The lone sock

G'day all!

Phew! Hot again today. Actually, it is not that hot just humid. We Melburnians understand dry heat but not humid heat. We live here cos we don't like tropical heat. However for the last two weeks, or more is it now?, we've had 30+ degree days and humidity.

I've been a bit busy recently doing not a great deal. Funny how that happens, isn't it? I finished the lonely sock - it will never have a mate as there is only one skein of this yarn, which was shoved in the pot to sop up excess dye.

Do you like the way the pooling changes up the sock? It started off as a 64 stitch sock, then pooled on the gusset (toe up with gusset), then after the heel went down to either 62 or 60 stitches and then I started a little cable. This sock was intended as a plain sock to check out if the 160m of yarn promised on the ball would knit a sock. Umm, yep, it did and I had about 10g left over after deciding I couldn't stand doing plain any more, how about a little cabling action? I've got a size 9 foot (I think that is both Oz and US - English style it is a 7. I think. Or about a 41 European. I think). Anyway, I reckon that there is enough yarn there to do a lace pattern. Why is this yarn interesting? Cos whilst it is not tightly spun like sock yarn, it is a wool/nylon blend and is machine washable! The local sock yarn is technically not machine washable, though we find it goes in a cold wash quite happily.

I added some more cables at the top "rib."

I think I might try making another similar sock - plain foot but with two cables on the sides running up. Maybe have cables running up either side of the foot... hmmm...

I've been getting pics of some of the fleece and tops I want to share with others or will never use and putting them up on my new hand spun website. I bought fleece last year that looked like it would be great for socks and to dye up. It would be but I will not get around to using it at my current rate. Plus it is a bit coarser than I like to spin - I love merino and super soft corriedale (not coarser corrie) and polwarth and finn crosses. THere's some hand-dyed tops there too. So for those of you who spin, hop across. Note that I can't send unprocessed fleece overseas or even to some parts of Australia (Tassie and WA I believe). Tops and processed stuff can go anywhere in the world I believe - I remove all the seeds I find in particular. By the way, the website is by no means finished - that amount on it so far has taken a good 2 hours to get working...

Now as for this possibility of moving to the US. I am not as stressed as I was - arranging to get my passport replaced was helpful. I can see a lot of positives as well as negatives. We would be moving to a place that is 17 hours flying time from home. No rellos, no cats, no friends there (yet). If something goes wrong welll..... Then again, there are lots of people I would love to meet in the US and we would do some travelling around the place cos Nathan has online friends there too. Lots of fibre festivals. Estes Park has a fibre festival in June, and it is about 50 miles away. Woo hoo! (what do you mean I haven't been checking these things out?) Lots of fiber websites that only post within the US. (I can see that my fibre friends here will be asking me to get them various things ;-) Amazing scenery. I'm told that Coloradans are real friendly people (did you know Australians say really friendly not real friendly?). New experiences. Snow! A real autumn. Summers that don't fry your butt off.

Some people have asked why we don't take the cats with us? We could but it would mean subjecting them to a day of being terrified and cooped up on planes in the hold, quarantine where we can't access them, costs that would mount up to being more than our own travel costs and then doing it all over again for the trip home. Australia is pretty strict on quarnatine - we are an island remember and do not have many of the diseases found overseas (we have our own special diseases instead, just like our animals are special). Quarantine here is particularly paranoid about things like rabies, but there are plenty of other zoonoses that we don't want here. There is a five month waiting period for quarantine accomodation for animals being brought back into Australia so you have to know about six months in advance of when you are coming home to a) get the necessary vaccinations and b) book your animals into quarantine. If we did take them, they are not indoors cats and if we live in a condo/apartment they could never go outside. Sigh. Pussy cats stay home. They will get used to having different people around. Also we won't have to worry about who will feed them if we go travelling for a week. If all this does eventuate I will miss them dreadfully but they are better off staying here.

Time to go wash some more fleece and skein up some yarn and dye some yarn up so I can get it online - you guys have nearly cleaned out all the sock yarn! Thanks! I only have about 10 more lots I can dye up to sell now. Won't be getting any more until this money thing stabilises. We got the VISA bill today. Nathan had to use the visa to pay for his hotel accomodation in the US. $700 Australian hurts somewhat. I hoped it would come through on the next visa bill (55 days interest free) but alas it somehow managed to sneak in under the wire. It should be reimbursed but it has hit at exactly the wrong time cos I have to pay $1200 in bills by the end of the month and the visa payment comes due then too. We will manage, somehow. DH has gone up to 0.8 of full time, which will make a BIG difference but will take about a month to come through.

anon!