Yarnivorous

G'day all! Recently one of the lists that I am on has been discussing the latest issue of a knitty mag. They decided that it was a stealth big girl knits issue - stealth because it doesn't say big girl anywhere but well it seems to be a big girl issue. I had a look at it in the newsagent today. I have to say that whilst I applaud any magazine that does not use stick thin models, I would like the lady they chose to look pleased to be wearing the garment rather than looking as if she is about to be shot (she is standing against a brick wall and looks like she would prefer pictures were being taken of someone else). She doesn't have to be particularly pretty or anything, she just has to make me think "Oooh, that looks nice, I want to make it." Now you might say that the garment should speak for itself, but the way it is presented can make all the difference. How many times have you looked at a dress on the rack and thought "It looks like a sack" and when yo...

G'day all! Grumperina created a meme . I am playing too! These are supposed to be knitty things about me that you might not know. 1. I've knitted more fair isle and intarsia jumpers than any other type. This was back in the 80s mostly. Have you seen me do fair isle and intarsia recently? 2. I don't tend to knit jumpers any more cos I keep finding they don't turn out the way I imagined they would (or maybe I'm just fatter than I think I am!). Socks are relatively cheap and I wear them a lot, at least in winter. 3. If I don't have a sock on the needles I get twitchy. Socks are comfort knitting. Some people eat, I knit socks :-) (But those chocolate bikkies int he pantry are calling my name....) 4. I tend to be a bit lazy in my knitting, which I odd because I can be a total control freak. I will say "eh, there's a mistake five rows down" but not fix it up cos it doesn't worry me. 10 rows later I frog it back to where the mistake was...

G'day all! Yesterday I got sick of my old blogger template and went looking for a new one. Hope you like the new feel - it looks a lot more swish to me! I think all the stuff in the sidebar should work. I played around with it after Blogger decided there "was no data in the document" which was a big fat lie of course.... So, Monday I got a little something in the mail. I joined the Hipknits sock club a while back when I had money. The first skein, from August, is sitting on my desk looking at me saying "print out my pattern and make me." But I am resisting its siren call. No, here is the second skein: Can anyone guess what is wrong with it from my POV? Some people might remember that I do NOT do black and white. I even detest using white pegs on black undies when I hang the washing out! Black and white are the colours of the Old Enemy in the footy. I cannot knit with black and white yarn. Simply cannot! The skein had an accident in the dyepot. I total...

G'day all! The handspinners and weavers guild has a weekly stall at one of the big Sunday markets in Melbourne. To ensure I don't have to whack 40% commission on anything I sell through them, I have to volunteer once a year. Yesterday was the big day. I had worked out that I needed to leave the house before 8am (on a SUNDAY!) to catch the train. All day passes for all the trams, trains and buses in Melbourne are $2.50 on Sundays - what a bargain! I had my ticket, my pack all set up with CD spindles and random bits of fluff, two lots of knitting and off I went into the wild blue yonder. The weather here has been dodgy for days. It blew and blew and blew whilst I was in Cairns, and it's been pretty blowy (up to gale force) for all bar about two days since I got back. A strong northerly was blowing when I left home. Eventually I got to where I thought I was meeting my team mate for the day. I waited for 45 mintues (I had been early, now *she* was late). Then I asked a...

G'day all! I am still alive, though I feel like I've got the flu in half my body. Weird, huh? Combing alpaca must be harder than it seems.... Am I definately ill? I like both these Berocco patterns, not that we get that yarn here. Now I finished spinning and then dyed the yarn for my secret ISE pal's scarf. Hooray! I've got something over 200m of yarn. Surely that makes a scarf? After all 100m makes a feathers scarf. I am starting to wonder if somewhere over 200m of a fingering to sportweight yarn will make a scarf and have brought in some extra players in a different colour (pic later - it is pretty dull here at present) for just in case.... So yesterday morning I had this much scarf and this much yarn: (Do you like the way the yarn tones with the green painted concrete on the front verandah?) A problem Note that one of the balls of yarn is much lighter than the other. That changed my plans considerably. I had three skeins of yarn all dyed in the same bath ...

G'day all! The spring equinox is here! Hooray! Funny, the days don't seem to be getting longer in the evenings at present, but I sure am noticing the mornings getting light early (the recyclables truck woke me up this morning at 6:15 or 6:30 and it was light enough to read by). Hopefully I will have some progress to report tomorrow. I went for a really hard bike ride yesterday and that and the difficult hand combing of this fleece have reallllly knocked me about - I've been feeling very delicate ever since with odd parts in my shoulders and chest hurting, and feeling dizzy occasionally (note that the thighs are fine - it was the things that had to breathe hard and the arms held on funny angles combing stuff that didn't want to be combed that hurt). Very odd. Hopefully a full night of sleep with no blasted garbage trucks merrily flinging glass bottles into their containers (have you noticed how breaking glass gets your attention even if you are sound asleep?) in the...

G'day again! Must get rid of links. Puter is not loading pages quickly - too many tabs open... A hat I am going to knit for a friend for her 40s, 27 dys after mine... A Leia hat ! A knitted brain . I sometimes think someone has replaced my brain with yarn - maybe this is what it looks like then. What flavour crisps does James Bond eat ? (What are these crisps? Are they potato chips as in the ones you get in a baggie rather than the ones you buy from the fish and chip shop?) A plot generator for Star Trek TOS (it seems fairly accurate from the eps I can remember reading rather than the pot-boiler fan fic I read over 20 years ago). Someone likes their paper cutting and folding too much . We need a new camera. We would like one with good macro and good zoom. Any suggestions? We looked at this review page. Oh and it can't cost an arm and a leg either. Plus I can guarantee whatever people overseas recommend will not be available in Australia or will have a different name...

Avast, me 'earties! It be talk loike a poirate day todee! (No link - the page won't load for me so I guess lots of people are looking it up :-) I be wishin I was on the igh seas right now cos it be warm ere, warmer than Oi'd loike it to be already. 21 and 22 degrees C are plenty warm enough for me at the moment, and what do we get todee? 28! Arrrrr..... I must be thankin Chris for pointing out the flamin obvious - that I should be targettin Australians to sell my yarn to. Unfortunately alf the Aussie knitbloggers I know dye their own yarn and the rest is either too poor to buy it or too snobby to use *oo yuck* *how quaint* *Australian yarn?* (But it's not Rowan! It didn't cost $15 or $20 a 50g ball! I can't use that!) I be admittin it neer occurred to me that Yankees would not buy yarn from Australia. Cos why they be botherin? They be havin plenty o places to pillage oer there! Places that be only selling to other Yankees, not to land-lubbers in far fl...

G'day all! Today is random Monday. Yes, every day is random for me. I did heaps of dyeing before I went up to Cairns. Here's some: I did heaps more after I got home. Pics later. Must update the shop - I've sold a whole 2 skeins so far! Heh. At this rate I will pay off the yarn I've bought in about a thousand years. Wonder if the wool will last that long? Can you imagine someone in a thousand years saying "Oh yes, that's a family heirloom. Great-great-great-great removed 15 times Aunty Lynne dyed that in 2006. We keep it locked up in that special box - it is full of argon to help preserve it. And over there is a fair isle she knitted in 2010 - dunno why cos global warming meant that it was too warm to wear the thing." Here's the sock that forms a highlight later on in this post. It wasn't finished here - pic from yesterday. No pics from today bar the stash enhancement (which I keep trying to type enchantment - freudian slip or otherwise...

G'day all! Today's matter of perspective - what the hell is this? It is All Wrong I tell you! Answer tomorrow, if I remember it! (Pics are mostly from Palm Cove, except for the last three - more on that later!) Lyn wants knitting, Chris wants more conference stuff. So I'll tell you about a chap I met in the aboriginal art place. I met *on, who was a cattle station owner (ie a ranch for Americans). He owned at least ten stations at one point, ran all sorts of cattle on them - buffalo, indonesian cattle - bantangs???, brahmins, normal beef cattle, plus llamas and pretty much anything else that gets around on four legs that has commercial value. He's past the stage of owning stations now - from his skin and those weird china blue eyes old people get, he'd have to be pushing 80. Anyway, he waltzes in to this place and greets the bloke in the shop. He's got a fancy cowboy hat on with the curled up edges, one of those leather "ties" on that has the tw...