It's Raining Again

I literally dashed out of the house with my camera, the moment that I noticed the rain clouds looming over the garden. Autumns in London can be so dreary.

Makes me want to chant :

Rain, rain go away. Come back here another day!

Of course, chanting this might have the opposite effect.

So finally, I show the unblocked Flower basket shawl...

This chair ought to get paid for the amount of modelling it's been drafted into.

and the first of the Fluted Bannister sock.

I wanted to lay these thingies onto my plants to show off the wonderful foilage but a rather large spider detered me. I am a total wimp around bugs.

Eltham Raiders

Taking advantage of Rowanette Jill's absence, I thought tell you about how I acquired the shetland yarn for the flower basket shawl.

It was December 2002 and a cold wintery day. Rowanette Yvonne, well-known and well-loved by many of the knitting lists including KBTH, UKKHandknitters and Knit Rowan, arranged to have the Nancy Vale studio in Eltham, opened for a little yarn raid. The design studio occasionally does this for friends of people working there, to get rid of odds and ends and finished samples. The odds and ends could be 100g skeins or 1kg cones. Most of the yarns were classic yarns in wool, acrylic, cotton, alpaca, etc.

Eltham is ALL the way on the other side of London, but what the heck, Rowanette Jill and I arranged for a raid. I took the day off and Jill and her wheelie suitcase and me and my Liberty bags (the ultra strong industrial size one) headed over to 'the other side'. We met up with Rowanette May and basically lost control.

We were of different sizes and builts so there were no fighting over some very desriable things. I found a large bag of odds and ends shetlands for £5. The bag weighted about 2kg and had everything from 25-100g balls in lace, 4ply and dk weight in a variety of colours. I was in heaven! The perfect sampler bag to swatch fairisles and intarsia.

In fact, this was right before my lace addition. The best bit was, I was able to share some of these balls with different friends who wanted to do lace shawls. I also left with some wool/polyamide boucle, a large bag of lace weight pink wool/acrylic blend, a large cone of green shetland yarn and 2 jumpers which to this very day, I still wear. Jill had a big haul but with her wheelie suitcase, it all went in perfectly.

We had lunch in a nearby cafe. Jill had the egg and chips and May and I both had a baked potato. I remember May asking for coleslaw on the side. Obviously, she hadn't realised that they don't do things like that there. I also remember trying to coax Alpaca Woman out of work to join us, but no dice. Fortunately, Alpaca Woman reminded me to take the Liberty sale carriers because the wool was heavy and the bin bag that they gave us wasn't all the strong. What a day and what great memories.

and more on my sister's wedding

Hair Dressing Ceremony

Getting the bride ready for the wedding is a time consuming exercise. The hair dressing ceremony is the first step of the bride, transitioning herself into adulthood. The Chinese only consider married people to be adults. Even in Chinese New Year, only the unmarried are eligible to receive red envelops.

The hair-dressing "saw tul" ceremony is performed between the bride and a 'lucky woman'. A lucky woman has living parents, husband, children (boys and girls) and a comfortable position in life (comfortable = wealthy). On the morning of the wedding, the lucky woman will come to help dress the bride's hair. She will say auspicious words while brushing and putting the hair up into a bun. Traditionally, upswept hair is a style for married women, that's why most Chinese brides wear their hair in upswept do's.

and because some of you had asked to see the full wedding dress....

This was a wonderful dress. It's a corset dress which has the added benefit of a bit of give and take, not a bad thing, considering that weddings are very stressful and the bride might find her weight yo-yo-ing a bit. In the US, you have to order your dress about 6 months before the wedding and many people had been in tears trying to get their dress to finish in the run up to the wedding. (and those cruel people in the wedding dress industry charge extra money for dresses in sizes greater than 12. Not to mention that the size 12 is a UK size 12, equivalent to a US size 8., talk about a double slap) My sister had broken her leg in May and had been fairly immobile for the past 3 months. She had gained some weight and was prepared to buy another dress, fortunately she didn't have to.

Rowanette Lesley, you mention that it was hot in Sydney? Well, this dress weighed over 10 pounds and had to be laced really, really tightly or the weight of it caused it to start sliding down. Not only was it heavy but it was hot to wear.

I'll post some proper photos when I get them. These were just a few snaps that I took before the wedding. I was running around like a 'one armed wall paper hanger' during the wedding, so I didn't get a chance to take many pictures. The photographer also got a bit annoyed with the guests that kept jumping infront of him while he was trying to get shots. (and I'm afraid of the photographer, since he has the power to really make me look bad in the official pictures.)

Posted by atu at October 16, 2004 06:00 PM | TrackBack