swap

As one swap draws to a close over on Ravelry with the Australian Knitters Group, another is preparing to open.

But because of issues about the overt chattiness of some members on the board (and I'm waving my hand up in the air, I don't mind a bit of chat, I really like the idea of community) there have been a few last minute issues.

The whole chattiness thing was starting to get an us versus them style aggression happening. In the red corner was those that meet together in person against the blue corner, those who don't have the ability to join a regular in-person knitting group, who don't get that opportunity to chat or chit or drink with other knitters.

Many blows completely missed their intended point, leaving many observers bewildered particularly when one or two members were asserting that forums or boards should not be used as a social platform. Really there are points good and bad on both sides, it just seems that compassion or an ability to interpret or communicate effectively are lacking.

In my workplace there is always a bit of a stoush going on, not strange considering the number of alpha style personalities my industry attracts. You know the type of incident, they want, expect or believe something should be done a certain way because that is the way they want it, regardless of the ideas, ability or needs of others. In a lot of cases the initial argument or direction is the best one, it's just the approach or attack style they employ to get their message across that puts the majority offside.


Water off a ducks back usually for me, but when faced with more than 40 personal mails this morning regarding swaps it really cut into my knitting time.

Some wanted to withdraw their nomination for the teaspoon awards as they didn't want to be seen supporting anyone of a certain location-based group. Interestingly these requests have come from people who are the occasional poster, those with a quiet presence on the board, the one's one lot of posters were saying that the other vocal group would scare away.

And then for the next swap there have been a slew of requests not to be partnered at all with certain posters. However, from a quick glance the names put forwards as no-goers for partners (ones to be avoided) didn't seem to stick their hands up at all.

End result, for the first swap, I'm not pulling back on any nominations, they will stand as is. Acknowledgment is due to some people because of the effort that they put in. For the next swap it's not an issue due to the type of people who have signed up.


In other words it's all good, but I wonder how many times the same boxing match will be held. I have a feeling that there are some seasoned boxers in the ring.

a lesson

For the past few days I've been busily knitting away with what was left over from Zegal's toasty toes.
The idea was to learn toe up construction with a reverse heel, two at once on two circular needles.
And as I want to do a pair of socks for Mum to take OS to my Grandma at the end of Jan I thought that this would be the perfect pair.
While my Grandma has tiny feet length wise, I think at 91 you can safely assume a bit of old lady foot spread has occurred so a rib pattern with the DK weight on 3mm circs with a stitch count of 64 it was. I'd normally do a 48 on 3.25m for myself with a rib, but I wanted them to be soft, a little bit denser and warmer but with plenty of room for her and easy to get on.

So on I cast using the magic cast on and I was off and racing, literally, working on them once everybody else in the house had crawled off to bed.
They took absolutely no time at all to get to the heels and the heels were a breeze and it was so easy that I was able to enjoy the SBS Godzilla movie the other night and last night's Japanese cult movie. But at about 2am when the weird French movie ended I was about seven rows into the cuff with maybe five meters left!

What to do?
For starters I propped my feet up on the table this morning and took pics of the socks. Tonight Zegal and I will enjoy ripping them back and rewinding the yarn so that later on I can cast on 48 stitches and make some warm winter socks for myself.
It also means digging out some silk alpaca for Grandma and putting aside all other socks until they are done.


While the lack of yardage was a bummer, this partial pair has been a great experience. I now know that while I do prefer DPNs I could use circs if I had to for socks. Although I will be getting some Addis to have that colour difference with the Knit Picks.
While I prefer cuff down, where yardage may be an issue I can easily reverse the process which bodes well for the Jitterbug.
And knitting toe up because of a yardage issue is no guarantee of avoiding these issues.


Now for more sock news, but beautiful sock news.
In the past week I've received a few packages, no not more than usual, but the contents have been decidedly special.
Firstly was some Hercules by Jolly Jumbuck in a beautiful athabasca colourway. I tried to photograph it's deep, oil slick colours but just couldn't do it justice.

The second was a package of goodies, some of which were shown in the last post. Along with the biscuits there were rum balls (I ate them all 'cause I love me rum balls and promptly fell asleep on the lounge), and a chocolate log and a little notepad which was quickly appropriated by Zegal who declares that Spiraling is her special friend there was also some sock wool.

The sock yarn is beautiful and it looks like this.



Now to find a pattern worthy of the yarn. Any ideas?

merry crimbo

So much to eat, so much sweet stuff, so many pressies, so much yarn, so many books and patterns.

It's hard to know where to start, that I won't tonight, but here is a pic of the Jar trying his best to pose for a photo when his mouth is full of yummy biscuit from spiraling.

just what my mother wanted to know

85%DRUNKARD

Looking for payday loans?

A reading age of 12

12. That is the reading age that a tabloid reporter is expected to write for.
That is so people with a reading age of 12 can understand every word, can follow the story and can go from the intro to the end without scratching their heads. How's that for the literacy levels of Australia!

Imagine you are a poor man sending a telegram to an idiot was how one aged journalist once told me.

You will notice that I said that this guideline applies to tabloids. For broadsheets, at least when I worked on one, I was told it was 14, but for specialised publications or for feature pieces you can write to reflect a higher literacy level.

But today I made the mistake of not sticking to the 12 rule and was called rude for what I wrote.

I wrote a straight forward sentence, in fact two sentences. Both of which I considered agreed with the original poster.

I don't want to dumb down my language, as this particular community as a whole is full of articulate people, oh except for when they start drinking and then it's just a hoot and full of spellos, and mine are some of the worst examples.

I've seen exchanges on various boards where the words get nasty and it is a shame that a minority will try to attempt to shame and unsettle or employ passive aggressive language when they just don't have the comprehension to understand a simple exchange of words.

My little tangle today was easily cleared up, but this episode and a few others I have witnessed lately has certainly made me think about the use of the 12 rule in my life.

I have always thought that the 12 rule was over the top, but understood that a lot of children did read the paper and using language appropriate to their reading level was important, not just for informing them, but also encouraging them to continue reading.
But now I'm thinking of the usage of the 12 rule for situations other than that of metro dailies; the need for it in a wider sphere.

Some people seem to have a lot of trouble being able to gauge the intent behind what is written. When there is not audible tone it can be hard for those who don't frequent boards or write or read a lot to discern exactly what has been written.

Now I need to pour a drink and start spelling badly

it's beginning to look a lot like xmas

I've bought some presents, the tree is up, the tinsel and the cookie cutters are hung and a few presents for Uncle T are under the tree.
The Jar and I sat and wrapped up T's presents. That way he knows what in these presents and understands they aren't for him. In a few days, I'll start slinking more under the tree but by then I hope he truly understands they aren't for him to open whenever he feels like it.

Still going on the toasty toes, on my third attempt but seem to have it right now. Doing 48 stitches with 2.75s (3.25s and above seem to be the norm) and I'm doing a k2, p2 rib all the way down the leg and foot.

She likes them so far.

Now officially on hols, will have to go in first thing monday to clear the desk a bit and book in photos and finish off one feature, but that's only an hour or so. I must have been tired, today I ended up snoozing on the lounge for five hours after an early lunch. And last night I managed to stick a knife into the palm of my hand, right at the base of the thumb. I was juggling too many things and trying to get the lock open on the shed and the crackers fell, the (wrapped) cheese hit the deck and my attempt to stop them sliding off the plate resulted in a sharp knife getting stuck in my hand, stopping only cause it hit bone.

At least it is a clean cut, and I packed it, disinfected it and wrapped it, but it's just in that place on the right hand where the scissors rest so I can't really do any cutting out for sewing. Well I did, but it bled like the buggery, so I'll wait a few days and just machine sew what I have for now.

The cut doesn't effect the knitting.

too busy

I'm trying to do four weeks worth of work in one week.
Yep it's holiday season again so I have to do as much as possible before I leave my desk on Friday.
So no time to really post, or take pictures of the goodness that has been turning up.
Like cascade 220 superwash, like more Ranco in grey, like Knitpics Options Set and extra cables, like the 12ply Tapestry and Craft bright red wool.

But one wonderful piece of news, FOAT has asked me to knit him a jumper! Seems it's now cool at school to wear hand knits, apparently it was in winter but in true Foat boy style he's only gotten around to asking me now.

Not black, no skulls (sniff) and not holey, which I've interpreted to mean, dark dark navy blue, boring, and at a decent dense gauge.
This will be my holiday knitting when I get sick of the socks and the skaters top.

look what i got

Today when I went to the post office I found a little box waiting for me.
And what was in the box but 5 ounces of an 8 ounce hank of toasty toes dk sport weight.
Oh it's ugly, oh sooo pink and orange and the red and purple.

It was a hard one to photograph and I really didn't capture the true colours. It's deep pink rather than a light pink and Zegal gasped when she saw it.

She wants a pair of socks from it. This is the gal who refused to wear pink and I mean REFUSED until just recently.

So I'm going to try it out.

And the first of the Teaspoon awards for the Australian Knitters' tea cosy swap were announced a moment ago.
There will be more to come.

sss

Two more pairs down in the SSS. First is the black dk weight baby alpaca and silk plain socks (plain with a 5k, 1p repeat on the leg all the way down the toe) for mum for Christmas and the second pair is the sock pixie free zig zag in Knitpicks Landscape yarn that I bought off Ravelry.

I really like the sock pixie pattern with it's two row repeat pattern. Not complicated enough that I can't watch television, read or deal with children while doing it, but not boring enough like straight stocking stitch that I end up dumping it behind the lounge and forgetting about it.

The pattern is also stretchy, but after a while the colours just came across as not me, but more mum, so this year the woman gets two pairs. There is quite a bit leftover from the KPs as I don't like overly long socks so the Jar or Zegal may get a mini pair as well.



I've already cast on for some more Jar Jar socks, 54 stitches, 2.25m with opal for a nice dense hard-to-kill sock and I have some Ranco that needs to be balled and used.

Hmmm ranco.


And as I am now officially old as my eldest boy turned 11 today, I'm going to cheer myself up with a set of Knitpicks options.

Yes, it will be my birthing day present, as in this house each time the children have a birthday, I celebrate birthing day as it was I that did the hard work, that gave them life and then coped untold pain during the whole process, not to mention what I have to do to get and remain pregnant, so I deserve a present.

phone call from the top of the world

Well, not the top of the world, but the top of Australia.
This morning the mobile went off and the fella was calling. I thought this meant he was off the mountain and down in Canberra as mobile reception is stuffed up there, he's only managed to call twice and the phone lines are down in the lodge as well.
But he wasn't in Canberra, in fact he and Zegal were still up there and Zegal just had to call me to tell me she was standing on the highest part of Australia.
Yep, there is mobile reception at Kosciuszko, on the top of the mountain.

Because of their big walk up there, they won't be back this afternoon as planned, although fella did talk about skipping dinner and a sleep at his parental units' place and driving back here tonight.

So still no camera. But when it comes back I'll be able to show off my first handspun done on my roberta electric spinning wheel.
I set it up last night, cleaned and oiled the little beauty. It was fantastic, and didn't cause any pressure or pain to my shoulder like using my trad Ashford did. However I was already in pain from lugging the Jar around and having to hang out the washing.
But I managed two hours of spinning and then plying while watching the Mighty Boosh!
The end result is a huge hank of overly spun, twisty stuff, which is shocking in some parts but in others so uniform.
It's given me a taste, a taste of what could be and I loved doing it. Roberta is so quiet and as I had her set up at chest level this little machine will not cause neck blowouts, nor will I have to learn to coordinate my leg and hand movements.

skaters top

There seems to be a lot of traffic ending up here because of the Skaters Top.
I've started and have managed to knit to the end of one ball. Which means I've cast on, done the hem facing, the purl turn row and started up the body of the top.
I'm using Rowan Glace as suggested as the other possible substitute for us here in Australia is a Jo Sharp, but her cottons are shocking to work with.
Talk about splitaroonies. Shocking stuff, although if you can struggle through with the knitting, the end result looks good and more plush than with the Rowan.
But due to my hatred of spliten' I've chosen the Rowan, mainly because the only time I get to knit my own stuff is after the chickens, kids and fella have gone to bed. Usually by then my eyelids are almost shut and I just plonk myself on the lounge put on the lamp and knit away in the dark house, so I want a yarn that I don't have to constantly watch every stitch being formed to avoid splitting.

I'm loving the way the Rowan is working up, although having chosen the largest size to accommodate the boobs it will take a long time to get this one done.
But I will and it will be fantastic.
The camera still isn't home so no pics of the progress so far, but I will post regularly seeing as there seems to be so many hits coming this way from searches for the Skaters under top.

big smoke

A quick trip to sydney and back for work meant a stop at Tapestry and Craft. Which of course meant falling down the stairs straight into the Ranco display.
So I ended up with a skein in the brick red colourway. It looks so much better in the flesh than it does on the screen so I'm glad I didn't order online as I would have ended up with the cherry red which just didn't move me the way the brick red colour did. I also really like the grey, but I did leave it there.
Then I stumbled up the few steps and crashed into the Rowan books and ended up having to get Rowan 40. Beautiful but I'll have to keep this one away from my mum, otherwise she'll borrow it and I'll have to fight to get it back.

The work side was good, although we kept stopping to watch skynews' live broadcasts from Canberra. When they finally got to Rudd making his cabinet announcements there were hoots all around, but not as loud or as rude as those when Costello came out to announce the Liberal leadership decision. So how many times will there be a change in the libs before the next election?

Trip home was a nightmare of sorts but still fun. The train was full when it left Central and then the slow all-stations train in front broke down and they all climbed aboard at Strathfield. There were people sitting and standing in the aisle and the stairs and I spent the trip until Fassifern squished in a corner. But the oldies who penned me in were a delightful bunch. One old dear, who had recently lost her husband after more than 50 years of marriage, was telling tales about Keating. She used to work for him in Bankstown. She was a wealth of knowledge and had some pretty broad views and told me she was delighted to meet a youngster who not only had a grasp of politics but could turn a fine heel as well. My completed landscapes sock was passed around the group who obviously knew their hand knitted socks well and knew what I was doing when turning the heel on the second sock.
One old dear asked me what I was going to do with the sock I was knitting. I turned to her deadpan and said "wear it" and that got them started about the benefits of socks and how no one knits them and how good they were and all the complaints they can cure.
That's right if I always wear hand knit socks, my golf game will improve, as will my aches and pains, not to mention my circulation. Yes despite the heat in the carriage and no space, it was an entertaining ride home.

Still no camera, but it and the fellow and Zegal should be home on Sunday. Zegal probably will want to stay there forever as there is SNOW and she has had a ball in the snow.

the most important day of your life

Well sort of, maybe only for the next few years, and only if you are in Australia and registered to vote.
Get to it, don't do a 'donkey' or invalid quote.
Remember that when it comes to employment figures, if you work ONE HOUR A WEEK that means you are fully employed as far as the employments figures are concerned. Perhaps the employment figures should be renamed the under-employed figures.


And yes darling, I have voted, the animals have been feed, only one frog tried to escape but we foiled his mission for freedom.
Foat boy was a scream on stage, the Jar was good watching and all is well.

Hope the possums don't bite and if you manage to get to a working phone give me a call.

two crickets for each frog

Two meetings, another one over lunch, 3500 words, postponement of staff review, interviews lined up for next week, organised trip for upcoming negotiations for industry awards or salary and conditions package (or not award depending on Saturday night's election results) and then brought right back into the mundane with a note on the table that each frog has to be fed two crickets every night.
Oh and a postscript about turning off the lights.

he's taking the camera away

That's right, the camera will be gone for more than a week, cause he thinks it's important to document his and Zegal's holiday.
Hmmp. What about my knitting I say.
Anyway, I'll be too busy really with the boys. There's a series of performances, a sleepover for a heap of 10 and 11 year olds (oh why did I say yes to this one), a trip to Sydney for award negotiations tentatively scheduled next week and so much work.

So I'll probably not get a chance to post to Southern Summer of Socks, but I'll try, although I expect all my spare time will be spent knitting the under top with that lush Rowan Cotton Glace I managed to get my hands on.

And big snaps to P' for sending so many people here. She obviously liked what she saw, maybe I should join her in the Etsy group on Ravelry too!

'Cause it's obvious that the bricks and mortar market I mentioned when talking about the fuglies (designs that I think just don't work or are plain ugly) selling first on a thread at Ravelry, was thousands of miles and several time zones away so it was nice for her to go off-site and find out I was on Etsy and then post the info for everyone to see.
Personally I try and keep the fabric away from Ravelry, there's enough to deal with over there with just the yarn, but thanks for the push!

done, next please

Finally the Zegal's shawl jumper is done.
It looks great, there is enough room for growth or heavy jumpers underneath and she is pretty damn impressed with it.
The shiny buttons clinched it for her.
The buttons are two hand-made mother of pearl or shell buttons that I had in my vintage button collection. What I hear you ask, a button collection, well a gal who has vintage dresses, fabric, wool and patterns both sewing and knitting must have an old rusty tin full of old, old buttons.
So it's finished, although that shawl seemed to take forever, and there are one or two wraps that I didn't managed to pick up properly to disguise but they are under the fold and her hair, so stuff it.
Do you know how hard it is to knit at 1am in the morning when your eyes are twitching from lack of sleep and you keep being sucked into watching that Carry On movie.
Take out the Carry On movie and it's a fair bet most of you know what I'm talking about, that deadline is approaching, stuff sleep style of knitting.
So what next: Mum's xmas socks in silk alpaca (she doesn't know about the blog haha), then a few second socks to complete pairs for me and I have more than a dozen balls of Rowan Cotton Glace sitting in the bookshelf to be turned into the Skaters Undertop for me.
Oh and they bloody want another two pairs of convict pants for the play!

the convicts are coming

A theatre troupes worth of convict pants have been sewn which means I'll be in bed before midnight tonight. Finally.
I won't be packing away the machines, I've got five shorts and a women's dress as a custom order to do, and the Jar has managed to grow out of all his shorts.
So I'll be pointing the magic wand and creating a few pairs for him. I managed to get a spectacular cornflower blue chenille blanket and a super lime green one so I can see some bright pants not just for him but for the next market and for the etsy store.
But the big work of the weekend will be doing the shawl collar on Zegal's jumper. She's off to the snowy mountains on Thursday and while she has grown a lot in the past year, most of her mountain gear still fits so it will be a case of doing the collar, sewing in the sleeves and then hunting down all her warm socks.

the ceiling is falling down

The June long weekend storms just didn't flood houses, there were plenty of downed trees, flying roofs and basic mayhem.
While my brother's house and workshop went under water in a dramatic way, my parent's house had trees crash thru the second level and we had fences squashed and branches played that old fashioned game of elastics with the wires holding the antenna in place.
You could say that the branches lost and had to go to the back of the line as they crashed into the wires, causing the other wires to pull up and then go back down. Which was fine until the winds blew and the rain came down and those roofing sheets loosened in the game of elastics let rain in.
End result: Holes in really thick plaster, moulded plaster ceilings cracking and threatening to fall down and huge growing stains on my once white walls.
But finally it looks like my insurance company has come to the party.
Not only did they try and get out of paying for the new roof (which thankfully is already on) they were trying to say the ceilings and walls were already damaged, until I casually dropped into the mix the fact we had taken photos of said ceilings and walls and you can see when they were entered into the computer.
So five months down the track work will start! Soon the Zegal will have her bedroom back (the collapsing area is right over where her bed was)and I won't have to look at brown stained walls.
Next is the fence and then we change insurance companies so bloody quickly and name and shame them loudly.

But that story is just a diversion so that you don't notice the photograph of the wool above, on the bottom is J. Knits hand dyed, with looks soft and spongy and possibly pill-y while the top is some AYE AYE me hearties Yarn Pirate in the Dahlia colourway which looks like a stunning yarn, a finer version of CTH. Both were bought from ravelry so therefore don't count as buying wool.

SSOS and whose a naughty girl

Well I can't manage to keep sticking to the compacting rules. Those are the rules where you just buy the basics, basic toiletries, no new clothing, no gadgets, no dvds, no (sob) yarn.
Well I make clothing from retro, reclaimed fabrics so I've had plenty of new clothes which fit into the compacting rules.
Underwear of course is allowed, I have an unlimited source of product so I never have to buy it so I can cope with that, I also get a heap of preview movies, again no buying, but the yarn has got me.
This week some hand-dyed J. Knits sock yarn has turned up, some undyed sock wool from the UK, both of which could be loosely termed recycled so not really against the compacting bargain, but the four Knitscenes are bad, along with all my other previous book purchases.
At least I haven't bought any gadgets thou I'm so keen to buy another laptop so I don't have to fight with the fellow. The other old laptop is shite, my big lunky desktop computer is a dinosaur so I reckon a new laptop and a wireless modem so I can work out in the shed and life would be grand.
All the presents this year have been handmade and with my three kids we are definitely on the birthday party roster.
So I think I've done fairly well so far since the beginning of the year, just that ruddy yarn and knitting books have broken the compacting rules.
So I'm going to try and stick to another pact, my Southern Summer of Socks mantra is finish what you've got before you cast on for more.
I wonder how long that will take to break?

winning a double

Not on the cup, but I did manage to buy two different lots of yarn today. Firstly I did a bit of a search on the trade or sell at Ravelry and some mighty fine Yarn Pirate sock wool is coming my way.
Secondly 15 balls of Rowan Cotton Glace is winging my way from the UK. Including shipping it's about $100US, which these days will be a scratch over $100 Australia.
All I can say is I'm glad 'he' don't read the blog.
Well I better get off and finish that half sleeve and start cutting out those pants.
And from next week I'll be haunting the post office.