I have finished 11 hours of spinning classes over the last 7 days, and quite a few hours of spinning at home. I have really enjoyed the classes, and I was a little sad that they ended. It was lovely to spend some time with local like-minded knitters, we had a lot of fun.

This is the transition from fleece to yarn (minus pics of the raw fleece)

AND I have finally made some yarn!

The above pictures are of the dirty, raw, greasy, sticky, smelly fleece. It was really quite a fun experience to go through the whole process of combing out the fleece and then spinning it. I did get a bit sick of the greasiness though, and chose not to ply this yarn as I would of needed to spin another bobbins worth, although I do LOVE the colour and it is lovely after in has been scoured. Instead the class was given some Corridale Bond fleece, which was lovely and clean and white so I spun up 2 bobbins worth to learn to ply on. I know I am soft!!!!

My new creations!!!!!

Holidays hah! Busy Busy Busy (aka the longest post in the world)

These holidays have been so busy I haven't even had time to scratch myself, and I've been itchy!

Holiday pressie knitting was a fight to the finish, I ended up staying up until 1pm on Christmas eve finishing off my sisters Noro gloves. Bonus was that she loved them.




Unfortunately my mother had the bright idea of going to my Grannies house on Christmas day, just for the day. after less than 5 hours of sleep I got up at 6am, had breakfast and did presents at Mums half asleep and then had to be on the road by 8am to get to Grans by 11am. We had lunch and then left again at about 4pm. Man was I tired! But it was good to be with family and hang out.

I get over-socialised very easily, so it was a bit difficult for me to be happy and bubbly the whole time over the busy period. Christmas, new years, and my birthday are all in 2 weeks of each other. There were lots of family BBQ's at Grandma's house, dinners with family friends, and catching up with good friends. Nice, but so much at once wears me out! Lee and I were invited to a new years party, but we ended up coming home and starting to paint the house instead, we just couldn't handle any more partying :)

The house looks SOOOOOO much better now, but it was a hard slog. we started out with 2 rollers and some brushes, we didn't even get one side of the house anywhere near finished in 3 whole days of work. After dehydration, sunburn and fatigue we decided to piss off the rollers and buy a paint gun. We broke the paint gun in about an hour..... don't ask me how! So we took it back to Bunnings (love them by the way), and hired a super cool industrial strenght awesome and kickarse paintgun for nearly $200 for over night. We then broke that in an hour too! Oh was I stressed :) Luckily we went back the next morning (at 8am) and had it fixed. The nice guy let us have the spray gun an extra night after a panicked 3pm call from Lee asking them pretty please if we can keep it overnight since it broke earlier. There was also drama with buying extra paint, I went to Magnet Mark (hisssss booooo) and the cocky bastard there mistinted the last 15L can of paint I got him to mix, and he sent me off empty handed to a near by paint shop. they then didn't have the paint we wanted (he tried to give me a different brand.... Ha! I went a bit nuts and screamed in the car, nearly scaring my poor little sister out of the chair). II then had a flash of brilliance and I went back to MM and asked the manager if I could have a 10l and a 4l can for the same price as a 15l, they agreed but in hindsight I should have asked for 2 10l cans the bastards).... I at least got a different guy to do the tinting for me, and the manager came and hovered around while he did it. LOL I hope the other guy got his stupid arse kicked. Any way on the 4th day we managed to do a good coat of paint with the spray gun to the whole rest of the house, well worth the money! My lovely little sis came and helped us, which helped make it more fun and less work.

BEFORE

AFTER

So what do ya think? Its not finished yet....

I have been having fun doing some knitting in my down time (which as been very little unfortunately). I have made good progress on Sylvi, the red cardi I fell in love with earlier, but I have made it in charcoal. I have done the back minus 3 of the flowers, and nearly 1 whole sleeve.


I have also started some pressies for my orange swap pal, which I need to get done before the 19th of Jan, so I have to get cracking. can't spill the beans on this but I will when it has been received!
Swaps are so awesome! I have had one of the best Birthdays ever this year, and I have been spoilt by some lovely people on Ravelry!

Present from Sproutknits

Present from Toffle (she made the bag and the stitch markers!)

And I have 2 more pressies to come! yay! I can't wait until I get to spoil my birthday group back :)

Oh and Lee got me 9 skeins of Malabrigo for my birthday, which I had to cast on with the day I got it to make the Amelia cardigan from the winter Knitty.


I could write even more, but I will save some for later.... need to post more often!

Life's good

Especially when you mention in passing that you want to be festive this year and put up a Christmas tree and you come home after a dull day at work and find THIS...


Sitting innocently in the lounge room! It is so pretty, it is fibre optic and changes colour. Squeal!

I have also recently discovered a new treasure trove The book depository. I have gone a bit nuts actually, I have bought 5 books in the last 2 weeks and 2 have already arrived, A gathering of Lace by Meg Swansen, and Knitting without Tears by EZ. They are both essential knitting library books, and they cost me less than $50 for both. Such as awesome online shop with free shipping. I have also recently added to my book stash from Ravelry destash pages, and other various places. I am loving them all!
There is nothing like spoiling yourself! plus I got a design helpy one as well but it didn't fit in (shame).

I am loving the whole Swap thing at the moment and am participating in the Orange Swap from Ravelrys Australian Swappers group. I have had so much fun shopping, knitting, and making little pressies for my spoiler. It is so much fun that I can see myself becoming quite addicted to swaps. I am saying this and I haven't even gotten a swap pressie yet. Man its gonna be bad arse!

hmmm I wonder what this will be...

Other good stuff.... I found out last week that I got the job that I wanted! I will be working in a college, in an alternate set up for year 9/10 students. This is a great next step for me and I am very excited. plus one of my very good friends will be my direct supervisor when she gets back to work from maternity leave. So very very happy (nice change I must say).

AND... Just found Yarn and Kisses online store, my lovely Lee bought me 9 skeins of Malabrigo for me for my birthday in January. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Plus I go on holidays in 5 more working days, and I get 5 weeks off. I may have to do a bit of work during the holidays, but I am looking forward to my new job so much that I will find doing it fun (I must be sick).

SWEET!

Dyeing for the weekend

I have been busy over dyeing some skeins of Sullivans 4 ply sock wool which I first tried to dye with the help of Helen at the Waratah Fibres workshop I went on with the Canberra knitting crew.
I had 5 tubs of Jacquards acid dye hiding under my bed for months, and now I knew how to dye thanks to Helen, so I got started!

I over dyed my lace weight Filatura di Crosa again with some more purple to make the colours a tiny bit deeper (above). Once these yarns were wound into little cakes they all looked so yummy, but I will save that for another day.

Below is a swatch for Sylvi with Patons Jet. After posting frustrated comments on ravelry about yarn weight I have decided the terms 12 ply and Bulky are very vague, it is very open to interpretation and can vary a lot from yarn to yarn. I am going to go out on a limb and say that this yarn is better knitted as a 10 ply, as it just doesn't work in any bulky patterns I try to knit it in. Agggghhhh! It is a pretty colour though :)


ps my sister is crazy

Christmas knitting

I have decided this year that I will make people small Christmas presents. I have started with my brother, he is leaving for Canada on the 4th of December to visit his girlfriend for 3 months. I completed both presents this week, these two pair of Dashing (Jo sharp silkroad Aran) and Fetching (Cashmerino Aran).
Both were fantastic fast knits, and it was really lovely to use some more expensive luxury yarn. I especially loved the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, I am already plotting some other small pieces to make out of it because I loved using it so much.

Twist Collect Winter 08/09

OMG just saw this cardigan in the new Twist collective online Magazine. trying to figure out how much yarn I will need because I want it!
LOVE LOVE LOVE, I wonder if 9 skeins of cascade 220 will do it? I have some in Ruby
Oh quivering with excitement :)

Here we go!

Ok! so I have jumped on the bandwagon. Everyone seems to be doing this whole blog thing and I am really enjoying reading interesting, funny, and educational snippets. I have decided that I too may have something to share with the world in cyberspace.

My 3 favorite things are my dogs, being creative (painting, drawing, knitting), and teaching.


This is Jeremy, he is about 7 and he is sooooooo cute :)
He is a bit naughty too.

I am a bit obsessed with yarn and knitting. I was taught to knit by my mum when I was about 6 and I began to make my dad a beautiful rainbow stripes garter stitch neck tie. I am sure that he was very glad that I never got it finished.... hmm I wander if my mum still has it somewhere :)

I am a High School Art Teacher, and have been a year advisor for 3 years. I have recently begun working as a behaviour consultant and I now travel between schools and work with teachers helping them deal with challenging students. Very interesting work.

signing out....