Not a house made of Lego, a Lego house.

Last night I watched James May's Toy Stories with the kids.  It was all about building a life size house out of Lego, Grand Designs with Lego - brilliant!  Here's a taste....(that gives away the unhappy ending).



James commented that he didn't want to build a house out of Lego, he wanted to build a Lego House.  Meaning finding a new architechural vernacular for building in Lego or somesuch (not his comment, me trying to be pointy headed).

R-almost-6 was inspired to build his own Lego House, not a house out of Lego you understand!

Can you spot the sink?  It has a big green tap.  The man and the boy have gone to bed with Lego blankets.

Here's the car parked in the garage.  And the star ship that transforms into a boat.

At one point in the TV show they ran out of Lego (as it always does in these "build" programmes.  It's usually the windows....  but I digress).  R leapt up exclaiming "they can use mine!" and ran from the room, returning with his box of Lego.  "I can send it to them!".  Bless. 

Sadly the Lego house is no more.  I haven't told R yet, but I'm sure he'd understand. 

That's the thing about Lego.

Glorious, Glorious Stitchcraft

I love Patons Stitchcraft magazines.  I have a lot.  My favourites are from the late 60s - the 300s and 400s are pretty much all brilliant.  The earlier ones may be cute and vintage and collectable, but the knitwear doesn't inspire me at all. 

Things get a bit weird in Stitchcraftland around 1970 - less inspiring but always entertaining. 

To be fair the Wild Things family don't come from Stitchcraft. They wandered off the set of a Dr Who episode. Nah, they're from a Golden Hands Family Knitting book.  I do have a small collection embarrasingly large amount of old pattern books.

Thank God for Faye Dunaway.  Bonnie & Clyde is just about my favourite movie ever.  You'll never go wrong with a beret and a long cardi.

With the exception of Hostess Gowns (for "home entertaining"), knickerbockers, blokes in dodgy vests, whole families in fake fur, knitted hot pants, crochet bikinis, crochet weddings, scratchy turtle necks and some seriously freaky fair isle, knitwear was pretty groovy in the '70s.  I even like those little disco numbers.  Then the '80s happened and I will not even go there. It was so bad I gave up knitting for 20 years.

Just before I go - isn't this just the most darling teenager you've ever seen?  I'm a little concered at her reading matter though - "The Mod".  Watch out mum and dad, she'll be out the window and on the back of a moped before you can say "perfect for TV knitting".

One more:  Forget the chap with his tweedy cap and golf club, a real man likes a sword and a Prussian helmet.

I could go on all day......

A Storm (and fair isle shawl collared boy sweaters).

We had a storm on Friday.  I live at the bottom of the hill this was taken from.



I've lived in Wellington for 39 years 5 months and three weeks, and I've never seen a storm come in like that.  I love the bit where the guy tells the child to come away from the windows and child answers "why".  Old people 'round here remember the Wahine Storm of 1968.  At my primary school we used to tell a horror story about a child who was decapitated by a flying sheet of roofing iron as she stood at her window.  I discovered recently this story is more than playground myth.  It already haunted me when I thought it was made up!  So, that's why.

On Friday I found myself saying "I think you should come away from the windows now". 
On a less macabre note, also on Friday, I decided I have to knit Ryan a shawl collared fair isle sweater just like one I saw in Country Road.  I've charted out the fair isle pattern and experiemented a few times to get the right edging pattern.  After knitting about 6 inches up from the bottom I decided this needs to be knit top down.  So I frogged it and am now trying to reactive my brain to calculate how many stitches and increases I need.

Random fact leading to new post - I have 3 large file boxes full of Stitchcraft magazines.

Nothing new under the sun

I thought my Tapa cushion was terribly clever and original.  But no, a wee internet search turns up several cushions using this desing.  Meh.  At least I'm original in South Pacific-ising it, huh?

Found the perfect buttons to fasten it in my local haberdasher's.  Not a great pic of the buttons but good look at my carpet.  Support New Zealand's "strong wool" industry, buy only 100% wool carpet!

Seems I'm not the only one suffering from Great Minds Think Alike Syndrome, check out this from Vogue Knitting winter 09/10, and Fontana 1960-something:

Have they got a time machine?  That is surely the same model. 

I'd knit for him.

Maternity, 1955 style

Check out that post baby waistline!