Yarnivorous

G'day all! Does anyone local(ish) want to knit a chemo cap in memory of Marta? If you do, let me know and I'll giv eyou my addy so it can go to say the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre . To keep you occupied whilst I am: a) dyeing more yarn b) killing an Argentine ant infestation* c) pondering what to do and d) stuffing about with some fleece to see how it spins up and the best way to spin it (so far the tender grey fleece needs to be woollen spun - it is like iron if worsted-spun) I shall leave you some links, not one of which is a knitting link I think (I'm a poet, etc, etc) David Eddings tried to burn his office down and darned near succeeded. Ooops . A newish fibre newsletter site (I hope it displays better on your page - maybe you have an enormously wide monitor or a very high res screen). A most amazing discovery - maybe cancer is caused by altered cell metabolism.... One of my favourite pics of Comet McNaught (you B5 fans out there should be able to tell why!) You...

Alas, no g'day today! How many of you had the pleasure of visiting Marta's Yarns in Malvern East? (I still call it Caulfield cos that is the station across the road.) How many of you gazed in wonder at how much could be crammed into a little shop? How much colour? How much inspiration? It was truly an Aladdin's Cave. Then there was Marta, always enthused about colour and helping with great ideas and dyeing some luscious yarn up.... (A bag of Marta's rainbow mohair, a gift from Peeve two birthdays ago) Well, alas, Marta is no more. Her shop had been closed since October or so due to illness. I wish I had known she had cancer. The clues were there. The tiredness, the sadness, the knowledge she had too much yarn and not enough time to dye it, the occasional absences, the puffiness of her face sometimes, even her marvellous wild multicoloured hair suddenly became neatly coiffed, though still an unnatural auburn. I just thought it was a passing thing, maybe dep...

G'day all! Today's post is brought to you by several dictionaries of Aussie slang . I think some of you overseas types might need it as I really don't know which colloquialisms you will know. Maybe even some Aussies might need it - we do use different words for things. How many of you say "togs?" What about "cozzie" or "bathers"? As a Victorian, I say togs or bathers. What is the difference between a scallop and a potato cake?* It is Australia Day today. Today is the day that we celebrate what it is to be an Australian, and the day that Captain Cook planted a flag on the shores of Botany Bay and claimed this country for the King Of England, whoever that was on the day. No mind that the Frogs and the Dutch and Portuguese had already been here. The Frogs were apparently camped on the other side of Botany Bay only a few days earlier than Cook and were there at the same time. They obviously didn't think much of it. If they had, we...

G'day all! What interesting times we live in. Nathan has had two phone interviews with a major company. Now they want to do a face to face interview with him at their headquarters. Do they really want to fly him to the USA for a day? It is after all a 15 or so hour flight to LA and extra to the next place, and I reckon the jetlag would be horrendous. Plus DH is 6'5" and over 100 kilos (mixing my units there - say 195cm and 240lb ;-) and finds plane travel extremely uncomfortable. One of my heels has been sore for a while - I presume it is a heel-strike problem - but the other day I noticed that I have a swelling by my achilles tendon and soreness into my calf. Lord knows what that is. Some form of tendonitis I guess. Anyway, off to the doctor I go tomorrow cos it seems to be more sore at present. It seems to get worse when I don't wear my runners. As it is summer and has been rather sultry (until Sunday) I have not worn runners much. It certainly hurts when...

G'day all! On Saturday, Nathan and I decided to go for a nice drive to get out of the house and indeed the city. After a while urban life becomes grating and we need to get away even just for a few hours. Nathan had had his second interview with a large overseas company and was not sure he had done well. So we got in the car and I headed for the hills. Nathan has difficulty driving my little car - he barely fits in the passenger seat and adding pedals to the mix just makes it harder, so I tend to drive whenever we go places. If we have Nathan's dad's car, Nathan drives - it is good practice for him and I get lots of knitting done :-) The sky was a bit threatening but hey, we needed to get out and about. We ended up in a favourite location - Warburton. We wandered along the banks of the Yarra. It looks very pretty (and we need to ignore the weeds when we wander along the paths cos noticing them spoils the prettiness). I'll let you admire the prettiness. The boy ...

G'day all! Hooray, back online - we've had licorice allsorts recent - we didn't get affected by a blackout that took half of the state's power out but we had no phone and no net on Wednesday arvo/evening, then Nathan accidentally added our cable modem to the list of blocked sites on his server, which I use for my picture hosting, and it would not let me log in strangely enough, being blacklisted and all.... no picture hosting means no pics for the blog. Anyway, I was happily knitting away the other day, finishing the main part of a Fetching for me. I had put this particular mitt away before Christmas cos I didn't need presents for me - I needed them for other people! Here is the mitt, less the thumb. Can you see something rather odd about the thumb insertion point? (it is to the left of the pic) Take a closer look: Yep, there are TWO! One in green and one in pink. LOL Next - we go for a drive on a rainy day - yes, we had a rainy day! Only 20mm (less than an in...

G'day all! Steenky hot here at the moment. OK, it is only 31 but it is humid and I doubt it dropped below 25 degrees overnight (yep, just checked the weather site and the closest weather station recorded a minimum of 25.4). We have massive power problems because the main transformer between us and our mates in NSW got burned out in a bushfire yesterday but the bushfire hasn't moved on much so they can't replace it. One of my friends was sitting at work yesterday afternoon with no power - no air con on a 41 degree day (that's hmm, about 107F?), no lights, no systems, except he had a laptop with wireless and for whatever reason there was a wireless connection available to him, so he was still on the net.... The wonders of modern technology! So what that means is that I should stop blathering and get on with it cos we never know when the power will go out... As it is, for some reason my system keeps ignoring the mouse, which is MOST inconvenient since my GUI is mostly...

by Lynne, age *mumble* It was bright and sunny on Saturday morning. There were really interesting clouds outside. I woke up and got out of bed and got ready to go to the handweavers and spinners' guild. I was very lucky because Chocolatetrudi and Peeve gave me a weekend of summer school classes. I got to go to school in the middle of summer! I got to the guild rooms just in time and that was good. I was to learn worsted ("wusted", like the sauce) spinning first. Worsted yarn is flat and shows off the sheen of the wool or silk or mohair. I think worsted is quite easy. It is good for control freaks like me. It involves taking locks of fleece, flicking them out and then spinning them from the tip (or the butt - ohh I got to say butt! Butt! Butt! "But but? Motor but? I do not think I like the sound of that!") whilst squishing the new yarn down and making it flat. I found it easiest to grip the fleece with the last two fingers of my right hand whilst ...

G'day all! I am off to a weekend of learning about carding and spinning and stuff. I've never done a proper class in spinning (or knitting for that matter, or dyeing). I'll be doing blending for colour, worsted spinning, light and fluffy woollen spinning and plying. Each class in 2 hours long and they only allow 1/2 hour for lunch, which for me is waaay short since I either have to drive to get lunch or heat something up. Yes, microwaves are quick to heat stuff but I tend to find they don't heat evenly and much stirring and cussign is required, then they are too hot to eat for 10 minutes... I won't eat stuff that is only mouth warm - it has to be heated properly. Peeve and chocolatetrudi gave the classes to me as a birthday present. Thanks, chaps! Twil be interesting! Wish I knew what I have to take with me though - my hand carders? My spinning wheel? Have you been having one of *those* days? I certainly have. Little niggling annoying things - a lack of en...

G'day all! Today was a big day for me. I went and got me a gym program! Yessirree as of Monday I will have a program in the gym! I will build my poor shoulders up and get my body back (no, I don't know who stole it or where it has been all these years I've not been going to the gym). I am totally whacked out now. Or maybe I am whacked out cos I ate something that may be dodgy for me. Anyway, my head is spinning and my gut is sad and I just want to sit down and not do much. We've had some rather warm weather again but a cool, dry, change blew through this morning and it is currently a very pleasant 24 degrees C. I like 24 C. It is one of my favourite temperatures. Oddly I have not been doing much knitting recently. I think I am so spoilt for choice that I don't know what to do. I've started a mate to one of the lonely socks but didn't get far into it before going to the gym. I knitted a cosy for the camera from some of my earlyish handspun. Hot pin...

G'day all! I got another parcel in the mail yesterday. I love parcels (btw, we would *REALLY* like to know who sent the cook book - noone has fessed up to it so far). Before Christmas, I was cruising Etsy and found Spindlemaker , an Aussie woodturner who makes spindles. Hooray! I've been lusting after various creations made in the USA but a spindle costing USD40 plus USD20 in postage makes a spindle costing over 80 Aussie dollars and that is just not worthwhile. It would have to be one seriously hot spindle, a Moosie or something. So looky what I got at less than half of that - a beautiful Tassie myrtle beech whorl with Tassie huon pine shaft (BTW, no huon pines are logged these days - I am told the wood is reclaimed from the forest floor in small amounts, small amounts mainly cos the areas where it grows are extremely rugged. Tasmanian myrtle beech is not a beech at all, but is logged. Selected logs show the lovely red colouring and are used for fine furniture and wood...

G'day all! It has been steenky hot here recently and when it is steenky hot, the study gets very very warm and sitting in front of a hot LCD screen is no fun at all. A cool change is pushing through, alas no rain for us even though it was forecast, and it is a little better today. (This is to say the sweat on my upper lip is only just starting to bead after half an hour rather than dripping off.....) Does anyone else find that their dishwasher packs up and refuses to do dishes for days when it is hot? She has the best intentions of doing dishes at least once a day but when it is over 35 degrees in the house (and we are talking celsius here), the allure of a clean and tidy kitchen drops, especially if it involves half an hour of wearing rubber gloves and sticking hands into very hot water. (The opposite applies in winter - the allure of hot hands is quite compelling!) Guess what I made? (By Lynne, age *mumble*. I designeded it all by myself! LOL) Yep *another* sock! I found ...