Yummy Fibre

This came in the mail yesterday, isn't it beautiful? Fibre is from an Aussie online shop called Ewe Give me the Knits. I had a hard time trying to decide what I wanted cause the truth be known I wanted it all. I would really like to jump in and start using it, but to do it justice I should keep practising, its just too beautiful for me (as a novice) to try right now but I am practising -in between pats and cuddles of my new aquisition .......its just so yummy and delicious!

My first yarn

Well, she isn't perfect, but here she is in all her glory and I am a proud mummy of my very first homespun skein of yarn, I finally plucked up the courage this morning to try my hand at plying and the result is the pic above. There's probably not enough to make anything, but she will take pride of place in my stash (next to the Jojoland Harmony) and I will admire her for her uniqueness as my first ever homespun
Welcome to my stash sweetie!

Look mum I can spin

I have been remiss in keeping up with the blog, unfortunately real life sticks its nose in and just won't leave me alone!

I have been rather busy in my time away from my blog, I finally plucked up enough courage to try and get a handle on this spinning business, I washed some of the fleece that I had been given with the spinning wheel and tried it out.

Whats pictured here is the result of my labor, not bad for a complete novice!

I have been gathering information on spinning for a couple of weeks, I have a friend that spins and she has been giving me advice (by telephone) and I have been looking at online resources to help me. Whilst I have an abundance of information to help me its been difficult not having someone on hand who can teach me, so a lot of learning is done by trial and error. I think Im getting the hang of it, I had thought that controlling the thickness of the fibre would be my main problem but thats not been the case I have more problems working out the tension more than anything else (although I seem to be making laceweight thickness rather than a bulky yarn-not a problem since thats what I wanted it for) I haven't attempted plying yet, I think I need to do some more research on that topic but so far I am very happy with my progress.... after all a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.........

Fire Season

Its spring, and its been unusually warm for this time of year. Already we have had a couple of hot days and the authorities have been warning that this year it will be particularly hard as a lot of bush has died off leaving lots of dry flammable material to burn. The area I live in the Dandenongs has also been highlighted as a high fire danger risk area, and yesterday as if to emphasise the danger I watched as a tractor cut a fire track through the bush behind the block, so if there was fire the fire trucks could use these tracks to get to the fire.
The fire season is particularly worrying for me, I am alone in the house most of the day, and I do not have a registered vehicle ( I have a car its just not registered yet). This will not stop me though, I have the battery charged on the car and if fire threatens I will use this to leave, I will not stay to protect the property, I figure that the contents of the house are replaceable I and my puppy dogs aren't.

The only problem I have deciding, is what I should take with me, being a knitter, my yarn is very precious to me and a lot of my patterns also and so with that in mind here is my list of items that I have prepacked in case of emergency

Spare clothes
Jewellery
dogs (scully and gypsy are not packed)
Lace weight yarn ( yes jojoland will come with me)
Knitting Needles
computer box
important papers (eg patterns and birth certs)
photos

Its a hard decision to make but it has to be done whilst living in the bush is a wonderful thing bush fires are fearsome foes and added to that is the stupid firebugs who take delight in setting such fires. In my opinion arsonists are mass murderers, the number of wildlife and livestock that perish in such fires unmeasured, but a life is a life whether it be animal or human and in my opinion, arsonists are one of the lowest life forms on the planet.

You may remember a couple of weeks ago I posted a pic of an echidna that was running around my yard, today I discovered the reason why she was so large.

Meet echidna junior, (nicknamed eddy).Eddy comes out around four pm daily, and wanders around the yard looking for food. Totally oblivious to any danger (indeed I was 2ft away when I took this pic) and concentrating totally on foraging he is a delight to watch.
Mind you, I think that he has good armouring, can you imagine trying to bite something like that? He/she is really cute though don't ya think?

Note: stupid spellcheck doesn't know what an echidna is!

Newest Member of De Family

Meet my new addition to the family. She's a Sheridan MacArthur, born and bred in Australia, she came complete with a spare bobbin holder and a bag of fleece.

You may remember in an earlier post, I had a mystery spinning wheel with no manufacturers stamp and no indication of who had made her, well thanks to some wonderful members of Ravelry (who shall remain nameless, as I have forgotten -but thanks guys you rock!) it was identified as an early model Ashford Indian Country Spinner, was used to spin Country, or chunky yarn and not at all suitable to spin lace weight which is what I want to do.

I rang a friend Nellie, who also spins and she happened to have the Sheridan sitting in the corner being unloved and she suggested we do a swap as she wanted to spin chunky yarns and the Indian would suit her needs, so as a result we have adopted Sherry into our home.

Sherry needs a bit of a clean, but otherwise she is beautiful, and I am now really keen to be shown how to spin, I am probably going to have to teach myself, although I think I will have a lot of help from my Internet friends I can't wait.......

November Already

I have been AFK (away from keyboard) for over a week so I thought I had better do some posting, the week has been very quiet, I celebrated my birthday on Oct 29th and although my son could not visit he did phone me to wish me happy returns for the day. We have also had some very high winds which uprooted trees and snapped branches off trees and leaving a destruction trail through the trees of the hills, this was followed by torrential rain, which although helped ease some of the drought stricken areas also caused major flooding in other areas of the state.
My frog pond is again brimming with water, and in the evening I can hear the distinct croaking of frogs which means they are also happy with the amount of water in the pond. I did spend a little time clearing some of the leaf and branches that had fallen into the pond so now they have a nice clean environment for the time being.

In knitting news, I finally succumbed to temptation and cast on for Leda's Dream. I'm using some of my stash of Jojoland Harmony lace weight, which is so soft and just so yummy and the colors just sooo delicious that I have trouble with stopping and cuddling and yes stroking the yarn I cannot get enough. I am slightly anxious with the beginning, it is a provisional cast on and I am worried I may loose some of my stitches they are soooooo small.

The big ugly white line thru the knitting is my lifeline - I have made too many mistakes in knitting not to put one of these in, I don't know how many projects I have frogged completely because I didn't have a lifeline in, now I would rather be cautious, instead of rash, - guess that's age creeping in..................sigh!