Yarnivorous

(note for Tanja W - your email is bouncing and I can't contact you. Of course this might mean you can't get online too!) G'day again all! I have to get rid of some more yarn. I am not sure why I have all of it, just cos it is a collection and MINE! But now I am starting to wonder why? Why keep it all? Does anyone want some yarn at low, low prices? I have various amounts of Bendigo cotton (half price), mostly 8 ply, a range of colours in mohair (not the old 1970s stuff, more modern stuff that doesn't prickle unless you are a sensitive type like me (ohhh)) and random balls of wool. Admittedly most of the yarn colours tend to be in the blues, pinks, purples, greens and pastels (ie colours that a blue-eyed blonde would tend to wear) but there are some others too (particularly black, which I despise knitting with but is great for colour work and as a background). Most of the stuff has between 1-3 balls and is good for little projects or colour work. If you mix and ma...

G'day all! Thank heavens that May is almost over. May is my least favourite month of the year, even less favourite than April (days shortening rapidly) and July (winter - need I say more?). May is the death month. At the start of the month is my father's deathiversary and at the end, my mother's. You can probably see why I don't like May. Yesterday was a particularly bad day, being Mum's deathiversary and all. I always get grumpy on that day (when I was working I always tried to take that day off but last year my then boss scheduled me to run training that day and I couldn't change it). Things are always going wrong on that day (even down stupid little things like pouring a glass of juice and the juice splashing only once and that once being straight up onto my glasses or the roast chicken's oven bag bursting two seconds before I tried to pour the juices out, leading to me, the stove and the floor being covered in roast chicken juices. Not that those...

G'day all! I am trying to make lists of what to take with me. THe lists vary depending on what the moving company will move. So I am confining my lists to what to put in my suitcase. At the top of the list is my spinning wheel (a little gem II). It fits in the suitcase very nicely indeed, and so will other stuff! Hooray! (Yes it does have a travel bag, as modeled by Nutmeg recently, but it is not that protective and we will have to change planes on a trek that will take us about 20 hours plus I've seen how the baggage handlers deal with manual loading/unloading.) Then there is food - some bits and pieces to tide me over the first few days of disorientation. Then clothes. Plus disks of our data from here - no point bringing the whole computer cos they need different power stuff and mine is hmm 5 years old? It would be very handy if the moving company tells us what sort of stuff we should be looking at moving - just clothes and books and important paperwork wot we will nee...

G'day all! Well stress has hit the big time around the Modest Manor. Oh boy.... People keep asking me, "How do you feel? Are you stressed or worried about the move?" Well what do you think? Do you think I am cool as a cucumber or am I screeching, "I'm a teapot! I'm a teapot!" I'd show you a pic of my spout but that would be a little much for this sort of blog, eh? So much to do, so little time. We don't have an exact date, we have not been told anything about the move, what we should be bringing with us.... We know that there is no point bringing electrical goods with us since we run on 240V and the US is on 110V, plus our plugs are different *and* we have switches to turn the power on and off at the wall! A miracle of forethought! I finished the baby stuff. haven't got pics of the finished stuff - the weather has been so up and down (mostly down) recently (though no rain for a couple of days now) that every time I get armed with the ...

G'day all! The visa stuff at last is moving. Our interview is on the 7th of June. HP expects to move us the next week. OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG! (That is funny cos I am agnostic so I don't have a god) PANIC! So much to do, so little time! Panic! Flap flap flap! Plus I've done my SI joint so I cna't do a whole lot of physical stuff right now like bending and twisting and lifting stuff. Anyone who wants any of the handspun yarn on my page better get in quick - I'll definitely be taking them to the guild maybe tomorrow, maybe Thursday. Plus I have a hmm-hmm load of hand-dyed yarn to list, not much more sock yarn though so if you want any sock yarn from me, you'd better keep a watch on the hand-dyed page... I am updating the hand-dyed page with some lovley blues and violets that simply refuse to have their pictures taken accurately. All those rich blues and violets and purples wipe the camera out. I have real pics of real knitting to show you but not right now -...

G'day all! Still no camera action, though we do have a work around now. Hooray! Pity it is so dark here that I can't get good shots anyway. Yes it is dark even though it is daytime. Why is it dark? Cos this Stuff keeps falling from the sky! OK, so only about 14mm has fallen in the last day but everything is damp and icky. 19mm in the last week and it looks like there is more to come. The cats keep tracking in dirt - they run around under the house, which is dry, but have to go through wet bits to get back inside. Cheshire is a particularly good weather tracker. She appears inside whenever the weather is likely to be wet. She has been inside a LOT recently. Nutmeg is not a good weather tracker since she likes to sleep in a sunny window no matter the weather (and for that matter no matter the sun). Our rainwater tanks are nearly full again. The plants are looking very green and perky (except for the autumnal ones). Yesterday Nathan and I rode our bikes up to his work. ...

G'day all! Must share this poor pussy tale with you. (If you could see the pictures of the tail, you'd be amused!) Nutmeg is checking out the duckweed tank we have in the back yard. It is an acrylic tank about 60cm high (2') with about 6cm of water in it. It has shadecloth over it to stop the mossies getting in/out. Nothing holds the shadecloth on or down apart from its own weight. The tank has been there for hmm, about 5 months now I guess. Nutmeg's never shown interest in it before. The Nut gets that look in her eye, the look a cat gets when they go a bit silly. She leaps up onto the shadecloth on the tank. The shadecloth takes her weight for about 5 milliseconds, then drops her perilously close to the water level. But haha! She is not in the water. Yet. She prances along the shadecloth and discovers her feet are getting wet. So she back pedals. As she backpedals, she pulls more and more of the shadecloth into the tank with her, just like when you pull the pap...

G'day all again! Well we just found out why there has been no progress on the visa front. Amongst all the emails Nathan has been sent (saying print this form and return it to us, with another email following saying oh whoops, print *this form* and an other email saying let's try again - access this link, complete the form, etc, etc) was one particular email that was not stuffed up. Except Nathan didn't read it properly because it was just another email with dud links in a pile of repetitive, unnecessary and above all confusing emails.... It just so happens to be the form that is needed for us to send back to them so they can send us a US immigration form to set up a visa interview. It was sent to us a month ago. It takes between 1-3 months to process the visa application. DANG! Looks like we won't be there until summer now. Spewin', as we so graciously say here. I might not even get there in time for Estes Park! Triple DANG! Plus our money situation - well li...

G'day all! Here's a new to me meme. I got it from Dreamcatcher , she got it from... Instructions for this meme are: Edit the list, bold for stuff you've done, italics for stuff you plan to do one day, and normal for stuff you're not planning on doing. So here goes! Afghan/Blanket I-cord Garter stitch Knitting with metal wire Shawl Stockinette stitch Socks: top-down Socks: toe-up Knitting with camel yarn Mittens: Cuff-up Mittens: Tip-down Hat Knitting with silk Moebius band knitting Participating in a KAL Sweater Drop stitch patterns Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn Slip stitch patterns Knitting with banana fiber yarn Domino knitting (modular knitting) Twisted stitch patterns Knitting with bamboo yarn Two end knitting (???) Charity knitting Knitting with soy yarn Cardigan Toy/doll clothing Knitting with circular needles Knitting with your own handspun yarn Slippers Graffiti knitting (knitting items on, or to be left on the street) Continental knitting Designing ...

G'day all! Remember my contest for a) mishandling Dangerous Stuff and b) being a great aunt? Well we have a winner! "KnitMe , come on down! You get to pick something off my website or let me know what you would like. (note the Marta Black sock yarn is gone as is the multi-mauve laceweight, but I have plenty o other stuff not yet up so let me know what you like!) I have a little weeeeeny problem at the moment. Y'know how I upgraded my computer OS the other day? Well now it doesn't recognise my camera. It wouldn't recognise your camera either. It doesn't like cameras any more. It has forgotten its purpose in creation - to download photos. (This photo downloading software would not voom if you put 40,000 volts through it!) It is a known problem and I just have to wait for them to fix it - every second time they make changes to the system, someone forgets that the reason why this is set up like that is to avoid busting the camera drivers. So it is just as ...

G'day all! Well there's been resounding silence on the baby dress (except for 2paw! Thanks!) - I am guessing that bloglines/etc have not picked up the new post yet, a day after it went out. Still, whatever. Either the RSS feeds are playing up or it is realllllly ugleee! The people who have seen it have thought it was very noice indeed! So I am guessing the RSS feeds ain't working. I have to get my lovely assistant to pick a name out of a hat for the contest winner. I am having a most excellent time looking at blogs that are new to me :-) Unfortunately I managed to crash my extremely robust system doing the same old same old. I am becoming less impressed by open office by the minute (it crashes my machine so badly I have to pull the power cord on it to reboot!) . Anyway the upshot is that I keep losing nice shiny new (to me) blogs and having to restart and find them all over again. I have even upgraded twice to stop this problem happening but no dice. Online stuff o...

G'day all! I finally regained enough brain cells to get some pictures of the things I've been making these last two weeks. Here's Isabella's dress: (It is not really an odd reddy pinky overexposed and faded colour - the people who have seen it love it. It is a winy sort of merlot working on shiraz colour with pinkier bits and the odd little purple bit. yes I dyed the yarn after the pink dye was that bit too intestinal pink, y'know...) The dress is technically for a three month old but I think the mite might be wearing it a fair whack after that. The dress looks huge to me. Here's a close up of the lace pattern: (Little Chevrons from the second Barbara Walker Treasury.) I've also made a bonnet. Haven't done the booties yet. This cardi is meant for a three month old too. It *is* smaller than the dress but not by much and does not have the bands (or the sleeves) on it yet. Sleeves are up to the shaping now. Edgings are a daisy pattern out of the Vog...

G'day all! I am still here! I am getting better I think - my brain is slowly returning to me and I don't feel so bad and I'm eating again! Hooray! But I did break a glass today (thinking I could open a cupboard door with two glasses in my hand - answer is that I can't) and started getting really cranky. If I'm cranky I must be getting better! Hooray! I've done a lot of knitting and a lot of watching daytime TV. My god, daytime TV is BAD! Dr Phil can be interesting but at the moment the ones we are seeing are like BORE-RING! (We are at least two months behind the USA) Then there's Oprah. I didn't realise Oprah sells peoples' books for them. That is what her shows are - infomercials. Then we get ready steady cook, in which a chef and an audience member pair up to cook off against another chef/layperson - what can they make in 20 minutes? Vaguely amusing. Judge Judy. Goodness, she is a ballbreaker! Talk about no nonsense! Note this is me...

G'day all! I crawled off to the doctor today. Poor widdle me hasn't been feeling well since *before* I dropped the thermometer on Sa*turd*day night. Doctor said "You don't have mercury poisoning. You are the third patient in the last five who has the same symptoms." Yep, I got me a gut bug! No appetite, no energy, no va-voom! Twitchy and upset (dehydration). Doctor says it will clear up in the next 48 hours or so - that is most of a week that I'll ahve had this for then! I finished the baby dress today. All sewn up. Then I discovered that I miscounted the eyelets for the ribbon, dang! Also I very carefully put the top button hole on the wrong side of the neck band... after I had sewn down the picot edge. It only took an hour to sew the edge down cos I kept trying to be fancy. So no button hole for the top button. It fits quite easily through a stitch. Of course I wasn't wrangling a wriggling baby as I put the button through a stitch. No pics yet ...

G'day all! Because I am feeling generous at the moment, having given myself a nice dose of mercury (very therapeutic as long as you are Victorian or earlier, doncha know!) and also having developed a grand-niece, I reckon it is time for a competition. What do you need to do? One of two things (or both if you want!). Tell me: about a time you mishandled dangerous chemicals and/or compounds, eg when you played with a mercury switch and blew it up, causing mercury vapour to cover the whole area (including your lungs and skin...) or what I should do to appear more like a great aunt? (Eg how should I dress, what embarrassing habits should I adopt) (Don't say get wrinkly - I am working on that all by myself! LOL) Prizes are your choice of anything up to 100g of yarn not yet sold from my website or if there is something specific you particularly want that is sold I can see if I can dye some more up or do a custom dye job. Competition closes Friday May 11 10PM EST Oz time. That mea...

G'day all! Last night we went to visit my sister as she was having her preggers daughter around to dinner (not for dinner - we don't eat people). Just as well we went because today my niece isn't preggers any more. Isabella (not annabella) decided to come a month early. 6lb, bruised from headbutting her mum whilst trying to get out (C-section followed when mum had an allergic reaction to ?the pethidine?). All are doing well. Grandmother is doing less well - she isn't ready to be a granma yet. LOL It was a dark and rainy night as we drove home from B's place last night. As we dawdled along a local road, we both saw a funny leaf bounding across the road. It was bouncing in a very odd, very controlled sort of way. Sort like it was leaping - waaaah! Wooo! Waaah! It was a little frog dashing for safety. :-) In other news, the baby dress is almost done - the sleeves are finished and awaiting attachment to the body and the neckband being knitted up, etc, etc. O...

Mental note to self - do NOT drop a thermometer on the floor! (an hour and a half of crouching with damp paper towel ensued, picking up bits of ?mercury? or a more "friendly" liquid metal then ensued. Glad I picked the cats' bowl up - it had little beads of liquid metal splattered on it...) My achilles are killing me! Rather like the original Achilles... anon!

G'day all! May the fourth, eh? Gosh how time flies. I've been unemployed for 10 months now, with two months temping work along the way. Times are interesting. The weather is cooler now but still not cold, well what we call cold = temps only hitting 15 or 16 C during the day. It is still about 19 or 20C. The trees are starting to colour up, except for our useless loser of a liquidambar whose days are numbered. It goes a vaguely yellow colour and considering it dominates our small front yard and has its roots in all the pipes it is going to have an accident. May is not my favourite month of the year. It is the first month with short days. It is a month full of memories. My father died on May Day (sorta appropriate) two years ago, and my mum died at the end of the month 16 years ago, and a good family fried died in the middle of the month what two years ago as well. So you can probably see why I don't like May. May does have one good point. I get to see both sunrise ...

G'day all! What a feral day it was here yesterday! Absolutely vicious nor-norwesterly blowing. Gave me a case of the grumps, mainly cos it blew the washing off the line (a black house spider moved into the peg basket three months ago and I have not yet evicted her but am not game to put my hand in...) and blew my newly washed fleece right off the rack into the mulch (and the fleece was almost VM-free, but not after it blew around and around in the mulch...). It even blew the rack away! My plans to plant stuff went awry because it was so windy any plants that I unpotted and put in the ground would dry out in seconds. I tried to get pics of the yarn I've dyed up recently but even that was a problem - if I let go of it for long enough to get pics, it would start blowing away too! However, I did find the pics I couldn't find that I was sure I had taken - they had not been downloaded from the camera from over a week ago! How silly of me! I finally got a shot or two of thing...