Yarnivorous

G'day all! So over last weekend, not the weekend just gone, I did some fibre-reactive dyeing (in this case tie-dyeing). What fun! I have some tie-dyed towels (!!!), two t-shirts, did one for DH but have to re-do it cos it turned out green not brown after the red washed out of it, etc. They say that I should use hot water and Synthrapol (or in this case Dharma Trading's non-Synthrapol) to wash out any excess/unfixed dye. That means that I have to use hot water in the washing machine. hot water and detergent = FULLING! So I grabbed my ball of Kureyon, looked at the instructions for the little felted bag, decided that they sucked cos I would have to seam the bag and designed my own little baggie instead, all done in the round from the bottom up. So it went in the first load of tie-dyeing (I did two lots - didn't have enough tshirts to dye so I had to buy some "underwear" tees at Tarzhay). (Still don't understand why people get fussed about me buying stuff a...

G'day all! I am feeling twitchy at the moment. I think it is partly due to a deep awareness that winter is coming. I know that as a knitter and spinner I should *love* winter, but I don't. I am a long days person, and the short days of winter Do Not Suit Me at all. The days here are pulling in rapidly and the evenings are lengthening. The only good thing is I start to think about making dinner a whole lot earlier when the sun sets earlier. Anyway, I have to announce a winner! Sarah , come on down! You have won a set of five stitchmarkers from my soon to be launched Etsy shop :-) (Let me know what colours/styles you like - I've got colourful glass, stones, dark pearls and weird metal shapes.) Y'know how I said that I would show off some FOs? Well here they are in their before state... Um not they aren't. Ahem. Someone forgot to get pics of them in the After state. Well they will wait another day! More on the baggies when I've got pics! In other news, I...

(after all a shop hop is all about SEX isn't it?) G'day all! I tried to be very good whilst on the shop hop. We are saving for various things: a) me to go to RHINEBECK!!! b) a car c) a trip home :-) All of those things add up - thank heavens the car should be cheap and if I have an ounce of control, Rhinebeck should be cheaper than the car.... Anyway, here's the goodies I picked up: From Creative Hands, some Rowan and some Noro: (on special, of course! Except the Kureyon which came with a free pattern.) From Purlescence, a cute little gruesome amigurumi book and a totally to die for Grafton batt. I love my rainbow colours even though I am not gay. (and if you are gay, well that is not my concern - you may continue as you see fit.) From the Yarn Place - two skeins of Koigu Kirsti and one of a wool/cashmere to dye up, both on special. From the Knitting Room, the one skein hat pattern and yarn, and a number of old patterns in mostly basic shapes - I like basic shape ones c...

G'day all! Shop Hop, Day Three The day dawned grey and icky looking. No rain - it shouldn't rain here for another while yet, or so I am told. It's been six months since it rained properly. Anyway, my ride showed up and we went to do a tour of the southern yarn shops. Can I just say after two days of shop hopping, the spirit and the body were definitely flagging? The Continental Stitch in not Gilroy, umm, Morgan Hill was an interesting place. They have definitely set themselves up as a boutique shop. They had some cute stuff there - a mix of high end and Berocco synthetic yarns. I once again managed to get away without doing any damage to the visa card.... Then we whizzed down to Carmel by the Sea. I wish I had taken more pics of the place. It was full of cars all over the quaint little streets, galleries, exclusive shops, the sort of place I think my other aunt in law would love. There were people *everywhere*. The yarn shop there, Knitting by the Sea, was cute b...

G'day all! After the first frenetic day, we backed up for a second day of shop hopping, this time to the stores around San Jose (or Santa Clara County). Believe it or not, I've ridden to all bar one of the stores we visited on this day. It is sorta hard to evaluate places that you see quite often or have been to before. B and I agreed to meet at 10:00 at the Appointed Meeting Place. Both of us were a little late but not as late as C who never showed up, well not within 45 minutes of the agreed time (for the second day in a row!). First we hit Green Planet Yarn , my LYS. It is nice to go to a place where people know your name and ask how things are going. But do NOT bring your dog. Oops, no pic! Sun was behind it. (Not doing so well on the pics today) Next up was Commuknity . Commuknity has a bead shop out the back now and I think we spent a lot more time there than we did in the yarn shop itself. I picked up an Addi crochet hook for putting beads on my knitting (and y...

G'day all! (edited to add another banner - thanks for the feedback so far!) I have more to post on the shop hop, don't you worry! But today I have been working on shop stuff. I am making a new banner. The old one is, well, Old. See? Here are some new candidates: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Remember if you click on any of these pics, it will take you to Flickr, where you can see the full size version by clicking on "all sizes" above the pic. Which one do you like best? To encourage some opinions, one lucky person can win a set of five stitchmarkers. Get your entry in by 8pm PDT (heh, 1pm EST in Oz) Friday September 26 2008. anon!

G'day all! Anyone else seen these ? Addi interchangeables! Be still my beating heart! Well mebbe not cos I think they will cost USD140 and that more than a week' worth of groceries at WF! So I won't hold my breath hankering for them. anon!

G'day all! The day dawned sunny for the first day of the Peninsula to Pier Shop Hop 2008 . 19 shops along the west Bay area down to Carmel by the Sea/Monterey are taking part in the annual shop hop. Check out Victorian, On the Move for pics of the areas that we visited. We hit 7 shops on the first day. I am very very glad I don't live near most of the shops we saw. The first one was fabulous. Light and bright and happy, new and clean. Mmm. Yarn, Paper Scissors in Burlingame - check it out! They have a range of higher end yarns (IMO). (My lovely companions) The ladies at Nine Rubies were very welcoming. They have a local dyer doing a range of yarns for them. So totally would've bought some sock yarn there except I have enough sock yarn for about 100 socks still (even after knitting some - I spun some sock yarn and bought some for Nathan's socks, finding orange sock yarn is hard (mental note to self - must dye some) and some arrives in the mail every two month...

G'day all! Well I am back online. Lovely! The boy came home yesterday and the computer was back on line in a trice - it just wanted him to log in! Stupid things. Anyway, I use the laptop (which is why the colour is wonky cos it shows a much brighter pic than the big LCD screen Nathan has on his machine). Anyway, I am waaaaaaaaay behind on blogs and getting pics from the Shop Hop last week online and getting my NEW SHOP up and running - yes, I got me all legal last week! I have a California Seller's Permit! I have registered my business with the local council and registered my business name. Woot! Here's hoping I am here long enough to use the thing! The best part of the Seller's Permit? I can buy stuff wholesale! No sales tax! (As long as it is not going to be used by the business.) Now I have to run around like a mad thing and get either my old Etsy site up and running again or set my yarnivorous site up again - version two! A few people still want stuff off...

G'day all! I discovered yesterday that the powerboard that DH's computer is on has a very flaky switch - flick it lightly and you interrupt the power supply just long enough to turn the computer off... Then you discover that the computer boots and thinks it is on wireless, not ethernet. You try rebooting. You try unplugging and replugging the ethernet cable. (Next you will try the ethernet card if you can a) figure out how to open the box and b) figure out which is the ethernet card.) Then you get really desperate and run to the library. My sysadmin (DH) is away. Boo hoo. I busted the internet. OK, I didn't bust the whole internet, though this connection is so slow you would think I had, but I've busted my internet. So if anyone emails me or tries to send a message, you know what is wrong. I don't have email. I don't have any form of instant messaging. I'll be on the shop hop these next couple of days so I won't be reached easily unless you hav...

G'day all! Once a year here in South Bay and associated areas, there is a shop hop. The idea is to visit as many shops as possible in the days alotted and get a "passport" stamped to enter a draw for a grand prize ($500 yarn from your fave shop). This year 19 shops are opening their doors to rabid knitters (and crochet artists and fibre artistes of all types). The fun part is that the shops are pretty spread out over South Bay, west Bay and places south like Santa cruz and Monterey. SDunno if this google link will work but it is worth a shop. Or shot as the case may be... (doncha love freudian slips?) I don't have a car. Some of those shops are nearly 100km away! Well guess what I discovered? There is a BUS that runs from San Jose to Monterey! And it only costs $9 for a day pass that will get me all around Monterey and to the two yarn shops in the shop hop! I couldn't drive there and back for $9 even if I did have a car - not too many cars get 3.8L per 10...

G'day all! Today was our fourth wedding anniversary. Four years ago today I got all dolled up and sat around bored for half the day waiting for someone to come visit me in my chalet in the Grampians. (I had had my hair glued in place and it kept raining = no going outside for me!) Normally the bridesmaids get the bride tiddled on champagne but I had no bridesmaids - one of my nieces was off in Japan so I couldn't ask the rest of them to do the honours, and I had very clearly been told that various friends were sick of being bridesmaids. So I had none. Therefore noone came to visit me until one of my sisters came pounding on the windows and doors as I was just finishing the sewing on my wedding dress, and I was halfway in and out of it. One or the other of them (sisters that is) sewed me into the dress (best SCA tradition!) and I was ferried off to meet my lovely man in a cricket pavilion - a very nice cricket pavilion with kangaroos grazing on the cricket ground - and the...

G'day all! I'd like to think that some people leapt to the conclusion that my unreasoning lust is for my lovely husband on the eve of our fourth wedding anniversary but no.... The new Knitty is out and boy oh boy do I have total and unreasoning lust! I want to make this only BIGGER! I'm mad. Totally mad. The Op Art baby blanket is consuming my soul. Why on earth do *I* want to make a blankie? I've withstood the Hemlock blanket with a varying degree of success depending on how much yarn I find in my stash (now there's an idea - use up random stash yarns on an enormous doily with the gauge getting bigger as the blanket does...). I've scoffed at the idea of making a bedsize knitted item cos I know I will go totally insane with the long and tedious rows/long and tedious sewing up and weaving in of ends depending on the style of the blanket. I guess I could make a baby sized one and then make a big one if I can stand it.... That way I can freak with some poor...

G'day all! I did nuno felting on Friday. It's been stinking hot here and I really wanted to do some dyeing but it was Too Hot! So instead I did some physical exercise (as opposed to mental exercise or perhaps I should exercise). Nuno felting means getting some fabric and wet felting wool/etc to it. Obviously you need wool/etc that will felt - superwash won't do! I bought a silk scarf from Dharma last week so I could try it out. Actually I bought two silk scarves but I only played with one of them. So I grabbed the scarf and some rainbow tops I got last year at Taos wool festival. I predrafted strips of the tops so they were nice and thin then laid them out on some bubblewrap (we have tonnes of bubblewrap that we inherited from a previous neighbour when he moved in and we were about to move out). Then I put the scarf over them and laid out some more tops on top. I made up some soapy water in a bucket and flicked water over the layers of scarf and tops. (I used glyce...

G'day all! Everyone else is doing this, so why not me? I have some medical limitations to the sorts of foods I can have but if there is a GF/DF version I either have eaten it or would eat it, mostly. Except maybe not fugu and certainly not coffee and I'm not keen on bleeding meat either. So I'll put a GF/DF next to it if I am willing to give it a go in a form that won't give me problems for days! 1. Venison 2. Nettle tea 3. Huevos rancheros - it's just eggs and stuff - looks yummy when DH has it. GF/DF 4. Steak tartare ARGH! Raw meat! NO WAY! Can't stand bleeding meat. 5. Crocodile 6. Black pudding 7. Cheese fondue 8. Carp 9. Borscht 10. Baba ghanoush 11. Calamari 12. Pho (not too keen on raw meat but the soup should cook it a bit) 13. PB&J sandwich (GF and DF though) 14. Aloo gobi 15. Hot dog from a street cart 16. Epoisses I'd guess a pongy cow's milk cheese won't appeal even if it was GF 17. Black truffle 18. Fruit wine made from so...

G'day all! It has been an all over the place day. DH is really struggling and things are tough. Of course when the going gets tough, the tough get going. What do they do? They knit lace! They NUNO-felt! Felting is good for getting frustration out, but I don't feel much frustration currently - maybe the felting got it all out! I have finally finished the knitting of last year's Mystery Stole . At the same time as I did the final grafting of the old stole, the first clue for this year's stole came out! Talk about timing! Now on the subject of grafting, I had to graft the two ends of the stole together. Y'see someone didn't read the chart for the stole very well. She decided that the blank lines did not mean knit here, they meant ignore this line. Ooops! The blank lines still had boxes for each stitch and were inside the big thick line that was the outside edge of the stole, someone was just a bit der Fred and ignored it. Here's how it looked: ICKO! So ...