jenwren's blog

A long weekend and I'm still not on top of all my marking *sigh*.  It's school report writing season, and while the marking is not in check, the reports are fairly much done from my point of view.  With all the school work, not a lot else is getting a look in.  Only two more weeks to the end of the (private) school term.

As promised, a picture of the finished Kid Mohair scarf.  It is getting a lot of use - I wear it most days because it is so lovely.

I've had a lovely collision between my fibre pursuits and teaching - using natural substances to dye wool.  My experience of dyeing wool or tencel has involved only synthetic dyes, and the indigo dye pot day my spinning and weaving group was to have last week ended up being postponed until later in the year.  But my year 8 Science classes have been studying "Natural Resources" and the textbook even had a wool dyeing practical in it.  So I jumped with joy at the prospect of trying some natural dyeing.  I modified the practical a bit with some other references and some totally experimental plant substances.  The results were quite fantastic.  In the picture they are (from left): skeins 1 & 2 - wattle (yes, yes, I'll identify the species once it flowers...) with copper sulfate mordant; skeins 3-6 - rosehip and hibiscus tea bags (very convenient!) with either alum or vinegar as mordant; skeins 7 & 8 - blackcurrant and lemon peel tea bags with either alum or vinegar as mordant; skein 9 - eucalypt (again, yet to be identified) with alum mordant; skeins 10 & 11 - beetroot (yes, really, that green is from beetroot) with copper sulfate mordant; skein 12 - beetroot with alum mordant (was meant to turn out apricot - the only disappointment of the whole bunch); and skeins 13 & 14 - onion skins and alum mordant (the first one was brown onions, the second was red or Spanish onions).  I've yet to test how colour fast any of them are.

My biggest news of the past few weeks would be succumbing to buying a spinning wheel.  It's a Sickinger wheel (made in Coffs Harbour) and bought second-hand (or, more likely, third or fourth-hand) from a local woman via eBay.  It's almost exactly the same as my Mother's spinning wheel (also a Sickinger), with a few minor differences.  I've been so busy that all I've had time to do with it so far is glue some of the mistreated bobbins it came with back together again, and give it a good clean, polish and lubrication.  I'm looking forward to those school holidays...

And lastly, I finished the first blue Patonyle sock last night.  As this sock was started last October, I now have to work out how to start the second one (this was my first toe-up sock and I didn't use a pattern) and try and make it match the first one...  I'm keen to finish the pair because I love wearing my other four pairs of handknitted socks during winter, one pair at a time, naturally!  It has been getting colder, with frequent frosts.  But it has been dry - the promised rain this weekend has amounted to little more than drizzle - nothing on Saturday (I even put out two loads of washing to dry as encouragement), 3 mm yesterday, and maybe about another 3 mm today.  Not exactly great for the farmers around here.

I started the sideways socks and found the pattern wasn't as hard to follow as I had thought (especially after I worked out the first written version was wrong, but the chart and second written version were correct).  However, after 22 rows I decided it looked ugly, as the photo shows, due to my choice of yarn colours.  So I ripped it all out.  I'll try this pattern again with more appropriate yarns at some later date.

So I've started another pair of socks on dpns in the round with "Miami" yarn from Bendigo Woollen Mills.  I bought two balls of it in "brown" (actually a variegated brown/blue/grey) late last year when it was first released.  Peter said on justdoitknits that Miami yarn was now in a bargain bin at the Mill.  It's weird stuff - 40% wool, 45% cotton, 15% nylon, with each of the 4 plys composed of a white strand (the cotton?) plyed with a coloured strand (wool/nylon?) giving a denim look to the yarn.  It isn't very elastic.  I may find it knits up ugly, or is unsuitable as a sock yarn, in which case it will go the same was as the sideways sock - into the frog pond.

I also finished spinning my first bobbin of singles from carded Merino, and have started a second.  I'm looking forward to finishing the second bobbin an plying them together into yarn.  As a first attempt, it probably won't be great, but I'm still excited.  It'll probably take another week at the rate I'm spinning though (45 to 90 minutes per day).

I've been having troubles with the drive band of my spinning wheel.  It had a piece of string for a drive band when I got it and one of the first things I had found it necessary to do was shorten it.  I think it had been in use for some time and had stretched too much so that the tension could not go any tighter.  But then this band became pretty lousy - slipping all the time.  Mum had already ordered me a band from the Sickingers, and said last week that she'd mail it to me.  I asked her to send it to my post office box.  My street box is tiny, so the postie bends everything he puts in it, and the mail gets very wet if it rains.

So having gone back to school on Monday, the spinning wheel was not exactly top of my list.  I forgot I was expecting the drive band in the mail.  So it was a bit of a surprise while speaking to Mum on the phone last night when it dawned on us that it hadn't arrived yet.  Erm, what's my PO Box number Mum?  It transpired that my (normally extremely accurate) Father had supplied the box number.  The WRONG box number.  Bummer.

So I went to the post office after School.  I queued up, and when I got to the front I explained that I have my PO Box number, but my silly Mother had mailed me something to a box number that differs in one digit by mistake, and could he possibly check this wrong box for a letter addressed to me?  To my amazement he did go check.  To even greater amazement - the letter was there and he gave it to me!  He said it was such a good story he decided to go along with it.  I'm fairly sure he actually checked my box was in the name I gave - he was gone for quite long enough to do so.  I offered ID as proof but he didn't want to see it (I am in there frequently to collect items that were too large for the box, so he knows my face).

My local post office is wonderful.

Remember the Ugly Socks?  Well, I ordered some suitable undyed yarn (Kona Superwash from the Wool Peddler) which arrived on Thursday.  Today I dyed some of it for the Sideways Sock pattern.  I hadn't done any wool dyeing in ages - and this was the first dyeing I've done since moving house in April.  Note to self: careful what ends up in the laundry tub - this one is cream acrylic, not stainless steel...

I dyed one lot of about 50 grams with Landscapes dye in Marine Blue, Wild Rasberry and Cyclamin, and a second lot of 50 grams in Gaywool Indigo.  This was the first time I'd used the Indigo colour.  I like it, but I don't think the two skeins combined will give the effect I want.  I might wind off another 50 gram lot tomorrow and dye it with the Cyclamin and use the Indigo for something else later.

Along with the Kona, I bought a skein of 'Silk and Ivory' for the stash.  Today has actually been quite productive on the fibre front - I also finished spinning my second bobbin of Merino.  The second bobbin has taken nearly two months, thanks to my having virtually no spare time during school term.  I'm looking forward to plying and actually producing my first skein of yarn.  That probably won't happen until next weekend since I've left everything else that needs doing this weekend to tomorrow.

There has been very little knitting lately.  I bruised my left hand Friday week ago trying to quietly deal with a heater while supervising an exam at school.  I didn't close it hard enough and the door fell back on my hand leaving me with a nice swollen lump and bruise.  It's fine now, but Strawberry's Surprise #1 is awaiting buttons (hopefully I'll get a button-buying opportunity while in Sydney on Tuesday as I've ruled out all of the limited Armidale button range as unsuitable), and the Miami socks are not all that enjoyable to knit, so progress is almost non-existent.

Yes, it is the school holidays, so technically I should have some time to update this blog.  Problem is, it has been one entry on a very long list of things to get done over the holidays.  So here's a very long blog entry.

The last school term couldn't end soon enough.  I've been desperately in need of a break from school work.  Spring has well and truly sprung around here - a succession of trees are putting out new leaves, the flowers are mostly out (the Wisteria on the neighbour's fence appears to be among the last to bloom), the grass is growing again, and the washing actually manages to dry within a day rather than needing a spin in the clothes dryer.

So the first thing tackled aroung here was some gardening while the weather was good.  I've planted a Lavender, a  Roma Tomato plant (KMart hadn't managed to kill it yet), Basil seed, and seed of a few mini Tomato varieties.  I mulched the garden bed an the top of some of my pot plants.  Yet to be done is the planting of some radishes, beetroot, and perhaps the construction of a step from the front yard to the porch where the height difference is more than comfortable (and I tend to step onto the porch there because it is closest to the garage).

Next on the to-do list was transferring some of my video collection to DVD, now that I finally have a working DVD Recorder.  I haven't mentioned it here before, but I actually purchased a DVD Recorder back in July.  Problem was it kept stuffing up when finalising recordings, so it had to be sent under warranty to Melbourne, twice.  The first time they sent it back saying nothing was wrong.  The second time I sent them a disk on which I'd made a recording that did not work and asked that the machine be replaced.  They did replace it, and this one works perfectly.  So I finally got to clear most of the hard disk on the PVR to DVD.  I've recorded all the episodes of Daria series 2 & 3 that I had on video tape to DVD.  Then I found I was missing the first four episodes of series 4, and the tape with most of series 5 is missing.  I remember loaning that tape, but I equally remember getting it back.  I just don't know what I did with it after that!  Happily, I looked up the ABC TV website and found Daria is getting another airing from next week - from the start of series 4.  Fantastic.  There's still lots of other tapes to transfer to DVD.

Next was to finally retire my desktop computer in favour of my Dell laptop.  The desktop was crashing with ridiculous frequency, couldn't run some software (like Google Earth and podcasting software) and was taking up too much desk real estate.  I either had to cough up for some more RAM (it only had 128 Mb), or buy a print server (as the desktop was acting as a print server by sharing the printer on my home network).  I went with the print server, which arrived on Tuesday, despite the supplier dispatching it to my old address (Idiots.  They've apologised.  Thank goodness for good couriers.), and so I'm writing this on the Dell.  I may even manage to reclaim the dining table for dining and reading newspapers - a novel concept since it is usually drowning in a laptop (or two) and school work.  So far I haven't got my school iBook to fully communicate with the printer via the print server.  It recognises it, and prints to it, but the job gets stuck when 9-11% complete.  Considering it took a heck of a lot of effort to get it to talk to the printer under the old set up, I'm not surprised.  I'm not all that bothered right now, since it's the holidays and I'm ignoring the iBook (this mixed PC/Mac home network was never my idea...).

Yesterday was a shopping trip to Tamworth.  Not terribly interesting.  Today I finally started plying my first two bobbins of merino singles.  Hooray!  Real yarn as a product of my spinning!  It seems to have taken forever as I just haven't had time.  The first skein is pretty good - it's the best part of my first bobbin - most of my second bobbin is pretty even.  The second skein is a bit more wobbly as the not-so-great parts of the first bobbin are overspun, so the plys don't balance.  I'm yet to ply the last part of each bobbin, but I expect it to be much like the second skein.  Photos soon.

On my visit to Sydney earlier this month I made a visit to All Buttons Great and Small in Newtown, and picked out some nice buttons for Strawberry's Surprise.  I sewed them on the other day, so it's now finished (photos only once my sister has received it).  I also went to Haighs Chocolates in the Strand Arcade.  I've loved Haighs Chocolate since first experiencing it while at at conference in Adelaide many years ago, and I was a frequent visitor to Haighs shops back when I lived in Melbourne.  I bought quite a bit of chocolate, but it's all gone now (*sob*).  I'll have to make a return visit next month when I'm down again (another fly in-fly out in one day, sadly).

For the first time in months, I've actually done some spinning.

Daylight saving would normally have ended today.  But because of the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, this year they've extended it until next Sunday.  I wasn't even aware of it until a few days ago when they mentioned it on the news.  Alas, today, both laptops (mine and school's) dutifully switched back to Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) without bothering to ask me.  I switched both back, and I'll manually change them again next week.  The hassle is my digital set top box.  I don't set the time on it - it receives the time in the digital signal.  It's pretty handy when the power fails - it is told the current time and date, and presumably stores all my recording information on the PVR's hard disk.  So Thursday week ago when the power was off for around an hour (which was jolly fun at school - not!), the VCR needed reprogramming, but the set top box was fine.  But now the box is on AEST, so all my recordings are set to happen an hour late.  I could change all the recordings for the week, but then the time signal might get corrected at any time.  I may just turn all the recordings off for the week, and start and stop each one I need manually.  But one of them is while I'm at school.

Edit: I've fixed the time on the set top box - I fudged it by changing my time zone.  It seems I have got control over whether it applies daylight saving either "October to March" or a Tasmanian setting for their earlier start to daylight saving.

There is progress in spinning:


And progress on the DNA Scarf.  I am still suffering from the ick, more than four weeks on.  I didn't go to school on Friday because I coughed so badly all night and barely got a wink of sleep.  The doctor is sure that all the bugs are dead - but I may go on coughing up the gunk in my lungs for another four weeks yet.  Sigh.

I'm still making progress on Icarus.  The extra repeat of chart 1 has turned into a second extra repeat of chart 1 after some careful measuring and mathematics with the assistance of Margaret at Spinning and Weaving last Saturday.  I've just the last half-repeat of the monotonous chart 1 before I can move onto chart 2.

I've finally had the spinning wheel out and have been spinning the purple merino I dyed back I-don't-know-when.  It's to be plied with the silk/merino blend I was spinning back in March according to my blog archives...  Unfortunately, the wool was slightly felted (just a little, but enough to be annoying) during dyeing and is being a little difficult to work with.  I have one bobbin and one half-bobbin of the silk/merino blend, so once I have a half-bobbin of the purple stuff, I'll do some plying to see how it's turning out.  I haven't tackled the silk hankies yet, mainly because my hands aren't smooth enough just at present thanks to some eczema, and the silk catches really easily.  The wheel is coming with me to Mum and Dad's over Christmas, so there will hopefully be some productive output.

I started and finished my Christmas shopping in one hit yesterday.  Hardly some great feat since I had only four presents to get.  We only give the children presents in our family (one nephew and three nieces at last count), which I really like.  There is far too much stupid consumerism at Christmas time.  To me it is more about spending time with my family.

I've been tidying up around the blog sidebars.  I've updated my "Blogs I Read" list since it only had 11 sites listed, whereas my Bloglines account has 37 feeds subscribed...  I haven't thrown all of them up there since some are covered by the Links list or for various other reasons.  I also fixed a few out of date links and noticed that the Fibre Arts Bloggers Web Ring image had gone missing.  After searching about I discovered that the ring had "moved" and the image now needed to be stored on my own blog (which is the usual set up anyhow).  It seems many haven't realised this and still have broken links (and missing images) on their blogs - and the change seems to have occurred back in July!  I know it is hard to manage a Web Ring (since I'm still stuck with managing a small one in addition to one of my web sites), but it would have been nice to have been informed there had been changes.

It seems the local post office finally did a bit of tidying of their own and placed a 'final' parcel notice in my post office box this morning.  It was a package of beads I ordered over a month ago, and reported missing three weeks ago...  I suspect the first card (which, according to the parcel, should have arrived on the 23rd November) either went in the wrong box, or the parcel arrived on the same day as another, but they decided to put only one card in the box and then failed to notice both parcels when I handed in the card.  I'm a bit miffed that it took nearly a month to get around to the second card.  In that time I've collected three other parcels!  When I went away in July, I got a first and final card for a parcel inside a week!  Anyway, I'm jolly pleased to finally have obtained the beads!

And I finally finished clearing off the set top box hard drive, removing the last four episodes of Mythbusters to DVD.  The hard drive is now empty for the first time since I first bought it in May last year.  But not for long - The series Teachers, that I mentioned back in September has been screening at a ridiculously late hour on Wednesdays, so the box has that to time shift for me again tomorrow night.  It gave me the chance to use the "erase disk" function though - with everything deleted the disk was still only 99.9% available until I did the erase function, so now it is at 100%.  I haven't a clue what the 0.1% being used was about!

I spent most of Australia Day at the local racecourse as part of the Armidale Spinners and Weavers display.  There are more pictures over at the guild site, including of me(!).  I was spinning up my dyed silk hankies and got quite a bit done.  Many of the people who came by were quite fascinated by the process.  I had to slow down towards the end of the day as the silk is hard on the hands and I nearly blistered my right middle finger from drawing out the silk.



The results so far sure are looking nice.  I can't wait to ply it up and see how it's turned out.

I reached the end of spinning the singles from the dyed silk hankies yesterday and they are ready to ply.  But I've had the purple silk/merino blend waiting to be plied since around Christmas and thought it was high time I did so.  Especially as some of it has been waiting a long time (eek!  nearly a year!).  So as incentive (since I'm keen to see how the silk turned out), I've plied the silk/merino first.



The first skein was plied yesterday, and a second and a small third one were plied this morning.  I keep looking at it thinking "wow" and "why the heck didn't I do it sooner?".

Next up, the silk.  And the first jaywalker sock should be done soon too.

As promised, the silk hankies have been plied and the resultant yarn is yummy and soft.  And I have just finished grafting the toe of the first jaywalker sock.

Every time I get busy, blogging stops.  I've been busy.  Really busy.  I'm going to be even more busy, but I'm not blogging about that for now.  But I have plenty of stuff I can tell you all about.

Last weekend was the Armidale Show.  The Spinners and Weavers put on a display, and you can see me spinning in public over there (first photo).  I was spinning up some blended possum and merino that Mum brought back from New Zealand for me late last year.  And I finished spinning the singles on Saturday night and plied it on Wednesday.  It was a bit overspun as I kept being distracted, but it will make a nice pair of fingerless gloves when I get around to it...



I also entered the Jaywalker socks into the knitting section of the show, which unfortunately only had two entrants - myself and Bronwyn.   Bronwyn took the honours and my socks were given second place.  You can see a picture of them both on display (last photo).  The number of entries was particularly poor this year - I almost didn't bother (I was really busy, and almost didn't make it over to the showground to enter them).  I hope something can be done to encourage more entries.

I made it to Virginia Farm on Monday and bought some more dyes to extend the range of colours I have on hand and had a long chat to Jenny about dyes.  I gleaned some valuable information about dyeing Optim wool that I will put into practice when I finally get to the 500 grams of it I have in the spinning stash.  Today I used some of the new dyes on some more silk hankies.  They were meant to have more blue and less of the purple, but seeing as these are my two favourite colours, it can't really go wrong.



I'll start spinning these hankies (this is only a fraction of what I dyed) once I've finished with the natural coloured merino I'm  working with at the moment.   I'm spinning it very fine because that's what it seemed to want to be, and as there's only 25 grams of it, if it isn't fine, it won't go very far!  (Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of it.)



I got home on Wednesday and found I had a glut of tomatoes.  I have a plant in a pot on the front verandah (grosse lisse) and several plants out the back (I don't know how many or the varieties, but they're the cherry-sized ones)  that were self-sown from the compost I spread in the garden last year.



This is the same garden bed that was hit hard by the hail storm last December, and my parsley was not really ruined - that's it on the far right end of the plants, more than knee-high.  (Further to the right is a new extension to this bed which I finished about two weeks ago.)  The furthermost plant on the left is the most productive - it's right in the corner of the bed adjacent to the path, and most of the plant is sitting on the path gaining warmth from it and the wall.  The plant extending the furthest from the bed in the centre is very large, but has really only just begun flowering.  I very much doubt I'll get any fruit off that one before the first frost comes and knocks out all these plants.  I'd never have thought tomatoes would have grown here in the first place with only morning sun - the wall clearly makes a big difference, making it a bit of a heat trap.  And they've thrived on neglect as I was really only bothering to water the parsley until these plants really took off, and they've been virtually pest free whereas I've been constantly having to pick caterpillars off the plant on the front verandah.

And yes, I am knitting another sock.  But I forgot to photograph it, so I'll show that another time...

If you haven't already heard it from me and you hadn't already guessed from my last post that something was up, I'm moving house.  I've got a job in Sydney that starts next Monday, so I leave tomorrow.  However, my belongings won't be moving until the school holidays - I have to find somewhere to live in Sydney (no easy task at the moment!).  So far I have about half of my things packed, with the rest to be done over Easter.  Until then I'm staying with my brother, Tim, and Jenny B.  I'm very happy about the job (at "a school in Sydney" - that's all the detail you're getting) and I'll be even happier when I've secured somewhere to live!

Sadly, it meant the weaving project I was working on with the handspun silk had to come off the loom.  It wasn't going anywhere because I still wasn't really happy with the warp, and had realised I'd had the perfect yarn for the warp in my stash the whole time (duh!).  So once I've moved and settled in, I'll make another attempt at that project.  And there's a definite positive in having an income again - I can continue to support my fibre and book buying habits!



Here's the coloured merino I mentioned in the last post.  I've also started spinning a little bit of the silk hankies for variety.  The spinning wheel is coming with me to Sydney tomorrow.



And here's the current sock - nearly at the toe.  You may notice I'm not using my bamboo dpns - I had to go up to 2.75 mm needles with this yarn as it's just a smidge thicker than the sock yarns I usually use, and I don't have that size in bamboo.

Last, but not least, good timing has seen me finally finish the web site I have been working on since January for the local yarn shop, WOW Wool on Wheels.

My parents have been visiting this week and this morning my Mother and I went to the NSW Spinners and Weavers Guild open day in Burwood. We had great fun going around all the stalls to see what was on offer, then going around again, making purchases.





I bought some natural grey merino from Virginia Farm, a wraps per inch wooden tool from a stall that I unfortunately forget who was running, and a packet of dyed merino from Susanne's House of Wool. I'd have a photo of my haul, but the camera is not cooperating again and the camera phone doesn't do that sort of shot well. Mum also bought some of the same grey merino, and another drop spindle, I think from Waratah Fibres and Crafts (no website yet). We both spent all the money we had, so it was good.
Edit: Waratah Fibres now have a website.

Here's a pic of my booty from the Guild open day yesterday: natural grey merino from Virginia Farm, a wraps per inch wooden tool from a stall that I unfortunately forget who was running, and a packet of dyed merino from Susanne's House of Wool in the colourway "Blueberry Choc".

Alas, I go back to school tomorrow, but I have accomplished one goal I wanted to reach before these holidays ended - spinning up silk hankies for a particular knitting project. There is about 760 metres in this 100 gram skein. I can't wait to start swatching.

Taking a week off from all school work was a very good move. I have about a third of a new pullover - one of the three big projects I mentioned in my last post. The pullover is based on the Tangled Yoke Cardigan from Interweave Knits (Fall 2007). The idea of making it a pullover is not mine - I saw a few done this way in Ravelry and had to do it too. I've done a yarn substitution - Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed instead of Rowan Felted Tweed. I love this Jo Sharp yarn. I have a well worn cardigan I made in this yarn about five years ago (pre-blog) in the Paper Rose colour (a button popped off it this morning - I'm hoping I kept a spare since I lost it while I was out and don't hold any hope of finding it) and a scarf in the Cocoa colour. This time I'm using Peppercorn, which is a charcoal black. It was difficult to obtain enough balls of this yarn from the one dyelot. I ended up having to order it in at the Hornsby Wool and Craft Nook. I'm starting to think I may have bought too much, but that is far better than too little.



As well as the yarn substitution, I fall exactly half-way between sizes. The sizes are four inches different in the bust measurement (because of the repeats in the cabled yoke). I was hoping after knitting a gauge swatch, that I might find that knitting a half-size down would give me the actual size I want. No such luck. And the gauge swatch grew a lot on being washed (this was no huge surprise, as I say I 've worked with this yarn before). So I worked out the number of stitches needed to make it my size for the body and arms (since the stitch pattern there isn't a problem) and calculated what number of stitches I'd have when I reached the yoke and the all-important cable pattern. Believe it or not, the number I arrived at was exactly the number for one-and-a-half sizes down. No further tweaking necessary. So now all I am stressing about is that the gauge swatch had better not have lied, because I won't know if the pullover will fit until it is finished and hits the water. Eeek! So far it is exactly the size the swatch said it would be pre-washing.



It's amazing how much knitting I can do when I'm not working! But that's not all I have been doing. I have had my spinning wheel out for the first time since last December and have nearly finished spinning the singles of the hand-dyed merino I bought last October.



The Passionfruit socks project is being completely ignored. I don't need another pair of new socks just now, and I'm enjoying doing bigger things.

All I seem to be doing today is visiting the frog pond. I started the first sleeve of the Tangled Yoke Pullover a few days ago, and finally had to admit defeat this morning and frog it. My gauge on 3.75 mm DPNs is looser than on 3.75 mm Addi Lace Turbos. Not a little different, a lot different. Bugger. I shall start the sleeves again on 3.25 mm DPNs and keep my fingers crossed.

I finished spinning the singles of the hand-dyed merino and taught myself to navajo ply using this You Tube video and some left over silk hankie singles. After the silk (which I now like better than the two ply yarn I made from it before) I finished spinning the rest of a small sample amount (c. 20 g) of natural brown merino into singles and then navajo plied that. Yummy!



I thought it came out a little overspun, but it relaxed after a soak and is nice and soft and about 3-4 ply equivalent. I think there's enough there for a little pair of baby socks. Then came the hand-dyed merino. I think I overspun that even more than the natural brown stuff, but I'm still pretty happy with it.



I began knitting the pattern I intended to make this yarn into - the Multidirectional Scarf, but it is a case of right sort of colour variegation, not enough yarn.



So frogged it is, and I think it is just crying out to be socks instead. I'm listening, but it shall have to ruminate in the stash until I have time for more sock knitting. I must get back to the sleeve of the jumper.

Life has been very hectic since the last post. I've survived Year 7 camp (I had a great group of kids, so it wasn't as bad as I had feared) and I've been to Adelaide for a conference. The trip home from Adelaide last Friday was a bit of an ordeal, but I won't bore you all with that other than to ponder why people feel the need to have a hissy fit when things go a little awry - it's not going to change anything or help! But I will tell you about the better part of Friday, spent stash enhancing in Adelaide.



First stop was the Yarn Barn in Rostrevor. I found the range of yarns there quite impressive - they have some lines in Sublime, RYC and Sirdar that I haven't seen before. I'll be keeping them in mind once I've managed to run down the stash a bit (there's already a couple more jumpers worth of yarn here). I bought Noro Silk Garden in two colours to make a Noro Scarf, and 4 balls of 8 ply Jolly Jumbuck in a natural grey (no particular project in mind).


The second stop was the Walking Wheel Studio in Seaview Downs run by Bella Head. This was like being let loose in a candy shop. Extra photos for teasing my Mother:







I would have happily have bought much more than I actually did, but had to be restrained because I had very limited room in my suitcase, and will have more fibre buying opportunities over the rest of this month. I came away with a ball of alpaca/silk lace weight yarn in Mulberry and 490 grams of merino/alpaca/silk. I wish I'd bought the Romney I had picked out too, but I knew there would be no room in the suitcase for it (the merino/alpaca/silk bag has split because I had to squash it so much!).



Had the weather been better (it was very overcast with constant drizzle) I might have ventured further, but really, two shops was enough.