One sock down

Well, it's been quite a while. I've just been so busy. It's funny how life always has lots of stuff happening to keep you busy all the time. I went to Newcastle for a few days last weekend, and back home I've been making meals, cleaning up and washing clothes. That stuff keeps me busy all week, and then on the weekend I have back logs of people who want to see me. I seem to be forever running around for other people. It doesn't really matter, I have a good time anyway.
Tomorrow I'll be sending off the last package to my one skein secret pal, and the package for my favourite colour swap pal. Other than that, all I've managed to do is finish the first father's day sock.

Apparently Father's Day is next Sunday, so I'd better get cracking on that other one!
Gotta go and make lunch.

Flaming Pants

I'm a liar, thus my pants must be on fire. I didn't update the next day, nor the day after, or even after that. Sorry.
Anyway. This is going to be a long post, but I have to be quick because I have to cook a lamb roast tonight for my grandmother's 88th birthday. That's insane, 88. May we all be blessed to live so long. FO's, there are a couple. The chevron scarf as promised:

And a close-up:

It's quite long but I love it. I wanted to have a photo of me wearing it to give an idea of scale, but I feel funny asking people to take photo's of me, and the best I could get myself was this:

That's me looking shitty because I couldn't get a decent photo. Lovely, isn't it?

Then there are my purple pots - my felting (fulling) experiment:

I felted some handspun and threaded it through for a little coin pouch. I think they're cute. Everyone laughs at them. People are stupid. I guess I'm just a misunderstood genius. Sigh.

I don't have enough time left to say everything else damn it. Well I'll try. I've been dyeing again, this time with food colouring. It works really well. I don't know how fast it is, but according to my source, it's no worse than other dyes:

A bit blotchy, but a bit more attention will sort that out. I was so excited by them that I went out and bought every colour I could find (except black). Then I bought some spun silk from the Spinners and Weavers shop so I can have some more dyeing fun with it:

I also borrwed this:

People are always going on about this book, so when I saw it I thought I'd better have a look. It's a nice book to read, chatty and laid back. I've decided that I'll be starting a sweater soon for next winter. Speaking of Winter, it's crazy, look at this:

Violets! And Winter hasn't finished yet! Well if the violets think it's Spring, then I will too. They smell fantastic. Pussal helped me photograph them:

Pussal likes me to take photo's of his bum.

Anyway, in the meantime I've started some socks for father's day for my Daddio:

More insane socks. I'll tell him that's they're just bed socks so he doesn't feel obligated to wear them to work and get picked on by the macho wankers he works with. My dad is such a legend.

And of course, last but definitely not least, the moment you've all been waiting for - well the moment I've been waiting for - the second package from my one skein secret pal!:

Thank you once again, secret pal for a lovely present. The yarn is sock yarn by Fyberspates in Wales. I already know what to do with it. After I started the socks above for my Daddio, which were inspired by some Tibetan entrelac socks from a special sock edition of Spin Off, I decided that I'm going to make entrelac socks with the yarn, because I think the effect of the striping on the entrelac will be really interesting. Another project to start! Oh well, I'll finish the socks for Dad first. I really must start that jumper too. Anyway, the magazine is fun. There's a nice ribbed camisole I'll try out some time. I love looking at ads in magazines from other countries. Maybe I'm a bit weird. No, it's that misunderstood genius coming out again. I just find it fascinating to see what people can buy overseas. We're so deprived of quality here in Australia, especially Canberra. All of the independent small manufacturers and shops are pushed out of business by huge chain stores who sell the cheapest nastiest crap they can find. I'm so jealous of the variety overseas. Back to the point. The pencil case is great, especially now with my new-found interest in felting. I'll fill it with knitting crap soo enough! At the moment I use this really annoying box for my stitch markers and wotnot, so now I have something groovy to use instead! Lots of fun. It's from Paris! I find that very exciting, since I've never been out of Australia. I find the whole concept of just being able to pop overseas for the weekend fascinating! We're so isolated here that it costs thousands of dollars to get anywhere, even to the other side of the country. I think it's quite cheap to go to New Zealand. I will one day! Actually, I just discovered a 22 day textiles tour to Peru. You get to learn Andean textile crafts from the locals, and it includes trips to Lima, Cusco and Macchu Picchu. I am so going there! The tour itself costs $3,900 US, the flight there is separate, so I'll be saving for a while I guess. It's called Puchka Peru.

I just noticed that I've been moaning a bit about my country. Well the goverment is fucked, but the land itself is absolutely beautiful. Some of the people are okay too!

In other news, I've been collecting for my favourite colour pal. I hope he/she/it likes what I've collected. I think I would explode with ecstasy if I receieved it, but I guess that's because it's all to my personal taste! Besides, a surprise is always much more exciting than something you choose yourself.
Ah, all finished. Better get going.

Excitement and productivity

Oh so much to be excited about. I think I'll have to make them a list so I don't forget anything:
#1: The package slip has arrived for the package from my one skein secret pal has arrived. I'll have to wait till tomorrow to pick it up, but I'm getting pretty excited! More news on that tomorrow.
#2: I've been collecting some treasures for my favourite colour swap pal. I hope that this person will enjoy what I'm putting together. It's definitely more expensive than it's supposed to be, but I just can't stand the thought of sending someone a crap package. I just hope that I've chosen the right shades of this person's favourite colour. There's a lot more to a colour than its name!
#3: I've been dyeing wool with food colouring! The colours are fantastic, and so cheap. I'll have to see how fade resistant they are. I'm once again left wondering how people can eat this stuff - what is it doing to our insides? So far I've been dyeing these skeins of 12 ply Merino that have been hanging around for years, just annoying me. I had 3 skeins which were white and a few more that had suffered from a bad dyeing job some years ago with a eucalypt I can't remember. I overdyed those ones and got some lovely orangey shades. Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can find some big bottles of the stuff. It goes so far! At the moment I'm going for 5ml dye per skein, and there's still a little colour left in the pot.
#4: The chevron scarf was completed several days ago, and I think it's fantastic. I'm going to try and get a really good shot of it tomorrow in the sunlight.
#5: I've been felting! Although apparently to the purists it's called fulling. A rose by any other name still smells as sweet (or something like that). I've knitted up three little pouches and chucked them in the washing machine on hot (shock horror!) and I think I rather like the results, although everyone around me responds with polite silence.

That's it for now. Back with pictures tomorrow!

Stupid Happy Girl

Here I am at last. I've moved house, back to Mum and Dad's place; I swore I wouldn't ever do it, but you would never predict the situation that has arisen in our lives at the moment.
The bamboo scarf is finished.

Yes, sorry, it's an extremely crappy picture. There's a problem. It's far too long. In fact it's about twice the length it should be. I was so keen to finish the ball that it didn't occur to me that maybe I didn't need to finish it. So you know what I'm going to do - I'm going to rip out half of it. I haven't gathered the courage to do it yet, and new projects have kept me from thinking about it too much, but if I don't do it, I'm just going to have this beautiful scarf hanging in the cupboard for the rest of my days, and it would be such a waste. Anyway, it'll mean having more bamboo yarn to do something with. When I get this done then I'll take a proper photo.

The chevron scarf is on its way.

Here it is after one row was completed - all 453 stitches (it's knitted lengthwise). I spent hours casting on and doing that first row (the first row is always the worst) and the next day realised that I had made a great error, and ripped it all and started over, only to realise once I had cast on all 453 stitches again that I hadn't actually done anything wrong in the first place! Stupid girl! You live and you learn. So here it is about 10 rows in:

And you can already see the zigs and zags coming through:

I'm having great fun with this one. Do you like my colours? Well I do. I don't know why it's suddenly come to me that I have to knit all these scarves. This one should be done pretty quickly, and then I have a couple more projects up my sleeve.

Guess what I got for my birthday?

eep! So pretty. Noro Silk Garden. 45% silk, 45% kid mohair, 10% lambswool. I chose two different colours so I could use the beautiful slip-stitch pattern in Boo, Too from Knitty. I have to use them wisely, as this is all I could get. I'm thinking of mitten-type thingo's which go up the arm for as long as I can get the balls to go. Arm-warmers I suppose. The other option is of course a scarf, but I already have more than I can use, and Winter only lasts for one more month. Oh I am ever so happy.

The other project in the pipes is Snowball's Chance in Hell from The AntiCraft for a friend of mine who I think would love them. She's one of my favourite people, and I thought she deserves something funky. Only problem is that you have to measure the person who's going to wear them. How will I manage that? Maybe I'll have to get her really drunk.