Chapter 2

In which we learn that chocolate makes you better, we fret about row count and old skool faces off against new skool.

\Delicacies from Caketown:
Hedgehog (mudcake core protected by cocoa-dusted ganache spikes:
best enjoyed via a process of deconstruction),
Brownie Tart (with a surprise nugget of pistachio nut in the filling, need I say more?
"die" and "happy" are two words that spring to mind)

It's a sign of how traumatised we were by another morning of househunting yesterday that the goat and I managed to eat almost our own body weight in dark chocolatey fat.
I can report with some confidence that it does, in fact, make you better.

Just in case you thought needle's edge was morphing into a "How much does Real Estate suck"? blog, think again

.

Inspired by heideland's lovely creation - drawn to its comfortingly traditional cabling; a marriage of yarn and pattern if ever I saw one, its pleasingly generous proportions and its general handsomelyessness- I painstakingly charted up a pattern and flew into my version (left). But then something stopped me in my tracks.

Firstly I was displeased with my proportions -I really needed to fatten up my side travelling cables- but I also knew that the fiddlyness, the non-rhythmic nature of the stitches worked simply would not sustain my interest over the necessary kilometres of yarn.

So I switched tack and remembered Norah Gaughan's take on cables that I first spied here, and flew into that.

Tip: do not attempt even this cunningly simple design which requires concentration on only every 7th row when you are so very tired that you don't trust your row counter, or ability to reliably operate said row counter, resulting in a tweedy dog's breakfast pictured above right (trust me this is not Ms Gaughan's vision) on too-small needles.

\It's interesting how much more yarn the H+TC (right)
gobbles up to produce the same width and length
of scarfage.

There is a happy postscript: cabled scarf #2 is underway with rigorously correct row counting and larger needles, Goat is playing Satie's Trois Gnosiennes on the piano and I am a happy camper.

Speaking of pianos, this is one of my favourite photos at the moment.

Newness + Absences

Even though I proudly display the blogging without obligation button on these pages, I nevertheless feel beholden somehow to explain my absence from said pages of late. Let's face it, my blogging has been far from avid. It's not for lack of material. I have finished no less than three projects since I last posted (yes, three!), have had all my hair cut off (lots of fodder there) but for some reason I just cannot get it together to document and wax lyrical.

Even this post started out as a reallllly long series of tags accompanying a photo on flickr, until I realised if I was writing that much it pretty much qualified as a blog post, and so here it is:

New boots.
I bought new boots.
A simple sentence.
Oh so simple.

And yet those of you who are similarly paddle-footed and view the very notion of shoe shopping with a level of apprehension akin only to trips to the dentist, will know the truth that lurks within that sentence. Never. That. Simple.

So on Sunday I went shopping, determined to buy a pair of boots that fitted really well. On the first browse, I thought I'd accidentally stumbled into a drag queen outfitters.
Why is everything so sparkly?
By the end of the second store and several $1,500+ price tags later, I was already hitting a mild desperation level , and I'd only been looking for less than an hour.
Third store: The first pair of boots I laid my eyes on were almost perfect and I clutched the sample to my chest so that no one else could get their greedy, unworthy little hands on it while I perused the rest of the floor. A little something inside me died as I slid inevitably towards the "Kumfy World" end of the store. There's no two ways about it, those shoes just say "Me and Style? We agreed to part ways a long time ago".

But there is a happy end to this story, as the photo can attest. Incidentally, what does a webversion2.0 gal do when she gets a pair of boots out of the box? Wear them outside? No! Take a photo of them and put it on the internet of course! What a strange universe I inhabit now. Friends who know me well would argue I've always inhabited rather a strange universe. I guess this is just a new and peculiar brand of strangeness.

But back to the one (by now quite warm) boot I was clutching. Yes there was a pair in my size (miracle) and as I slid it on (slid?! when was the last time a boot just actually slid on without a fight? I tell you this is just like butter as they say in Joisey) the saleswoman told me they were made in Austria.

"Is that a good sign"? I asked.

"Best boots come from Austria love" she replied as if I was silly to not know that, and I swear she winked at me, knowing once a customer had been bitten by the Austrian Boot Bug, there was no looking back.

And she'd be right. Best boots I have ever bought. Ever. They're by Kennel und Schmenger, and I'm wondering if I plug them enough whether they will start sending me free boots in an endorsement deal. I can see the letter now:

Marketing Department
Kennel und Schmenger
Austria.

Dear Sirs Liebe Herren...

No, perhaps I shouldn't. I can see a mangled David Sedaris-esque 'deutisch' coming out of that.

Speaking of which have you seen this pizza delivery service? Normally we would order a pizza once a months or so, but if I knew that Sedaris was going to deliver it, I would be tempted to order one almost every night just to get the monologue.