Yarnivorous

G'day all! Guess what it is today? FLASH YOUR STASH day! So here goes... Be warned this post has lots of pics but NOT one shot of sock yarn! I've already done that recently.... Oh and this is part one of two. In this post I tantalise with great boxes of yarn and stuff, and only hint as to their contents, though I might flash the handspun (don't you love it when you do a typo like nadspun?) and the fleece stash. The Stashomat in the corner: Nathan made a seedling raising stand, then discovered it didn't work so well for raising seeds. It works really well for holding yarn. :-) This is about half of my cotton stash. On top is some handspun. There's some interloper wool in there too. The shelves with various things on them, fleece, handspun, yarn-to-dye, dyeing stuff, beads, and oh did I mention fleece and more fleece? The tops to dye stash: The colourful tops to spin stash: The spun tops: Some more handspun: The main stash. In the next post, we go stash div...

G'day all! Argh! No! I have to get pics of all my yarn for Saturday. I think there will be pics of much yarn in boxes cos I have nowhere to spread it all out. Argh! Must make sure the spare batteries are charged for the camera! Ack! Panic! Panic! Panic all over the place! Panic (whoo!) panic (whoo!) wipe that smile off your face... Who sang that? Who needs random Wednesdays when you can have random any days of the week? Maybe that is why I have a blog commentership of a few (you guys rock!) rather than 20 or 50 or 450. Not that I could deal with lots of people commenting, let's face it - I cannot keep up with half a dozen! That is part of the joy of being a stressed infp. I started on one of my WIPs tonight. Two months ago, before I got sucked into sock island, I was knitting a seaside shawl, as I call it - a feather and fan triangular shawl that I made up as I went along in colours like stirred up seawater. Well it is almost big enough to be cast off now, but I am...

G'day all! I wish I was as energised as my Rocking Sock in Cedar Creek. This is an old shot and a not very good shot - the camera is being completely uncooperative at present... Can you see that the sock is twisting a bit? Apparently the STR is energised. I've spun energised singles before but always taken care to not have energised plied yarn. Energised singles are fun to knit with and apparently the plied energised yarn is a bit tougher, which is good for feet and socks. (Am I allowed to say that whilst I love the turquoise, I don't particularly like the poo brown and baby poo yellow - it reminds me of the Hawthorn Football Club too much. Their colours are brown and gold and they try to get away from the "poo and pee" colours by mixing them with navy.) (Will you all kill me now and steal my sock yarn? NOOOOOOO!) The sock is now past the heel turning and I am galloping through the gusset area. Picking up the stitches for the gusset took about half an hour...

A new record! Three posts in one day! I have to get rid of all these links. You guys can read em or ignore em. But now I'll have a record of them without bookmarking them. Most are medical sorts of things cos that is one of my main interests. Some people are more susceptible to caffeine than others and this is associated with higher risk of heart disease. Skipping periods might be good for you. And I ain't talking school here. An oldie but a goodie. JenLa's Stash Wars . DVT due to sitting still or poor quality cabin air? More evidence that the Aborigines (original inhabitants) were not stupid savages. (Anyone who can survive in the Australia outback can't be dumb!) Lots of other good stories on the ABC site (locally known as Aunty, and nothing to do with any Merican broadcasters - Aunty is the govt owned and operated broadcaster) - follow the links to all science news or the sort of news that fascinates you. It can keep me busy for hours! Thanks to Karen for...

Happy Birthday to Peeve ! Go say it to her!

G'day all! It is Monday again. In honour of Moanday, I wrote a little bit of filk to the Mamas and the Papas "Monday Monday." "Monday moanday, so rotten to me. Monday moanday, I know how rotten you'll be! But Moanday evening, moanday evening just you wait and see.... Moanday evening is my brain still with me?" Can you tell someone got out of bed on the wrong side today? (Fairly impressive considering the wrong side involves a large, inert husband and an even larger and more inert wall). The weekend was a disaster zone. I got about an umpteenth of what I wanted to get done. I did get lots of washing done and we do have our new mattress on the old futon base at last (thanks to 12 new slats to help support the pocket springs of the mattress) but all my knitting was ho-hum and after nearly finishing this stupid hat, I realised it was too tight for me and I am NOT giving a hat to someone else after I've spent 12 hours knitting and ripping it. Well I am...

G'day all! Well the poor old budget is shot to hell and back. Here's why. Over the last few weeks, I have been eyeballing some rownspun four ply at cucumberpatch (EVIL EVIL Sknitty for introducing me to the link ;-). Then I may have mentioned this to Peevish , who of course hopped on over and induced me, I say induced me to buy some!! (She says *I* induced her but we know the Truth!) So I hopped onto ebay for the first time in ages, postiiiiively ages - like well over a month cos I had been avoiding cucumberpatch frantically along with all the other evil yarnpushers out there (mainly cos I keep buying yarn from Jessie (poor woman isn't even getting to put half the yarn up on her website that she blogs about cos of people like me)). And the colours we want in the Rowanspun are still there. $USD20 per packet, free postage. Hmm.... Well what am I supposed to do? Other colours have gone but the ones we want? It's serendipity, I tell you! So I ordered it what on M...

G'day all! As happens now, the sun rose just as I got to the station. I had the camera with me but didn't take a shot cos I thought I was going to miss the train. Getting this particular train is important cos there are usually seats available. So I got onto the platform and looked to where the train comes from. Then I twigged. I had not heard the train coming, nor the dingdongs 500m down the road, or any of the normal trainy noises. At that point I got out my knitting cos I couldn't read the paper - they had delivered the Wrong Paper (sorta like the Wrong Trousers, only different). I read the snobby paper not the pleb tabloid (that'll razz up a few people!). Turns out some mug was giving the coppers a chase along the train line at Dandenong, three stops away. They couldn't run the trains cos they didn't want to run him over. You would think the police could run someone down pretty easily, but this bloke delayed the trains by 15 minutes! I reckon he was ...

G'day all! Happy Equinox! Today the day and night are the same length. Tell me about it! I now get up in the dark and if I haven't laid my clothes out the night before, I have to fumble around in the dark bedroom trying not to wake poor Nathan up! The sun rose just as I hopped on the train today. That is on the way to work, not the way home of course! ;-) Some things about me (cos I can't be bothered thinking about 100 things): I get very cranky whilst driving behind slowsters, wanderers and the indecisive. I also get cranky with people who are impatient, people who don't use their indicators (blinkers), and people who are nasty to learner drivers. Go figure. I can't eat wheat, rye, barley, oat or dairy products. Yes there are still lots of things I can eat, just not takeaway. I have a *thing* about knitting socks at present. Sock yarn is more important than any other yarn in my collection. At present. I have been knitting for about 30 years now, on and o...

G'day all! Well well well... I am feeling a bit battered! I haven't visited some of my favourite blogs for a while, some only days, some weeks.... So I hop over to One Crazy Fibre Lady and discover that she lost her job! Argh! Bad news! But good news? Already she has a temping job and at least two interviews lined up. I look around other places, find a few people are feeling down. Hope they feel happier soon! I hope I get over this stupid cold thing too - I had to come home early today cos I was not making any sense. Then I hop off to the Etherknitter , only to find her husband had a bad skiing accident and has a awful fracture of the tibia. I thought, "I'll visit Vicki cos she is always nice to visit." ARGH! Her brother was in an horrific car accident nearly a month ago and had brain trauma, multiple fractures to his spine including a unstable one at C7, broken ribs.... Lord knows how he survived! And he even seems to be doing OK now. He can move th...

G'day all! I've "sat" on this yarn for days, a week, or more! I can't do it any longer! Argh! I must share it with people even if the recipients see it on the blog! Here's some sock yarn, 80% wool, 20% nylon, dyed up in jeweltones. Does anyone know who this is for? Some 100% buttery soft merino dyed up in brights - this is outrageous macaw colours. Gosh I had fun dyeing this lot up with food dyes. So who gets this lot? And there is this, a birthday present for a friend: But before you get too excited, Peevish , there is also this, birthday present for another friend: So who gets what? (note I am not posting this because I want to gloat - indeed, I want to KEEP all this yarn, not give it to people but life is tough and then we die. And I am teasing people. I am a bad bad girl. But I will get my just desserts - tomorrow I have to go back to work. Blah.) Have a great week! I have to start working on my WIP wipe-outs and also do the Project Spectrum stuff...

G'day all! What a lovely couple of days we had away. Ahhh.... It didn't start out so well, as always. I always get crabby as I wash the dishes, put all the stuff away that should be away, discover that I forgot to wash the vital stuff that I need to take with me, pack the food, pack my stuff and the bathroom stuff and the towels and sheets, leave DH to pack his stuff, get the cat food and litter tray ready, discover DH hasn't packed yet and can't find his socks.... So eventually we got underway. We decided to use a slightly different route to normal - DH said they looked about the same length on the map. Of course what the map didn't show is that the new and exciting way to go involves lots of slow wiggling around the Dandenongs (range of small mountains east of Melbourne). The normal route goes through suburbia (mostly through 70 and 80 kmh ones) along fairly much straight lines. I crabbed about it too, but got over it. It was after all very scenic if slow: ...

G'day all! Well what an interesting ride this week has been. This is a whingy post. Be warned. On Saturday we got the new roof sorta on the garage. It was hot on Sunday. On Monday more roof stuff happened. On Tuesday Nathan had a full on cold after feeling crappy for a day or two. Me? I don't often get colds. Instead my body vigorously fights them off for days and days and days. A bit of sore throat, that constant feeling of about to come down with a cold but nothing more. Just a constant feeling of underwellness. That is where I am at at present. Because DH is under the weather, he has little tolerance for things that he does not want to do and because I am part of him, if I do stuff he doesn't want to do, I should not do it either. (No that doesn't make sense.) I have been happily dyeing stuff. I can't show pics cos they are special things for other people. I can say that I am very happy with the results - one lot had to go back in the dye pot but it...

G'day all! Well no rest for the wicked! I thought that I could laze around a bit on my week off. OK, Sunday I lazed - it was 38 and Too Hot to Do Anything. I thought I'd get lots of dyeing done early in the weekend, but it turned into watch DH and FiL rip the old roofing iron off the garage and plonk the new stuff on top after replacing/extending some of the rafter beam thingies. I did stuff around the yard and cleaned the house when I couldn't bear watching them wandering around between rafters. Plus I started building a warping board out of pine, so I am assured it will truly be a warped board within a couple of months (warping boards usually are used to measure out the warp for weaving but I am going to use it for self striping yarns, and pine, Pinus radiata - endangered in the wild but taking over Oz - is well known for warping as it dries properly). I bought 12.5mm dowl for the pegs in the warping board, came home, found we don't have that big a drill bit, wen...