Mmmm babycino...

Testing mobile blogging

Since I seem to be doing so much on my iPhone and so little on the pc
lately, I have signed up for mobile blogging since my poor little blog
is all neglected. So this here is a test blog to see how I go.

These are the things I have been making.

• I learned to knit again. My friend Disco Knitter taught me how to knit continental style, which suits my reluctance to change from crochet technique to knitting technique, and also my need for speed, because, by cracky, knitting continental is SPEEDY! Whoo Hoo!
• I knitted a light green crossover top for my bebbeh girl from bamboo/cotton. I still haven't sewn it up. I really should put on my big girl knickers and learn how to do mattress stitch, but I am skeered of buggering it up.
• I knitted a jumper for my wee one (I figured that since she is little she would be quicker to knit for, and also she doesn't yet care what I make her wear), but really need to get off my bum and knit the neck band and sew it up. Once again I will have to learn how to pick up stitches for knitting neck bands. Will take effort and bravery. Must dig out big girl knickers and put em on.
• I then learned how to do nice ordinary stitches thanks to Disco Knitter (instead of the twisty but consistent ones I had been doing thus far, which I have since found are a proper documented and published fancy stitch that aren't "all wrong" as I had been told by someone quite close to home...) and thought, What The Hey, it is time to tackle a woman sized project for myself, so I finished frogging the aborted attempt to crochet Debbie Stollers crocheted Frou Frou cardi, and started Classic Elite Yarns' Duchess Raglan jumper. It took me about 7 knitting days, and it was done. I had it finished over a two week school holiday, and wasn't I feeling proud! No photos yet since I mumble mumble lost the charger cable for my camera battery in my messy house and then gave up all hope of finding it so eventually bought a replacement from ebayso of course the original was soon found mumble mumble.
• Then I got all hyper confident and decided to make some nice gifts for my neighbour including a scarf (easy peasy) and some wrist warmer cuff jobbies that were in a beginners book so should be easy peasy right? Nope. Pride cometh before a fall... These mitts were not easy enough to do with no thinking, biu not hard enough to have to really concentrate, so of course I bollocksed them up many many times and used some very unladylike language. I started the feckers three times over, then put on abovementioned big girl knickers and started to mattress stitch them together, but bollocksed that up too. Sigh. Must dig them out and finish them, or send away to my mum who has an unnatural (but very convenient for me) love of mattress stitching knitting together.
• So what next for over confident but not hugely skilled knitter girl? How best to combine crafting addiction with true love and family harmony? Knit socks for my husband of course! The rib is going nicely. The leg part is going nicely. The heel has only been pulled out once so far, so I am on track. Being an impatient beginner knitter means that I am learning a lot about unknitting, which I suppose is a good thing. In a grown up world...see, look, I swatched!My sister bought me Knit Picks double pointed needles in three sizes and Nancy's Knit Knacks tubes to put them in. Mwah! Thanks, babe. So now I have a knit Picks addiction...
• I don't yet know how to turn a heel, mattress stitch or to het rid of the linked text up there /\. Ack well, nobody is perfect.
  

didja miss me?

As you know this bloggy has been dormant and boring for a few months, but I met Jodie from Ric Rac on Saturday at the Stitches and Craft Show in Sydney, and she talked about craft blogging with such glorious passion, enough to have a whole room of crafters roaring with laughter and hanging on every word, and enough to make me get of my lazy bootay (as my kids are calling their bums lately) and type something here!

So thanks Jodie. I think that you are smashingly wonderful. Mwah!

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