Craftastrophies: Reasons my housemates think I'm crazy

1. I knit. All. The. Time.

On Saturday I knit almost the whole right front of the jacket I'm working on. At the same time, I have picked up branching out, which I started a while ago. I must rip one repeat for every two I manage to do correctly, lace is soooo not my thing. And yet. I can't stop. I can't stop! The scarf is now long enough to go around my neck one and a half times - about half the length of a short scarf. Can't Stop. Also, I bought some sock yarn, which I now have to swatch and work out if this pattern wil fit my feet or I need to do a dodgy with the needles. And I have promised to knit another nautie for a friend to give to her boyfriend. When she saw my stash of (acrylic) yarn, she told me I had a sickness. In a loving way. In my defense, I have only bought two balls of acrylic in the last ten years, both for nautie. So there. Also, I think I may have developed an allergy to acrylic yarn. Everytime I work with it or wear it, my eyes puff up and get all itchy.

But THE POINT IS that yesterday, all I wanted to do was knit. I wanted to knit so bad. I'm sitting here at reception, and I'm thinking 'if I whip my knitting out here, will anyone care?' The answer is yes, because I have work to do. Just because I am not this second doing it, doesn't mean that sublimating my knitting desires by working my way through the 'c' section of my bloglines is a work-sanctioned activity. But the moment I got out of work, I knit. I knit while I was walking to the bus stop. In peak hour traffic. On a major road. And I didn't care. As I wandered past the library (knitting) I peered through the window and mused that there were a lot of people in there. Then it hit me. They were all knitting. So I'm guessing that there is a knitting group that meets there. So tonight I am going to go in and ask about it. I already have a knitting group, but I can only go every second Wednesday, because I don't drive and every second Wednesday they meet somewhere that is hard for me to get to. What is it with knitting groups and Wednesdays?

2. I take things out into the garden in the morning and take photos of them.

These are the cupcakes that caused all that fuss the other day

It got to Monday night (public holiday, long live the Imperial Monarch of the Moment) and as I surveyed my pile of finished pieces of Jacket, it occured to me that I had inteded to take photos of them. It was now the end of three days during which I was home in optimal photo-taking light conditions, and had I taken any photos? No. Well, I tell a lie. I took photos of this

My sister performing at Music in the Squares. Shes the first trombonist on the left.

We're very proud of her.

I also took a photo of this:

This is the pedastal on the statues of Queen Victoria in, you guessed it, Victoria square. It's just been cleaned. Can you see the red grafitti? You probably can't read it, though. It says 'Not the first Queen Victoria, not my Queen' And then, down the bottom, out of frame, it says 'free David Hicks'

Long live the Dead Monarchs

However, I did not take any photos of this until this morning

They're on the bonnet of my cousin's Valiant. Almost the same colour, ne? His new valiant (eye roll) is that exact same colour inside. No complaints from me, since it's my favourite ever. Anyway, that's the back, two fronts, and one sleeve. So close, people. So close. Last night I pinned it together and attempted to try it on to see if I had to do any adjustments, but it was so huge and heavy that it just pulled itself apart and I couldn't really see. Anyway, I've decided that since it's supposed to be a jacket, it doesn't really need to be close-fitting or whatever. Also, I'm lazy. That's a lot of knitting, y'all. I love this yarn. I heart Bendigo Woolen mills. It used to be my Cardigan for Arwen, but that didn't turn out so well. So I frogged it. Pictures later.

We were at my grandma's on Sunday for her birthday and she'd just finished a cabled cardigan. In Bendigo Mills wool, of course. I don't think she uses anything else. Here is a photo of her in it.

As an extra bonus, you also get, from L-R, Uncle Michael, Aunty Lisa (no, no idea what's going on there), Aunty Anne (mother of my two cousins I live with) Grandma in her cabled cardi, Uncle Daniel and my dad, Tim. Missing is Aunty Jane, Michael's twin. She was working. At IKEA.

Also out for a photo shoot this morning was my no-knead bread. I was toying with making this but it just sounded like too much organisation. Then I saw it in Australian Table, published by Coles. It was credited as 'adapted from the NY Times recipe' and in essence, it made it harder. So I went and got the original recipe and gave it a crack. The first time I was too lazy by the time we got to baking to look up what 450 degrees was in celcius, so it was a bit soggy in the middle. However, this time it is perfect, despite my cousin's reservations that it didn't sound hollow when she tapped it. I told her that the same could be said about her, and she could take her long line of bakers somewhere interesting, and stop touching my bread, please. So there. Anyway, this is its morning photo shoot.