Unwind

Some Ben Howard and Brooke Fraser to help you unwind on a Monday night.

Vote for your Cathedral

The Anglican Diocese of Christchurch are seeking feedback about their plans for a new Christchurch Cathedral, and are giving us the opportunity to vote for our favourite design option.  The first is to rebuild the original cathedral, the second to build a traditional gothic design in timber, and the third is a contemporary re-interpretation of the original cathedral.

I voted for the third - I think it's important not to copy the past, but look to it for inspiration, also I think it offers a fantastic opportunity to learn from the success of Napier and build some stunning architecture.  Just look at the beautiful and contemporary Christchurch Art Gallery, with its undulating double-skin of glass.

 I haven't been home since before the earthquake, and in a way I think my next homecoming will be hard as Christchurch will be different from the place I grew up.  But it will also be exciting to see signs of regeneration and the plans for the new city.

You can vote here.

Knitting For my Knotty Husband

Well, probably for my own good I found myself back at work today after a 2 week staycation.  Dave and I enjoyed a few brief days of sunshine preparing our garden for Spring - hopefully coming soon?  We are still getting snow in these parts...

I managed a lot of cleaning, organising, relaxing and knitting, including finishing my Stranger Cardigan and this Knotty but Nice Hat for Dave as a thank you for putting up with my knitting and to keep his ears warm after his haircut.  He has been working hard, longer than normal working hours during all 3 weeks of his holiday to get our house into shape.

If you are considering making this hat too, have a look at my notes for a link for a better decrease pattern than the original.  My ravelry username is Cherrygirl.  For some reason back in 2008 charinthecity was already taken.    I am very much addicted to cable knitting.  I rather fancy making a Hellebore jumper but fear I'm only interested because of the sleeves.

Progressing slowly

Its been a while since the last post! Things have been moving a little on the slow side unfortunately, as we are waiting on plumbers and electricians to find time for us... Not great project management on the builders part unfortunately.

We have made progress though. The big job has been knocking through downstairs, and putting a humongous steel beam in place to stop our house falling down.

Here is the kitchen, minus wall:



Just think, half the old house and the entire extension supported by a few props!

Here comes the beam. Just shy of 400kg of steel!

Then we pushed it inside, rolling it along the floor, ready to lift:

And here is the genie lifter allowing 1 person to lift 400kg!

Ta da!!! The finished result:

In other exciting developments, we have had out kitchen delivered. Lots of flat packed boxes now in the garage and kitchen area:

And the highlight of this week - drains!

Here is the back garden with the drainage trenches prepared:

 (if it looks like the house is on fire, that's just dust billowing out from chasing the floor!!)

Here is my brand new slot drain in place:

When the patio is laid, this will prevent flooding inside the house...

Here is the panorama, unfortunately with the trenches already backfilled so I'm afraid you miss out on full drainage glory!

 Plumber and electrician both due tomorrow so hopefully some progress will occur! 

In the dry

Hooray! The extension is finally drying out...

We have a beautiful set of folding sliding doors on the ground level that can fold back for those warm summer days (if we get any!). We have windows with glass in. And the builders are finishing up the flat roof as we speak. The insulation requirements are crazy now for a flat roof - we now have almost 400mm of roof!! This shows how it is constructed:

We are a lot behind schedule now. But some of the internal rooms have started to take shape as well. We have moved out of our bedroom which has become the next target of the builders:

Here it is, complete with original wallpaper...

Now with window half bricked up and half opened up into a door:

And now with the studwork forming a new corridor through to the master bedroom:

The master bedroom is taking shape too:

On the right is the old pebble-dashed wall of the house, with bathroom and bedroom windows bricked up and the new corridor through the old bedroom visible. The stud wall forms the new ensuite bathroom.

And speaking of bathrooms, we have lost the dividing wall between our bath and toilet, which is well overdue! Probably time to say good-bye once and for all to that lovely floral wallpaper!

Knitting Cables

I love a pattern that starts with the interesting parts first! I just finished the first panel for the right front yesterday, armchair travelling by watching Monty Don's French Gardens on a rainy, sleety day. There are two 28" panels of cabling for the right and left fronts, then two rectangles for the sleeves and another for the back. I also looked up how to cable without a cable needle on Youtube. Although I can handle the technique, I think I prefer the security of having a cable needle.

The photo below isn't very representative of the colour, it's actually a dark grey Charcoal in Rowan Aran Pure Wool.  It's hard to get good lighting indoors as the builders haven't knocked through the exterior wall yet - the window open out into more house or are now blocked up!  The stray bits of coloured wool on either side of the panel are markers for constructing the cardigan later.

While I knit, Dave's doing his own cable work, laying the cables for our network through the new parts of our house.

Hello, Stranger

I have always admired intricate cable-knitted garments and they are my favourite hand knitting challenge.  Unfortunately, the ready-made garments are usually out of my price comfort zone, like this lovely All Saints jersey, or made of acrylic or acrylic blend which looks good for maybe one season.

I was really delighted to discover Brooklyn Tweed via Design Sponge.  Not only are there lots and lots of gorgeous cable patterns to download as PDFs, they look modern and fresh too.  I finally found the project inspirational enough to take me beyond accessories and baby knits - the Stranger Cardigan.  I love the design as it's cleverly made up of 5 rectangles (no shaping), and you can even wear it upside down.  Here's hoping I pull it off as it's a piece I know I'd love to wear.