to market, to market

this weekend, trent and i took a trip to the nations capital, where it was downright cold. as you expect from canberra in late autumn. trent was judging (the team not running) at a flyball comp as part of the million paws walk on the sunday, so as his thank you for judging, he got two tickets to the tuner to monet exhibit at the national gallery:

it was great really, to see all those amazing paintings, but at the risk of sounding like a whinger, it was too crowded (but thats what you get for going on a saturday) and a lot of the paintings were already in australia - about 70%. i expected more of the big ones from overseas, but of course i know thats not practical. still it seemed a little rich of the gallery to charge money for an exhibit that centred around paintings that they already had in their permanent collection.

but yes, i sound like a whinger. it was still awesome. some beautiful turners. the glovers were awesome. my favourites were the small constables, which we would never see here in australia otherwise, and the little round haystacks of american artist martin johnson heade.

then we went to george and berties where we ate yummy roast lamb and watched fireman sam with pj. it was lovely to catch up, it is too long between drinks with some people.

sunday morning trent took off to the flyball, and then bertie flew off to cairns and george and pj met up with helen and i at the old bus depot markets, where it was fibrewhore day. official title is 'celebration of wool' but we all know thats shorthand for fibrewhoredom.

the canberra snb'ers had a stall set up and were selling lots of yummys and it was great to see everyone, the lovely taph wound my skeins into yarn cakes for me:

and i bought some sugarmelon off happyspider to give to amanda. olivia was selling her gorgeous pods and kuka was there, and i finally got to meet shelley in person. yay! then i saw jejune and othlon, and the only person missing was michelle. drat.

we did a couple of circuits sussing out all the stalls, and ate ethopian herd bread with fresh squeezed orange juice but i soon found myself in the dreadful situation of being a little overwhelmed. i really only had one thing in mind i wanted wool for which was the omniscient black cardi, for which i still dont have the right pattern. there was no fine black wool to be had anywhere (apart from the 2ply silk at glenora). i looked and looked and for the longest time walked around only with 100g of fresh cooma merino:

i really didnt want to buy anymore sock yarn. as you can see from the cakes, i have four pairs at least waiting to happen.

i finally settled on 200g of this lovely shiny alpaca/mohair/merino mix from fibreworks:

and helen and i decided we would make clapotis' with our fibreworks purchases as we appear to be about the only people in living memory who havent done the clappy thing yet.

three or four times during the day we circled this one stall with huge hanks of naturally coloured yarns - here is pj rubbing some of it on his face while helen wearing the famous steek (can i just say it is even more gorgeous in person), tried to take his photo:

i couldnt quite committ to buying enough for a jumper/cardi as it would make something much too warm for coastal living, but i did end up with 300g of the chocolate brown:

and i am going to make a scarf and maybe two hats with it. it is lovely and soft and light, and would you believe its 100% merino, bred from rare coloured sheep, completely undyed and still smelling like the woolshed. it even has flecks of grass through it. here it is as a fleece:

mmmmmmmm fleeeece.

exhausted, i retired to the flyball. here is trent judging, with parliament house old and new behind him:
this is the national library where i spent large sections of the last 5 years:

i hope to only ever see it from the outside again.

while the flyball went on i finished the first of my swirly girls in knittery merino/cashmere moses fire:
a perfect fit. love it (will give details when i finish the second one).

in other WIP news, the red shetland triangle is no more:

i forgot that because i had gone up a yarn size (from 4ply to 8ply) i should also up the needle size, and 4mm needles were creating a too-dense fabric that didnt show the pattern enough. i am going to have to go up to at least 5mm, maybe even 6. any suggestions?

anyway, a lovely weekend all round. its a shame i have had to return to the real world. hope everyone else is recovering ok!

k xx