More style tips from Auntie Violet

Ever since socks and undies have existed, men have known that you can put off laundry day significantly by wearing these items inside out on alternate days.

We can extrapolate this to women's wear, though maybe not with undies because women tend not to like that idea.

Here's one for those of you who like your tights matt, but can't afford cashmere ones - turn the buggers inside out! This also works great if your tights are all bobbly from too many accidental turns in the washing machine.

Genius.

Unseasonally warm

Today I was faced with a dilemma; when you've gone to work in boots and thick tights and the temperature surprises you with a lovely almost-summer warmth, which is worse - sweating it out in the boots and tights, or wearing the boots without the tights (and possibly still be sweaty but at least your knees will be comfortably cool)?

I decided to remove the tights. Fortunately my boots are leather lined, so my feet weren't tooooo bad. I even walked home this way, but it did feel kinda funny to be so intimate with the inner landscape of my footwear.

Though I probably wouldn't have risked it in synthetic boots.

Turning six, getting influenza and touching snow

It's been an eventful few days -  The Little Madam turned six last Thursday and had her birthday party on Saturday. It was a joint party, with her best mate at school who is her "star twin" (because they were born on the same day). The weather was kind, the kids were mostly co-operative and the animal biscuits went down a treat.

The next day was a different story though. At basketball she bopped herself on the nose with her ball, then when we played catch she got the same ball in between her fourth finger and pinky. And then she got sick.

On Monday I took her to the doctor's, where she was diagnosed with the 'flu. I'd been worried when TLM said her neck hurt, but apparently it wasn't due to meningicoccal disease - so that's good.

But once she'd had her first dose of Pamol, she was all lively and alert - enough to enjoy watching it snow (we NEVER get snow here). And now we won't have to go to Mt Ruapehu in mid-Winter for TLM's snow experience.

Knit skirt

This skirt was supposed to be the one that I found in the book Knitting it old school, full of great, tongue-in-cheek re-interpretations of old fashions. (Actually, the best thing in it was the crochet mini dress made out of multi-coloured granny squares, but I'm about 20 years too old and missing about 20 cm in leg length for that one!)

The original pattern was in pumpkin orange, with a big border of diamond shapes along the hem.
But it wasn't to be, because I ended up completely redesigning the thing to get it to fit me properly. Also, I had a hell of a time knitting those shapes without getting any puckering.
Here's a shot of my third and final attempt before giving up -

It was when I was reading Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting without tears (so apt!), that I realised what the problem was. The pattern had three different colours on the same row, with strands being carried across up to 11 stitches. My last attempt was using a stranded knitting/intarsia combination but it didn't work.
So instead, I picked a number of more traditional Fair Isle patterns to do instead - 

And here's a shot of the whole garment (pardon the weird colour effect - my iPhoto did it and I don't know how to undo it. So the above photo is a more accurate depiction of the colours.

It's a very respectable knee-length, which is another departure from the original. I might even wear it to work on Monday if it's cold enough.

Mug shots of the aforementioned new winter coat

 Here they are at last, photos of the coat which stole my heart and my wallet.

As you can see, the voluminousness of the body of the coat is rather awesome (as in, really big). Though that is nicely balanced by the narrow sleeves (which, strangely, are exactly the right length and size for my arms).

 And here is the back of the coat. The tag calls this coat a cape, and I guess it is - it's a cape with sleeves.

There's no way I would, on paper, wear a cape. But a swing coat  - which this is to my eyes -  I would wear.

Here's a shot of the lining. Can you see that the inside of this rather posh garment is covered in burlesque dancers?



True, it's not the coat that Gok Wan (or any other TV stylist) would have chosen for me me. But it's pretty special and keeps me cosy.

If colds could be exciting

I have the cold that TLM had last weekend, and it's a cold like no other I've ever had.
Like, for instance, the fact that my shoulders and knee joints hurt.
And my teeth hurt!
I got it on Wednesday and now, on Sunday, my teeth don't hurt any more so I can put off visiting the dentist for another few months (or years).

I'm glad that I took this week off so I could hang out with TLM during the second week of her school holidays. I'll be out of action for at least the next few days,  but it'll be nice not to have to stress about using up my sick leave when the real winter has only just set in.

Also I'm getting lots of knitting (and un-knitting) done during this time.

Thank goodness the boy is so good at looking after us!

My new winter coat

I know that, as a short and stockily built woman, the last thing I should be wearing is a massive swing jacket of thick, nubby wool which is topped off with a luxuriant faux-fur collar.

When I saw it hanging in the World shop, I loved the black and red wool fabric and oversized red and gold buttons - but the fur collar wasn't detachable and the cape-like silhouette was going to make me look like the dwarf in Don't Look Back (old movie starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, if you're under 35).

So I tried on a different coat, which was similarly floaty but too long and had giant heart-shaped pockets that didn't open at the top (they unzipped at the sides). And then, because I had nothing to lose I decided to try on the gorgeous red coat with the neck-shortening faux-fur collar and the widening cape shape.

World is not a shop I enter frequently, it being a designer shop where a skirt at 50% discount will still cost over $200 (though it will be beautiful and look like nothing else on the street). So I was unprepared for the sweetly attentive saleswoman, an older woman who knew how to talk me into buying it. She told me how much the original price was.

Suddenly the fur collar was not at all irritating, the voluminous folds "draped beautifully". I lusted after it.

Dear reader, I bought the coat.
I had to - it was, like, 60% off and a World garment.

Of course, by the time I had got it home and tried it on again, I didn't look quite as classy in it as I'd remembered.  But it is still a beautiful coat which looks really special and is wonderfully warm. I don't care that it's not completely flattering, because if I only ever wore what was flattering my wardrobe would be full of black scoopneck long-sleeve t-shirts, black tunic dresses, black tights, black shoes and a black princess-line coat (which, even though a common item, would be expensive because I'd have to have it altered to fit me). Actually, that does describe most of my wardrobe - except for the coat.

When I wear my new coat I am reminded of when I was a teenager accompanying my mother to a shop in town that specialised in real fur, leather and suede coats and jackets. We went more than once and at one point she probably had about four coats of different styles, from that one shop (she always managed to bargain the retailer down to get a good price). While most of her coats have been passed on to others, she still has one coat which gets lots of wear now that she's elderly and feels the cold.  I'm just glad no-one has tried to throw paint on her.

teeny geek

TLM has her own iPad2.

The season of the lurgy

first TLM was sick. Then the boy got what she had, and languished at home for a week (yet still able to produce an impressive amount of work, considering he seemed to be near death). Now I've got what TLM and the boy had. I think. Though fingers crossed it's just going to turn out to be a short-term bout of yucky coughing.

I'm taking the day off work, but not because I'm sick. It's because TLM is sick - again. A mere fortnight after she sneezed and coughed away a wallet-full of money in unused after-school care, the poor creature is now laying about restlessly on the sofa having already vomited twice today and once yesterday.

Such is winter in our household...

The tattoo jumper

Here we go. The boy is proudly wearing his new jumper for the third time in four days! Even though it is still about 10cm too short! Mind you, he's not likely to wear it without a t-shirt underneath, so he doesn't risk any hairy-belly exposure...you can't easily tell from this picture, but the design is a bit bulgy and that's probably because when I floated the black yarn behind the patterned bits, I didn't do so loosely enough. Maybe it will all sort itself out in the wash...

This is the left sleeve, pretty much identical to the right sleeve....

 

 

I knitted it. He wore it.

There's a myth/old wives tale/cautionary tale, that if you knit your boyfriend a jumper (sweater) you will eventually break up. I think it's okay to knit for your husband though, because they're supposedly a bit more committed.
But that's not why I haven't bothered to knit much for the boy - mainly because it takes such a long time to make something that fits a man who's more than six foot tall and has a chest that makes gay tailors swoon.
Well, I did make him that Slytherin scarf. It took about the same amount of merino yarn as two me-sized jumpers. But he wore it, and stayed.

Today, I finally finished the Tribal Sweater (or, in Kiwi, the Tattoo Jumper), the one from the Knitting with balls book.

It was too short all over so I picked up the stitches at all the hems and added a couple of inches. I can do that because the hems are in stocking stitch not rib, and they curl up anyway. Apart from that, and many attempts at knitting the big octopus-thing on the front, it went pretty well. In fact, he's wearing it right now. And he's still here.

I'll post a photo at some stage, I just have to wait for a time when he's wearing it and it's not evening and we're not in a hurry to do something or go somewhere.

the personal politics of caged pork

Ever since I realised that Kiwi pig farmers like to jam their animals into tiny cages, just as much as pig farmers do in the UK (and no doubt a few other parts of the world too), I have refused to eat caged pork.

Even though I miss pork sausages terribly, I don't miss them enough to condone what I think is a cruel practice.
But my mum is a big pork fan, and has only just given up on trying to deceive me into thinking that the stuff she bought at Pak n Save and roasted so deliciously ( going by the smell) is free range.
On the other hand, if I accidentally (really!) buy a sandwich which has pork or ham in in, then I'd rather eat it because to throw it away means that a pig has lived and died in misery for nothing.

Which means I have to be a hypocrite - I'll refuse to buy the stuff or eat my mother's offerings, but if it ends up in my fridge somehow then I'd rather eat it than throw it out.

I still feel a bit guilty though.

As soft as a baby's bottom

Gawd, is this what it's like to have normal, healthy skin?

I finally got myself an appointment with the dermatologist, months after being plagued by horribly anti-social itchiness and the complications that followed.

The day after I started on two types of antihistimines (one for day and one for night) and a steroid lotion (to replace two ineffective ointments), I felt my belly and it was soft and smooth.

In fact, my whole body is soft and smooth. I'm almost in lust with myself - several times a day I catch myself standing in the middle of the lounge feeling my tummy skin.

Okay, so I'm a bit dopey in the mornings because of the antihistamines, but it's a small price to pay to be (relatively) beautiful.

I also found a nice moisturiser that was both effective and completely non-irritating. It's a product which is custom-made for me by the lady who owns the Earth 174 shop in town; she mixed it up from almond oil, vitamin E and manuka honey, and will keep adding stuff to the recipe to see what my skin will handle.

Knitting for the boy

I offered to knit the boy a sweater, to make up for the fact that I seem to spend every free moment knitting (instead of wrapped around the boy or making him cups of tea or getting him a beer). At the library I found exactly three books of knit patterns for men.

The boy liked only one of the sweaters - not the one with cables all over, not the one with Ernie stripes, not the argyle vest... the only one he liked was a plain stocking stocking stitch crew neck with no ribbing at any of the hems, and a giant octopus-like symbol on the chest (plus baby ones on the sleeves).
(I think it was in Knitting with Balls). It was called the Tribal Sweater, although we call it The Tattoo Jumper (because we call sweaters jumpers around here).

So I started with the front, because the back is just boring old stocking stitch all the way up. And man, it is driving me crazy! First time trying to knit from a chart, and you can tell. I've been knitting the octopus back to front and with the leggy bits all pointing in the wrong directions. And then I've knit gaps into the graphic  and the strands are either too tight (causing weird puffines) or too loose (so I get a holey effect). And the tangles!

I've unravelled the thing 3 times now, before turning it into the plain ole back piece. I think I'll have to leave that front to last, when I'm a bit more practiced.

Cables are way easier - and I've only just started learning how to do those.

Happy Mother's Day

I had this idea that we'd be doing something special today, to mark Mother's Day.
But when the boy got up this morning moaning and groaning about dizziness and stomach pain, I knew that wasn't going to happen.
On the other hand, just having a day of full rest seems to have helped him get mostly better (though not well enough to risk eating my cooking). Maybe it was just a bad tv dinner.

And I can't complain that I didn't get a lovely card and a nice present (Gok Wan's Work your Wardrobe). The boy was as sweet as he could manage and TLM, as always, was a delight.
It's quite nice being a mum.

A knitted dress for TLM

I used the free knitting pattern called Oriental Lily, on the Ravelry site. The main part of the dress is made from an acrylic yarn called Robin Paintbox, and the lilac bands are from a single ball of cotton/acrylic Wendy yarn. The acrylic stuff was a bit on the plasticky side, but it was the only one with the right kind of variegated colouring, which I could be sure wouldn't cause any irritation.

holiday snaps

Here's a view of Mt Ruapehu from one of the walks we went on

 I didn't take many photos, and even fewer are sufficiently anonymous to post up on the Internet...

And this is the rather flashy glass basin in the flashy bathroom of our motel unit

Post-vacationette

What a lovely time we had! Who'd have thought that a long weekend in a town known for carrot-farming would be so much fun?

The best bits:

• stopping off at the adventure playground in Levin, a great place that ought to be a tourist destination
• hanging out with our friends
• walks in the fern-y rainforest at the foot of Mt Ruapehu
• TLM being really excited before, during and after our stay
• TLM finding a new best friend in DOTH
• the Easter egg hunt, in which the long-legged boy took on the dual roles as "hare" and Easter bunny, TLM and DOTH kept up with him most impressively, and I impressively kept up with them
• watching Ricky Gervais on Sesame Street singing a "N is for..." lullaby (you had to be there)
• the gorgeous golden-leaved deciduous trees that graced the land on either side of the bridge just before Taihape (on the other side of the big gumboot)

The bits that were less good, to balance out the universe:

• having to come home on Monday
• the rain on Monday, which prevented us from re-visiting Levin's adventure playground
• lunch at McDonalds (again, on Monday) - I used to wonder whether I was just being a food snob; but actually I really hate the food and feel almost ill knowing that I'm completely wasting my calorie allowance by ingesting that stuff
• none of the outlet shops in Otaki were open when we drove by, due to it being ANZAC Day, which was really disappointing because we were in the mood for a bargain-hunting spree and I wanted to check out the Kumfs sale

Technically, TLM and I are still on holiday as I've taken this half of the school holidays off work. So I have another 4 days of blissfully work-free days!

Vacationette

We are going away for the long Easter weekend!

Even better, we are going with Make Tea Not War , Gamester at Large and DOTH (no blog as far as I know) who is similar in age to TLM.

We're not sharing accommodation so we'll get the best of both worlds - company when we desire it, but not when we're itching to go to bed and everyone else wants to stay up late and drink pear cider. Or something.

Yay...

Like taking candy from a stranger

Today, TLM lost some of her childhood innocence.

Some strange guy apparently stood outside the school gate and tried to befriend TLM and her friend by giving them each a chocolate bar.

Having seen the statistics showing that "stranger danger" is a bit of a myth because most assaults on children are by someone known to them, I had not thought to impress on TLM that she should not accept anything from a stranger. How to be wary of strange dogs, yes. How to be wary of strange men...no.

So in that time squeezed in between getting home from work and after-school care, and her bedtime, the boy and I hurriedly tried to catch up on that aspect of parenting.

And TLM would ask things like, 'what if it's a bad man pretending to be a nice man?" and "what if it's a man who's a zookeeper?". In retrospect I think she was trying to find a situation in which it would have been okay to do what she did, which was to accept the chocolate (but it had peanuts in it, so she'd taken a bite and thrown it away). I think she got tired of me repeating the mantra, "if you don't him and we don't know him, run away from him".

She's sad and scared because her world has changed. And so am I.