Cruising along

Well no surprise I've fallen behind again on my posts, I just can't get the hang of blogging whilst travelling. I'll just have to knuckle down and figure out this Blogsy app, and no doubt have a few accidental postings along the way. Apologies for what I will assume will be rubbish formatting, brought to you courtesy of Blogger, Blogsy and Apple iPad - or the axis of blogging evil as I think of them.

I did have a pretty good excuse for September though, I was at sea for most of it, 24 fabulous nights aboard an Eastern Med cruise, including the Black Sea. It was brilliant, we loved every minute of it, and were both surprised to find after 24 nights we still didn't want to get off. Just to postpone that moment, we followed the trend of our previous cruise holidays, and stayed up till 3am on the last night, enjoying lots of laughs, and plenty of Gins, with new friends. Of course in the morning, when we had to be out of our cabin by 8am, this didn't feel like it had been a brilliant idea!
So as way of warming up to blog posting again, I thought I'd share a few photos;

Firstly some craft: I just, and I mean just, finished my Mohair Bias Loop in time to pack it (pattern from Churchmouse yarns on Ravelry). I'm not really a fan, it served it's purpose with this dress for the first (of six) Black tie nights. By pinning it with the brooch it meant I didn't have to keep fiddling with it, and didn't find I had to use T-Rex arms too much! Overall though, it's never going to be an 'easy wear' to have it off the shoulders like this, it's prone to either slip down to the elbows, or off one shoulder etc. Love the Rowan Kidsilk Glamour though, and I imagine I will wear this again as a cowl.
Onto the gratuitous holiday shots: Our first port of call, Lisbon, early morning sail in

Next stop Valetta, Malta. An even earlier morning sail in, but it was a beautiful sight in the early light. We splurged on a cabin with a balcony, and took our Nespresso machine aboard with us - and both were worth it to enjoy these early sail ins.

Then onto Kusadasi, Turkey. We went on an organised tour of Effasus and the Terrace Houses, which was an amazing archeology site to visit. There is rubble, slippery marble, and feral cats underfoot all around, yet I managed to fall down a half flight of modern metal checkplate stairs inside the Terrace Houses. There is a network of stairs and glass viewing platforms all above the houses, for viewing. I'm afraid I was too busy viewing and didn't quite get the top step right. Ouch, as always though, the embarrassment hurt way more than the bruises!

When we pulled into the dock in the morning, we were just enjoying a coffee on the balcony, admiring the view, when another ship pulled up alongside. The Azura dwarfed The Queen Elizabeth! In fact we realised our fellow passenger number of around 3000 equated the population of the town we formerly lived in back in South Australia!

Next destination: Yalta, Ukraine. We had been so looking forward to visiting the Ukraine, as the highlight of our trip, as we have close friends in Australia who are of Ukrainian heritage - and what great times we've had with them at family functions and New years. The pickles, the vodka, the singing, the dancing, and the food that just keeps coming at you! All excited at the prospect of a 'traditional lunch' as part of a scenic tour day we set off. Things went down hill quickly. I had accidentally booked us on a tour focused on the Crimeon War, and wow did our guide Olga know a lot about it, enough to talk on the subject ALL DAY, barely stopping for a breath. The traditional lunch turned out to be a disappointing unidentified fish and Greek style salad.
We did enjoy the start of the day though, a visit to a former Soviet Nuclear Submarine base, hidden under a mountain in Balklava during the Cold War years. The last stop was interesting too, a visit to a circular museum housing one of the largest mural paintings, 'The siege of Sebastopol'

To add a bit of excitement to the day, whilst we had been in Sevastopol there had been some extremely heavy rains closer to Yalta, causing flash flooding and land slides across the road separating our tour bus from our Ship. These are the moments where you feel happy to have paid for the ship organised excursion, as it's their problem to get you back! So we pulled over and waited for word that we could get through, across the road was this little church perched on a cliff.

I suspect in true Ukrainian culture some cash exchanged hands as about 30 mins later our bus drove past all the waiting traffic and through a gap cleared at the slide!
Our next port was Odessa, Ukraine. This time we were determined it was going to be the Ukrainian day we wanted, and it was. We wandered around the city on our own for the morning, admiring many of the lovely old buildings, sadly in need of attention.

We then found a restaurant for Varenyky for lunch - a sort of tortellini made from potato flour, sometimes stuffed with potatoes, we chose chicken though. While waiting a complimentary vodka appeared, complete with tiny piece of bread and pickle - this was more like the Ukranian way we know! After lunch we returned to the ship, refusing all offers to hold eagles and monkeys on the Potemkin stairs, to join our afternoon tour.
We had booked to do a home visit, where a small group of passengers (7 in ours) are invited into a locals home for the afternoon for tea and a chance to find out about local life. Our host Lucy was great, very open about the way of life in Odessa with crooked politicians, double entry book keeping, working cash in hand off the books. She spoke of life under Russian rule and the good and bad since. We were fed well (of course), with various pies and tarts, and tea and coffee. As expected the vodka appeared, and how could we offend, of course we shall drink! Tradition required three (large) straight shots before we could eat anything!
Lucy explained that very few older people in Odessa speak Ukranian, so my chance to try a bit had to wait until her granddaughter arrived, who learns Ukrainian (and Spanish) in school, and English from Lucy. Stacia was very sweet, quietly tapping me on the arm to correct my pronunciation of Varenyky (it was agreed it was my Australian accent!). The funniest moment was when we asked if Stacia knew 'Mnohya lita' - a sort of Ukranian all purpose song of joy. She was a little hesitant, so Lucy suggested why don't we just sing it and see. So two Australians sang a Ukranian song, to a round of applause and a very Russian response of 'no, we do not know this song'. Hilarious! It was then pointed out the vodka must be finished, another couple then, oh and then the congac. We returned to the ship with happy memories of the day, and our eyes rolling around in our heads!
Lucky we had a sea day before Istanbul, we needed all the energy we could muster to cope with a day in Istanbul. It was an amazing city to see and experience, but constantly shuffling in crowds and being on pickpocket alert is not something either of us enjoy.
There were some amazing sights to see though;

Mosaics inside the Hagia Sophia

The amazing Basilica Cistern

Oh and what a glorious day Athens put on for us;

We feasted on fried Greek cheese with fig sauce, hot dolmades, and pasticio oh the pasticio, yum!
Our last stop was Vigo in Northern Spain which was a good port to find a bar with friends and enjoy a beer and tapas in the sun before we returned to the grey UK - so that's exactly what we did.
Oh and one last tease, the sunsets at sea, are amazing.

The moons a bit trickier to capture from a moving ship with a basic camera, but it's lovely to watch with a late night cocktail in hand, sigh.

We spent the first week home searching future cruises, checking out the cruise line recruitement pages, and generally sitting around waiting for someone to appear with a cocktail or 5 course meal. Sigh, normality has resumed.

Posted with Blogsy

Been bitten by the sewing bug

Oh dear technical glitch (can't possibly be user error!) I just found my September writings all happily still sitting there in draft form - whoops, clearly I forgot to set their publish times, oh well. So here's what I was thinking about before I went on holidays!....


Once upon a time I used to sew, a lot. In fact I used to sew for a living, working for a costume hire store, making, repairing, altering costumes - anything and everything from 1800s ball gowns to tutu's for toddlers, to 2man horses, and Santa suits. Should you ever need a jabot in a hurry, I'm your girl.

What, you haven't heard of a jabot - I have made, repaired and ironed enough of these for three lifetimes! Although having just found this pic on gothiquerose.com for $16.95US, perhaps I should whip up some more!

I became interested in sewing through my Mum, who sewed a lot through my childhood and teen years, perhaps too much some might say, I shall never forget my embarrassment at my music teacher telling me, at 15, that she was really impressed with the bra's that my Mother had made for me, and clearly been showing around in the teachers lounge....shudder. I have no shameful memories though in association with some glorious very high waisted chords, with self fabric braces - they were cool, THEY WERE SO!

Four years at Design school meant most of my sewing was modifying charity shop bargains, one pink paisley sheet into a fab skirt, and matching tie,why yes I could.

The Eurythmics fan years

I was married around the end of my time working for the costume hire business, and being just a slight control freak made my wedding dress, the two bridesmaid dresses, and the flower girls dress. I think one of the best interventions ever made by my BFF was to demand I put down the needle and step away from my dress, when at 9pm the night before the wedding I contemplated beading the entire hem. I feel I should give a warning here - early 90s man mad fibres, shield your eyes!

Then for some reason sewing kind of died in my life, there were the odd curtains, tracky pants, crazy Christmas outfits, and fancy dress costumes, but the lack of fabric and pattern options killed the joy of it for me, and it had become all about rushing and frustration of finishing something for a special occasion.

me take fancy dress too seriously, never

and why stop at just making your own costume, when you can dress all your friends?

the skills you learn - roller skate RM boot cover, much safer on alcohol than the real thing (in theory)

Over the last year, probably as the result of getting more into following blogs, I've started to get itchy fingers to get back on the sewing machine. Plus with online shopping, and the resurgence in 'make do and mend' there are so many options out there now for fabrics and patterns. There's a whole community out there of like minded people to share the highs and lows with, and reach out to for advice - something I never had in real life back in my sewing days, I only had one friend who sewed.

I have a number of black tie functions coming up soon, so I'm trying to satisfy the urge with some hand sewing, adding trims and modifying some bargain purchases. I had great fun pouring over sewing pattern catalogues and materials in Stockholm, picking out bits of trims to make a belt, and some hair decorations. I scribbled away on ideas (at least the sketchbook was getting used, kinda). 

I might have to put a sewing machine on my Christmas list, then again, perhaps I should make it a reward for myself if I manage to reduce my wool stash by half (wouldn't want to over commit) and paint on at least half the canvases I have leaning against my desk? Oh yeah and there's the cross stitch to finish.

hmm, yes, maybe the machine will have to wait. 

Rowan Magazine 54

My Ravelry queue, and stash, are both already overflowing (the stash, literally!), yet after perusing Rowan Magazine 54 today....I just gotta get knitting more!

I love this 'Berenice Wrap' in kidsilk haze, although not sold that I would actually wear it. Maybe with a Cath Kidson twist? Knitting it in red, blue and pink? Maybe working stripes into the background?

This 'Corelli' cardi in 4ply wool is just the shaped jacket I've been searching for in the stores.

Really loving this 'Purcell' jacket, love the 1940's vibe, and I really enjoy knitting cables, it seems to make things grow so quickly. Again in 4ply so quite wearable. This one is definitely going in the queue.

The swing jacket style of "Bizet' looks like an easy wear, comfy winter layer. It's 4ply again (perfect, I last wore my one 8ply jumper 2 years ago over Easter, in Wales) Don't like the fact that the design is knitted in Anchor Artiste Metalic, which sounds a little itchy and 'bedazzled' for me. The Artiste Metalic is a very fine thread, so assume it's either carried along with the wool, or used doubled? Hopefully it can be substituted, I'm realist enough to not jump in and buy the pattern yet to find out, it's a fair way down my queue!

The one I definitely won't be making - 'Carmen'

What was the designer thinking with those giant gaps right at the bust? Bizarre

Sigh, my Ravelry queue keeps getting longer, and stash keeps getting larger, but why do none of them ever match up?

*all photos copyright Rowan

Hey can I look in your sketchbook?

Um...ok, sure

I'm never quite sure how I feel when people ask to look in my sketchbook. While it's nice that they're interested, I feel quite vulnerable, opening myself up for criticism. Like people may not necessarily understand the purpose of it, that the aim isn't for it to be a book of finished art work. I sketch to improve my skills, exercise the muscles involved, to further train my brain to draw what I actually see (I'll try to explain this further in a moment).

I sketch because one day I want to be good at painting, portrait painting, so being able to achieve a resemblance is important. I sketch to become familiar with a subject, how much more difficult would it be to paint something that you're not sure what it actually looks like? I'm just going to avoid the whole mine field of realism vs abstract for this post.

I also use sketchbooks to make quick line drawings and notations about paintings or objects I see that I want to learn or remember something from. Years later seeing one of these simple line drawings and notes I can picture the image exactly and recall the thing I wanted to store away for later. It works better than a photo, as I recall my interpretation of it.

Ultimately, I sketch because I enjoy it!

(pst bored already, feel free to browse the pics and jump to the end)

Everybody's a critic

Of course it's an exciting bonus to be really happy with a sketch, but fearing others looking at the book in future, can put a crippling restriction on being open in my drawing. Rather than freely drawing or experimenting without concern for the outcome, I can become focused on how bad something might look because others are going to see it.

I have a hard time taking praise, I am the worst recipient of compliments ever, and feel completely uncomfortable trying to give them - however genuinely I mean it. Seriously it makes my skin crawl, and I must come across as ungrateful, rude and or conceited! And if I'm bad at taking praise, criticism will either crush me or turn me into a raging fury (usually after the critic's gone and I've limped home like a wet rag).

I'm often amazed how forward people will be in pointing at a drawing and saying 'ooh the perspective's all wrong there', or '*laughs* wow, what is that supposed to be'. I'm never quite sure how to respond to those comments, other than feeling slapped in the face.

There are plenty of bad ones, and trust me, I can see it's bad. Maybe not during the drawing, as I get too involved. But then you step back, and see the horror. Other times it's hard to define whats wrong, looking at the picture backwards in the mirror will make it glaringly obvious.

Just say no

So there's a few issues there for me to work on. One to be less concerned about any ones opinion (and posting my drawings here is part of that). Another is to learn to say no, with a polite explanation that it's private, like asking someone to read their diary. Ideally I suppose to find a comfort zone somewhere in the middle.

Drawing is a learnable skill

Really, everyone can learn to draw, well ok, if you can write you can learn to draw. Even if your handwriting's terrible (have you seen Picasso's handwriting?)

Now to refer back to the comment on brain training - I believe everyone can draw, its not a random or inherited talent, it comes from practise and observation.

To try to keep it to one paragraph; your brain is really efficient, in order to quickly process information it learns to identify objects by some basic concepts. A cup for example is a cylinder with a handle, open on top, closed at the bottom. Ask a young child or an adult who says they can't draw to draw a cup, and that's exactly what they will draw, side view of the handle and top view of the cup all at once. It's called Canonical perspective, we naturally see things from above in our heads. It's along the same lines that AI Robots 'learn', the defining attributes of an item are enough to identify it, specific details are ignored. By the way, it's also the best way to win Pictionary, draw only the elements your brain needs to identify an object, better yet don't play against Design students.

Learning to draw a realistic image of a cup involves understanding concepts of perspective, of shadow and light, of retraining of your brain to not just take the short cut to the wonky circle and handle version but to actually see what is in front of it. Then there is the fine muscle training for your hands to be able to draw what what your seeing, an interesting exercise with this often happens in life drawing warm ups - where you draw looking only at the model, not looking at all at your drawing until you have finished.

When I have trouble accurately drawing an animal, I go and study their skeletal structure. 

You can't hire someone to practice for you

To view someones drawing and say they are 'really lucky' to be able to draw is kind of condescending, I'm exceptionally lucky these days to have the time to draw when I like, but any ability I may have has years of practise and classes behind it. Of course some people may learn it quicker, or seem to find it easy, but isn't that the same with all things in life? If someones handwriting is neater, were they born with it, or have they taken care and attention to achieve that? If someone's a great at a sport, were they born with it or did it really get their interest and they spent many hours practising?

I'm so envious of my husbands singing ability, but I know very well he has spent thousands more hours than me over the years learning to hear and identify music notes, and to replicate that. My singing clearly shows that I on the other hand haven't put a single day's practice in!

Certainly we all inherit (by genes or conditioning) habits, personality traits and interests from our family. In this regard I was lucky, my Dad had an interest in drawing that his working life never allowed him to pursue, and by the time I came along both my parents probably had a little more free time to encourage my creativity. Even if it was by giving me supplies and hours on my own to do it! I guess it was a 'make something or die of boredom' scenario! I also had an exceptional Art Teacher in Highschool who encouraged me to pursue higher education in Design (which incorporated illustration).

Get a day job

There's also an indulgent side to my sketching, I can be at it for hours and while I'm focused on that all the other noise in my head stops, all those constant thoughts of forgotten bills and birthdays, disagreements, and frustrations disappear, and there is a fabulous sense of calm and happiness that I don't really think happens with anything else I do (except painting, that's even more so). With nearly all other activities my brain is firing around in fifteen directions at once, bouncing around with a 30 second edit of a song on a loop!

I think it's a reflection of the value people place on hobbies in general too. In this time of high pressure, he who is busiest must be most important, hobbies are often seen as self indulgent, selfish or a waste of time. Certainly when people ask what do I do with all my free time - any answer I give related to crafting and drawing doesn't seem justifiable to people working long hours.

There was a point here somewhere?

I set out writing this post intending it to be quite short, barely a paragraph! So what am I getting at - if you want to draw, draw (and if you want to knit, knit!). No one else ever has to see it, it doesn't have to be good, there is no right or wrong - but there is peace and calm in the moment. If you're starting from scratch check out short courses or classes, you can get there on your own, but you'll move faster to where your going with education.

If I've rambled on too much, I hope you enjoyed the images anyway, I thought it may be of interest to see some of those other sketchbook pages, where I've recorded notes visually or with text. Sidenote, these are often called Artist Journals.

Now grab a pen and draw a cup - see?

Palmer, S.E., Rosch, E., & Chase, P. (1981). Canonical perspective and the perception of objects.

WIP - most of them imaginary!

Things have been a little slow on the creative front of late, my rotator cuff injury is still hanging around and limiting my crafting hobbies severely. Humph, life without crafting is boring, and I'm discovering expensive, having spent many days of my last four weeks in Stockholm shopping instead of drawing or knitting!

My only drawing from 4 weeks in Stockholm! The growing Elk foal, Skansen.

I have started this Mohair Bias Loop (pattern by Churchmouse Yarns and Teas), in fact I've started it 5 times, but I've got a really good feeling about attempt number 6! Lucky number 6. I have discovered my tension with kidsilk is dreadful, not consistent at all. I finally reduced the number of stitches by 20% to get it back to the correct length (rather than reducing needle size, which A. I didn't have as a circular, and B. I want this open and not overly warm). Having finally settled on this size being correct, it's only taken a couple of nights to get halfway, so should finish this pretty quickly - I want it to take on holidays soon so there's a definite deadline.

Mohair Bias Loop in Rowan Kidsilk Haze Glamour

The tension issue has made me a bit nervous, last year I bought some lovely green mohair for a jumper for myself, the first adult jumper I would knit in 20 years! I was keen to get onto it for this winter, but now very worried about what sort of size or shape it may end up! I may have to knit up a few more scarves in mohair and work on this erratic tension.

I have also been carrying around this lovely ball of greenness for the last four weeks (ambitiously thinking I would finish the mohair loop, and a shawl during the four week trip). Having finally decided on a pattern for it, I'm itching to get started. I bought the yarn at 'Svenska Hemslöjdsföreningarnas Riksförbund' - The National Association of Handicrafts in Sweden. There was some confusion when I bought it as I asked what ply and length the skein was, the sales assistant was perplexed, it seems its a yarn for weaving, but I really like the colour and texture. This skein has done some miles already, I bought it on a previous trip, took it home to the UK, then took it back at the beginning of August, then home mid August, then back for another two weeks, and now back in the UK. We will have to plant a forest to repair our carbon footprint when these years of travel finish! 

(I wound this by hand, very proud of how neat it is!)

I've chosen 'Birch' by Rowan, after seeing a completed shawl in 'Wincent Garner' in Stockholm, when buying the kidsilk haze glamour there for the bias loop. I never would have picked it from the rubbish photo Rowan used on the pattern - really what are you supposed to get from this image? The perfect shawl to wear camping in your pyjamas perhaps?

image from knit rowan.com

  

I had gone round in circles trying to find a pattern, I blame Ravelry that I've become obsessed with trying lace knitting, especially shawls, and started buying lace weight skeins of loveliness. However hours of searching for patterns would result in lots I wanted to knit, but almost none I would consider wearing, at least not in public. Lets face it, people tag you as nanna for knitting in public, wearing a shawl would be the end! From the thousands of them being knitted up on Ravelry though I gather they must be more commonly worn in parts of the US (or perhaps they all wear them at home?). I did try a few on in Stockholm though, wrapping them more like scarves, and now can see that there are some that can be worn in more modern styles.

Ultimately I do want to work my way upto Celestarium, by the very talented, Audry Nicklin (over at Bear-ears.com, photo courtesy of Audry's website). 

I don't care how nerdy it may be, a knitted representation of the night sky from the pole? Awesome, bring it on. Since first seeing the pattern I have been on the search for just the right yarn, in the same amount of time Audry has written a pattern mapping the Southern Stars, and is about to release her first knitting book. One of us is much more productive in the knitting front! 

One final note of shawly nerdom, this one has made it into my Ravelry queue too, I may have to gift to a friend who I think would wear it way prouder than I. For some reason I can't resist the idea of knitting it though.

'Bigger on the inside' by Kate Atherley, photo by Amy Singer (available on Ravelry) 

With some yarns or patterns, resistance is futile. 

Bloglovin

It's coming up to a year now since I started up this blog, and although I still don't seem to be able to get into a rhythm of posting regularly, I am enjoying it, and love reading what other bloggers are creating. 

I still feel like such a dummy with a lot of things blog related, the latest of which is Bloglovin, it seems like an app that should make keeping up with blog reading and browsing easier, particularly across different platforms - yet somehow now I seem to be reading some there, some still in Blogger and can't quite get it together?

It's been exciting to see a couple of new people following my blog through Bloglovin as well and I'm sure there's some widget thingy that I need to add onto my Blogger template thing so I can see these lovely new followers *sigh* but seems another thing that can't be done on iPad. 

So far I've failed to even connect my own blog to Bloglovin, which requires you to post their code in a blog post - so here goes, either I'll successfully get more from Bloglovin, or I'm about to post some code that will doom my blogging efforts! 

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/8278107/?claim=633yvzkv7bt">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Finally Blogger is working on iPad!

Hip hip hooray, Blogger finally seems to be catching up on their iPad application issues. 

Finally you can scroll within the post past images, add images, and add text after an image. I can't believe they've taken so long, I'm sure it's cost them a few bloggers, even inconsistent lazy bloggers like me were sick of it!

It appears I can finally add comments on the blogs of the lovely and talented too. It's still a limited version compared to what's available via the laptop, but at least the functionality provided works now. 

 Snow more fooling around, and I guess snow more excuses for falling behind!