A visit to the Art Gallery

Auckland Art gallery recently had a refurb with a new bit added.   It's a very cool airy open space, loads to see and even better it's free! :-D

 The flower chandelier, the flowers open and close, it's enormous, I loved it, bit too big to have at home though!

 A room with mirrors and stripes, it gives a feeling of infinity.  

A Belgium artist made it in the 70's.  It was really interesting, though it did give me a bit of a headache and vertigo

I think the same artist that made the chandelier did this one.  

It's at the entrance of the art gallery, this photo is from above

A Long Weekend

Long weekends are worth going to work for.  Love them!

The spectacles case c'est finis (practising my French for the rugby later tonight)

 

Other things on the crochet front: well I woke up this morning thinking about Christmas Presents and then I started to get flustered.  So it's time to write a list and think about what I can make this year, a little worried that I can't top the slippers from last year, I have a couple of ideas, just not sure how to make them :-D

And being inspired by the beautiful flower pictures that T@Poppy Place takes I thought I'd share a picture of the orchids that we bought in Pukekohe the other day (at $3 a stem - a real bargain!)

What ever you're doing for the Rugby World Cup Final tonight, enjoy it.  And yes it would be nice if the All Blacks won :-)

Growing Stuff

Spent some time this week in Tauranga and Taupo.  That boat makes me so angry I can't talk about it.  And I lost my $10 bet on the RWC so i can't talk about that either (serves me right for trying to be loyal to my roots :-D) 

And so lets concentrate on the positive stuff:

What a gorgeous spring day!  I went for a wander round the garden and I spied tomatoes growing, and the sweetpeas are going well too.

Growing on the crochet hook is an experiment in beads and cotton.  I'm aiming for a spectacles case....

And exciting holiday news, we're having a week away in November, and we're off to Nelson, Invercargill, and the Catlins using some of the airpoints I won last year.   And since Andrew is quite anal (oops) a detailed gentleman we're even writing an itinerary!

Out and About

A couple of weeks ago we popped up to Matakana for a weekend.  It has a pretty good Saturday farmers market and just out of town there is a craft market too.

It's been a few years since I was at Matakana and it's moved from sleepy country village on the way to the beach at Omaha to popping visitor destination.

 St Andrews church by the craft market. Reminded me we live on a Pacific Island

 I'm a sucker for a tree tunnel

Brisk winter walk along the beach at Orewa

An amusing crocheting interlude

Auckland has those pesky motorway on ramp lights that are turned on in peak times and allow one car per green light through. My 25 minute commute to work would be 15 if it weren’t for these traffic lights.

Each night for 10mins I whip out the crochet, turn up the radio and inch along in traffic fairly happily.

Last night on my way home, the man in the ute next to me was having a great time laughing away. Then he beeped his horn and started gesturing to me and to the car in front of him.

This was kind of weird – us Aucklanders tend to sit eyes front in traffic and pretend there is no one else around. Good grief – what if we made eye contact and had to acknowledge each other?!

On a whim I threw away acceptable sitting in traffic ettiqutte, I rolled down my window and asked what was going on – he pointed at my crochet and at the sticker on the car in front of him and totally cracked up.

I inched forward, craned my neck and read the sticker. 
It read: “Stay Alive – Don’t knit and drive”

Teeth Itching Finger Clenching Creativity

Sometimes I feel like I have amazing creative things just busting to get out, it makes my teeth itch and my fingers clench.  Lately I felt the need to have a change of pace with my crocheting, I wanted to be more creative... I've started several things (as usual).

These are the most successful of the experiments.... not quite ready for WOW (World of Wearable Arts) but maybe a step closer :-)

Purses...

Cup Cake Door Stop.....

Crochet for the home....

...... and it's not even kitsch (well, much anyway)!

I'm a bit of a hoarder and keep any bit of yarn that is more than 30cm long. I started this blanket a month or so ago (this was the 4th attempt) and it's made up of all of my remnants.  

My nephew says it's "gangsta" which made me worry about being kidnapped by gunpoint whilst I was napping on the couch.  Or maybe it's like Arthur Dents towel and instead of being full of nutrients it has different drugs in it (not sure I want to risk sucking on it though!)  It's a kind of log cabin pattern that I made up as I went. Pretty 'gangsta' eh? :-)

We are renting quite a new house, which is something very different to what we've lived in before.  It's very warm for one!  And it's a little lacking in character, especially the kitchen which has all those lovely clean sterile lines with quite a bit of stainless steel.  So I crocheted some nice bright cotton dishcloths (yep they're almost granny squares I couldn't help it....).

They're working out really well, some soy cotton and some cotton cotton.  Apparently they last for ages too :-)