osci bear & his little mates

blimmin' 'eck

You know you haven't posted for a while when your blogger provider has changed it's font and look and everything between posts. As you can tell, I have been off the air totally! Semester - this Masters - and working and family, there was not a moment spare. And what moments I did have, for example, as a passenger in the car, I made sure I knitted. 

So I'm breaking my spell (and I have quite a few, let's call it 'blogger's doubt' without having one of those posts that goes into detail why) with some just awesome knitting I've just seen! I usually send out emails to my friends telling them about knitting excitement, but this time it's not enough. I need to make sure that anyone who happens to find this blog, also finds these little beauties - little beauties in italics.

The stripey cardigan is from Through the Loops and I'm loving it.

As for the lime: for starters, I love dots. And I love big buttons - and for serious I'm loving big buttons that look like aspro clear. And I want to knit this. It's from Yarn Ball Boogie who's a Man Knitter.

Also, take part in World Wide Knit In Public Day! All right! Okay, over and out...

experimenting on Lincoln Square

Our current project is to redesign a park nearby to Melbourne University. After a workshop session on Monday night which helped us push our design ideas past the passive recreation ideas many of us had come up with, I've decided to have a look around for park concepts on landscape architecture blogs.

I've decided to target the international students in the surrounding cramped apartments on Swanston St as users for Lincoln Square. With this in mind, I have started researching park usage in high density cities, to find a whacky idea to follow through as far as I can. In my last assignment I was a little bit timid in my intervention, so it's time to see the space as malleable.

So far I am collecting ideas that appeal to me without quite knowing yet how I might use them. I like this community approach to a heavily urbanised area: Guerilla Flowerpots in Tokyo’s Public Spaces.

This outdoor cinema gave me the idea of providing what students might like to have in their expensive shoe boxes, but can't.

It has also sparked for me my material for exploration - concrete. It was a negotiation of second-guessing what materials I might design with, before I have designed it.

Folks, things are looking up.

on the first few weeks of postgrad study, a portrait

One word: faaaaaaaark!

Guys. Seriously. I'm now imagining that you're listening over a cup of tea. These first few weeks have been an intense little ride, and in a few hours, my 'peer' (as in, 'peer to peer learning') and I will be presenting, along with everyone else, our interpretation of maps of the Royal Botanic Gardens + Domain, showing a narrative, and, our ability and stuff.

Because remember, design is a process.

You're too right it is! That's the first thing I'll say about what we'll be serving up for everyone tonight! Seriously, it really is a special feeling heading off to show the class - which contains people who look quite confident in what they're turning in - something that you really aren't so proud of. I did fantasise about sustaining an injury, in the very style of Bernard Black in the first episode of Black Books. I won't link to it, I'll just tell you - rather than do his tax, he approached a group of skinheads and asked "which one of you bitches wants do dance?" Comedy gold.

Sigh.

Wish me luck, folks.

dog hair and modern design

Rather than shopping for more fabric as we usually do, my friend AM and I spent an afternoon doing what we love most, making stuff.

AM is one of the best crafters I know, she has been sewing and knitting since very young in Denmark, and while finds getting past the menu page on a DVD player a bit daunting, could tell you anything about the technology of a knitting stitch or jewellery making or sewing with topstitch thread. Really, you can show her a top and offer to lend her the pattern and response will often be "no (tapping her head) - I already have it stored - thank you!". And her enthusiasm is really catching and we end up a bit overexcited about fabric.

The above top started life as a $4 top from the Camberwell Markets and were later awarded some appliqued peonies.

Oh and there's not a dog she's met that she hasn't patted. Seriously, not one.

I love spending afternoons this way at AM's house, with so many things crazy little scenes of Flensted mobiles and dressmaking dummies draped with button jewellery and tape measures and the dogs on Danish chairs and the coffee and PBS on the radio.

Just beware of the dog hair!

You know I'm really meant to be writing out my selection criteria. Looks like you guys will be hearing from me more than I thought if only through procrastination.

using what you have: part lunch time, on the way to the beach...

Hi folks, predictably I have been going a bit off air again, as leaving my job, almost about to start a course and applying for new jobs certainly takes me away from writing here, but funnily enough I'm still getting a lot of knitting done. I was getting grumpy at the thought of not doing it! Can't have grumpy.

Here are the beginning rows of the Flair from Knit and Tonic. I have actually completed around two thirds of it now. I'm on my lunch break here at work doing this, in my favourite spot with large gums and sculptures. The landscaping out here is actually the best part about the University, I think.

I have had this yarn for over a year, a little naughtily bought from kpixie, naughty as it was purchased with another project's worth of yarn of alpaca silk, and I tell you, if the luxury yarn doesn't get you, the postage sure will. But how lovely they are to knit with.

And my lordy, Loobylu is back!

demonstrated personal qualities of innovation and high motivation

There's something about writing job applications that makes me want to, I don't know, scrub the bathroom. In an innovative and highly motivated way obviously.

Because I am a dynamic self-starter. Sigh.

dangerously overexcited

Do you think I need this large coffee? Because I'm already like a chook in a thunderstorm. Yesterday I made the big decision to leave my current job in order to do the Master of Landscape Architecture.

It turned out that I wasn't able to defer, and working part-time was not an option here, so there I was, at the crossroads. Without the part-time job I planned to line up first. And you know, I realised I've been in risky/exciting situations before, and not only survived, but reminded myself that I can make things better. It has been no secret that I haven't exactly been thrilled here, and I owe it to everyone around me to change this, I think.

Last night I was a bit jittery, but today this has turned into feeling great, and positive. Miss Pip wrote a very relevant post about endings and beginnings today, which felt just right.

If I may quote the good Dr Suess: "You have brains in your head, and feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself, any direction you choose."

still life with wallpaper

My friend Mandy has just opened her first Etsy shop with great transfers that work well on kid's clothes - go on, do yourself a favour! 

high on my own (air) supply

In the Man with the Golden Arm, Frank Sinatra's recovering heroin-addicted jazz drummer Frankie Machine finds his old dealers waiting for him after a gig, keen to get him hooked all over again.

So to, do I receive such things as:

An email newsletter from Amy Butler about her long-anticipated Midwest Modern line of fabrics for Rowan. And they're all fantastic. They have names like Ohio Sky and they are in my favourite greens and are just my style.

A meeting with AM tonight during which I will be treated to a show-and-tell of newly arrived Echino fabrics.

Links sent provocatively detailing kimono fabrics that would look great on a wrap skirt, with the comment 'nothing for you of course! send it on to Jacqui!'

And who can forget the haunting 'we need this!!! Emailing: Marimekko'. Thaat's right. Pull out the Marimekko why don't you. I can take it.

As Tweety and Sylvester would say... T: don't you wuv me anymore pussycat? S: Why... you're... DEELICIOUSS!!!

Russian Christmas

The theme this month over at Self Portrait Challenge is to document our particular styles of celebration. As Nick is Russian, we travel most years to Sydney to celebrate Russian Christmas, this year held on 7 January. It involves some of my favourite things. These include, but are not restricted to, pickled herrings, homemade pate, and home infused vodka. This is me pretending that the entire table has been prepared for my benefit alone. Thanks very much, I'll have some of that!

Above you can see Oscar, and, a little something in the background that is physically impossible not to photograph, no matter how cheesy you may think it is to take a photograph of it, unless you live there. And then you can be all blase. This is after a humid trip to Toronga Park Zoo, on the ferry. What a place. The animals have the best view in the business.

Oscar's cousin Juliana's shoes at the zoo...

I was the cheeky person who asked the QANTAS hostie if I could keep the red cup. I'm loving the tablecloth. Oh and the little boy of course!

So practical, and so pretty...

Ludmilla (Nick's mum) has a fine collection of Matryoshka dolls...