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Locking in and getting caught up on blogging.

We went to see Book Of Mormon. I am not a big musical person but it’s pretty unique, we enjoyed it! (Maybe not as much as the lady next to Scott who was laughing hysterically the entire time lol). I wore my knitted cardigan that I made two years ago and never wear.

Momofest was the best day out I’ve had in ages. I LOVE THIS FESTIVAL. There were at least 30 different stalls selling all different types of momos. We went with a group of friends so we each would go buy a plate of momos from a different place, and then regroup and share everything, so I got to try sooo many different types. Everyone was super friendly, it wasn’t crowded, and the lines were very manageable. A dude explained every single item on the menu at a dessert stall for me, and we decided to try one that was made of carrot, almonds and raisins. Always neat to try something new. Excellent day.

Jen organised for a bunch of us to go to a watercolour workshop where we painted some muchrooms. I haven’t used watercolours in agesss so it was great to get a bit of a refresher. We went out for brunch afterwards as well.

We went to watch the Melbourne-Brisbane game at the MCG. We sat with Scott’s Brisbane friends in the Brisbane section, so I felt even more weird in my new EXTREME PUFFY Melbourne coat but Melbourne won and also I was very cozy so yay. :)

Priz and I did an outdoor evening tournament in Noble Park. I forgot how nice it is to play pickleball outside. It’s way quieter and if it’s not windy it’s really calm and serene. I think I will try to play more pickleball outside this summer. We didn’t make it to the finals but it was still an enjoyable evening.

We got our travel vaccines for Borneo and went out for laksa afterwards. We have sooo many anti-malaria tablets.

I felted my slippers! I thought they came out too small but after squeezing my feet into them they actually sort of molded to my exact foot size and actually they are sooooo cozy and I never want to take them off any more. Some people put grippy stuff on the bottom of their slippers but I love to slide so I’ve not bothered. I don’t get to slide in pickleball any more so at least let me slide into the kitchen.

I also started making a pair of mittens with wool from last years Bendigo Wool Show. It’s 4 ply held double and I love how the variegation came out! It reminds me of newspaper.

I realised I had made a mistake on my cable knit blanket and had to undo several hours worth of knitting. Devastating. All fixed now though.

I think I’m about 70% through. Getting there!

My favourite dairy-free soft serves in Melbourne at the moment. Miguelitos ube soft serve Oreo sundae sub vegan coconut drizzle. Not so sweet, vaguely healthy. And Kariton soy soft serve Biscoff sundae. Super rich and satisfying.

Not very photogenic but radish cake and shrimp rice noodle roll. Really nice.

We had some nice food at home this month too. I roasted some pork for cubano sandwiches. Doreen messaged me out of the blue and asked if I would like some freshly caught tuna. UM YES. It was soo nice, really melted in the mouth.

Finally figured out how to make Fannie Farmer cookies in Australia and not have them spread out too far. It’s my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe but I don’t know if the brown sugar is different here, or if it is the differences in measuring spoons, but it took a while to make them work again.

Unpictured Stuff:

  • We had a casual Easter lunch in Boronia.
  • We went to the craft cinema with Ash and watched Muriel’s Wedding and My Big Fat Greek Wedding whilst knitting.
  • We went out for dinner with Michael and Gina while Gina was about the pop with babby. It was a nice dinner except for when I thought I’d put our order through on my phone but it actually hadn’t gone through and actually Scott was eating Gina’s meal. LOLOLOL.
  • We planted garlic in the garden boxes again.

This month looks really fun on reflection but actually rapidly went downhill and I ended up in burnout and ended up feeling absolutely horrible at the end of the month. But I learned a lot from this and am doing much better now.

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Scott organised us a chill weekend away in the Daylesford area for the Labour Day long weekend. I’ve never been there before!

We stayed in Guildford, in an actual Bed & Breakfast, which I found unsettling. The breakfast was pretty epic though.

B.A.T.

We went for some walks.

It was Pride Weekend in Daylesford. Some areas were quite busy.

We went to the Sunday market. Scott was very happy to get this beetroot lifter Tupperware thingy in the same colour that he grew up with.

More walking, around the lake. Seems like it would be a nice place to go in the summer. There aren’t that many lakes in Australia.

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We decided to take a ride on the scenic train which slowly chugged along through the countryside.

We also had some great meals, played some board games, and had some relax knitting time. Overall a very pleasant weekend away.

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My bird photography group went to Braeside Park in March and we saw lots of birds! It was my first time using my new BAL (big ass lens) (600mm fixed) and I was pretty pleased with the results!

Rainbow Lorikeet
Royal Spoonbill
Black Shouldered Kite very, very far away
Little Black Cormorants
Black-fronted Dotterel
Australasian Grebe
Tawny Frogmouth
Eastern Rosella
Pacific Black Duck, Chestnut Teal, Pink-eared Duck, no idea what those two black ones facing the other way are.

Ducks are hard.

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Scott took me to the night market at Queen Vic for a #SMAJ. We had a Sri Lankan roti stir fry, a lobster roll, some Filipino skewers, and a strawberry lemonade. It’s kind of fun to be able to have so many different cuisines at the same time, although it wasn’t cheap! We went at 5PM so at least there weren’t any lines.

We had a big weekend of pickleball at the Pickleholic Autumn tournament. On the Saturday Scott competed with Jarrod in the morning, and then I competed with Eloise in the afternoon. We went up a category so it was pretty hard!! Especially because my OG partner got injured the day before and Eloise and I only got organised at the last second. But fun was had. Then on Sunday Scott and I competed together in the lower division and we made the finals but lost both final games and finished 4th. We were happy that we played pretty well together that day though (doesn’t always happen).

A couple weeks later I did another tournament at Pickle Play Dingley with Priscilla and we crushed it!!! We squeaked into the finals, but then won both final games and came home with a gold medal! The final game was our first time playing with an umpire and a bunch of people watching, which made us very nervous at first but eventually we remembered to talk to each other again. It was a very fun day with lots of laughs and making friends, as Priscilla is very friendly.

Scott won a different tournament with Jarrod that evening as well, so it was a very good day of pickleball for our household!

We went to the Melbourne – Carlton game with low expectations, as everyone expected Melbourne to lose every game this season, but we won! Also, Scott stood up and caught the ball in a perfect mark and it was very funny and exciting. Everyone around us cheered.

I got drenched in a surprise Melbourne rainstorm while pumping gas and had to show up to my hair cut appointment looking like a drowned rat, haha.

I think my team might have a bit of a sugar addiction…

Chocolate is too expensive so I decided to try and make marshmallows for the nieces and nephews for Easter. It was pretty sticky and messy but they came out great and the kids seemed to love them!

I also tried making homemade pasta for the first time. We’ve got a pasta roller attachment for our stand mixer but not a cutter yet so we have to slice the noodles freehand. I also made a slow cooked beef ragu and it all turned out extremely delicious if I do say so myself.

I finished my scrappy stripey socks while on our Guildford trip. As per usual I am not that happy with the way the variegated yarn worked out. I probably should have just skipped over the weird brown section of the wool.

I used duplicate stitch to stitch two loons onto the cashmere gloves. I designed the loon pattern using my old cross stitch software, with the grid modified into rectangles instead of perfect squares. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out although it was not easy to do on a pair of gloves! I had to use a cookie cutter to keep the wrist opening open enough to be able to reach inside. I am planning on using this technique in the future on some kids sweater designs. Eventually.

I also worked on a pair of felted double layer slippers using chunky 100% wool. It was kind of a fun project although the (free) pattern sucked. I should probably write my own version.

Unpictured stuff:

  • Jono visited from Scotland and they went golfing and he came over for a very impromptu dinner.
  • April interviewed me for a school project about growing up in another country. I talked about having to walk to school uphill both ways in the snow of course.
  • We saw Project Hail Mary. Both of us enjoyed the audiobook. The movie was fun too.
  • Went to Braeside for a bird photography outing with my new lens and saw enough birds that I’ll make that it’s own post.
  • We went to Guildford for a #SMAJ weekend! I’ll write it up in another post too!

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I had a really epic alone-y weekend in Bendigo at the end of February. I took the Friday off from work, did a pickleball round robin tournament in the morning and had a lot of fun and achieved my goal of finishing in the top 10 (I finished 7th!). Then I drove up to Bendigo and went to the conference opening, checked into my motel, and went for a quick swim/hot warm tub.

I couldn’t believe it, Ben Folds just happened to be playing in Bendigo (for the first time) on the same weekend, on the one evening I had free. I got a last minute ticket on Tixel and it was great! I liked that it was a small venue. The funniest part was when the piano bench kept sticking to the floor so he kicked it away and gave it double birds and played the rest of the show in the lunge position like the old days. However, I’m pretty sure he skipped the second encore because of back pain haha.

My first workshop of the conference was Let’s Get Lacey: Starter Lace Knitting. I made soooo many mistakes at the beginning, but once I started using a bunch of stitch markers and lifelines, I got the hang of it.

First time wearing my knitted tank top in real life! I got a lot of comments.

In the afternoon they had some panel discussions about making a career out of crafting and about Bendigo Woollen Mills. They were somewhat interesting discussions but the best part was just seeing what everyone was working on while they listened. Really incredible pieces, very inspiring. I worked on a pair of socks.

Then they had small group table sessions where I learned a few mending techniques, crocheted a bunting triangle, and learned how to do Tunisian crochet.

I got Malaysian food for dinner and then went to the Craft Cinema where we watched The Princess Bride and I finished my socks.

My second workshop was Introduction to Botanical Dyeing. We learned all about the different supplies you need and what kind of stuff you can collect to do dyeing and how to do it.

We all got to take home a mini skein of wool and cotton from each of the four brews.

And then I drove home! Cup full and inspired.

Overall the conference was great!! It was so neat chatting with everyone with our common interests. I loved seeing what everyone was working on and picked up a bunch of tips and tricks too. There were a few hiccups with it being the first time they’ve run the conference, but they also did great problem solving and I’m sure next time will be perfect. I hope I can go again!