Yarnivorous

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...

Hello to my readers! It is nice to be able to say readers - there are at least two of you I know! As I rode home on the train today, I started doubting my own sanity. It was a nice warm spring day today in Melbourne - about 27 degrees C. Apart from a couple of days in WA and when we were driving, it is the warmest day we've had since April. So why , WHY am I knitting the cuffs for thrummed mittens? Indeed, why am I knitting them now instead of sewing beads into the eyelets of my new summer top? I finished the front yesterday and now it has to have the shoulder seams sewn up and the neckline band done, so WHY AM I KNITTING THE THRUMMED MITTENS? I can only ascribe it to spring fever. Any other suggestions? First day back at work was OK - spent a lot of it with a new starter. I am at a loss about what to do about work - until Nathan has finished the fud and has a stable job, I have to stay where I am. Someone has to earn the money that pays the bills and keeps us ...

Hello to you all out there! Including the ones who don't know this blog exists. LOL. This has been my last weekend of freedom for a long time to come. Blah. Back to the four letter word in the morning. Ick. I've had just over a month away from it and I've enjoyed not having to drag into the city every weekday. But something has to pay the rent and the bills and buy food and most importantly YARN! So what have I been up to? Carding lots of alpaca fleece! And discovering that: 1) I am allergic to some component of the dirty fleece - today I've had a "heavy" chest and feel claggy inside. 2) It is better to card the dirty fleece to get some of the dirt out, then wash it, then card it again, if you want the cleanest whitest fluffiest fleece (of course chocolate coloured ones will always have brown fleece). I've tried carding it, spinning it and then washing it - comes out a grotty shade of brown/grey - obviously dirty. Good for ferals mayb...

Hello to my handful of readers! Someone must be checking up on me cos according to my site meter I've had about 20 hits per week - not bad for a beginner who has no links from any other pages! I picked up a book today at my LYS and it is full of patterns for Zhivago, Zest and the Yarn of Satan (as a trim only - its best use!). It has some nice little tops in it - book 1230, "Resort Knits." If you have been eyeing off Angelina (or have made it!! you know who you are!) then you should weep cos Patons have got a couple of jackets that I humbly believe are inspired by Angelina in this book. (I admit that was one reason why I bought it, please don't hit me!) See what I mean? Resort Knits I further admit that I went and bought a number of balls of Flutter (ie Lincraft's version of the Yarn of Satan) and Lincraft's copy of temptation and funky fur (aka Funky Fiber) today cos they are cheap and will knit up into fab scarves for friends and possibly other p...

We've been away almost exactly 3 weeks. We have driven nearly 10,000km. OK, I have driven over 9,000 and Nathan has been a passenger for all bar about 600km. The car is choc-a-block with stuff, mostly plants. It is still choc-a-block with stuff cos I can't be stuffed unpacking it yet, though I must soon cos the first lot of plants were WATERERD IN THE CAR by someone who will remain nameless and the run off spread into SOMEONE WHO WILL REMAIN NAMELESS' $180 books that he insisted on getting (very good books too) and undoubetedly cos they wer not right next to the plants, everything else as well. As for knitting, what is that? I've gotten the back of a tank done, redone the two mittens to the point where I need to do the thumbs, finished a hat.... umm not much else cos it is really hard to knit when you are driving. Very easy when you are a passenger. I didn't even bring home any yarn, though I do have a pile of alpaca fleece. i even stopped at the Yarn B...