Thursday, July 03, 2008

The Shetland Shawl

 

I knew as soon as I started making this that I should have gone up one or two needle sizes. But this size (whatever it is) was the only one I had and I had that surge of instant gratification one gets on the purchase of yarn. I bought this yarn in Castlemaine when I was up there to chair a session of the Australian Poetry Festival (I see we have another of these happening in Sydney soon - how many national poetry festivals does one country need? - ooops, of course, ours was the Regional Australian poetry festival.)

What I love about it is the yarn - Jo Sharpe, kid mohair, beautiful colours. The pattern is obscured by the mohair and the fact that the needles size was too small, but it's there, nonetheless and it does add to the prettiness of this. The Shetland Shawl pattern was pretty easy - and would be much easier if you actually had yarn with visibilty (that's a technical term.) The girlchild wants one herself and I thought I might make the Younger SIL one for Christmas. I think shawls are lovely but I don't want to offend anyone by making them feel like an old lady. The Younger SIL is ridiculously young and couldn't possibly take offence.

I spent a week working with the Fremantle Children's Literature Centre (where it was just cool enough to wear the Shetland Shawl from time to time.) Saw over three hundred students in five days both at the Centre and at Bunbury. A great time - some fabulous feedback from the young writers and some terrific work was produced in the short time we had together. The Centre team and I were gobsmacked.

I flew back on Saturday to go to dinner with the Croation exchange student, the Accountant and the Wildchild. Dinner was magnificent - at Dalmatinos, a Croation restaurant in Port Melbourne. We ate mainly octupus. I think young Mak had missed eating octupus while in Oz. It was a lovely night, marred only by the Wildchild's incessant whinging at the end. Honestly, that child is now thirteen and needs to learn some manners.

Monday I did very little except sleep, read and walk the dogs. Tuesday I started unpacking, walked dogs, cleaned up a little bit - not enough to frighten the Accountant - and cooked. Yesterday I finished unpacking, walked dogs, went to the gym, ate soup and started typing up the bits of the fantasy novel I wrote while I was away. Last night I dreamt that I was painstakingly explaining the novel to fellow writer, Kirsty Murray. I had grabbed an old white paperbag from somewhere and was mapping out the whole novel for her, noting where my blanks were. Weird!

Tomorrow the Accountant and I go on the Wharburton bike trail. This time we'll start at Yoori Wallock (that just doesn't look right??) and end up further down the track for lunch. We don't know who we're travelling with yet. Maybe a friend and the Accountant's Firstborn. Should be fun. Gotta go and train - taking the dogs to Birdsland again (we do love Birdsland) and the gym. Then I'm off to the Glen later this arvo to look for some KT26's.
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