Thursday, September 08, 2005
Online Hat Exhibition
The lovely Prudence Mapstone has uploaded the latest online hat exhibition on her wonderful, splendiforous site Knot Just Knitting. Click on the title of this post to see all the fantastic hats. Yes, Mariposa is there, but you must look at all the others and drool over them!
Not happy...
I am probably taking this too much to heart, but if I can't whinge on my own blog, where can I?
I've just had my latest pattern up on Ebay. Mariposa is a freeform crochet hat. In the pattern I explain carefully how to do freeforming, give clear pictures of various crochet motifs, talk about the contstruction methods, and I reckon it is a good pattern. It's selling on Ebay for $AU8 as a PDF file, and I sell it myself for $AU7. I just got an email from someone saying that it was too expensive and I should only charge $AU5. I politely emailed her back and pointed out that it was against Ebay policy to do that for a start, and that I thought my patterns were appropriately priced considering the time and effort it took to create them, and the prices charged by similar sole operators. Her reply was friendly and pleasant, and referred to having paid $AU6.50 for this pattern for Hermione's cable and bobble hat from the Prisoner of Azkahban. Well, I personally think, rather indignantly, that my pattern is a LOT more complex than that pattern and that my pricing is well and truly justified!
Enough complaining, back to talking about knitting.
I finally succumbed to Clapotis fever. I had vowed I wouldn;t jump on the bandwagon and knit one. Then I decided that maybe I would, but with totally different (finer) yarn, and make it wider (maybe) and longer. Then I had the chance to order some Lorna's Laces Lion and Lamb, which normally we can't get in Australia. I was determined to use it for one of my own designs. It matured in my stash for a couple of months. Well, to cut a long story short, I finally decided that it felt so lovely that it was going to be a Clapotis, after all. But just because I am using the actual yarn given in an actual pattern - I'm making it a scarf rather than a wrap. A wrap would have been nice, but to wrap around my ample frame I would have needed another ball of the yarn, and I don't intend doing that (and of course would never get the same dye lot). So I thought that making it narrower would produce a lovely soft scarf that will feel wonderful next to my skin next winter.
I am also knitting the MultiDirectional Scarf from the yahoo group of the same name. using some of the multi dyed wool I posted pics of the other day. Now I have got the hang of it it is really easy and fun to do.
Big Purple Thang is in the sewing in the ends stage - I am making myself do at least one hour a day until that is done. I hate sewing in ends! It is a great pity that I only learned how to do the Russian join a couple of inches before the end of the project! Then I have to finish the edges, probably with crochet.
Plus I have started a new pair of socks for George in an Opal yarn.
To end on a low note - George has been asked to go to New Orleans for six weeks. While it would be good experience for him, I can't manage chronic fatigue syndrome and an autistic child on my own for six weeks and I've asked him to say no. I really hope he has. If we didn't have the kids I would say go, but on the other hand there must be so many loss adjusters in the States who could go and help out.
I've just had my latest pattern up on Ebay. Mariposa is a freeform crochet hat. In the pattern I explain carefully how to do freeforming, give clear pictures of various crochet motifs, talk about the contstruction methods, and I reckon it is a good pattern. It's selling on Ebay for $AU8 as a PDF file, and I sell it myself for $AU7. I just got an email from someone saying that it was too expensive and I should only charge $AU5. I politely emailed her back and pointed out that it was against Ebay policy to do that for a start, and that I thought my patterns were appropriately priced considering the time and effort it took to create them, and the prices charged by similar sole operators. Her reply was friendly and pleasant, and referred to having paid $AU6.50 for this pattern for Hermione's cable and bobble hat from the Prisoner of Azkahban. Well, I personally think, rather indignantly, that my pattern is a LOT more complex than that pattern and that my pricing is well and truly justified!
Enough complaining, back to talking about knitting.
I finally succumbed to Clapotis fever. I had vowed I wouldn;t jump on the bandwagon and knit one. Then I decided that maybe I would, but with totally different (finer) yarn, and make it wider (maybe) and longer. Then I had the chance to order some Lorna's Laces Lion and Lamb, which normally we can't get in Australia. I was determined to use it for one of my own designs. It matured in my stash for a couple of months. Well, to cut a long story short, I finally decided that it felt so lovely that it was going to be a Clapotis, after all. But just because I am using the actual yarn given in an actual pattern - I'm making it a scarf rather than a wrap. A wrap would have been nice, but to wrap around my ample frame I would have needed another ball of the yarn, and I don't intend doing that (and of course would never get the same dye lot). So I thought that making it narrower would produce a lovely soft scarf that will feel wonderful next to my skin next winter.
I am also knitting the MultiDirectional Scarf from the yahoo group of the same name. using some of the multi dyed wool I posted pics of the other day. Now I have got the hang of it it is really easy and fun to do.
Big Purple Thang is in the sewing in the ends stage - I am making myself do at least one hour a day until that is done. I hate sewing in ends! It is a great pity that I only learned how to do the Russian join a couple of inches before the end of the project! Then I have to finish the edges, probably with crochet.
Plus I have started a new pair of socks for George in an Opal yarn.
To end on a low note - George has been asked to go to New Orleans for six weeks. While it would be good experience for him, I can't manage chronic fatigue syndrome and an autistic child on my own for six weeks and I've asked him to say no. I really hope he has. If we didn't have the kids I would say go, but on the other hand there must be so many loss adjusters in the States who could go and help out.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Meet Edward Scissorfish. I bought him at the recent Stitches and Craft Show in Melbourne. I have done a tiny bit of bead embroidery before but want to learn a lot more about it, and this is supposed to be the perfect starter kit. So far I have only read the instructions, but I will start to tackle it soon!
Friday, September 02, 2005
Dyeing to use it
Every now and then I go on a dyeing jag. There's something about creating colours that I find incredibly satisfying and exciting. (OK, I know, I ought to get out more. A sore point at the moment - I have been cooped up with a sick Baby Bear all week. She is nice company but not being able to leave the house for more than a few minutes is driving me insane!)
I was going to have a go at dyeing with non-toxic stuff, as I had a fancy to use the microwave and we only have the one. I quite like my family and don't really want them to die a slow and lingering death from poison ingestion. After some Googling and suggestions from helpful Melbourne S'n'B members I had decided to give it a go with food colouring, which I always keep on hand for producing lurid icing when required. OK, nice idea, and I might even do it one day. One day when a certain 12 year old female has remembered to tell me that she used up the last of the food colouring last time she had a cooking session (butter biscuits with lurid icing). She pouted and said that she had told Dad at the time. Great, who does the grocery shopping? Me, that's who; telling the dog would have been as useful.
So I abandoned all thoughts of not poisoning the family and used the lovely toxic Landscape dyes that I love. Not in the microwave - in the dye pot (a huge stockpot that lives in the shed with DYE POT scrawled on it. I wonder if the spiders in the shed can read). And loved the results so much that I have given up most thoughts of non-toxic dyeing.
Pictures at the weekend, hopefully. I have 400 metres of 8ply drying at the moment, and another similar quantity in the dye pot. Have I mentioned that I LOVE dyeing! Yesterday's results were wonderful and I have high hopes of today's. This time I actually applied a bit of colour theory to the process (yesterday and today) and I must say the results were worth it.
I think I will be ordering some more Landscape dyes now.
The only problem is that I am almost out of the old cream Totem that I have been using. Which means I will have to buy more cream/off white stuff - probably Bendigo Woollen Mills as their prices are great and their quality pretty good.
I dyed yesterday's stuff to knit the multidirectional scarf from the new Yahoo group Multidirectional Knitting. I actually ordered some wool off Ebay for this scarf, several little skeins in the colours of the rainbow, but then immediately a design of my own popped into my head which I will use it for. That's the trouble with starting to design stuff - now I feel obliged to use only my own patterns and feel guilty every time I want to knit something else. I have the most lucious Lion and Lamb that everyone else is using for a Clapotis - I bought mine to knit something of my own design and now desperately want to knit a Clapotis with it instead and consequently it sits there doing nothing at all.
Time to check on the dye pot!
I was going to have a go at dyeing with non-toxic stuff, as I had a fancy to use the microwave and we only have the one. I quite like my family and don't really want them to die a slow and lingering death from poison ingestion. After some Googling and suggestions from helpful Melbourne S'n'B members I had decided to give it a go with food colouring, which I always keep on hand for producing lurid icing when required. OK, nice idea, and I might even do it one day. One day when a certain 12 year old female has remembered to tell me that she used up the last of the food colouring last time she had a cooking session (butter biscuits with lurid icing). She pouted and said that she had told Dad at the time. Great, who does the grocery shopping? Me, that's who; telling the dog would have been as useful.
So I abandoned all thoughts of not poisoning the family and used the lovely toxic Landscape dyes that I love. Not in the microwave - in the dye pot (a huge stockpot that lives in the shed with DYE POT scrawled on it. I wonder if the spiders in the shed can read). And loved the results so much that I have given up most thoughts of non-toxic dyeing.
Pictures at the weekend, hopefully. I have 400 metres of 8ply drying at the moment, and another similar quantity in the dye pot. Have I mentioned that I LOVE dyeing! Yesterday's results were wonderful and I have high hopes of today's. This time I actually applied a bit of colour theory to the process (yesterday and today) and I must say the results were worth it.
I think I will be ordering some more Landscape dyes now.
The only problem is that I am almost out of the old cream Totem that I have been using. Which means I will have to buy more cream/off white stuff - probably Bendigo Woollen Mills as their prices are great and their quality pretty good.
I dyed yesterday's stuff to knit the multidirectional scarf from the new Yahoo group Multidirectional Knitting. I actually ordered some wool off Ebay for this scarf, several little skeins in the colours of the rainbow, but then immediately a design of my own popped into my head which I will use it for. That's the trouble with starting to design stuff - now I feel obliged to use only my own patterns and feel guilty every time I want to knit something else. I have the most lucious Lion and Lamb that everyone else is using for a Clapotis - I bought mine to knit something of my own design and now desperately want to knit a Clapotis with it instead and consequently it sits there doing nothing at all.
Time to check on the dye pot!
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Monday, August 29, 2005
Thank you
I've just been going through sending emails to those of you kind enough to comment or otherwise email me about things on here. I can't seem to pick up email addies for Debi and Helen, so thank you publicly for the nice things you said about my scarf! I am about to go and make a beaded pin to go with it - and maybe one for myself too!
Just had one of those conversations with George that goes like ... 'It's the book fair at Blackburn High School this weekend. You should go through the fiction books and cull them ruthlessly.' 'I did last year.' (Once every ten years is about right, isn't it?) Humphy silence from other end of phone.
Just had one of those conversations with George that goes like ... 'It's the book fair at Blackburn High School this weekend. You should go through the fiction books and cull them ruthlessly.' 'I did last year.' (Once every ten years is about right, isn't it?) Humphy silence from other end of phone.
Aaahchooo!!!
Ooh, spring is springing in beautiful Melbourne and I am sneezing. It's a lovely mild sunny day today with a strong wind, blossom trees are shedding their load everywhere, and I am sneezing. Six months of hayfever coming up. Yes, I do take stuff for it, goodness knows what I would be like without it!!
Busy, busy weekend. Baby Bear is now off school sick - the inevitable result of an overly busy week followed by the busy weekend. In the last week she has - done the normal school and music stuff; had late nights Tuesday and Wednesday doing orchestra practice (with two orchestras on Tuesday); sat a music theory exam on Wednesday; had a late night on Thursday performing with one orchestra in an Eisteddfodd (the School Bands Festival); had a late night Friday at Youth Group; on Saturday we went to Geelong for the day to see my mum; she slept over at a friend's place on Saturday night; yesterday she performed with the other orchestra at a concert, and sung a solo with a choir - no wonder she was throwing up at 7am and looking very grey around the edges! She is spending a quiet day in her pajamas making bracelets and reading.
The trip to Geelong was exhausting. It's not a great drive - a dangerous road, even though it had been upgraded a lot, and to tell the truth my mum lives in a fairly awful part of Geelong that we hate visiting. That makes me sound so snobbish - but I just don't like taking my kids to an area where the streets are full of broken glass and there is a lot of violence and drug-dealing. I hate it that my mum lives there (no, it's not where we grew up - not even in the same city) but we don't have the space for her to live comfortable with us - we would need a granny flat as she is fiercely independent and wouldn't do it under any other circumstances, and we don't have anywhere to put one - and she can't afford to move (frankly I doubt if she could even sell the house - it's quite pleasant and comfortable but houses just don't sell down there and are worth next to nothing).
She's just got a new dog - she had two beagles, Becky and Kelly, but poor Becky had a stroke and died a couple of months ago. Tilly is a 3 year old Cavalier King Charles spaniel - not my favorite breed of dog (sorry, no offence meant! But I prefer bigger dogs with long pointy snouts!) Tilly is a darling, very loving and cuddly and nice-natured. I hope she is happy living there - we took the dogs for a longish walk (Sirius came down with us) and Tilly was panting a bit by the time we were halfway through.
After a pleasant lunch we came home via the Brisbane Ranges, a lovely little mountain range northish of Geelong. This was partly to take photos of Baby Bear for the next Sheepeasy pattern - yes, the scrumbled scarf will be released as a pattern in October - but partly just because it is a lovely drive. We spend a couple of hours meandering around, stopping to take photos and look at plants and animals - several kangaroos and wallabies. Then dinner at McDonalds and home, very weary.
Baby Bear's concert on Sunday as a success. It was a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon at Glen Waverley Uniting Church, which is the church we attend. She plays clarinet with the church orchestra, and had been invited to sing a small solo with the Free Spirit choir who were also singing in the concert. George's mum came down for the concert and we had a great afternoon together. The orchestra was, frankly, a little off-key (well, a couple of the newer and less experienced members were), but performed well enough. Free Spirit were excellent - they are good enough to be professional - and Baby Bear's solo in One Small Voice (from Sesame Street) brought tears to my eyes. She was very good! Lots of people rushed up to me afterwards to praise her, which was very gratifying.
Now what I really want is a completely quiet day - but of course she is at home and George has just spent the morning working on the dining table. Never mind. She wants to make some jewellery now that he has gone (and cleared the table) and I need to make a pin or something to go with the scarf - which I hope to post out on Thursday.
Busy, busy weekend. Baby Bear is now off school sick - the inevitable result of an overly busy week followed by the busy weekend. In the last week she has - done the normal school and music stuff; had late nights Tuesday and Wednesday doing orchestra practice (with two orchestras on Tuesday); sat a music theory exam on Wednesday; had a late night on Thursday performing with one orchestra in an Eisteddfodd (the School Bands Festival); had a late night Friday at Youth Group; on Saturday we went to Geelong for the day to see my mum; she slept over at a friend's place on Saturday night; yesterday she performed with the other orchestra at a concert, and sung a solo with a choir - no wonder she was throwing up at 7am and looking very grey around the edges! She is spending a quiet day in her pajamas making bracelets and reading.
The trip to Geelong was exhausting. It's not a great drive - a dangerous road, even though it had been upgraded a lot, and to tell the truth my mum lives in a fairly awful part of Geelong that we hate visiting. That makes me sound so snobbish - but I just don't like taking my kids to an area where the streets are full of broken glass and there is a lot of violence and drug-dealing. I hate it that my mum lives there (no, it's not where we grew up - not even in the same city) but we don't have the space for her to live comfortable with us - we would need a granny flat as she is fiercely independent and wouldn't do it under any other circumstances, and we don't have anywhere to put one - and she can't afford to move (frankly I doubt if she could even sell the house - it's quite pleasant and comfortable but houses just don't sell down there and are worth next to nothing).
She's just got a new dog - she had two beagles, Becky and Kelly, but poor Becky had a stroke and died a couple of months ago. Tilly is a 3 year old Cavalier King Charles spaniel - not my favorite breed of dog (sorry, no offence meant! But I prefer bigger dogs with long pointy snouts!) Tilly is a darling, very loving and cuddly and nice-natured. I hope she is happy living there - we took the dogs for a longish walk (Sirius came down with us) and Tilly was panting a bit by the time we were halfway through.
After a pleasant lunch we came home via the Brisbane Ranges, a lovely little mountain range northish of Geelong. This was partly to take photos of Baby Bear for the next Sheepeasy pattern - yes, the scrumbled scarf will be released as a pattern in October - but partly just because it is a lovely drive. We spend a couple of hours meandering around, stopping to take photos and look at plants and animals - several kangaroos and wallabies. Then dinner at McDonalds and home, very weary.
Baby Bear's concert on Sunday as a success. It was a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon at Glen Waverley Uniting Church, which is the church we attend. She plays clarinet with the church orchestra, and had been invited to sing a small solo with the Free Spirit choir who were also singing in the concert. George's mum came down for the concert and we had a great afternoon together. The orchestra was, frankly, a little off-key (well, a couple of the newer and less experienced members were), but performed well enough. Free Spirit were excellent - they are good enough to be professional - and Baby Bear's solo in One Small Voice (from Sesame Street) brought tears to my eyes. She was very good! Lots of people rushed up to me afterwards to praise her, which was very gratifying.
Now what I really want is a completely quiet day - but of course she is at home and George has just spent the morning working on the dining table. Never mind. She wants to make some jewellery now that he has gone (and cleared the table) and I need to make a pin or something to go with the scarf - which I hope to post out on Thursday.
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