Sunday already?

G'day all!

What is happening to my weeks? The days are absolutely flying past and I am finding it a bit dismaying. It is a month today since I finished work and what do I have to show for it? Not as much as I expected to get done, quite frankly, but a cold and wet week topped off with a stupid virus that finally turned into a cold (progressing quite nicely through the end of the phlegmy stage, thanks for asking!) took some of the gloss off what progress I've made. Still, I've had some fun along the way. The idea of finding work is still scaring me witless but has to be done.

The days are quite clearly getting longer - that is a constant delight to me. Tonight there was still plenty of colour in the sky at 6:10 - even a week or so ago, it was definately nightime at 6pm. I am enjoying being able to sense the changes in the world around me as we move into spring.

What have I been up to recently? Well after days of procrastination, I finally made it to the guild on Friday (and only needed about 10 tissues whilst I was there for four hours, rather than most of a box like the days before. Is it procrastination when you don't go cos you are not well and a) can't be stuffed and b) don't want to give the guildspeople a cold?). I drum carded up some fluff.


The blue/mauve is the romney/corrie cross (very romney in handle) bought at Bendi and white is Polwarth (to hopefully soften up the blue/mauve).



Some umm, erp, must go back through the posts and find what cross the moorit is. The white in it is alpaca. The white one alone is alpaca - it expanded massively after I took it off the drum carder.

I also did some of the spotty dark fleece. I discovered that it has lots of scurf through it. It is the only fleece I should not have bought at the show. I checked two bits of it and they seemed fine, a good staple length and clean, but they account for only about 10% of the fleece. The rest is less than 2" long and somewhat scurfy. Grr. It is a very fine soft fleece but not what I thought it would be. Maybe I should email them and tell them how dismayed I am. Caveat emptor!

Gosh I want a drum carder so much! I've been trying to figure out ways to afford one. Whilst I was visiting the guild, I figured I should kill two birds with one stone, so I took a big bag of yarn to the guild to sell through their gallery. Assuming it all sells quickly, that will give me almost $200 towards a drum carder. They get a 25% commission on top of that amount. There is a cheque for me too but the lady in the gallery didn't know where the cheques are kept, so I didn't my money this week. Nathan is going to help me develop a style sheet (I've been reading up on CSS this week) so I can get my hand-dyed yarn and handspun webpages to look consistent with a minimum of work. I've been getting my head around the shopping trolley stuff on paypal too - it looks fairly easy except I will have to calculate shipping manually cos the O/S postage rates vary quite a bit. Of course after selling only two lots of yarn so far, I am being rather bold saying I'll sell anything, let alone to people overseas! 8-)

Here's the week's dyeing. I had fun with greens again - variants on the one theme.


Perendale yarn from NZ



The same dyes on some merino tops. I am undecided about how to spin these up - I might just ply them against each other rather than navajo plying them.



A bump of purply blue and green merino tops



Polwarth and silk - looks so yummy! The silk grabs the dye a lot more quickly than the wool.


This sock took less than two days to do at the same time as I finished the croc sock. It is Straight Laced from Knitty (I found THE very brand of yarn the pattern calls for in a local shop, after I started knitting this sock). 8 ply socks - I wuv you! I dyed the yarn - there's 100g/about 190m left of it, 150g if I don't knit the other sock ;-) 100g will make a largeish pair of socks (hmm size 9 Oz, about 41 European) with shortish cuffs.


One of the oddest things we saw all week - a young bloke had sprayed this old Mitsubishi Cordia purple (apparently with spray cans from the (lack of) quality of the paint job) and was pushing it up the road. Bizarre. I guess he had no money for a tow truck to get it where it had to go. There is a very slow gentle uphill gradient in the direction he was pushing, so he was doing it hard.


A yummy thing - one of my very favouritest (sic) things in the world. A GF/DF snowball (aka pink lamington with soy custard in it) from Uncle Ricks.

I've some some spinning to show off but it will wait a day or two now - plenty o pics to keep you going there. Plus it has only taken about 12 hours to write this up and get the pics done :-)

anon!

Comments

  1. Pretty, pretty, pretty! Especially like that sea-green polworth-silk blend.

    Hope you're feeling lots better!

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  2. Just goes to show how the brain works! - I'd just got as far as reading the bit about daylight at 6.10am, when my eye lit on the merest bit of the pic of the blue roving - honest, I thought I was about to get a sky picture ...!

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  3. I am coveting the pink lamington :-D Hope the cold passes swiftly too.

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  4. Anonymous2:46 pm

    Hope you're feeling much better now. I know what you mean about the days/weeks flying by. I've had to get into a timetable-type routine just to make sure I get lots of stuff done each week.
    Good idea to use the guild's carder. I hope all your yarns sell very quickly - at 25% does that mean you are a volunteer there? Did you mention to any of the guild members about your/our concerns about the commission hike?

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  5. Anonymous4:07 pm

    ooooh that pink lamington look YUM!!

    the fleece looks lovely.

    the sock looks great!

    Katt

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  6. Anonymous4:32 pm

    Oh the greens, the greens!! How lovely!!! Don't 8ply socks knit up so quickly!!! Gorgeous lamington - though I have issues with the difference between a jelly cake and a lamington. I can spend quite a lot of time dwelling on this!!!

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  7. It looks like you had lots of fun!!!!,I am half way through my resume and haven't had time to do anything else (except drive the kids to hockey 65 km away ) so I am looking forward to the weekend!!!!

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  8. Hopefully your cold is all cleared up by now! Heh, it's funny to read about your days lengthening as ours grow shorter...

    That purple car is really funny - particularly since it looks like that windows took a fair amount of spray.

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  9. Anonymous8:20 am

    Pretty fluff and dyed stuff! I can't wait for my drum carder to come in so I can do up some batts too.

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