Powerhouse Museum

Only the best.

Nine....

objets d'art
haute couture
knitted sculptures

......errrr
funny tea cosies

....now grace the halls of the Powerhouse Museum.

Glass polished.

Hands gloved.

Tea cosies registered.

Photographed.

Labeled.

Loved.

Locked

Left.

Thank you Gosia (the Conservator) and Jessica (the Registrar) for your care and expertise. 

And then there is this.

Mark Crocker photographed book 1 and has continued to play with me in our Portraits of a Tea Cosy project.





His joyous photographs are displayed alongside the girls.










Thanks Owen the AV Guy.  We are looking up at him in awe.

And then there was Julia.

Every now and then you meet someone in your daily machinations who wows you with their ability to take care of everything with such efficiency and ease and good will.

Julia - you made me feel very special.  Thank you.

And thank you Lily, who thought it was an idea worth its wool.  Without you, there would be no installation.





It's worth a look/see.... I reckon.

Shedding a little light on the gender thing

Question:

Are all tea cosies female?

Answer:

No

Question:

How do I know what's what?

Answer:

Well look at him for goodness sake.  He is exuding testosterone.

Introducing

The Jester King

No not King of the Tea Cosies.

King of the Jesters.

Jesters can by royal too.

Royal nutters.

The view from our unit in Port Stephens - other units.

But look the other way and I can see the sea.

Getting Ready

Perhaps she ought to be called Madonna, she has had so many incarnations.

Well three.  She's had three.  Her stylist thinks we might be there now.

A softer finer look was required.  A little bit old worldy.  A little bit glam.  A little bit saucy.

Betty is dressed in Zarina 4 ply knitted up in a gorgeous coral red and delicious chocolate brown with a pearl shell and gilt edged beading peaking out from the neckline.

Betty the Burlesque Dancer is one of 9 tea cosies on display at the Powerhouse Museum from this Thursday 4th March.

5 cosies are new designs not seen in either publication.  

We are all of us in Port Stephens, (while The Bloke does fishy things) having our finishing touches.  A new petticoat here, an extra stitch there.

And of course a little rest up and some last words of encouragement from The Queen before the big outing.

Excited.  Nervous.  Excited.  Happy.  Nervous.  Excited.

Three Fabulousnesses in One

Yesterday The Bloke and I did our usual Friday afternoon thing - a glass of red or two at Aromas on Hastings Street.

But we have rules about what hour imbibing ought to start. 

As we were a little early we went for wander up Hastings Street...

...and found a brand new shop.

Lamington. Yes yes. All you'll find at the link is an address. But it is very important that you know where it is because when you are next in Noosa you must not leave without visiting. It is filled with clever, useful, beautifully made, Australian made things that you won't find in too many other places. It isn't often I want to buy everything in a shop or would even think to rave on about a shop.  High praise.






I managed to get out of there this time with just this made by Third Drawer Down. The artwork is by Camilla Engman who's blog I have been following for an age. The tea towel is a limited edition of 1,000. I got the magic number of 400.

No drying of dishes for this little beauty.  Me thinks it might get stretched over a frame.

Secret Socks

One would think - with the way one boasts about the size of one's stash - that one would have enough of the same colour purple to complete a pair of knee length socks.

But - what is that about 'necessity' and 'invention'.

One is reminded of a fine fellow one once worked with.

He was a very dapper man.  Always impeccably groomed, his not inexpensive cloth cut in that fine classic mould.  Rich in colour but nothing peacockish.

All of it in perfectly understated good taste.

But when he sat down and crossed one leg over the other, he revealed a defiant middle finger pointed at the world.

Bright red socks with leaping frogs.

Sunshine yellow with can can girls.

Fluorescent green with humping lamas.   (Now there's a thought!)

Remember these?

One is going to have very warm calves in Mittagong this year.





Be sure to keep an eye on in...

What's Happening

....there on the side menu.

Post Script: The Bloke has said nothing about my using the word 'humping' here on the blog. Is it not nearly as bad as the word 'shit' or I wonder has he learnt his lesson.

Glamour Shots

Some Tea Cosies!  I don't know!  Really!  They just want to hog the limelight.

It wasn't enough that Betty had one outing.

She insisted on getting up in this garb and having glamour shots taken.

AND she thinks she ought to wear this to the Powerhouse gig. 

It's a day gig girl.  Not some raunchy steam punk do.

Te DA!

It's a book!

My one 'advance' copy.

What is it about having a book?  I mean 50 thousand billion other people have books.

But ....the old baby analogy works.

50 thousand billion people have babies - but when your own baby comes - it's as if no-one ever did it before.

One feels unreasonably special and becomes insufferably proud.

And that ain't no pretentious shite.

And in the light of that - I will get all mushy and share the dedication with you....

For my mother Kate, who would have smiled so wide.  And for my son Benjamin, who makes ME smile so wide.

Post Script

The book is officially released into shops on April Fools Day!!

Keep your eye on the side menu for signing event near you. The Mighty Murdoch Men have planned a book tour with 13 events from here to Hobart.

Different

Confessions
Some of us imagine we are different from everyone else.

Some of us probably even overvalue our contrariness.

A hoity toity "Oh I don't do anything special to mark a new year.  Why would I?!  Dates!  They are just numbers on a page, a made up thing to measure aging.  And who wants to do that."

You know, pretentious shit like that.

But one needs to confess.

The Wool Room
One SPRING CLEANED one's Wool Room.  Once known as the Spare Room, and then the Guest Room and now....

....well if one has a whole room to dedicated to wool, then one is perfectly justified in filling that room up.... with wool.

And naming it to secure its purpose.

Of course one could argue that the spring clean has nothing to do with the time of year and everything to do with regaining control of the house.

The properties of Wool
One of the properties of wool is it's wantonness.

It is wont to carelessly wander off all over the place....

....Wool Room or no.

Elfin

You have seen Elfin already.  He shows off on the cover of Really Wild Tea Cosies.

Orange Elfin is getting ready for a bookstore near you.

Both are made with the fabulous Nundle Wool

Post Script:  The Bloke thinks I ought not use the word 'shit' here on this blog.  Though I usually value his opinion.... I think the words 'pretentious' and 'shit' go really well together.  But if anyone has any other words to offer... well, shit!  I'm all ears.

Berry Happy Inn - Revising Plans

I have imagined - since last driving through the NSW town of Berry two years ago - that when I grow old and after The Bloke pops off...

(that is assuming of course that I will grow old and that The Bloke will pop off before me)

...I would take a room in the Berry Happy Inn.



The Berry Happy Inn.

I would take a room and live out my days drinking tea and knitting cosies and be hailed as the Berry Mad Woman.

People would come from all over to point and stare and make up stories about lost fortunes and young fancy men.

Sadly I am forced to conjure up some other end of life fantasy - the Berry Happy Inn is no more - and I am bereft.

Berry sad, even.

Little Reveals

Here is a little tidbit, a taste, a tantalise, a tease - tea cosies tea cosies taking over the house - getting ready for 5 displays of 5 cosies each to appear in a bookstore window near you - soon - down under - and The Queen of England willing - in the UK too.

Knit Knit Knit

Cracked Up To Be

One knat on the plane one did.

One was so utterly engaged in knitting on the plane that one forgot to photograph the auspicious moment.

So one is offering this backyard knit photograph in its place.

Imagine an upholstered knee hugging seat where you see brown Bermigui grass.

It IS all its cracked up to be - knitting on the plane - one almost didn't want the flight to end.

Almost....

But it did and one was forced to see the sights of Canberra where the knatty plane landed.

It is inconceivable that this is one's first visit to Parliament House 1 and Parliament House 2.

One might have visited there in the 1976 QYO II Tour but one is more likely to have been holding forth in a pub somewhere in that year.

If you remember holding one's hand through the halls of democracy in '76, keep it to yourself will you.  One prefers to think one is in charge of one's own memories

Wild Knitting Workshop/Retreat

Come to my town in August this year to do a 5 day

Wild Knitting Retreat in Noosa avec moi


Yeah!  Go on!  Come!

Come with your partner or friend or your whole family ...

Stay at this beautiful place
Eumarella Shores Noosa Lake Retreat

and

knit knit knit from 9am - 3.30pm then go fishing, kayaking, walking, swimming and eating out in Paradise.

Or come on your own.  There'll be lots of other knitting nuts...errr... like minded people.



Quick - email me here at

loani at austarnet dot com dot au

and I will send you back two information pages about the retreat.


Ask me what the difference between a Retreat and a Workshops is.  Go on.  Ask me.

Well the
Wild Knitting Workshop in Mittagong avec moi  happens

in July at the Sturt Winter School

The knitting fun we'll have together is much the same in both places.

The difference is the environment and the weather and the kind of experience you are seeking.

The Sturt Winter School brings over 100 people together for a week to learn all sorts of arts and crafts.  It is just about the best fun you can have in a cold place.

email me for information pages about this wild knitting nonsense too.

NOTE:  There are only 10 places to be had in each of the Wild Knitting events.

Well the New Camera Works

Stay with me......

Betty the Burlesque Dancer

Now we all know that burlesque is a humorous theatrical entertainment involving parody and sometimes grotesque exaggeration. (thank you Wikipedia)

Ah! But is Betty a parody of a parody?

There is no doubting her grotesque exaggeration.

What magnificent bazookas!

The Prince and the Cat

I consider myself to be an eminently pragmatic woman and when faced with a choice a few eight years ago - Prince (said with left palm raised towards the sky) or Cat (said with right palm raised towards the sky),

Prince...

or

Cat?

I chose Prince.

It was a surprisingly easy choice.  I could easily get another cat but a Prince only comes along once in a life time.  And I was getting on a bit.

click on to embiggen

Anyway.  It all made perfect sense.  I was moving to the garden of Eden where wild life abounds.

And cats kill.

So I took my cat Possum back to the RSPCA from whence she came.

There was nought to worry about.  She took less than 48 hours to woo another human and lives there still happily ever after.

But....

.... living without a pet in the house proved too much of an oddity after all and the gentle persuasions began.

It did take some persuasion, The Prince The Bloke being a self professed cat hater!




And then one day...
"If we get a cat it has to be a Burmese".

Well (said in low growly voice) who was I to argue.

Wes The Cat has been hollidaying at our place for 5 years now.



What's that about old dogs?

Ponitificating

Blow it up.  No.  Don't light a match to it.   Click on it.  MAKE IT BIGGER.

That's my beach. The one I go to when I want to challenge the charger, dance with death, feel alive - fiercely, ferociously alive.

I went today.

It's alright.  I swam between the flags.

There is something fabulous about stories where bunnies are beaten, kittens are smacked and squirrels are cuffed and scratched by other squirrels.

Something really fabulous.

This is what I got for Christmas.  A boxed limited edition of the complete tales of Beatrix Potter, with two beautiful prints of Peter Rabbit.

And a Nikkon Coolpix P6000, wot I took these fotos wif.  Neat.  Real neat.

Aw shucks.  Thanks Bloke.  Treasures to treasure forever.




Pontificating:  Over the last months, more than one of my Blog Friends have pontificated on the value of their continuing to blog.  It turns out that their normal sized lives had become BIG lives with much to take care of, worry about, attend to.  The place where they talk knitting and chooks and even books seemed to them, all of a sudden so small compared to the big things, that they doubted their blog's worth.

And they wondered if they were being wholly honest by omitting to tell the world the big stuff.  After all, even hinting at BIG stuff is giving away too much.  Instead they say goodbye, or just disappear for a while.

I prefer to think of circles.  Inner and outer circles.  There are perhaps only 2 people gracing the heart of my sphere and perhaps 3 or 4 who sit in the next radiating ring, if I am lucky.  But those that sit a little way out in the 'friendly acquaintance' circles are as important to my sense of myself as those that are close.  Differently important, but important none the less.

When life is BIG we hunker down, pay attention where our attention is needed, to the inner circles.

If I am the Jupiter or even the Saturn to your Sun, then I am happy with the thin frivolous rays you direct my way via your blog, often or infrequently at your whim.

And if this is all a little deep for you - I AM ALLOWED - it is the end of the year - when pontificating is rife, even for this contrary knitter.