Modern life offers many moments for incidental knitting

Remember this? It's the mystery 12-ply stunt wool from Taph's Tools last week.

Well it appears that this is an adventurous yarn. Red wool is like that, don't you find?

Anyway, it's had quite a week. It was spotted by the Head Honcho of my work place as I knitted and walked from the carpark this week. She admired the yarn and asked how long it took me to knit a beanie like this. When I replied, "Not time at all", I don't think HH believed me. It's almost true. It takes about 30 minutes of dedicated, not doing anything else but listening to audio books/podcasts/cds etc. to cast on, do the first round and the last 6 rounds of knitting.

The rest is done while other essential things are being achieved. Walking to work (not that I've done that in a while), walking to and from the carpark, waiting at traffic lights, standing in queues, sitting in staff meetings, in the down time during cooking dinner etc.

This weekend I got a few rounds done at the carwash. I love how the yarn matches the washing brushes.
It's now 2.3 beanies.

Output
Washcloths 27
Beanies 8.3
Victorian Cabled Wristlets (was mystery gift) 1 pair

Au revoir, Margit

Sad SnB this evening - it being the lovely Margit's last.

She departed in style by finishing a Carla beret - seen here

and bringing a garbage bag full of yarn for the swaps basket. Forgot to take a picture of that, but here's another one of Margie in her beret.

Kylie also brought some very noice yarn for the swaps basket. Here's Kylie being mugged by Lulu, Jejune's very naughtly lamb.

And for those lovely people who asked, here's the link to the Victorian Cabled Wristlets, one of which is modelled below by the ball winder.

These took 50g of Bluebell (5ply), knitted double.

For those who think that spinning is too slow...

I'd be more impressed if there was actual fibre involved, but it's funny nonetheless, and as close to spinning as I've managed in weeks.

The Short Post

So great to finally get to an SnB last night. Small but enthusiastic was the crowd. The Happy Spider came, fresh from moving into her new home, and newbie Caroline who's recently moved from the US and immediately found an SnB. She used to run one a SnB and she let me fondle her Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino and rub it on myself. She also wants to breed alpaca and got to the alpaca show on the weekend (I didn't need to know that). Definitely a kindred spirit.

Looking forward to Thursday night at Starbucks very much.

Output:
Washcloths - 25
Beanies - 6.3
Other finished objects - 1
Jobs - 1 (for now)

Gratuitous Westie pic - this is Rosie the last time she was groomed. Happy smile, non?

Taph's Tools - ball holder

Mum is home from hospital. She's not fully well but she's much improved. A needle biopsy will have to be done sometime soon as they accidentally found a mass in her stomach which now must be investigated.

Did not get to the alpaca show, dammit, but several woollen jumpers have been reclaimed, skeined, washed and await the application of the swift/ball winder combo to make them useable. We have pink Bluebell, chocolate Bluebell, green Herdwick and some red mystery 12 ply.

Wash cloth count 24
Beanie count 6
Mystery gift item 1/2 (I know I wasn't casting anything else on, but it's a present!)
Job 1 (for now)

Thought I'd begin a series of posts on my favourite knitting tools. Let's not get into the best needle debate - it's far too divisive (I'm not that fussed on my new Addi Turbos - 'nuff said).

Here's two favourite tools. Not originally designed for knitting use, they adapt perfectly well. Thank you, Mr Tupper.

On the bottom is my Tupperware digital scale. I LOOOOOVE this scale. It measures accurately, has a wide flat plate, takes up very little room, does grams and ounces and came with it's own batteries.

On top is the 1.5 litre Tupperware Rock 'n Serve. It's perfect to hold that ball of wool you don't want rolling around the place collecting dust and attracting pets. The vented seal is big enough to accommodate quite thick wool. Here the hand wound ball of mystery 12 ply is about to become a centre pull ball and below is a better picture of the container.

Score card

Thank you all for your warm wishes and support. I sincerely appreciate it.

The state of play is

• Mum is still in hospital and may come out some time this week. She's definitely improving. Dad is also improving, emotionally. In a fit of displacement activity (he cannot sit by bedsides), he has built a large open topped box in my back yard. It's 1.2 metres high, 3 metres long and 1.5 metres wide. It will eventually become my herb garden.
• Wash cloth total - 20.
• Beanie total - 5.
• Days to go until announcements about major changes at work - 4.
• Stress levels - beyond any scale you can conceive.

Code Blue

Absolutely gutted to have missed SnB today, ladies. You know that only the most dire of emergencies would keep me away.

Mum has been in hospital since Thursday arvo. Pneumonia x 2 is back with a variety of other little complications that affect treatment. We thought we would lose her on Thursday night but she's pulled through and, although weak, is improving.

Much bedside knitting has been done in the last 3 days. The wash cloth count is 17, and another couple of beanies have been added to the pile.

The beanies, in particular, arouse the interest of the nurses. Apparently none of them have seen knitting in the round before and there was an audience for the finishing off of one today so they could see it come off the needles and go straight on a noggin. Three of them tried it on and I didn't have a camera!

Posts will be intermittent, if at all, for the next little while.

Wasting time on YouTube

Tracey Ullman and Mel Clark at the Toronto Textile Museum uploaded to YouTube by Amy Singer of Knitty.

The post with no name

Too tired to come up with a cute post title, sorry. Things are happening at work that make life pretty crap but I can't blog about it.

Mum had cataracts removed from one eye last week which left her pretty wonky on the health front because she had to come off all other meds to have it done. She's not back to speed yet, but she's looking better ;) .

ALL of the teams I supported on grand final weekend lost, including my beloved Newtown Jets (go the Bluebags) who lost by a golden point in extra time. So devastating.

The long weekend, however, was not a complete bust. The generous and talented The Shopping Sherpa made me the most gorgeous knitting bag. Check out the photos on her blog . It's absolutely fantastic! I'm calling it my ANZAC tote because it was made by a Kiwi for an Aussie and has a digger knitting socks on it. It's also made from NZ frugalled denim and AUS frugalled sheeting and rick rack. Did I mention I adore it? Well I do. It's also just the right size for small projects like socks (it came with it's very own sock kit and a book on spinning and gorgeous red needles). It is also just the right size for my current knitting obsession, wash cloths.

Yep, I know I've been a little scathing sceptical about the usefulness of knitted wash cloths but both Jejune and Gillian have convinced me to give it a go. Made one for Jejune for her birthday and haven't stopped since.

During the clear up of stash (and there has been more than one go at this in the last month), I found rather a lot of 8ply cotton lying around. So I'm stash busting washcloths for Christmas. 36 are needed - 11 for boys, 25 for girls. That's one for each volunteer, one for each member of staff and a couple for "oops I forgot" gifts. Current accumulation - 10 wash cloths. Current rate of production - about 2 every three days. I'm well on schedule, but if you see me and I'm not knitting cotton wash cloths, please mention it.

Busting is also happening in the reclaimed and 12 ply stash. Hats for the homeless are on the needles and I'm doing about 1 a week just in the daily little gifts of time that modern living provides - like walking to and from the car at work, walking around shops at lunch time, standing in Medicare queues and waiting for meetings to start.

Operation Wipeout in September saw some gains. I unravelled, washed and skeined 4 jumpers and there are pieces of several more waiting to be skeined. Skeining takes away from knitting time, though, so they may wait for a bit longer. The back of the Celebate Vest is finished and during the football grandfinals, about 2/3 of the front was done, too. Err, other stuff was done, but certainly not all of it. Beyond the Christmas knitting, though, no new projects have been started.

Cannot get any pictures to load, sorry. More later in the week.

Clocket

Created by Christiane for Daniela whose podcast (Secret Knitting) blog I found this on. It does keep time, apparently.

Score!

Among other things pursued, dragged down and hauled back to the Taph lair from op-shops this morning was this for $4 (still in the shops for $30.95) containing 2 episodes I've never seen - so happy!

And two pairs of black Bally shoes for $6 each.

Stalking the Yarn Harlot

For all of us not in North America we get to join the Yarn Harlot on her book tour thanks to YouTube.



If it won't embed go here and look at it. It's by Freecia.

Curly Whirly Scarf Recipe

Hi, if you've come looking for the curly whirly scarf pattern, please click here.

It was lovely to meet you at the exhibition and thanks for looking.

The rest of you - get to the TASDA exhibition this weekend at the CSIRO Discovery Centre - it's an inspiring feast for the senses of sight and touch. If I haven't hit you up already - buy a raffle ticket and support Stasia Dobrowski's soup kitchen and have the chance to win one of nearly 100 wraps and scarves.

And the girls are feeling very pretty since their wash and cut on Thursday. That's Rosie without the bow and Peggy with. Peggy removed Rosie's bow almost immediately but resisted all efforts to take hers away. They are different, it just doesn't look like it at the moment. Their happy smiles are identical, though. They love being groomed.

Blue Monday

Was once a cardigan, but $1 and several hours of unpicking, unravelling, skeining, washing and drying later it is 515g lovely soft blue 4-5ply wool.



Dunno what it wants to be yet but I've had New Order's Blue Monday stuck in my head since I started winding it. Not a bad song to wind wool to, actually.

Wanders off singing, "... and if it wasn't for your misfortune, I'd be a heavenly person today..."

not completely idle

Sunday before last for Bek's baby shower/Tupperware party - we have mini cupcakes iced in lurid pink for girls and striking blue for boys. The ones in the middle are iced with the fruit of the passion. I thought it was funny at the time but I was a little punchy.

I really did finally put handles on Mum's loofah. I believe this was meant for her in April but that cr****t nylon is such awful stuff I managed to forget all about it. The handles ended up being cannibalised from a Bay Swiss bag. By all accounts it's fantastic and does the job. It's rough and Mum reckons it will never wear out. Just as well because I ain't touching that stuff again - not even for her.



Now to yarn reclamation.

Here is a lovely cabled jumper with bobbles (ugh) on the bottom picked up at Vinnies for $1.

Washed skeins weighted by water filled chip packets (new Smiths chips, a lot like Pringles but with reusable packaging on sale at Woollies for 99c each a couple of weeks back) dripping into the shower stall. There's a really good photo of the skeins but Blogger is being unco-operative.

Here it is wound into beautiful centre pull balls and weighing in at 683g. That's a lotta hats for the homeless for next winter for $1.

More mean than green

The non-cow post has caused some interest so I continue my personal review of products.

Butter substitutes ? well there really isn?t one. Nothing tastes as good as butter. I use a vegetable oil in baking where possible. Woollies sells a soy margarine (55% veg oil ? mostly soy) and there?s good old Nuttelex for those who can?t have soy or dairy. Both are reasonably awful. Nuttelex wins on several fronts (not on taste). It is salt-reduced, Australian owned and the container is square so it fits in the fridge better and makes the empty container more re-useable. Did I mention I often buy based on the re-useability potential of containers? I try to re-use packaging at least once before it is recycled. More mean than green I suspect but either way it?s better for the environment.

Mayonnaise also posed a non-cow problem. I?ve finally found a decent one. It doesn?t taste much like the sugary stuff I used to buy, but that?s a good thing. Sometimes one just has to retrain the tastebuds. The Norganic mayonnaise is fine. It comes with a ?delicious honey and lemon flavour?. Dunno about that, but it tastes ok and is good with chicken. There?s also a fat reduced version. This is an Australian owned company, too. I find it in the health food section of Woollies.

My icecream maker is a Krupps I bought for $20 at a Salvos store. It has two parts - the motor/beater which clips onto the bowl and the bow, the walls of which are filled with some liquid. The bowl needs to be frozen for at least 24 hours before use. For best results, ingredients also need to be as cold as possible. I usually keep the bowl in the freezer most of the year (not at the moment, even I think winter is too cold for sorbet) and make up a batch of ingredients the night before I need it. A family favourite is a big tin of mango, a small tin of passion fruit pulp, a little sugar syrup (artificial sweetener also works but doesn?t taste as good), blended, chilled and then sorbeted. Fresh fruit is, of course, best, but not always available ? tinned stuff works fine. If you want to skip a step with the tinned stuff, buy the tins in syrup and you don?t need to make any sugar syrup at all.

The reason I bought a second machine (also at a Salvos and yet to be tested ? it?s a Sunbeam) is efficiency and quantity. The Krupps makes about 750ml at a time and takes about 30-40 minutes to be ready. I need to wash and refreeze the bowl between batches, so even doing one batch early in the morning and one late at night I can?t always keep up with the demand of a large extended family. My nieces and nephew live 15 houses away ? my place and my freezer are very popular on hot summer weekends. Aunty Taph?s sorbet is also in demand for sorbet cakes for the two kids who can?t have soy or dairy and sorbet cakes are usually at least 2 flavours and 2 cake moulds full. Also, when the fresh fruit is available, time is important ? just like with jam making.

In knitting news, one jumper is completely unpicked, unravelled, skeined and washed. Just needs to be wound into balls and it's ready for a new life as hats for the homeless. Three other garments are in various stages of unmaking and should be done by this time next week. I'd forgotten how slow this process is, but it's worth it to save the yarn from the landfill.

Get Real

You are all aware, I'm sure, that Operation Wipeout is
a wish list rather than something achievable.

Yes, Gillian, I do love my lists and like you do the
little easy jobs first. I have been known to add
things to my lists in order to have the pleasure of
crossing them off.

Just the making the list gives me a bit of control
back.

As for soy products. I resent having to eat soy. I
love love love dairy products. My father's family
were dairy farmers for goodness' sake.

Larissa asked for soy recipes. I don't really have
any as such. The soy dip is one carton of Tofutti soy
cream cheese mixed with a handful of chopped gherkins.
With everything else I just substitute soy for dairy
if it's possible. Desserts are a problem. In summer
I make fruit sorbets. The icecream maker is in
constant use in the warmer months. So much so that
I've invested in a second one for this summer.

It could be worse, I have a niece and nephew who can't
have dairy or soy. That rice milk stuff is really
rank. It makes OK pikelets but cakes with it are
lumps of yuk.

OMG

THIS is why Margie wasn't so fussed on Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Carribean.

How could the people at Interweave do this to us?

Operation Wipeout

Work is a complete bastard and the family even more challenging than usual. I am unable to control those things much but I must be in control of something, so this is the plan.

*cue the Surfaries* .... September is Operation Wipeout. Here's the list so far:

1. Unravelling

• green opal sock (yep, I've called it a day with the mega sock. It turns out that I knit a whopping 2 stitches per inch less when knitting in the round - my gauge sucks like a Hoover) - 11/09
• grey Kiri shawl (this may actually be cut and chuck because it's in Cleckheaton Studio Mohair)
• navy Kiri shawl (also in mohair)
• all reknittable jumpers earmarked for hats for the homeless (there are at least 3 of these)

Aran with bobbles - 9/09
Mid blue cardie - 4 or 5 ply - 515g 11/09
Mint green baby hat - 4ply - 50g 12/09

2. End Processing

• press and wrap red baby jacket (10/09)
• sew button on Rough Day Ruff (01/09)
• finish embroidery on hats
• put handles on loofah (01/09)
• graft toe of baby sock A
• line workshop sample and make up
• cot sheets for Bek
• sew tassels on novelty yarn scarf

3. Knitting

• baby sock B
• finish lacy rib sock A
• knit lacy rib sock B
• finish JEC's jumper
• finish Celebate Vest
• finish boucle short circuit curly whirly
• finish navy matinee jacket
• find and do something about Angelina (this will probably entail much muttering, measuring and probably unravelling)

4. Prep

• organise hats for the homeless stash and equipment
• organise baby stash including patterns and equipment
• sort felted stash into colour

And then there's the Andean Plying Tools, the Niddy Noddies and the Lazy Kates that all need finishing.

Sometimes the outward sign of my inability to be in control is a radical hair cut (I wore a hat for 8 months the last time this happened), body piercing, contemplation of a tattoo or compulsive furniture moving. Another sign is the need to finish all projects currently underway and to over organise the various stashes. I think finishing projects and over organising the stashes is more positive than the other options.

Non-cow food

A note about non-cow, mostly soy products.

Yup, Margie, the soy cream cheese was Tofutti. The one I used for the dip was the plain one. There's also a herb flavoured one which is yummy, but it's hard to find. I've only ever found it in Coles' at Woden. It's not Philly but it's pretty good. I'll have to give the jam and tofu trick a go. I like mine spread on toast with home made pumpkin and sweet corn soup. You must be onto something though because the website has a recipe for a raspberry cheesecake. I don't recommend this company's fake cheese though.

There is a good soy yoghurt - King Land. Comes in a variety pack of peach & mango, strawberry, berries, blueberry.. The tubs are half size but the yoghurt is fine - not gritty which is the problem with most soy yoghurts. Also, it says it's organic and non GM. I'm told there are 250g tubs around, but I've never seen them. Pity because I prefer the berries to the other flavours.

Can recommended, the Sanitarium So-Good Chocolate flavoured soy drink. Not low fat but yummy. So yummy that only one litre a fortnight is allowed in this house. Sanitarium's So-Good Chocolate pretend ice-cream is ok, too. Not the real thing, but not too bad for the ice-cream deprived.

I find I can't have cow or goat's milk products, buy sheep is fine (go figure!). Lemnos make a very nice sheep's fetta. http://www.lemnosfoods.com/lemnospdf/fettapacks.pdf

If Sanitarium, Kingland, Lemnos or Trialia Foods would like to sponsor this blog, that would be fine. Am prepared to take food, or fibre, for comment.

Break in transmission

I'll be off air for a week or so - promise to look in on you all when I get the chance.

Hate the sin not the sinner...

That song has been stuck in my head for the last two days and seems appropriate here. Well that and my secret love for bad boy Robbie. Oh the shame.

Yes I was a victim of child cr****t abuse. My mother cr****ted me a purple cotton bikini with matching poncho. Those of you have met me will understand how very very cruel that was.

We also had in our house, not one, but two cr****ted swan centrepieces. It has been my mission of many years to purchase all known patterns of this particular crime against taste to prevent other impressionable youngsters from suffering as I did. And now I find that Interweave has it as a freebie. Oh the inhumanity.

Pity me and understand.

PS I did macrame as a child. My mother was forced to display spider plants over the bath cradled in wonky cream pot plant holders and a really hideous macrame owl wall hanging. I think we can consider that some payback for the cr****t. Or, horror of horrors, the cr****t was payback for the macrame. A vicious cycle of evil crafts.

Et tu, Jejune and Spidey?

See how liberal I am. I allow your defences of the evil craft through unmoderated.

It's just me and the Yarn Harlot against the tide of crap.

Saying the hook is useful as a knitting tool for picking up stitches etc is fine. Using an electric chair is a great way to crisp up some vegies, but I don't want to put it to the purpose for which it was invented.

Scrapbooking is pretty dire. I did a workshop in it once (long story, it wasn't voluntary) and it was scarily persuasive. Mind you, so was the Knitting with Dog Hair book and certain extremist political movements, but it doesn't make it right.

Cr****t rant (yes, another one)

Right, none of you had better ever try to convince me of the validity of cr****t again. No, I mean it.

Sometimes I feel really mean taking the piss out of cr****t and then someone does this. Go ahead, look. I'll wait.
http://thecrochetdudepatterns.blogspot.com/2006/08/glass-flip-flops.html

Now I really hope he was being at worst whimsical and at best subverting the form, but I think he's quite serious about this.

I am an equal opportunity blogger. I think it's great that guys do needlework. More of them should. If more of them did we might get taken a bit more seriously. Do you really think we wouldn't be allowed to knit or even cr****t on planes in this country if the blokes in suits up at the pointy end of the plane knitted? For goodness' sake, they're called airCRAFT. But back to my point. I don't think it's stupid because he's a guy or even that it's cr****t (I could so knit one of those) but because it's a useless, tasteless waste of time. And just as I was coming round to the whole dishcloth thing, too.

To answer Kylie. The wool on my needles in what some may call gold, others may call mustard and now that I'm nearly halfway up the back I am secretly referring to as baby shit yellow, is a vintage Villawool 5ply crepe. I'm knitting a vest. We are calling it the Celebate Vest because I am not sleeping with the person it is being knitted for. Mon has a rule that she only knits for people who provide sex - she puts out so they should.

Thanks ladies

SnB was a tonic - thanks to you all. Much less grumpy now.

Aussie Junk

Yes, Aussie Junk is habit forming and deserves a frugal look.

It's Revolve by another name and at the Mitchell Resource Management Centre, aka The Tip.

You need to do a fair bit of digging to find gold but you can be lucky. Week before last I got a very large plastic tool box for woodwork, two videos (The Shipping News and Charlotte Grey), several uncut paper patterns including one for a really dinky apron which I'll share another day, some cotton wool on a big roll rather than in cotton buds, a couple of books for the collection at work and two intact 70s orange Tupperware containers for $5 the lot.

Pricing is variable and based on how the guy on the cash register feels at the time.

Weekend in Pictures III

Baby's first bobbin. Don't laugh, I know it's pretty average. The skein's at my parents right now - I'll photograph it over on the weekend.


That's my wheel, Bertie. If you look really closely you'll see some cream Corriedale cross on the wheel bobbin and some more of the brown stuff on the lazy kate to the left on top of the basket.


Quick trip to Aussie Junk at the Mitchell tip before making my way to the National Hockey Centre to watch a pretty poor match between Australian and Korea. Unispired hockey but where else do you get to an international sporting test for $10?

Cute timber box to hold sewing/beading supplies. 50c at Aussie Junk


So this looks like a child's toy, right?

Not now I've replaced the badly cut and drilled pieces of timber and with bobbins. Lazy kate, number 2. 50c at Aussie Junk.

To the left is my first attempt at navajo plying with the corriedale cross. Extremely bad attempt but I'm looking forward to trying it again. The green on the new lazy kate, is "Mermaid" colourway desisgned and dyed in cross breed by the Happy Spider. It's beautiful, Spidey, thank you. :) it will be plyed on itself eventually.

Here it is in it's green, fluffy glory.

Weekend in Pictures II

Sunday Op Shop

I love it when Vinnies opens at 9am Sunday and they have a all clothes $2 sale.

Bought this little lot before spinning on Sunday morning.

All pure wool jumpers, some very good brands, all destined for a very hot wash or two and recreation as felted home wares. Also in the pile is a sheer chiffon navy blouse with ruffles doen the front as well. Very Miss Moneypenny with my pearls and a wicked bra underneath. ;)

Blogger's doing the I hate photos routine again, so more later. Off to woodwork now.

Weekend in Pictures Part I

Hopefully the my whingey evil twin from the last couple of posts has gone away for a while - sorry about that, folks.

Saturday Craft Fair book stall buys.

This one was REALLY cheap and the technique is interesting if not the application in this instance.

Can see it being useful for making floor mats and stuff. I will so too make floor mats, so shut up all of you.

Gillian, I blame you for the Knitter's Stash. Well, that and I read somewhere last week that the author had just died. Seemed like I should buy her book. It's lovely. I almost want to knit dishcloths. Almost.

Sensational Knitted Socks is just that and it has tables for large legs and feet and lots of different patterns with instructions for working 4 needles, 5 needles and 2 circs - so worth the very expensive price tag.

Luckily the Happy Spider and I bought completely different books and we're sharing types. Her jumper book is lovely, too.

Don't have a photo of the lovely sock yarn I bought. It's a cotton and wool blend, with just a hint of stretchy stuff and nylon. Predominantly cream with black and caramel. Knitted it looks like an Affogato.

Phew!

Thanks to you all for posting such lovely comments. I will now assure you all that my father will NEVER EVER EVER get a handmade object from me again.

Our little love-in of last Saturday was over within 12 hours. My mother has pneumonia and was in bed for most of the week before and a goodly bit of this last week, so I've been doing the cooking, shopping etc. for them. No biggie, happy to do it. That night as I'm washing up, Dad let's me know that they are expecting visitors to come and stay with them starting this Saturday just passed. No amount of "MUM HAS PNEUMONIA AND ISN'T UP TO HAVING PEOPLE IN THE HOUSE" dissuaded him. The competition for most selfish man on earth is pretty stiff, but the search is over - I have a winner.

Combine it with my runny, oozy, hacky cold and the launch last week of a major project that we've been working on for 2 years and I'm just a little stressed and ready to use my super sharp dpns on my nearest male relative.

This did not, of course, prevent much knitterly activity.

I finished the "Here and There Scarf" for Mum on Friday night. She loves it. Here she is modelling it for you. Please remember she's been REALLY sick.

The moss stitch Patons Velveteen scarf was finished the week before and she's been wearing it pretty much non-stop.

Mum's very tactile, so she loves how the chenille and the moss stitch play against each other. Because it's knitted double stranded on large needles it kind of looks woven.

Do you like how both scarves match her favourite top?

I had anticipated taking one of the visitors to the Craft Show with Miss Maree and me on Saturday - largely because to get the visitor out of Mum's hair and because I'd promised Miss Maree I'd go to the craft show with her. Visitors didn't arrive until mid afternoon, so Miss Maree and I went on our own. Having been assured by Spidey that it was safe to go because their were only two yarn stalls (and I won't buy from one of them because it's run by a workshop Nazi - I'll tell you the story of last year's arm knitting workshop fiasco one day), so I was confident of just being able to trail around with Miss Maree looking at paper craft, country kitsch and other easily resistable stuff. I was not told there was a craft book seller there! These books just followed me home. Well, I'd show you them, but Blogger's being a bastard again. To be continued.

Today I reached a significant milestone in my relationship with Dad.

As many of you know, Dad and I have an intense and difficult relationship. We love each other to pieces (although we got on better when I lived 300k away rather than 300m) and we argue like you wouldn't believe. We are very simliar, but he's had 25 extra years to become a stubborn, "I'm know best and want it my way - NOW" control freak. And he's male.

Of the many things that truly irritate me about Dad, is his inability to take most of what I do seriously, particularly if it's a "boy" activity.

Knitting is different because that's women's work and it just happens anyway. Women's work is, of course, much less important than men's work and must be really easy if Mum and I can do it. This is amply demonstrated by the many occasions on which he has given away a jumper or cardie knitted for him by my mother. My mother is an aran knitting genius and all of Dad's jumpers and cardies are works of art. He does not understand her less than enthusiastic appreciation of his cavalier disposal of her works of love.

Dad is not mechanically gifted. When I was a child my mother, who has an amazing mechanical intelligence, took evening classes in woodwork. She made me a piano stool, my brother a toy box and herself a hall table with exquisitely turned Queen Anne legs. For Dad she made a timber brief case and a dart board case that he'd always wanted. Not only did the dart board case never get wall mounted, he sold it for $2 at a garage sale and Mum gave up woodwork.

He openly mocked my enrolment in woodwork classes. However, before he knew exactly what it was and that I'd made it, he exclaimed over the beauty of the Adam swift. Since then he has tried to deny this, but I know that he remembers.

Dad recently had to remove an old organ from his Lodge. The new organ didn't fit into the timber organ case. Because he can't dispose of anything that may be of use to someone (I told you we were alike) he saved the timber and offered it to his brother-in-law. Uncle Max has not responded to the offer in anyway and this morning Dad said, without prompting or even me looking sideways at the timber, that if I'm doing this woodworking stuff, perhaps I would like it.

So there you have it. My father has made a significant step in his personal growth and our relationship by acknowledging, in his own special way, that I can do something he can't and by supporting me.

This is a good thing, right?

Before you answer, let me remind you that this now means I have a timber stash.

Weekend's off to a good start

Thursday night SnB was great. Lots of lovely women doing lots of creative things. You ladies completely rock.

Spidey gave me a bag of spinning fibre that she dyed all for my very own. It's called "Mermaid" and it's gorgeous. All different greens with a little bit of purple in there too. Can't wait to get started on it but have to do my homework for spinning class first. Will attempt photography tomorrow.

Met a friend for an early dinner at Manuka tonight. Being librarians we chose to meet at Paperchain, one of Canberra's superior and independent bookshops. The last time I was there the design section, while really good, was noticeably lacking in knitting literature. Not so tonight.

Having fallen in love with Norah Gaughan's "Here and There" cabled scarf (nearly finished, Mum, promise) and finding several of her patterns from a 1991 Vogue Knitting International that happened to fall into my op-shopping bag last week, and having been told it has some larger sized patterns in it, I have been lusting after her newest book, "Knitting Nature". The woman is a cable genius, and if there's one thing I like, it's a good cable. So I didn't even hesitate to buy the only copy in store - AT FULL PRICE!

Didn't hesitate in buying this, either. Also at full price.

Not good enough? Well dinner was lovely - lamb tenderloins in a honeyglaze with a tomato and herb salsa followed by crepes with warm berries and icecream. YUM.

We were joined, serendipitously, by a researcher that Sue knows who is doing his PhD on Australian musical theatre to 2000. As it turns out he needs to use the performing arts collection I've been building at work! He's already been commissioned to write a book and he will be one of our first serious researchers to use and publicise the collection. This is EXTREMELY significant for us and very timely. You really can't imagine how excited and pleased I am.

Got home to find a lovely thank you card from my SIL's SIL for the red baby cardie I made for Baby Penelope way back in Feb. It's lovely to get a thank you.

Enough excitement now, I'm making a pot of tea and will be communing with Norah and Stephanie for a little while.

Even the thought of cleaning all day tomorrow in preparation for a month of visitors back to back is not as daunting tonight as it should be.

Hope you all have a fab weekend.

OMG, OMG, OMG (literally)

I was reading Yarn Harlot the other day and looking at her most recent travelling sock.

"That looks like Spidey's Socksual Healing Cancer Cure sock", I thought. "Nah", my thoughts replied, "couldn't be the same" and tried to dismiss it from my mind.

The thought kept bugging me, though - pesky thought. Reading a more recent post the Harlot mentioned what the yarn was - Opal sock yarn #3207. I still have the band from Socksual Healing so being the obsessive that I am, I checked.

OMG, OMG, OMG it's the same - does this explain the now legendary healing powers of Spidey's socks? Is this the Yarn Harlot's first recorded miracle worked through her acolyte the Happy Spider? Should we notify the Vatican that we have a new Saint in the making? St Steph - patron saint of sock knitters.

On a different topic - happy birthday to any horses reading.

Here and There Cabled Scarf

The "Here and There Cables" pattern is from Scarf Style by Interweave Press.

It's very simple but looks quite complicated. The trick with it is to trust the pattern. It's a seven row pattern, six rows of which are 3x3 rib. the cable row is weird and I did it several times before I learned to trust the designer. It just didn't do to over think it. Because the pattern is over an odd number of rows, it's completely reversible. I'm loving it. I can't really post the pattern - that would infringe the intellectual property rights of the designer, Norah Gaughan.

It's not just the pattern I'm enjoying, though. The wool is wonderful. As a knitter raised on Totem and Bluebell, a smooth crepe yarn feels "proper".

The pattern calls for a bog standard 8ply and 4.5mm needles. You need the slightly larger than normal needle to keep the fabric from stiffening up under the cables.

I was going to post pics of my weekend's bargains, but the camera has dead batteries. Let's just say that I committed knitterly sacrilege by buying two products made by this company. Look, they were $8 each and the FIT ME!

The viking slayed St George

Dad and I spent the afternoon at the footy. This week it was Rugby League. The Raiders beat St George 31-12. It was a well played match and we had good seats. They were pretty much on the half way line and close enough to be able to actually see the players.

I knitted Mum's plush scarf.


It would have been finished by now but last night she decided it was too wide. It was pretty wide, but it was also nearly 5 feet long. *sigh* So I unravelled few rows, then started knitting a new scarf straight from the old one. Still, she likes the colour and the texture, so at least it will be worn and appreciated.

I couldn't resist casting on the "Here and There Cables" scarf for her though. All that novelty yarn had my fingers yearning for wool. I picked up 9 balls of this Sirdar DK crepe for $7 in an op-shop a while ago and mum loved the colour. It's a great yarn to knit with - smooth and springy. The pattern is interesting enough at the moment and grows reasonably quickly. It actually looks much better in 3 dimensions than in a photograph.

Nothing finished, this week, darn it and lots of things started. Oh dear startitis has struck. :)

The week in review

Wow, it's been over a week since the last post. It really doesn't seem that long at all. Possibly because I spend time ready all your blogs and feel my work is done.

The week started out just fine. The eBay auctions have been going really well. Most things are selling and some things are selling very well indeed. It's hard work being an eBay mogul, but that's ok, because no-one pays me to sit and knit or read blogs. The aim is to pay off the car debt as quickly as possible. That's a lot of sewing patterns and old needlework kits.

Op-shopping was great last weekend and included a visit with the Happy Spider at her work. She introduced me to her boss as a woman she knits with. He smiled, nodded and asked if I was knitting anything at the moment. The silence that followed was stunned and broken only by the grinding of Spidey's teeth. I managed a strangled "Why yes, I do have a project or seven on the needles" and Spidy and I repaired to the cafe to roll our eyes and imbibe caffeine.

I may have missed the ball-winder, table loom and knitting machine that The Shopping Sherpa found, but a quick trip to the shop on Monday netted about 400g of divine mauve lace-weight, 180 g of apple green lace-weight and 350g cream 8ply.

Sunday was the first day of spinning classes at Canberra Spinner's and Weavers. I suck at spinning and after two hours of doing nothing but treadling, I still can't get an even rhythm. I am practicing. In an "only in Canberra" moment, where there's no such thing as 6 degrees of separation and 3 degrees is only for very recent arrivals, the only other student in the class is the daughter of a West Highland Terrier breeder who has worked very closely with my breeder. In dog and Canberra terms, that makes us related.

Gratuitous Westi pic: Here's Rosie who was very happy to be allowed on a couch at last.

Sunday arvo and Tuesday night SnB's were great as usual. Lovely to be with my knit sisters, even if I got exactly no knitting done at either event. Sometimes it's all about the bitch.

It was at this point that the week started heading for the toilet.

Mum and Dad, who should be on their annual northerly migration for the winter, are back 6 weeks early. Dad discovered what has turned out to be an agressive malignant melanoma. It's pretty bad but it is small and age is on his side. Apparently it's better to be older in this situation. They drove home Wednesday and he has an appointment for more tests next Friday.

Not to be outdone, Mum developed one of her killer nosebleeds Thursday evening and spent the night in Emergency. It's really scary when you can't stop a gusher like that. She's home now and we're hoping for a uneventful weekend.

The dogs are pleased to see the parents back, but Peggy misses having Rosie here all the time. Of course she resented having to share me when Rosie came. Bloody dogs.

Good things happened in the midst of all this. Thanks to Gillian who sent me a fantastic scarf pattern inside a Horacek card!. The day it arrived, my mother asked me to knit her a scarf and I have excatly the right wool in stash to do it. Of course, she needs a scarf sooner than I can knit 6 feet of cable in 8ply so my current project is a scarf for Mum. I'm moss stitching Patons Velveteen doubled up for a soft, warm and quick scarf. Thank heavens for Sue who donated a large bag of this stuff. Can't photograph it now, but will do so before I give it to Mum.

Jejune's back safe from holidays and that makes me really happy, too. :)

Can't stop progress

Look what I finally got done! It's the back of the cabled tunic for JEC. Yeah, it was due last October, but I've done the back, the sleeves and 1/3 of the front. It's so nearly there. Um, yeah, there is a tide mark where I left the knitting for several months but I reckon it'll block out - right?








And this, Baby Blues Hat.

Recognise the yarn? You might if you read this post.

Ms Spider gave me the scraps of the Socksual Healing yarn. It's divine.

I used some more of it in the yoke of a baby jacket last night, but found the colour I was teaming it with didn't work. More unravelling this morning *sigh*. Into the yarn compost for the time being, I think, to be used to enrich another project at a later date.

Gutted

See this beautiful colourway? It's "Kelp Forest" by the happiest spider of them all, Happy Spider.

It's handpainted 4ply and I thought it would make a lovely baby jacket. It does, it looks great, I just underestimated the amount I would need by about 30 rows. Drat. It's soooo lovely.

Here it is just before I unravelled it this morning. I think it might end up as hats and socks for little people, rather than a jacket.

Spidey and I spun on Sunday. I suck at spinning, but I enjoyed it none the less. If you've read her post you will know we went to the fibre fest at the Old Bus Depot Markets before repairing to Othlon's birthday tea where we enjoyed the company of fibre friends, took much refreshment and knitted.

I was reasonably restrained as far as fibre, and my constitution, allowed but I did buy a few tools to add to the kit.

I got a couple of merino and silk blended tops for spinning,


two sizes of niddy noddy and a nostepinne for myself and some lace bobbins for Carl. I'm going to attempt to replicate the niddy noddies and the nostepinne in woodworking class, and my fellow woodworker, Carl, wanted to play with making lace bobbins.

Tuesday SnB tonight - yay. :)

Happy Birthday, Othlon!

Join me in wishing Othlon a very happy birthday.

Hope you had a fantastic day, Othlon and that it was full of food, family and fibre.

See you tomorrow for the "Festival of Othlon's Birth", Part II. :)

I found you a Goth Knit Ring - how cool is that?

FO: Yarn swifts

Finished these nearly a fortnight ago but have been unable to photograph them until now.

These are the yarn swifts made of my own two hands. They took a very long time (6 weeks of woodworking classes) to make and when they were done, I cried because I am a sook and because I've never made anything from wood before. I call them "Adam".

These are made of jarrah, with a pine dowel as the spindle and I am very proud of them. I was going to sell one but find I am unable to part with either of them just yet.

To my great relief, they work. They will go at high speed with a ball winder and not topple over or try to take flight.

Yarn swifts look simple to make. They are not. It's not just me who says this, my very experienced woodwork teacher thinks so, too. I didn't have a pattern. I copied the dimensions from a really horrible old swift I bought of eBay at an inflated price, made some alterations to the design (natch) and made everything from scratch. Next term I'm making more swifts, but in a simpler design. To do them I'll need to shape wood, so I had a practice with the lathe on Monday night and made these.

Idiosyncratic 12mm dpns made from pine dowel. They aren't quite done yet. I have to steam the timber to get the marks out made by the clamp on the lathe, lightly sand and then estapol them. They will either be great dpns for all that floofy wool I bought not so long ago, or I'll be able to trade Buffy something for them.

Be alert, not alarmed and the bliss of emergency knitting

We were evacuated from work today for just on two hours. It was a bomb hoax.

While all around me were losing theirs, I knitted. I stood in a walkway near the library stopping idiots from trying to cross the "do not cross" tape at the library door, took stuff for returns from people, had a quick cup of coffee and helped with a cryptic crossword, and I knitted.

My colleagues were looking at the knitting with some longing and more than one suggested I pass it around for everyone to have a go. My response was that it was knitting, not a joint. Smug is so becoming!

Nearly done with a red matinee jacket. Would finish it tonight but I have to clean and tidy this tip of a house before I am smothered in clutter or contract a really bad disease associated with dust accumulation.