Thursday 24 February 2011

Dyeing Days

Dyeing is an activity that takes place on our back verandah/patio. It can get very hot out there so dyeing can only be done on cooler days. Since the weather here has been well over 30*C (86*F) lately, there haven't been many cooler days!

Also, as many of you would know, dyeing is not a "spur of the moment" activity - yarn has to be wound into skeins and soaked for several hours.

Nonetheless, there has been some dyeing done here in the last few weeks.

Firstly - acrylic. I started this skein about two years ago and never finished it. With my method of dyeing acrylic, one colour is dyed then the whole skein rinsed and dried before the next colour applied. This skein had waited for two years, one section dyed mauve, the rest still white. The mauve and the pink are done using Ozepol (dyes made for synthetics) but the blue was done using Landscape dyes (Australian made acid dyes for protein based fibres).
There are two other partly dyed skeins waiting for my attention: one is finished but I'm not happy with it - I got two pastel colours and one bright yellow! Eek! The other skein has been started but needs more colours added.


Then came my low immersion experiments. With both yarns, I crammed the ball (unskeined, as it came from the manufacturer) into a jar and poured dye over it. The first one I then topped up with water. The result is pretty but not as variegated as I would have liked. With the second, I stuffed a 100g ball into a very tight space, and soaked in like that overnight. The next day I poured blue dye on it, let it stand for a couple of hours then "cooked it". I let it cool overnight. I rinsed it then put it back in the jar (up the other way) and poured cerise dye over it, let it stand for a couple of hours then "cooked it" again. I let it cool and rinsed it. I was not at all happy with the result - the two colours did not work together. I left it for a couple of days then decided to overdye it. I used a fairly weak purple solution (didn't want to obliterate my previous colours) and this is the result. I am very happy with the result of the overdyeing. Try to imagine the cerise without the mauve overtones and you can see it didn't work with the marine blue!

Finally, the handpainted. DD and I have no expectations and no goals in mind, apart from having fun, when we dye these yarns. We keep no records, we just play. The results speak for themselves - some work well, others not so well.

It will be interesting to see how this one knits up - there is much more brown in it than appears in this photo.
This is very subtle, there are four or five shades of green in this yarn which DD has christened "seaweed". DD did this one on her own - it's a lovely blend of purples and pinks not oranges as it appears here. My personal favourite - I have nicknamed this one "Sunshine Lollipops". I am hoping DD will let me use it to knit the Drop Stitch Scarf which is currently #1 in my Ravelry queue.

Tuesday 22 February 2011

"The King's Speech"

Tonight WM and I went to see one of the best movies I have ever seen. The sets were fabulous, the costumes wonderful and the acting superb!

I can rarely sit through a whole movie (without knitting) and not fidget or need a drink or a toilet break or want to know how much longer it has to go! Tonight I did none of those things!

If you are a lover of history, particularly British history, or a lover of spoken language, or enjoy narratives about those who face difficulties head on and triumph, or simply a fan of Geoffrey Rush or Colin Firth, you should see this movie.

In my opinion, it deserves every award for which it has been nominated.

Sunday 20 February 2011

knitting (and a little crochet)

After all, that's what this blog is supposed to be about, isn't it?

Warning: photo heavy post


There have been beanies
Moda Vera Cynthia Blue

Moda Vera Cynthia Forest

three in this colourway; the colours are much darker - rich plum and burgundy
Schoeller and Stahl Skyline Light (hand-dyed) - thanks Leonie
and scarves
two of these

dropped garter stitch

Turbulent Indigo scarf  (Rav link) in donated acrylic "mohair"

DD knitted this one!
Journey Scarf (Rav link) knitted in Moda Vera Cynthia grey

this one is currently on the needles - a sample for my entrelac workshop

and ladies' mitts (pattern modified from Cleckheaton's Handknits to Wrap and Adorn)




and blankets (afghans) approximately 70 inches by 40 inches (175cm by 100cm).


this one is in the finishing process (lots of ends to sew in)

this one is hibernating until I remember to buy a bigger hook

this one is currently on the needles 200 stitches, one row per colour

this one is my "sample" for the garter stitch entrelac workshop I am tutoring next month
 and one toddler's jumper (sweater) which was "homework" to practise Fair Isle technique

Thursday 17 February 2011

Happy First Birthday Grandbubby #1

You brought a new dimension of love into my life.



Happy birthday, darling boy.

Tuesday 15 February 2011

Sea Cliff Beach Escape

warning: photo heavy post

Last Otober, WM and I spent three cool and mostly wet days at Coalcliff, which is south of Sydney. We left home in warm, sunny weather and arrived at our accommodation as the storm front arrived. From then on, the weekend was cool and cloudy, with a fair bit of rain thrown in. We did not have the views shown in the photos from the linked webpage but the accommodation was clean and reasonably comfortable (except for the too hard bed). I found the living room cold. It had a tiled floor, which is logical near a beach, I guess.  The split system aircondtioner was in the bedroom (which was carpeted) not the living room, which didn't seem to make any sense! I sat and knitted with my feet on a cushion to insulate them from the very cold floor!

photo copied from http://seacliffbridge.com/ then cropped
We did go out quite a bit. We walked from our accommodation to this bridge. We walked the length of it - 665 metres (740 yards) - both ways. 

The photo on the right is a photo from the website describing the bridge. Below are the views taken by WM on the bridge on a grey and windy day.


The first one is looking south; the cliff face is the one closest to the viewer in the promotional photo.


















The next two photos show the view looking north, towards Coalcliff.




In this photo, you can see the old road.  It's towards the bottom of the photo; it has guard rails along the edge to keep the traffic from driving over the cliff. Above the road, you can see the fence that was built to catch rocks as they fell from the cliff face.

The road was closed indefinitely in 2003 after a land-slide. There was public outrage after the closure so the government built the bridge to replace the road. The bridge was opened in December 2005.



We walked on the beach. Coalcliff has to be one of the dirtiest beaches in Australia; not because of litter, but because the sand itself is dirty: it is very dark with the coal dust it contains. Mind you, it still felt like sand and it didn't smell, it just looked strange when one is used to golden beaches.

This creek could be almost anywhere in Australia (except the desert).

But turn around and this is the view!


copied from http://www.visitsouthcoast.com.au/gallery.aspx
We visited Bald Hill at Stanwell Park, a couple of kilometres north of where we staying. This is the view shown in the tourist guides (and one we have seen on several occasions). 

Below is the way we saw it - no it's not a black and white photo! The cluster of buildings to the right of the photo is Coalcliff, where we were staying.



On the Sunday we drove to Thirroul for lunch. We intended to have pizza at an award winning pizzeria. Thirroul is a tourist town a few kilometres south of where we were staying. Tourist town - Sunday - long weekend - not raining - pizzeria not open! Weird, huh?

We walked around Thirroul and eventually did find somewhere to eat lunch. No photos; we went out for lunch and left the camera at home!

WM missed the Grand Final of the Rugby League and his team was playing for the first time since 1999! Why? We had poor reception in our accommodation - blame the high cliffs above us! Fortunately, DD taped it for him so he got to watch it about twenty fours late! No one was allowed to tell him the score even though he knew his team had won!

It's nice to get away but when the bed is so hard one can't sleep, is it really worth it?

Wednesday 9 February 2011

in which I speak of family


 To answer the questions from the comments on my previous post:

Grandbubby is doing fine but is not a baby anymore! He will get his own special post next week but for now, here's a couple of Christmas photos. He had two changes of clothes - his "good" clothes in the morning and his "Santa's elf" clothes after lunch.

Family history is addictive and fun and maddening and frustrating and... one needs lots of time, patience and a certain amount of capital to do a good job! "Who Do You Think You Are?" is one of my favourite shows, no-one is allowed to talk while I'm watching it, but it gives an unrealistic idea of what it's like to trace one's own family.



And now on to family news from the past eight months:

For WM and I, the "Darby and Joan" lifestyle goes on much the same. We celebrated our 33rd anniversary in December as well as the nineteenth anniversary of living in this house. WM still works full-time as a station manager and is finding his job a bit more stressful than he would like. I have just two and a half hours work a week (I'm not complaining).

During the researching and writing of the book, my hard drive died. Fortunately, my computer technician was able to retrieve all my data (most of which was backed up) and installed a new, larger hard drive in my machine. I am thinking aobut buying a new computer now - WM would like this one, it's much bigger than the dinosaur he is using!

We had a wet weekend away in October staying in an apartment at Coalcliff, south of Sydney. We like to get away for the weekend in places that are within a couple of hours from home, otherwise the driving is such a pain we wonder why we went away in the first place! I will save the photos of that weekend for another post (gives you a reason to come back LOL).

WM has his annual holidays in April. We are considering a trip to Perth on the Indian Pacific (Australia's only  trans-continental passenger train) and then a week in the Perth area before returning to Sydney. Any comments / suggestions?

We recently spent a week at mum's place. WM helped mum with jobs that needed doing around the place; I stayed in the comparative cool and worked on the family tree (a future gift for mum - can't say anything too much because she sometimes reads my blog!)

Mum is lonely but coping after dad's death twelve months ago. That's to be expected after fifty-three years of marriage. She will not leave Bingara (a small town on the north-west slopes of NSW) although her closest family, my sister, is 160 kilometres (100 miles) away. Mum intends to remain in her own home until she can no longer care for herself. She is finding many things that she never knew she could do and is proud of her achievements. She is also clearing out the clutter - dad was a hoarder!

Mum has to have a cataract removed from her eye. The date has been set for 11th November! Public hospital waiting lists - who needs them? Mum is also having physiotherapy for her shoulder although no diagnosis has officially been given. It is not frozen shoulder but she can't knit! I remember the trauma of that.

DD and SIL were previously living in a two bedroom home unit (apartment). It took an hour to drive from here to there, and that was in non-peak hour traffic! In October, they bought a house only twenty minutes drive from here. It's old and needs work but it has electricity, hot and cold running water, a stove that works, air-con in the main living room (they have two living rooms), three bedrooms, and only leaks in one room in bad storms. It's two minutes walk to the local primary school. Better yet, it belongs to them (well, to the bank) to do with as they will.

On 31st January, DD and SIL celebrated their second wedding anniversary. We looked after "The Boy" while they went out to dinner. We were going to send them to the same hotel where they spent their wedding night but WM decided a gift of money for landscaping would be more practical!

DD and SIL are expected their second child in late June / early July. As with "Grandbubby #1", they won't find out the baby's sex until he/she is born.

And that sums up eight months in the never2hot2knit family! I close with another photo of "The Boy".

 

Monday 7 February 2011

new look, same old writer

Is there anyone still out there?

I'm back.

Where have I been?

Well, the short answer is: last June I discovered an interest in family history. For Christmas I gave my mother a 76 page book detailing the ancestry of both her parents' families. I was able to find ancestors on my grandfather's side back to 1630!

All that research, checking, writing and editing the book took 40-50 hours a week for five and half months which, with work and family, didn't really give me much time for anything else. After all that time in front of the keyboard, I didn't want to do anything else computer related: no blog, no Ravelry, no reading other people's blogs!

I did find some time to knit but not anywhere near as much as in previous years. I obviously spent less time in front of the television and therefore had less knitting time.


Thank you to the people who got in contact with me via email. I appreciate your concern.

And now that the book is done and dusted? I am still working on family history but I have to be patient to get the results I am seeking now. There are other people involved not just the records of births, deaths and marriages (and other interesting records) and people don't work to my agenda!

In the meantime, my Ravely notebook has been updated and my blog has a whole new look.

Can I stay the distance? Only time will tell. :-)