In Which Sarah Tries to Catch Up on a Whole Month of Blogging in One Post...

Posted by on Monday 17 December, 2007 12:56 PM

You know the old saying "it never rains but it pours"? Well they forgot about lightning.

After being ill for 6 weeks and taking another week to recover from the medication, our power and phone lines were hit by lightning. Luckily most of our electrical gear was unplugged but we still lost a LOT of gear, including 2 computers and our network modem (an xbox, tv set top box, vcr, a couple of power boards and the network card in my computer), which is why I've only just got back to blogging.

After all that here I am, healthy, online and with a whole lot of stuff to blog about :)

Here goes.

I found these at the op shop:

and bought this pattern to use some of it :)

I spun these:

Fingering/sport weight 22 micron merino. The fibre was from Margaret Peel's Fibre Supplies which is now closed, but I'm very grateful my sister taught me how to hand paint roving before she closed the business :)

I also spun these from some silk/merino batts that I blended. The fibres are 52 percent silk and 48 percent wool. The top one is 2 ply fingering weight, which I have spun for weaving and the bottom one is 2 ply laceweight which I spun for a friend of mine.

This one actually has more purple than shows in the photo.

The laceweight is 120gm, balanced 2 ply, 30WPI, unknown yardage because it's too light and fine to measure accurately on my McMorran yarn balance

I made my father in law a watch cap using the pattern from The Any Yarn. Any Size Knit Hat Book.
The yarn is dk weight wool, the beige is a discontinued commercial yarn and the blue and orange are my handspun :)

I liked knitting him the watch cap so much that I knit him a beanie from the book too. The main yarn is a lovely handspun merino in brown with tiny flecks of other colours. I spun it from a bump that I bought from Virginia Farm Woolworks. I love Virginia Farm, their prices are amazing, the quality of their fibre is superb and I'm VERY fussy about both. The beige is the same yarn from the watchcap.

Our car broke down and I took photos of my Dad's dog for a future project :). His name was Gizmo but my Dad changed it to Rusty because he already has a cat called Gizmo and the poor little buggers were getting very confused. He's a pound dog, which is why he already had a name.

Why did I take photos of my Dad's dog? I'm going to knit him a David Brown tractor for his birthday and I thought it would be cute to make a little needle felted Dad and his dog to sit on it. Dad takes his dog for rides on his tractor in the grand parade when they do open days at the Steam and Machinery Museum that he belongs to.

There were happy tears when Rusty's previous owners saw him on the back of the tractor at one open day. They were really pleased to see that he's thoroughly spoilt by his new owner.

I had planned to knit the tractor for Dad for Christmas but nausea and trying to design and write a complicated pattern just don't go together so I bought his Chrissy present and put the project on hold.

I made two Extermmiknit daleks but I forgot to photograph them before I wrapped them up so I'll have to click some snaps on Christmas day when they're unwrapped. The pattern is utter genius. Everyone who likes Dr Who should make one :). I found that using a couple of magnetic strips and board to keep my place in each row was essential. I tried charting it but the chart was just too big to use effectively. I hate knitting bobbles but I really like this pattern. Besides, the bobbles are done in no time and the result is so worth it.

Finally (for this post), I made Chauncey by Dee Brown. I added the hat myself and I'll post the pattern when I can find out where I put the notes. The colourwork bits are a little tricky but you can fix any mess on the back before felting. When you felt it all the mess disappears.

Aside from the hat I also added little flower-loom flowers to the eyes with a button in the middle.

I have made some other things but they're not photographed yet. I'll try and get photos this afternoon!

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P***ed Off and Itchy and a Bit of Craft Stuff

Posted by on Wednesday 7 November, 2007 01:28 AM

TMI alert. If you are sensitive to TMI please scroll down to the craft related stuff.

Sorry for the lack of interesting blog posts around here lately. The truth is I haven't been terribly well. Nothing major but our car broke down over a week ago and it's still not fixed $1,300 later (at least they know what's wrong now) and as a result I couldn't go to the doctor until last night.

Apparently the rash I thought was some kind of virus is just hives. Yep, I'm allergic to something and it's covered my arms and shins in hives for 2 1/2 weeks, made my right foot swell up to bursting point )it's gone down a bit now) and given me high blood pressure for three days. I never get high blood pressure. Ever. Except now.

Sigh.

The doc said if it doesn't calm down in a week I'm to have blood tests to see if it's something else. I have to go back to have my blood pressure checked again anyway. I just want to not itch. I'm sitting here posting a big whinge at 1am to distract myself from scratching because I don't have anything to use as a cold compress. Bah, that would just give me a cold anyway...

So what might I be allergic to? I have it narrowed down to three things aside from pollens (could be that too).

Our new dish washing liquid. Can't do a thing about that because all the dishes were just washed with it. I'll stop using it from now on just in case though.

The brand of tea I switched to when I ran out of my favourite tea (not drinking that any more)

A sudden increase in my sensitivity to the chemicals used to make some machine washable yarns (Oh goddess I hope not). Yep, I was already allergic to that stuff. I've always broken out in hives if I wear certain machine wash wools but knitting with them has never bothered me before. I was going to say that I haven't touched any for at least a week but I've just realised I've been weaving little squares on my weavette with it. Argh. Mostly my squares are handwash only though.

Actual Craft Stuff

I don't have photos yet (maybe tomorrow) but I finished spinning this merino/silk:

I spun it into a 2 ply lace weight yarn at 30wpi.

I also finished spinning the singles of this merino/silk:

I started plying it into a nice 2 ply fingering weight yarn. That's 4 ply to my fellow Aussies. I'm going to wash it and weight it and use it for the weft in a woven scarf. I'm thinking of trying to spin my first warp yarn with some of the brown wool that was used in this blend. I've been advised to spin it with a fairly high twist so that it can stand the abrasion it would get while weaving. I may go as far as to spin twice what I need so I can sample to my heart's content before I weave the scarf. If it turns out well I'll probably use the scarf as a table runner, you never know.

Well, my hives have calmed down a fair bit and I'm exhausted (it's now 1:30 am) so I'm going back to bed.

See you in the morning (and not before, I hope).

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Arse

Posted by on Saturday 1 September, 2007 11:03 AM

Yes, I think that's an appropriate title.

I am sitting here at my rapidly crapping out keyboard, with a skinned knee, two skinned palms, a great deal of antiseptic cream and very low self esteem.

I would just like to say "Fairy Meadow Council: Your pavements are beyond crap and you're damn lucky I am not the kind of person to sue for any small reason. You are also lucky I didn't break my teeth like I thought I was going to, because that is something I would have sued your arses for".

And you're lucky my spinning wheel is double treadle so I can still finish my spinning. As soon as my hands stop stinging.

Ahem.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

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Invasion Time

Posted by on Friday 27 July, 2007 02:04 PM

The Wintertime spring cleaning is finished. Everything has been vacuumed, polished, bleached, scrubbed or otherwise tidied away in time for our rental inspection this afternoon.

I simply cannot express how much I hate rental inspections. Not only does it freak me out that total strangers are coming here and invading my personal space, but there always has to be some kind of joke made at my expense because I "do crafts". I'm so sick of it that now, when people ask what I do for a living, I tell them I'm a non-fiction author. Technically it's the truth and I don't have to put up with the insinuations that writing craft books and websites isn't a real job!

While I wait for them to arrive I'm going to work on adding some more of the Home Work patterns to the knitwiki and afterwards I'm going to treat myself by having a go at making something with my Singercraft tools.

Hopefully my daughter won't bring any friends home from school today. The speed at which teenagers can destroy a kitchen is amazing...

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I Need to Rethink My Filing System

Posted by on Tuesday 17 July, 2007 08:15 AM

My tax return isn't quite finished yet. I'm having an argument with my filing system. "Shove it in a shopping bag and deal with it later" has resulted in a couple of missing receipts and a whole bunch of electronic receipts needing to be printed from my email, paypal and other various files that are, um, in locations that haven't been located yet.

Plus the bag I was keeping receipts in before we moved last November is... somewhere.

I suck at organisation. (Everyone who has ever been to my house is now laughing hysterically at my grand understatement of the facts). Since the new financial year began 17 days ago I'm going to get this year's receipts in order now and download the book keeping software from the Aussie tax website and keep everything under control.

Right after I find the whole year's worth of phone bills (I have most of them, just not all of them).

Possibly.

Here's something that I do have under control:

Four more squares for my suffolk puff/yo-yo coverlet. At first I was afraid that the "mostly white" squares were going to be horrible because I really hated the fabric that I used but all scrunched up like that I think they look really nice. That makes 72 squares done and 28 to go. Unless I've counted incorrectly, which is a definite possibility.

For new readers, here's the blurb from my flickr set:

"Progress shots of my very first suffolk puff/yo-yo coverlet made with the Clover Quick Yo-Yo Maker.

I'm using mostly cotton (but not all) fabric scraps and discarded fashion fabric samples from my sewing, local op shops and the Reverse Garbage Co-Op.

The suffolk puffs are 4.5cm in diameter and the size of the finished coverlet should be just over five and a half feet square.

Started at the very end of April 2007 and intended as a wedding present on August 19th 2007.

Wish me luck!"

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Erg and "Yay!" (A Review of the Clover Quick Yo-Yo Maker)

Posted by on Wednesday 11 July, 2007 08:51 AM

OK, I'll put the "Yay" first.

A Review of Clover's Quick Yo-Yo Makers

First of all I'll fess up and tell you that this review is from the point of view of a person who had never made a suffolk puff yo-yo before. So you know that I am not comparing using these tools to the traditional way of making suffolk puffs. I think that's important to know.

Clover's new(ish) quick yo-yo makers rock. If you've been following along on the adventure of my suffolk puff coverlet you'll know that I've already put the large round yo-yo maker through it's paces by sewing 1,600 puffs. Actually I made 1,603 but I accidentally cut holes in two when snipping the thread, and the other one is the one in this photo.

But I'm rambling (you'll find out the reason if you make it through to the second half of this post...)

Have a photo:

Top row: Large heart, large flower, small flower.

Bottom row: Extra large circle, large circle, small circle.

The tools for the small heart and extra small circle should arrive in the post today.

These tools are really easy to use, and as you can see from my very first suffolk puff heart and flowers in the photo, they look great even from the first go. The flowers even have a cool optional puffy centre. I think I might make a little corsage thingy with the tiny flowers to put on the box when I wrap up the coverlet.

If you'd like to ask me anything about using them let me know by leaving a comment on this post.

Another "Yay"

I made this crazy quilt purse for Miss Brittany last year and totally forgot to post anything about it! Since I've forgotten which book the pattern was in I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

And now the Ergh

After two days of wondering why everyone keeps saying it's cold whenever I turn the heater off, I've come to the conclusion that I have a fever. Again.

OK, I came to that conclusion when I woke up boiling hot this morning and feeling like I had been punched in the head. Repeatedly. So I'm going to veg with videos and suffolk puffs today and wait for my headache to go away while I wait for toner guy to come back with my repaired toner cartridge. After which I will print out my hat book for the editor.

It's a good thing Jamie found a bunch of Angel DVDs for $1 at the video shop last week. And I still haven't watched all of season 2 of Red Dwarf!

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Looking on the Bright Side.

Posted by on Wednesday 2 May, 2007 09:53 AM

I received a long awaited paycheque the other day, yay!

Now I have enough money to pay my taxes or buy a Mac computer that will finally keep up with the type of digitised art I want to make.

Yeah, I'm gonna pay my taxes. At least that means I'm going to get a refund this year instead of a bill!

Edited to add: I checked the apple website. It wasn't enough for the computer of my dreams after all. It was enough for 1/3 of the computer of my dreams.

:-P

It's still enough to pay my taxes though!

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Oh Crap

Posted by on Sunday 8 April, 2007 06:29 PM

I was playing with this:

And this happened

Anyone want to buy me a year's Flickr hosting for my birthday next Sunday?

:-P

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I Jinxed Myself...

Posted by on Saturday 3 March, 2007 09:48 AM

I made it to 39 articles by lunchtime yesterday (I did the picot hem article but not the yarn over one).

To be more accurate, I made it to lunch time yesterday. At which point I was so exhausted that I went to bed for a 20 minute nap and woke up at 6pm. I made an appearance that I vaguely remember at 3:30, had a drink of water and went straight back to bed.

I've tried doing the yarn over article today but I'm still wiped out. I got a couple of photos done before I just lost it. I have no patience with trying to take photos of knitting techniques single handed, no patience with my job (writing this website and my book), no patience with my camera being 7 years old and crapped out, along with my computer that won't let me use my graphics tablet because it's too bloody slow. And I keep typing the wrong words because I'm so tired and constantly have to go back and fix everything..

I just don't understand why I'm so exhausted. I signed up for Sharon's personal library of stitches class and this week's lesson is really interesting but I couldn't be bothered with it. I think I might just collect the handouts and look at what everyone else is doing and do it on my own later.

I'm going to go and read a book and have another nap.

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Insomnia, Part 123,455,656

Posted by on Tuesday 6 February, 2007 05:12 AM

Yep, it's true. I can't sleep.

AGAIN

It's 5:13am right now and I've been up since at least 3:30 (if not earlier).

I thought I might get a start on some website work by scanning this little booklet for the embroidery page but with no natural light I can't adjust the colours if needed.

And now I'm finally tired again and I can't go back to bed cos I have to get up at 6 anyway.

Can't work on the wiki because I had to change the dns info for the site (old server wasn't php 5, new server won't serve php until the the domain is propogated) and I'm afraid if I touch my knitting I'm going to screw it up. At 288 stitches per round on teeny tiny needles, AND it's a hat for my book I'm not willing to risk it.

Sigh. Sometimes I hate my stupid brain not wanting to sleep past 3:30 several days every week.

I think I know where to get books 1-3 of the embroidery series (that's book 4 in the pic), but I won't know until May. Maybe I can find them somewhere else before then.

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Bleh

Posted by on Sunday 7 January, 2007 10:41 PM

I know I'm being really boring by not posting lots of lovely photos of the many interesting things I've been up to but I realised last night that I have a virus, right after I complained the weather was really hot and Jamie mentioned that no, it wasn't, but I was, and not in a good way.

So this week (or at least tomorrow) I shall do absolutely nothing of substance while I very slowly sort out all of the incredible vintage knitting patterns I found out that I still own even though I gave away all the ones that didn't "wow" me. Apparently a lot of them wowed me. And they still do. And they need sorting into some semblence of order so I can spend the next 30 years scanning them and putting them on the website.

No kidding. It probably would take me that long. I think I'll have to make sure I do one per week or something.

Now, to medicate myself into a much cooler personal climate and off to bed...

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Why I Won't Be Knitting Today

Posted by on Wednesday 7 June, 2006 10:42 AM

Have you ever had one of those weeks where so many things have crapped up that you start thinking the cosmos is picking on you?

I'm having one of those weeks.

First of all the hat I knit from handspun drastically changed size after washing. No biggie, my fault. Not only was it someone else's handspun purchased from an op shop but I guessed the gauge and knew it would relax after the lanolin was washed out. No great time was involved in making it, so I ripped it out so I could start again with the correct gauge.

Then the battery went flat on my mobile phone and erased half of everything but it still thinks it's there and I don't know the security code to reset it. It's not in my name so I have to wait for Jamie to call and get the code.

That's when all hell broke loose.

Last night some arsehole stole our car from the driveway. An old car, but one that worked beautifully because we had just spent a grand fixing it up. Apparently a highly sought after car by local thieves because the parts are in great demand. This means that most of the money so carefully saved to pay off the "huge interest" credit card will most likely have to be spent on a new "old" car because the market value of the stolen car wasn't anywhere near enough to buy a working car and we could only get "market value" insurance on the old car because it was so old.

And now my computer won't boot. Or to be more precise, booting is the ONLY thing it WILL do. Over and over again...

This is why I won't be touching my new lace knitting project today. Why tempt fate?

BTW: The project is a lace shawl from Interweave's reprint of the Weldon's books #12. It didn't have a picture so I naturally had to knit it to see what it looks like. It's a lace star with leaves in between the points. I charted it, it looks like it'll be really pretty. I'm up to round 51. Oh, and the yarn I'm using is a laceweight wool/mohair that I bought from the legendary back room at Bendigo Woollen Mills when I used to live in Victoria. Of course the edging pattern had to be in a different volume of the book that's in the lockup with the rest of our gear... Sigh.

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Achoo

Posted by on Wednesday 23 November, 2005 08:45 PM

Well, the packing did not get done today. I suddenly felt sleepy around 11am, went to bed for half an hour and woke up at 4pm

:-P

I get the feeling that slight, tiny cough and on-again-off-again fever I've had for the past 3 weeks isn't hayfever and an allergy to camomile tea like I thought it was. I seem to actuallly be sick. Boo. Boring.

Maybe a good night's sleep will give it a good solid kick in the arse and II'll be able to finish my packing tomorrow.

~sniff~

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YMMV

Posted by on Wednesday 21 September, 2005 06:28 PM

A while ago I bought some 10mm circular Crystal Palace bamboo needles.

Upon using them for the first time, one of them self destructed.

The other one is still perfect. What really sucks (aside from the fact that they cost about $15 with shipping), is that they're really nice to use. Until they fell apart anyway...

Has anyone out there used Crystal Palace bamboo needles? What do you think of them?

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Argh.

Posted by on Sunday 31 July, 2005 02:46 AM

2am.

Pub.
Loud Music.
Dogs barking.
Phone call.
Quieter music.
Sleeping dogs.

Insomnia.

~Sigh~

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Still Breathing.

Posted by on Wednesday 27 April, 2005 04:41 PM

Still knitting.

Still coding the website for the 1st issue of Southern Cross Knitting, which, barring a major catastrophe, will be published next Monday 9am AEST

Note the caveat about the catastrophe. If it's not online at 9am AEST, someone come save me! You'll either find me under a pile of fibre, yarn, knitting reference books, or strangling the cat with the phone cord for puking on something important.

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Copyright.

Posted by on Thursday 8 November, 2001 09:49 PM

Copyright. Blah

I've decided that trying to talk to most people about copyright is just about as productive as banging your head against a wall. Well it gives the same results anyway.

Why is it that so many people see pattern designers as the enemy? Whenever the issue of copyright comes up you always hear the same things

Designers are rich anyway. I don't care if they lose money cos they've got more than me...

People don't deserve to make any money at something they enjoy (what a doozy)

I bought the pattern, I can do whatever I like with it

"Fair Use" means I can copy the pattern and upload it to my "friends" (no matter if their friends are 400 strangers on a craft list they joined last week)

Designers are greedy and should learn to share

It seems whenever you point out that the law says differently most people turn a deaf ear because they don't see how it effects the people who work so hard to come up with designs, or they just don't care. Speaking from experience it takes the joy out of creating anything. When someone rips off my work (and it's been happening right from the start) it's like someone's slapped you in the face and said "I like what you do but you're not worth anything as a person". It really feels that personal...

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