Yarnivorous

G'day all! Oh yes, I am pumping out the posts today after days of quietness. I've been a busy bee since Christmas. You saw the hole in our wall, well it got worse and now it is better. Not watertight yet but better. What did Santa bring me for Christmas? Purple hair and a sniffle! (hence the tissue) (I bought myself the necklace) I finished my 22leaves shawlette some time ago, but it was only this week that I managed to block it and weave in the ends. This is a lovely shawl and quite easy to knit. I love the mesh. I love the leaves. I love the whole shebang! I recommend you go and knit one too, if you are a knitter. Or get a knitter to make you one if you are not a knitter. Lankakomero has some lovely patterns (this one now costs USD5 but worth it!). Here's a few Christmas presents I made for family: (For my sister in sin - she wanted a jellyfish) (Sister in sin's parents' bunting) (PiL's bunting) (Bunting for aunt-in-law) (Bunting hanging up - excuse th...

G'day all! On this, the last day of December in the year two thousand and ten, we finally have a winner of the Christmas stars. Here's seven stars. Winner gets five of these seven. The other two stars go to family. I think the winner will get three red and white and two green, red and white ones. Yes. That sounds good! Getting pics was the very devil today. It is 40C now. A little hot! The northerly is blowing like a furnace from hell. I managed to get a pic that looks like this: but most looked like this: Enough dithering and procrastinating. Do you want to know who the winner was? Well all the entries were written on a piece of paper and stuck in one of my knitting project bags. See? Then I drew out one piece of paper. LYNZ ! Come on down! You have won this lovely set of stars. I have a little more to say before then end of the day but I'll blog it separately. anon!

G'day all! When Nathan asked me what I wanted my kitchen to look like, I said "Open and airy." I didn't expect it to be so true! This is really bringing the outdoors indoors. Just as well we have a few fine days ahead of us, eh? 8-) BTW, for the winner of the Christmas stars? I shall announce it tomorrow! (and I'll have to make more cos most of the ones I've made I've given to family so far! My bad) I'll show a little of an Oz Christmas too, but maybe on the travel blog. Mebbe not either... anon!

G'day all! Terribly busy (aren't we all?) at present but must share this with you. Now with added squee! (Doh, uploaded the sideways version... will try to get an upright one online instead!) (I suggest turning your monitor sideways as I cannot figure out how to rotate the video using Avidemux. As a typical open source project created by enthusiasts, the help is pretty much non-existant and they just expect you to know what they are talking about and how to do stuff with very little direction. Like why won't it encode the video to its preferred state when I've run it through the encoder and saved it, which means it should let me use the filters but IT WON'T. Avidemux is a piece of crap if you want to do anything more advanced than cut a video to bits. Nyer nyer nyer.) (Work had its Christmas party yesterday. We went to a GF mexican restaurant and then to the aquarium. PENGUINS! SQUEE! Tortoises, SQUEE! Cuttlefish, SQUEE! Stonking great big stingrays - WHOA!)...

G'day all! My what an interesting day. I spent the morning hammering away at Christmas presents. I finished one batch at my niece's 21st - she is the third niece to turn 21 and the second last. I still have another niece and two nephews to make it to 21. I stuffed myself full to the brim on four different roasted meats and salad (I missed out on the crackling though, *sniffle*), and then followed up with some gf/df chocolate cake with berries. Mmmm. So here's three of the Christmas stars I've been making: (I finished another three but forgot to take pics of them before they were gifted and taken to Rosedale. Excuse the quality of the pics, I took them with the phone under poor light.) They are about a handspan wide (my hands are 10cm/4" across) and are made in various Christmassy materials. I bodged the pattern from Maggie Makes (scroll down for the star garland). Instructions on how to put the pieces together are at Linaloo . Oh boy, whilst I am at it, go lo...

G'day all! I got nada to show you - nothing at all! I've been so busy over the last week I've hardly had time to stop. I've gone to Sydney, had a Christmas party and a pool party and another invite to swim over the last weekend, then wandered around Sydney CBD and Pyrmont so much that I got a blood blister on my toe (!!!), then I flew home and got back late enough that I just wanted a meal and bed (but of course if I eat late, I can't go to sleep for another couple of hours at least....), then I had work for three days, and today I've been wandering around like a lost soul trying to catch up with all the things I haven't gotten done so far and feeling out of sorts. I am very aware that it is a year almost since I was diagnosed with cancer and whilst I am very happy to be here, I am also a bit grumpy because recovery is slow and painful now. The rapid strides to health have become leetle teensy steps with a fair whack of joint and muscle pain. Work was inte...

G'day all! Got back last night from a cracking weekend! More to talk about later. Had a bit of fun with Nathan's buddies up there - he's found a very nice group, some of whom just so happen to like making their hair go wild colours. :-) anon! PS I think I'll run a contest for Christmas, stay tuned. Alas you won't get the goodies by Christmas but it is always nice to get something after Christmas yes?

G'day all! In mysterious happenings recently, I seem to have adopted a chicken. Yes, Boldie now comes running to me when I walk outside (if she is out of the chicken slammer). If she is locked in and sees me, she makes a dreadful noise, the same noise that she makes when she is lost (which is to say when her unsisters are not with her - she doesn't like being alone, unlike Isolde). It took pretty much six months for her to decide that I am the Provider of Goodness (aka food) and that if she follows me around for long enough I'll go and get her some grain. Where she goes, Goldie goes too, about a metre or so behind. Hmm, just remembered I took a video a little while back that I wanted to share with you. Chickens dust bathe and mine are no exception. I just didn't expect them to all squish up together and writhe around. Goldie is obvious, I hope, Boldie is in the middle with the wattles and big comb and Isolde is the suspicious one on the right. She has a very diffe...

G'day all! (Oooh, bottom, sorry 2paw, I've forgotten to send your yarn again! Argh! Tomorrow fer sher) So DH was down for the weekend again. Whilst he was here, we applied to refinance our mortgage with of all things a Queensland building society. They are a long way away if we need to visit a branch (1000 miles almost) but they have a good deal, good phone service and good internet, if I can believe the online reviews. ( A tea rose, precursor to hybrid teas, whose name I cannot remember - I thought it was General Gallieni but it never flowers red, only ivory pink ) He left this morning to go back to work. I've been waiting for something all day. Nearly 12 hours after DH left for Sydney again, I realised that I am waiting for him to come home. ( English Garden, with black spot. Awful spring for black spot this year, so wet and humid! ) I'll be waiting a while - he isn't coming down until closer to Christmas. Then he has nearly two weeks here before flying out ...

G'day all! It was my birthday a month ago today. So of course now I am going to share pics of my loot. My good buddy Knittyinpink sent me two lovely books: (neither of which I've started making a project from but I will! They are lovely books and very inspirational, I've just been running after different things recently... But many thanks!) I also ordered some fabric from Hawthorne Threads : Some Castle Peep FQs in blue, and some Wild Thyme FQs and a little extra yardage. Goodness there is a lot of fabric in that lot of FQs. It isn't my usual colour style but I really like about 90% of the range so I got the whole lot. And some extra bits and bobs that took my eye. I especially love the swirly aqua fabric, like LOTS! I want more of it. It is a Michael Miller fabric. I have quite a bit of that manufacturer's stuff. It is odd how I collect more of certain manufacturer's lines than others. I do have a bit of Moda for instance but because a lot of their ...

G'day all! Umm, where did the year go? Actually on second thoughts, this is one year I'd prefer not to have back... We are in the countdown to Christmas in earnest now. I am busy at work and at home. I've been weeding madly in the garden. I'm sewing madly (no pics, it isn't far enough along yet to share but it is going to be waaay cute when it, or rather they, are done. Well I think so anyway!). I'm knitting a shawl madly. I think I've gotten everything together for the mortgage broker tomorrow. Yesterday I had my first three monthly check up. The checkup was on my arm in particular, the right one, to check for lymphodema. Its measurements were one millimetre in most of the places measured different to last time, so that is good as it indicates it isn't puffing up badly. I talked to Vinod, the medical oncologist leading the study I am in. He said that I am not going on tamoxifen or any other hormone blocker cos the biopsies did not show enough...