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Episode 19: Lace, knitting needle legacies and Bear’s Rainbow blanket

Bear’s Rainbow blanket from Purl Soho

A couple of the first squares to get sewn up

A photo posted by Alisa (@girliejonesadventures) on

Piles of the other squares sorted by colour

A photo posted by Alisa (@girliejonesadventures) on

A photo posted by Alisa (@girliejonesadventures) on

A photo posted by Alisa (@girliejonesadventures) on

A photo posted by Alisa (@girliejonesadventures) on

Join my craft circle:
Email: champagneandsocks@gmail.com
Ravelry: girliejones and Champagne and Socks Craft Circle Group
Twitter: @champagnesocks or @krasnostein
www.champagneandsocks.com



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March 6   Our trip to Melb

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I’m so behind at the moment that I thought I had written some posts about our trip to Melbourne last month. A quick check of my archive tells me that I only composed them in my head.

We went over for my cousin’s engagement party – I’m so happy to be sharing this journey with her, we shall both get married within two months of each other. She had her party first and we went for a long weekend to share her celebration and for a bit of a rest. We had a really great time. C says it was a holiday for ADD people but I think even though we were basically doing things all the time, spending three hours in a bar on Chapel St is hardly taxing!

We stayed on Swanston St which turned out to be a bad idea because they were ripping up the tram lines right in that section for only 48 hours, the only 48 hours we were there. But aside from that, and the trams not running down that street, we were in the perfect location. After a dismal breakfast in the hotel, we spent a lot of the rest of our time in and out of the alleyways finding all kinds of scrumptious things and shopping surprises.

We also hung out a bit at Federation Square and found some awesome yarn bombing out side of the Starbucks right there!

I was really impress by a few overtly environmentally friendly initiatives and actions that I saw about the city. The first was this bike one – you can hire a bike, ride it about and then leave it at another station – and there are stations all about the CBD. I thought this was really really cool.

I also noted giant signs talking about the water restrictions. Though we have similar restrictions in Perth, they aren’t actually really talked about, like this:

And, just cause it amuses, Batman Av:

During one of the first shopping outings, we found Tansy’s new book Reign of Beasts in Dymocks on Collins St. And bought a copy! C of course had finished it by the time we arrived back in Perth. I am proud to say that I finished Power and Majesty on the trip.

I scored a new pair of shoes from somebody who forgot to mention I needed to wear (and thus bring) closed shoes to the taping of The Project. C had seen a live taping of the show last time he was in Melbourne and was keen to go along again. It was raining a lot that evening and we headed down to the Channel 10 offices. We were early and needed to by shoes and after that we took shelter in a lovely bar and drank cocktails and ate Mars Bar cheesecake. We headed back to the offices at the appointed time and it was all very TV-ish which was a lot of fun. They gave us lots of lollies, I guess to hype us up and we were taught to clap to sound like we were more people, and to shout and laugh as well. We were hustled into the show and sat and watched the episode go live to air. It was a bit nervewracking knowing you HAD to laugh at the jokes but it was all very interesting and new.

Afterwards we headed back to the Cabinet Bar for some drinks and a bite to eat. And watched a couple on a blind date.


On the Monday, before we headed home, we wandered down to Southbank, contemplated seeing a movie, and then had a lovely secluded lunch on this balcony overlooking the water instead. The food was divine.

I dragged C down to the restaurant that sits under one of the pylons to a bridge across the river there:

And then we headed back to try what, we were told by Narrelle Harris, was The Most pretentious coffee in all of Melbourme. We drank a lot of coffee (I mostly drank decaf apart from this one) but apparently this was the most snobbish. We’re engineers and interested in mechanics. I though, am also a coffee snob.

We drank our coffee over a very long and enjoyable conversation with Narrelle, who met up with us there. It was really lovely to catch up with her and of course there were lots of stories and laughter. Interestingly, this coffee, which they describe as being more like a tea than a coffee, was unbelievably gentle on my stomach, when normally a black espresso would not have been so.

And I promised on Facebook a picture of the puppy when we got home – he is normally white, but shown here to be dusty from the red dust at the farm he hung out on whilst we were away.

 

 

 

 



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January 15   Birthday girl!

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This afternoon we headed up to Perth to celebrate my niece’s second birthday. Wow. Time has flown by!

My parents are still away so we could only hang out amongst ourselves, not having any bubs of our own as distractors.

My sister is an amazing cook and she outdid herself today. There were club sandwiches, sushi, pizza, fairybread, and so many other things. I grabbed some photos of these cute biscuits she made:

racing car teddies and teacups!

And the piece de resistance, teddy bear birthday cake:

 

 



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My mother’s cousin’s husband works at UCSD and so they live very close to the campus. With some resistance, we dragged my other cousin B out for a lovely walk on the campus to see some of the grounds. It’s indeed a lovely campus:

This is part of an open air exhibit of a famous artist, I forget the name. And we weren’t really sure on the meaning of the work. Still, discarded TV set in the grass. It was cool. My reading was showing some contrast about the move from worshipping religion to that of the TV or pop culture. Not sure.

This is actually an installation not a real tree (the one in the middle). It’s a singing tree that also recites poetry. It wasn’t really into performing when I was there but it was still a lot of fun trying to pick the not tree from the rest.

Dr Suess. He and his wife donated a lot of money to the university.

This sculpture is called Bear. S made B and I pose a few times in front of it for some photos. I haven’t seen them, I will ask for copies but we were very amused. I kinda like that this is a big teddy bear in the square surrounded by a bunch of engineering buildings.

The Sun God. So ah, I don’t actually know what the Sun God Festival is, but B said not to touch anything.

 

 



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After lunch we took a little bit of a walk around La Jolla and wandered in and out of this gorgeous old hotel. (That’s V and S in the photo below).

 

I am fascinated by the Mexican influence throughout San Diego – both in the food and in the architecture and design. I’m very interested in the similarity to a lot of Arabic design and use of colour.

The gorgeous entrance


After some more window shopping (hey I gotta pick out an engagement ring! Research, baby!) and a bit more of a walk around the area, we said goodbye to D and V and headed home.



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Yesterday was a much more mellow day. S picked me up and we headed over to La Jolla and had a seasidey kind of late morning. This is La Jolla cove and has a lot of birds – S said they were having a Bird-vention – and sealions!

We were meeting D and her partner for lunch and we had some time so we wandered around a little bit and then we went down a cave. Oh my goodness! I’m a little bit claustrophobic and this was a narrow tunnel heading straight down with a steep, sometimes wet and slippery, staircase. We went down with a few other people and I concentrated on NOT FREAKING OUT! The view was worth it though.

And a spider web on the hand rail

We headed back up again and thank goodness is was shorter on the way up. Took me a while to recover though and OMG my legs still hurt a day later! We had a lovely walk around the cove before lunch.

More birds and sea lions!

We then headed back to the restaurant to meet D and V for lunch. We ate at the Brockton Villa and I had the famous Coast Toast because D had been raving about it the day before. It was very decadent french toast. The others had some very delicious looking meals. We again had great conversation and a lot of laughing. Brockton’s is a very old building, originally a house built overlooking the gorgeous coastline. It was very restful and relaxing and a lot of fun.



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October 25   San Diego Day 1

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I took yesterday slow and steady and it seemed to go pretty well!

First up, for $10 I could have breakfast in bed – juice, carafe of coffee (don’t ask) and a basket of pastries – delivered to me by a lovely man on a bike with a trailer. I enjoyed the decadence muchly. I also watched some good old morning American TV. And lazed about and whatnot.

Later in the morning my cousin and her partner came and picked me up to take me out for the day. They are so sweet – they’d found my blog and the Galactic Suburbia podcast and researched up on me! We went to a funky, cool part of town first up, as per my request – I think maybe North Park (is that a place?). We sat in a very cool cafe and had coffee and just hung out and talked and got to know each other. Kinda one of my favourite things to do. This is the first time I’ve met this part of my family and it’s always interesting to see what is genetic and what you have in common and stuff. Especially personality wise and things. Coincidentally, I was looking out the window at the bill across a theatre that announced Amanda Palmer will be performing there on the 28th. I had vanilla nut cafe au lait.

Then we wandered around, in and out of a few independent bookstores before heading to The Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore. Turns out that is where the mass booksigning will be tomorrow night. I was showing my cousin Jonathan’s Engineering Infinity and the guy was like, oh yeah, he’ll be here signing. Heh, I wonder if Jonathan knows that? Meanwhile, they’ve tracked down books by so many people who will be at the con that I suspect they will make for excellent shopping later on. I bought nothing as I am currently trying not to acquire luggage weight.

We headed back to my cousin’s place, with Mexican take out. I met the dogs -all three of them! And we all hung out. They’d told me to pack my computer because “they don’t hang out unless they each have their computers out and are on the internet etc” – hello, my people or what? Course we mostly chatted. I did catch up on email and we watched a bit of a claymation movie before another cousin showed up – her brother. He was also lovely to meet and we all went out for Vietnamese for dinner and played that “so how are we related?” game and just, you know, told stories and got to know each other.

I’m really glad that WFC is in San Diego this year and I’ve had the chance to meet some of my cousins.Now I’ve met them and got to know them, I know that we will stay in touch and they will be part of my life, and what if I’d not come here and not met them and that never happened? You know when you meet people who you connect with and understand? It’s pretty cool. Anyhow.

I’d better go get dressed. I’m off to meet Mr Charles A Tan, finally, for breakfast!



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