Currently 17

I'm on a short break from work, and I really, really want it to be the summer of skirts.  It feels like hols, doesn't it, when you can wear skirts and sandals.  Even though the weather man this morning told me it was currently 17 degrees, I resolutely stayed with the skirt, but put a jumper on.  Sheesh.  It's 3 days before xmas and summer hasn't come to town yet.

Apart from the aforementioned work on my new fabbo Toyota, I have the usual staycation plans for this time of year:

• See a movie a day - yesterday it was The Ides of March - not bad - all about integrity, my favourite ethical value.  I went to the premium cinema.  Nice.
• Read - I've just finished A Christmas Carol by Dickens (no, I hadn't actually read it before, have you?) and Bereft by Chris Womersley.  I can highly recommend both.  Bereft depicts a hot NSW summer (I wish), young man returned from the war, strange young girl in the bush, not quite knowing what is real.  Currently reading We need to talk about Kevin and Daphne du Maurier short horror stories.
• Sew - I'm going to get the FBA on Sorbetto sorted once and for all.
• Knit and watch Miranda series 1 on DVD

And there will be lots of time with loved ones and friends.  I do so like this time of year.  If only summer would come.

Nothing to see here

Do you ever plan a great piece to write and put off writing until you have the results you want so that you actually have a story to tell?  No?  Maybe it's just me, then.

The great piece I wanted to write went along the lines of ... generosity of other crafters...fiddled and faddled until I got things sorted...lo and behold, here is a great piece of knitting...done by me...on a machine.

The only story I actually have excludes most of those storyboard pieces.  But... I do want to acknowledge the generosity of other crafters and say thank you, I'll get there yet. 

Some time ago, I blogged briefly about putting a call out on Freecycle and being handed a knitting machine. Yay!  Carrie and I spent an afternoon fiddling before we decided I needed a part.  Thanks to ebay, that part was no trouble to source.  A bit more fiddling.  Alas, no knitting yet.

Then a friend from SnB offered me this beauty that she rescued from her neighbour's nature strip.  Unfortunately, the only good thing about this machine is the gorgeous case with retro-style branding.  No go.

At around the same time, an extraordinarily generous and thoughtful friend sent me a message saying that an old family friend had a knitting machine and would I be interested in it.  Oh yes please.  She and her brother kindly brought around a fabulous, fully functional, double bed Toyota with loads and loads of accessories and punch cards and manuals and folders of course notes and knitting samples and bits and bobs the purpose of which I have no idea yet.  I was thrilled!

So, you see, I was hoping that I could set up things in a flash and have lovely woolly things to blog about by now.  Still no knitting, but guess what I'll be doing these hols!