Cardigan success!

It's taken a few months of chipping away at it (in between getting seduced by other projects), but my first proper cardigan is finished! I started it back in April, and blogged about it in my very first post. Awww.

The pattern is 'Chickadee', from Ysolda Teague's wonderful book on knitting well-fitting garments, Little Red in the City. I've put my notes on getting the fit right on my Ravelry project page. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find buttons for it yet, but I'm sure the craft shops in Melbourne will have a good selection. I can use a brooch in the meantime, or wear it open. Next on my garment-knitting agenda is a long-sleeved Cria cardigan from the same book, in variegated greens. :)

Dad and I had some fish and chips for lunch today, down at the 'Heads' - the mouth of the Whakatane river. The local seagulls were pretty excited about our chips! Cheeky buggers.

 

Spring in the garden

I've been practising with Dad's camera again, lurking around the garden spying on the locals. Click the pics to enlarge them. :)
  

A waxeye in the bottle-brush tree

A pair of sparrows have moved into the birdhouse

Hazel guards the veg patch

A bumblebee enjoying the plum blossoms

A monarch butterfly hogging all the nectar

Bees and blossoms

This post is brought to you by the letter B!

Yesterday was a sunny Sunday, so I had fun experimenting with Dad's camera in the garden. We parked the tripod near the plum tree which is just starting to bloom, zoomed in and focused on a cluster of blossoms, and waited for bees to come and pose for their portrait...

(click to enlarge photos)

When I had plenty of bee photos, I abandoned the tripod and went on the hunt for other wildlife. I got lucky with a monarch butterfly, which was resting on the ivy, and a tui which obligingly presented its profile.

As usual, Hazel the cat had been accompanying me around the garden, so I got a few shots of Her Majesty in her domain. :)

So long (for now)

Wellington, it's been a great 13 years! (Has it really been that long?)
See you again soon.

Now for a couple of weeks of R&R at my favourite holiday destination, Mum and Dad's house in Whakatane. And then on to Melbourne!

Vespers II

Well, last night I had my final singing occasion at St Mary's before I cross the ditch. We had a sung Vespers, followed by a short concert which included a big, big solo for me in Mendelssohn's 'Hear My Prayer'.

The Mendelssohn piece was a kind of send-off for me - definitely going out on a high note, hurr hurr. But it really was! It's the longest solo I've ever done. It was great fun to sing, and having a really good accompanist (Tom) made it easy to relax and get into it. I love it when I flick into 'performance mode' and stop feeling self-conscious, and the rhetoric just comes naturally. It was also nice to have Willie and Rowan in the audience for moral support, and the three of us had a good feed afterwards at Satay Palace, one of our old-fave cheap-and-tasty places on Cuba St.

I don't usually listen to recordings of pieces I'm preparing to perform (at least, not too close to the performance), because it makes it harder to come up with my own interpretation. But it's fun to do when the performance is all done and dusted! I found this 1980s recording with Kiri Te Kanawa, a singer who a certain primary-school teacher of mine adored. ;)

It's a very different singing style to mine, but it really brings out the chocolate-box aspect of the music! Good fun.

I'm really going to miss being part of St Mary's Choir. Such a lovely (and interesting) group of people! It's hard to believe, but I joined a whole decade ago, during my honours year at uni. I was attracted by the prospect of singing Medieval and Renaissance music, and I was studying Latin at the time and loving it. I started out in the alto section, with almost no voice - no resonance, dodgy tuning, pretty much bad all round! But I could read music, and I was keen, and over time I got better. ;)

Robert, the choir director, really inspired me with his passion for early music, and when I started having voice lessons with him and working seriously on my singing, it all got easier and easier (and more and more fun). Now, I feel like I'm in a good position to try the waters in a bigger pond - I finally have the confidence to have a go at pretty much anything. As long as I keep practising! And I'm looking forward to joining in with St Mary's choir on my trips back to NZ.