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.

some more jumbo bobbins for my wheel! yippee!



They were out of stock at Christmas time so they came in a box with my other fibrey Christmas present from my sister and her Laddo. They signed me up for Fibre Club at Ewe Give Me the Knits!, and the first installment of fibrey goodness arrived this week.


150 or so grams of superwash merino in autumny colours. Maybe it will be socks? gotta love machine washable socks :) It might go all chunky and into an art yarn for a hat or a scarf...

I think that I need to work on getting my jumbo flyer mojo happening before I do anything with this fibre. Also I am waiting on an orifice reducer bush (fnar fnar) so that I don't have to screw the big orifice thingy on and off when I change flyers. Too many little bits to lose, and since Monkey 4 is now scritching around the floor very capably, the fewer little bits around to lose the better.

The Love of my Life ordered me a last minute Christmas present, hoping that it would arrive here before the 25th. The big day arrived but my parcel didn't.

Not very happy...

On new years eve, Mandie from Ewe Give me the Knits rang us to check our address since the parcel was returned to her, saying that there was no such address. WTF??? She had addressed it properly to us, using the same address that Australia Post has recognised and delivered to for the last 7 years that we have been living here.

She posted it again, and today it arrived.

I was a bit excited but mostly "it's about time"...

Before I could put the flyer on my wheel, I had to oil it and put a few bits together.

And then I had to change one of the orifice supports on my wheel. If you aren't into spinning, the orifice is the hole at the front that the yarn gets sucked into like a toddler eating spaghetti.
Myself, I still feel a bit weird when I think of poking stuff into my orifice, esp in polite company. Orifice. Heh heh. Anyhow, the orifice (heh heh) support for the new flyer was a teensy bit bigger than the old one,
so I had to get to the maiden (the wooden bit (seriously, maiden, orifice, spinning is a dirty business...)) with the bit of sandpaper that came in the kit of goodies, probably for that purpose.

Then I found that the brake band wouldn't fit (too short) and the quick modification I made using a hairband wouldn't work (too dodgy), so there was nothing fot it but to pirate some fishing line from TLOML's fishing rod. One of these days I am going to need to upgrade to a new postie elastic band instead of the old one that I am using.
I had a go at plying some singles that I spun more than 12 months ago, when I was only just pregnant with Monkey 4, and really nauseous. In honour of its history, I proclaim this yarn to be Funky Chunky Chucky. Don't say that too fast, if you do it will sound worse than me going on about orifices.

Friends of ours live in Western Regional NSW and have invited us to come and visit for the last three years, and for the last three years we haven't been able to go. We are terrible friends. This year they invited us to come and watch the fireworks that he sets off. Finally, after 3 whole years, we managed to haul ourselves 4 hours west to see our friends, the town and the fireworks. Not only did we get to watch the kabooms, The Love Of My Life got to help set them off. He was a happy man and assures me that the pyrotechnics licence course only takes three days and a thousand dollars to do.




We stayed with our friends in the most gorgeous, kid friendly and friend friendly house. It was marvellous!

Another high point of the trip was using this


to cook these.
Very enjoyable on both counts!

In the evening on New Years Day we were treated to Baked Alaska, which were so delicious that I just ate mine all up before I thought of taking a photo. Imagine me sitting and looking very content, with a belly full of brownie and icecream and meringue :)

I just StumbledUpon this link and had to share. The only improvement I could suggest is being able to choose the Right Wing Politician Of Your Choice. But shoeing George Dubbya in the head is a great start!

Throw a shoe at GWB here

Last year I was too sick to make my annual Christmas shortbread, so I am making up for it this year :) So far I have used 2kg of butter, and I am about halfway finished. Yum!

I have had a few dye jobs sent my way lately. Dyeing things for other people, especially dyeing expensive baby carriers for other people gives me such an adrenaline rush, after all colour is so difficult to describe, and to photograph, and usually the people that I dye for live a way away, so most communication is by email. Don't get me wrong though, I love it! I love the textiles, the patterns, the textures and most of all the colours. I love the process as well, splashing around with colour is one of my favourite things to do.

Mulberry Leo

This carrier started out as a Natural Leo Storchenweige wrap carrier.

His owner lives in Adelaide but was coming for a family holiday in Canberra, so she brought Leo with her so I could dye it while she was here. And lucky it worked out that way...

The leo was supposed to be a nice purply colour, but not to vivid, so we decided on a colour like dusky violet from Kraftkolour. I ordered the dye, and when the Leo came to Canberra (and it was so great to meet another babywearer that goes on holiday with the car boot half full of carriers!), he went for a swim.


but turned out an icky gun metal grey colour :(


His owner wasn't thrilled with his colour, and neither was I, so back he went into a magenta dyebath, and turned out a much better colour. He is now called Mulberry Leo.


I am not thrilled with Kraftkolour's mix of dusky violet. I think that I will stick to my old reliable dye supplier at dyeman.com, and stick to pure colours and play with mixing them myself.

Scarlet Vicky

Vicky was a yellow Storchenweige wrap that was living in Darwin and wrapping some gorgeous twins, and the twins were born on the same day as my Monkey 4. Vicky is yellow with yellow stripes, and the owner of the wrap really didn't do yellow so well, so she wanted Vicky to go red.

I put her in a strong bath of stock red dye from dyeman.com (see, nice and reliable!),

and she came out looking like Lego brick red, with subtle stripes. Her owner was really happy with her transformation and now calls her Scarlet.

Mulberry Osnaberg

When people see woven wraps, they seem to say "but can't you just make one out of fabric?", but up till now finding a fabric that behaves properly (ie not much horizontal or vertical stretch, but some diagonal stretch) has been a challenge. Recently the good women at TheBabyWearer.com have been going crazy for a fabric called Osnaberg. It is a roughish sort of fabric that is used for quilting and other things, but has the diagonal give that is so comfy when wrapping a baby to an adult.

Being the fabric addict I am, I decided to jump on this bandwagon and see what all the fuss is about. I sourced 3.5 metres at a local fabric store (at four times the price it is retailing in the US, what is with that???), hemmed it, gave it tapers, and gave it a burl.
Pretty comfy for a rucksack back carry tied under the bum, and doable for a reinforced rucksack carry tied at the front in the tails.

I need more practice with gradation dyeing, and wanted to know how the Osnaberg would dye, and had a whole heap of Kraftkolour dusky violet dye to use up, so I did a gradation dye with a blend of dusky violet and red. It turned out pretty nice.




and it kind of matches my bag :)