Aunty Shabby

The ergonomics of crochet

What is this funny looking implement I hear you ask? Some sort of medical instrument? Something your dentist might use to inflict pain? An earwax cleaner perhaps? (don't laugh, Mr S has one and they look a bit like this) No, it is a size 3.5mm crochet hook. A "soft touch crochet hook for easy crocheting" to be precise!

Those of you who have read my previous baby blanket post know that I am crocheting a baby blanket. I usually only crochet smallish items like scarves or beanies and favour larger hooks, like 8 or 10mm or so. One of the last blankets I crocheted took me over 20 years, but that is a whole other story. I will blog about it one day, 'cos it is actually kinda funny.

Anyway, so what's the deal with this hook? After seeking advice on my baby blanket, greenolive recommended switching to a smaller hook. Frustrated by my slow and painful progress with a regular bamboo size 3.5mm hook, she then suggested I try one of these. She swears by them. The rows just fly by apparently. So I found myself in Clegs this afternoon, 15 minutes before closing, asking for an "ergonomic" crochet hook. To my slight amusement, the woman serving me even took it out the packet, so that I could marvel at its many features.

Let me list them for you now (as detailed on the packet):

• Optimal shape for smooth crochet work,
• Cushioned handle for easy crochet, and (my personal favourite)
• Designed for comfort in your hand. (Ergonomically correct)

Never having been big on sewing and knitting accoutrements (I only recently upgraded to the longer, yellow-headed, rustless pins at my sister's insistence), I was a bit amazed at the array of other bits and bobs the sales woman then went on to show me. What I thought was a cute little froggy thing was actually a new-fangled stitch keeper (well, it was bright green and the white number parts looked like eyes). I paid for my new hook ($11.95, but $10.75 with Clegs member discount) and left the store feeling a bit chagrined. Clearly I needed to upgrade my tools or risk looking like some sort of wannabe crafter! But then the rational, lawyer side of me thought, "what the hell is an ergonomic crochet hook anyway??!!" I am yet to give it a test drive, but am hoping it works, as I have many stitches and rows to go... stay tuned for a fully comprehensive and objective review, with updated pics of the baby blanket progress!

Are softies the new knitting??!!

It seems you can't pick up a magazine these days without seeing something about softies, heralding them as the next big thing! In the past few months I have seen them in no less than 3 mags - Australian Vogue (see my previous post about this), Australian Woman's Weekly (see greenolive's post) and now, a recent issue of Real Living (an Australian lifestyle kinda mag, for you non-Aussies). And these are just the ones I know about!

Is this some sort of conspiracy I wondered? Another beat-up, just like the alleged "pub knitters" that supposedly began the knitting revival in Australia in the late nineties and early noughties??! (If you don't know what I am talking about, grab a copy of Sharon Aris' "It's my party and I'll knit if I want to". It's an entertaining and quick read and is quite enlightening in terms of the whole knitting "thing".)

I confess I have seen more softies in stores lately and I have even seen the "how to" books at Borders (I browsed BUT DID NOT BUY), but are they really going mainstream?! It wasn't until a girl at work told me that someone had given her sister a toy she had made herself at a recent baby shower, that I really believed it. "A softie?" I asked? "Huh?" she replied. "You know," she went on, "those strange, kinda ugly toys you see in shops, with like, funny eyes and stuff. Like that." Yep, a softie. It seems the name may not yet be "household" but the face is!

Baby blanket blues

I have made baby blankets before. The cutesy patterned flannel kind that you sew ribbon around the edges. The garishly coloured crochet afghan kind. But when I found myself telling a friend a few months ago, after hearing the news that his girlfriend was pregnant, that I would make them a baby blanket, I had a slight panic attack. This time, a baby-patterned flannel or fleecy number just wouldn't do. I wanted something kick-ass and quintessentially Aunty Shabby (still figuring out exactly that that is), but still with a baby vibe and practical. As we didn't know if it was a boy or girl, something unisex colourwise, but not insipid, like that nasty baby-puke yellow or those vile mint greens (sorry if you like those colours - I am NOT a pastels kinda girl). I thought I would knit a blanket - my sister, greenolive, always seems to have success with these, so I figured it couldn't be too hard.

The silver-ish wool I loved ( yes, of course I bought what they had anyway) and the two colours I ended up using

First things first - the wool. After knitting a jumper (or sweater if you live in the Northern Hemisphere) for my husband on 4mm needles - and this was before we were married, which apparently is a very bad and unlucky thing to do if you are superstitious about these things - I vowed never to use smaller than a 4.5mm size needle on anything bigger than a scarf again! This meant that I couldn't get any of that ridiculous 2 or 4 ply stuff which is basically all baby wool usually is! I also hate the traditional baby wool colours (see comments above). Hmmmm... I did like some of those new bamboo wools though and after a trip to Clegs, discovered a beautiful silverish-pinky-blue variegated shade which looked perfect. Trouble is they only had a few balls left - of course my sister had already beaten me to it, as usual, and had bought up most of the store! I eventually settled on a combination of bright acid orange/pink and a green/yellow 100% bamboo wools - my blanket would be very funky and citrusey!

Two of the initial garter stitch squares

Next the stitch. This is where the blues part of the story comes in. After once gloating that I didn't have much trouble settling on the right stitch for a particular project/wool, I have now run into a snag, so to speak. My initial idea of knitting different coloured squares in a simple garter stitch and then joining them together didn't work. My tension is usually pretty good, resulting in an even, firm stitch, but knitting this rather slippery wool with size 4 (I caved, although they recommended 3.25mm) bamboo needles (they seemed appropriate), this wool produced a rather wonky looking square. The tension was all over the place and the selvages were nasty. Unimpressed. After 3 squares I knew it wasn't going to get any better. A blanket made up of 16 of these suckers would suck. What to do?

Nana-ish crochet square

I turned to crochet, wondering if an intricate olde-worlde square motif would work. After reacquainting myself with a Jo Sharp pattern I had liked (I have half-made a poncho with this), it took me almost an hour to produce one measly square. It looked OK I thought, but maybe a bit too nana-ish. Mr S thought so too. Still no good. Even though a blanket made up of these might look sweet, no doubt one of them would have a nana (or similar elderly female relative or friend) very adept at this kind of baby blanket making and theirs would probably look way better than mine. That simply would not do. My blanket had to look edgy and cool. Modern but still baby-like. The kind of blanket that people would spy in your pram and stop you in the street to ask you where you got it from. Maybe I needed to consult one of those new baby pattern books? Or some kind of expert? Cue greenolive.

Current version

After her advice, I am now trying crochet again, but in one piece, alternating treble stitch stripes of orange/pink then green/yellow. She suggested I miss a chain between stitches on the first row (then do one chain in between each stitch on rows), as it is quicker to knit and uses less wool. Crochet also seems to highlight to lovely sheen and colour of the wool better than knitting. The result though is quite "holey'" and after only 3 rows (I am slow and it is at least a metre wide; I am aiming for 1m x 1m), I'm not sure I am loving it. I am using a size 4 crochet hook and I think my tension might be a bit loose.

Let me know what you think. I will endeavour to post more pics once I have progressed further...

So who is this Aunty Shabby??!!

   

I am lots of things. A polite way of saying it may be that I am a complicated and highly evolved creative being. Another way may be that I am a high maintenance woman who, amongst other things, likes to knit and sew!

Aunty Shabby may seem an odd name or choice for a blog but Shabby (it was meant to be ironic) has been a nickname for years and with the birth of my first nephew almost 10 years ago now, I became Aunty Shabby. Nearly everyone calls me Shabby. A former boss, a partner at a law firm, used to call me Shabby. My father calls me Shabby. I won't tell you what I call him. I have also been known to answer to Shabster, Shabs or Shabarella. Friends often introduce me as "Shabby", which at times can have funny consequences; someone once misheard and asked later, "Who is this Shaggy girl?" That then spawned its own legend, and in some circles I am known as "Miss Shaggy". (This is also my celebrity pseudonym, but that is a whole other story.)

Anyway, after a lifetime of cutting out pictures from my sister's - yes, greenolive - usually discarded fashion and chicks magazines to cover my school books and folders (now called collage), making dodgy dresses for my androgynous dog teddy called "Willie" (as in Wilhelmina), crocheting an enormous blanket over a 20 year period, made from cast-offs, leftovers and cheap acrylic wool (which my cat now sleeps on) and generally making a pest of myself when my sister was trying to do her art homework or projects (yes, again greenolive), I realised I might be onto something. I wasn't the artist or the athlete of the family (the intellectual perhaps? well, I was a lawyer...) but it seems I got enough of the creative gene to enjoy making things, eventually turning to making handbags as an outlet for my work stress and general feelings of malaise in about 2000. Handbags then became general sewing (clothes for myself and cushions), then knitting and again, crochet! These initial spurts of creativity and energy were enough to sustain me for a few years, but after a while I wondered if this had the potential to be more than just a hobby.

I would get comments and question about my handbags or scarves, making a few gifts or random one-off orders here and there. A shop was even interested and stocked some of my children's bags. However, several attempts to get it off the ground, were just that, attempts. It wasn't blossoming into the mega empire I had envisioned! Why???!! It all seemed too hard. I was working full time, so didn't have the time to dedicate to it. What if no one liked my stuff? And where would I sell it? And wouldn't it be expensive to set up? So I continued on as before, making stuff for myself and random things for others, when in about mid 2007, something changed. My sister and I started discussing getting a craft business going. We had done this before but this time she seemed to really mean it. And so did I. A random, but clearly serendipitous, order for a scarf from a make-up artist (the international make-up director for Stila, as it happens) who was giving us both make-overs one Saturday at MECCA Cosmetica was the final impetus. (I have actually kept his payment in the envelope he gave it to me in as some sort of good luck charm or reminder of what I want to do! Did I mention that I am at times bizarrely superstitious and sentimental?)

Whilst we didn't end up setting up something together and have taken our own paths, I think we are both now committed to trying this and seeing what happens. My sister has wasted no time (and you can read her blog to track her progress) and seems to relish the contact and feedback to her work and ideas. I am constantly amazed at her dedication and her prolific knitting. I have taken the more "slow and steady wins the race" approach. This means that is still early days, with a website and hopefully ETSY shop still to come. Whilst I am still employed primarily in another field (but now only 4 days a week), I have found I need an outlet to provide me with some balance and am enjoying the creative process and possibilities of finally establishing my own "Aunty Shabby" business. Mega empire here we come!!

Rediscovering Bris Vegas

I went up to Queensland recently, principally to visit my mother. Those of you who keep up with my sister, Greenolive's blog, will know that she has not been well lately. Anyway, I always anticipate my visits "back home" (I don't actually think of QLD as my home and as my parents are divorced, there is no family home anymore) with mixed feelings. Much as I love to see my parents (independently - see comment re divorce), I find it very tiring and usually come home in need of a holiday! This time I was particularly concerned about my mother, as I wasn't sure about either her mental or physical state, but as it turned out I had one of the best visits with her that I have ever had!

An arty shot of part of her new garden

Usually there is an argument or some sort of drama and tears, and it all turns sour, but we had a lovely time. I helped her out with some of her courtyard garden projects whilst I was there, which was good as she would have over-exerted herself otherwise and done it all on her own. Even though her initial steroid treatment had given her huge amounts of (unrealistic) energy, her recent cutting back on the dose meant that she was actually feeling (realistically) tired by the afternoon, so I would need to keep telling her to stop and have a break or nap and have a drink of water. I think at the time she found it quite amusing, but told me a few days after I had left, that she missed me, especially me telling her these things! It was also hot up there (about 30 degrees but high humidity, about 80%), but luckily not as hot as it usually is in December!

The riverside cafe at the Art Gallery

One of the other things we did was go to see the Andy Warhol exhibition at the Art Gallery. We got the CityCat (groovy Brisbane ferries) and as we approached the new Art Gallery complex I was stunned. I hadn't even set foot inside and I was already impressed! The new buildings and design and use of the river is great. Even though I go back to Brisbane about once a year, usually for a week at most, which is enough to notice most changes, I haven't lived there in over 10 years, so don't really have a great feel for the city or what's happening. It really has matured. I always find myself wondering if I could live there again (a question my mother also always asks me every visit) and this time I seriously considered it. Well, maybe for a minute. My husband, Mr S, wouldn't be in it though - he's not a big fan of Bris Vegas and he can't seem forget a particularly bad trip we had there a few years ago. I will continue to enjoy my solo trips to see my parents and hope to keep a connection with a city I am growing to appreciate once again.

One of our lunch companions, a water dragon!

Needless to say the Andy Warhol exhibtion was amazing. We actually thought we were done, having taken our time wandering through some of his ealrier works, to discover that there was a whole other room to see! We needed to stop for lunch - which was great, outside at the Riverside cafe (note: amazing tempura prawns and nougat) - to regain our strength for the rest. I think we were there for over 4 hours in total! If you can get to this exhibition - it is in Brisbane only until 30 March 2008 - it is well worth a visit.