Back to the Plague House

Yes. It is still winter, and around here that means lurgy time.

I have been ill. I have been aching all over, unable to swallow, running a fever of 39 degrees (that's 102.2 for Fahrenheit users) ill. I have been exhausted, dropping asleep in chairs ill. And let's not mention almost nodding off while driving the car yesterday, shall we?

It's been two weeks since I posted. I have been alive (just) and have organised 2 further birthday parties since we last spoke. On the weekend between the children's birthday, we have the grandparents to a party for both of them, so they don't have to travel twice in two weeks.

Then we had the seven kids from kindergarten for a PJ party after school on Monday. We had fairy bread, sausage rolls and little red sausages. We had pass the parcel and musical cushions. We had a supervised trip to the top of the tower and a birthday cake with bright blue icing and sparklers. It was lots of fun, and I was totally knackered afterwards.

You really can't have a party without fairy bread. In case there are people reading who don't know the glories of fairy bread, I'll explain.

You take really good quality, really really fresh white bread, spread it with butter or margarine.

Then you tip 100s and 1000s (a type of multicoloured, tiny, round sprinkle) into a plate and press the spread side of the bread into it. Then you cut it into 4 triangles and stack onto plates. Every self respecting Aussie kid loves fairy bread. I've been at a 40th birthday party where the crowd demolished 4 loaves worth of fairy bread at 1.30 in the morning - and asked for more.




I've even had a couple of days when I was too sick to knit - despite being home alone. Now that's sick. I have also been a very bad parent, and stuck on a 150 minute Spongebob DVD and instructed Destructoboy to watch it while I dozed in the chair. A very poor mother indeed.

I've also been avoiding buying yarn. I counted my indie sock yarn stash and what I discovered made me put my head between my knees and breathe very deeply for several minutes. In fact, the next project ready for my needles is the Vine Yoke Cardigan from the latest Twist Collective, and the yarn was shopped from stash (it's green Naturally Sensation - a merino/angora mix I bought while on holiday for $2.50 a skein).

That's the next project though. Before that I need to finish the second sleeve on my Tempest, do the bands and sew in a million ends.

Other than the plague (or 'tonsilitis' as the medical profession call it), the most exciting thing to enter the house has been this:
The first fibre and yarn sampler pack from Ewe Beaut. Lots of pretties in there for a convalescent to play with.

I'll get back to more regular posting soon.

Indian Summer

The lovely Kate at Kiss My Frog gave me this award a little while ago (and it's not that I forgot, I just kept getting distrac....look - a bunny!) Sorry - and I was very happy to get such a nice award. Now I have to pass it on. Kate has already mentioned some of the people I would have named, so in order to spread the love a bit I thought I'd try and link you up with some new names.

Miss Cindy2paw and her gorgeous labby friends is an obvious one - crafty, friendly and always something wonderful in her blog
QuiltingMick - Crochet liberationist, crafter and enabler - always one to watch
Zephyrama - not posting as much these days, but always interesting when she does
Yarning to Write - with Amy you always get something unexpected - bits of a new book, children, cuteness and cussing - all in one great package
A Little Bit Crafty - can you believe someone can knit THAT small!
MadmadHousewife - the glories of yarn, wine and children (not necessarily in that order)
Last but definitely not least, Julie the Samurai Knitter - I never come away from reading her blog without having learned something surprising!


I even have an FO to blog

Here is the Raglan Jacket
Adapted from the topdown raglan cardigan recipe (but turned into a swing jacket)
7 skeins of Manos del Uruguay wool I scored in a Ravelry de-stash
The 5 buttons were 5 cents each in one of those button bargain tins in haberdashery shops where you trawl through to try and find some that match

Love it - lovely and warm and gorgeous selection og colours.

Obviously, monogamous knitting on Wips, instead of Knitlottotm means you actually get things finished.
Next stop - Cherie Amour and the last sleeve and a half

In other news, by the end of tomorrow I will be unemployed and I'm quite looking forward to it. I'm excited and already thinking of all the things I will be able to do.

This weekend quinces will be becoming both jelly and paste (a great recipe which boils the quinces and then turns the liquid into jelly and the pulp into paste - and the paste takes ages and needs welders gloves because it spits sugar and quince which sticks to your skin and burns the way toffee does.) Paste takes around 3 hours.

I will also pick walnuts - we usually end up with between 35 and 50kgs of walnuts - we have 21 mature trees - and pick over the apples and think about making another batch of roasted tomato sauce. I'm not sure if I have squirrel (hoard hoard hoard for winter) or bear (eat store eat) tendencies at this time of the year. Probably squirrel - I'm too much of an insomniac to be a bear. I use the harvest to feed us and try and capture autumn and summer in the depths of winter.

So far, we are having an indian summer. It is balmy and gently breezy and the breeze is warm. I know that there is only 1 month till winter officially begins. I must think about knitting......

Golden Apples of the Sun

In honour of Amy and her wonderful blogging of a poem a day, I thought I would share one of my favourites, by W B Yeats.

I love Yeats' work and visited his grave when we were in Ireland - forcing the Accountant to drive miles out of our way so I could go there.

The Song of Wandering Aengus

I WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Of course, the `golden apples' of mythology were thought to be quinces, which came from possibly Persia, and perhaps even further afield. The picture above is of our quinces, just now ready for picking. In fact, just after I took this, I picked them and baked them with port, white wine, a cinnamon stick and some honey (and a little water) and we ate them with clotted cream. Yum!

I decided to give the Knitlotto tm a miss for a few days after I finished the Lighthouse Gansey socks (and told Anne Hanson of Knitspot how much I liked them - she says she may be coming up with some more gansey type sock patterns) and monogamously knitted on these.




These took 6 days - can you believe it! They are BlackRose socks from Knitty.com, and inspired by how gorgeous Bells' were, I cast on some Blue Moon Fiber Arts STR in Thraven. The bottom pic shows the colour better, I think. These were such fun to knit and grew so fast because I would be waiting for something or standing still for a few minutes and think`Oh, I could do a quick pattern repeat'' and I would. It was also Easter and not much was going on, so I could actually knit a bit during the day!

They were a lovely knit, perfectly matched to the yarn and I may make some more because I loved them so much!

In other news, I have organised my flights and accommodation to the Bendigo Wool and Sheep Show, so I now, with Zephyrama, the Knightly Knitter and Donyale, form part of the Hustler Street Posse (Hustler St is the address of our house in Bendi). So exciting!

This morning there was a mammoth storm, with wind gusts of up to 114kmh (that's 70mph in the old money) and much lightning and thunder. And rain. Lot and lots of rain. This is the first decent rain for a long time and the first thunderstorm. There are likely to be one or two more before winter.

We have had Easter and I did eat some chocloate, but was reasonably restrained. We took the kids to the nearby National Park, Narawntapu, and visited the bird hide which is usually on a lagoon, but there is no lagoon. Hopefully, some reasonable winter rain will bring back the lagoon and swamps. Currently, kangaroos are grazing where the lagoon usually is.

We were lucky enough to be there for a snake demonstration and talk. Tasmania has only three types of snake, all venomous and occasionally difficult to tell from each other. In fact, if you are close enough to undertake accurate identification of species (from a single scale between the eyes) you are almost cetainly too close.

The Tiger snake is the 4th most venomous snake in the world and the Copperhead the 10th, but the White lipped snake is small (and just as venomous). Tasmanian snakes should be treated with great respect. They are also protected, but killed nontheless.

It is only 10 days now until I finish work. I have lots of plans, and am quite looking forward to my approaching unemployment. I have decided to try and have spinning and sewing days once a week, and to do some small moves towards further decluttering, and making the house look less like a bomb site and more like a place where people can actually live, and find their possessions!

Off to play snap with Destructoboy, and attempt to wrangle him into some clothes....

And another thing....

First, an apology. After reading Alwen's blog for, well, forever, I still managed to spell her name incorrectly in the last post. Sorry, Alwen.

And for some reason, no kid's books (juvenile fiction) went onto the list - so here's a quick rundown - authors only:
Phillip Pullman (His Dark Materials series),
Tamora Pierce - anything at all,
John Flanagan - The Ranger's Apprentice series - particularly good for boys;
JP Martin - the Uncle Books;
everything by Nicholas Stuart Grey (sadly currently out of print, despite a barrage of emails to Penguin);
some Enid Blyton;
Susan Cooper - the Dark is Rising sequence;
anything by Diana Wynne Jones,
Rudyard Kipling, the Just-So stories and Jungle Book - and Kim and lots of others;
Cornelia Funke
CS Lewis, the Narnia Books
JK Rowling Harry Potter
all the Graeme Base books

Oh - lots more! So I'll stop now before I get carried away!

Destashing:

In:
5 books
3 mags
4 pairs of shoes

Out:
4 pairs of shoes (2 binned and 2 to Lifeline)
Pile of Mags - lifeline
1 bag clothes - lifeline



In: Stash
3 sleins of sock yarn (1 replacement for sub-quality; 1 club; 1 prize) = 300 gr

Out: Stash
300 gr ( Cherie Amour - not yet finished)
100gr (socks) = 400gr!!!

For the first time my knitted stash outweighs in incoming. I feel very virtuous.

I spent the weekend doing the job of a 19th century skivvy. I swept, mopped and scrubbed, then swept again, our verandah prior to painting. Our verandah is 3m wide and 12m long, plus a return of 6 metres. It took a long time. The outlaws were here on Sunday and I made the gorgeous choolate and dried pear brownie desert from this month's Delicious magazine (except I used cherries instead of pears) - utterly gorgeous and swooiningly rich.

In fact, this months delicious only arrived last week and has already been used for 4 recipes and I intend to cook some more out of it this week. Obviously a particularly useful isse!

Off to play snap with the 4 year old and think about what to cook for dinner.......

S.E.X. in Wang; Or, the Chilling Conclusion!

OK, we’re about to leave Canberra. Did you know, you can hide.. sorry… carry 2 packs of Zara and 10 balls of sock yarn in the front zip pocket of a medium sized case? Just in case you ever need to know (Yes, Georgie, I’m looking at you!)

We hit the road and by dint of stopping at a certain American fast food place and the judicious application of lollypops we survived the drive to Rutherglen – where we stayed at a wonderful unit complex in Corowa.

It was substantially cooler, so we immediately purchased some wine (in fact we stopped at 2 wineries on the way) and scouted takeaway food options. Settled in, got tired kids asleep, and I plotted.

Thursday was winery day, including lunch at a wonderful place called The Pickled Sisters Café (which just happens to be smack next door to a very nice winery – gosh!) and then we visited a couple more – and the children fed turtles at Pfeiffers winery.

Friday was my day – I have been in training for this one for a while! I organised lunch at Brown Brothers at Milawa, a quick trip to the Milawa cheese factory, and planned a route which led past Australian Country Spinners at Wangaratta!! They sell wool there for a bit over $27/kilo!!! And some is cheaper! (and some a bit more expensive!)

I planned our stop there for pre-lunch – because I am not totally insane! I have a very real appreciation of what happens when I have a few glasses of wine and am let loose in the vicinity or yarn!

I had a lovely time (if the place hadn’t been nearly full, especially of lovely grandmotherly ladies, I would have rolled in it all!) I bought lots and lots of Jet and Country Silk, Shadow Tweed and Country Prints, and Patonyle, Patonyle, Patonyle!! Including a 600gr monster cone (Patomonster) of printed Patonyle (heelllloooo, Baby Surprise Jacket!). And some Velvet Deluxe. It almost didn’t fit in the car, but when I suggested we just tag the kids and freight them home so there was more room in the car for wine and wool, the Accountant wasn’t impressed!

The Princess offered to sit on the wool, and Destructoboy is only short, so there’s lots of room under his feet. Besides, packs of yarn are flat and squooshy. You can used them to pad wine bottles.

So after spending most of the day drifting around Rutherglen, we tootled Melbourne-ward and back onto the ferry for the trip home. I still find myself chuckling over my not-stash (sale wool does not count – nor does gift wool, or wool you’ve almost forgotten buying). I occasionally hug my Patomonster.

And you all know my secret now. That’s right – Yarn magazine issue 9 came out while I was away – and it has my article in it!!!! Woo hoo! (Happy dance, happy dance!)

Bearing Gifts We Traverse Afar......

I’ve been a little tied up recently (you can just stop thinking what you’re thinking, right now!). As you are probably already aware, the man in the (Coca-cola promoted) red suit (or if you’re into Victoriana, blue or green suit) is not far away. The Pre-Christmas frenzy of excitement is well and truly here.

I am basking in the virtuous glow of a woman who has done virtually all her Christmas shopping, posted all distant presents (one still needs to be posted – but it’s closer to home) and knows that goodwill and happiness will arrive in mail boxes soon.

I have not, as yet posted the overseas Christmas cards. Every year I swear I will do them in November and every year it doesn’t happen until I well and truly feel that Christmas is only just around the corner. How anyone manages to feel Christmassy enough in September to sea-mail cards, I have no idea.

Tasmania has been desperately dry – even here on the usually damp North West Coast, but the other night we had a belter of a thunderstorm and a most satisfying downpour and everything’s greened up again. My tomato plants are growing baby tomatoes, the herbs puffing away, local strawberries are on offer at the local fruit and veg shop, cherries should be ripe next week and raspberries can’t be far behind. I saw the first Australian grapes available at a price which didn’t involve selling my children to white slavers, and there’ll be mangoes for Christmas. Life (or at least, food) doesn’t get much better than this!

I have been working hard on editing Amy’s new book (which is just great and I am enjoying reading it as well as working on it – makes the job MUCH easier).

One or two things have slipped through on the yarn front – I did a swap with a fellow Raveller – some Rowan Yarn for a Rowan Studio book and was rather sucked into the vortex of gorgeousness generated by the Jolly Jumbuck. Some Fleece Artist Somoko sock yarn in Pinata, and some Hand Maiden Casbah in Rainforest seemed to have fallen into my hands.

I also have the most recent Red Bird Knits sock kit – which is in the loveliest yarn (I think I mentioned it last post – wool, silk, cashmere). I received a parcel from America containing a skein of Helen's Lace, for the purpose of knitting a Juno Regina Wrap (definitely the next Clapotis).

I also fell rather off the wagon because I put some Patonyle on layby at my local LYS and when I went to give them some money I slipped and fell onto some Zara being cleared and put that on layby too – in a dark forest green (10 balls) and a sort of eggplanty colour (10 balls). These have not actually entered the portals of my house yet, so they don’t count on my In/Out list!


I’m still waiting for my Bendi order (nearly 2 weeks ago), and I’m thinking I may be forced to do another order (before the sale finishes). I’ve been following a thread on Ravelry which insists that sale yarn, sock yarn, gift yarn and overseas yarn doesn’t count as stash. So by that logic, my stash has been reduced to about 2 kilos of Bendi in various forms. I feel much better now. It’s rather like the reasoning that broken biscuits and food eaten after midnight don’t count on diets (thanks for that tip, Ms 2Paw).

I had one dieting theory that food of the same colour had the same calorie count (but I’m not sure that was entirely true). Therefore, Top Deck chocolate had the same calories as mushrooms, green iced fairy cakes were the same as broccoli, white chocolate went with potatoes and red lollies worked the same as capsicum. As theories went, it wasn’t a bad one – unfortunately it bore about the same relationship to reality as the flat earth theory or ‘intelligent’ design.

I have almost finished the Silk Garden jumper – which looks lovely and I’m sure the Noro yarn must give obsessives who want to colour match their sleeves or the fronts and backs of their knitting conniptions. I enjoy the randomness – some of my balls had emerald and teal and some were only the fire/metal colours – one had several metres of the most glorious opalescent purple hiding. I tried to keep the balls with the emerald and teal for the front and sleeves and other than that made no attempt to match. I did check out a Noro group on Ravelry and one person spent ages turning her Noro into 36 perfectly colour matched balls, leaving aside some where no match was found.

I think I have too much going on in my life for that – I’m enjoying the fire colours living on the back of the jumper and the dashes of greens and purple on the front and sleeves – Gosh – I can’t control any aspect of my life right now – why on earth should knitting be any different?

Go with the flow, I say, go with the flow!