Wow!

Look!

 Julia made me a cake, I suspect she was 'put up to it' by others who shall remain nameless, but she made me a cake. And not any cake, but a cake inspired by David Hockney's swimming pool art, all white and blue .... with dolls in jelly. Well there was jelly before the cake traveled home with me, a tsunami occurred, upon arrival at home the babies were found tumbled in a mass of blue jelly. Bear as an engineer pointed out that once one side of the pool had been munched - the collapse of the jelly water was inevitable. There is a back story, as would have to be with a cake like this. A few weeks/months ago the local knitters were discussing birthday cakes, and how as children we saw amazing decorated cakes in books .. I mentioned that as a child I had seen one formed like a pool with dolls swimming, and Julia remembered and recreated it. I'm happy to cut and pass slices to any who want any - and I apologize for the mess I made of the cake Julia crafted for me. 

Saturday night was the annual local Thursday night knitters gift swap - and I was gifted this amazing duo, a vintage toned crochet scarf and pencil case. I wish I could show you this in all its glory --- and as soon as Julia (yes the same one as crafted the cake  and so here is a link to her blog and much better photos). The colours in the scarf are all soft and tone with everything in my wardrobe ! The joins are amazing, Julia told me the details are all in the blog she links to on her blog, so I looked and I am further in awe that every sing side of every square was stitched to another that way.  I am one very lucky local knitter.

This was my humble offering for the swap, in amidst amazing illusion war of the words socks, and lace shawls and wraps and cabled tams, I managed a teeny little pencil case. Every year Ngaire organizes the swap, and every year we openly tease each other that all the gifts are actually for Ngaire. That way we can talk about gifts without really taking about who they are for. This year my gift was for Ngaire! Ngaire is amazingly artistic and loves all things grey, and draws like I imagine angels draw. When I saw Tom of Holland's Sanquhar pencil case - I knew I had to make it for my swap partner and fill it with things grey. I found this when I was searching out Sanquhar patterns, and now subscribe to Toms Blog, he has a great approach to visable mending that inspires me.

 The local fabric store had the perfect vintage inspired school print, with checkers that perfectly matched the folds in the pencil case.

And this is a new project, a Knit one Below inspired hat that I will introduce next post - because I want to go and admire cake and my lovely scarf, and amazing pencil case, besides my dad is here for the night so I really need to be a good host instead of tucked away with the computer, the internet and blogging.

na Stella