Vale Marcia

For Neryl.
In memory of my Aunty Marcia with love.

Full Moon July 07

Full moon rose blood orange last night in smoke filled air. A lone wild dog howling & keening, A sense of time standing still.

Creeks down to last trickle. So dry. Choking on smoke lying in still air, can't see the mountain opposite for the pall. My eyes are streaming, coughing, blocked sinuses. Wake frequently in night choking, fearful that the fires, still some miles away on southern caldera rim, may have come closer.Still haven't had a bath since February. A hip bath when it rained a month or so ago, but as tank didn't fill I couldn't risk it, and have had to do with daily. bucket washes. Every drop gets reused.

But my problems are so small in comparison to what I see on Greek news. It seems the whole of central south Europe has had heat & fires, right down into the islands, Cyprus, the Turkish coast. And now South Africa too. I don't forget the war crimes in Iraq & Afghanistan

The bushfire season total fire ban starts tomorrow. It's bureaucracy gone mad. Why don't they declare these bans to suit the conditions, not the date ! Like the rivers, they are managed by states, not by ecosystems & catchments. When will we ever learn.


Meanwhile here is start of my latest project: SUN SPOTS, the dreaded granny squares, all so pretty, so clean. I wish I was. I think they are a reaction to my inability to keep myself & my abode as clean as I'd like in the face of stressed resources i.e. water.






Think I'll go up my mountain and sing on the moonrise tonight. Maybe the wild dogs will respond. This is what I call The Anvil, that time of deepest winter just before the hammer of Spring hits & all awakens for the new year of breeding, growth, renewal. The buds on the peach tree by the creek are just bursting. Spring will be next week. Hormones will activate, generating crazy behaviors, so watch out kids, it's all about to happen again!

Old Hats, New Directions

Tapestry wool crochet Celtic hat.

Crown of the hat - an ancient Celtic sunwheel design.

A few new directions as I explore crochet granny square possibilities & learn new stitches. The backing on bottom image is part my knitted raw wool sampler.

Flickr site has all my yarnwork to date in the Yarns set.

Hiya Kaffe !

This is my way of learning to knit, way back then.
A Kaffe Fassett pattern from his book: "Glorious Knitting".

It's mostly way too warm for this subtropical climate, but I found it the just right Goldilocks thing for that minus 3 degree centigrade morning last week.

Finding some great links to other yarn artists lately including the Crochet Ring which I'll add to blogroll soon.

DO go check out Flickr if you haven't already. It is such a good showcase and the maps make it really interesting.

Stay warm, stay cool !

Fire and Ice

Recent unprecedented freezing weather is resolving to that beautiful clear warm pre-Spring balminess that makes life here such a joy.

But what is happening in the Europe, the floods, heatwaves, fires is horrendous.

Can't help thinking "what if" - what if there were sudden events when the rainfall or temperature produced off the scale results.

What if we had sudden 55-60 degree centigrade days. 2000 mm falls of rain?

The biosphere is reacting to the changes in the conveyor belt of ocean currents, which are influenced by the complex "world warming" impacts. How long before we are experiencing the really big nasties. Even England & Poland have had tornadoes recently.

One came thru my place in 2002 & ripped off everything above 25 feet height. The side of the house and all the verandas went. I now know what it is like to not be able to breathe while the banshees shriek & dust blinds your eyes. It cut a swathe about 40 feet wide from Casino, 100 km SW from here, across the caldera to my place. I went to check my nearest neighbors a mile away & they were unaware it had even happened, that's how precise & localised it was.

A few years ago, following a week of 38-40 degree C days, we had a 45 degree C day.
My neighbor & I fled our hot rock mountain side & sat in the ocean up to our necks for 9 hours. Even if we had wanted to we couldn't walk back to car across beach as sand was white hot.
What if it had gone to 55 that day?

How close to life support threshhold will these events go ?

Way beyond scarey.

I hear over 500 have died in the heatwave affecting Italy/Greece/Hungary area. We were told this as the 9th item on the news. The latest Iraq atrocities got 8th. The fact that our soldiers had killed someone in Afghanistan was about 3rd. Prime time was the PM stumbling as he walked on his vote seeking tour.

Apparently 500 dead far away, 80 dead a little closer but still not on our island, don't rate as importantly as whether or not John Howard is keeping his body balance, if not the nation's books as price rises in basic commodities send interest rates up & up & up again. It's all part of the Big Problem. Too many people, stressed resources, destructive climatic events.

More, more, produce, consume, breed. Keep it happening good citizens all.

Keep yr eye on the pointy end or you'll see the sharks feeding off the garbage astern.

I remember back in 70's someone saying we have evolved as a species now able to view its' own extinction in minute excruciating detail via the electronic media. Well I guess that's as long as electricity gets to them I guess someone, somewhere is working out how to bypass that too.

So just to show that I'm doing my bit for production quotas here's some crochet pix.

Goldilocks & Anu World

Still busy researching yarn arts & artists. Found endless people & beautiful work thru Flickr & now have found

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/

to help organize my contributions to the cornucopia of work on display.

Here's my latest offerings, some pillow covers.

Created these with help of Flickr yarn artists' patterns. Working into new techniques & scrumble freeform crochet is my next Big Thing. Time to break out of confines of classic traditions & use the inspirations of Kaffe Fassett, Sylvia Cosh, James Walters, Sue Bradley & Jenny Dowde (not forgetting old bud Jenny Kee), to fly into Anu World of creativity.

Freezing cold. snow falling where snow hasn't fallen in last hundreds of years of record keeping.

Yes that biosphere breakdown is a happenin' & even our dodo P.M. is going on UTube to present the proposals to address climate change issues.

Ah, naivity reigns. What is coming is the result of what happened way back in the mid 20th century & before. Maybe reforms in energy use & pollution reduction will help in the long run but with so many of us swarming, consuming, polluting, I fear there will be a huge culling before it all slows down to a new Goldilocks life support system.

Who will survive? Will the oceans really rise & swallow coastal areas? Will we still have industrial areas to drive our civilization's technology? So many are in low lying areas.

Is it all too late or do we really have a chance?

It is all so interesting - the evolution of life on this Goldilocks planet. What we are and what we will become.

Let kindness and understanding rule as we hope for good outcomes in what seems a less than comfortable future.

Spread the love,

Anu.

Hi Hatz

Found a site where imagination, talent & fun with mixed media make some very crazy headgear.




Go2:
http://www.beaniefest.org/
& look at the images in Past Festivals.

This is one of the images from that site.

There is also a Beanie Fest book full of these bizarre offerings in craft shops.

YARN WORLDS

Been researching freeform & tapestry crochet & found a world of people who make extraordinary work. Some are so like my tapestry crochet & grid pattern knitting that I did a dance at finding like minded yarn artists who, a whole hemisphere away, have made things so like mine. Inspirational!

This is another hat I made for good friend Adi.

I've sent emails to some who have followed the Kaffe Fasset & Sylvia Cosh methods and various traditional ethnic work such as Peruvian, Mexican & old Celtic,Turkish, & Egyptian patterns & colors.

If you are reading this now I'd love to contact you to swap patterns & ideas & maybe just muse about crochet, knitting, color and/or the goings on around our planet these last months. I'll be fixing up the photos of my work for web publication so find that on my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/anua22a.

As I write a foraging band of 5 huge black yellow tailed cockatoos is scrawching above in the trees that hang over studio. Lots of crashing onto the tin roof right above my head as twigs and bark fall as they pull apart the deadwood looking for insects.Time to get out the camera. They are so HUGE! Today winter gales abate and its a day of champagne air and warm sun. A day to sit in sun and work on my next project.

Love to all
Anu.