Saturday Llama Frenzy

Spring has sprung and with the wet winter we have had the citrus trees are going crazy.

My Seville Orange is fruiting for the first time.



Still a small tree so not quite enough for marmalade but looking good.



The lime tree has also produced its first fruit.



The lemon tree is also producing heaps of fruit including this fabulous mutant.



I had my first go at mitred knitting and made Scott some gauntlets.  It is really fun to do but a little tricky to get the finish up to standard.



I think they look kind of like something Link from Zelda would wear.



One of Scott's co-workers has been ordering purses from me so I have made another veggie burger purse.





And another apple slice purse, unfortunately I did not get a photo of the first one I made before I sold it



The worm was a special request.



I really like the colours in the red yarn.



I have been hard at work making market stock and have now made enough components to offer custom sandwich purses.  I have made centers with the purse frames of cheese, bacon, tofu and burger.  People can then choose from white or brown bread and add other things like tomato, lettuce, beetroot, cucumber and cheese.  I sew them all together in a few minutes and voila your very own sandwich purse.  I will try and get a picture of them all laid out nicely at the next market.

This month's market went surprisingly well considering it was so windy I had to pin all my stock onto the table to stop it from blowing away.  I have to get really busy, Christmas is not that far away and I need to make as much stock as I can.

We had a great day today.  Scott and Jenny and I went to Croydon to the Farmer's Market and the new Art Attack market that has started up.  It was a bit windy, wet and miserable but it was good to hang out.  afterwards we went back to Jenny's for tea and to collect this beautiful item.



Scott had been admiring Jenny's blue eyed llama sculpture every time we went over, so when we were visiting at the last Open Studio I told Jenny I wanted to buy it for him.  Unfortunately (or fortunately as it turned out) Jenny's husband David sold the original sculpture later that day - he did not know I had intended to buy it.  Anyway it turned out for the best because Jenny made this one especially for Scott, and there is nothing like having a talented artist make something just for you.



I love Jenny's work there is just something about her faces that is magic (she did the blue guardian sprit that I have posted about before).

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.