IOU 1 Real Blog Entry

I'll get to it soon. Just a quick update. The bamboo Branching Out scarf is finally done. It needs to be blocked, then the piccies will be forthcoming. Tonight I'm starting the chevron scarf I mentioned earlier, but decided to use some stuff from my stash rather than buying some new stuff. It'll be a nice fun quick project to ease me up from the seemingly endless Branching Out scarf, a bit of a relax before I do something more interesting. It was my birthday on Wednesday and I had the best birthday ever. My lovely boy bought me a ride on a hot air balloon, which I've been wanting to do for about 15 years (there's a bit of a balloon fetish in Canberra), and Mum said she'll take me to one of my favourite yarn shops and we'll get whatever I want... she should be careful what she says... there's some Noro there with my name on it I think...or this handpainted merino...or this blue and green mohair........
Well, I've been moving house, which is why there are no piccies and no progress. Have to be out by Monday, so after that, the entries will be back to their usual sporadic selves. I've been so busy that I forgot that my driving licence would expire yesterday and I should get another one, but the motor registry is closed till Monday, and I have to move my crap by then, and I don't legally have a licence!!! Damn bureaucracy!!

Favourite Colour Swap Questionnaire

I've been having so much fun with the One Skein Exchange that I've joined the Favourite Colour Swap.
Favorite Color Swap Questionnaire

1. What are your top three favorite colors?
Scarlet/bright red, sea-tone bluey-greens, and royal purple.

2. What crafts do you really enjoy?
Knitting, spinning, dyeing with plants, simple weaving.

3. What products do you really covet?
I mostly really enjoy handmade things or things which are quirky or unusual

4. What other activities do you enjoy besides your favorite crafty things?
I love bushwalking and hiking, silversmithing (which is my trade), sewing, baking, eating, reading, lounging around, patting my cat.

5. Is there anything you collect?
Natural yarns for knitting up, cat figures, unusual handmade jewellery.

6. What is your zodiac sign and/or Chinese zodiac symbol?
Leo and Year of the Dog

7.What are your favorite……scents/smells?
Rose, Jonquils, coconut oil and Lily of the Valley

…types of music and/or bands?
So many I can't even think where to begin. My latest favourites are Elbow, Queens of the Stoneage and Supergrass.

…authors?
I like Sci-Fi, particularly the older classics such as HG Wells and Jules Verne. In fact I love lots of ninteenth century English authors such as Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes) and Oscar Wilde. I also adore Jane Austen. I really prefer novels to poetry. I'm actually also a graduate with a Classics degree in Latin and Ancient Greek, and I love Homer in particular.

…animals?
Puss Cats

…places to shop?
Anywhere that sells non-mass-produced things. I really love objects which have a touch of the maker in them.

…season?
Hmm, difficult, they're all beautiful in their own ways. I think it's probably Spring, because I love flowers and life and fresh new beauty.

…yarn/fabric/paper/other craft supplies?
I'm not so fussed, I look for beauty and uniqueness, although I'm not all that hot on synthetics, but I can live with them!

…candies or goodies?
Oh it's all good!

8. Do you have any wish lists?
Only in my head!

9. Are you allergic to anything?
No.

10. Do you have any pets? What are they?
Pussal - have a guess! (He says "meow")

11. Please include anything else you would like your secret pal to know about you- anything that would be helpful in finding you little gifts that you will really enjoy.
Well, it's obvious by now that I really love handmade things, even simple things. I also love receiving things from places which are unique to that place - for example a lolly which can only be found there, or something produced by a local industry which you would never see in little old Canberra, Australia.

This has been a really fun questionnaire!

Observations from my Sick Bed

Okay, so I don't really have any observations from my sick bed, because the last few days in said sick bed have been spent puking, grasping my stomach in agony, running from sick bed to the toilet to, well, release my bowels, in a very severe and (sorry) runny manner, and then sleep and wish the whole thing would just f*** off. It wasn't pleasant at all, as you may have gathered. I did a few rows on Branching Out, and I have a photo to prove it:

Pretty exciting huh? You can tell how it's progressed hey? And it's blurry to prove that I really was sick. Just for good measure, here's a picture out of my bedroom window/door:
It's the middle of Winter here, so it probably doesn't look too impressive, but right in the middle is a rose I planted about 10 years ago, Queen Elizabeth, and behind that is an apple tree planted at the same time which has the most delicious apples I've ever tasted.
So that's why I haven't posted recently. Tomorrow is my birthday, and I've decided that I want to finish this scarf by tomorrow. I don't know if it'll happen. I've done about 4 and a half repeats today, and the ball is getting quite small. I'm desperate to knit something else. I am getting so bored.
I'll update soon, when this damn thing is finished!

The Wonders of Golden Hands

Well, I can finally get on with this blog. I've just spent the last eternity uploading pictures for this entry. I think that I am possibly on the slowest broadband connection ever. I swear dial-up isn't as slow as this.
First, I thought there should be a proper piccie of my finished Eucalyptus cinerea Scarf:

Well, it's good enough. You get the idea. Maybe I should have smiled or something... You also get to see the lower half of my ugly mug (face) and my new earrings I just finished making today. Did I mention that I'm a silversmith? Well I am, so there you go. Actually, the earrings and the scarf go well together. I'll have to remember that. I'm kind of tossing up whether or not to block this scarf. I think it looks fine as it is. I guess it could be a bit longer. I'll just leave it for the moment I think.

Next is the progress of Branching Out:

I'm pretty sure I'm not half-way yet. I've done 19 repeats and there's heaps of yarn to go. I'm starting to get a bit tired of it, but I really want to finish before I start anything else. I just know that I won't finish it otherwise. By now you may be aware that I always have a million projects up my sleeve... Oh yeah, in the picture the scarf is draped on a pedal organ. It was the only dark thing around. The pattern shows up so much better on a dark background.

Next up, some friends gave me this for my birthday (which, incidentally, is coming up on the 26th of July):

A good old Golden Hands publication from 1976. I've already decided that I am definitely making that zig-zag scarf on the cover. I've been against making scarves in the past because they seemed so boring, but I'm getting into them like crazy at the moment. They can really make an outfit if they're good. I'm thinking I'll try it in autumnal colours - someone once told me that those colours are my natural match, whatever that means. I'm thinking of red, maybe maroon, yellow, a chocolatey brown and plum purple. Maybe that combination sounds rough, but it works in my head. I'll have to try to find the colours.

Of course, as comes with any old publication of this type, there are some god-awful patterns. Exhibit A:

This thing is so ghastly that I've decided to learn how to crochet just so I can make this monster. I think that just about every household has one of those rugs that looks like this, and it doesn't seem to matter what colour combination is involved, they still look rank. But there's also a kind of familiarity about them, that every single one you see looks practically identical, even though they represent hours of work by an individual who was trying to make something great. In the radio oncology waiting room where we go every day for my brother to have his treatment, slung over the back of every chair in the room is a knee rug made up of these squares. While they are a bit depressing, more so because I've never seen anyone in the waiting room actually use one, they do warrant some respect because someone, probably a patient or the relative of one, decided that the patients here needed something warm and comfortable, something handmade and given with love from a complete stranger. It's a small expression of how beautiful humans can be when we're not screwing eachother over.

Another pattern from this book:

I actually really like this one. Maybe it's the romantic fuzzy focus, the unbound silky hair and the spring-time meadow, but it's just so pretty. Of course I would have to change the colour scheme. I'm thinking mohair in grape for the patterned section and red (again, the colour I can never escape from) for the ribbed parts. I think it could work, if I can get past the sizing. The largest size is for a 106.5cm bust. I'm pretty sure that mine's at least 120. I am, how do I say it...fairly well endowed. Might have to jig this pattern a bit.
That's it for today kiddies.

Lace Nuts

I have just found the most insane knitted lace here. It is absolutely incredible. I just don't understand doyleys and lace tablescloths though. They're beautiful and must be so rewarding to make, but I know that I would just end up having them folded up in a drawer somewhere for decades. Maybe if I had a mansion with millions of tables which need covering and vases to put on doyleys. I really prefer to wear my knitted stuff - I guess so I can show it off....
There are so many knitting podcasts now. I really wish I had time to download and listen to them all. I haven't even had time to listen to Cast On for a couple of months, which is my absolutely favouritest thing in the world to listen to. I love Brenda Dayne. I want to give her a big warm hug. When my brother was diagnosed with a brain tumour, he was in Newcastle, about 5 hours north of Canberra where I live. I stayed in Newcastle for about 2 weeks, miles away from everything I know: my home, my friends, my partner, everything familiar. I had no one to comfort me or to cry to. I'd had about 5 minutes to pack my bag before the plane left, and I had no idea that I was going for more than a couple of days - I'd thought we could bring him home immediately - so I had about 2 changes of clothes and my iPod, and just by chance that day I had uploaded about a dozen episodes of Cast On to it. Well I stayed at the hospital all that time, and my life seemed to be falling apart. My brother is 5 years older than me and we've always been very close. He's my hero, always has been. I can continue living through anything that gets thrown at me as long as I have my lovely brother. Words can't express it, you know what I mean. Some things are too profound even to contemplate. I spent most waking hours sitting by my brother, trying not to cry in front of him, while my family sent me crazy with their bizaare antics. During rest periods I would walk or run in the beautiful forest around the John Hunter Hospital and just listen to Cast On. I swear Brenda saved my sanity - she took me out of my situation and reminded me of the rest of the world at a time when the rest of the world didn't seem to exist, or matter particularly.
I knew I said this wouldn't be a journal, but I really had to explain how much I love Cast On! I really want to listen to It's a Purl, Man. I find male knitters fascinating. I've never met one. I bet they're really attractive. Actually, while I'm on the topic, have a look at Menknit Magazine. They have some great patterns, which, once again, I will have to try out some day. I really should put all these links up the side. Next time I have a while to spare to fool around with html I'll do that. Actually, just quickly, before I forget, there's also The Panopticon and Crazy Aunt Purl. See ya!

A Clean(er) Slate

I just went through that last entry from yesterday and deleted some crap. This blog is not about my personal life, it's about knitting and spinning!
Just bought some fine undyed 1 ply silk and some purple 2 ply silk from eBay.

The undyed stuff is apparently about 3000m long! That's 3 km! I'm planning to divide it into separate skeins and dye them different colours. Never dyed silk before, or used synthetic dyes (other than Kool-Aid!). Have to try not to screw it up. I want to use it to do more plying with dyed handspun wool. It's just so fun and looks beautiful.
For the purple 2 ply I'm thinking of something really luxurious, like a fine lace shawl. I'm getting into Branching Out, I'm not getting lost anymore, and I don't have to concentrate so hard. I am starting to get a wee bit bored, because there's no variation. At least each repeat is 10 rows. I think I've finished 11 or 12 repeats, and I'm nowhere near even halfway through the bamboo yarn. It's so lovely and silky. I found some for sale on eBay for far more than I'm willing to pay. Anyway, I think I could enjoy a larger lace project, and I think a lovely dark purple shawl would be just the thing.
Had a look at Knitty today, and there's a new issue out with some beautiful socks and glove-type things. I am so grateful that there are some beautiful and funky patterns out there for free. There's just no chance at all of finding any good patterns in the shops around here.
I need to bite the bullet and knit up this beautiful green handspun which my grandmother gave me. I want to make something beautiful and worthy of the wool. There's this New Zealand company called Possumdown who make absolutely beautiful knitwear. There was a particular cardie kind of thing with a zipper which I was thinking of trying to copy. I went to find a picture of it on their web page and I found this instead:


Okay, so it's a bad picture, but you get the gist. I've never really been one for asymmetrical collars, but this thing really works. It's a pity it costs NZ$330. Possumdown has this amazing look. I can't begin to describe it. So I thought I might try something like this. I'll probably change my mind soon enough.
That's it for today I reckon.

Rushing...

Here I am at last. I lied about updating the next day. Sorry.
First I must show you the grape Kool-Aid dye batch:

You can't really see the colour terribly well, but it's reasonably close. It smells like wool and bubblegum. I must think of a one skein project to use it for. My skeins tend to be really short too...

Next, my Eucalyptus cinerea scarf:

I couldn't get a better picture. The light today is terrible - really overcast and miserable. You can kind of get the gist of the colour and design here. It's a little more red, and the scarf is about 30cm wide and 150cm long. It had to be pretty short because I only had 5 skeins, and as I said, they're pretty short. The stitches are very large, so the scarf is a bit like a net. On Thursday night I'm off to the exhibition opening of a friend, and I'm intending to wear it. I'll see how it goes.

Lastly, bamboo scarf:

This is Branching Out from Knitty. I haven't really tried any lace before, and this pattern is supposed to be a good one for knitters who want to get a start into lace. The thing is, I think this pattern hates me. I can be going along just fine, thinking that everything is working out, and then I discover that I've screwed up big time! In the first repeat I somehow got a stitch reversed or something, so one stitch looks a bit wrong, and in the third repeat I somehow managed to drop a stitch without even noticing! I've never had that happen before. It has been so infuriating! I managed to fix it though by undoing several rows to get to the root of the problem - it wasn't just a simple matter of pulling the stitches back through with a crochet hook! The yarn itself is lovely, but I think it might be why I'm having so much trouble. It's lovely and soft and smooth, which means that the stitches happily drop off the needle. It acts a little like cotton, with no stretch like wool has, but it's so lovely and smooth. I definitely want to get more of it! I had a look at the website of the supplier, http://www.soysilk.com, and they also have fibre made of soy and corn, all in beautiful colours. There are also some lovely patterns which I'll have to attend to some day...

Dyeing to use a bad pun...

Okay, where do I begin? I have no pictures at the moment, but I've been dyeing like mad. I did several batches of Eucalyptus cinerea which worked beautifully. I got the most gorgeous rich oranges. The other day I looked at them and decided that they would look very nice as a scarf worn with black, for when I need to look a little classy for exhibition openings and wotnot. So I just did a simple scarf in garter stitch but with gigantic needles, about 15mm. It came out beautifully. Really simple but effective. I'm certain that the key to elegance is simplicity. I'll post a picture tomorrow or so. Maybe, just maybe, I'll model it for the camera...maybe...
I have a couple of branches of E. nicholii, another eucalypt that produces oranges, I'll try them soon, but I have to spin some more now, since my skein collection is running low.
I've tried out the grape flavoured Kool-Aid (thank you secret pal) and have a lovely purple (which smells like bubble gum). I'll try the watermelon-cherry flavour after a bit of spinning. I can't believe people give this stuff to their children to consume. I really like having teeth, they enable me to eat solids. Anyway, my aunt got excited about the Kool-Aid and checked it out on the net, and discovered that you can also dye wool with jelly! Well, that's readily available here, so I'll give it a go. The wool must get a bit gooey, but some of the colours would be fun. I discovered one source of Kool-Aid for Australia, but it only seems to have the sweetened varieties, and I hear that you shouldn't use them for dyeing.
Yesterday I acquired some madder root from my grandmother's spinning group. I'm excited about trying that out too. It seems fairly straight forward. Not like using indigo, which I read about last night. Complicated. You can't even drip anything into the dye bath. I don't know how the hell I'm going to manage that.
Anyway. I need to have a bit of a whinge. I don't want this blog to become my diary, because reading people's diaries is somewhat akin to having bamboo shoots shoved under your fingernails. However, stuff isn't so good. I've been evicted from my lovely flat. I have to be out a couple of days after my birthday (happy birthday Dina, now get the hell out). I can't find anywhere to move that I can afford, so I have to go back to my parents' house for a while, which I swore I would never do. I also found out today that I have to take leave from uni until next year. I am going to be stuck in a hell hole with my two angry f---ed up parents, one with a superiority complex, the other with an alcohol problem, with my poor brother who can't do anything for himself, or get away at all. I won't be able to go to uni and do my work or enjoy my friends, I won't have any space of my own at all. The only way I can get out is to stay with my boyfriend who never cleans up after himself, whose room smells of dirty clothes and has dirty cups and used tissues all over the floor.
Okay, I'll calm down now. I'm hoping to rent a studio to share with a friend, where I can go and make stuff from time to time. Maybe there'll be room for a couch and a fridge with some beer. I have my life and my health, I live in a country where I can get an education, good health care, and I won't get shot, raped or mugged when I walk down the street. Life is great.
Piccies and happiness next blog.

Blah Blah Blah Kiss!!

Well, I'm going to see if this works.
The computer I'm forced to use at the moment doesn't seem to like blogger at all, and whenever I've tried to blog, it logs me out and I lose what I've written, but it seems to be okay so far, so let's see how it goes.
I have so much to say. Have to get everything in order. First thing, skull bag. All the knitting is finished, or has been for a while. After going my own way and just making up bits of the pattern, I decided that it looked awful, so I frogged the bottoms of the bag itself and the unas and did them all flat instead of three-dimensional, and I think it looks a lot better:

And here's the back, with the hidden una revealed under the large una:

As for the shoulder strap, well I just can't seem to be bothered to hurry up and finish it, so I do about a centimetre a day before I get bored and do something else. Here it is so far:

I'm not enjoying it at all, I just have to finish the damn thing and then I can use the bag - at least after I've woven in the ends and sewn up the floats. So that's just around the corner.

Next thing, dyeing. Every two or three years I get a sudden enthusiasm for dyeing with native Australian plants. There are some amazing colours, especially from eucalypts, so I've been doing some of that, but I'm not doing very well so far. I've been using lichen, and I know that once I managed to get the most beautiful dark brown from rock lichen, but I've never managed it again. Maybe the lichen around here has absorbed too much pollution. So these were my attempts without a mordant:

Wow, you would not believe that 24 hours has passed since I wrote that last sentence. I have had that much trouble just getting this picture to show. Anyway, back to the point. So I ended up with two revolting colours. The one on the left could possibly end up okay if used amongst more interesting colours. The one on the right is about as beautiful as jute twine. So today I finished dyeing a couple of skeins with alum and Argyle Apple, a type of eucalypt. It's well known, at least in my family, for its dyeing properties. I got the most beautiful bright orange from it, but tomorrow I'm going to double the amount of material and try for something closer to crimson. Here's the pot on the stove:

I've gone a bit crazy with the dyes lately, and it's good to finally see some good results.
In other news, I bought a lace knitting book on eBay. It mostly has doyleys and stuff and these beautiful lace tablecloths which I think would make great shawls, so here's the one I think I'll knit one day, when I've knitted the millions of other things I want to knit:

I hope it won't just look like I'm wearing a tablecloth...
The book is called First Book of Modern Lace Knitting, and it's by Marianne Kinzel.
And finally, there's my day yesterday. My brother had headaches and nausea at the breakfast table, which were the problems he was having before they discovered the tumour, and then he discovered some pus on his head. We all started freaking out a bit, wondering what was going on. He starts radiotherapy on Monday, so something going wrong right now is just not good. So mum drove poor Alex to the GP, while I drove my aunt and grandmother to their thing they had to go to, and then I got a call from the girl I live with saying that the landlord had given us one month's notice to leave! So I went over to my place. I live in a sort of granny flat thingo out the back of the house which my friends live in. The flat is all mine, and I love it. It's rundown and is freezing in Winter and boiling in Summer, but it's so cute and funky. Maybe I'll put up some pics sometime. So I talked to Cara and Miguel, and they said that the landlord was either going to sell the place, or raise the rent, but he was going to come around and look some time. We were all upset, because we really enjoy it there. So I was pretty bummed, and I went to my front door...and there was a package...a package from the UK...a package with squishy things and hard things inside, so I opened it and.....

Eeeeeep! You just made my day secret pal!!! I was so touched with how well thought out the presents were. You could obviously tell that I'm a bit of a daggy old hippy, at least it seems you could, because there's this amazing 100% bamboo yarn, which is really right up my alley, and organic chocolate - I'm constantly trying to move to the organic lifestyle, and failing when I realise I'm too poor, and Kool-Aid! I've heard so much about this mysterious Kool-Aid stuff, about dyeing wool with it, and I'm pretty sure you can't get it in Australia; Whenever I see stuff about it on the net, I just pass it off as another weird American junk food, but now I can give it a go! Thank you so much. Even though I've been expecting the package, I didn't realise how wonderful it would be to get a present from someone I don't know on the other side of the planet. This whole experience is ten times better than I imagined it would be. The bamboo yarn is amazingly soft, like silk, and the colours are so subtle and beautiful. I've showed it to all of my family, and they're amazed. My dad in particular just can't get over it. Whenever he sees it he just goes "wow, that's incredible, how do they make that?". It's quite a feat, because my dad is rarely amazed by "girly stuff" as he would think of it. I should get him knitting, I'm sure he'd find it much more fun than he imagines. Maybe when he's old and grey and I'm looking after him, I'll threaten him with a nursing home unless he takes up knitting. Sorry, getting a bit side-tracked here. I've decided what I'm going to knit with the bamboo yarn, I just decided then. Of course I could change my mind, because I'm a pretty inconsistent person. I think I'll try Branching Out from Knitty. I've been wanting to do it for a while, but now I'm pretty sure this yarn would be perfect. It'll make a beautiful Spring scarf.
The point is, secret pal, I want to kiss you, I couldn't be grumpy after that. And in the end it turned out that Alex (my bro) just had a bit of an infection from the brain surgery, and after some antibiotics, it's cleared up reasonably, so he can start his treatment tomorrow just fine. As for my flat, well I'll just have to wait and see.

And another thing...

I particularly like this chart.

Aaargh!

You wouldn't believe it, I just wrote a really long and fascinating blog, and then somehow the browser screws up, so I just spent the last 45 minutes trying to fix the problem, and now I've forgotten what I was talking about. Hmph. Here goes again.

Here's where I'm up to with the skull bag:

There are these pockets on the outside which the Andeans call unas. Basically, while you're knitting the body of the main bag, where you want the una openings you knit in a bit of scrap yarn. When the body's finished, you pull out the scrap yarn, pick up the stitches and knit the una/pocket. The opening's on the inside, and the una's on the outside. They look a bit like testicles (sorry). So, all I have left is two and a half unas, drawstrings, shoulder strap, skull beads, and I need to sew down the floats so they don't catch on things when I use the bag. Quite a bit to go, but it's all good fun.

Now for a bit of a whine:

Whine No. 1: Badly written patterns. Andean Folk Knits is a fantastic book, I love it to bits, it has the most fascinating patterns and social history and customs etc., but the patterns are really badly written. Or I shoud say, drawn. They're all charts, which is fine, since all of the patterns are so intricately decorated, but the chapter on techniques just isn't detailed enough, and there are some major flaws, which I wrote into the post that didn't work, but I think that it was really a bit boring, so it's just as well it's gone forever. Anyway, the result of this was that I basically ended up re-designing the whole bag, which is pretty cool, because it's much more fun to design your own stuff than just follow someone's directions. Well, I think it's more fun anyway. So, after much stuffing around, I decided to just do whatever I wanted with the pattern, so I did this to the bottom of the bag:

Yes, it's that star thingo, where you K2tog evenly spaced around each and every row. I love it. So simple, yet effective. Also looks great on sock toes. You can hardly see it in this photo, which brings me to:

Whine No. 2: Crappy digital camera lighting and colours. Just look at the state of those two photos! I can't get the damn things right! That last pic was the best of about 20! 'Nuff said.

Oh yeah, and you may have noticed that I've put up a piccie of me. Scary stuff! Luckily the photo's too small to be too offensive!

Back At Last

Here I am again. What a bad start to a blog. I get a few days in and my brother gets a brain tumour up in Newcastle and I leave town for 2 weeks and have no access to computers at all. By the time I get back, I am so behind at uni and the rest of my life that everything is far too hectic to update, much less knit. I couldn't take my knitting to Newcastle because I had 2 seconds to pack and could only take hand luggage, so I figured I probably couldn't take my lovely steel needles. However, while I was there I knitted my bro a horrible beanie to cover up his lovely scars and new haircut. Everyone else insists that the beanie is great, but I loathe it. Every time I see it I just want to rip it. I started a pair of socks for him, but they are too big and I hate them anyway. I had grand plans of the most incredible socks the world has ever seen, but they just turned to crap, and what with the trauma of waiting for the operation, watching his recovery and just generally wanting to scream, I just didn't have the heart to knit! Can you believe it? Anyway, I'm going to rip that sock half and start again with a much less planned, more instinctive design. I realise that from now on I have to trust my instinct when it comes to design.
So, there are no lovely piccies, because there's nothing worth showing. I want to finish my skull bag, because I desperately need a handbag. I might get on to that in just a sec.

I'm somebody's pal...

At last the details of my secret pal have arrived. Obviously I can't say anything (not that anyone actually reads this blog anyway) but I can answer the questionnaire for myself:

1. Which yarn is most like your personality (you can be specific or general with your answer- brand, type, color, fiber, whatever)?
Handspun wool. Warm, smells nice, a bit lumpy. That's me alright.

2. What is your favorite color yarn to knit/crochet with?
Well I seem to knit with red a lot, but I really like blues and greens.

3. Have you ever used variegated, or magic, yarns?
Not that I'm aware of.

4. Do you tend to favor certain fibers when choosing yarns?
I always buy 100% wool (except for my most recent project). I come from a family with a background in sheep farming, so I guess it was bred into me. I also choose wool because I can't really afford anything fancier! Really I just prefer natural animal fibres, whatever the animal may be.

5. Do you prefer to work with center-pull or traditionally wound balls of yarn?
I really don't mind as long as the yarn is good!

6. Have you ever worked with organic yarns or are you interested in trying them?
Yeah why not?

7. How many and what projects have you made in the last year?
Trying to remember... a basket stitch scarf for Babe (my boyfriend, not the little pig), red socks, skull socks, insane socks I II and III, skull bag. That's all I can remember. I'm sure there's more.

8. Will you be knitting any gifts this year?
Would like to knit something for my grandmother who taught me to knit when I was eight and has knitted so much for me. Actually I also want to knit socks for mum and dad and maybe my brother and anyone else I like!

9. What is your favorite one skein project?
Not sure if I've ever knitted anything with just one skein. Maybe a beanie, but it has to be a cool one.

10. How much yarn do you have in your stash and how do you store it?
Oh Lordi me. Actually, I don't have nearly as much as some people (yet). I have all of my bought yarns in a plastic storage container next to my armchair. All of my own handspun stuff is stuffed into a cardboard box and my storage trunk, and I have a big plastic bag with some handspun of my grandmother's.

11. Do you have a yarn in your stash that you love so much you can never use it or part with it?
Well I have the above-mentioned handspun of my grandmother's. I'm actually trying to design the perfect hoodie/cardigan to knit it up into, but it has to be perfect!

12. Do you knit less or differently in the summer?
I probably knit more in Summer because I have more time. Maybe I'm more inclined to knit practical things in Winter.

13. Do you belong to any knitting groups (online or offline)?
Sadly no, not yet.


And that's that. In other news, I decided to go crazy and buy another set of dpns for the bag. I found some for three bucks, and they are this crappy plastic which is really frickin' hard to knit on, but it's better than my stitches falling off I guess. I actually finished the body of the bag (no piccie yet), and next is the little pockets, then the strap.
I'm a little distracted today, because it feels like someone is punching me in the womb.

Sigh. As I read over this blog, I wonder why I'm doing it. There are millions of blogs out there, and I just can't see any point to adding another one, especially since I'm not witty and sophisticated like some people. I don't have the time to do it properly and create funky graphics, so I have to make do with this pre-fabricated girly pink thing because it was the least ugly thing available. Anyway. Here is my not-terribly-interesting-to-anyone-but-me life on display for you to yawn at. Enjoy.

Spinning, Skulls and Procrastination

Well, as promised, here's a piccie of my latest spinning adventure:
Of course the colours never come out right in these pictures. I took about 20 and just had to make do with this one. Both are Merino. The one on the left was spun from some prepared and dyed fleece that my aunt bought for me from the Canberra Spinners and Weavers shop. It turned into this almost navy blue with greenish and purple highlights. The one on the right was from some fleece that a girl called Monica gave me. She was a housemate of a friend who I was visiting. I saw her spinning wheel in the lounge room and asked her about it and we started yakking for a bit and she ended up giving me this lovely Merino which she had dyed herself. I forgot to give her my phone number so we could get together and have some knitting sessions, and now she's moved out of my friend's house. I'm trying to track her down, because it gets lonely knitting on my lonesome!
Anyway, I spun them both and then plied them with this lovely lime green silk I bought on eBay. You can't tell from the photo, but both of the skeins have a kind of irridescent quality. I'm thinking up plans for each of them. I have about two small skeins of the navy, and I'm planning to try out Branching Out, a lacy scarf from Knitty. I know it won't look quite how it was intended to look, since my handspun is a little bulky and lumpy, but I thought it couldn't hurt to try, and I think that this wool just has to be used for lace, it just has that kind of quality about it.
The greener skein I have only a tiny bit of, quite a small skein. I wasn't sure what exactly to do with it, and I showed it to someone and she said that the colours reminded her of the sea, and I immediately pictured the yarn in wave stitch. So, I'm going to see if I have enough to make myself a lacy wave stitch beanie/cap thingo. The weather's starting to get absolutely freezing here in Canberra (Australia), so any useful beanie should be nice and thick, but I was never one for being practical. So they're projects for the future.
Here's some progress on the bag:
I've finished my second repeat of the skull motif, and I just need to knit four more rows then start reducing for the bottom of the bag. That little bit of green in the middle there is some scrap yarn to be pulled out so a pocket can be knitted in next. Getting there. Actually, I really wish I had one more dpn for this project. To allow for the skulls I had to increase 10 stitches more than the pattern, and the stitches are constantly almost falling off the ends of the needles. It makes me nervous! I've never seen sets of 5 dpn's here in Australia, and I'm sure as Hell not going to go and buy another set. Eight bucks? I need to eat God damn it!

I seem to be very rare as a knitter in that I usually only have one project going at a time. You see I am a perpetual dropper of projects, and I just know that if I stop one to start another, it's more than likely that I'll never finish the first. I have to force myself to keep dreaming of the next projects while I soldier on with what I've started. If I do start a new project in the middle of another one, it's usually because I hate what I was doing anyway, so it usually ends up getting ripped out. I also don't really have time to knit. I do it, but I'm not supposed to be doing it. You see I'm actually in my honours year at uni, and I just can't afford the time to knit, even though I do it anyway. My mid-year review comes up soon, so I'm freaking out a bit, but I just keep on knitting. Lordy me I'm terrible.

A little bit extra...

After that last post I remembered some more stuff I wanted to say. I've joined up with the Interweave One Skein Secret Pal Exchange. It's my first ever secret pal exchange thingo, so I'm a bit nervous, a bit excited. Actually, the driving force behind starting this blog was joining up. I was thinking, how could I properly enjoy a secret pal exchange if I couldn't share my excitement with the knitting community out there? I love to read knitters' blogs and see the fun of receiving a present from a complete stranger who may be on the other side of the planet, as well as sending presents to strangers! I'm really excited about the whole thing, and I've been thinking about all the skeins I've seen and drooled over, and how much someone else might enjoy them. Deary me, I'm getting all excited now. Anyhow, here's the button, just because it's so damn pretty:

Ahhh. Getting my yarn fix just thinking about it. So, I've been practicing spinning again so I could possibly send my own skein. It's funny, I started spinning about 14 years ago, but because I do it so intermittently, I'm just crap at it. I'm trying my best, getting a bit better every time. I've just finished spinning some lovely Merino which I've plied with a fine silk thread, and I want to post a picture, but I'll have to wait until daylight to try to catch the colours with the camera.

Okay, enough excitement for one day.

Second beginning...

Oh me oh my I have so much to show. Today we might not get further than my beloved socks.
Ok, so here's the good stuff. Piccies! I'm still getting the hang of this blogging business, so let's see how this works:

Ha! So that's how that works! Anyway, these are the first of my series of "Insane Socks" (and before you ask, yes those are my lovely hairy legs...hairy and proud baby!). They aren't insane to knit, they just tend to alarm people. I love to knit these, just making up patterns as I go - I find it much more exciting than following a pattern. I guess I just have a short attention span. The problem is that if you want to have the second sock the same, it's not as fun to knit, but there you go. I knitted these for my good friend Sam, just for the hell of it.

These socks I knitted for myself, because I always seem to be knitting socks for other people! I went a little more crazy with the colours and the patterns because I didn't have to worry about someone else getting beaten up for wearing freaky socks (I can look after myself).

And these ones I finished just the other day for Halie, another great friend of mine.

So now I've decided I have to stop knitting socks...for a little bit. I just keep going back to them because they're so much fun. But there's a universe of patterns and yarns out there! So the next project is my Andean Skull Bag:

This is a mish-mash of a few things. The basic structure of the bag (with a few minor alterations) comes from Andean Folk Knits by Marcia Lewandowski. Wow I love this book. The patterns are fun, heaps of funky bags, and information about the knitters of the Andes, who are amazing. However, I'm not really a girl for wearing items decorated with llamas and dancing figures, so I went for the Jolly Roger motif - a particular favourite of mine. I stole the above skull pattern from a wonderful skull scarf pattern I found here. I hope the designer doesn't mind too much. I'm no good at designing anything but geometric patterns. Here is another skull pattern I'll be using later on for the pockets and shoulder strap.

I'm knitting this bag in acrylic yarn. This is new for me. I don't like acrylic, I really tend to use natural fibres because they're just so much nicer, friendlier, warmer, softer. They have life. Acrylic has none. Anyway, after debating with myself for a couple of weeks, I decided to use acrylic because a) I'm very poor and b) it's only a bag, it doesn't have to keep me warm, and its not likely to pill like a wearable would. What's more, I thought perhaps it would be stronger. I always put all sorts of crap into my handbag, and I'm sick of bags which fall apart. So there, I've made my excuses.

The changes I've made to the structure itself are mostly minor. A few extra rows and increases here and there to accomodate the Jolly Roger, and the main change which is a shoulder strap. The pattern doesn't include one, but I have to have one, I absolutely HATE carrying a handbag in my hand! So there you go. I'm also considering lining the bag. I don't know yet. I'll try to scan the picture from the book some time to show what it's supposed to look like.

And that is the end of my first real blog entry.

The Beginning...

Okay, so here's another knitting blog. I don't know exactly why I decided that the world needed yet another one, but here it is. What's more, I couldn't even think of a decent name, so I just put down the first thing that came to my head. Hopefully I won't rue the day...
Anyway, this isn't going to be worth looking at until I've taken a few piccies of my recent and current knits, so should anyone happen to somehow stumble across this blog within the next 24 hours and find it this bland, I urge you to return in (hopefully) another 24 hours by which time there will be something worth looking at!