Yarnivorous

G'day all! What a year it has been, both personally and from a world-wide perspective. Highlights include getting married in September and the honeymoon in Western Australia, lowlights include the results of the elections here and in the USA. And this rotten tsunami. It has certainly been a year! I wish you all a wonderful, fibrey 2005, where all your dreams and none of your nightmares come true :-) Tomorrow: I unveil my New Year's resolution! anon! until 2005 - only 5 minutes away by the time I post this!

Wishing you a most wonderful christmas and a New Year that will bring all good things to you. I'm away for a few days but will be back before New Year, I think. It is all a bit amorphous as I have left the organisation up to Nathan. I may be home earlier than I expect! If no pictures work, don't be surprised - the storage site (image host) is down for Christmas. anon!

G'day all! Well I am a very bad blogger. I have plenty to say but no time to say it in. By breakfast tomorrow I have to seam up the baby jacket and the pilchers. I have to get a jazzy scarf done by lunchtime. The boobie scarf is finished and wrapped for the MIL. I took pictures, along with pictures of the scarves I am giving various of the women who will be at our Thredbo Christmas party. I would've gotten everything ready except that we frantically tidied the house tonight and got ready for the rellos to come around, except they didn't. They thought they had cancelled, but I didn't think they had - nathan's cousin called saying she was working and could she do it some other time? I didn't realise that meant her brother and her parents wouldn't come either. As it turned out, her brother had a prang (well he didn't really cos he wasn't driving at the time...) and her mum's car blew up tonight so they had no way to get here. But we o...

G'day all! Can any tell me where this year has gone? I was happily knitting away in winter, then started spinning on a hand spindle in spring and suddenly it is Christmas and I seem to have lost a year! Just like everyone else it seems I am madly knitting in the leadup to Christmas. So far, I've only got two FOs to show for it - the diagonal scarf and the little black bag of bling that I made for my boss boss as her Kris Kringle. And a closeup of the dragonfly button I used as a "clasp" and the stitch-work (mostly slip stitch on the coloured work). I dyed the yarns a while ago and have been itching to use them in something. Tassin wasn't in on Friday. D'oh! I wanted everyone to see the little bag of BLING! I have strange ideas that maybe other people might want one too and might be willing to pay for one. I made Tassin's bag big enough to take a decent size wallet - most of the bags are just little things, big enough fo...

G'day all! It is PANIC time! Yes, only 11 days to Christmas and I have not finished all the Christmas stuff. I don't think Nathan's socks are going to get done - I still have his mum's Boobie scarf to do, along with the Kris Kringle bag (which is waaaay OTT) for my boss boss by Friday and I have to work up some presents for the inlaws. Fun fun fun! No pics today - gotta do too much! But here is a link to a, ahem, "craft" that I haven't seen take off yet..... anon!

G'day all! It's been over a week since my last post. Sooo many things have happened. Topping it off nicely my computer access was dodgy and blogger wouldn't let me in and then I forgot what I wanted to say. Still can't remember but DEAL! We have some pics on the menu today. I am going to show off the things I have been doing, except for one thing because it is for a friend for Christmas. Maybe I will show it off later. Maybe I won't. I can be a naughty tease sometimes! Firstly the baby gear - the "soakers" or baby bottoms or golly, what did mum call them? Pilchers! You'll have to wait to see the jacket - somehow the front is longer than the back, though they were the same length before I steam-blocked them.... Oha nd the pilchers aren ot yet seamed either... The lovely sleeve knitted of some randomly coloured "baby pastels" cotton that I recently and the Bendi cotton I got way back in July. This is a patte...

G'day all! Oh what a tale of woe! I am using Nathan's computer whilst he is out. My computer won't boot. Earlier in the week it crashed the browser repeatedly, to the point where I relogged in to my yhaoo! account 5 time in half an hour. So Nathan tried to fix it and now it won't work at all... Woe is me! Plus my elderly father had a fall and broke his hip and is not in a good way so I am all in a dither. I think I'll have to drive to Geelong (about 1.5 hours away) to see him. I don't want him pegging it without me seeing him. But I won't get there until the end of visiting hours now cos it is peak hour as I write this and it will take an extra hour for the trip. I hate driving in peak hour traffic too, particularly as I have a manual car. On the good side, our housemate is now our ex-housemate. Hooray! Her behaviour has been causing quite a great deal of stress. Now we have the place to ourselves - it is too big for only two but for t...

G'day all1 Well what a sad day it is in my household. The last show of Burke's Backyard screened tonight. It has been part of my life for over 17 years. OK, so Don Burke is probably at least partly to blame for the 1990s proliferation of front yards that consisted of a weeping silver birch as a specimen "tree", a pathway lined by miniature English box hedges and standard Iceberg roses, then feature paving or white pebbling. Ick. I forgive him. After all his own garden is very relaxed and very Australian. And he has written a book about it that I am itching to buy but it seems to be Nathan's turn to spend our money at present. However, on a good note, the baby bottoms are nearly sewn up. They are rather amusing, being mint and creamy white stripes. Pics when it cools down - the mercury reached 36 today and I am still trying to cool this end of the house down. I can't be stuffed making the effort of finding a clean bit of floor. Then I have to ...

G'day all! I am in baby clothes hell. No matter how hard I knit on this baby outfit, I don't seem to make much progress. Others moan about sleeve island and then break out the margueritas, I moan about baby clothes knit in 4 ply! :-D Of course I am making progress. I have done most of the top - it needs to be seamed and have the neckband and crocheted tie done. (One day I'll learn how to crochet well enought that the chains are even and noice.) It may just be that my new fibre is calling to me and I really want to spin rather than make baby clothes. Or maybe I want to start the next summer top, now that I know I need the shapely tank to be a bit longer bodied. Then again, I might knit something out of 1,000 Sweaters because unlike many knitters I know, I am small enough to fit into the medium or large sizes! The largest size are 38"/97cm bust - that's not big by any means! Except for the three sack shaped things... Still it is an interesting boo...

G'day all! What a full on weekend! Shopping (nearly $100 of fruit and vegies! Eek! But the organic shop took a far whack of that!), front end alignment of my baby (car), a trip through the Yarra Ranges , which was pretty fab I must say, even though I was attacked by two BLOOD SUCKING LEECHES! Silly beggars, they just looped up my leg looking for a good spot instead of hunkering down for a feed. I would've (note the correct grammar there - would have not would of!) not even noticed them if I had not felt somethings sorta cold and squidgy squirming up my leg. Almost best of all, well certainly bbest of all for ongoing entertainment value was my trip to the Handweavers and Spinners' Guild of Victoria. Most excellent! Too many pretty spinning supplies. I went there cos I needed a pair of carders for my alpaca fleece. The dog brushes I bought were just toooo small - they only have brushes about the size of my palm (large woman's hand) and the wires were extra...

G'day all! Today's mental notes: Knit socks on 2.5mm needles - they seem to work out better. Certainly neater fitting. Knitting socks on 2.5mm needles seemingly takes forever. Knitting socks for largeish husband's feet definately takes forever. Frogging socks knitted on 3mm needles makes surprisingly small balls of yarn. Do not set up a BBQ on top of a wooden desk on some cardboard. Especially on the wooden verandah of a wooden house.* Change the kitty litter that sops up the drips from the BBQ before they catch on fire. Don't put the burning BBQ down in the driveway where your housemate can drive in and hit it. Car 1, BBQ 0. Don't expect said housemate to decide she wants the desk after a great big char mark has been put on the desktop. *yes, my husband and his mechanical engineer mate DID this. Don't ask me why. They thought it was great. Don't mind me, I'm just a girl, what would I know about the likely outcome of flammable materials and BBQs? ...

G'day all! Another Remembrance Day is pretty much done. I am ashamed to say that I was in a course and we forgot to observe a minute's silence. Why do I observe Remembrance day? Why do I buy a fabric poppy from the crustiest old bloke I can find? My Pop was an ANZAC. He fought at Gallipoli. If you have seen the movie Gallipoli , he almost undoubtedly was one of the blokes having a ball in Cairo, pissing off the British and blowing off the officers. He fought at the Somme. He went AWOL for 23 days after his leave ended in England, yet managed to avoid being shot or hung for desertion when he went back (his commander must've fought so hard for him in the court martial). He had part of his face blown away, and his injuries were so bad that he was thrown off the truck during a retreat. They thought he would not survive. But he did - he fell in a puddle which FROZE overnight, and he was found by the Germans, who patched him up some and swapped him (so goes my ...

G'day all! Over the last few days much of my knitting effort has been aimed at sock knitting, especially my lovely new sock in progress - teal, green and navy marl. It is taking longer than the last ones - i don't know if that is a factor of the cotton/wool/polyamide mix or the 0.5mm difference in needles or what. One thing fascinates me about knitting with double pointed needles. They offer so many opportunities to poke oneself in various parts of the body, particularly the eye. (Reminds me muchly of Flanders and Swann's "Design for Living" - "I'm delirious about our new cooker fitment with the eye-level grill. This means that without my having to bend down the hot fat can squirt straight into my eye!") The possibilities are ENDLESS! I wear glasses for most of the day - blind as a bat without them - but if I decide to indulge in a little sock knitting in bed... oh dear! No glasses, so I bring the knitting closer to my face, which provi...

There once was a blogger called Lynne. Lynne liked doing knitting and playing with yarn and spinning stuff. But Lynne was a very bad blogger who didn't get the shots she wanted of her creations, so she talked about them instead. Not so long ago, in a not very distant at all land, Lynne started making herself a new hat to replace the hat she had made that was a little small. She thought it was a very funky hat, rather similar to the one on Marnie's website (check out her free patterns) but it was too small and hurt her head when she wore her glasses (necessary for Lynnes to see beyond their own noses, which may be on the larger side but are not that big). Then Lynne could not find the second ball of yarn she had bought especially to make the new hat. Nowhere could it be seen at all. So Lynne had to make the long haul from the edge of the city to the centre of town in one of her lunchbreaks to buy some more yarn from the only place in town that stocks it. Lynne...

come again another day! Well since Tuesday last we've had close on 100mm (4 inches for you old timers) of rain. Lots of honest to god stormy rain, but even more miserably drizzly rain. Nathan and I got cabin fever and had to go out for a while today. Lord help us if we lived somewhere where you get blizzards and can't get out of the house for days - we can go out in this weather but it isn't as pleasant as it could be. It had been dully grey but mostly dry all morning. So I start driving and it starts PersISting down! Typical! And topping it off nicely, I discovered some sod had driven into my car and dinted the front quarter panel between the door and the wheel. Gadzooks I hate hate HATE drivers who damage other people's cars but think it's only a scratch, they won't mind.... Interesting isn't it that a cars guide I read said look out for little dings in the panels of the model car I drive because their OWNERS don't care about them! Hello...

Well it is not such a good day today. Looks like the American people have voted for blasted Bush. Like how STUPID are these people? Can't they see the damage his administration has done to the USA? And the rest of the world? Sigh. So the birthday girl is grumpy cos it is bad enough having an Australia full of idjits - we are nothing on the world scale. International bully boy America has voted Dubya back in. And if I go to the US, I will be treated like a common criminal upon entry - I have to be finger printed! Why? Cos I want to enter the USA and I might commit some crime or become a terrorist. As if! Do they think I want to be stuck in the USA on a permanent basis in some blasted jail or worse when I have my lovely Australia to live in? Hellooooo! I did get some nice presents. Nathan carefully wrapped up the gifts I bought myself yesterday (guess who forgot his wallet?), well if you count carefully as being he couldn't find the sticky tape (of which ther...

G'day all! It is over a week since I blogged. How bad of me! But it was a very busy week, what with being out two nights (including an SnB) and then having to deal with Nathan who seems to have pulled out of his flat spot, then a parental BBQ. I've got some finished objects to show peoples. Yes indeedy! OK, one isn't really finished but I only have about thirty ends to weave in properly - and thought I had woven in at least half as I went along! Ack! So here is the evil top of many loose ends: It is made out of Merino Supreme . I dyed the magenta and purple myself and am very pleased with the variegated (or as a shop spelt it varragated!) effect. It is very flattering and makes my bust look enormous, or maybe that is just the camera and lighting. It isn't anywhere near that impressive, honest. My front porch, that is. Annoyingly, my skin gets slightly irritated by the neck and arm bands. Then there is the cotton top that I ended up having to ...

G'day all! Last week I asked you to guess what this thing is: Well this week, after receiving only one guess, I reveal the true nature of the beast. Drum roll please! Da-dum! Yes, it is a new stashomatic! It actually started off life as a seedling tray holder - have a look at Nathan's site using the humble garden stake for more info about how excellent garden stakes are as buidling materials. The really nifty part is that those ugly grey bits of timber, when planed, turn out to be all sorts of offcuts of lovely rainforest timbers and all sorts of stuff. The keen of eye among you will note that there is the cousin to the Yarn of Satan in there. Yes indeedy, I VOLUNTARILY bought some lots cheap Lincraft YOS knock off, as reported last week. It will make excellent scarves mixed with the eyelash yarn and I am sure someone will like them. I do! *blush* I don't even mind knitting it as long as I have another thread in there. (that requires a real...

Ohmigod this is the scarf that would not die. Or at least it seems to be taking forever to finish it. It certainly would not offend Allah cos it has plenty o' mistakes in it - I looked at it this afternoon and realised I had stuffed up the eye all the way down in the sixth row, and I'm now up to row 82.... Here is the beast in question, or at least part of it: Yes, I stuffed up on this part too - I am going to tell Fred that the DNA is decondensing around there :-) I am making the scarf in two pieces cos I want it to be "even" at both ends. Well it won't be exactly matching but both ends will resemble the other. Vaguely. I must say that I am finding the cables more fun than I thought I would. I really have to learn or get faminilar with holding the cable stitches in my fingies, but for the nonce I am using a (much smaller) DPN. It suffices. The other day i was knitting the thrummed mitt on the train and one of the four needles dropped onto ...

Hello world! Well my blog is now at least on Google. Interestingly there is a new shop opening up in the US called Yarnivore . Guess I am not the only one to think this up! Today's topic is why do I need a stashomatic? Hmm, well maybe this will give you some ideas: Yarn for my next projects, lotsa cottons. Things wot I should be knitting. My multi-coloured yarns. Not COLLINGWOOD colours! ICK! Pretty colours. Lynne colours. Sea and Land. Reds and oranges. Sick of it yet? Well there ain't much more to go.... I have a surprising amount of browns - not my colours! Recent acquisitions in little baskets. This may give you a hint as to yesterday's question.... OK, so this is most but not all of my yarn. For starters for some reason some of the pics won't preview (ie probably won't display on this blog page) despite me checking the HTML and the names a dozen times. It doesn't include any of the yarns I ...

G'day to my loyal and hardy readers! I am sure there are some out there, surely? OK, maybe not so sure. The stats say I get about 28 visits a week, but I have a feeling some of those are me! LOL. Firstly, a question. What do you think this is? More on it later! Maybe like tomorrow. Get your guess in quickly! Over the last couple of days, I've been working hard on reorganising my stash. I used to have it organised by type of yarn. Now I am organising it by colour. Of course a lot of the yarns I have are multicoloured, which is making it much more fun to figure out where on earth to "file" the little beggars. I need a stashomatic! On the knitting front, I am still sewing stupid little beads into the eyelets of my nice new summer top (must be doing something wrong with eyelets - they look so small and cute in the patterns yet these ones were showing off half my bra!). I only have about 8 stupid little beads to sew in now. Pics tomorrow I hope of t...