All the colours of the rainbow?

Sorry for the extended hiatus. I'm not sure what happened although I have been reasonably busy. Sometimes, though, I feel as though I can't really be bothered stringing words together and this week seems to have been one of those times. I have hardly even emailed my daughter in England!

Yesterday our spinning group had another day together where we had a good look at the fleece we had dyed. Now that it has all been rinsed (thanks to yours truly - have you ever had to rinse out 4 kgs of fleece before? No? Believe me, it is hard work and takes ages!) and dried the colours seem more vivid than they were at first. Nearly every colour of the rainbow was present in some small way. Many of the piles (there must be a better word to describe these small blobs of coloured fleece!), because of the very nature of the dyeing-wool-in-the-fleece-beast, are multi-coloured. For instance, some of the blues have quite a bit of green in them and the greens have a fair bit of yellow mixed in. Very pretty when you really look closely.

Each of us took several piles and began to separate the locks and comb/card or started to spin from the straight away. I was a little concerned that maybe the piles would have become matted from all the rinsing they needed and the compression when the whole lot were rolled up together in storage once dry. Surprisingly, though, the majority separated out quite nicely and, with some, it was even possible to spin without combing first. This fleece was a Border Leceister, though, which I think helped a lot. If a finer, more felting-prone breed was used the outcome may not have been so good. This is something any would-be Dartmoor dyer should take into account.

I chose a pile of red/orange/yellow fluff to comb and spin. Not my normal colours (if there is such a thing) but really pretty. Especially as we are going into Autumn here. The colours are reminiscent of bright Autumn leaves - think sugar maple! Very nice after the dull brown I am still churning out (about halfway or slightly more now). I'm not sure what I will pair this with. I think I'll wait until I have plied it up.

We are all going to work on something small for display at the Club's Open Day in May. Hats, maybe fingerless mitts. Who knows? Should be pretty and colourful.

Last time I was here I spoke about my "petting zoo" - my stash. Since then our family all went toan animal-type zoo, Orana Park in Christchurch, for our grandgirl's 3rd birthday. What a lovely time we had walking around the extensive grounds and seeing all the animals in as close to a natural environment as NZ, enclosed spaces and considerations for their particular species can give them. It was amazing to be separated from a large Sumatran tiger by only a plate glass window!

The kids (3 and 15 months) really enjoyed their time there. It was lovely to see little children really enjoying a close encounter with different types of animals. For as far back as I can remember I have loved animals so it gives me a little thrill to see that love being passed on to yet another generation. Both my sons and my daughter love animals also. Perhaps this is why my son and his partner chose this particular place for a birthday trip.

Another special thing for me was being able to go through an enclosure with different types of native birds in it. I missed several of them but I did manage to see a tui (pictured) for the first time and the kereru (wood pigeon) was so close I could have reached out and touched it! I know there are both in the native bush not far from here but these birds are not always easy to locate. We are often visited by bellbirds in the garden here, though. In fact I heard one singing its beautiful song this morning. Tuis, although a little more showy in the looks departments, do not have the same singing voice!



Giraffes are another of my favourite animals (I'm not sure if there are any that are NOT my favourite!) but this time we weren't supposed to go quite so close to them as we used to be able to. Not to be outwitted, my sons grabbed my camera and climbed the small gate and got up onto the higher platform to get me a good, in-your-face photo of them. I don't really approve, but I wasn't saying no!



Well, that is about it for today. Other things are calling out for my attention. Hopefully there won't be such a gap between postings. And, just maybe I'll have photos of the spinning of the fleece!

New Additions to my Petting Zoo!

I realised a day or two ago that I had not shown you the skeins I had bought in Nelson while on holiday in February. Bad blogger! So here goes:

Yes, I know only five little skeins, but at least that is something. From the left we have a lovely soft 200g skein of slub yarn from Touch Yarns. This skein is unbelievably soft to the touch and such pretty colours which are fairly true on my monitor but perhaps a little more muted. Plans for this yarn? I have no idea, but I am open to suggestions! Although there is no length stated on the label it does say that the yarn knits as an 8 ply on 4mm needles.

To the right of this skein is another offering from Touch Yarns, this time a super-soft 4 ply fine wool in a lovely deep red, not quite as pink as the monitor shows. Again there is no yardage stated but the skein weighs in at 100g. I'm not sure about a final destination for this one - perhaps a scarf (either long or triangular) or a mobius.

To the right of this, again, is a tiny little offering of kashmir sari ribbon from Yarntraders. Very pretty in shades of pinks, reds, purples and teals (do I see a pattern here?) the label states the skein weighs in at 50g and is a mere 19m long! It is 90-100% silk. To its right there is another skein from Yarntraders, Makula, 80m of 100% recycled cotton. The usual pinks, purples and blues with a fair smattering of orange and yellow in it.

On the far right you see a 75m skein of Banana Silk from Yarntraders in the colourway "Magic Carpet" which appears to be spaced dyed red, blue. pink and turquoise. The label describes this skein to be rayon made from banana palm fibres. It has a slight sheen, is spun fairly thickly but with some thinner patches. It is quite dense and heavy for its size - it weighs 200g.

I have been thinking of making these last three skeins into a scarf knitted lengthwise maybe finding a woollen yarn to work in along with them. Not sure yet. I wouldn't mind making them into a small bag but I'm not sure how to combine the three and would I have enough to do this? Again, suggestions welcome. But I am not averse to having them sit here in my stash and bring them out now and then to look at, dream about and maybe pet a little!

Busy Week!

I hope that you will forgive me for the long interval since my last posting but I have been rather busy. Last week was Dyeing in the Park day for our Spinners and Weavers group. This time, we had decided to dye a fleece using a method written about in our Creative Fibre newsletter (the newsletter received by all members of Creative Fibre New Zealand) - Dartmoor Dyeing. This involves 4 kilos of fleece in the grease, 4 dyepots and 4 colours of dye (red, yellow, blue and green) as well as several willing helpers. The end result is 48 colours of fibre and several happy, and tired, ladies.

To try and cut down on the time involved on the actual dyeing day I weighed out 3 piles of fibre and split each of these into 4 bags. This worked really well as each pile of fibre was the same size. I had also made up the dyes to the specification of the recipe so that there was the correct amount available and measuring on the day was kept to a minimum. If using this method with these dyes (Teri Sandolan Dyes) again I would perhaps make the concentration of the red dye (red B) at least half as strong again. Or even double. It exhausted rather well on the day meaning there was little left for the second dipping.

Perhaps I should explain this method a little more - the fleece was divided into three equal parts. These parts were further divided into four parts. The first set of four parts were put into the dyebaths - one part into each - and simmered for a while. They were then taken out of the dyebath and divided into four parts. One part from each dyebath was kept aside as a clear colour while the other parts were put into the other dyebaths. After more simmering these were taken out. The dyebaths were replenished with more dye, salt and vinegar and the process gone through again with the next of the first three parts. This happened again for a third and final time.

Confused? I think it is something you have to do to understand! Anyway, the upshot was 48 small piles of fibre in various shades hues and tints! Quite amazing, really, considering we started with a fairly large, greasy fleece! All of these piles were wrapped up in a sheet which I took home. I now have the "lovely" job of rinsing out all the piles and drying them. I am a quarter of the way through. Because of the grease in the fleece each pile is needing to be rinsed about three times trying not to subject it to too much agitation. I would hate to ruin all our hard work by felting it all.

Another thing keeping me busy for a while was a visit from the Grandgirls! We had them for the whole weekend (from Friday night until Sunday afternoon when we took them back). Kind of a challenge considering their age (almost 3 and 15 months) but enjoyable for the most part. a visit to the local park was a hit. They loved watching the wallabies (or "wobbalies" as the 3 year old said at first! Sad when she changed it to wallabies before the day was out) and playing on the playground equipment.

Another thrill was watching the 15 month old walking! She had been taking the occasional step up until the Monday of last week, then it was all go. She is almost running now! Funny how some kids don't do things until they can actually do them properly. I think she may get this from me!

This week we spent a rather large chunk of money getting an HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilation)system installed. Too soon yet to tell if it is going to be worth it but I do know there is a huge amount of heat in the roof space to be tapped. We live in an old (about 100 years old) wooden house with high ceilings and an iron roof. The living area heats up nicely with the log burner but it can be difficult to heat the bedroom areas. I don't know how much longer we will be able to have a log burner, either, as my husband's back makes it difficult to cut firewood as well as the relatively new regulations regarding log burners. Our old one will be illegal in a few years and the new ones do not stay in all night. Hopefully, this system will make an improvement to the temperatures throughout the house as well as keeping the house dry and the air clean.

Spinning - well I spent about half an hour yesterday on the merino/soy silk. Not much to show for it! Knitting - haven't been able to settle on it this week. Hopefully progress to show next week.

In which I feel a little let down

My copy of Interweave Knits arrived today. At last. I must be one of the last people in the world to receive it! But I needn't have worried - I don't think I would have missed much if it hadn't arrived. I think the only thing in it I would consider knitting is Grumperina's Roza's Socks.

Everything else, to me, is rather ho hum. I kind of like a few things but the shape or the neckline or whatever is not my cup of tea. For example, why on earth would you make a v-neck with one side longer than the other? It makes it look like you knitted it wrong. Or that is what the non-knitting public would think at any rate. Otherwise, that top is a very nice, classic little piece. A little unfair of me, I guess, to single out that one particular piece but that is one that annoyed me. I like balance and that top offended my sense of balance!

Also, did anyone else notice that a few of the garments look like they should have been a slightly larger size for the model? In no way am I saying the models are too large. Not at all! But just a couple of the garments look ill-fitting to my eye. Take the Dollar and a Half Cardigan that many seem to be raving over. A very nice cardigan but the button band is gaping and the sleeves are a tad too long. Also the Bauhaus Fair Isle (again a very nice jersey) should be longer in the body length as well as in the sleeves for the model. Shouldn't it? Or am I just being picky?

Maybe I am just put out that the magazine I have been haunting the letterbox for has been such a disappointment. I hope this is not repeated in a couple of weeks when the books I have ordered from Amazon arrive!

My apologies to anyone who notices my favourite blogs list in the sidebar. The names seem to be awol at present. This will be rectified as soon as I know why it has happened and how I can fix it! Thank you for being patient with me.

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I was amazed at how accurate this was! Thanks to The Knittin' Coop for this.

Looking Back

On Knitters Review a few days ago there was an interesting thread about the largest items we had made from handspun yarn. As I have been spinning for a number of years my mind was cast back over a variety of projects I had made. They were mainly jerseys my children (when they were smaller), my parents and myself.

My favourite, though, is a jersey I spun and knitted for D close to 10 years ago. I bought the 60% wool/40% mohair sliver (colour = Midnight Sky) at the Creative Fibre Festival in Greymouth in 1997. It had been dyed and carded by Rotocard (no website). The firm has since changed hands but they still have the same colours, as well as some new ones. Although the spinning is a little inconsistent (thicker at the beginning getting a little finer as I spun on) I was really pleased with the final product - soft and not too fluffy. The base of the sliver is black wool with the colour coming from the mohair which was not overly carded into it leaving the colour coming in clumps rather than becoming a homogenised mass.



I wanted to knit the jersey in the round. Never having done this before, I used Elizabeth Zimmermann's percentage system which I found described in an old Spin Off magazine. This worked really well although, if I used this pattern again I would increase the number of stitches in the sleeve. A little tight for today's styles, in my opinion. Some of the colours came out more strongly in some skeins than others (for instance, one of the sleeves has a decidedly yellow cast) which, if I had been more careful I may have been able to even out a little but overall I was really pleased with it. Like the spun yarn, the knitted fabric is soft and silky but not too fluffy. The mohair has raised a little over the years but is still not too "fluffy" for a man to wear.


Even today, D wears his jersey proudly always keen to tell people who ask about it (and there have been many!) that his wife spun and knitted it from scratch! Just thinking about it makes me think that maybe I should get cracking and make him another. After all, this one is nearly 10 years old! Still going strong, though.

Want to see something?

Ok, time for some knitting content on here! I have been slowwwwwly working on the socks I started while on holiday. I like the colour and I like the Slipped Stitch pattern (from Knitting Sensational Socks by Charlene Schurch) but I'm not really sure they marry up well. I'm not going to rip them, though. Too much effort wasted - it seems to take me ages to knit a pair of socks. I really don't know how some folk can churn out a pair of socks in just a few days!

It would be nice if there was a real choice in sock yarn here. Apart from Opal, which is available fairly widely now, there only seems to be dull, boring mens-type colours around. Or is the real problem the local shops around my area? Yes, there is a huge selection available at the click of my mouse button but the cost of shipping is fairly high. I have bought yarn from Elann (who can resist??) a couple of times but I would go bankrupt if I did that too often! At least the sock yarn in my stash will last quite a while at the rate I knit socks (or anything, for that matter!) so I shouldn't be moaning.

I have been making a real attempt at sitting down at my spinning wheel most days, if only for a little while. The consequences of this are a tiny little bit of spinning up on the soy silk/merino blend I bought a few months back.
Not much to show for my efforts but, in my defence, it is being spun fairly fine. For the more technically-minded it is somewhere in the vicinity of 40 wpi. I just checked. I intend to navajo-ply it when I have finally spun all 100 gms (this may take a lifetime!) so it may end up being around 12-13 wpi. Does this sound about right? Unless I decide that I do want to punish myself enough to knit with it as a two-ply at around 20 wpi.

So that is it as far as my craft-efforts go. Unless, of course, you count the meeting on Monday. That was craft-related. I must write up the minutes today, too. Darn.

Goodbye sweet friend

In Loving Memory of

Libby

June 2003 – 14 February 2007

Sadly, I can't find a photo of my little sweetheart but I will keep looking. She was a mini-lop rabbit (the one with the floppy ears) and was given to me by my daughter for my birthday in 2003 (as far as I can work out).

We didn't have a cage for her at the beginning as she was a surprise present so Libby lived on the kitchen floor for a few days. That may seem gross to some but it was the only hard floor we had that could be kept secure and relatively bunny-friendly. That is where dangerous gaps and electrical cords could be eliminated. At night I would catch her and pop her in her box for her own safety.

She was never a cuddly bunny - it got increasingly difficult to catch her at night - but she was so soft and cute! Then she grew up. Not being overly friendly meant that I sported toothmarks in my fingers on occasions. But I always forgave her. She wasn't the first rabbit we had looked after but I never realised that bunnies can growl and hiss - until I met Libby! She was funny when she did that. As long as you got your fingers out of the way quickly enough. I soon learned - do not play with the food!

I'm not exactly sure why she died yesterday but she was still warm when I found her. Probably the one time I could give her a cuddle without a struggle.

Goodbye Libby. I love you.

A driving we will go!

Well...so much for getting a post up quickly after we got home! If you know me well you will already know that I think about a lot of things but often don't act on them quickly! Never mind, I am here now. But be prepared - this could turn out to be a long post!

I had hoped to post before we left for a week's holiday but that never eventuated. Sorry about that but some things do need to come first. Things like housework - there is not a lot worse than coming home to a house that is yuck and untidy! Also I needed to get things organised for a couple of meetings I needed to attend the day after we were due to arrive home. But back to the holiday.

D's cousin and his wife, who live in Nelson, were to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary early February. Invitations had been sent out to all the rellies far and wide. Knowing we would be rather stressed out after a month of houseguests (yes, in my book your own kids can still rank as houseguests!) we thought it may be nice to go up there and help them celebrate.

The more I thought about it the more I thought, why not make it a nice little holiday. All our married life the only holidays we had taken were spent at relative's homes (yes, I will admit, all but one night of even our honeymoon were spent at the rellies!). This was mainly because of finances but also it was the only chance for D's parents (well, his Dad, anyway) to see the grandkids. But with no kids at home now and only two guinea pigs and a rabbit for a friend to look after (as opposed to the dog and 20 sheep, 10 hens and a cow or two in the past) we thought, what the heck - let's go!

So 4 nights in Nelson, return ferry tickets to Wellington, 2 nights in Wellington, and 1 night in Christchurch were booked. The car was packed and on the morning of Wednesday 31 we set off! Yay! A real holiday!

Even though D is from the West Coast neither of us had heard of the Maruia Falls until our son stopped off there early this year. The Falls are on the way to Nelson (we decided to go the inland route) and were well worth the short walk from the carpark down to the river as you can see here. This view is looking across the river from the carpark off the road.

When at the waters edge you look up and across to these hugely wide (by NZ standards!)falls with the water pounding down on the rocks below. Created in 1925 by the Murchison earthquake, these falls are only a baby on the world's time scale but are, to me, so beautiful. Like a mini-Niagara!

We got to Nelson without incident and found the motel we were booked into - clean but not flash. Not a problem. Thursday was spent looking around town and visiting D's cousin.

On Friday we packed a lunch and travelled west towards Motueka which isn't really as far as I had thought. On the way we stopped off at the Hoglund glassblowing place just out of Richmond, a sort of suburb of Nelson. Beautiful work - but some was really expensive! There were some vases/decorative pieces with a price tag of $24,900.00!!!! They were handblown first then handpainted in a kind of Picasso-type style then handblown again overlaying it all with clear glass. Nice, but not my style and definitely not my price tag!

We carried on from there and found a lovely campsite/picnic area at Ruby Bay. It stretches a couple of kilometres along the coast below the road up on the cliff. It is long and narrow so everyone camping there isn't bunched up together and everyone gets a lovely sea view. There are a number of toilet blocks dotted right along the camp as well as two or three blocks with two showers/toilets! There are also heaps of water taps right along as well as basic wood-fired barbecues, a campervan waste-dump and a quite-nice children's playground. The whole place, including the toilets, was nice and clean and well-kept. Even I could be tempted by it! We had our lunch there sitting at a picnic table looking out over the bay towards Nelson. After lunch we took a long, leisurely walk along the beach up to the point then back to the car following the road going through the campsite.

Motueka was only a few kilometres further down the road. A nice little town which seemed to be buzzing. We had a look through the museum there, good but not as large as the one here. Had a cool drink on the way back at a lovely little garden/cafe place where I got some good solutions for some parts of our garden at home.

Where is the knitting? I can hear some grumbling! I didn't have a lot of room in my bag for much but packed some Opal yarn for another pair of socks. (There was also another ball or two of yarn stashed in there but that didn't see the light of day!) I cast on for the socks on Thursday morning while waiting for D to have a shower, and got a couple of rows of the ribbing done, but that was about as far as it got that day. More got done on the boat to Wellington but otherwise sightseeing was more important!

I did intend to make another pair of the Embossed Leaves socks by Mona Schmidt (see one of my early posts for a photo of previous socks) but have since decided to use the Slipped-Rib Stitch from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch. I think it may look better in the self-stripin Opal than the Embossed Leaves. That is such a pretty pattern it deserves better than Opal, IMHO. I like Opal but I sometimes wish that it wasn't, well, quite so stripey!

Anyway, that is enough for me to write, and you to read, for one day. I will carry on with tales of our holiday next time.

If I lay here...?

I love that song (the one played on Gray's Anatomy) but I can never remember the actual title or artist! Never mind, but it is kind of appropriate for today as I am sitting here with my leg propped up on a chair. Most uncomfortable as it is my right leg and my computer desk works better with the left leg propped up. Ask me how I know!

The reason? Tuesday morning I woke up and noticed my right shin was a little itchy as if I had an insect bite. Not again, I thought. For the last two or three years, every January like clockwork, I have had an insect/spider bite on my lower leg (till now, the left one) to which I reacted badly. The first year I couldn't wear a shoe for a month! It appears to be the same this year although the bite mark is not so obvious this time. A trip to the doctor, then the hospital (the joys of living in a rural area are travelling 30 mins (45 km) to the nearest hospital so that the results are available quickly) for a blood test to rule out a clot. No clot, but possible cellulitis. So it is antibiotics for me with instructions to stay off my leg and keep it propped up as much as possible. A perfect opportunity to knit - if I could only decide what to do! As soon as I divide up the bal of Opal I have in mindI will cast on for another pair of socks.

I have had several emails from K - she is fine, has found another hostel in London to stay in for a week or two (too expensive to stay there too long) as is enjoying seeing the sites. She has applied for a job or two but is feeling a little discriminated against when trying for supermarket-type jobs. It seems most grocery people there are Indian or Pakistani and she was told there was no job for her there. This was when they had a job vacancy sign out! Never mind - she would probably be better living, and working, out of London anyway.

Thanks, Bess, for your comment about the scarf! The photo definitely do the scarf any justice but I really liked it too! So warm and cosy and really quite easy to make. I am tempted to make one for me as well!

Sorry there are no photos today. I tried to take some of the Comet McNaught which we have been able to see on clear evenings, but they didn't come out. A pity as it is really quite interesting. Amazing to think we can see a ball of ice and dust which is hurtling through space so far, far away. We are told the tail alone is several million kilometres long! You may have to be satisfied with this photo from the Waikato Times. I couldn't find a link to our local paper.

So, until next, take care!

Catch-up at Last!

Finally I am back! The last month has been kinda stressful and fairly busy which is why I haven't posted here since before Christmas.

Our middle child, T, and his partner, S, came, along with the two girl darlings, to stay for three weeks while T was on holiday from work. Because he hasn't worked a full year with the firm he doesn't qualify for the full amount of holiday pay. Plus, as they get paid fortnightly, he wouldn't be getting paid for two weeks once he went back to work. Sucks, eh? So they all came to stay with us to help cut down on expenses.

While they were here T and S worked a couple of days picking strawberries and T worked a full day picking cherries. Also, on the few fine days we had, he started to prepare and paint our house for which we paid him. The house is nowhere near finished but it is started which is definitely an improvement!

Having two young, active little girls in the household was definitely a challenge! H is 2 3/4 and l is 13 months - they are sweet but definitely not perfect! Special bonds and memories have been forged, though. Something that is more difficult when we only see them occasionally for a few hours at a time.

The day they left my DH, D, went to shift our eldest, K, back here for a week before going overseas. We now have all of her things stored here again. This includes all the furniture and appliances from her house, clothes, books etc! Just when it was looking like the car would be able to fit in the garage soon!

Last week has disappeared oh, so quickly, and suddenly it was Sunday - the day K flew out. We drove up to Christchurch airport picking up my Dad on the way and calling in to see her two brothers etc on the way.

After two hours of waiting around after K checked in it was time for her to go to the departure lounge, the last time we will see her for at least six months. I really don't know how parents carry on if a child dies. I am feeling almost as if I will never see my beloved daughter again! Silly, I know, but it is how I feel.

OK, time to get over it! At the moment K will be flying somewhere over Europe. She is due to land at Heathrow in about 4 1/2 hours so I am guessing she will be rather tired by now. 10 1/2 hours to Singapore, 4 1/2 hours in the airport there then 14 hours to Heathrow - enough to make anyone exhausted.


It will also be rather cold for her when she gets off the plane. Coming from somewhere it is supposed to be summer and going directly to another place where it is winter is rather a shock. But she has warm accessories! I finally finished the scarf to go with the fingerless mitts and hat I made her for Christmas! Yay! It may have come down to the wire (I finished it in the car on the way to the airport) but I did finish it. :) (Forgive the poor photo - I had to take it while we were travelling!)

With that finished I will have to get back to some of the other UFOs I have on hand. The decision as to which one will have to wait for another day. There are a few things I really need to get onto in preparation for our little holiday. Yes, we are taking a holiday too! Something that doesn't happen very often but we have decided to take advantage of D's cousin's 50th wedding anniversary (he is a fair bit older than D). We are going to spend 4 nights in Nelson (where D's cousin lives) then cross over to Wellington on the ferry and spend two nights there. I really want to see the Te Papa museum which, I hear, takes at least a day.

After that we will cross back to the South Island via the ferry and drive down to Christchurch and spend a night there. The next day we are going to Akaroa for a short cruise around the Akaroa harbour on the Fox II which is a two-masted ketch. Should be really good! Then it will be home again in time to go to the first spinning meeting of the year the following day. I must say I am really looking forward to it all. The holiday, that is.

'Tis the Silly Season!

It most certainly is the "silly season"! The time of year many (including me :( ) spend way too much money and run around like a chicken with its head chopped off trying to get everything done before Christmas comes! I will have 11 at my table this year. I am not really a good hostess so I do find all this rather stressful, especially on top of the stress of finding presents for everyone. And paying for them. Then there is the cleaning and getting the house ready! So what am I doing on here? Procrastinating, that's what!

We will also be having our son, T, his partner and the two Grandgirls staying for three weeks followed by our daughter, K, for her final week before going overseas. I am looking forward to having them all here. But... Stress and I don't make good bedfellows. Need I go on?

I am in the middle of the scarf mentioned earlier. Progress is very slow as I don't often feel like knitting these days. Too many late and broken nights' sleep have made me rather tired. No end in sight there so I will just have to get over it. It will be finished before K leaves even if it isn't finished in time to give to her for Christmas.

So much for more serious things, now for a little lightheartedness! I stole this from ?! I can't remember where but it is on several blogs. Go ahead and try it just for fun!

Your Elf Name Is...

Flakey Hot Chocolate

What's" Your Elf Name?

And this one came from ?? (I put them in my blog a few days ago and, especially at this time of year, my memory is often suspect!) Just enjoy!

You Are a Traditional Christmas Tree

For a good Christmas, you don't have to re-invent the wheel. You already have traditions, foods, and special things you bring out every year.

What Christmas Tree Are You?

As I am unlikely to get back here for a while, I wish each and every one out there a very merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year! May the joy and peace of Christmastime be with you all!

Christmas is HOW close?

Isn't it amazing how quickly the week slips away from you and suddenly you are looking at the end of another week - again! Especially at this time of year. I was hoping to be really prepared for Christmas this year but with only just over two weeks to go I am not there yet. Is anyone?


I do have most of the presents bought or I know what I will be buying. The ham for Christmas dinner is ordered and will be ready to be picked up on the 20th. I have written out a "menu" for the dinner but have yet to ask others to bring particular dishes. Nothing fancy, just plain and simple - the way I like it!


I have bought a couple of CDs of Christmas-type music so we can have something playing softly in the background. The only Christmas music I had was on a tape and I no longer have a tape recorder. A pity as I did like that tape.


I started putting up some decorations yesterday. I bought some cheap fairy lights and have strung them around the room. They look quite pretty with the lights out at night but may have been better with some tinsel strung with them. Maybe an idea for next year. I am hoping to get the tree up later today. I'm not very good at these decorative things but I would like it to be pretty for the little ones.


Yesterday (6 Dec) was a Big Day for the littlest one (our youngest grandgirl) - it was L's first birthday! I wish we could have been there but will just have to be content with going up there on Sunday for her party. I did ring them but L isn't much for talking on the phone as you can imagine! I did hear her in the background grunting for whatever it was she was wanting. She is resisting learning to talk preferring to point and say "aaah, aaah, aaah!" until she gets what she wants. Maybe it's a second-child thing as I think I can remember her father doing that too.


Before you get too bored (if you haven't snored off already!) I do have a photo - I finished the hat that matches the fingerless mitts from a while ago and finally took a photo of them yesterday. I am quite pleased with how it turned out. I used the basic hat pattern in Ann Budd's book (sort of) and included the same cable as the mitts. I fudged the decreases at the top a little so that the knit stitches between the cables remained as long as possible. As with the mitts I knit the hat on two circs. The scarf is still a work-in-progress having knitted about five complete cables. Photos when there is more to see!

There has been a fair bit of controversy lately on KR about the pink Denise circular needles. I have long wanted a set, particularly as I would like to try Cat Bordhi's mobius pattern and I can't buy a long-enough circ here. The pink set made a good excuse anyway, I thought, to buy the set knowing that I would also be donated a little to a good cause. So what if it is donated in the US rather than here. My sister had breast cancer four years ago so now I need to have yearly mammograms (yuck!). All is well with her, now, but may not have been if it hadn't been detected early.

Whatever, the set arrived this morning and is so pretty in all of it's pink glory! I love it and can't wait to use it. Once I have finished the scarf there may just be a mobius in my future!

Enough time on here, I think, time I was getting back to my Christmas preparations! I hope your's are going well, too.

An Ending...and a Beginning?

The little baby jersey has been finished (the buttons bought and sewn on) parceled up and delivered to my sister's home ready to be given to the new baby boy. In the end I was really quite pleased with how it looked even though my seams are not really the best. I guess I am more happy to have it finished and given than have it sitting around not being used while I worried about perfect-looking seams. As if any little baby would worry! What do you think?

The shawl in the background is one my MIL knitted for one of our children 20+ years ago. Unfortunately there are a few holes in it presumably from moth-damage. Do moths eat acrylic yarn? I have tried to repair some of them but darning and repairing are not one of the things I do well (the older I get the more seriously I look at myself and realise that there aren't many things I do well! Is this normal, I wonder?). So the shawl sits in the cupboard as it is, a sweet reminder of times, and people, past.

With the NZ dollar still holding out strong, I recently decided to buy a few more knitting books from Amazon to add to my growing collection. I am not sorry I did! Yesterday morning the courier braved the cold, wet conditions to do his job once more and deliver my three new books to my doorstep. Maggie Righetti's Sweater Design in Plain English, Nicky Epstein's Knitting Beyond the Edge and Jane Sowerby's Victorian Lace Today now await my reading (and drooling) pleasure. I have been able to flick through VLT - very nice! The photography is lovely and the history is something I look forward to exploring further. Whether I eventually knit anything from this book remains to be seen, but there certainly is a lot of scope for dreaming. Knitting Beyond the Edge looks to be as good as her previous books but once I caught sight of VLT I was hooked. I will save KBtE for later.

On Sunday my friend K and I travelled to the "city" (it is officially a city but is rather small by world, and even NZ, standards) for the annual Market Day on the Bay. This was the culmination of the Rose Festival week celebrated here each year. We really enjoy going to this each year. There are many stalls selling all sorts of bib and bobs, some good quality and others not so. As it is a rose festival there are always several stalls devoted to all manner of plants including, of course, roses.

This year I bought two roses for the garden (I use this term loosely when talking of my particular garden. I have plans but this is as far as I have gone!) - one is a lovely white English rose Glamis Castle the other, another English rose, William Shakespeare. The latter is a beautiful deep red/burgundy with an amazingly lovely perfume. I used to have this at our previous home but it died when we tried to transplant it. I hope this specimen will have a longer, happier life! I was particularly drawn to this rose, not only because of its outstanding looks, but also because of its name. My grandmother's maiden name was Hathaway and family legend has it that we are, in fact, descendants (or more likely relatives of) Shakespeare's wife Anne. Nice thought, anyway.

Another smaller purchase which made its way home with me was this - a handmade shawl pin. To fasten those dream-shawls with? I rather like its slightly rustic look although the end of the pin may be a little sharp for comfort. Cute anyway.

It was a pity that our day at the Market was a little short-lived. Soon after lunch really dark clouds gathered and proclaimed in no uncertain terms that the already dubious weather was going to become worse. And soon! K and I went back to the gardening-stall area, collected my roses, and made a dash back to the car-park. And none too soon. Huge drops of rain began to fall as we were scurrying for shelter. Once we were in the car and on our way the rain began to fall in earnest sending the stall-holders rushing to cover their goods. We were very pleased that we had had the good sense to come away when we did remaining relatively dry and happy with our purchases. Maybe the weather will be better next year.

A Long-time Blessing

A short post today with no pictures, sorry. I hope to have one next time as I finally finished a UFO yesterday after a hiatus of four years! A friend of mine gave birth to a little boy four years ago and I started making a cute little jersey for him for when he was about three-six months old. The weather would have been cooling down by then.

The knitting went fine and it was looking really cute. Then came the sewing up. This is the part of knitting that I really don't enjoy - possibly because I am not that good at it. I have never managed to master the mattress stitch (I wish I knew someone skilled at it who could actually SHOW me how it is done - books just don't cut it for me in this area) and have usually used my own type of stitching. It has never come apart (which is good) but it is not always extremely neat.

Anyhoo, I sewed the sleeves in then pinned the sleeve and side seams. Something was wrong! The jersey is knitted in two colours (pictures next time) and the stripes were not matching up. They were only a few rows out but enough to really, really bug me. I don't like giving a friend something which is not "perfect"! So it sat and sat. I was not about to take out the sleeves - my sewing in is permanent and I was not about to try cutting out the stitches and have the thing fall apart!

In the end I didn't give my friend the jersey. So it sat in the cupboard - out of sight but not entirely out of mind. Meanwhile, my son's partner, Shad given birth to our two beautiful grandchildren - both girls. So the jersey sat some more. While it is not THAT masculine I wanted it to be for a boy. Also, S doesn't handwash. Her decision, but I don't like risking my handknitting in the washing machine so not much of my work has ended up there. Very sad.

Recently, my sister told me that her son's ex-girlfriend (who was now living with another guy) had given birth to a son on Saturday. She is going back down south next week but my sister is really worried about her. She is not quite 19 and will have no family support where she and her partner live. They also have very little money. This area is notorious for its very hot summers and freezing cold winters. So I thought of my little, ill-fated baby-boy jersey. I got to yesterday and sewed up the side-seams (thank goodness wool really is rather forgiving!) and wove in all the ends. It isn't quite perfect but still looks sweet! I will buy some buttons today and put those on and take it round to my sister. I hope the jersey will finally become a blessing to this new little one.

A Little of This and That

Eeeek! I see that I last posted on Sunday and here it is Thursday again. Time certainly flies, especially at this time of year. With Christmas nearly upon us there are still several birthdays over the next month. First up is D's (my husband) burthday on Monday. I knew it was soon but had forgotten just how soon - until he reminded me. Nothing like a supposedly grown-up guy who still thinks of himself as a kid! Doncha just have to love 'em?

After that it is our youngest grandgirl's turn to have her very first birthday on 6 Dec. Party day is on 10 Dec. L is becoming such a sweet little cutiepie! Shopping for her present was a pleasure but not easy when you know that Christmas follows so closely.

The other family birthday is for my nephew, J, who will be 21 shortly before Christmas. As he lives in Melbourne, Australia, I didn't think I would be getting him anything but my sister tells me she is going over there for his birthday. I'll think about it. $ are tight all year round but especially at this time of year. And what do you get for a 21yo nephew who seems to have most things he needs?

I did buy another birthday present while I was in town this week. This time it was for our daughter, K. Her birthday isn't until June but she will still be overseas then so I got it now. After all, she will need it while she's away to take all the photos I expect to see! (Have you guessed that it is a camera? An entry-level digital that isn't excellent but none of us a camera-buffs. It'll be fine. For now.)


I have done some knitting this week - I finished the pink wristwarmers and am halfway up the hat. Sooo lovely and soft! I should have finished that hat by now but some days I really can't be bothered to knit and the last two or three days have been like that, even though the weather was quite cool until today. I decided to have a fold-up brim on the hat for extra warm around the ears, and because I think it looks better. I hope to get three repeats of the cable pattern before the decreasing comes in. It should look ok, I think.

I have been think more about a dyeing project than my knitting in the last few days. A little while back I learned of a dyeing method, called "Dartmoor dyeing", for 4 kg of raw fleece where you end up with 48 little piles in various shades and tints of the original 4 colours. But I needed a fairly large, preferably white, raw fleece. And I didn't have one! (oooh, time to get excited - fibre-buying time!)

I didn't want to spend the earth on a fleece, either, in case it didn't come out very well. Where could I find a nice, soft but not too fine, white fleece? With sheep farmers all around here you would think it would be a fairly easy task - but not necessarily so. Most breeders I know of that breed for spinning have coloured sheep. The white breeders tend to shear their sheep on an 8-month rotation and send the wool to the buyer. A fleece which has only grown for 8 months is not really long enough for nice, easy spinning.

At the same time all this thinking was going on, I had a spinning wheel on TradeMe (a NZ version of ebay). It sold to a local lady! (Yay, no packing and shipping!!) It turned out I knew this lady. She and her husband breed sheep and she is a spinner. I had been going to ring her about my quest but kept forgetting to. To cut a long story slightly shorter, she brought me four fleeces to choose from when she came to pick up the wheel. I now have two, large, lovely white fleeces in my dining room (I must move them, but where to? Not really enough room in my craft room! I don't want to run the risk of moth-damage in the garage.) one for me and the other for our spinning group. I thought it would be a good group project for our annual dyeing-day in March.


I have already thought of what I would like to do with this wool (once it is dyed and spun, of course). Isn't it absolutely gorgeous?! It is from a Japanese book I learned about on Knitter's Review. I think that I like every project in this book. But it is all in Japanese!

We do have a member of our spinning group who is Japanese. She spends part of the year here and the rest in Japan. I thought she was due back here in October but so far I haven't seen her. I hope she is ok.

But, back to the book, I think I can understand enough from the charts to be able to work the colour pattern out. My spinning will no doubt be at a different guage to that of the pattern so some tweeking would be inevitable even if it was in English. I think I will start with the hat. That should give me an idea if it will all work out.

Here is a photo of the book in question. I bought it through YesAsia (sorry, I will have to look up the link sometime). It took a while to arrive but was well worth the wait. There are some really nice cable patterns in the book as well as a nice entrelac one. Can you tell I really love the book?

Sooo...that is much of what has been occupying my life and thoughts over the last few days. I wonder what the weekend will bring?

What Flower Are You?

I am an Echinacea What Flower Are You?

For want of a "proper" post this may have to do today! I would have liked to to have been a rose (sigh!) - an echinacea seems so...boring. Not sure that I am all that health conscious either!

A little bit busy...

Isn't it wonderful how life gets in the way and nearly a week passes before you can get back to your blog? Well, that is how it goes with me, anyway.




Last time here I promised photos of some fibre which happened to come home with me. Sorry it isn't a very good photo but it is enough, perhaps, for you to get an idea of them.

The white fibre on the top-right is 100gm of carded polwarth. I have wanted to try out some Polwarth for quite a while but all the previous rovings I have seen had a bit too much vm in it for my liking plus they seemed a little too coarse and scratchy. This roving isn't too bad on both counts so it was allowed to join my stash!

The pale fibre at the bottom of the photo is 100gm of very fine "honey" merino. I think the "honey" they refer to on the bag is the colour - a moorit colour. I don't know what the count is for the merino but it seems to be fairly fine. I just liked the colour!

On the top-left is a darker lot of fibre. This is 100gm of a merino/soy silk blend that is named "fudge". Again, the colour? I could have bought a pure soy-silk roving but felt I would try out the blend first. I have started spinning this into a fairly fine yarn which I think I may navaho ply. I have noticed that it needs a fair bit of twist (I'm not a technical person so I won't even try to say what ratio I'm using or how many twists per inch etc. I'll leave that up to those who know about such things!) which, I suppose, is the merino content.

All of these fibres came from a Blenheim carding firm, Rotocard. The link is for their email address as I don't think they have a website. They do sell some beautiful coloured fibre. I especially like their wool/mohair blend. The present owners have only had the firm for about a year and have carried on with the past owner's colourways. I am hoping they will maybe bring out some new ones in the future.

Well, that is the very little bit of spinning news. I have done a little knitting in the last week as well. I wanted to try out something simple while we travelled north to celebrate our youngest son's 20th birthday. The journey takes about 1 1/2 hours so there is a little time to knit. I thought I would start a pair of Pocketbook Slippers. This link is for the adult sized slippers but when I first found the pattern there was also a pattern for Wee Ones, which are the ones I knitted.

The slippers are so tiny that I managed to knit the first one and part of the second. Not bad for someone slow like me! The colour is rather off on my monitor - it is a really rich, deep red which I really love. I used some leftovers of Naturally Tussock, aran weight. I really like this wool and have used it for slippers before. I guess they don't look a lot like slippers but the foot goes in the space one of the "handles" makes and the ribbing on the bottom stretches to accomodate quite an amazing range of sizes. I intend making a pair in the adult size one of these days.

You may have noticed that I haven't said anything about the lovely wool/angora blend yarn I balled up and sampled recently. That is because I haven't even finished casting on for that yet! I am still afraid that I won't have enough yarn for my size. So I am procrastinating yet again! Yes, there is a story behind my procrastination habit - Many long years ago, when I started high school, I took Latin for the first two years (don't laugh! My mother made me do it - she wouldn't let me take french and typing like I wanted. I had to take french and latin instead). In the week we were expected to cover our exercise books so they would stay tidy. Of course, I didn't get around to doing it in time and had to write out lines - procrastination is the thief of time. Only, I had never heard of the word procrastination and didn't know what it meant. I thought that the teacher had said proscrastination is the theme of time! It has been ever since! Ha ha!

In the meanwhile, I have bought some pale pink mohair to make my daughter some fingerless wristwarmers from Wendi Dunlap, a hat and a scarf (patterns still to be decided). A bit strange considering we are heading towards summer do I hear? A little, maybe, but my daughter is going on her OE to England in January - going from the middle of our NZ summer to the middle of an English winter! I don't think she really has any idea what it could be like. Being a good mother, I have been a little concerned about her ability to stay warm - hence the wristwarmers etc! I have finished the first wristwarmer and am about 1/4 of the way up the second. Photos later. I must say the first one is lovely and cosy!

On Saturday we will be going back up north for a double birthday celebration dinner for our son and his fiancee. Maybe more knitting will be done in the car on the way up. Time will tell!

In which I whinge just a bit!

Sorry, folks, if I have been "missing in action" for a few days. Sometimes life just gets in the way, for good or not so good.

Good news is that my youngest darling is now 20! We went up to see him, and the rest of the clan, on his birthday on Wednesday. Nice to catch up with them again. I really don't like not seeing the kids on their birthdays, hence the mid-week journey. There will be a "proper" celebration next Saturday as his fiancee turns 19 on the Friday so both families will have a get-together meal at a venue yet to be decided. Hopefully somewhere a little quieter than last year.

Not so good for me was the following day. It was one of those days where just about everything was (how can I put this politely?) absolute yuck! the last spinning meeting for the year was messy.

After that I had to go do my bit for a local non-profit organisation I have been connected with for the past 12 years or so. I have been the very-reluctant secretary there for the past three (?) years but I have never been happy with this position and have always felt, and constantly warned them, that someone else should be found for this position. I only took it on in the first place as a temporary fill-in.

But, I have decided - no more! I will not put up with public criticisms month after month. Like a stone beneath a dripping tap I have been worn away until I feel that I must put an end to this before my health suffers. Yes, it is a bad time of year to find a replacement (the work and meetings (and stress) carry on right through the holidays) but that will not be my problem.

All this has made for a decided lack in my spinning and knitting so I am sorry there are no photos as there has been no progress. (Oooh, I lie! I have made a tiny pair of slippers but I am not sure where the link is for the baby-size pair. They are really cute but you will have to wait for a photo.) Progress on the wool/angora jersey is halted at present. I am really amazed (and ashamed) at the number of stitches I need to get for my size and the gauge it has worked to for me. I really don't know if I will have enough yarn and I know I will not be able to get any more. So this has stalled before it really got anywhere. Maybe I should wait until I lose some weight? Yeah, right!

Maybe tomorrow I will be more in the mood for taking some photos of the latest fibres to come home with me. They aren't very exciting to look at but at least it would be something. Mind you, I guess I should be attending a working-bee at the above-mentioned organisation tomorrow. I'll see how I feel about them tomorrow.

So, until next time (when I will try very, very hard to be in a better mood!), cheerio folks!

A finished object at last!

Firstly, a huge thank you to all those who have left your kind comments here! I really get such a thrill that you have taken the time and trouble to wade through my ramblings. Being new to the blogging game, I am uncertain on the etiquette for comments - whether to answer each personally, off-screen or on. I have chosen not to answer individually (it is my blog after all, and I can set, or change, the rules!) but please know that I do read them all and appreciate each and every one! If this contravenes any unwritten blog-law, please let me know. I am, or try to be, a law-abiding citizen after all!

I haven't been totally non-fibrecrafty lately. No,
I have actually finished my long drawn-out Embossed Leaves Socks by Mona Schmidt
They have taken me a fair while, not because they were difficult, but because I didn't feel like knitting much of the time. Not sure why, just couldn't be bothered. I'm sure you get like that sometimes, too. Anyway, here they are. I knitted them out of Opal sock yarn - Petticoat 1290. I'm not sure if I really like the colours myself (I tend to prefer blues, reds, pinks and purples) but I think my daughter, K, likes them so she may be the recipient. We have the same sized feet which makes it really easy to knit socks for her!

I am now playing around with a gorgeous, hand painted wool/angora blend yarn by Marnie Kelly of Touch Yarns here in NZ. It is soooo soft and really nice to knit with. I bought it at an Open Day held by another spinning group about 18 months ago. Marnie had a jersey (sweater/jumper/pullover/whatever!) on display with the pattern and yarn as a kit. But the pattern doesn't include a picture of the jersey! I can't really remember what it looked like apart from liking it. So this could be a rather wonderful journey for me!

I don't think the pattern sizes are quite large enough for me (no, I'm not HUGE - just a tad overweight :) ) so I was a very good girl and tried out a gauge swatch yesterday. Yes, I know, the cable on the left is wrong at the bottom - I wasn't reading the pattern correctly - but it is good enough to give me an idea if I can use this pattern. It calls for 300 gm of this yarn (see - it is sooo light and soft!) and I have 400 gm. Enough for some size leeway, do you think? I will give the sample a little bath and check the stitches per inch after that.

This pattern also calls for knitting the jersey in pieces. It shouldn't be too difficult to translate into the round. I really dislike seaming if I can get away with it. I may change the sleeve pattern, too, not too sure at this point. Will there be anything left of the original pattern? Probably enough that I won't claim it as my own, never fear!

I still have a pile of white mohair fleece I washed last week, along with another pile of black huacaya alpaca I washed as well, sitting in my "craft" room waiting for me to do something with them. Still heaps more to wash too. The mohair was a little disappointing - rather short and smelly, as only goat can be! I thought that maybe I could rainbow dye some and card it with something else. Wool of some kind, probably. I wonder if this would work? Kind of make little blobs of colour in the spun yarn.

I thought I would card up the alpaca with a little angora (I've had this sitting around for ages and after knitting with the Touch yarn I really want to try it out) and some sort of wool. I will try out a test batt, anyway, and see what I think about it. I have plenty of alpaca hanging around here to that I can "waste" some sampling. Boy, was it dirty, though! Must have really been having some good dust baths. If I didn't know better I could have sworn the dye was coming out - but it is a natural black colour!

One last thing, perhaps someone can tell me (a person with very little blog/computer knowledge!) how one goes about writing with a line through the letters (strikethrough). There doesn't seem to be a button or shortcut here. Just curious, and you never know when the knowledge may come in useful!