false pretences

i think its time i got honest - this isnt really a blog about knitting anymore. it started off that way and it was great fun putting up my pictures and all that, and i still love reading everyone elses knitting blogs and all things knit-witty. and i still have my baskets of yarn in the lounge room and i do intend to finish the many pairs of socks i promised as gifts. but im just not into it at the moment, so i think its time i warned everyone that the knitting content here will be rather minimal for some time, and if you come here looking for knitting things you are more likely to get obscure ranblings about the progress of my thesis, or the progress of my rose and vegie gardens, or the progress of my sheep herding practice with miss possum. given that many of my friends live in places other than canberra, this seems the best way of keeping them up to date with all that other important stuff. of course i feel like im letting the knitting team down greatly, so i apologise in advance, but hope you will stick with me.

k :)

caravaggio roses

if caravaggio painted roses this is what they would like:



because i have no knitting of which to speak i am obsessed with my garden. i just cut these roses and took a photo of them in the sun and this is what it came out like. it reminded me of the caravaggios i saw in amsterdam.

but something is amiss with my roses, they are dying very quickly on the bush and i think its lack of water, they are browning very quickly. perhaps they need a feed.

i also cut some herbs from the garden for dinner tonight, they smell great:



other than that i have nothing worthwhile to report, except that i worked in the national library this morning which was more interesting than working at home.

stay tuned for more inane ramblings
k:)

in which she admits some days the Can is a nice place to be

yes i am talking about the weather again because its all ive got. there is no knitting to report. dont talk to me about it.

so here is what the back garden looks like today on this glorious spring day, not hot, not cold, just lovely:

here is a close up of my favourite rose bush:


and here is possum soaking up the sun:


and here is the now-mulched vegie patch:



did we go overboard i wonder, esp after seeing mr blooming-marvellous on tv talking about how tomatoes like the ground warm. is it warm enough here yet? not sure, but i know a few warm days are coming and im very pleased with how these tomatoes are going and i dont want to lose them now. i have taken out the bok choy, was getting nibbled at an alarming rate and i dont see why i should play host to a generation of caterpillars. everything else has been sprayed in pyrethrum and garlic oil to get rid of nasty little eggs.

a nice quiet weekend was had at home for a change, watched some movies (brokeback mountain, very well done and the worlds fastest indian, a bit cutesy but fun). We went to the basketball on sat night because trent and jem were involved in a flyball demo there, that was fun! i am having herding withdrawals tho – no more until november 18. how will i survive?

meanwhile i have started on a new thesis chapter today - had a moment on the weekend where the whole structure of it came into my head - not sure how to approach a chapter im not totally stressed out about really!

in other news it is my birthday this coming friday, and I have just made a booking for dinner at pangaea at manuka and then we are going to see the new scorcese flick after. i don’t really care to think about how old im getting.

later

k

rain!

i am writing this to the glorious sound of rain falling on the tin carport roof. ive never been so happy to hear that sound before! it has been a complete culture shock to me, to live somewhere where it doesnt rain every couple of weeks at least. i was just outside taking pix of the garden and water started to fall on my head and possum scrunched up her face, like what is this stuff?

this is what the sky looked like, blissfully free of sunshine. i hate sunshine, love clouds:

the light went bad quickly but i took some pix of things happening in the garden, eg the rose garden and wisteria now full of leaves:


and the first roses - this red shrubby one is the best flower producer and kept me going all through last summer:


these ones out the front came out very quickly:



and now they are in a vase in my office:

meanwhile the vegie garden continues to grow, i think it might be time to mulch now - the tomatoes are on the right hand side of this picture and not really visible but they are doing very well:

bok choy not doing so well - i have sprayed with pyrethrum but i expect to lose them all now...will try for cucumbers instead. i wonder what attacked just these and left everything else alone? perhaps i should do some companion flower planting....


anyway i have 500 last words to write for this paper by lunchtime.

fingers crossed the rain continues....

k

ps of course the rain lasted about 10 minutes and now the suns out again. *sigh*

chasing sheep around a paddock

well actually i dont do that anymore. that used to be what herding was for me, chasing possum who was busy chasing sheep with no regard for anyone. but something has happened lately, im not sure if its her or me, but i suspect its a combination of both. we initially went to herding school to figure out how to get control of wild possum when she was in working mode because we werent able to do any of our other training with her. in the process we have found that she is a natural herder and that i really enjoyed working with her. so now we have a dog who is very trainable, still a bit wild but mostly under control and also a fantastic working dog.



this weekend we worked on a half stop (getting her to hold the sheep steady without shutting her down, which then meant we could move them slowly in inches rather than in metres at a time) which meant we could do some groovy in and out of gate moves.







this also requires me to read the sheep rather than watch my dog all the time, i am still working on doing both at the same time! one time we got them out of the paddock (all by ourselves!) and into the yard and it was really cool except i didnt latch the gate properly and the sheep ran out behind me and poss took off across the paddock after them at the same time as liam (the property owner) let a whole flock into that paddock and she was just like "oh my god which hundred of these sheep am i supposed to be working?" we called her in but it was a bit much for her so she ran and jumped in the water trough for a swim instead. great dog, shame about the handler. kylie didnt forget to latch a gate the whole rest of the weekend.

we also learnt a recall properly, which i havent needed with her really before cos shes so fast but now that i can move her slower its nice to be able to swap spots with her and get the sheep to change direction. i still have some work to do there, i am all good on the right hand side but the left hand is a bit spaz.

we were going to put her in the race to see how she would go backing the sheep but we ran out of time. next time.

robert thinks we will be ready to trial soon, i could go up to sydney now and do the ANKC herding tests no problem but i am not a big fan of the ANKC so i am going to stick to yard dog stuff. robert thinks i will be ready for the boorowra show in march of next year. of course possum's ready now, its me who has some catching up to do.

robert said she was turning into a 'really useful little bitch'. i think this was a compliment.

meanwhile a whole set of photos is on trents flickr.

now i have mountains of washing to do.

more later
k :)

beer and cake

i am going herding practice tomorrow. it is robert, the instructor, and georgina, a participant's birthdays tomorrow. i spent a great deal of time and effort this afternoon making them an 'unbelieveably rich chocolate cake' from the womens weekly seasons cookbook. i had a rich chocolate cake packet mix in it, plus brown sugar, oil, water, eggs, cocoa and melted chocolate. it had to be cooked for nearly 2 hours. slowly. the instructions didnt say 'cake is cooked when....' (this is like a knitting pattern that doesnt tell you how to sew up the seams) so i took it out after 2 hours even tho it obviously wasnt cooked inside but was all hard and crispy on the outside. i had delusions that perhaps when all the dark chocolate in it cooled down it would set. um, no. i waited the requisite cool down time and turned it out on the plate and it collapsed like a bad souffle. so now its in the bin and i have to take something from the cheesecake shop instead. sigh.

meanwhile possum got into the vegie patch and drank all the margarine containers of beer meant for the snails. so now i will be trying to round up sheep with a dog with a hangover. and eating bad cake.

black friday indeed.

k

slacker

i have been a slack blogger and a slack knitter and a slack photo taker. we went to herding practice on the weekend and i had some more breakthroughs with my possum, out in the paddock again. we got the sheep in the ring and then back out the gate, with help still but im starting to understand the difference between working sheep and just watching my dog all the time. one day, perhaps sooner than i thought, we may be able to work together without her thinking the only good sheep is one thats running around a paddock and shes chasing while i yell at her to quit it. i came away with some homework this time so ive been working on that today and i think i know whats going on now. we are practising again down at michelago this coming weekend and i will try and remember to take photos!

meanwhile the thesis is on pause while i write this paper i was supposed to give in america but someone is giving for me, need to finish my part of that this week. oh, my feedback session last week was not from an official supervisor but from my co-author on this paper who has offered to be a de-facto supervisor when needed, and he understands the point im trying to make and loved my chapter, said i was a very good theoretician, and gave me some good constructive points for improvement. so thats all good. im leaving that one for now and moving on to the next big section, which is basically three chapters by christmas. hmm.

the garden is going great guns, will take some photos of new rose buds and rocket that has turned into a small shrub. today i put little dishes of beer out to attract snails, there are a couple of little bite marks on some lettuce leaves. hmmmm...

swimming has been hard this last week, interrupted and then ive been so tired and have a sore back from my crappy camp chair, but i do believe theres a camping expo on down here in a few weeks so a new chair may be on the list.

and instead of knitting in my spare time, this week i am re-reading portrait of a lady by henry james, my favourite american author.

thrilling stuff.

later
k :)

music to mop by

thought you might like to know that i have found good music for cleaning to be public enemy's 'fight the power' (helps work out your anger and puts thoughts of your own oppression at the hand of cleaning in perspective), and then new order 'substance' - all those great oldies, makes you feel happy again, despte being up to your elbows in a toilet bowl.

justt thought id share that.

spring cleaning

having lived mostly in sydney and on the coast, living inland, and in a place like canberra, is a hard thing to get used to. but i do love the real seasons, and am enjoying spring, apart from the constant hayfever. the vegie patch has already taken off, only lost one bok choy and one lettuce and one bean in the planting.

and this morning i have been inspired to clean the house properly, ie, moving things and dusting/polishing the surfaces underneath. washing cushion covers. rearranging book shelves. putting knitting away. yes thats right, i have dismantled knitting corner and have put my spare needles and pattern books away. still have the stash basket and the socks-in-progress basket out but they will probably stay 'in progress' until after the warm weather has passed now. i just cant get into knitting at the moment so i may as well stop pretending.

instead this weekend i allowed myself to read a book, as in a novel, rather than some 3 tonne volume of psychoanalytic theory badly translated from obscure french. i read 'girl with the pearl earring' - i saw the movie ages ago and loved it and have never read the book but it has been reissued with colour plates of the pictures and vermeer is one of my favourite artists, and it was great, as good as the movie. and of course, it reminded me of amsterdam and standing in front of real vermeers in the reijksmuseum. the girl with the pearl earring is in the hague which i didnt get to but i saw the milkmaid up close, it is actually really small, maybe only a4 and dwarfed by this heavy wooden frame, but the detail and the colours is exquisite, even after 400 years.

and it was lovely to read something for pleasure again, so i have replaced knitting corner with book corner where i have put my catalogues from the fantastic exhibits i saw in amsterdam (esp the rembrandt/caravaggio) plus other novels i want to reread, eg portrait of a lady, to the lighthouse (there seems to be a painting theme emerging here!).

i am still exhausted from last week which was the most intensive writing session ive ever done, 5000 words in 3 days to finish the mammoth theory chapter by friday. its now 10,500 words with no conclusion and i am meeting tomorrow to get some feedback. *gulp* but it felt good to get it done, and by the time i said i would, and it was so hard that surely the rest will be easy in comparison!

vacuuming calls.

k

good weekend

no not the magazine from the sydney morning herald. i am happy to report that a nice weekend was had here at home, starting with the 'ball' on friday night. like i said it was a chamber of commerce thing, celebrating their 70th anniversary. woo hoo. crack open the champagne. yes im being sarcastic. i would normally rather gouge my eye out with a spoon than attend such a function but its trents new role as a manager to attend these things and i tried really hard to be good. i dont think i entirely succeded, choking on your coke at the mention of 'work choices' as though they are a GOOD thing being not really best behaviour. anyway, we got out of there as soon as the band started with the abba covers. at least we looked nice:


trents bow tie kind of matched my lovely garnet beads but the lippie wasnt really dark enough to match. anyway the dress was comfy and i am also pleased to report that i have finally found a great hairdresser in canberra. i am very fussy about this - i finally found a good one in wollongong about 3 days before we moved here (kara at chelsea if youre wondering) and i have tried two here, both of whom charged over $300 to put yellow stripes in, which i removed earlier this week with a $12 box. anyway, the great hairdresser is andre at the edge in oconnor. i prefer male hairdressers usually, and he was very friendly and very good and the place was really nice. now we will probably move again and i'll never get to go there again.

on saturday we planted out the rest of the vegie garden:


chilli, 4 different tomatoes, beans, bok choy, two types of lettuce plus herbs. trent dug the trenches to aid water retention and the wire is to keep the king parrots and eastern rosellas off. as much as i like to look at them i want my vegies to grow. i havent mulched yet, i will just water everyday until the sun warms the soil a bit more and they are grown a bit and the mulch is easier to apply. fingers crossed.

the wisteria has also gone ballistic:



sunday we went to floriade, it was threatening rain but we arent home for about the next 4 weekends so this was our only chance. 'twas lovely, despite the wind:



this will sound weird but my two favourite gardens were the ones from holland and belgium. the dutch one because it reminded me of amsterdam and the way the fields as you fly in are all straight and narrow like this:


and the belgian one because it was all wild and was the most people friendly with the gazebo in the middle:

this was the most unusual flower there, very pretty:


also got to watch some dvds over the weekend, havent done that in ages, the mini series Empire Falls, awesome stuff, highly recommended, and History of Violence which had 'Aragorn' in it so was pretty nice on the eye but was a bit disappointing in the story department, considering the rave reviews. still, nice way to kill 90 minutes.

and now i am buried under a pile of articles i need to read to finish this chapter which just seems to go on and on but at least its going.

i think thats enough for one post.
k :)

looking for inspiration

at the risk of looking like a walking advert, the latest issue of yarn magazine is out. i like this mag, nice and simple, some good stuff about techniques. the patterns are a bit wacky for me tho, i must be a rather simple minded knitter! anyway, the cover sure got my attention - could there be inspiration to knit again within?


dont get me wrong, i WANT to knit, im just having trouble picking up the needles. it doesnt help that the two projects i have going are socks and they are both at the leg stage. boooooring. i need some other big project with lots of different elements to work on, but i cant really justify adding to the stash at this point, financially, and then i dont want to start a cardigan for myself over summer (although logically this is stupid because it might actually be ready for next winter if i did). but i havent found the right pattern for that either. anyway, there was nothing that really grabbed me in here.

except this which, apart from making me laugh out loud at the horror of it, made me think of a certain vague magazine and another certain caption competition winner:


something for you miss spider i think? the drunk naked sheep will be hard to beat though.

anyone got any good tips for plus size cardi patterns? and nice fine plain coloured yarn (like some 5 or 6 ply dark chocolate or wine? colour. not the things.)

next post will be pic of party frock after tomorrow night. (on that, im looking forward to dressing up but not looking forward to the actual do. its a chamber of commerce thing and me, the card-carrying communist, and chambers-of-commerce dont go well together. have promised to keep retching-during-speeches noises to a minimum. the things we do. sighs and thinks of pretty earrings.)

k

seasons

had a good weekend in sydney doing flyball stuff. no pics of that. no knitting done either. i got a photo of the sickinger wheel thats for sale but its an upright and i want a more traditional wheel, my first pick would be an ashford traditional, and im sure the sickinger is very good, it looked very solid, but i didnt like the look of it, so im going to pass. we decided on the way home that considering i am not likely to do any spinning over summer we will wait till next year and go down to cooma and buy me what i want when i submit my thesis in march. fingers crossed. speaking of which, a few more words have been written and i got a phone call from supervisor yesterday. he was very encouraging and apologetic about the last meeting. that was nice. of course he wants to read the chapter but i said only when i feel ready. it should be finished in a couple of days, although i also have to start writing a paper for the rethinking marxism conference in america in october, which i now can not go to (dont ask) but the paper is being co-written and the co-author is going to give it in my absence. upset about that, but the paper should be ok.

meanwhile, thought i would post pics of some parts of the garden because there are some very radical changes going on. the rose bushes all have leaves on them:



and the wisteria is about to burst into colour:



no pods margie! i am going to fully plant out the vegie garden this weekend so that will be fun, the herbs seem to haven taken well despite some four legged pests getting under the fence to eat blood and bone. fixed that up quick smart.

dress shopping for the do on friday night was successful and outfit now complete, jewellery, new lipstick, cute little handbag. will post pix of the finished look after friday.

now if only i could be bothered knitting!

later
k :)

first planting

i have been busy today. apart from swimming 1700metres and writing 800 thesis words (i have about 40 000 now, only another 40 000 to go..sigh...) i have also been playing in the new vegie patch. we werent going to stay in this house for another summer it being rather hot with no air con but with the drama and expense of looking for somewhere else to rent in this town, we decided to stay put. which means we decided to put some energy into the garden, which we didnt really use last summer. a fantastic raised bed already exists, so on the weekend i badgered trent into putting a fence around it so i could put fertiliser on and get the soil ready. i had some very good advice from my very own personal peter cundall, my friend deb who has the greenest finger ive ever seen. i even checked the soil ph, it was neutral, so apart from blood and bone it got a heap of really old compost dug into it. should be good i reckon, it was still lovely and soft today.

someone found a way to eat the blood and bone from under the fence, so today i raked it back from the edges, put some seasol on and planted some herbs:



possum here is guarding the seasol, when i went into the garage she lay down and stared at the cupboard with the blood and bone in it, curling her lip if jem approached. jesus.

anyway now i have laundry to do. never stops.

k :)

what the postman just bought...

look look look!!! my beads from margie have arrived!!!



margie has made these for me to wear to a formal dinner for trents work (some bloody corporate thing) and because i cant get to snb this month she has mailed them to me and they are the prettiest things i ever saw!!!

this photo doesnt do them justice, they are lovely heavy garnet type beads, and because i am a fussy thing she made me three types of earrings and they are all lovely, they look gorgeous on (no photos till the hair and make up are on) and i cant decide which ones to wear, although i am leaning toward the little cluster ones cos chandelier type earrings are in and these are very delicate little mini-chandeliers.

they are awesome margie, i love them all and couldnt be happier. surely i owe you more money for the three pairs of earrings?!!!

huge grins, squeals of delight and hugs for margie xxxxx

k :))))

sorting things out

yesterday we went up to farm sunday at belgenny farm at camden where we do our sheep herding schools. our instructor was judging some trials there so we went to have a look. they had all these other groovy old time stalls including a bunch of hand made crafts. yes there was knitting and spinning going on. in fact, there were spinning wheels lying around the place, so i went to talk to the ladies about the different types of wheels (i am in the process of thinking about buying this sickinger wheel - it's at least half what a new ashford would cost me and it has all the bits and bobs attached. the fact i have no idea how to use it is irrelevant at this point). anyway they ask about all the knitted things im wearing, my scarf and my jumper, trents lovely green nundle jumper, the first major thing i ever knitted. of course the lovely harmless old lady picks out the one mistake in the whole thing, a half row of weird stitches which i didnt notice until the whole thing was sewn up. trent was previously blissfully unaware of its existence. thanks, lovely old lady.

so on the way home im thinking, its an unacceptable state of affairs to be contemplating ADDING to the fibre working obsession when youre not actually obsessed anymore. of course i am obsessed, i think i just need a new challenge (hmmm, spinning perhaps?). but i decided that when i got home i would reorganise, a la taph, and this would make me feel better about everything.

no more sudokus for me:



ive been doing the easy ones but they arent easy and i usually throw the book across the room. (please note: vincent pencil bought in van gogh museuem, amsterdam when i was there in march this year.)

so i went through the works in progress basket and the stash basket and got rid of stuff i have next to no chance of using or finishing. starting with the inca/loopy blanket, which you may recall from earlier this year.

people at patons, you make some nice things but loopy mohair is not one of them. not only is it not really mohair (or as close to synthetic as mohair can be) its shit to knit with. my needle goes through the loop instead of through the stitch and the black string its plied onto is very weak. and the red doesnt match the lovely inca (of which i approve) so my idea of a warm autumn colour blanket was turning into some kind of freaky gelato striped thing. so it got ripped back. i saved the inca. this is what happened to the mohair:



i wasnt even going to bother trying to rewind that. its in the the bin. i have some more balls of it to give away if anyone wants.

i cleared out the stash basket and put my nice sock wool at the top (theres some hand died angora from india in there too that makes me sneeze everytime i look at it. if i ever get to another snb (sigh) i will bring it along to donate):



you will note there is plenty of space left in this basket for the superfine merino fleece that comes with the sickinger wheel. considering how much time we spend hanging out in paddocks and wool sheds i dont think trent can complain about the smell of fresh wool in the lounge room.

i also cleaned out the works in progress basket - no more blankie, only socks:


which i am pleased to announce are being knit again. a week off and im back into it. i think my issue is small needles actually, i feel like knitting something on big chunky wooden ones again.

i also tidied up 'knitting corner' and trent (clever boy) showed me how to keep my needles upright in this really old tin of his by sticking them into a scrunched up bit of wool i was going to throw out:



this morning i went back to the pool after a week off and did 1300m without too much effort. then grocery shopping.

who knows, i may even get some thesis written this week!

hope all is well with everyone.

k :)

(ignore the timestamp on this, i started writing this post before coffee and only just finished it now at 11.40. i know, its an epic.)

wherefore art thou?

something weird is happening. i am unable to summon any knitting enthusiasm, despite starting a whole new pair of socks which are self striping and therefore kind of groovy, and also despite the fact that a skein of gorgeous berry stripey sits waiting to be knitted. also despite the fact that someone is offering me a brand new spinning wheel and associated tools with a kilo of pure merino fleece for a mere $300. its so bad that i didnt bother buying the new creative knitting mag and i have flicked through the new knit simple and been less than enthused by the items on offer. even the plus size ones look very drab. is it some sort of seasonal thing - spring is in the air so i know its going to be too hot to knit anything substantial soon so i am weaning myself now so the grief is not too much to bear later? i do have a lingering lurgy and cant seem to concentrate on anything other than the easiest of sudoku puzzles but this started before the lurgy. there is snb tonight and i will come because margie has made my earrings but i feel like some sort of traitor in the midst....wherefore art thou knitting obsession and who am i if i am not a knitwit?

confused

k


later: my malaise is not helped by this STUPID flu like cold thing i have that will not go away and i thought was going to be ok this morning until i took the dogs for a walk this arvo and got all stirred up again in the freezing cold wind, so now i am being a complete loser and not going out tonight. cranky.

home again

home from a lovely weekend at kioloa, there was a flyball comp there that trent was judging. jem didnt get to run because we have left the canberra team we were racing with (dont ask) and have to wait four months before we can race again with our old club st george. but we hung around with the guys from st george and it was really lovely and reaffirmed that we have made the right decision to leave the canberra club. flyball is about fun, after all.

but stupid me didnt take any pics of the hundreds of dogs playing happily on kioloa beach or the beautiful weather or the gorgeous scenery, tho i did get some dodgy ones of some teams - this is norwest and southern cross:



this is a norwest thunderdogs team:

this is little arrow who is about the same age as possum and everyone says they look alike except arrows a border collie and possums a koolie and arrow can do flyball and possum, well we're working on herding right now!



this is trent judging, in white and a st george team, in red:



this is annette with cobber, first time competing and didnt make a single mistake!



and this is the awesome st george campsite:


possum had a GREAT time, she loves the dogs from st george, esp kobe and cobber the two kelpies who are her age, they ran around and caused havoc every chance they got. she is also madly in love with daves 11 year old jack, the show kelpie, who is the most good natured, calm dog ive ever met. even jem was in awe of him! i am so happy with how much better possum is in company now, she used to have major other dog issues but the only dog who bothered her all weekend was phoebe the doberman. and who wouldnt be bothered by a doberman called phoebe wearing a rhinestone studded purple collar? (i have so far resisted the temptation to knit anything for my dogs, if only because possum would pull it off bit by bit but i dont know if that restraint will last through next winter).

i do have some pics from the last herding to show. here is trent the cowboy and jem his dog who he is teaching to 'camp out' (i see trent has forgotten the piece of straw hanging out his mouth to complete his ensemble...)


and here are some of me and poss working out in the paddock, they were taken on the saturday so robert is still there helping us out.






i am glad there are none of me and poss out there alone on the sunday because they would have just been a blur as a flock of sheep ran past followed by a possum and me flailing around after them. we will do better next time!

of course i got no knitting done this weekend, i don’t know why i thought i would, i never do at flyball. and now i have either the worst case of pre-season hay fever ever recorded, or a slight cold/flu. hopefully it will be gone tomorrow and i can go back to the pool.

later
k :)

because i can

the only problem with socks that i can see is that you need to make two of them. no sooner do you stop glowing from the joy of completing something that you can immediately wear without having to agonise over seams, comes the realisation that ordinarily two, as in two that match, like a pair, are required. despite this, i dont think that there is actually a rule that says you have to complete a pair of socks before moving on to the next pair, so i have. moved on to the next pair. because i can.



hmmm. so now i have sock startitis. i suspect i am not the first. i really dont like the feel of having only one thing happening, so i bought another set of DPNs and have started these ones for trent...my rationale, other than 'because i can' is that spring doth too fast approach and i want him to experience the joy of wearing wool socks before its too warm.

these are heirloom jigsaw, no cute name for the colourway unless 'someone' wants to think of one? i started them last thursday to show the girls on friday down in wollongong, esp miss dr fern whom we bought that lovely sirdar town and country sock wool for her graduation, but i was very unhappy with my cast on over the three needles, so in the process of showing fern i decided that casting all stitches on to one needle and then dividing them worked better and gave much better corners. this is nice stretchy yarn too so its holding together well. even the single rib wasnt too painful.(speaking of the lovely dr fern, she has decided that this blog thing is cool and has started her own before she heads off overseas next year...cool, a sock and a blog convert!).

i didnt get to do any of it on the weekend, sock knitting and herding not quite compatible, but i should get a lot done this coming weekend when we head down to kioloa for the annual 'surf and turf' flyball comp.

speaking of herding, possum and i were suddenly graduated out to the paddock. i have never worked with her outside the ring, and now it was our job to bring the sheep up from their holding pen to the ring where everyone was working. robert took the reins on sat and i tried very hard to watch everything he was doing but those guys they just work off instinct and years of practice, so when it was my turn on sunday, possum took off after the sheep across the paddock a few times! i finally got her to slow down and we worked them up the fence together and into a stop, so it ended on a good note tho i still have a lot to learn. it was fun though! forgot to take the camera so have to wait till i see the rest of the gang on the weekend to get pix from them.

back to the bluestripes.

k :)

raining purple part one

here is the first 'purple rain' sock, made using waratah handpainted 5ply.



something weird happened in the cast-on and i can not bring myself to do 4 cms of single rib over three needles, so its a little loose on the leg, might make the second one a bit smaller. also i am still nervous that i dont have enough wool for the second one. it's supposed to be 100g and the pattern should easily fit that, but my ball kept dwindling before my eyes. but "spider says" it will be ok, so it will be ok.

also i was a naughty girl and did a three needle cast off instead of grafting but i dont think you can tell really. i have laid the sock twisted here so you can see the cast off. looks good on, like a big hairy bruise!

swam 1500m today in 40 minutes. at least i was faster than the 80 year old man in the lane next to me. not headed for the olympics anytime soon!

off to wollongong on friday (no supervision. yay) and then herding this weekend so until next week, ta ta.

k :)