone, although Corto is still in a bit of a sulk.