Yarnivorous

G'day all! I am on fire! So far this week I've completed one sock and a AIDS baby top. Plus I've done the foot/ankle of another sock since eysterday morning! I give you Titania, horribly foreshortened and somewhat fuzzy in the centre, but you can see the "cable" running around gusset across the foot: And a baby top in jacaranda - I love that colour: (Scuse the crap photo and the top really is not for a baby shaped like a pretzel and in dire need of chiropractic care - it is hard to get it arranged on your hand cos you don't want to put it down in one of the charming old dunny - cart lanes in the back blocks of Carlton. BTW, scroll down in the second link, and down down down to the last story in that first link. If you read the tortoise story in the first link, yes they do wee and yes it STINKS! And whilst I am diverging, Martin Flanagan from the Age says this about current dunny carts: It seems a sign of our times that the truck attending to the portabl...

G'day all! We had a big day today, as yesterday. Lots more socialising. This introvert has had enough of socialising, so why am I blogging instead? We had morning tea with the PiLs and their old friends, went to Bunnings, got a door frame, some potting mix, plants and something special with my gift vouchers from my birthday. I knitted. Lots. Coffee with the PiLs was good. I got lots of knitting done then. :-) Chatted, caught up on the goss. Titania is crawling ahead. Trying to keep the lace pattern working whilst decreasing every second row is a PITA. Here she is in all of her glory this arvo: The baby top caused some degree of interest at morning tea. Here it is as it was before I finished the matching stocking stitch this evening at dinner with the PiLs: See the needles? I am using some of the Denise needles Dreamcatcher sent me. I started swatching for something with them but they are really being christened with charity knitting. The top is a very easy thing to make...

G'day all! Nominally this is a knitting blog but today I have no new pics of knitting to show. I have been knitting - I've knitted nearly half a little weird top for an orphaned AIDS baby in Africa. I've knitted more of the Titania sock and have less than 10cm to go on it. There has been knitting! Just not pictures cos it is night time and you know how crap my camera is. Instead you get this: Yep, that is my first ever turkey. The turkey that ruined my Saturday day - I had to spend 5 hours faffing around after it. I had to make stuffing. Turkeys don't fit into oven bags so I couldn't just chuck it in a bag like I do with a chook, nope, I had to baste the thing. Every half hour or less I basted it. I was paranoid that it would go dry and horrid, needing heaps of cranberry sauce and gravy just to choke it down, like nearly every turkey I've had. It was not too bad actually - reasonably moist, at least for turkey. Why a turkey? That's a turkey for A...

G'day all! The socks continue apace! Well up to yesterday anyway. ARGH! Spider in hair! ICK! That will teach me to go outside in the dark trying to get Cheshire in. She's been beaten up again and won't come near us - beaten up by another cat that is. She provokes fights and won't back down. Now she has to stay outside (she thinks) to protect her territory. Mongrel animal - I'll be off to the vet with her I bet cos she'll end up with wounds/abscesses again. Grump. Nut is much more clever - she runs away and hides. OK, spider tragedy (tragedy for the spider cos it is the type that nests in my car and leave horrid webs all over it, so this one didn't get put outside) over. Marcble Arches is done! The first one, at least. The pattern is the opposite to what I did (I thought I had cleverly reversed it but I hadn't) but I reckon they look pretty good anyway. I like the heel for some reason. The fake cable curves cling to the achilles. Now I'm ...

G'day all! It is frying here at the moment. OK, it says it is only 30 outside but it is about 38 inside, despite our best efforts with fans and open windows. The cicadas are shrilling - I don't remember hearing them any previous night. The weather is freaky - the clouds are raining but they are so high up that the water evaporates before it gets anywhere near the ground, so the radar is showing massive amounts of rain falling but all we are doing is flopping around feeling ever hotter and more sticky.... Around 6pm the clouds looked like the belly of a grey tabby cat - all sorta furry. Of course since it was furry, the camera couldn't focus on it. Dang these cameras and their fancy pants inability to focus on fuzzy stuff. If only I could take a happy snap with my eyes instead. I would show you the picture of the finished Marble Arches sock but I didn't cos it was pretty dull outside. But it is done! Very cute too, even if I did put the pattern in the wrong direc...

G'day all! Thanks for the compliments on the scarf. I had fun doing the colours and getting it together, though after 300 rows of pattern it was getting a little tedious. A good exercise in zen. Some people have asked after the finger. It is good, still all bandaged up and I'm still wearing the cosy, though it certainly doesn't need it for warmth today. Wednesday? Only about 10 degrees for most of the day. Cosy definately needed. Yesterday and today? 30 degrees. Celsius, that is. The biggest problem with the finger is that I think my fingernail has grown some and is slowly trying to pull the tape off. I sometimes feel that my nail is trying to explode. Oh and I definately need the padding of the cosy when I run around the house apparently smacking my hands at thin air but in fact trying to kill pantry moths - with the warm weather about a brazillion of them have appeared. I have the pantry moth trap - set it up about 10 days ago and it had about 20 moths yeste...

G'day all! There are times when I get very frustrated being me. Right now is one of them. Right now is when I've just remembered that I made chicken stock last night. I turned it off before we went for our walk to let it cool down enough to go in the fridge overnight. Guess where the chicken stock is still sitting? Guess where the leftovers of last night's tacos are still sitting? Guess who made chicken stock from the roast chicken bones earlier in the week? Guess what I did with that too? Are you surprised that I whacked myself upside the head on both sides? (And now have a headache?) It seems that after getting back from our evening walk, I am a zombie and forget all about food. If I don't get stuff done before I go for the walk it won't get done (except for automatic things like brush my teeth and wash my face before bed). So distract you from the folly of being me, I give you colour. Remember this? That is a whole heap of umm, erp umm Finn cross fleece I ...

G'day all! Today I thought I would share some colour with you. Who'da thunk that I would spend 90% of my spare time in the last week frantically carding up any of the fleeces I can lay hands on? All washed fleeces. Some of them are even dyed. I had a lovely time on Friday shoving more and more washed fleece into the pot and throwing colour at it. 2paw , when I carded up the green puff on the left, I was thinking of you. It was soooo very green. I bought another new dye colour at the guild when I got my drum carder. Here it is in all its lack of technicolour glory in laceweight single (quite representative of the colour) and a DK yarn (with added mauve). Just in case you think I have gone dull and boring in my old age, think again! And I am still knitting - two socks at the moment. I must download the pics so you can see that they exist and are real and I am not just faking it. Haven't got pics yet of the most recent dyeing or spinning. I love the dyeing. One lot is...

G'day all! Had a little accident before and now my left pinkie finger is gushing blood. Blasted inconvenient. Doesn't it know that I need it? Having it dripping blood is not very handy (boom boom). Also inconvenient is the fact that whilst I can deal with "dead blood," I tend to get a little overexcited when it is bright red, pulsing blood and in particular my blood pumping out.... So if I am even more ditsy than normal, you'll know why - I am ignoring the tissue that is turning red and the throbbing in my finger, along with the fact that my ring finger is doing double time on the keyboard cos my little finger is taped up dead straight and it is the tip that I cut. You would not believe how many As there are in the words we use. I have been soooo busy recently, and tired to boot. I keep getting a sore throat that goes away with a good night's sleep and comes back during the day. That is the joy of working and commuting - exposure to all sorts of crappy ...

G'day all! Posted somewhat later than it was meant to be - blogger had a hissy fit and wouldn't publish it... Some links to keep you busy whilst I am busy... The Island of Misfit Patterns . I particularly like this one, naughty squiddy but I like this one from a different site even more - Kristi's squid . I got those links from kelpknits . Interested in greywater? This mob in the US seem to have it right... Scroll down this wikipedia page about Donald Rumsfeld and note that once upon a time he was happy to be seen with the big SH. I've been enjoying wandering around NASA's visible earth , particularly this page about Australia's temperature oddity in October. There is also this page showing the drought affected areas in SE Australia. (I live just to one side of the top of the little hook shaped bay (Port Phillip) near the centre bottom of the map.) Interested in plate tectonics? This might be just the ticket! Jae - yes, the rest of the world is vital...

G'day all! Thanks to the people of America for a late birthday present. Two years ago I was given a real lame duck present (the US elections were held on my birthday) but this is somewhat. better. Thanks, guys! I appreciate it ;-) Time to get ready for work. It is sunny today - first day in well days when it's been sunny (I got sunburnt on my birthday wandering around looking at plant nurseries cos it had been cloudy and then got very sunny indeed). Back later with some sort of fibre content.... anon!

Apology, that is. Those of you who are not locals don't need to read this but those who are may want to. I am sorry I did not check to make sure my group email about the gathering went through. I did not realise that it was not received by about 95% of the intended recipients. I am sorry I did not send details earlier. I am not a very organised person. I screwed up and whilst trying to take a lot of the blame pushed it onto others. I am sorry that I threw the happy birthdays given to me on Thursday back at people ("But my birthday is tomorrow - today is M's birthday!"). It was rude of me. I did not realise people thought the 2nd is my birthday instead of the 3rd. My yahoo email address (natiel3) has a three for my birthday. I hope this is a useful mnemonic. If you were offended by my behaviour, heck, even if you weren't, please accept this humble and open apology. I did not realise my behaviour was offensive. I will try to do better in the future. Those...

G'day all! I am still recovering from the weekend. Never knew that it could be so exhausting to spend an afternoon in a park. (Not GF but decorated by my youngest niece, who is now hmm 14 or so I guess) Saturday morning I choofed up to the guild's annual textile bazaar. I actually managed to stick to my budget, even though I bought a beauty, a hint of which is seen here: It doesn't have a doffing stick - that is what an old screwdriver is for! After a bit of fiddling and a bit of oiling of the axles, it was good to go! (You might be able to tell). So I've been playing with fleece and carding it. I've even started getting adventurous and putting cut up silk thread into it (I bought a heap of fine silk thread from Marta a while ago and dyed some up but without a drum carder getting it into fleece is a PITA). I got home by 11:30, just in time to kiss Nathan goodbye as he rode down to the park. I discovered I can get my bike in the back of my car along with four ...

G'day all! Thanks for all the birthday wishes. I'm going to put all the birthday wishes comments into a hat and pull one out, then send that person something nice. Plus I have to announce the winner of the "what is it" competition. These things require organisation and after trying to pull together a birthday gathering I have very little organisation skill left in me. I had a lovely day - I drove up to Bulleen Art and Garden , which is my favourite nursery at present, maybe even more favourite than Kuranga. I bought some stuff from them, mostly stuff from their sad plants area - I love bargains and sad plants are excellent cos I can bring them back to life if they have any kick left in them. Plus I got a big bag of quite dry sheep manure cos it is supposed to be good for the garden. And a mushroom box so we can grow our own mushrooms. Then I found a new nursery that had 20% off plants and bought Nathan a special native plant and me a special native plant and the...