See this pile of bags of fleece? This is what was waiting for me this morning by the mailbox of the man with the friends with the alpacas with the haircuts.

Very kindly the man put the bags out by his letterbox last night. Very unfortunately it rained down lots if rain last night, and the bags were only loosely twisted shut, and were not watertight. So now I have a van boot full of bags of damp fleeces. Looks like I am learning to wash and dry fleece faster than I thought.

Tomorrow I am going to pick up I don't know how much alpaca fleece from the roadside letterbox of a man I have never met who is the friend of my friend, and the man's other friend had fleeces going begging. So I am taking the big van in case there is a lot of fleece.

I will have to get up to speed on the details of washing, preparing and spinning alpaca fleece. I really hope that someone skirted the fleece and I don't have to freight alpaca turds. I also really hope there isn't too much vegetable matter in the fleece. And I hope that they were well shorn and the fleece is nice and long.

But mostly I hope that the fleeces are lovely, because bringing a fleece, much less multiple fleeces, will be a challenge - where am I going to put them all????

I'm going to have to spin like the wind. I will swap handspun for babysitting hours. You keep my kids busy and happy and there will be a skein or two in it for you. On the assumption that this freebie fleece of unknown quality is lovely to work with.

Watch this space.

I started spinning some purple and tan wool roving into a low twist single yarn last night, but the colour really wasn't doing it for me. This afternoon picking the kids up at school, I saw a tree with the exact same colours in it's dying autumn leaves. Caramel and a warm lilac, just like the yarn. Hooray for keeping my eyes open to the gorgeousness around me wherever I go.

The other day I was walking past the table, and despaired about the amount of mess that always seemed to be there. But then I looked a bit harder and saw that everything on the table was related to someone making or doing something.


See if you can find the following things

• a cardboard box house that was built for a small plush dog. This house has sleeping rooms, a mezzanine with a ramp, living areas and a toilet
• small plastic containers that had spilled sequins and little beads, ideal for sticking onto things to make them very beautiful indeed
• a toddler who has been drawing with textas
• a sheet of example writing for a school aged lad who wanted to write a letter to his best adult friend telling him how much he loves her
• a wasp made out of a coco pops box, made by a lad who is very scared of wasps, and is trying to find out more about them to help him beat his phobia
• sticky tape
• a Footrot Flats book, and a fantasy dragon type book, both of which the kids are loving reading at the moment
• string, pencils, cut out paper, a flower made of paper and a pipe cleaner
• a vase of flowers (ok, so you can't see the flowers, just the vase) that The Love Of My Life brought home one day just because.

So instead of getting all crappy about the bloody mess all over the table, it made me feel like the clutter was really worthwhile, and evidence of what we value in our family. Hooray mess! Hooray constructive clutter! Hooray kids making stuff from the things around them and not needing instruction or help or a manufactured kit! Hooray creativity!

I am a tardy blogger. And a very busy woman.

I have been making stuff all over the place, but I tell you, this whole Catholic Church Pope Benedict Child Rape cover up scandal has been giving me the shits. Apparently it has been giving Tim Minchin the shits as well, because he has written and recorded this most excellent song which expresses my feelings exactly.

Thanks Tim. You are always fantastic.

A few weeks ago I finished the Wedding Wrap for my sister to wear around her shoulders in the cool of the evening at her wedding reception, and last weekend she wore it. It turned out just like I had hoped. The wedding was gorgeous, the bride was gorgeous, the flowergirls were gorgeous, and even the bridesmaids looked gorgeous.


While I am finally blogging some things that I have made (lately I either have time to blog or to make, but not to do both), I will share some flowers that were a big joint effort. My sister wanted some blue flowers to go in her wedding bouquet, but of course blue flowers aren't in season this kind of year in this hemosphere or something, so being the resourceful and skilled woman she is with a yarn stash to behold, she knitted a whole heap of flowers. My part came in on the day before the wedding, when I sewed them all up, and invented a way to attach the flower, the stamens, the icord stems and the wire for the stems. I then pressed our mum into service and we got those flowers all done in time to take to the florist to be included in the bouquets.


I learned that icord machines are a bit tricky to use, but that The Love Of My Life has a fantastic grasp of tension and yarn and twist and can be relied upon to whip up metres of icord when the pressure is on, that Wollmeise is indeed lustworthy yarn, and that knitted flowers look fantastic as part of a bouquet. And that doing things at the Last Minute tm seems to be a genetic trait and that I might as well stop fighting it, it seems to be my destiny.

The kids and I are home today since we all got a nice cough headcold thingy from our weekend away. So I thought that some comfort food was in order, and made some penguin shaped pancakes. Since pancakes on their own aren't super special, even when they are penguin shaped, I thought I would put a choc chip into each one, into the head of the penguin specifically, since the head is the thickest part of the pancake.

One of my favourite phrases in the whole world is Brain Fart. It describes that thing that happens to me all the time, when all of a sudden I go blank, and can't remember the word, or the sentence, or even what I was doing or just about to do. I figure it is a natural occurence to someone who has as many balls in the air at all times as I do, something has to give occasionally. It is embarrassing if I am in a meeting, or trying to look all together and grown up.

When I was making these pancakes, I heard a little noise inside of the penguin machine, and had a look. Turned out that one of the penguins had a brain fart. It's (white) chocolatey brain exploded from the heat. This was so fantastic to me that I overcooked a few more penguins to hear the satisfying soft popping sound of their brains farting.

So, if it is true that every day one learns something new, today I learned what a brain fart sounds like. And it sounds great.

It could be that I have a few more readers after having been outed or discovered on an email list that I belong to. If you are new here, hi! And please don't lurk, if you are reading, please leave comments. I love comments.

Spinning - after sitting on my bum drooling over pages and pages of art yarns on Ravelry, and imagining what I might make at the workshop this weekend, I got inspired to ditch the screen and sit in front of my wheel instead. Last night I spun up a few pouffy blue batts into a lumpy woolen style yarn to practice my long draw. I am not sure that it is a true long draw, I will dig out my Maggie Casey DVD and check. Anyhow, the yarn turned out fine, and today i have been spinning it as a coil spun yarn. Slow going, since keeping overtwist out if the yarn is no mean feat.

Spinning related - more delicious goodies arrived for me to take away to my course this weekend. Yummy yum, they are all gorgeous. Can't wait to play with them.

Completed - Sunday Market Shawl, pattern at http://knit-fish.blogspot.com/2008/12/sunday-market-shawl.html

One skein of Noro Kureyon Sock, and a week or two of mindless knitting. Mindless is fantastic in a busy house full of kids. Knit with 3.5 mm needles, cast on/off with 8mm needles.




The Noro yarn was tied in two places, the first in the middle of a colour band, and continuing would have totally mucked up the stripe pattern, so I had to wind off that part and splice the yarn at the right colour and match the spare bit at the end as best I could. Ahh Noro, you are a fickle mistress but I love you still!

I finished the knitting and the dropped stitches last night, and blocked it this morning by pinning it in sections on the ironing board, and steaming it with the iron held above it. There is not enough kid free space to block it anywhere else in our house. And if anyone sees my bought-for-the-purpose-like-grown-ups-use T pins, please let me know. Frustrating to have the perfect tool for the job but have misplaced it.

Now to wait for the weather to cool down enough to wear it.

A day for finishing stuff. Feels fabulous!

Knitting - I finally finished sewing up my first proper knitting project, a kimono wrap top for Monkey 4. It is knitted out of a very soft light green bamboo/cotton blend. I started it probably a year ago, when I was first learning how to knit continental. I didn't quite have the hang of picking the stitches, and twisted each stitch. The twisted stitched look pretty good, even though they aren't what I was aiming for.





It is blocked, and has been worn by Monkey 4, fits pretty well, and will likely fit next summer as well. Having this finished feels great, since it was started for a rapidly growing kiddo so long ago.

Crochet - I did a couple more rows on the Wedding Shawl, the rows are getting shorter and I can't say it is for a wedding Next Year any more. Only three and a half months to go, I would really like this finished sooner than later. Must crochet more.

Spinning - not exactly spinning, but today I washed and set some yarn, some spun months ago... I am trying to get my yarn up to date, and empty my bobbins and niddy noddies to take to the Art Yarn Workshop next weekend. So, washed and set are
• a few skeins of brown cross breed yarn, among the first I ever spun on my wheel. Not top notch. The thick single is overspun and will skew when (if) I ever knit it.
• green plied yarn, I didn't like it at all when I first plied it, or skeined it, but lying parallel I like it more. Seems to be well plied, the skein is hanging nicely.
• a little bit of alpaca core spun onto cotton crochet thread. An experiment that was more technique practise than anything. Might become a soft toy one day.
• some thick and thin single ply parrot coloured yarn. I lightly felted it to stabilise the twist and to help it stay together. I thwacked it on the side of the bath a few times, and snapped it between my hands, and it turned out just like I hoped it would. Yay!
• some blue wool, spun thick, then coiled around crochet cotton. It really isn't pretty, but once again, it was technique practise. Overtwisted to buggery. Nice to have a hank of coils to my name though.
• some red, blue and white roving, received in a fibre swap, that I never liked and was stuck for an idea as to how to use it. This yarn is swap roving, torn from a striped batt, and core spun around crochet cotton. Technique practise again. I made this yarn one day when I was having a crazy / can't be nice to anyone / best to make something kind of mood. It was overspun, so I ran it through the wheel a few more times to take the kink out, but my nice smooth wrapping went all fuzzy and I didn't like the yarn much at all. Washing, lightly felting and setting has calmed it down a lot and I don't hate it any more. I don't know what it's future will be. Hat? Weaving?

Dyeing - in preparation for the workshop I have dyed some tops.
• first top, procion dye, coloured jade, set with vinegar and heat in dyeing crock pot. About 100g. I really wanted some greens for my final art yarn for the course, and had a wee bit of jade dye left over from Jaqi's Leo Storch baby carrier. Still wet, so the jury is still out. Looking promising though.
• second top, drimarene K dye, violet, set with vinegar and heat in a snap lock bag in the sun for 2 days. About 50g. It is fierce hot here at the moment, and I figured the hot was for free and experimented with ye olde snap lock bag. Still drying, but looks luverly so far. Very soft colour.
• third, lime green, food dyes set with vinegar, snap lock bag method as above, about 50g. Just what I was hoping for. Will be even better when dry.

Art Yarn Workshop - I asked for, and got for Christmas from The Love Of My Life a place on the two day Art Yarn Workshop taught by Michelle from Wooldancer. I am Officially Very Excited to be going, sitting with my wheel and fibre for two whole uninterrupted days, learning from such a talented fibre artist, and being with creative and groovy people. I have been sorting out my fibre stash, my stash of goodies to add in to art yarns, dyed some fibre and trawled the interwebz for the best that Australian dyers have to offer in the way of batts, tops and roving. Etsy came up trumps (when doesn't it?) and there is some very nice stuff on it's way to me. There are also some bits I want to order from eBay if I remember tomorrow. Squee!