Grumpybutts (not very) anonymous and bog rolling

G'day all!

Thank you for your kind comments about my stash. It might look sorta organised, but trust me, there are about 200 balls of yarn in each box and you only saw the tip of the iceberg if I want yarn out of a box, I have to go rummaging! Woo hoo, stash diving!

Gosh I am such a grumpster at present. Lots of things are making me grumpy. Like people on the train who think that since they got on first, they can slouch over as many seats as they like in a peak hour train, or who don't mind using just a little of the next seat across because their boy bits hurt if they put their knees closer than two feet together.

And spinning guilds that INSIST on running ALL the spin-ins on weekdays! Hello! Don't they want new and young and WORKING FULL TIME spinners to come along? I can't attend unless I take a precious day of annual leave. Gosh it bugs me so much I am going to raise it as an issue! Every spin-in is on a Monday, Tuesday or Thursday. Very helpful! If you want spinning to remain an "old lady" craft, sure, fine, go ahead, run your spin-ins on a weekday, watch as the numbers dwindle and the craft wither because people are getting too old to spin or actually die! And you won't recruit any new, young spinners cos they will never see you spinning unless they are mums who just so happen to pass by at a time when they don't have a gazillion kids screaming at them for an icecream or lollies.

There's my grumps for the time being. There will always be more.

But how can I be grumpy when I behold this:


or a different lighting:


Ahhhh. More self striping sock yarn, this time to try out a different brand. i am very happy with the results of this experiment. I also dyed up some rainbow yarn and some green/blue yarn, some stuff I've had around for a while in a 12 ply (which is heavier than aran weight). Pics once I get organised!

I've also been spinning up a little of the stuff I got at the recent craft fair. Hot stuff! Are your eyes bleeding yet?

The photo isn't perfect cos I took it under available light and the shutter speed was about 1/5 second handheld. Are these good Project Spectrum colours? OK, they overlap two months of colours, but I don't do much yellow or orange. Yellow pops up a lot in some of my fave colour scheme (eg yellow, blue, green) but not orange.

There is also important stuff happening, like a comparison between all of these:

Yes, you saw it aright. You can click on it for a bigger shot if you really need to. That photo shows something that no blog has shown before, well certainly not the ones I generally read. Yessirree, this is the Yarnivorous Bog Roll side by side comparison.

We only buy recycled dunny paper. (aka toilet tissue or is it bathroom tissue?) We prefer to use other people's office waste or paper processing by products rather than using virgin forest materials.

Now when recycled toot roll came first into the shops here about 15 years ago, some of it was pretty darned feral - like wiping yourself with a bit of sandpaper, or maybe a handful of tree pulp (possibly not that surprising cos what is paper mostly made of after all?). It has gotten a lot better over the years. I was happy to discover four different brands at the local supermarket and we've been conducting a side by side, or should that be bottom by bottom, test.

I know you are just dying to hear the results. After all you came here for knitting and got a bog roll comparison instead. So how do the different brands rate? We've given them a rating out of five stars.

The froggy brand. 2 stars.
Comments: Very pretty print. Paper rough and not particularly enjoyable on the tender bits. Useful if you need to wipe stuff up - you don't mind wasting it. No fragrance - helpful for nose-blowing emergencies.

The plain Jane safe brand. 3 stars.
Comments: a good all round bog roll. Recently upgraded to having fancy pants embossed paper. Embossing possibly worth an extra half star. No fragrance. Tougher paper but softer than froggy brand.

Mother of us all brand. 3.5 stars.
Triple ply - very fancy. Not too bad at all on the undercarriage. Nicely embossed.

Paper wrapped brand. 4 stars.
Softest of the lot. No fragrance. Not as tough as others, sometimes you need that bit extra to ensure coverage, but our main metric for bog roll is softness. After all, it might only be used once, but you want the experience to be comfortable, especially for those long ensconcements. Lost a star for aesthetics - ugliest of the lot for looking at, but then again the essential role for bog roll is to be useful, not to be pretty.

So our winner is:

and you can tell by how much is left in the package - one lonely roll that I am holding back for those nasty emergencies!

(wonder if anyone will come back and read this blog again, or if I've managed to offend the lot of you now?)

Finally, because I have not posted any pics of the cats recently, here is Cheshire asleep on top of the old futon


Tomorrow - the first of the Socks That Rock! I reckon I am almost ready to do the toe, so I'll have something to show off soon! And the start of a new project. Assuming of course that I get my act together and get some pics done whilst it is still light - the weather here has changed abruptly and we can tell winter isn't so far off, plus daylight savings ended on Sunday so the sun sets just after six. By solstice, it will be set by 5:10. Hateses those short days!

anon!

Comments

  1. Heh, I found the "bog roll" review amusing and wonder what sort of google hits you'll get off it! None of those brands are available in the US, but I've evaluated two of the recycled brands available here - Green Forest has nice presentation and is quite soft and comfy, but is very loosely rolled to hide sort of pathetic yardage. Seventh Generation is a bit scratchier and requires quite a bit more paper per use, due to pathetic cohesion under duress, but ye gads, even with that, a roll will last forever. You start to wonder if you've purchased The Eternal Roll of Toilet Paper... Or maybe it just seems that way because the paper is crap. Green Forest wins for me...

    Lovely colors from your dyeing! It will be fun to see a bit of that knit up.

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  2. OOh pretty yarn (you always have pretty yarn!).

    Thought the bogroll comparison was great LOL! We used recycled stuff too, Nouvelle to be exact (why it's called that when it's recycled, goodness only knows). The thing I've never understood about loo roll is, why on earth do you need to buy dyed stuff? Just plain ol natural colour will do fine!

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  3. I won't say my eyes are bleeding, but I will say that is so bright (but beautiful) yarn!

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  4. Oooooh, the yarn is so puuurty! 'specially the first one.

    The bog roll survey was most informative. I'm still too environmentally guilt-ridden to buy anything bleached. All that nasty bleach in the waterways just for the sake of loo paper being white? Nah, I'll stick to the unbleached Safe (which my ex's mother used to call 'wholemeal'!).

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  5. Oh still giggling over here. Suprise loo paper comparison was not what I was expecting but I love it! And your cat is gorgeous. And dare I admit it, I went back for another drool session over your yarn. Shhhhhhh don't tell anyone.

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  6. i don't mind the toilet paper (what we call it here, lol) comparison at all. very informative, if i ever buy recycled loo rolls in australia (i doubt i'll ever make it there, my SO has trouble with flying to the coast, let alone the 15-18 hours it would take to fly there!). i don't see much recycled paper here, i think there's a brand or two, but they're so poor that i'll just stick with the charmin. please don't squeeze it! (old ad, lol).

    and whilst mine eyes are not bleeding, my lips are drooling. that is so lovely!

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  7. Anonymous8:13 pm

    Sorry to hear you so grumpstery. Especially about the spin-in day. I fortunately did go, and it was a fine day to mix with like-minded people and get a few small samples. Can I say that not all of the attendees were 'old ladies' and those that were had more get-up-and-whatsit than many younger ones. It also appears that most of the organizers were not super-young, so maybe if more youngies were on the committees, they would be able to put their options forward (although those can also be done at meetings). I guess whatever day they could have chosen for the spin-in would suit some more than others. That is just a given for any activity. Some people there had made quite an effort in getting babysitting, or a bus from faraway places. I'm just saying.
    But on a lighter note, your dyeing is quite stunning and your comparison of the loo paper is wonderful. I really enjoy reading your blog.

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  8. Anonymous2:12 am

    Love the dyed yarn..Gorgeous colours. Love the spun yarn so bright!!!! I need to get organised for Project Spectrum too!!

    Katt

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  9. Loved the bog roll review. Sorry to hear you are grumpy: I hope that the spinning people take note and do something!

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