to talk of many things...

• Yesterday was DD's kitchen tea/bridal shower. It was a small gathering - just nine people. WM bought batteries for my camera but I forgot to use it!! The maid-of-honour convinced us to play one game [we tried hard to avoid it] - we had to dress a bride using only a roll of toilet paper [over their clothes of course]! The two bridesmaids were the brides, The Bride was the judge [lucky her] and the other six of us were divided into two teams to dress the brides. Both teams won - in different categories! One for beach wear, one for more formal attire [I was on the latter team]. The prize was a choice of Freddo Frogs, a chocolate frog made by Cadburys. Mine was crunchie flavour, meaning it had pieces of honeycomb in the chocolate. DD had a strawberry frog, the other choice was plain. DD took some video footage but she's not here and I don't know how to download stills from her camera so, unfortunately, no photos.
  
  Most of the gifts were kitchen-ware [what a surprise]; mine was The Myrtle Leaf Shawl. It got lots of oohs and aahs and some nice comments so I guess the pain was worth it! I still intend to reblock it and I found another loose thread while I was wrapping it - it's attached so I hope it blocks out this time!



• One day last week I began a pair of adult-sized fingerless mitts; I started them while Chris Guccione [the last Australian male in the tournament at the time] was playing so I have called them the "Gucc Mitts" [pronounced Gooch]. I knitted them in red because he has red hair. I realised that I probably wasn't going to have enough yarn to finish two so I added the black.
  
  They remind me of football jerseys. There are no teams in the National Rugby League with those colours. Red and black are the colours of the North Sydney Bears - the team my dad played for as a junior - now sadly long departed from the competition. So I looked up the team colours for the Australian Football League - another popular code of football, especially in Victoria where Chris Guccione comes from. Essendon have red and black uniforms and, interestingly, Chris Guccione comes from the Melbourne suburb of Greenvale which is relatively close to Essendon. Even more interestingly, he has said that if he wasn't playing tennis he would have liked to have played "Aussie Rules". I didn't know any of this when I started knitting; I just can't help doing a little research - academia is in my blood! LOL
  
  So, here are the Gucc Mitts which will be given to Australian Interior Ministries to keep the hands of a first Australian warm.



• On Friday night I cast on a beanie. It's blue because Roger Federer [my favourite non-Australian player] wears a blue shirt and this beanie is, naturally enough, called the Federer Beanie. It is not what I planned when I started out - it was going to have stranded colour crosses above the ribbing [he's from Switzerland, they have a white cross on the flag], but I got too engrosed in the game to fiddle with stranding! I made the beanie according to a pattern [some readers would know I rarely follow patterns] because I was knitting my first beanie in 8ply [DK] weight yarn. I obviously have much looser gauge than was intended - the beanie is way too big for either myself or WM. I'm not concerned though - I'm sure it will fit someone's head. It, too, will go to Australian Interior Ministries.
  
  
  
• I'm trying to knit only adult sized items for charity this year - every one knits for babies and children because the items are small and quickly finished but I want to help the adults too.



• I am attempting to touch type this post - it's a skill I taught myself for uni in 2003 as part of a work-based project. I make lots of mistakes especially with my right hand [I'm left-handed] and it's incredibly slow; practice makes perfect, I guess! I just want to look at the keys and get on with the typing!



• Speaking of tennis [as we were], fickle fan that I am, I stopped watching the tennis because Roger Federer was losing [two sets to love against Tomas Berdych] but I've just checked the score and Federer won the third set and is leading slightly in the fourth. I'd better get back to it [if I can stand the excitement - I'm feeling really blue! It won't help if Roger loses!!]



• Please think of me as we countdown the last week to DD's wedding. I'm very emotional and teary and too busy dealing with my own grief to notice WM's. I expect that's normal, especially for mothers of only daughters with whom they enjoy a close relationship. I just hope I can hold it together when farewells are made at the end of the reception. ;-(