jenwren's blog

So much for posting "tomorrow"...  Ahem.  Got too busy, as usual!

Wool Expo was last weekend.  I was in the woolcraft tent on both Saturday and Sunday and had a great time.  On Saturday there were lots of people coming to look at the display and there were other stalls selling a variety of wool and other crafty bits.  I ogled some spun recycled silk throwers waste yarn, but thought it was to impractical for anything I'd want to make.  In the end I bought some undyed Mulberry silk noil 10/1 yarn (all the dyed skeins were in horrible colours in my opinion) for which I have some ideas.  I had barely any time to knit the kid mohair lace scarf in between raffle ticket sales and handing out information on the spinning and weaving group.

Sunday was quieter, but I got no knitting done at all because I had to separate and fold all the handspun, handknitted rug raffle tickets for the draw in the afternoon.  We have been selling tickets since February, and I spent both the last two market Sundays selling tickets in the mall.  In the end it was won by a lady from the Central Coast, and I found out today the final tally was over $900 raised!  So it was well worth all the time and effort put in.

On Sunday night I finally reached the end of the ball of kid mohair, finishing the lace scarf.  I washed it on Monday after school and started wearing it on Wednesday.  It's a bit longer than anticipated as it relaxed on washing, but it is absolutely lovely to wear.  Pictures soon...

So I'm finally back to knitting the blue socks I started last October.  I thought I was going to have to frog back to before the heel because the foot was too long, but on looking at it again I decided that it wasn't that bad, and continued on.  It's grown a few centimetres already.

The snow last week was quite unspectacular in the end – apparently it was quite good at 2 am, but funnily enough I was tucked up in bed asleep and missed it.  On Thursday morning, very little remained on the ground, but there was some to see on any cars not left under cover and on roof tops.  It continued to snow off and on all day, but did not settle.  Not very conducive to school work either…

On Friday I flew to Sydney for another day of professional development.  Unlike last time, I stuck to buses this time to get around town.  I stayed at Tim and Jenny’s again and celebrated Tim’s birthday that night with Kath and Damien (and ‘Strawberry’) as well.  On Saturday I managed a spot of shopping before heading for Newtown and SSK.  Due to my flight back to Armidale, I couldn’t spend very long at SSK, but it was lovely to catch up with them.  I took a few photos but haven't yet put them up on the web.

This time, I allowed plenty of time to get back to the airport, first catching a bus to Central then intending to catch a train to the domestic terminal.  Since I had caught a bus very quickly, I dawdled at the Devonshire Street tunnel, browsing in the bargain basement bookshop, and picked up a cheap hardback copy of “Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction” by Sue Townsend.  I finally reached the other end of the tunnel, only to find that as well as City Circle trains being cancelled due to track work (which I had known about), the airport line was also closed!  Eeeeek!  Once I established where to get a bus to the airport and bought a ticket, I dashed up the stairs, and caught a bus within five minutes, so I still reached the airport terminal in time.  I could have done without the extra stress!

Sunday was spent with Peter and his Mum, who were visiting to look at properties in the Uralla area.  We spent a leisurely morning at the monthly markets in the Armidale Mall, followed by a lovely lunch, before returning to my place and chatting and knitting all afternoon - quality catch-up time.

Monday was a do-very-little day, mainly spent cleaning the house, surfing the internet and reading, while on Tuesday I drove to Mum and Dad’s place at Port Stephens.  On Wednesday morning we went to Mum’s Spinning and Weaving group in Nelson Bay at the Arts and Crafts centre.  I had the chance to see their craft display – or what was left that hadn’t yet sold from the display!  There was some very inspiring stuff.



Mum’s scarves had already sold, but some of her other items were still there.  Downstairs where the group meets, Mum started to teach me to spin on my wheel, starting with plying some ugly purple and orange acrylic yarn together.  When I finished that, I went back to knitting the Patonyle socks, which are now past the heel and coming along nicely.

After lunch we went home briefly before setting off to Sydney (yes, two trips to Sydney for me in one week…), again staying with Tim and Jenny.  The reason for visiting Sydney was to go to Virginia Farm Woolworks on Thursday morning.  I have been in need of a warping board for some time, and as the price of the Ashford one was ridiculous, I’d decided I wanted one from Virginia Farm.  Problem was, they are glued and screwed at the corners (the Ashford ones dismantle), so it would have cost a small fortune to post it to Armidale.  I couldn’t have flown it back to Armidale either (and hadn’t had my car in order to get out to Annangrove).  So it was a good excuse to make a trip to Virginia Farm and do some damage to both our credit cards.  After about an hour and three quarters, I came away with the warping board, a skein of 4 ply Touch yarn in a lovely purple and deep green-almost black colourway, and some silk-merino blend in deep reds and purples for spinning.  Mum bought some brown fleece, fawn fleece, carded corridale sliver, the silk-merino in pink, and some wool dyes for a friend.  We drove back to Port Stephens in the early afternoon, and I started to learn how to spin singles on some carded merino I had bought from Virginia Farm via mail order back in May.  At the moment I’m getting the hang of drawing, but I need to pedal the spinning wheel more slowly, as I’m putting too much twist in the yarn.

I’m staying here at Port Stephens for my birthday tomorrow, before heading home on Sunday.

I've finally gotten around to putting up the SSK photos I took on 25 June while I was there briefly.

Happy New Year!

SSK turned out to be something of a fizzer on Christmas Eve.  Barmuda was closed and no one else was stupid enough to be out in the heat like silly me.  No matter.

It has remained horribly hot over the last week or so, and even here in Armidale I'm frying.  So I've been doing very little, as I really don't tolerate the heat all that well.

The Denim Pinafore was virtually finished on Christmas day, with only the neck and armhole edging and side seams remaining to be done.  But I didn't get around to finishing it until yesterday.  I'm really happy with the finished product.  Very cute.  I ended up using just under half the indigo-dyed yarn, so I might make another one in a smaller size for about 12-18 months age (this one is the 2-3 year old size - the smallest in Erika Knight's book).  I got that idea from this blog.  I won't start on that too soon as it would be a little boring.

I started a Wine Sock on Christmas Eve and finished by fulling it on Thursday.  It ended up far too tall - I thought I'd fulled it enough (two times through the wash parts of the heavy duty cycle on my machine, and seemingly not willing to get any smaller), but it seems to have stretched as I pulled it over a rolled up towel in plastic to dry.  It's about the right height for one of my stoppered glass bottles I keep in the fridge with water or fruit juice in them, but it is too tall for a standard wine bottle.  If I make this again (and I probably will, as it is a great way of using up leftover yarn), then I'd make it shorter than the 46 cm the pattern specified.

Today I dyed the silk and ivory yarn with the Landscape Mist dye I mentioned before Christmas.  Once it has dried and I've wound it into a ball, I'll be able to start the Flower Basket Shawl.  I knitted up the small  sample I'd dyed previously to be sure of the needle size I'll be using, and after having been concerned about having enough yarn when I first got the pattern, it looks like there's no problem.  Meanwhile, I keep itching to start another shawl with the blue 2 ply yarn I bought at Rubi and Lana.  But I don't think I want two shawls on the go at once, so I'm trying to resist the temptation.

I'm back from a quick trip to Sydney to see Katherine and baby Charlotte.  I made it to SSK at last too!  There are photos from SSK up at the blog or at http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/ssknewtown/.  Or there's a Flickr badge on the side bar down under "Links".  As you can see in the picture here, the Flower Basket Shawl is getting larger.  I believe I'm on what will be the last pattern repeat before I switch to the edging (and pray the yarn doesn't run out before I cast off!).

Charlotte is a lovely baby.  I got some good pictures on Friday (and a cuddle), and yesterday I handed the camera to my nephew, Harrison, and later to one of my nieces, Madeleine, and I have 59 pictures of family in varying levels of blurriness as a result.  Great fun.

I arrived in Sydney on Friday afternoon, and eventually got around to checking email and reading the latest blog postings on various blogs sometime late in the evening.  Kate mentioned that the Rubi & Lana's meet was on this Saturday morning at 10am.  I had already known it wasn't a SSK weekend, which keeps happening to me - I haven't been to SSK since last January!  So I decided what the heck, rearranged my Saturday plans, and went along.

It was so nice to put faces to some people whose blogs or podcast I  have been reading/listening to for some time.  There was Kate, David, Meg, Sally and Mandy (a fellow pink elephant alumni from two years ahead of me at Cheltenham!).  I showed them my Icarus shawl which I had brought to Sydney to show Mum, and got to see what they were all working on.  Kate has posted about it along with photos.  I worked on my RPM socks (as shown in the photo of me).  I stayed about two hours before I headed off to do the other things I had planned - buying some Tulip bamboo dpns at Tapestry Craft (I don't like the Clover brand ones), chocolate from Haigh's and beads from Empire Beads (Enmore).  And I got my gelato fix at the QVB on my way back to my brother's place.  I miss gelato, living in Armidale...

This morning I finished the first RPM sock with the aid of a needle borrowed from Jenny B.  I'll photograph it later.  Next I'm off to Charlotte's birthday party, then back home tomorrow.

I had said I wouldn't post until I had broadband again, but I hadn't expected the broadband to take just three business days to be connected.  Yes.  Three days.  It was on before my furniture even left Armidale.  My new ISP, Internode, rocks.  So really, I haven't posted because I've just been too busy with unpacking and work.  So much so that the current sock didn't get picked up again until last night, and I am three-quarters of the way through grafting the toe.  So close to finished...

I had made an earlier attempt to finish the sock - I went to knitting group at Rubi + Lana last Saturday, but such was my frustration level (I discovered the front brakes on my bicycle were screwed by the removalists just as I was leaving and attempted to take the bike to my garage) that grafting was simply not an appropriate knitting task.  Oh well, I had some time away from the darn boxes with some pretty fine company!

Unpacking on the weekend was focused on making my new home liveable, so the main bedroom, kitchen, bathroom and some of the living room were tackled first.  Thanks to the ANZAC day holiday yesterday, I was able to sort out the second bedroom/study, and unpack the 15 boxes of books downstairs.  The picture above is of the place I'm sitting at right now, though I took the picture shortly before the sun disappeared.   My outlook is of the dense bush in the gully that separates my home from the next block about 50 metres away.  I can't really see those neighbours at all!

This little intruder did take me a little by surprise though...   I noticed him late last night as I was about to go to bed.  First I nearly didn't see him, then I nearly mistook him for very similar (but green) paperweight I own and had unpacked earlier in the day.  I think he's a Leaf-tailed Gecko.  He must have wandered in the door at some time when I had it open to move things in or out, and he's probably been inside at least a few days - he blended in exceptionally well with the carpet, so I wouldn't have spotted him, and he'd made it all the way upstairs to my bedroom!  Nice to know he approves of Patons Patonyle (cream for my own hand dyeing).  I had thought he may be a stowaway I picked up from the removalist's truck, but having looked at the range and habitat, he's probably a local I just hadn't encountered before.  He was released into the night to find a more appropriate home.

Alas, the Roza's Sock are truly destined for the frog pond - I don't like the pattern enough to continue, and my books have all finally arrived from Amazon. Sensational Knitted Socks reached me on Monday (it actually arrived on Friday the week before, but as I went to the pub after work, I didn't go to the post office), Favorite Socks arrived on Wednesday (five days to get here - impressive!) and No Sheep For You arrived on Friday. Between writing fifty reports and marking 132 exam papers, I haven't done much more than glance at them so far. And once I've finished this post, I have to make a start on another 27 reports and class preparation for the coming week. And go see to Oscar the puddy tat up at my sister's place again. I just don't have enough knitting time at the moment.

I made it to Rubi and Lana yesterday, and actually did some knitting on the Alpaca Bolero. I'm nearly at the top of the first sleeve, and despite initially working from the wrong pattern instructions, actually made some progress. David and Elaine were there when I arrived, and Sally, Kate, Lien and Candy all gradually turned up as the day progressed. Elaine and I were even working with the same colour of the same yarn - Jo Sharp Alpaca Silk Georgette in Dusk. Before Rubi and Lana closed and we moved on to the cafe (which has changed owners - hopefully an improvement) I bought some Jo Sharp Soho Summer DK Cotton in Putty for a bag I want to make with a flannel flower fabric lining. I've been meaning to buy the yarn for some time, but kept forgetting to take the fabric swatch with me. I really needed that swatch to get an appropriate colour match.

I will be missing from SSK (is it on?) and World Wide Knit in Public Day next weekend. (Sydney is missing from the site - go here for details) I'm off to see my parents and go to Tocal for the Back to Back Challenge. Mum's in one of the teams. It should be fun!

I was supposed to be at Port Stephens, but my plans changed earlier in the week when my parents caught one of the lurgies going around. So they're coughing and feeling miserable, and I don't want to catch it too. So that was the end of any idea of going away for the weekend. And just as well, because as things turned out, Sydney and parts of NSW have been affected by severe storms over the last 48 hours. Part of the Pacific Highway collapsed, and a ship has run aground at Newcastle. Not a good time to be on the roads. And Tocal, where the Back to Back Challenge was to be held tomorrow, is flooded, so the event has been cancelled.

So instead I was left with the opportunity to go to the Sydney WWKIP Day event at the Sydney Opera House. I took the bus into the city as I didn't want the stress of driving in the appalling road conditions, or the expense of parking in the City. Even though I missed a bus (by mere seconds), I made it in time to pop into Tapestry Craft for the sale and to Haighs Chocolates for a few treats. At the TC sale I picked up some double pointed needles in 1.5 mm and 1.0 mm to knit new linings for my leather gloves. Elaine gasped when she saw the size of them!



I caught a bus down to Circular Quay since the rain was pouring down, then walked to the Opera House. We were a big group despite the awful weather, and at our peak had 27 of us kip-ing away.



There was Kris, Mary-Helen, Sandra, David, Lara, Kate (and her son Lucas), Ervi, Madoka, Gemma, Catherine, Melinda, Helen, Helen (yes, two), Veronica, Charisse, Erin, Rachel, Rebecca, Merrin, Amy, Andrew, Judy, Michelle, Patricia, Yasinga, Elaine and myself. The weather alternated between okay and totally miserable. We could see groups of climbers up on the Harbour Bridge - I can only imagine that it would have been freezing to be exposed up there. Lots of photos were taken - including by passing tourists. Many stopped and looked at the sign we had put up, and a few asked questions and were keen to know of regular knitting groups. I was working on the second sleeve of the Alpaca Bolero and made a lot of progress between consuming coffee and cake and seeing what everyone else was working on. I think I've fallen in love with a Socks That Rock colourway that Charisse was using, and I was interested in the gloves Mary-Helen was working on, now I finally have the needles for my glove linings. There was a great diversity of projects in progress too.

I've put up an album of my photos on Flickr since I still haven't got my photo albums to work here.

I finally left about 5pm. There were still some hardy souls sticking around, but I was starting to get cold. My timing was good - there was break in the rain that lasted until I was nearly at my bus stop in Clarence Street. It poured with rain while I was on the bus, but again I scored a break for the walk from the highway bus stop to my home.

Update: I'm sorry if you keep getting this post come up in your feed aggregator, but I've been editing the post to add more links to people's blogs as I've become aware of them.

I don't think I actually mentioned on here that my present job is a temporary contract that happens to end in four weeks time. It's part of why there's been a lot of unbloggable stuff going on of late. But much of the uncertainty is now over - I've accepted a permanent job at a new school, starting in January (as anyone who's seen me in person in the last week knows, has made me jump-up-and-down happy!). The new job isn't terribly far from the old one, so I get to stay put in my present home, and now can settle in and do a few things that had "but if"-s hanging over them.

On the knitting front, I have started knitting with the silk hankies yarn, but very soon after starting with it (I'll tell you what it's becoming in a future post) I became busy, then two weeks ago I found I wasn't seeing properly - I had scratched the cornea of my right eye (I think some grit got caught under my eyelid, but I thought it was bad hayfever) and came down with head cold (again) so seeing detail in anything became a real problem. Thankfully my vision is almost completely back to normal now. So for the last week I've concentrated my efforts on finishing the knitting on the Flannel Flower bag. It nearly looked like a bag at Rubi and Lana last weekend (I was knitting the strap), but by the time I went to SSK yesterday, I was up to the icord edging of the front flap with only weaving in ends to follow and I no longer needed to explain what the strange rectangular creation was exactly. I have no photos, but Mary-Helen took one that should be on the SSK blog sometime soon. I spent much more time talking than knitting, so nearly did as much on the bus trip home (which turned into a marathon since I managed to find myself on the only 288 bus that does not go all the way to Epping Station - It terminated at Macquarie Centre, adding 20 minutes and some inconvenience to my trip home) and I finished the weaving in ends last night so it is presently blocking. I was discussing the lining and how to perhaps add some thin wadding at SSK and Lyndell helpfully suggested using some felt between the bag and the fabric lining, which is what I may do. It definitely needs something or it is going to be very floppy! I also acquired an extra bamboo double pointed needle that isn't mine (2.5 mm Clover, I use Tulip), I think it might be Judy's?

Alas, it is exams his coming week and report writing next week before hitting the home straight to the end of the school year and start of the Summer break!

I succeeded in buying a new camera, so this post actually has pictures. The Flannel Flower Bag is now absolutely and completely finished with magnetic closures, but the photos were both out of focus, so I'll have to try again (I know how to change the settings to what I want now).



The shopping trip on Wednesday was also successful for book shopping (two japanese amigurumi books) and yarn (Ranco sock yarn).



As I travelled to the city by train, I spent some time working on the beaded rib socks. I'm so determined to get these out of the way as I have the Ranco I'd like to play with as well as a ball of Noro Kureyon Sock yarn I bought in a group purchase arriving this Tuesday.



I actually completed the first sock last night having worked on it at SSK yesterday afternoon. We met at a different cafe than usual as Barmuda was closed. I didn't like the cafe - it was way too noisy with 80's pop songs playing. Argh! It was a great turn out though. I'll put more pictures up in the Flickr pool.



Seeing as I suffered first sock syndrome on the beaded rib socks, I'm wondering if I'll really have the resolve to finish the second sock without casting on another sock....