Yarnivorous

G'day all! Just a quick one tonight - I am whacked and have forgotten what I was going to talk about after waiting for ages for blogger to load. Blogger is being naughty again at the moment - half the time I go to comment it says Error 500 (better than the dread 404 - page not found). So I got a parcel yesterday, still have to do photos of my ISEIII scarf . I think you do need to see more pictures featuring the new colour I have been playing with: DK/8 ply Laceweight Tops Mauve with the new colour in a DK weight. I really like this combo and if noone dares make an offer on it I might keep it for myself. It reminds me of part of the skein of cobalt bloom STR I have. Anyone got any ideas about what the new colour is? Noone has gotten it right yet.... I have watermelon already, Cathy, and it is either a sorta blood orange colour if used full strength or an orangey colour used weaker. As for the little competition, I think I will have to put all the correct entries into a hat and...

G'day all! Last I was at the guild, I decided to buy a different colour to dye yarn with. I wanted two different colours actually but only got one cos money is an issue. Well, on Friday, after four days of working, I visited Trudi and we went to Winterwood . We walked. We were virtuous, well at least as far as that went.... It was only 15 minutes walk away but there were Hills. I had forgotten how hilly that neck of the woods is, which is sorta odd cos I grew up on the side of a hill not that far away from there, the sort of hill that trikes are dangerous on cos they don't have brakes (but that is what thongs, aka flipflops, are for!). Yea verily, Winterwood did not have a lot of yarn. They had some but not lots. They are very much into this felting bizzo which means they had nice merino tops, interesting corriedale tops, alpaca and yucky romney batts (someone will kill me for saying romney is yucky but this stuff is really coarse and used for needlefelting), along with...

G'day all! Less than a week to *mumble* this time next week I'll be all mumbly! 8-) I am told there is life after *mumble* which is just as well cos I have Too Much To Do and would prefer not to do it as one of the undead. This week has been incredibly busy. I had forgotten how little you can get done when you are out of the house from before 7:30 and you get home just before 6. OK, I did earn money and that is good cos we need it but four days of having no time to do anything other than work, commute, cook dinner, check emails and about two blogs a night, go out to an SnB, the gym or crafties.... Argh! How did I put up with this before? And I worked five days then! The kitchen went to wrack and ruin cos I wasn't keeping up with the dishes (DH did do one load) but the loungeroom is almost OK - I just have to throw out the newspapers and tidy up my knitting/fleece area of the couch. The good part? There has been knitting! Socks are such lovely commuter knitting. ...

G'day all! Well I've completed my three days of work for this week and guess what? They want me tomorrow and would like me on Friday the way things are going. But if I have to do 5 days of wrangling slow connections and sitting waiting for files to save I am going to go MAD! (That should read EVEN MORE INSANE!) So I will do four days a week but not five. No way, no how. (This means of course I'll end up doing six...) I am off to an SnB tonight. I promised I would go, though my brain is done for after three days of wrangling Excel and copying and pasting info. No pics - no time. Sock doth continue though. Almost ready to turn the heel. anon!

G'day all! Well I survived my first day at work. I was totally clueless for half of it cos I have no idea what I am meant to be doing if I am not told to do stuff. I did Stuff and they were happy with me. I will throttle the computer I use there though cos the server is in Queensland and I think the packets travel by snail between us and them.... Two minutes to save files. ARGH! Anyways, what do I have to talk about? Hmm, well blogger is being painfully annoying. It keeps falling over in a heap. Like it has now when I *reallllllY* want to get to bed. I spent the last day of freedom cleaning the house - it took four hours to get the kitchen, loungeroom, bathroom and hallway relatively shipshape. Plus two loads of dishes (DH kept bringing more out for me to clean), two loads of clothes washing and one fleece filled up the morning. I wanted to make the place nicer cos the MiL was coming around as the FiL is interstate (at his parents' place, and my MiL has no great love ...

G'day all! The count down continues. Two weeks until I go all mumbly! No pics today - we had a very interesting if cloudy day with a cool change (and boy is it cool still!) and 2 whole millimetres of rain! TWO! Like that is hmm, a twelfth of an inch! Golly. At least I got to hear runoff from the roof and the garage running into the water tanks. It tinkles away and is very inspiring.... So I am 2/3 the way up the foot of the second sock. In the last day I have done another repeat on Icarus and am over the 200 stitch mark. Only lots to go! I think I only have to do another two repeats of the first chart - I'll have to check that. I had fun dyeing stuff. Again. I have to get good pics of it and put it online. I did some cobweb weight stuff in vibrant blues with a touch of purple and gosh I like it, though one skein is bluer than the other. That is the joy of "kettle" dyeing. I did some tops with the remains of the blue and made it mauve with some hot pink, t...

G'day all! Much less grumpy today. Partly thanks to you guys and partly cos I've been busy you see. I've been writing resume and stuff for the job app. I've been knitting. I've been digging in the yard. I've been talking to people about a temp role for at least a month for three days a week. I start work on Monday ( miracle #1 ). I won't bring home even half what I used to but it is a start! Recently I finished my skeining warp board thingo and skeined up a 17 loop of yarn. Then I tried dyeing it. Then I really wanted to knit with it to see how it came out. So here is something I started knitting yesterday morning when I was feeling fussed. Ooops. I finished it. I could've knitted a whole sock in a day if I had tried harder. ( Miracle #2 ) It would've been quicker if I had not decided to put a snakey cable up the side and cably bits for the ribbing. Miracle #3? This. The newspaper was at the front door. Usually the newspaper is lurking in ...

G'day all! Well Nathan arrived home yesterday. The conference went well but no job offers this year. I think last year someone exceeded his authority in saying they wanted to employ Nathan. He said he felt great (except for a sore hip from being jammed in a much too small seat for much too long). Not tired at all! Four hours later, he was dead to the world for hmm, four or so hours. Then I had to deal with Messrs Tired, Hungry and Grumpy. Today he is off to uni and life returns to normal. It is good to have him back for when he is awake he sometimes even replies to me and looks at pictures of kittens and stuff. Unfortunately there is no party, even though my (husband) is back. Not yet anyway. I have to wait just over two weeks for party but that is my party. We can't afford a party but we'll work something out. The cats were very pleased to see Nathan, and Cheshire rolled around on the ground lots doing her best impersonation of a kangaroo and giving the come hit...

G'day all! Only one sleep to go before the Boy is back! He emailed yesterday and rang tonight to see if I am picking him up from the airport. Sigh. I have to be there not long after 7am. The airport is on the other side of town, and I have borrowed the FiL's car cos it has a toll way pass and petrol in it :-) My poor darling husband is currently bored out of his wits in the airport cos he has a 7 hour stopover in Kuala Lumpur. diddums! He didn't exactly pull out all stops for me when I returned from my trip.... but he will get a surprise when he ambles in the door tomorrow. I've been tidying up. A miracle! I've been vacuuming. Less of a miracle - not really a miracle at all. I do tend to vacuum a bit cos the hallway and loungeroom carpet is green. He won't notice the dust, except on the piano and I've told him his piano = he cleans it once in a while. No knitting took place today. None whatsoever. Or yesterday. I have been extremely busy. I...

G'day all! I have been awfully busy recently. I need to blog stuff for the house cos most of it, but not all, has been house related. Remember the big tree root that is literally blocking my ideas of grey water in the backyard? (BTW in Victoria, Australia it is legal to use grey water on the garden either direct from the drain or after treatment. If you don't treat it, you can't store it. We are going with the direct into the apple orchard version, no storage/treatment.) Well after finding several camphor laurel roots, I decided that trying to get the water to run uphill by digging a deep trench was a dumb idea. The apple orchard is going out into the front yard. I only have to take on roots from the photinia stump there. So the trench started today. I have to dig it deeper, but that awaits the ground being softened by the shower water. Still it works - the water from the shower runs down to the front yard, with a drop of about 10cm from the drain.... I managed to...

G'day all! Thanks for the support re job. I must do my resume! Must make it nice. Must make it look like I am an ideal candidate for the job. No new pics today. Someone forgot to put the spare batteries in the charger (cos she was charging batteries for DH for the mp3 player and the MiL's camera). Ooops. However, I do have some old pics to annoy you with. I did get some shots of four bags of yarn I want to sell on ebay before the batteries died. I found old batteries with enough charge left to download the pics. I got some pics ready to put on ebay. I registered as a seller on ebay. I did this and that. I set up the first entry on ebay following all the hints and tips it is telling me. "You have errors," ebay tells me. Like yeah, I have my problems but honestly how does it know? It is only ebay. "Selling function not available," it says. Hmmm.... looks like I am an ebay doofus or it just hates me. After going around and around and around 4 tim...

G'day all! Well it is stinking hot here already. Average temperature in Melbourne in October is 19.6 Celsius. Currently it is 27 and brightly sunny with a gale force hot squally northerly wind that is likely to crank up even more over the day and dry things out further. (In the half hour that it has taken to write this, temp has risen to 30.) Alas my roses, which are coming into full bloom! It should reach 33. It is our first total fire ban for the year and it is only October. We don't get them until December or even January some summers. We have had 2mm of rain for the month to date. We average 68mm of rain (2.5") over 14 days. Not this year. It is dry. It is yucky. My vegie patches have gone to seed - not unwelcome for the broccoli and branching broccoli but alas my silverbeet, my carrots, my beetroot, spinach, asian greens, etc. It is going to be a long hot summer by the looks of it. To take my mind off the crisping garden, let's look at some knitting ...