Yarnivorous

G'day all! Have you ever walked in to a shop and thought, "This feels right. I like it here!" The other day the temps hit the old ton, or 38C. That was the day I decided to take my bike into Nathan's work, pick up some printouts that I need (why no, we don't have a printer cos the one we want does not have linux drivers) and then cycle off to places far. I knew I had to ride up a certain road to get to the place I wanted to go and then I had to go a little west. It was a little tad warm but on the bike it feels cooler than walking cos you make your own breeze. I thought I only had to go maybe a couple of miles, say 3km. That is very do-able on the bike. Anyway, I rode and I rode and I rode. I rode and rode a bit further. Then I got to the end of the road (literally) and did not recognise where I had to go, having never been there before. So I guessed the direction and rode that way, and you know what? After about 4 miles of riding, all up, I found the plac...

G'day all! The fun continues here - it's all knitting, spinning, watering plants and hauling wood from the timber yard on the bike trailer... (That's the wood to build the legs and rails of a table to stick our plants on - no top for it yet though cos I can't fit it on the trailer with the other wood.) It's been stinking hot here recently and our flat is hot hot hot. Even though it is only 21C out at present, things have gotten hot. Yes we could use the air con but that doesn't seem to cool the place down a lot for very long. Instead we have fans going. Even the rangehood is on - it vents to the outside!!! Lawksamercy me, fancy having a rangehood that vents outside... Now, if this doesn't make you feel old, nothing will. Yes Whacko Jacko, Michael Jackson himself, the bloke who was top of the pops when I came of age, has turned 50. Fifty. You could knock me over with a feather... anon!

G'day all! Doncha love it when your neighbour steps out for a "private" chat on their mobile phone? Of course since they are talking on a mobile (or cell, your choice), they talk LOUDER. And they tell ALL THEIR NEIGHBOURS THEIR PERSONAL PROBLEMS. I guess because we care. Not! I finished somethings! (It's Sockama bin Nathan!) Hooray! Hope they fit DH ok. And they are not quite matching cos some nong didn't pull enough of the guts of the ball out, not realising how the pattern was set up at that state (two lots of brown, not just one). More later. anon!

G'day all! Tomorrow is DH's birthday. He already has his major present (an electronic piano) but he gets a pair of socks from me each year. Not just any old socks, no, socks handknitted by me. They are mostly orange socks, though he does have two pairs of blue handknitted socks cos I bought the yarn for me and it ended up being for him. I still have another two inches to knit on the chevron ditto socks. I've been doing them two at a time on magic loop. I am blaming them for my right forearm getting sore, but it could be any number of things - riding pretty much every day except for two in the last two weeks, having to hang on to the coffee grinder whilst grinding coffee (I don't drink coffee, btw), knitting 5000 million gazillion items recently, compensating for my left wrist after I sprained it last week... all sorts. But what it means is I have to take frequent breaks. That is annoying as I can't get a good rhythm up, and I haven't got the things fin...

G'day all! I would like to show off the massive progress I've made on Nathan's socks but really? Another 1.5 repeats is not exactly exciting. Instead you get to see some other stuff. Like the red tank I am making for myself. It is a mixture of the Ballet Camisole that used to be on Magknits, now on Ravelry, and Soleil from Knitty. (Yep, too lazy to put the links in. Oh ok, I've added the one for Soleil as I do have the page handy, like one of a thousand tabs on Firefox.) I am knitting it with an 80% cotton 205 wool blend from cascade. I've been working on my Mystery Stole 3. For months it looked just a little further along than this: Then it looked like this (black line to give some idea of where it was before I picked it up last week after it guilted me into doing something about it): And two days ago it had this extra bit on it: It now has even more repeats of the flower motif. We've had some visitors recently: (This devil came in the front door and when ...

G'day all! The last few days have been mildly interesting. We have lost faith in the US health-care "system." We need to find a good doctor I guess rather than ones who come in to help out and have terrible bedside manner and underwhelming knowledge of conditions. I found an aqua cashmere sweater at an op shop :-) It is being deconstructed cos it was a little small for me. I trawled off to the San Jose Textiles and Quilt museum. (In wandering around the area I was bemused to find pavement stamped with the contractor's name and year the concrete was laid. 1956. The concrete that was stamped with 1956 was newer than the concrete surrounding it. Holy guacamole!) They had decided to do something a little different, for which one of the volunteers apologised. Americans apologise for the weirdest things, like the textiles museum allowing knitting as an exhibition. Anyway I went to see a knitting exhibition and a crocheted coral reef. The coral reef was done by lo...

G'day all! It is nearly midnight here on the 19th of August, about to be 20th August. Out of curiosity, I just looked at this: number of users on Ravelry and got told: 698 Ravelers are online online = active within the last 5 minutes 39,714 users have visited Ravelry during the last 24 hours. Out of the 168,503 registered users, 70,216 users have been active during the last 7 days. HOLY COW! Nearly 170,000 users! About 40% of them have been on Ravelry in the last week, and nearly 40K have used Ravelry in the last day. That is a hmm-hmm load of people, people! (I am always logged in to Ravelry unless my computer is off, which is rare - my greenhouse bad but given how often I use the machine....) anon!

G'day all! No pics of FOs today. I have to find one of the socks that was completed before we moved. I also have to find its unmate that was made after we moved. Ahem. Instead I will divert you with pictures of sock yarn pr0n. This would be a spoiler for the current STR club selection except if you haven't got the yarn and patterns by now, you really should give them/the post a prod. I know that not everyone loves pastels, including Tina at Blue moon Fiber Arts. But I love them. Light blue, pink, mauve and light green all look lovely on me - being pale and blonde I am best suited to blue and pink-based colours. Yellows and peaches look atrocious on me, as do any of the yellow-based and tinted colours. But this yarn, droollllll... Mmm, yummy! It reminds me of Fruit Tingles, my lolly (candy) of choice Back 'Ome. Just you wait until you see the pattern! It is a perfect marriage of lolly with lolly. Of course I cast on after the madness of moving finished. Then I real...

G'day all! Once upon a time, there were two yarn buddies. They were the best of friends, even though one was made of bamboo and the other of cotton and soy . They were so complimentary to each other that they thought they should get together. They really liked what they saw in each other, So they kept on going until finally they had created something new and beautiful out of themselves: If only all stories could end so nicely! anon!

G'day all! Here's a little top I finished the same day as the Nashua lemon cable and lace cardi. It's made from Knit1 Crochet2 Wick (rav link). Wick is a weird yarn. It is stretchy and bouncy - great for fitted items. It is a mix of polypropylene and soy. It is a knitted yarn - a tube of knitting that you knit. It is very snippy about the slightest roughness of hands and needles and catches/snags a lot. I would not recommend it for outerwear that is likely to get snagged or rubbed against by rough surfaces. But it is fun to knit... It is a top down raglan using one of the online calculators (too lazy to link it, my bad!). All bar about three rows were knitted continental. continental is not a big win in time for me as my usual knitting style is pretty quick, but picking does give me a break from the usual knitting. I am practising picking without looking at the knitting. It is a very useful thing, being able to knit without looking at it - that's how I manag...

G'day all! I seem to have batches of startitis eventually followed by finishitis. (closest to correct colour but still not right) Today I give you the Braided Wrap. (excuse the pics - camera didn't want to use the flash and they are a bit grainy and colour-wonky even after a bit of fiddling.) (me over and over and over, disappearing into infinity) This is an interesting wrap made from SWTC Therapi (Rav link). The yarn has bowdler (jade) in it, along with silk and wool. It knits up quite well, with occasional lumps of extra silk or weird fluff (the jade?). The pattern, designed by my fellow Aussie Sarah Golder, is free with five balls of Therapi. Pretty nifty, eh? As you can see, I am contemplating making me one - this one is for the LYS. It took less than two weeks from start to finish, at the same time as I was knitting an almost completed tank for me. I've also started an opus in crochet cotton - I am knitting a curtain from it. A LARGE curtain. 15cm down. I only...

G'day all! I finally remembered to take the camera to the shop with me and got some pics of the cardi I made for them. Details: Nashua Handknits Ecologie Cotton (rav link) in wattle (very appropriate!). 100% pima cotton. The dye colours are apparently natural dyes. The yellow doesn't show up very well in the pics but the cardi is quite obviously white and yellow when seen in the "flesh.". This was a bit of a mongrel to knit. Keeping the pattern going through the decreases and also being cotton? Argh it got pretty hard on the hands doing the cross-overs. And it need an extra stitch or two on the edges of the body pieces to help maintain the pattern - it snugs up a bit closer than I'd like. But the result is very pretty and it should maintain its shape cos of all the ribbing in it and those cross overs. I'd like to make this in a wool or wool blend, mebbe with long(er) sleeves. anon!

G'day all! It has been another big day here at the Minute Mansion (all 750 sq feet of it!). We are *still* unpacking. Today I rode a whole 3.5 miles (or 5.5 kays) to a localish Target, into a headwind (the sea breeze) with the bike trailer bouncing merrily along behind me. First though I went to the material shop (fabric) to see if I could find some lightweight cotton voile for making curtains out of - our place isn't exactly private, though it is dark. Nope! unless I want navy or red. Ack. Those might be my footy team's colours but they won't help keep the space light and open.... So I bought some pretty cotton crochet yarn instead (at another shop). I'll prolly knit it on largeish needles to make some quick and cheap and overall LIGHTweight curtains so we don't have to have the blinds pulled all the time. Then I did the credit card some damage at Target. I bought chrome shelving and a pine shoe shelf. We so need places to put stuff. I bought "s...