Oh deary me, this poor ol blog is so out of date.

So, what have I been up to? If I had kept the blog up to date then I would remember, right...

Firstly, I have succumbed and am now a Twit. I can Tweet from my phone which is marvelous indeed. And just then I found a widget so now I can Tweet directly here. Just in case anyone reads Tweets, or reads this blog...

In case you are interested in what the Monkeys in my life are up to, you can subscribe to Kates4Kids.

When one's sister comes to visit and brings about 300 g of undyed sock wool with her, what can one do but pull the gloves on and make some colours?

The first lot I made a mega long skein up and down the corridor, but I really should have been mindful of keeping the tension even so it didn't snarl up in the vinegar soak. But I didn't, and it did. But anyhow, it dyed up great using the food colouring in the vaccola jars in the microwave method, inspired by Happy Spider. But still, how delicious does this look?and it turned out great, we managed to have it dyed, cooled, dried, untangled and wound up before my sister went home.

I also wanted to give my $3 fete crock-pot-especially-for-dyeing-yarns-and-fibres a go, and also experiment with using procion dye and acid on protien fibre.

First, put vinegar soaked skein in crock pot.
Look at that potential!

Then mix up some dyes. My sister requested purple, red and black. Allrighty then!
mmm, rich red! rich purple!
and black black. Black is a bugger to dye with, since getting a nice dark black is a supreme pain in the rrrrrrs. But it worked this time! Hooray for Drimarene K Jet Black.


Now to get the syringes ready for squirting the colours,mwahahahaha.and the pics stop there, folks :( why? I have no idea. I was doing the colour and my sister was taking some photos, but we got so excited about the dye that we forgot about the photos! Sorry, blog followers. Sometimes the process is more important than the documenting :) But the yarn turned out great, and the crock pot did a wonderful job. I can't wait to do some more heh heh heh.

Being school holidays, and since we were invited, myself and Monkeys two, three and four headed West to visit our friends for a few days. Of course it was relaxing and fun and the kids had a huge time playing and yahooing and singing singstar and playing guitar hero. I also had a huge time, eating and driving and chatting and singing singstar and playing guitar hero.

We went for a day trip to Wagga Wagga, and among other things, visited the little zoo there. Given I had driven 600km in two days with 3 or 6 kids in the car (different passengers for different les of the trip), on not much sleep, the pics are lacklustre. But evidence nevertheless.

Behold some donkeysand a scraggly looking peacockand a grumpy looking gooseAnd not to go all Bill Henderson with nekkid kids on the internets, I just want to post this shot of a happy kid with a nakey bum enjoying the warm western sunshine :)

Thanks so much to my dear Bilby, who sent me some goodies in our latest round of Carrier Bilby. Carrier Bilby is kind of like Secret Santa, but for carriers, and is a very cool swap indeedy.

This round I got sent a slingified wrapwhich I think is made from a Storchenwiege Vicky, dyed yellow, and then slingified. Noice.

I was also sent a crocheted bilby
and me getting this bilby is either a bit freaky, or more likely a sign that great minds think alike or that crocheter babywearers are pretty cool, since I also bought the exact same pattern from Crochetroo, and crocheted a bilby for my Bilby recipient! But the bummer is that I did not have time to take a photo before I had to wrap it and send it away, since my parcel was already running late. I have seen a photo, but since the swap was supposed to be secret, I can't ask her for permission to post her photos else the jig would be up. So imagine two bilbies in this post, mine being made from light grey alpacca yarn from the clearance table at Cassidy's. I so love the clearance table at Cassidy's!

My parcel arrived today, thanks so much Bilby :)

My brain seems to be a bit melty. I will try to back fill this little blog with some of the things I have been up to lately. So many things. But not blogging, obviously...

Yesterday when we were coming home from camping, Monkey 1 was disappointed that he didn't get to see or catch a yabby. The Love Of My Life told him that next time we will take some meat and some string and catch one with them. Monkey 1 asked what kind of meat, like steak or something. TLOML agreed that steak would be good. Monkey 2 asked me what was that thing that came out of me after Monkey 4 was born. I told her it was a placenta. She suggested that maybe we should take the placenta out of the freezer and use it to catch yabbies. I told her that when she makes a placenta of her own she can choose what she does with it, and that we are not taking Monkey 4's placenta yabbying...

Points for lateral thinking - 50
Points for taste and tact - minus a zillion

In the car on the way to school this morning, we were discussing cousins and aunts and uncles. I described how my mum had brothers and sisters, and that their kids were my cousins. Then it went on like this

me - so when Monkey 1 has kids and is a dad, and Monkey 2 has kids and is a mum, then your kids will be cousins, and I will be a Nana

Monkey 1 - and I will be an Uncle

Monkey 2 - and I will be an Auntie

Monkey 3 - and I will be a helicopter pilot.

So we will be right for extended family and transportation.

Monkey 3 wanted a lemon and honey drink this morning, so I went out the back door and picked some lemons. I was thinking about how great it is to just go out the back and pick something fresh to bring into our house and to feed to my kids.


Check out this bountiful harvest!And see that big lemon in the middle? It is a whopper. This is it in my adult sized hand. Monkey 1 wanted to send this photo to Believe it or Not, he didn't think that it qualified to send to Guinness book of World records...

I always thought that I had a knitting disability. My mum can knit, my sister can knit, my mother in law can knit, about four hundred million bazzilion trillion people can knit on Ravelry, but I couldn't knit.

I can crochet, I can spin, I can sew, I can follow instructions if they aren't too fiddly and I am not too impatient.

Lately I have been feeling my knitting mojo sneaking up slowly but steadily, so this week I busted out a pair of needles and had a go at knitting Continental style. This is more like crocheting in its technique, since I move the right needle around the yarn, not the yarn around the needle. Anyone watching me knit that knows anything about knitting or ergonomics would probably cringe, but it is working so there.

I had a look at four or five of the millions of knitting videos on youtube to see how to pick up a dropped stitch, ans concluded that these vids are largely shot by people that know what they are doing, but don't know how to make an instructional video. They say "now see this dropped stitch..." and I yelled back NO I CAN'T SEE THE STITCH! since the camera was so far away from the knitting that I couldn't see anything. A quick phone call to the Aunty Toots knitting helpdesk didn't really help either, since apparently I had buggered it up good and proper. I will find an in real life knitting helper very soon.

Before Monkey 4 was born, my dear over-the-road-neighbour gave me a knitting kit to make a pink baby jumper. It is a very strange pattern, but I am giving it a bash. This much since yesterday.


I even did a few rows at Commonwealth park yesterday while we were there for the Australia Day celebrations. I knitted while Monkeys 1, 2 and 3 played in the sandpit, and Monkey 4 rolled around on the grass and ate gumleaves. Oz as!

Watch this space for more jumper as it happens. or as I get around to photographing and blogging it. Assuming my old brain doesn't forget about knitting, photographing and blogging...

At the dinner table. Monkey 3 (4 yrs old) tastes his chilled cordial

Monkey 3 - this tastes like lemonade
me - yes, it does a bit
Monkey 3 - it has got water and lemons and sugar and hextacy in it
me and the love of my life - (eyes bugging out)
me - why does it have hextacy in it?
Monkey 3 - to make it taste like lemonade.

I think I might check the cordial ingredients more carefully before I buy that brand again...


Still at the dinner table. Monkey 2 (6 years old) is telling me (33 years old) about a former classmate and the special crayons he used

me - I don't remember him
Monkey 2 - that is probably because your brain is getting old and you don't remember things.

thanks sweetie.