Seriously though, I don't have ADD, I'm just totally out of practice with editing my website (and concentrating on anything) after spending three and a half months spending every waking moment sewing the suffolk puff quilt.

So, having said that, here's what's flitting around my brain at the moment!

First of all I had an urge to blend some of the fibres from my stash.

I started by drum carding 400gms of fine merino/baby alpaca that my sister gave me. It was already carded and mixed in the packet but the two fibres weren't blended together much so I put it through the drum carder once to mix it up a bit. I'm not going to spin it yet because I haven't decided what to make with it.

Next I decided to card together some "little bits and pieces" in order to turn them into a usable amount of yarn.

I took some absolutely divine natural coloured combed merino tops that Jenny from Virginia Farm Woolworks sent me as a sample when I bought my cotton hand cards and lace whorl from her last year. This stuff is so divinely soft, it's amazing. It had been sitting in my stash awaiting a project that would do justice to it, but I couldn't figure out what to use it for because there was such a tiny amount. It suddenly occurred to me last night that I should combine it with some silk that my sister gave me, because the silk had been sitting around for exactly the same reason.

This is the result. I ended up combining pale grey and dark grey tops from Virginia Farm, a scrap of 22 micron merino (about 10-15 grams I had left from a 1.5 kilo bag!) also from Virginia Farm, 10 grams each of blue, dark brown, medium brown, burgundy and gold silk, and 5-10 grams each of several other shades of brown silk. I ended up with 120gm of gorgeous light as air wool/silk, about 50/50 in volume. I'm going to spin this laceweight. It's so incredibly light that I should be able to get some amazing yardage out of it.

Have a closeup.

I envision that it will change colour slowly as I spin, but I better not think about it too much right now or I'll find myself having started another project :P

And it is soooo tempting to start more projects around here because look what has arrived in the post over the last 3 or 4 weeks!

I was browsing ebay a couple of weeks ago when I saw an amazing crochet book from 1946. I felt it was far too expensive considering I couldn't look at it (over $30 including postage) so I had a look at abebooks.com just in case there was a copy for sale. It was a long shot considering the book is so old, but I found a copy for $3! Including postage from the US, it ended up costing me roughly AUD$12 and now that I've seen it, I would have to say it was worth the $30 I saw it for on ebay. :-)

It's called "The Complete Book of Crochet" by Elizabeth Laird Matheson and was published by Greystone Press in 1946 (mine is a 1947 reprint)

It's full of amazing doilies and tablecloths like these

and also has some really incredible deco style pot holders. At the time of writing this there are 5 copies available on abebooks, if you love vintage crochet go and snap one up!

If that weren't distracting enough, I also found this tatting book from the 1950's on abebooks with about a zillion edgings and several doilies that I want to make:

and this booklet that I want to add to the knitting wiki:

That one came from an auction site (not ebay).

This book did come from ebay though :)

Una-na dolls. It's in Japanese but, having had a thorough look at it, that won't be a problem as it has great instructional illustrations..

I fell totally in love with these dolls when I saw the book on ebay and I can't wait to make one! But I will wait because I'm feeling overwhelmed by all the projects I have on the go, and by how far behind I am on updating the website.

Speaking of which, I found something new to add :P

We went to visit my Dad on the weekend to deliver his father's day present (it arrived a week late but he loves it so that's cool). He gave me this scrapbook that he bought at an antique shop. He'd purchased it for an article that it had about a steam engine, however the rest of the scrapbook is about spiritualism and since he has no interest in it he gave the rest of the book to me.

The entries date from 1907-1930 and it contains letters, the owner's thoughts on the upcoming war (WWI), photographs, prayer cards and many articles about spiritualism, ghosts, clairvoyants and possession. It's incredibly fascinating so I'll be adding that to the site as well.

In an attempt to get back into the swing of things, I'm off to do the housework. Then I'm going to start work on adding the new categories to the website. I intend to put the framework for the new sections up with a single article each, upload those and then add an article at least once a fortnight to each section. To recap what I have said in earlier posts the new sections will be:

Hairpin lace
Tatting
Singercraft
The Spiritualism Scrapbook
Teneriffe Lace
I'm also going to separate the Butterfly Looms from the small looms section and give them their own section because I want to expand it, and I have more embroidery patterns to add and will continue moving the homework lace patterns to the wiki, all while working on my next book!

I need staff :P