Yarnivorous

G'day all! I am very behind in posting stuff. Two weeks ago (*blush*), I received a tshirt from my friend Yarnhunter . Isn't it appropriate for an Aussie knitter? I've been mucking about a bit the last few days, trying to figure out what shawl to knit next for the 10 in 2010 challenge on Ravelry. I have enough handspun to knit another three shawls. Finding a good match between the yarn and the pattern is more difficult than I thought it would be. It is likely the chemo I'll be going onto in a few weeks time will affect my fingers - they will probably go numb and I won't be able to spin well or knit fine things. So I am spinning up more yarn and then wondering what shawls to knit with it. As for commercial laceweight yarn, umm, well blush I have a fair bit of that too :-) I am torn - make the 10 from 10 in my own handspun or make them out of a mix of my yarn and commercial stuff? Well see how we go. In the meantime, my queue is getting longer and longer, mos...

G'day all! I've been working on and off on my pinwheel quilt. I have to work on it outside as there are no benches or tables I can use inside at this stage - DH is still building storage space in one room which means the lounge and to-be-craft room are full of stuff. We have stuff everywhere. So when I can, when the weather is kind and the wind is not blowing away my half square triangles, I quilt outside. There's a table out there and extension leads for power and plenty of space. (Thank heavens for knitting and spinning being a little less fussy about space!) I'm fascinated by what I am seeing in the pinwheels. I expected to see interesting contrasts showing up between the squares depending on whether I used a cream, green or olive background but take a look at the lot I quickly put together the other day. See how different the olive paired pinwheels look to the cream ones? And how the cream paired with the green pretty much disappear? The green dominates, bein...

G'day all! Thanks for the commiserations. The indigestion is settling down some now (I started on a prescription med but haha, it has side effects of a runny kind! DOH!) and life is somewhat more bearable. I never knew how painful indigestion could be - like cramping pains all the way through my chest and upper gut area. BC nurse says that it is because of the chemo - it strips the lining from my gullet. She also said I am a clever person and should be able to work things out but I've never done this before and am a bit clueless quite frankly. So today, I have found small happinesses. A light covering of cirrus clouds that looked like very faint brush strokes outlining a quarter moon. Sun on my mostly bald noggin. (Only for a couple of minutes) Soft fuzzy socks with angora in them on a cold morning. Being able to see the Southern Cross out the bedroom window (obviously at night :-). A purring happy cat. (Several times, including pleasing said purring cat - she really doe...

G'day all! I'm crankypants today. Today I have had enough. Actually this week I've had enough. I'm sick of being on chemo, I'm sick of being restricted in what I can do, I'm sick of having a sore arm from the dressing around the picc line, I'm sick of the flavour of the stuff I have to use to keep my mouth "nice," I'm sick of feeling like my arms and legs and head are made of lead, I'm over getting indigestion, Nathan has a bit of a cold so I can't even hang around him, I'm sick of not seeing people, I'm sick of not going out cos I might get sick, I'm sick of not being able to find the ONLY important bit of paperwork that I can't find, I'm sick of my n key not working properly, I'm sick of feeling bad about to being able to help DH with his projects, I'm sick of being sorry about not being able to help like I would be, I'm sick of not being able to be a useful sorta person. I'm completely and utter...

One of my favourite places to be: The view out of the study, soon to be the craft room. I love the droopy eucalypt, I love the green and I especially love it in the morning on days like in the pic with the sunlight streaming in.

G'day all! I am still here! Still alive! I feel better immediately after this chemo than I did after the last one but my knees are sore! Like tired sore. No, don't walk on us, we're tired! I don't think I'd be running a marathon with ooh tired erupting from my knees regularly but I wouldn't be even if I was "normal." Still we went out to Urban Burger for tea and I had a yummy burger and some chips. Now we see how I go this time around. I've got the burpy feeling again but nothing really bad so far (and have one more pill in reserve if it gets bad, and have heatburn (anti proton pump) medication if I need that). I don't want to start on the heartburn stuff unless I really need it cos I will have to keep taking it once I start. It isn't like gaviscon or anything that just puts a soothing layer on top, it turns off the acid secretion in your stomach. I sorta wonder how you can digest food and reduce bacterial infection if you don...

G'day all! Today I had another grand adventure. Today I got my PICC line in. It was supposed to be tomorrow but they changed it. Most peeving cos this means I had to go to the hospital for breast clinic yesterday, PICC today, flushing of PICC and changing of dressings tomorrow and then chemo on Friday. That is FOUR DAYS IN A ROW. Man, I am going to hate that place by the time we are done or I'll be moving there cos it is home. One or the other. So we arrive, I hand over the form, Nathan settles in for a bit of reading, I settle in for some knitting. A little while later, they call me in. I go get changed into a gown ("upper half only"), do the consent, etc, then wait some more. By the time I get called into the xray theatre, nearly 45 minutes have passed. I've had a little chat with a couple of peoples there, one of whom admired my knitting (yet another chemo cap for me, probably the second last one for the moment - the last will be horrid fun fur in a l...

G'day all! I've been participating in various of the Old Red Barn Co quiltalongs . A while ago, they started putting together squares to make some quilts to raise funds for breast cancer research and awareness. Well, there were a few quilts made. Quite a few. And last week, I got a box of cereal from Canada: (Very glad that quarantine let the box in - they can get funny about ex-food boxes). Odd, very odd I thought - who is sending me cereal from Canada? All duct-taped up? So I opened the box and out slid: That's awfully chewy cereal - lots of fibre in that lot! Or maybe, just maybe, it is a quilt! Isn't it lovely? Lots of people put a lot of effort into making these squares and then Marianne from the quiltalong put it all together to create a quilt (and that is the hardest part of making a quilt as far as I am concerned!). There were some extra bits and bobs, like a pillow case, two little lavender sachets, a hand-made card and some extra material (which I forgot...

G'day all! It feels like forever since I've had an FO to show off. It isn't that long but well I've been slack at getting photos and then downloading them and editing them and uploading them... Anyway, I give you my version of Bitterroot, the version I've called Thankfulness. Details on Ravelry. (I hope you like the sheets - vintage 80s sheets that my Mum bought when they were fashionable.) I'm pretty thankful for it being finished! When things get to around 300 stitches or more across, I start getting a bit bored with them, especially if there are beads involved. Half an hour to an hour per row is very tedious, placing beads. And it is more tedious when you can't find the second packet of beads and go out to buy more but the place that stocks them isn't at present because head office is slack and won't order more until there's practically no stock left of any colour bead at all. But it looks lovely and that is what really counts. I spun th...

G'day all! During the Ravelympics, instead of doing the spinning I said I would, I decided to spin up some of the (dwindling) lump of Andyle moorit (merino? yes merino) and ?tussah silk? that I had in my stash here. I needed to get a wriggle on with a present for a friend. I ended up with 500m from 100g. Not my finest spinning but reasonable. It was fairly hard to draft because the two different fibres work very differently. After all that work, I had a ball of yarn that looked very much like this: Mainly because it is the same yarn, just a little depleted cos I've knitted that much from it since Thursday? Friday? (The colour is off in that shot - it is actually the warmer colour in the skein pic) At first this shawl flew off the needles, in a good way, not the omg, dropped another bunch o stitches way. But then as the pattern was established and it stayed the same, I started to get bored. I was so glad to finish chart A and move on to chart B, but then discovered that t...

G'day all! I'm still knitting away at the chemo hats - after all a girl is fairly bald now, or at least looks like she has a severe hairloss problem. I keep getting a surprise when I look in the mirror - that's me! Where did my hair go? Like DUH! In my newly reacquired stash, I've found a few odd skeins of cotton blend and non-wool yarns. I guess I can make some more hats out of them. I have a bad habit of buying one or two balls of yarn to "try out" and then never trying them out. I found a ball of a lovely green (US/Canada) Patons bamboo silk. The yarn feels rather lush and is a true worsted yarn in weight (even though it says it is a DK/8 ply yarn on Ravelry). It actually weighs a tonne, or so it feels, compared to the cottons and wool blends I've been working with. So I started making my usual top down knitted in the round chemo cap. I should provide the recipe for it, shouldn't I? I shall have to count some stitches and work out gauge and...

G'day all! What an exciting afternoon it turned out to be! It came over all dark and stormy and then windy and it poured rain, totally heaved down. I was thinking we just had a nice bit of rain from a thunderstorm, a very needed bit of rain cos it is a couple of weeks since we had any and the garden is really starting to suffer. I had been watching the weather radar and then decided to look at the weather warnings. After all, it isn't often that we see the radar image displaying black (actually dark brown) spots, the most intense precipitation possible on its scale. When you go to the BoM site and find a warning like this: you think things might be exciting! (If you are me, you also think that maybe they need a better picture editing program?) Not just one but two supercells approaching! So I trawl the web to find all sorts of mayhem has broken out across the city! Trams up to the top of their steps in water (I note we aren't seeing pics of the newer, very low load...

G'day all! Yesterday I started on a new project. We are doing a pinwheel quiltalong on the OldRedBarnCo quiltalong group on Flickr. A little while ago, I ordered something called a "layer cake" online. I had been eyeballing the material for a while and decided that I wanted that material. A layer cake seemed a bit more affordable than a full set of fat quarters. So the layer cake arrived about a week ago, and I discovered what they really are. Reading about something is good but having it in your hand is better! Layer cakes are a quilting fabric term used to describe 10" squares cut from a fabric range. You get a 10" square of every print in the range, and some of them you'll get two of (usually the contrast fabrics rather than the ones with the fancy pants prints on them). So my layer cake of Eden arrived and I immediately decided that it had to become a pinwheel quilt. On Saturday DH and I went to scroatfight to get some contrast material. My optio...

G'day all! Before we get started, I want to thank everyone who has emailed me and/or left comments along the way as I progress along this cancer treatment plan. Thank you for the encouragement and the thoughts and the well wishes. Along with the good wishes comes something I am trying to work something out. People keep telling me, "You've got a great attitude." They are amazed that I keep on going despite having cancer. "You're so brave. You're so strong." This is where I get confused. Am I just supposed to lay down and die on the spot? I've got things I want to do! You should see the mountains of yarn and spinning stuff and material I have. Can't let those go to waste! I want to make stuff. I want to see stuff. I'm still alive and kicking, though some days/hours/minutes it is more like a shuffle. I fall in a heap on occasion but who wants to stay in a heap all the time? There's things to do and stuff to make and cats an...

G'day all! Hooray, the Ravelympics are over! I no longer have a deadline for my knitting. What did I accomplish out of the five things I wanted to? Well I failed on the spinning - I have only spun maybe a third of a bobbin of the blue fluff that I had lined up (though I did spin 500m from 100g of a wool/soy blend I had). But I think I won on the rest of my projects: Husbandly socks! Finished these an hour before the Ravelympics closed. Very simple pattern, well once the template stuff is created. Details on Ravelry . Blood Orange . Still a wee tiny little thing, not sure what use it will be to anyone! But it is very lurid and very soft and I am sure I can find a home for it amongst my rellos and friends who are helping out with the chemo thing. Colour is still a bit off - it is a bit more orange than this - but good enough to get the idea. Aeolian (rav link), well you've seen that one before but it seems to be a hit :-) The ugliest sock in the world! LOL. I have to f...