Stuff, eh?

That's what my sister and I say on the phone when we appear to have run out of things to say. Of course it's only an illusion. We haven't run out things to say at all. We've been talking since she was my little sister just learning to talk and we shared a room. I doubt we'll stop any time soon.

And the point of that little story is to say that I sat down to blog just now, thinking I'd run out of things to write about. Not bloody likely. Something is going to come to me. It might even be knitting related.

Oh, I know!

Steeked Jacket Sleeve

My new addi turbo hasn't arrived for my steeked jacket sleeve. Bugger. I'm going to Sydney for the weekend and kind of wanted to have it started before then. But I've got a work dinner (with my team, to farewell me) on Thursday night and will probably go out for drinks on Friday night as it's my last day. Then I leave sometime on Saturday morning. Doesn't leave a lot of time to get some headway on the sleeve, does it, given it's Wednesday night now.

Bugger.

Chocolate Beanie

But once in Sydney, I'll get to see my adorable nephew, Will, and give him a beanie I whipped up quickly this week, which I've dubbed his Chocolate Beanie. The wool it's made of definitely has a speckled, chocolatey look and the little dude loves chocolate (or, more accurately, coclate). I think he'll love it. Photos of him modelling it coming soon.

Socks on the go

Amazingly, I have only one sock on the go at the moment, just the blue ones I'm making for Sean. That'll probably be my car knitting on the weekend. Dead easy and not all that dull, because I'm loving the look of them so much. That covers up all that potential boredom. And I'm travelling up with a friend who's as good a talker as i am, so I'm not sure I'll be able to cope with anything more than zombie knitting in the car anyway. The knitting to talking ratio will not be that high.

Mariah

My Mariah sleeve is now longer than it was the first time I frogged it. It's definitely wide enough now and chugging along at a pleasing pace. I'm amazed to find I have been able to memorise the cable pattern. I can't switch off completely, but i can go along happily judging purely by sight when it's time to do a cable, and which one, which is cool given there are essentially four variations of a cable in the pattern.

Clever me!

Jejune and Othlon tell me they've finished their sleeves. So girls, where are the pictures???? Give me photographic motivation to keep on keeping on with my sleeve!


American Doll Posse

Any Tori Amos fans out there? If you're not a fan, you might want to tune out now. Have you got the new album, American Doll Posse? I've had it since the day it was released last week and thought i'd sit on my thoughts a little bit before writing them down. No point in madly rushing to write it off when history has shown I've hated all Tori Amos albums on impact since about 1996 and only after I've forced myself to dig deep do I learn to love them. Why bother if I hate them instantly? Because almost all my favourite albums, the ones that are the stayers, were full of songs I didn't get at first. Then they stretched me. There was something in them that drew me in, even if it was just one song. So I persist and it usually pays off.

I can't see it happening this time around. Although I've said that before. I loathed the last album, The Beekeeper, and still think it's pretty weak as a whole, with a small number of very, very good songs on it. But I'm not ready to part ways with Tori yet. I may not be quite the devotee I was when I was say, 26, but I'm still there because there's no one like her and she's weird and weird people shouldn't be disregarded just because you don't get them. I'm drawn to weird people, or people who do their own thing. I think you can learn a lot from them and they make the world a little brighter.

The only redeeming thing I can say about American Doll Posse so far, is that it sounds better when you've had a couple of drinks. Either that means i'm less discerning when I'm half tanked, or there's something in her music that just opens up when you're more relaxed. My first listen was in the car, on the way to work. Not my best time of day. So maybe it's a time and place thing.

So even though Tori seems to think that progressively longer and longer albums with apparently fewer melodic hooks and some pretty obscure ideas are the reason she was put on earth, I'm prepared to keep wading through all 24 songs to find the good stuff. Like with the earlier albums, I'll take what I love from it and be as passionate about them as I always have been about the woman who's been something of a hero of mine for 15 years now.

God i'm getting old.