Knitting: Stripe-a-licious (Noro is Expensive)

So I knitted the noro scarf outlined on Jared Flood's blog. I won a gift voucher from Morris and Sons on WWKIP (World Wide Knit in Public) Day otherwise I would never have splurged on this wild Noro Silk Garden which is made of 45% silk, 45% kid mohair and 10% lambswool because it's crazy priced (like $18 a ball or something). So the finished product isn't what I imagined, but with Noro it never is because you always get kind of ambushed by the crazy colour changes. It's a bit too masculine a colour scheme for me but I'm glad to have it completed and Matt is going to make good use of it.

Cooking: The Cupcakes Have Landed :)

Rita and Owen's baby shower was a completely awesome success! There were heaps of lovely people, which is only a reflection of how lovely Rita and Owen are. There was babies, games, iced tea, sunshine and it was fabulous. The cupcakes went down a treat and elicited squees of approval when the lid was lifted. As always click on the photo to embiggen :)

Cooking: Cupcakes

So Rita's baby shower is next weekend and I wanted to contribute something fun. I'm making cupcakes and today I made my first test batch. I've chosen the icing patterns that I'm going to use, but I'm ditching the Robert Gordon straight sided pattys for the traditional patty pans. I used fondant icing and also piping bags and orchid icing for the first time, thanks to the advise of my cake decorating friends.

Here's me, with said cupcakes, minus the ones we ate.

ROADDDD TRIPPPPP

My Dad came to spend some quality time in Melbs and we had a ball. We went with Rita to the Ricky Swallow exhibition which was brilliant, preused the book market, drank coffee and watched the festival that was occuring, there's always something on the go at Fed Square plus we had Yum Cha which is fun. We went out to Healesville so I could show Dad where we're interested in living and relaxed at Innocent Bystander drinking wine and eating tapas. We drove out to Marysville through the fire affected area which was emotional. I thought so much time had passed that I wouldn't have the reaction that I did and people must be so freaking brave and awesome to still be living and working there, constantly surrounded by the memories. I know a cool lady who still lives out there and she lost her house but told me on the weekend that she couldn't imagine waking up anywhere else.

While Dad was here we also went to Stephanie Alexander's book launch at Mont Salvat which is a beautiful, strange, ecclectic artist colony out at Eltham. Stephanie Alexander was business like and passionate and not all that different to what I expected.

Dad cancelled his ticket to fly back to Queensland and instead we embarked on a Road Trip to Dalby via

• Ballarat to see the ORIGINAL Eureka Stockade flag, again very emotional but it seems I'm always about to cry these days. When I found out that the Eureka flag such an amazing part of our heritage still existed and you could go and see it I was dumbfounded. It embodies, rightly or not, the fighting, rebellious spirit that I think Australians are so proud of
• Daylesford - beautiful little tourist town and I stopped at Purl's Palace for some delicious yarn love and just one skein of Colinette Jitterbug hopped into my bag (thanks Dad).
  
• Bendigo - stopped at the mills for a little 10 ply and bargain room steals
• Shepparton, Tocumwal, Jerilderi, Narrandera, Ardlethan,
  
• West Wyalong - Situated in the lovely Shire of Bland

• Forbes - Where we had to choose not to take the turn to Bogan Gate
  
• Parkes - Where we stopped to commune with the giant Radio Telescope and we brought eachother meteorites. That's my Dad bottom right of the photo. The telescope was built the year he graduated high school.
  

• Dubbo, Gilgandra, Coonabarabran, Narrabri, Moree, Boggabilla, Goondiwindi,
  
• Moonee - Cleanest toilets in Australia and they'll tell you why

To reach our final destination Dalby :) where my folks and my bro John live. I got to see my freaking adorable nieces Lily and Sophie and my charming nephew Frankie. I taught the girls to knit which they might not take in on full ball now but it was fantastic fun and I've planted a seed that they might remember when they get older and hopefully get as much fun out of it as I have.

After a couple of days with my family in Queensland we all road tripped down to the Central Coast of NSW for my handsome and intelligent cousin Adrians wedding to his lovely and also intelligent bride Mel. The wedding was fairytale stuff, marquees and chandeliers, happy families and wonderful music, beautiful ceremony and fantastic funny speeches. I had the pleasure of staying with my fabulous cousin Natty (who is my special birthday cousin because we were both born on the 23rd May who is so accomplished. She has the most generous and loving nature, a wicked sense of humour, two adorable kidlets, keeps her house freaking perfect, manages to always look flawless and is unfailingly fantastic. I'm very proud to call her kin. It was great to also see Deano and his hawt funny girl Aless. My Aunty Coll, Uncle Mike, Aunty Liz, Uncle Chris and cousins Audie, Dale, Bernie, Jo, Andrew and Livvy. I know I know right! HUGE family get together, they're always crazy times.

Then I hit the road back to home and my wonderful Matthew via Goulburn, Gundagai, Wangaratta - where I may have purchased further yarn :) at the ACS mill shop. Not as organised as Bendi but better value if you are familar with the yarns that ACS produce.

I love road trips, but next time I'm taking Matt.

Knitting: Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!

I have knitted dinosaurs for the little ones of my friend Kate. They are super cool and colourful. Knitted in peaches and creme worsted cotton in delicious rainbow colours. The pattern was the free one by Jennifer Rose Devine from xtreme knitting and it was really well written and easy to follow. It was hella fun and pretty instantly gratifying as these guys only took me a couple of weeks.

Crochet: Blankets of Friendship

You might have read about it on other blogs e.g. Chocolate Trudi some of us from the Ravelry Rocketeers are putting together blankets for Blankets of Friendship which was an awesome act of love and kindness by Ozifarmer off Ravelry. Her house was overrun by the generous knitted square donations that rolled in when the call went out after the Black Saturday fires in Victoria where so many people lost their lives.

My lovely friends put aside a purple bag for me and at first I was a bit scared when I saw the different sizes but after a solid 30 mins of blanket Tetris I got it worked out and now I've started joining.

Knitting: Koolhaas for a Kool Lady

I made a Koolhaas for Flick from my work. The malabrigo that I knitted it with went really felty as I was making the hat but Flick looks great in it and it is undoubtedly one of the sexiest squishiest nommiest yarns around.

The pattern was one that I brought when I first started knitting and I had no idea what I was doing and gave up. This time I perservered and really enjoyed the process. The chart actually started to tell me what I was looking at as I knitted and I'm looking forward to starting a very serious lace knitting project soon (gasp).