one of my newest hobbies/fads of the moment is icon making. Its delectably addictive :)

Trawling through textures and effects to play around with in Photoshop is like crack!!
here's a few that I've made featuring mainly Twilight actors Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Jackson Rathbone, Taylor Lautner and a touch of supernatural - Jensen Ackles:

Most textures I used are from http://community.livejournal.com/icon_textures

I learnt to do a lot of this stuff from this awesome livejournal community http://community.livejournal.com/icon_tutorial/

oh yeah - for the birds animated by ME!

Its probably a good thing that I don't really have many readers, with how slack i am at updating n stuff.

A lot has happened since the last post. We went on our really quick trip to Sydney to do some sightseeing and catch the only Australian screening of How To Be.



It was really cool, the movie was great RPattz fans would love it. Its a quirky and at times really, really funny movie. Here's hoping that it becomes more widely available soon.

We met some cool people while waiting too, i would have taken pictures at the actual screening but we didn't want to seem to tryhard, but the lecture theater was packed and it was a really great atmosphere.

I gotta tell you tho, so annoyed at JetStar right now. Originally I'd booked a flight back to home from Sydney at around lunchtime Sunday which gave us some time to have breakfast, check out and leisurely make our way to the Airport via some of suburban Sydney. But noooooooo JetStar changed their flight to 6.30 in the freaking morning, which meant that we had to be at the airport at 5.30, which meant getting up and checking out of the hotel at 4.45AM!!

It was not fun :(

but what was fun was going and seeing some sights, we visited the StarCity Casino - won 40bucks on the pokies and had their buffet dinner - expensive but a wide selection and really tasty too. I don't know why but i didn't take any photos that first afternoon/night but i went a little crazy on the Satdy.



Friday night they were having the Australian MTV awards on down by darling harbour. As we were walking back from the casino they had a bit of red carpet stuff happening. We saw Vanilla Ice and Ruby Rose from like a huge distance away but other than that just a whole bunch of Toyota Yaris cars.... wooo exciting right :)

Satdy we walked all the way from Central Station down to The Rocks to check out the markets they have their. They're pretty cool, we wandered around there for ages determined to by something but coming up really empty handed. I saw some awesome pictures that were just humongous, if we'd been driving i would have gotten one but there was no way i was getting them on a plane back home. So in the end I got a pretty cool hair clip and some dangly red earrings (i have an obsession with dangly earrings!).

We then walked down to Circular Quay and kept getting harassed by people asking about our hair - they were trying to sell a particular salon and were obviously told to target any females withing the 20-30 age group! Very frustrating.

Circular Quay is really very pretty, you get a great view of the Harbour Bridge no matter where you are. For example this was our view at lunch that day:



We stopped at an Italian restaurant and both had their lasagna and a beer, it too was really really tasty and of course being the Quay really really expensive :)



By this time my feet were killing me, and there was no way we could walk back to the Hotel so we caught a ferry from Circular Quay to Darling Harbour which wasn't very far from where we were staying. On the Ferry I snapped quite a few pics, here's some of them.



So anyway, we went a really long way and spent quite a bit of money to go see a movie but it was totally worth it, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat if Little Ashes was screening in Sydney and nowhere else!

Coming soon on boring blog, some actual knitting escapades *gasp*

Holy Cow, I cant believe it....

My SIL and I are going to Sydney in March, primarily to see the only Australian screening of How To Be:


How To Be Trailer from How To Be on Vimeo.

but also to rock out a bit of shopping.

I cannt tell you how excited I am right now. We're leaving on friday lunch time and coming back lunch time Sunday.

This all came about because we were thinking of going down to Melbourne for SIL's hen's night... but ultimatley we couldnt get the money together so we decided to postpone it. Then just yesterday she mentioned it again and how we should get our shit together... I wasnt too jazzed about going to Melbourne, it didnt feel like it would be worth the money.

Meanwhile, i'd already resigned myself to the fact that I wasnt going to be able to get to Sydney for the screening... but i really, really, really wanted to.

Thats when my brain put two and two together... holy cow, she'd totally go with me, if we could get cheap flights and cheap accomodation! Thankyou wotif.com and 99 dollar cheap flights!

So now everything is booked and paid for.... and also non-refundable.

Sydney Here We COME!! wooohoooo!!
This time i'll be in Sydney purely for the lulz, nothing work related - Thank God

Its like one extreme to the next.

In my home town in Australia it hit the hottest day since the 1930's yesterday. A sultry 45degrees C. Why thats only 113F, pfffft. Today it hit 42 and probably will be the same again tomorrow!


UGH!

And in the US some parts are experiencing extreme cold snaps that are causing numerous blackouts and traffic incidents

I wanna be here right now, SFM!!

weird title I know, I'm listening to Garbage on my laptop right now.... so its a line from one of their songs.

My ISE scarf is coming along nicely, after a false start the stitch pattern that I've chosen is working really well with the yarn.

Its Lorna's Laces Green Line, and my lounge room lamp just doesn't do the colours in this yarn any justice at all! I took it to work yesterday because my usual lunch buddie wasn't going to be in, and rather than sit around doing nothing for an hr (like usual) I brought it in for something to do.

The colours just popped out in the natural sunlight, there are so many different shades of green in this yarn its amazing! My buddie is a gardening guru it sounds like, plus she listed one of her fav colours as green so the yarn is pretty fitting in more ways than one.




This pattern is Scarves to throws month 3 (available here) and this is what I attempted prior



Which in real life, much like in the picture, looked a lot like green mush. Not much stitch definition, this pattern would look better in a solid colour I think.

And totally off this topic, I have a sudden urge to knit socks ?! WUT? huh?

I've only ever knit one pair, with worsted weight cotton yarn and i gotta say i just didn't get the omgimustknitsockslotsofsocksandnevereverstop obsession that seems to grip a lot of people.

I'm blaming this sudden need on these really cool new shoes of mine




They're Converses in blue that goes really well with denim... as you can tell... and seeing that I wear nothing but jeans they're exceptionally cool!!! They're just regular chucks they don't go up the ankle.

But really hand knit socks would not be showcased by these shoes so I'm not sure why I feel like I need them. Maybe its because these are so awesome that they deserve something better than store bought socks *dunno*

but i think they're going to be my next project. Take that 40degree heat - yeah i hate it so much!!

So wow, here we are... first post of 2009!

and I'm back at work, again and bored.... again

If i were into new years resolutions maybe one would be to work up the courage to get a new more interesting job. I guess its a good thing I hate resolutions. putting a time frame on things just fucks up your chi, then you never get anything done like you'd planned, then you get all depressed about the fact.

bleh

so anyway instead of cleaning n shit during my time off I actually managed to take some knitting related pictures - I know RIGHT! swoon!





this is my progress on the February Lady Sweater in Blue Sky Alpaca's Dyed Cotton, Tomato colourway.

This yarn is great soft-wise, its luscious not like normal cotton at all! Problem is that I think its going to pill like motherbitch. While I was doing a EZ stretchy bind off (which uses a darning needle instead of an actual bind off - a little like Kitchener stitch) I was collecting the little pill balls that were shedding off it like a second skin - it was crazy!



This pic shows off the Gull Lace Stich a lot better than the first. As you can see i'm just beginning on the first sleeve, which I think will be around elbow length. Knowing my luck i'll finish it just before winter and wont get to wear it until next summer!

p.s - sorry about the language, it is monday after all... I should find a good I hate monday's icon - HEY SOMETHING TO DO!!!!

Holy Cow, its Christmas Eve already.

Where did this year go?!

Its starting to get hot around here, which is not ideal knitting conditions. Not to mention that our new laptop is occupying the time that i used to spend knitting in front of the tv. It also doesnt help that there's nothing good on tv anymore around this time.

Bring on Jan when BSG and Supernatural start showing again.... sigh

Ive also signed up for ISE7 scarf exchange which is only now just getting underway after some delays - i'm sure that will get me back into the knitting groove :)

So anyway Be Safe over the festive seasons y'all