Julie's Stuff

It's been cosy time again.  Both the Boy and I recently got iPhones (woo hoo!), which, of course, necessitated more cosy action.  The Boy also managed to get an iTouch, so more cosys needed.  So, perhaps it's time for a cosy line-up.  I corralled all the iThings in the house together:



And then they all wanted to come out and say hi:



Clockwise from top left:  The Boy's original white iPod, the Boy's new black iPod, my iPhone (yes, I'm the odd one out - that's the DNA cable pattern), the Boy's iTouch and the Boy's iPhone.

There's a bit of "spot the difference" action in those two photos - note the cosy for the Boy's iPhone.  Yes, it's double sided.  He wanted the rainbow Apple, but thinks that the grey adds a bit of the sleek and modern (it also helps him tell the difference between the two!).  I used the same chart for all of them, and the same colours for the stripes on the iTouch cosy as I used for the iPhone.  Do I have a cosy problem?  I don't think so.  I think we might have a small addiction to iThings though....

My mother and I (and 300 other people) are currently rehearsing for our next choir concert (Beethoven's Mass in C and Ode to Joy - come along, we're sounding fabulous!).  For the past few weeks we've been rehearsing in a large, very cold church in Darlinghurst and shivering.  Last week my mother said "now I understand why people wear fingerless gloves", or words to that effect.  How on earth could I resist?  I had received a ball of Patons Soft Touch Haze in a Ravelry swap that looked perfect for the job.  But what pattern to chose?  Well, of course if you're going to knit fingerless gloves out of 10ish ply, there is only one choice:



Yep, Fetching.  Sigh.  I was the 6771^st pair of Fetchings in Ravelry.  So unoriginal.  But, I can understand why they're so popular.  Each glove took me about 2 hours to knit and they're really easy but very effective.  They fit well too, and the yarn is remarkably soft (it's a brushed Acrylic/Wool/Bamboo blend) and nice to knit with.

My mother is going to be jealous tomorrow night

When my bridesmaid asked last week if she should buy a shawl to wear for the wedding "just in case", I knew it was time for a progress update on the lace.



And because a closeup is impossible to resist:



That's 8 repeats done, 4 to go in four weeks.  Yes, I'm sure it'll be done in time!

And the other piece of wedding knitting?  Done and done:

 

The hearts look a little odd - I tried to convert the written instructions into a chart (I'm not good with written instructions for lace), and I think I might have messed up a little.  But, they are recognisable as hearts, the cables are nice and the yarn is gorgeous.  I highly recommend Dream in Colo(u)r Smooshy if you can get your hands on it!  But I hate toe-up socks with a passion.  The heel took me two goes to get right and more than double the amount of time it takes me to knit a regular top-down heel flap.  Never again.  And no, short row heels won't work - they just don't fit either of us properly.  I'll just stick with top-down unless the absolutely perfect pattern has to be knit toe-up.

Wedding talk is now banned for the next 28 days.  I am becoming a little ... er ... obsessed with the whole thing and I think it's best to minimise the discussion of it!  Everything bar the final selection of the music and flower varieties is done.  Rings are picked up, suits are organised and menu is finalised.  I see the florist in two weeks to select the flowers and the music theme has been decided, so we're basically organised.  I'm telling myself to breathe - in exactly 28 days time I will be Mrs Boy!

Yep.  It's come to this.  The weather.  It's not like there's nothing going on here at the moment - more like that there's too much going on for me to make a cohesive post about it.  So I've resorted to taking photos of an approaching storm with the hopes that that will keep the blogging alive for a little longer.



Unfortunately it was a rather disappointing storm when it did finally get to our place, but it makes for a good picture anyway.

For those after an update on wedding stuff, the last month has seen us pick up the dress, veil and jewellery (well - that was me and my mother, not the Boy.  And no pics until the wedding day - the Boy reads this too!), send out invitations (my mother was the first to unofficially RSVP, Granny was the first to do it properly, and the Boy's brother is still dragging the chain), finalise the menu and other details with the venue, pay for our plane tickets and get our seats assigned (yay!).  The Boy has booked our wedding night hotel (he's told me where, but I'm keeping it secret ) and he's had his contract renewed so he's got a job right up until the wedding, and one to come back to when we get back from the honeymoon.  Tonight we pick up our wedding rings and on Friday I finally meet the harpist.  There is stuff still to do, but it's an every decreasing list thankfully.  I will be very glad when we're on the plane and all the planning is over!

In two months this:



will have another 10 repeats and will be on the shoulders of my bridesmaid.

In two months this:



will be joined by a mate and be on the feet of the Boy.

In two months I will be about two hours away from being Mrs Boy :)  There's nothing like a hard deadline to keep you motivated!

... just resting.

I honestly don't know where the months go these days.  Well, actually I do know where they go - work, extracurricular activities (I'm taking French lessons in preparation for honeymoon!), wedding and honeymoon planning.  There has been much knitting too.  With two months to go, wedding knitting is in full swing.  The Boy is getting socks (well, duh!) - Falling in Love (rav link) in bright red Dream in Color Smooshy.  The Bridesmaid is getting a lace shawl - Hanging Garden Stole in purple Zephyr.  Unfortunately it's the middle of winter, so photos are few and far between.  I will make a concerted effort to take some pictures and put them up real soon now!

Wedding plans are going well.  Almost all the big stuff is done.  The last few remaining tasks include music, posting the invitations and getting the Boy's suits organised.  My dress arrived last weekend and I'm going to try it on this week (yay!).  There won't be any pictures on the blog until after the wedding though because the Boy wants it to be a surprise.  I'm having dreams about having to call people on the day because we forgot to send invitations, so I think it might be time to do something about them....

Pictures next time, and something else besides wedding talk too, promise.

Ok, so most of you have already probably guessed what the mystery project was, especially since it was quite clearly labelled in the In Progress section on the side bar, but now it can be revealed in all its glory:



It's the Peapod Baby Set (cardigan only) of course!  It fits Michelle perfectly.  She'll probably get a good couple of months of wear out of it.  Fortunately she's a small baby - I made the largest size (18 month) and she's two months shy of two.  Michelle was the recipient of the Ladybug Jumper, so the Ladybug buttons were a no-brainer.  She seemed happy with it at least (although her new favourite colour is yellow - pink is soooo three months ago!).  And it's rather tricky to get a non-blurry photo of an almost-two-year-old - there were many rejects....

Project details:

Pattern:  Peapod Baby set (no link - the pattern has been removed from the Knitting Daily site)
Yarn:  Bendigo Harmony Wool/Cotton blend in Rose.  Unfortunately this has been discontinued, so only two colours are left.
Mods:  My row gauge was off, so I did more repeats to get the right length, and did a few more buttonholes.
Comments:  A nice pattern and a nice yarn.  A shame that both have been "discontinued"!

My mother has requested more pictures of the Boy's boxes too.  I came home of Friday night to see this little tableau:



Four little boxes huddled around the heater for warmth.  According to the Boy the heat is necessary for the glue to dry properly.  I just think they're feeling the cold....

Where to start?  This is the problem with taking a holiday and doing the travelogue style posts for a while - I forget what regular posting is like!  So, how about we start with a bit of knitting, just to get back into the groove?  I finished Twist before we went away and started a mystery project.  The mystery project is going to stay mysterious for a little while (at least until I finish sewing in the last arm!), so I guess I have to talk about the next thing in the queue - Oblique:



Yep, that's one whole back done in about two weeks.  The lace patterns are fast to knit and easy to remember once you get going.  I've modified the length of it so it doesn't have the "butt hugging" effect that the original seems to have.  The Yarn is Valley Yarns Sheffield - it's really soft and lovely to work with.  I'm sure it'll end up a nasty pilly mess, but I'm trying not the think about it.  It's got 4 plys, so I'm hopeful it'll be OK....

The Boy and I have dubbed this year the Year of Organisation.  To this end, we finally figured out that the room that we've always called the "Library" (mostly because it's jammed full of bookshelves) could be put to a better use.  After hiring a skip to get rid of some junk and selling the sofa and coffee table that was in there, its new purpose is becoming more obvious:



The lighting wasn't ideal, but you can make out the important bits - that's my overlocker in there.  And the sewing machine behind it.  And that nice big empty table under the window sill?  Purpose built for my knitting machine :)  Yep, it's going to be a craft room!  It still requires some more tidying and, obviously, a chair, but it's looking closer to a craft room than it ever has before.  I think there might even be enough room in there for at least some of the stash!

And the Boy's been busy too.  He decided a while ago that he wanted to contribute some craftiness to the wedding by making small wooden boxes to give to the guests.  Thanks to some very generous donations from some fellow Woodies, we have a stack of box making wood for free (turns out knitters aren't the only one with an online community!).  The whole process started this weekend, and the first box looks like this:



Come now, you don't think I'll be giving away the surprise for the few guests that read this do you?  I've dubbed this stage of box making the Borg Box for obvious reasons.   He made three carcasses this weekend out of a total of nine required.  Now all he needs to do is put on the lids, sand and french polish them and cut the tops off and attach with hinges.  It's rather like when you've finished knitting all the bits and all that's left is the sewing.  But, we've got 3.5 months to go so I think they'll all be done in time.  Hopefully....

It was time to leave paradise for another trip.  Our flight left at 0915, so it was an early start for the airport.  Yes, my mother was ready before we were (the Boy was still in the shower when she knocked at our door, bright eyed and busy tailed).  But, we made it to the airport in plenty of time.  Unfortunately the place that I'd thought we'd have breakfast at was closed for renovations, so we repaired to the Qantas lounge (which I didn't hold high hopes for - I had read poor reviews).  But, it seemed to have been recently renovated and although small it was quite nice.  Most importantly there was enough food to keep me from chewing my own arm off before we got to the plane.

And then, the plane trip.  The less said about that the better I think.  Let's just say that there were screaming children galore - Star Class isn't expensive enough to stop parents buying seats for their toddlers, and it was school holidays.  Ear piercing screams every 5 - 10 minutes over a 10 hour flight don't exactly add to the experience.  And the service was abysmal.  Call lights were ignored for 15 minutes at a stretch (I eventually got up to find a hostie).  I wouldn't discount Jet Star based solely on this flight - the service on the way there was excellent.  However, if you can afford it, buy a more expensive ticket just to filter out the kids.  So, let's just say we were pleased to be home.

We have realised that we're not good at the "home away from home" type of trip.  If we're going to be hanging around, we'd rather do it at home with all our things around.  We need stuff to do.  On this trip we were dangerously under-stuffed which had a tendency to lead to boredom.  We're also not big beach people (my swim tally? One.  The Boy's?  None), so being that close to the water is almost wasted on us.  We loved the view and the sound of the ocean, but we're both paranoid about skin cancer, so spending lots of time in the sun isn't for us!  We probably should have researched stuff to do a bit better - there is a lot to do on Oahu and I know we didn't do it all, but I forgot to pack our guidebook.  Big mistake.  Next time will be different.

Observations about Hawaii?  There's some things that we just take for granted here that don't exist there.  One of the big ones was the noise our walk signals make (bip bip bip bip...).  Over there, there's no noise at all so you have to look at the lights.  We thought that the little man on their lights looked odd, but then we realised that we've got no idea what ours looks like - we rely on the noise.  I've talked about the food before, but it was really brought home to me when we did a bit of grocery shopping when we arrived home and I had my first bit of Australian bread for over a week - I could taste the salt in it.  I was that accustomed to sweet bread that "normal" bread tasted odd.  Of course there are differences - that's what makes it interesting - but it was intriguing to see what we picked up on.

Overall?  We had a great time.  We're pleased to be home, but we miss the warms!

Today is our last day here  We decided to take off with Dodgey and drive around Oahu to see some more of the sights.  On our last trip we hadn't seen the North Shore, so that was our goal.  It's a beautiful day - the haze (which is in fact called "vog" - volcano fog) has gone leaving blue skies and fluffy white clouds.  The scenery is just beautiful.  Lots of beaches, lots of craggy mountains with tropical vegetation.  We stopped at a small, mostly empty beach side park for cheese and ham sandwiches before continuing on to the North Shore.  We didn't stop at the famous beaches - way too crowded for us.  We did spot surf through the cars though - the first decent surf we've seen here.  Waikiki beach is a beautiful beach, but it's not known for its swell!  

I am the official map reader, and I noticed that there was something labeled "Botanic Garden" on the way home, so I proposed a little detour.  The Boy agreed, so off we went.  We discovered a small, almost suburban garden that turned out to be put together by Harold Lyon of Lyon arboretum fame.  The Wahiawa Botanical Garden was created in the 1920s and was beautiful.  All the pics are up this Flickr photoset, but I'll include a couple that will resonate with the Australian readers.



Yes, it's a jacarandah flowering in April.  Just a reminder that seasons here are reversed even though it feels the same all year round.

Now we're back in the room trying to work out how to pack all of our stuff into our bags while watching the engagement cake challenge on Food Network, followed by Rich Bride Poor Bride....   Yep, high class TV here!

One of the mandatory items on most visitor itineraries is Pearl Harbour, and we are no exception.  There is a range of things to do there - last time we explored the Missouri, which was fascinating.  This time we opted for the Bowfin - the only submarine in WWII that did not suffer any casualties. 



We crawled our way through the belly of the sub, amazed that anyone could live on this thing, let alone work on it.  You wouldn't want to be very tall!  There were some bunks that I wouldn't be able to stretch out fully on, and there were bunks everywhere, including in the missile rooms:

 

We also enjoyed looking at the technology on the sub - typewriters and replacement vacuum tubes:

  

There was a submarine museum too where I managed to locate some yarn craft (possibly macrame?),



and some more technology - the computer was used to fire the Polaris missiles. 



Lots of stuff to see, and not too many people in it.  All the tourists tend to end up at the Arizona memorial, leaving the other parts of Pearl Harbour relatively quiet.

We returned in time for lunch.  We walked to get some good bread and came back to our room to have cheese (for the Boy) and salad (for me) on a Baguette.  Yum.  And then, inertia set in.  The Boy went to find the NY Times with success, and we were then going to go to the zoo, but instead spent the rest of the afternoon either on the balcony or inside once the sun got too hot.  I had a little nap, the Boy watched TV.  We have definitely gotten lazy - it's probably about time we went back to work.

Dinner was cook your own BBQ at the hotel next door.  Unfortunately there was live entertainment - good if you don't want to talk to the people you're eating with but way too loud if you want a quiet dinner.  Yes, we're getting old.  The food was good, but we didn't linger.  It would be nice to find a dining option here that wasn't either a chain, too loud or too expensive.  I'm beginning to think that cooking our own food really is the best option.

Today was more culture and museums with a trip to the Bishop museum.  We had all been before at various times, but the last time the Boy and I were here, the Hawaiian Hall was closed for renovations.  They had said that it would reopen in 2008 so we thought it was time to go again.  Unfortunately, the hall was still closed which was a little disappointing.  Apparently they're running a little behind - new opening date is Summer 2009....  There was still stuff to see and the highlight was, once again, the planetarium.  Having a guided tour of the night sky above a different part of the planet is always interesting.  Unfortunately it's very hazy today (apparently it's sulfur haze from the volcanos on the big island), so we won't get to put our newfound knowledge to the test tonight.  It's still an impressive place, and there is some nice vegetation around:



We brown-bagged our lunch today too - no more food courts for us.  Some almost decent bread, peanut butter and some ham and cheese made an excellent lunch.  Why we haven't done this before I don't know. 

This afternoon it was time for more shopping.  We decided to go farther afield and went to a Foodland that the Boy and I had discovered last time.  It's about a 30 minute drive away from Honolulu, so we bundled into Dodgey and off we went.  After one false start (the White Pages and the map lied to me), we found it and bought enough supplies for the next couple of days.  We're having a quiet night in tonight, so we bought some salad, meat and a disposable BBQ.  The plan is to sit on the balcony and watch the sun set, but the haze might make that a little disappointing - this is what the view looks like now:



It's not always perfect on Hawaii unfortunately.

This morning the Boy and I were on our own - we decided to go to Iolani Palace, and the easiest way to get there was to catch The Bus (no, really, that's what it's called - capitalisation intended).  Iolani is almost in the middle of downtown Honolulu and parking is difficult.  So, we left Dodgey's keys with my mother and went to The Bus stop.  We waited about 2 minutes before our Bus came and, thanks to the location announcements and my roughly drawn map, managed to get off at the right spot.  We got to the palace in time to get the next audio self-guided tour, which had the advantage of letting us into the first and second floors (ground and first floors for the Australian readers) which the regular admission didn't.  Neither the Boy or I particularly like pre-recorded tours, so we wandered around by ourselves, starting at the end and working backwards, thus avoiding the main group.  Unfortunately, like most of these places, there was no photography inside, so you'll just have to take my word for it that it was beautiful.  Not as packed with furniture as Queen Emma's Summer Palace, but the Boy was still impressed with the woodworking and I enjoyed the history.  The exterior was beautiful though:



We decided that a quick stop off at Ala Moana for lunch and a new book for me was in order and quickly found the right Bus to take us there.  After some fairly ordinary pizza and a pasta salad with more oil than I normally eat in a week, we were ready to go.  Then, unfortunately, our run of good-Bus luck ran out.  We asked the information desk where to catch The Bus back to Waikiki and they directed us to a stop.  It looked right, but the Boy found a timetable that said they came every 30 minutes and we'd just missed one.  We knew there were other Buses that went to Waikiki so walked to the other side of the mall.  Several aborted attempts to board a Bus later, we finally found one that would take us to where we wanted to go.  About 25 minutes after we started looking for a bus.  We would have been better off skipping the mall - I didn't find a book to read, and lunch wasn't great.  Oh well, lesson learnt.

Tonight was the big birthday dinner night - a Luau at the Royal Hawaiian hotel.  We arrived at 5:30, received leis and Mai Tais and sat and waited for the show  It was definitely for the tourists - long tables, a stage, dancing, audience participation, the works.  It sort of reminded me of a modern Hawaiian version of the hotel in Dirty Dancing - the hired dancers getting the guests up and dancing, the singing host.  But, the dancing was excellent and the food was good.  Not as good as the buffet we had the last time we were there, but you're paying for the show really.  I did get some photos of the dancing, but the most impressive was a Samoan fire dance and unfortunately my little happy-snapper couldn't quite cope with that!  Here's what the standard dancers looked like before and after the sun set:
 

I think I'll leave the after-dark photography to the Boy and his big camera...

First things first, it's time to wish my mother a very happy birthday!  And to thank her for celebrating it in Hawaii!   We suggested taking her to Lyon Arboretum and she thought that was an excellent plan.  Long time readers of the blog may remember that the Boy and I went to Lyon on our last trip here and were very impressed with the place.  This time was no different.  We arrived just in time to take the guided tour (highly recommended if you do go - the guides tell you the uses of the plants which makes the place come alive).  We spent about 2 hours walking through the place taking many photos.  Of course there are many flower photos and many tree and view photos.  Rather than fiddling around, I've put them all up on a Flickr photoset so if you're inclined (and think that you can cope with more pics of the vegetation), here's the link .  But, here's a few to whet your appetite.



We were all tired after our morning adventures so repaired to Ala Moana mall for lunch.  The Boy has come down with a minor cold and was in need of more Dayquil, so we stopped at Long's to get some (that place is *huge*!), and we had a quick lunch.

Then it was over to the birthday girl.  Isle Knits has been on her agenda and I was more than willing to go with her.  We left the menfolk at the mall (the Boy needed to sit quietly and wait for the drugs to kick in, and wool shops aren't really Michael's thing) and my mother drove us there.  She purchased some 000 Addis for bead knitting, and I bought some Cascade Venezia Worsted in a gorgeous green colour.  I'm contemplating making the Gathered Pullover from it.  It's gorgeous stuff - soft and relatively tightly spun, and I'm looking forward to knitting it.  Of course, holiday wool doesn't count towards stash....

We're now firmly ensconced in our afternoon routine.  We're going out for dinner tonight (it's always nice to have that part of the day under control), and I think after all that walking we're going to sleep well tonight.

For some reason, today turned out to be shopping day.  Last night over wholemeal spaghetti and ragu at our place, we decided to go to the Ward Centre today.  My mother and Michael had agreed to be ready at about midday, so the Boy and I decided to do a bit of pre-shopping shopping.  The first order of business was Home Depot.  It seems that some of the "wow" factor has worn off - we only spent about 30 minutes or so there and the Boy was decidedly blase about the whole thing.  We did, however, purchase one thing that was on our list - a Weber BBQ chimney.  For some reason these have become unobtainable in Australia, and we knew that Home Depot was a stockist.  We had fun with the self checkout - the American accent and the helpfulness was a novelty!

Then we stopped at Office Max.  It was about the same size as a standard Office Works, but had a whole different range of stuff.  I managed to buy Scotch Tape refills (again, there seems to be a drought of these in Australia), and some really cool whiteboard markers (they have small erasers built into the marker tip - no more smeary fingertips after a workshop!).  Oh, and some purple Post-Its for the Boy.  We walked out with the Amex in a little bit of shock...

Back to the hotel to pick up the gang and off to the Ward Centre.  The Boy was eager to go to the Farmers Market - we'd found fresh fish and watermelon there last time and he wanted to repeat the experience.  Unfortunately it was not to be.  There was fish (Michael is cooking tonight), but the big market had closed on the 31st March after 56 years.  Sad.  Also, it turns out not to be watermelon season, so the Boy is very sad :(  However, he was cheered by the purchase of (yet another) very cheap woodworking book at Borders.  We spent some time in a fabulous kitchenware shop - we're still contemplating going back and purchasing a strawberry-shaped kettle, but I think even the overflow bag is starting to get a little full.

We returned tired and shopped-out.  We sat and had a little bit of tea, and I decided to go for a swim.  I wandered over to Waikiki with the soft sand and bobbed for a short while before deciding that I really needed to get out of the sun (lily-white skin + no sunscreen = pink Girl) - it was 4:30, so I wasn't too concerned but the Cancer Council does manage to imprint it's message.

For the last hour we've been sitting on the balcony feeding the birds corn chips, drinking beer and watching the sun set. 

 



In about half and hour we're going down to be fed fish.  It's a hard life.