Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Sydney


I've just returned from a holiday in Sydney. It was wonderful to catch a ferry again and to see the beautiful Sydney winter sun. Everything looks extraordinarily bright compared to the soft light in the South Island in winter. The sun in Sydney has a kick to it even in winter, but it does get chilly when the sun's not shining. So where were the winter knits? The last person I saw knitting was at Dunedin airport on my way out. In Sydney I looked and looked for hand knits but I didn't see any. I know you're out there, knitters, because there are quite a few knitting magazines around.
I found my woolen jumpers were perfect for Sydney, even when the sun was shining.
Here I am at the Archibald Fountain in Sydney's Hyde Park kitted out very warmly in Renaissance Dyeing wool. Apparently when I was three I hopped into this fountain on a hot day when my mother's back was turned.


At the yacht club at Middle Harbour - more Renaissance Dyeing - having lunch with family and with my friend Carol who was visiting from France and who has kindly agreed to translate some of my designs into French. (The tam is the Hall of Fire Tam, which I think is the most versatile of all my tams.)














And here meeting a pelican at the fish market on a cold, grey and breezy day. Along with the other woolly stuff I'm wearing the Roman de la Rose socks, and I realise that it would be good to have shoes that showed them off.







While I was in Sydney I had a message from Yarn magazine asking for a design for their next issue. That was pretty exciting. I've been making lots of charts and thinking hard. So I really hope there are lots of not so secret knitters out there in Australia.

And here's something completely unrelated to knitting. It's one of my father's artworks. He's made many of these, all very different and all designed to light up like little rooms:
They're quite fascinating. I don't have the lights on in this one because my brother is changing the lighting system but I have one here which I'll photograph for another post.


A final photo - from Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains. Lovely, isn't it?








5 comments:

Marylene said...

I do love all your tams ! As you know I knitted some of them. So nice to see you wearing them :) Looks so familiar. Of course here it's summer now (at last!) and Sydney is so far away. I would like to visit that part of the world some day but I must confess I'm a bit afraid of flying :)
Thanks for sharing
Greetings from Brittany France

blodeuedd said...

I'd love to be seeing some of that summer. It's rather wet and nasty back here.
For me, more than the fear of flying, there's the boredom of such a long flight, and it's a very long flight between here and Europe.

Andie said...

How lovely to see the tams at work and all that bright wool colouring a winters day. I am looking forward to seeing more of your father's extremely intriguing artwork and more of your own woolly variety of course.
Greetings from Ariege France

Doespins said...

Hi Kate,
Just caught up with your blog and lovely to see photos of your trip.
The tams look great. Sydney weather is certainly an improvement on recent Oamaru conditions.

Kate said...

The weather here has been slightly damp. One of the farmers said he has to watch where he walks in his cow paddocks or the mud will be over the top of his gumboots.