I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the ACT, the Ngunnawal people. I acknowledge and respect their continuing culture and the contribution they make to the life of this city and this region.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Fleeced

After sleeping through most of yesterday (some of you read the now deleted late night drunken post, so you know why), today was catch up day - grocery shopping, garden centre shopping and delivering stuff around town with some light BookCrossing on the way. The idea was to spend only what had been budgeted and bring home only groceries and gardening supplies that would be immediately used.

I had to drop wool off at Mum's (8 x 25g vintage Totem in mustard and 6 x 25g mystery 8ply in purple) for her Voodoo Wrist Warmer marathon (stuff out), then the last lot of completed hats had to go to Stasia (more stuff out) and there was a bag of baby yarn for Lynne, a friend who has decided to knit premmie stuff for the hospital (even more stuff out). There was also the box full of books in the car to be BookCrossed. Postive de-cluttering activities you might think, but trust me, there are some well known pitfalls en route.

First stop the hardware shop for gardening supplies and a bolt to complete the skeiner. I spent $5.85 over budget for the gardening supplies (Flax Lillies, Convolvulus mauritanicus, and brachycome daisies). I love hardware shops almost as much as stationers. All those potential projects just waiting for the spark of creativity. Dangerous places, hardware shops but I managed to resist all temptations but the Flax Lillies were 65c per plant more expensive than I'd bargained for.

Then onto the groceries. The shopping centre I frequent has a very good newsagency. It gets all Vogue and Interweave titles and several other knitting mags. I'm relieved that today it didn't have anything in I particularly wanted to take home (Knit1 is now $19.95 - I don't think so!). The newsagency has also opened a discount book store in the same centre. The last time I was there I dropped $50 on knitting and cooking books in an instant. Fortunately others have found it and there was nothing I really wanted there. Phew!

The shopping centre has a discount shop that often stocks reasonable craft materials. Its yarns were 4 for $5 today, but fortunately they were feathers and eyelash styles in hideous colours.

There are also two op-shops in this centre, but today being a public holiday, I was safe from their siren charms.

Relieved to have got out of these potentially perilous parts of the trip and with the groceries done and $10 under budget and 4 books released, I dropped the hats to Stasia's and was cruising!

Again, the Yarn Goddesses laugh at all attempts at restraint. I got to Lynne's. Instead of handing over a small grocery bag of baby yarn, I swapped a small grocery bag of baby yarn for this.



Yup, it's an enormous gar-bag full of a quite fine Merino fleece. The poor sheep had two years' growth on it. It's mine for the price of a skein of the yarn I make from it.

11 comments:

amanda j said...

Ooh, that looks lovely. I have spent some of today playing with fleece, trying to make some very cheap stuff workable. Yours looks much cleaner and nicer, but because I am so well adjusted I am not even slightly jealous (cough).

Glad you recovered!

AMCSviatko said...

1. Bother. I thought the (as I suspected) drunken post was rather cute.

2. I agree with the WTF?! about Knit.1. How on earth, with the Aussie dollar being what it is, can they justify a $7 rise in price? That's a 54% increase!!! It's cheaper to buy it now off eBay US (even factoring in postage) than to get it locally!

I've emailed Knit.1 to see how much a subscription is. I suspect it'll cost about the same as two issues of their mag from the local newsagents. I'll let you know the outcome.

(And same to you Jo Sharp, although your "mag" only went up $3).

Denise said...

Aaawww, I liked your drunken post! Doesn't happen anywhere near enough ;)

Glad you've offloaded so much stuff - even books, well done. The fleece looks good - that'll keep you quiet for some time! I presume it has to be washed / carded and the whole shebang?

DrK said...

my head is spinning at all your shopping and knitting and blogging and i cant keep up and i missed the drunk post goddamn it!!!

AMCSviatko said...

I still have it on my bloglines. Bribes considered ;-P

Taphophile said...

There's always one smart-arse in a bunch, TSS. Usually it's me.

Kate said...

in vino veritas? Loved the drunken post and thought that, although you may not have felt comfortable with how much it revealed, you've a supportive audience. We luvs ya, honey!

Georgie said...

Damn it I missed it too! Whats yer price TSS?

What a day....all that snazzy sidestepping of potential budgetary landmines only to get torpedoed on the home straight, bummer!

I'm sure the Yarn Godess was laughing with you, not at you!

Taphophile said...

Nah, Kate - in vino dumb-ass. Everyone who's read the blog for a while was aware of the info about me, but I shouldn't have said anything about my neighbours - I would hate to embarrass or offend them. Neither was particularly likely, but it still isn't fair on others.

Everyone was very sweet at my silliness.

knitabulous said...

I love a drunken post, even though I missed yours.

I sent a few drunken emails the weekend before last, and guess what, you can't delete those!

I say there should be more of it.

roseygirl said...

Just stopping by to say hello, I haven't been here in a while. :)