Yarnivorous

G'day all! Well 2005 is doing its best to go out with a bang. It is 42 degrees outside, and I ain't talking fahrenheit here, I am talking celcius, so that would be hmmm, nearly 110 f. I am glad I don't live in Ouyen cos a) Ouyen is one of those small towns that is well past its prime and b) it was 45 there today. Ack! So why am I happily knitting a woollen shawl? One of the lists I am on showed a link for the Tasmanian Spinning Guild: http://home.graffiti.net/~hsdgt/index.htm When I followed it, I was told this: "User Not Found The account you requested cannot be found. You may contact the page owner if you know this is a mistake." That is verbatim what the page says. There is no hyperlink for the page owner, no emailto:, nothing. So if I knew the page owner personally, I might indeed email them but as I don't, I don't think I'll bother. As it turns out, the lady who forwarded the link does know the listowner and emailed them. Too drippy hot in t...

G'day all! Well today was the day we were meant to hand the keys back for our old house. Only the real estate agent shut at THREE. Guess what time I got there? Pretty obviously not before three.... but not long after three either.... Is the place perfect? Nope! But the venetians are cleaned and we have receipts for the steam cleaning and the general cleaning. Deal, estate agent! Plus I have done the grass, poisoned the weeds with EVIL weed knockdown and paid a nice man called Dennis to do the front strip. Anyway, we are now officially over Koonawarra St. Now it is all our own place we can fuss about. HOOOOOORAY! Let's have a look at my other Christmas goodies. An old family friend bought us an electric knife. nathan is very happy cos now he can use Mum's old one for carving polystyrene. Nathan's lovely aunt saw a most remarkable book on orchids and bought it for us. (click on the pic if you want to see a bigger version of the book cover) Now we have a his and a h...

G'day all! Some pics from yesterday. OK, so we can walk outside at Christmas wearing only tshirts (and often wishing that we could wear a LOT less ;-). Melbourne was pretty cool, temperature-wise actually - probably because we did not have a roast. It was cold meats, roasted veg and salads all the way. If Barb had organised a roast, it would have been stinking hot, like around 35 (nearly 100) and somewhere around 50 in the kitchen, like a Christmas 7 years ago when some friends brought around a 5 litre bucket of icecream (say 1.5 gallons) for four of us, and the stupid thing didn't fit in my freezer.... So let the pics roll on! (No pics of the seafood entree - I forgot to take any) Christmas table - cheers! (the pic on the wall shows Nathan and his little brother when Nathan was about 9) Christmas spread: My plate (no salads - couldn't work out what was in the "It's italian dressing"): Note the weirdness of having jelly (jello) on the main course plate. ...

G'day all! Well what a pleasant Christmas. I know Christmas is about giving, not getting but lookie what DH gave me: Woo hoo! Now I can listen to podcasts and music and the radio and stuff on the train! Look how wee it is. It does so much stuff - it can even record inputs including voice - and is Linux compatible too! Happy happy joy joy! It is the bestest present he has ever given me and was something he did without my knowledge whatsoever. He was feeling very cunning, and particularly peeved when I told the girl in the supermarket that he didn't give me presents. I now take back those words. (Did I give him something? Well I would've if I could find it! Someone stowed it for me and I can't find the flaming stuff!) May Santa, or at least your nearest and dearest, have brought you what you want too :-) Back tomorrow hopefully with more about Christmas, an Australian Christmas. anon!

G'day all! Just a quick one to wish you all a Merry Christmas and/or season's greetings. Stay safe, and warm or cool depending on where you live :-) Remember this when you are cursing your Christmas knitting (IT). You could be moving house instead :-) My mother in law was fussing about the Christmas lunch for 15 tomorrow. I made the offer to make the salads whilst she helped clean up our garage. She thought doing the salads would be nicer. LOL Christmas shopping ? No time for that! Presents? Umm, yeah. Oops.... We have been moving stuff out of the house, garage and garden for 8 days now and we still have about 4 trailer loads of stuff to go. Next time, if there is one, we are DEFINATELY going to be in a position to get professionals to move us. And we'll have the house ready to move into, rather than finding it grotty from end to end, with even oatmeal spilt in the cupboard. I'll be back in a day or so with an Australian Christmas, and maybe even pictures!...

G'day all! We are back online! Hooray! Except we have a little networking problem cos DH can't find the hub. Ooops. It will show up but until then, no pics. There may be no pics anyway unless I use the blogger pic server cos I am not sure if my server is online over Christmas. On the subject of moving? I hope now that Nathan realises that it is not easy to move yourself with the kind help of two or three friends and the odd hand from the rellos. We still haven't cleared the garage. I went and hired some self storage yesterday but they are shut for three critical days over Christmas. We haven't cleared the yard yet either. And it is going to be 36 today!! today. Like nearly 100 for those of you in the imperial age. We got the house clear on Wednesday night and boy that was horrid. Every time you thought you'd finished, voila! Something else appeared in a cupboard. At least I can stick a lot of the stuff from the garage in the back of my little weeny car ...

G'day all! After all the threats to move the computers over the last few days, today is finally the day. The cable goes off here tomorrow anyway. Hopefully it will be on on Thursday at the new place, nicely in time for Christmas! If you are expecting reply mails from me, please excuse me cos we are still flat chat getting the rest of the stuff out. You would not believe how much we have to take to the tip and recycle place. I admit I did a little spinning yesterday whilst Nathan played the piano. It was very nice. So if things go horribly wrong and I can't blog before Christmas, have a most excellent day and I'll talk to you anon!

G'day all! I only have one word for all this moving we are doing. OHMIGOD Followed by a whole lotta expletives. We have moved almost everything except for some kitchen stuff and obviously the computers/study. They will go shortly. We have so much stuff to find places for. Thank heavens that the local govt in our new area does a big blue bin of recyclables - we'll be filling ours for the next few weeks I reckon. We are going to cough up $400 to get the place cleaned. It is easier than having to clean two houses in one week plus clean up the garden here. I still can't believe that we moved into a dirty house, like grotty from end to end. It hadn't even been vacuumed. Wish the people who said they would call back would call back so I know whether to go with the first ones I called. OK. Time to go and do more dumping Stuff into boxes and loading them into the cars. I am soooo over all of this. Next time I move, I will dejunk well in advance. Knitting? Spinning? w...

G'day all! Well settlement went through without a hitch today. OURS, ALL OURS! So why do we feel a bit flat and unexcited? Maybe because we now see how much work we have to do lifting and carrying and plonking and then lifting and carrying and plonking after driving for 15 minutes. Two of our helpers have pulled out and that is going to make a big difference to our work load. I haven't finished packing yet. Nathan hasn't even started. Plus we have to clean the new (old) house end to end - it hasn't even had a decent vacuuming. When we leave this rental property we are expected to clean it thoroughly. The place we are moving to will be in the same state this one was. Yucky. Oh well. It will be good. We will be happy there I am pretty sure, we just have to get there yet! And the power has to be put on too. It didn't seem to be working but we only tried one light. Nathan wants to move the computers there ASAP, despite not having cable and stuff. This means...

G'day all! Everyone else is having babies at present so we thought we should get in on the trend. We are proud to announce our new arrival. 4 kilos Nearly 70cm (!!) Remarkably brown considering her paleface "parents." Not yet named (suggestions welcomed). Isn't she beautiful? Koochy-koo! Look at that baby go! Greased lightning! (And I only have shoes on cos we are outside and after the bee sting in April I am a leetle paranoid) Yep, Felicia guessed truly. (Go check out her "sweet shop" - it looks totally luscious and I want some!) I now have a lovely Majacraft Little Gem2 . I was really struggling between her and the Suzie but the Suzie Pro is not as portable and if we go to England, this baby can go as cabin luggage if I am lucky. I would not trust the luggage dudes not to bust a spinning wheel - I've seen how they handle luggage and it is SCARY! Admittedly the guy who saw me watching him unloading stuff started to not throw the bags over the ...

G'day all! I am in packing hell. I am starting on the final packing rather than the stuff you can do earlier. Argh. Yuck. Dying! Too much to pack! Too much useful stuff to put in boxes and bags. At least the gas can be read on Friday so that we can have gas on the weekend. Woo hoo! Gas, power, water, phone/cable - any other utility I've forgotten about? Don't think so.... Assuming all goes well, settlement is in TWO days. Then we are truly in debt but we'll have a house that only the bank can throw us out of! One person has guessed truly on what the mystery item is, but I don't have time for pics today. Of course over the weekend I think we will lose both our cable internet access and the phone, and I don't know when they will be put back on. My exhousemate is arranging the phone and cable cos Optus are hopeless and despite me having authority to deal with the account will only deal with the original account holder, who has not lived here for what t...

G'day all! Everyone reckons I bought fleece. Well I didn't. But I have more fleece. Just over a kilo of raw Polwarth fleece from Wendy Dennis . See how many colours I got? There's at least 8 different ones, but I think I missed getting a pic of the silvery one. Here's a closeup of the crimp of one of the whites: My kncukle is about an inch long, so you do the maths. It (the fleece, not my knuckle) came free with something else I bought. Can you guess what? For those of you up in the snowy, icy or otherwise cold parts of the northern hemisphere, I give you pictures from my garden, taken yesterday. The first tomatoes. I admit this little cherry tomato bush had unripe little tomatoes before I bought it but I've never had tomatoes ripen before Christmas. Last summer the things didn't ripen at all. One of my very favourite roses. Mary Rose has survived a LOT of neglect, starting with a)an exhousemate who ripped her from the ground most cruelly ('but I as...

G'day all! Well it has been an interesting weekend here at Weedhaven. The interesting part was not the time I spent at Weedhaven (ie home), it was the driving around and talking to people. On Saturday i drove around and talked to people in different yarn shops. I didn't talk to the lady in Sunspun cos I find Sunspun intimidating - very pricey but then what do I expect from a yarn shop that sells Rowan in one of the "better" suburbs of Melbourne? But then I went to calico and chintz, a new shop in Auburn (right under the railway line, literally, in Auburn). I really wanted to get some Artyarns but I can't justify $16 for a 50g skein of yarn that is just nicely dyed merino. I had a good chat to one of the owners, Beverley. She has some Dale of Norway yarn and some rowan and some nice bits and pieces. I bought a little something to make up a jacket for a new little boy (though I am starting to wonder if *I* like it too much for me!). She is interested in get...

G'day all! Well my batch of 21 squares should be in LA by now. Doesn't mean that they are through customs mind you. Here are the last what umm 9 squares: I had lots of fun doing the gradated colour ones. They look very jerky but in person they are quite smooth. I've not yet found a digital camera that doesn't get overexcited by reds and lurid pinks. I had lots of bits of yarn left over so I decided doing colour blends would be fun. And it was and now I want to do MORE! I want to have colour runs that go through all the rainbow over something as big as a bedspread. OK, it would be lurid but oh imagine the colour! So I had one night without knitting after making all those squares in a week and then discovering I can't find *any*, not one!, of my yarn needles. I have so many darning in needles and blunt ended bodkins and every time I finish a project, I go and buy more. I had to use a crochet hook instead and it was Not Fun. Why is it that the useful things d...

G'day all! Just letting you know I have a snail mail addy in LA for any crazy squares to be sent to. Rememeber, 5" squares in something machine washable, just so it doesn't have a nasty little accident if it does go in the washer! I need your email address though if you want to send squares cos I won't post someone's private snail mail addy on the net. For those who want to sponsor a square instead of making one, send me your details and I'll make sure you go onto the list of contributors! Two of you I know want to sponsor a square (make a donation to charity, let me know) so I'll get your names on squares asap cos I hav eto send my contribution like yesterday! If you don't know what I'm talking aobut, read down my blog over the last few entries :-) That's all I'm saying! anon!

G'day all! Have you ever suffered from that horrible sinking feeling as you run across the road, that horrid feeling that you are getting a little more air than you would like? That the elastic is not gripping so well? That if you keep running you will have an incident involving makeshift fabric ankle irons? Or perhaps you become aware of unsightly rolling across the bottom area. Welcome to WUS - Wrong Undies Syndrome. Yes, that marvellous knowledge that you should really have not worn those undies with that outfit, particularly the older, less elasticky ones with a skirt that sits just where they do. Mmm-mmm, are you feeling wussy right now? (That is a *very* personal question!) Onto more mundane things, like blocks. Scusi the size of the pics - they are detailed and do not compress well. Here's the lot so far, excepting the 2.5 I got done on the train today: Now I have to make more cos this is a particularly pathetic cushion cover - 3 by 25cm square blocks of 12 5"...

G'day all! I am still humming and harring about the thing for our favourite Crazy Aunt. What am I talking about? Well I'd really like to get an afghan together for Laurie before Christmas *this* year. I thought it would be nice for her to get something from a heap of knitbloggers. And knitters and crocheters, whether or not they blog. If people can make something with 5" squares in pink and join it into a small rug, and I can find someone in LA to put it all together, that would be grand! Each square should have the knitter's or crocheter's name on the back so that she knows who it comes from. Then she'll know that there are people out there for her. It doesn't have to be beautiful and all match - not matching is good cos it shows the diversity of people out there and we don't all match (matching is nice but not completely necessary). If any SnB groups or knitty groups are able to put some squares together for her, that would be great :-) If not...