December Travels – Chapter One

21.12.11 By Raynor in Blog Tags: andrea goutier, bon qui qui, brisbane, cross stitch, dogs, family, FO, hats, hurricane hat, interludes, knitting, kochoran, noro, Panda, tangled yarns, travels, vacation, water dragon, yarn shop 5 Comments

Gentle reader,

As many of you may know, I moved to Melbourne from Brisbane about a year ago and these holidays I’m spending two weeks in my home state of Queensland. Week one is almost down, and here are a few highlights! (Please forgive the iffy picture quality; some of the shots and all of the editing were done on my iPod and iPad!)

First, the flight from Melbourne to Brisbane!

I LOVE flying, and I love flying even better when you take off before dark and are still in the air after dark. These pictures don’t do the amazing horizon justice. Also, I love photographing clouds. I think they’re totes amazing.

Clearly, she is a model and I am not.

My best friend Panda picked me up from the airport and I stayed at her place in Brisbane which she shares with Audra and Eden who are also amazing peeps and were so generous with their hospitality.

Over the few days I was there, we checked out some great stores, got a Totoro phone trinket, ate crazy amounts of Bread Top, went to visit our lovely friend Kath and her beautiful shop, Handmade High Street. We also went on a wild goose chase for yarn stores – one was shut and one didn’t exist anymore – before we finally made it to Tangled Yarns, which is AMAZEBALLS. They stock Berocco, Pierrot (my fave!), Cascade 220, madelainetosh, and Malabrigo. I’ll definitely be going back there. We also wandered through an antique/bric-a-brac store where I picked up some delightful old knitting patterns (more on that later!). I also got to catch up with my adorable friends, Alf and Robert.

Suzie, the lovely lady, and Larry, the resident water dragon.

On the Sunday, I visited Judy, one of my favorite people ever (you may remember her from my post about the crochet bolero I did a while back). Her and her husband Peter made the most delicious BBQ lunch, and we relaxed on their back veranda while Suzie and Larry kept us company.

Judy's hat, made from Noro Kochoran.

I also snapped Judy in the hat I knitted for her (and finished the night before). I made it using the Hurricane Hat pattern by Andrea Goutier with Noro Kochoran yarn. I’m not sure what color way, because it was just a left over ball from something with no label. I don’t know why, but all those shots came out blurry. Oy. But, Kate will be pleased that I’ve posted another FO. Happy, Kate!? Geesh. ^_~

"Sah-kurity!"

I also managed to get a bit done on my Bon Qui Qui cross stitch. The picture is terrible, but you get an idea. I drew Bon Qui Qui on some graph paper and then used colored pencils to figure out my color blocking, and then started stitching. I’ve got a looooong way to go, but it was nice to do something a bit different.

Pan-Pan! I miss you already! (Also, is my bottom lip really that big? Oy.)

Finally, on Monday, Panda dropped me off at the bus depot to catch a Greyhound to my home town. I was super sad to say buh-bye to Pan, and there were some friends I just didn’t have time to visit. But, I was so excited to see my folks, and we’ve been having a great time so far. More to come!

How is your holiday season going so far? ^_^

- R

Words To Live By

19.09.11 By Raynor in Blog Tags: cards, family, interludes, love, Mama 8 Comments

Gentle reader,

I’ll not talk around it: I’m an only child and I love my parents and often I miss them. Sometimes so intensely that I can barely think about anything else. I’ll own it. I think being a Mama’s and Papa’s boy is a far better stereotype to live up to as an only child than a spoiled brat.

So, as it goes, I’ve been really missing my Ma the past few weeks. I’ve been knitting her a shawl using some totes yummy Rowan yarn. But, I can knit all I want and she won’t know I was thinking of her until she gets it. So, I decided some snail mail was well overdue, and I picked out this card a few days ago in my travels:

Words to live by.

I thought the sentiment was bang on, although I’m sure my Ma would say that there was a relatively lengthy period that began somewhere around the fourteen-year mark when I did nothing but question my mother (she might even say that this period hasn’t truly ended even…). My family also has a running game of sending mail to whacky made-up names. The envelope I’ve just written out is address to “Myfanwy McGillicutty”.

That’s all for me, tonight. I’ll be dropping this little letter in the mail tomorrow. If she’s not close, why don’t you send your mama some love, perhaps in amusing card form!

Cheers, Big Ears

04.05.11 By Raynor in Blog Tags: birthday, cross stitch, family, gift, giggles, interludes, jokes, Pa, subversive 2 Comments

Gentle reader,

It has been very remiss of me for not posting sooner. I have taken on a casual office job on top of my yarn store job, and between those two and teaching, I’ll not have a single day off for two weeks! Eeep! I have many things on the go which I can’t wait to show you, but they had to go on the back burner while I finished off my Pa’s birthday present.

Some background… my immediate family has many in-jokes and sayings that make rather little sense to anyone else, and many of those are what you might say are call-and-response style things in so far as certain expressions require a certain reply. One of these is a farewell that Pa and I often use, usually at the close of a phone conversation. One of us will say “Cheers, Big Ears!” to which the somewhat… colorful… response is “F*$k you, Noddy!”. Apologies for the cussing! I have no idea where the expression came from – I suspect it’s an old pub toast perhaps – but it tickles us. We will often try to incite the other to say the Noddy half of the exchange in the most inappropriate of places (Pa has the trophy so far – he managed to get me to say it quite loudly in the university library during study week).

Noddy & Big Ears (Mr Pod in the background)

And so, in the spirit of Subversive Cross Stitch, I decided that this would be an excellent birthday present for my kooky father (and I will not lie, the ‘sequel’ for his Christmas gift is something I’m looking forward to!)

Poor Noddy...

Next up is Mothers’ Day, but I don’t think I will be making anything for that (I have a gift picked out already), so I will have plenty to show you soon. Until then, hug your folks if they’re there to be hugged!