Yarnivorous

My lord, I bring news! I like not this news, bring me some other news! My lord, I bring new news! Just a quick update tonight. Thanks to everyone who has replied about the wheel problem. I have played muchly with the wheel. Thanks to a quick trip to Wondo's in Tooronga, I now have a genuine ashford spring for the scotch tension, a new bobbin and even an orifice hook (I couldn't find any wire of decent weight here that could fit through the orifice). It does spin but I need to oil it. I haven't oiled it yet. Bad me. Apparently I have to use 30 grade motor oil. I'll have to see if you can get teensy ones, otherwise I'll have to order some. They didn't seem to have any at the handweaver's and spinner's guild today. Thanks to the guild, I now have two extra bobbins for a very reasonable price plus some more rovings. THis means I have more stuff to play with and a hope of plying stuff - I plied up a bit of stuff last night by winding abou...

G'day all! Well, what an annoying day it has been. Make that weekend. Yesterday started well but went downhill around lunchtime when my easily upset gut decided to have a spaz. And I forgot to drop some money for Goodies tickets in to a friend's place early and got there late. D'oh! And Nathan had a complete and utter spaz over things that will remain unmentioned on this blog. Today I happily trawled out to get the spinning wheel. I had the impression it was pretty new and had hardly been used. It is in perfect working order, according to the person who was recommending it. Da-dow! (That awful NO noise they use in quiz shows) The wheel had quite clear signs of having treadled quite a lot. Plus it has been stored somewhere where it can get wet - the finish has water marks all over it and the flyer hooks have a spot of rust or two. Still, it is sturdy and trundles around quite well. So I coughed up the dough and brought it home. When I tried to set...

G'day all! Yes, I have finished objects! A miracle! I don't think I've ever reported a finished object on this blog apart from Tassin's bag. Unmiraculously I don't have pics cos now that I am at my leisure, we've had thunderstorms and quite a deal of cloud cover and I can't get decent shots of my little pink bolero and Miss Piggy. Miss Piggy is made out of the yarn I raved about earlier this week. She had to take a back seat to the bolero cos I really need that at work. So I have already beaten last year's record of no finished garments! (unless you count about 50 scarves and three hats) And maybe by tomorrow arvo I will have managed to full the bag I just finished and the little swatch of a new woolen yarn I picked up today. Hopefully pics tomorrow or Sunday. Lotsa pics - I had a big whoopsie at evil Lincraft today. They have 30% off everything in store until Sunday. So get to Lincraft you Aussies and you too could be rolling in yar...

G'day all! If only I were talking about me when I say hottie! But no, we are in for a hot one today and I am talking entirely about the weather. 36 today, to join yesterday's 36. And I ain't talking fahrenheit either..... Heh. I've just read about Bruce the Fish on the Yarnharlot's blog. Bruce is a good Australian name. So we divert for a moment... In honour of it being Australia Day, let me recite this poem, adapted stolen from the Monty Python Crew. "This 'ere's the waddle, Symbol uv our land. You can stick it in a boddle, You can hold it in yer 'and. Amen." Crackatube. Have a beer for us on Australia day. But none of that Foster's crap thanks - noone here drinks it. They even prefer to drink Four-ex than Foster's and that is saying something! If you want to read a couple of my favourite Aussie poems, here's a CJ (the Den) Dennis poem Washing Day and an absolute Aussie classic by AB "Banjo...

G'day all! Some of you will know what/who Lincraft is. Others won't. Lincraft is the local material, sewing supplies, and general craft shop. They jump on bandwagons quite happily and have a much greater range of yarns than they had four years ago. Evil evil Lincraft are starting to stock their winter range of yarns (nb it is going to be 37 degrees C here tomorrow and Wednesday, or nearly 100 in the old measure - perfect weather for knitting, not!). I went to buy a ball of for my (to be) fulled as I had nearly run out of the black yarn. Cosy Wool is $3 a ball and is a rough, cheap 100% wool that I would never wear anywhere near my skin. It is even rough to knit with. But it fulls like a champion. I had ideas that I might get the bag mostly done tonight. Can you believe that I had to buy these as I had none of them? so I can make a bolero like this Crystal Palace Yarns one, only without the Trio yarn and with two strands of cotton in...

G'day all! Some of you may remember that before Christmas, we at Casa Shandley were a little weirded out by the smells erupting from the bathroom. Eau de dead rat. YUM! Since then we have had little rat activity around the house. Until last Sunday, when I was gardening. I heard a rustle, looked down and not 30cm from my foot was a young rat. hmm. It was moving rather slowly for a rat that is outside in daylight but I still couldn't grab it. Later that day, a similarly sized rat (?the same one?) played pinball with my feet - it bounced off one foot, then the other on its way to the garage. Dang! Our place was ratified again! Three days later a SMELL erupted from under the bathroom again. Maybe it is DE-ratified now! I got a double yolker egg yesterday! No knitty pics at present. I have almost finished two items - I have to do seaming and one button band for the blue cardi and the seams on the poncho weird thing with butterflies. No pics...

G'day all! Let's start with some very important news. Here is my husband's new blog: Nathan's blog. Go read it, be gobsmacked by what nathan gets up to when he should be writing his PhD up. And leave him a comment cos he is feeling all left out and lonely cos noone is commenting on his blog. I know how he feels! Does anyone remember that I am a member of the Yarnharlot's thrum-along? Well I am. Here is the first mitten, without a thumb. This is the third go at making a very simple mitten. It does help when you use the correct size needles.... I could not figure out why it was sooooo small on the first go. You will note that whilst the patterns say put a thrum in every third stitch, I have put one in every fourth stitch. D'OH And my hand is much too big for the mitten - this is a ladies size and whilst I like to call myself a lady, on occasion, I certainly do not have lady-size hands. Oh well, someone will get a less well t...

G'day all! Today I am a good blogger. You wanna see why? Here's a really bad pic of the blue cardi. (mental note to self - get DH to take pics of garments if I am modelling them - it is hard to take pics of oneself and I hate using the bathroom mirror to do so - no natural light) As you can see, it only has one sleeve and it is quite breezy on one side. LOL! I am still spindling away - here is what I made last week. Some lovely alpaca all spun up and ready (almost) to go - gotta set the twist yet. It is very badly arranged on the spindle but I was really struggling to get the plied yarn to fit on the spindle - next time I'll use a bigger spindle for plying. There is over 60m of yarn on that spindle. I may well dye it. BTW, that is our newly sanded and tung oiled floor in the background. The colour is really a somewhat lighter than it appears in the photo.. This is the lacy wrap um poncho um whatever it is that I am knitting out of so...

G'day all! I shall put up a second post soon, I hope, with PICTURES! I've been having a think about my stuff about me and identity fraud. Dunno why but some little alarum bell went off in my head. I think I am being too trusting. I am sharing life events and attitudes with people I don't actually know. Not that many people read this blog, so i reckon I am probably ok. It is more the search engines that I wonder about. So I'll post more stuff but I will also pull it down again after a week. If you want to keep that info, you'd better save the page or copy and paste it. hint for today - make sure that you press the f key when you are typing life. Otherwise it comes out as lie and you only realise when you've published your blog.... anon!

G'day all! i am such a bad blogger! I can't give you pics today because; a) nathan downloaded all of last week's somewhere that I can't figure out, and b) I can't download the pics on the camera because we've just moved all the computer gear out of the study and I can't for the life of me find the cable that hooks the camera to the computer. Is that a weak excuse or what?? You'll just have to whip me, beat me and make me speak Gaelic. I'd probably enjoy it. After all, I've got both Scottish and Irish blood in me. And I'd whinge about the process a lot cos I am mostly Pom. ;-D Well I don't have much knitting progress to report anyway. I have not finished anything for ages - I have too many projects on the go at once. I should finish the blue cardi by the end of the week at my current rate of progress - HUZZAH! I would show you pics of it as it is - half made up but without one sleeve, a side seam or the button/neck b...

G'day all! I am such a bad blogger. I don't have pics of the blue cardi yet. But that is ok, cos it is a blue cardi without the left sleeve and the button bands, so it isn't really finished yet. The cardi is looking good, I have to say. The square top on the sleeve shoulder is causing a minor bit of grief but I can deal - the grief is on the back side and I only see that if I bend myself oddly to look in the mirror. I got some prices on spinning wheels today. $900. Ouch. I think that they are a little beyond my price range at this stage. I am going to have to save up to get a new one. Even second hand ones cost $500 in the Trading Post . Except for the two I just found, only the people won't answer their phones. So if anyone knows of a good wheel cheap, let me know. I've got about 1600g of alpaca to spin up and at my current rate of about 50g a week, this is going to keep me busy for a loooooooong time! Plus there are such luscious rovings and t...

G'day all! As you may remember, I am making a blue cardi. I was a bit crook on Friday and did not go into work cos I was sick of being a bit crook and took me to the doctor. It is amazing how much of the front I knitted whilst waiting two hours to see a doctor. I did about 4 waist shaping increases, the stretch to the arm hole, the arm hole shaping, and all the way to the top! Then I did the first 40 rows of the next side of the front. At least waiting that long had one good benefit - the dr prescribed a one-shot antibiotic that wipes out Giardia . I have been *much* better since then. Hooray! This problem has been plaguing me since I went to Western Australia way back in September! I was tested for it (look, you really don't want to have to be tested for it cos a) it is yucky and b) the tests aren't very good cos they have to be lucky to see the rotten little sodding parasite in the, ahem, samples you provide). I cna pinpoint where I got Giardiasis too - I...

G'day all! I am well and truly back at work now. Work is not engaging me at present. It is not engaging my team mate either - she is working on designing financial training. I am looking at dispute resolution training. I think I win in the interesting stakes - at least you get to have a bit of fire when you look at disputes. Financial training is much more likely to make a person want to create a bonfire and burn the lot. I sit and daydream about playing with my lovely fleece (I am well aware that it will spin up an ugly mottled brown and white/grey colour). Some of it is quite dark and some is quite grey/salt and pepper. Last month's craze was to write a hundred things about oneself on one's blog. I've thought about this for a while and I reckon I can string it outfor a while. It is interesting seeing what other people think is really important to reveal about themselves. For me, we'll start with the ancient past. You'll get more than 10...

Or should that be fleeced? G'day all! On the way home from our lovely little break in Thredbo, we visited Beechworth . Beechworth is notable for a number of reasons, but my main reason for visiting the town is to go to La Blanche, with its many flavours of gluten free gelati (and icecream, for those who can have dairy products). We wander into La Blanche (there is a bigger shop in Bright) and have a bit of a chat with the chap who runs the shop, choose our "poison" (Nathan likes frappes) and wander off quite happily gutsing ourselves. After 10 minutes of freezing my mouth I often wonder why I do it. This time I decided that I also had to look at the Ardent Alpaca . They stock fleeces and yarn, and when we wandered into the shop, it seemed like they stock a lot of old lady clothes as well - you know the type I mean, beautifully made, fine yarns, classic design, etc, but nothing I would be caught dead in. The fleece and yarn room was a little hidden in the cor...

G'day all! Yesterday, in 2004, I said today I would reveal my New Year's Resolution. Well I guess I should spit it out. I will do my very very best to blog at least twice a week, with photos wherever possible. I don't think I can manage every day of the week though - I dunno how all those knitters and spinners with kids can manage enough peace to blog every day! I only have a husband and a full time time job, and that is enough for me! I will improve my blog page and add lots of links on the side. I might even do a weekly what is on the needles and the spindle. Gosh, you are so privileged! LOL. Do you really need to know that I will try to improve my housekeeping and be a tidier person? Don't hold your breath though. You don't live here. Be glad. The only rooms where I have not deliberately put yarn are the kitchen (yarn often travels through there or I knit or spin as I check the progress of dinner), bathroom (one of two), toilets (Austral...