Hot solo tango

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 instead.

I have been working on Icarus on and off. It is now some 180-odd stitches across and I can't get all of it in the photo whilst pinning bits down with toes and hands. If I just left it to sit on the verandah, the wind blew it away (I learned this to my cost cos it went straight into the mulched garden and picked up a LOT of mulch).

Hooray! I only have to double that stitch count before I get to the real pattern. Like Donna I think I will finish this in 2010 at my current rate.

I've been knitting socks again. The advantage of a totally plain sock is that I cna knit it whilst reading a book. All I have to do is check to see I haven't dropped or split a stitch every now and then and keep on going.

The Jawool sock is coming along nicely now I have turned the heel for the second time. The first time around the point of the heel was a little short for my foot. The second time around, with only four rows added, it is a little long but I am not too fussed. I can keep kniting whilst reading or watching telly.


The second Straight Laced sock is coming along well too.


Some people get very fussed when their short rowed heels look like this:

(that is the left side of the heel)


(that is the right side of the heel)

They see holes and worry. I do the stitch wrapping tightly and I think the holes are not too bad at all. This is a 5 ply/sport weight yarn on 3mm needles. I am so not fussed about the holes that I sat and admired my quite even stitches on the sole and heel of the sock. (For once I noticed the good things, not the things to be critical of!)

Now here's some of the stuff I bought at Bendigo mills.


Yep, after whinging about how crook alpaca makes me feel, I bought MORE! But this stuff doesn't have any effect on me at all. So what is wrong with the baby alpaca I had? Do you like the spun up stuff? There was a little blended tops in the bag so I used them. The rest is in big chunks - it looks like laps (which are the ends of the run of not yet spun yarn).


Plus some alpaca/mohair/wool. There are three different colourways in the bag and as long as I pull out the odd short bit, this is all ready to spin, not felt (though I could felt it if I wanted to).


There was a half price bag of wool pieces. These are literally pieces.

I gloated as I opened the bag at home and played. I have Ideas. Any guesses as to what those ideas might be?

Two half price bags of superwash laps (pic of one only).

Superwash is like hens teeth here. There was much gloating about getting these laps. Laps are not as good to spin as tops but I can get some very acceptable effects from them. And being superwash is extra special!


Here's a shot of the loungeroom yesterday as I was just starting the Big Yarn Cleanout. I only had one box of yarn in the room along with the hand-dyed stuff in the background. I am still amazed at how much yarn I have that I don't want, and I keep finding more. A minor problem with one lot (that has some yarn I want to keep) is that it got moused at our old place. I guess I'll throw most of that lot out and wash the stuff I like.

The weather is pissing me off totally cos it is so windy that I can't take pictures of the yarn. No pictures = no flogging on ebay, if anyone will buy it = no getting rid of it = no extra space in the house. (Extra space? Ha! You oughta see our place - it is chockers with my fibre stuff, books, stuff-wot-we-don't-want-to-throw-out.... We are both magpies and keep stuff we probably don't need to keep. When I get a job, we are going to turn a 2.4m long nook in the study into wall to ceiling cupboard space cos there is only one teensy little built in cupboard in the whole house)

OK. I had best go do some other stuff before I start grumping lots. I have not heard from the boy since he left three days ago. I think he gave his talk yesterday - the schedule I looked up online said he talked then. I am bored and lonely. I want to know how the talk went. I want to know how the conference is going. I want to know what Amsterdam is like. I could ring his supervisor's mobile phone, but I have the feeling that the Netherlands is 8 or 9 hours behind us, and calling in the wee hours of the morning would not be Nice. Bored bored bored. I should go wreak violence on the fibre room and get the rampaging boxes and bags into some sort of order and turf out a heap of stuff that I don't really need/want to keep and go find storage solutions for the stuff I do want to keep. Maybe I should go buy el cheapo stuff to store stuff in - I would be in airconditioned shops then.... ahhhh.....

anon!