I'm going to be a GREAT Aunty...

So of course, finger well and truly pulled out I set to spinning up some Superwash Blue Faced Leicester to do a baby shawl and maybe some other bits and bobs.

In the process I managed to spin 527g into one skein.  A new record for me, spun on my Majacraft Suzie, plyed with the plying flyer and bobbin.

This fibre is beautifully soft, perfect for next to a baby's skin.

The pattern I used was Stor Lysedug by Vintage.

The pattern was wonderfully simply to follow.  It's supposed to be a doilie but with thicker wool and larger needles it's big enough for a baby blanket.  My one ended up about 2m circumference.  I used 4.5mm needles.

I am extraordinarily proud of the outcome and my niece is going to love it.

In progress

Finished, washed and blocked to dry.

It truly has to be felt to believe how soft it is.  It is supposed to have crochet around the edge but I did a knitted border instead.

IPods and Audio Books

Just a small post about my new love.  My 160gig classic iPod!!!  I got an audio book from the library and got just a tad hooked on audio books.  Then my love suggested getting an iPod, his reason, it can be used as an extra hard drive and had great battery longevity, PC Geek stuff. 
So we found one and now I am lost.  I have upwards of 30 books on my iPod (not to mention about 40 movies/tv series and over 1000 songs) and a few new favourite authors, J R Ward with her Black Dagger Brotherhood series and the Fallen Angel series ( I have them all and have listened to them twice), Charlaine Harris and the Sookie Stackhouse series, again, got em all, listened to them twice, I have read/listened the first of the Harper Connelly series too, and Jeaniene Frost and her Night Huntress and Night Huntress world series, got them all, listened to them twice!! Last but not least, the Twilight and Potter books too.
Those are my favourites but I have also listened to Philip Pullmans, Dark Materials, it's the Golden Compass and other books and Christopher Paolini who did Eragon, Eldest and Brisingr, touted as pre teen books, I really enjoyed them.
My other fav authors either don't have any audio books or they are abridged versions, very frustrating!!

WHY? you say, I love to read but there isn't anything else you can do whilst you are thumbing through a book, however, on audio you can knit, spin, walk, do housework, the list goes on!!!!!!!!

two birds, one stone

Very small irk tho, I HATE ITUNES!!! It is the worst programme in the world.

Yes I have been busy....

camel and silk and silk (2)
Originally uploaded by minihahas10

Well, it has been a while since I did a post and yes I have been fairly busy and what I have been doing has been relatively unexciting. Spinning, more spinning, knitting, knitting, knitting, oh and one of the kids broke his arm on the first visit to the park for years.





I have been spinning baby camel and silk, then plying it with Mulberry silk, planning on making a top for myself at this point.

I ended up with 325g and 1260metres of yarn.  I had a bit of Mulberry silk left over so I continued spinning that.

I think I have 282g and 850m of pure Mulberry silk yarn.

And here they are together.  I don't know that I will need both for the garment but I have plenty if I do.

I've also been doing a few smaller bits.  I got tri coloured plaits of fibre from the wool show and I have been spinning up each colour.  The fibre is actually real crap, short staple, slubs..gross.  Not a pleasure to spin at all.

And then there was the day I took the kids to the park.  The weather was lovely and we haven't been to the big park as it didn't have a toilet, till recently.  The second eldest had given no.2 lad a rip stick a week beforehand, it's like a skateboard but with one roller blade wheel at each end and a larger range of movement.  After watching the boy on it doing ok, then the two younger girls falling off it.  I wasn't surprised when one of the girls came over to me telling me that the boy had fallen off and hurt himself.  I told her to go get him and bring him to me and I knew before he was too close that his arm was broken.  He has a broken Radius bone about 10cm below his wrist, it's called a buckle fracture, not quite right through but pretty close. 

His sisters sig says it all 'I broke this arm, love Ashtyn'

He had a half cast splint for the first week, then more xrays and this lovely blue number, we go in again this week (wk3) for more xrays and he may have the cast reduced to his elbow again.

I've also spun some 4 ply cabled sock yarn, knitted a pair of socks and dyed my friends wool so I can knit her a cardi.  For some reason I can't use  the url's from my flickr so you'll just have to check it out for yourselves. 

And I have pc issues, my laptop is currently not working so I am using a POS that is better than a kick in the a** but not perfect.

Well it's the down hill slide to Xmas again.  This year has positively flown by hasn't it?

The tank that fibre paid for......

Yes quite literally.  Not the tank but the upgrades needed to get it up and going again...

I ousted the previous tennants, the frogs, to this new home...

So frogs are happy in their new home.  It has more plants in it now.

And the tank was free to fill with water and warm it up for Tropical fish.

I did have most of the stuff for it already but needed some new bits.  We found an external bio filter for a really great price at a clearance outlet. 

Had to get new gravel, but I did have a heater from last time.....until it broke...

So here is the result, there is a huge story along with it but I'll put the pics in first.

Now if you have never had a tropical tank you may think that you just add water, heat it up and vah'laa, put your fish in....but no...

Setting up and keeping a tropical habitate is a lesson in bio chemistry.

To begin, you must cycle the tank..

First you have to check all your chemical levels, PH, KH, GH, NO2, NO3 and Ammonia.

The ph, kh and gh is something that you monitor mostly with your water changes on a weekly basis, your alkalinity changes weekly depending on how much waste is produced by the fish and plants.  Water hardness depends on what the water is like coming out of the tap, so you may have to adjust this when you put new water in.

Ammonia is what comes when plant matter starts to decompose along with fish poop and dead fish.  You generally manage this with water changes too.  It makes it impossible for the fish to get air out of the water so will kill them pretty quickly.

NO2, or Nitrites and NO3, Nitrates are the most important chemicals and the ones that take the most time to achieve the right balance.

NO2 will kill your fish quick and you need fish poo and plants to add a bacteria to the bio filter which converts these into harmless NO3.  This is the bit that takes the time and you basically try to change the water enough to keep the NO2 and the Ammonia levels low so as not to kill your fish while you are waiting for enough good bacteria growth to convert it. 

Yesterday my NO2 levels dropped to zero, a megre 3 weeks into the cycling process, which means that enough bacteria has established to convert it to NO3.

Now I just have to keep an eye on the levels, making sure I don't populate the tank to quickly for the bacteria to take care of their bi-products and change the water often enough to keep the balance.

I started off with 10 Neon Tetras in the tank, of which I have lost 4,  I think only 2 were because of an ammonia spike I had, one was injured being transfered to the bag at the store and one was bullied by the others (they are vicious little buggers and any weakness is dealt with brutally).

A week after they went into the tank and I got the ammonia level down I decided to add some more surface dwelling fish.  The neons are mid-bottom dwellers.  So I got 3 Platy's, one male Micky Mouse Platy and a female Micky Mouse (or Minnie Mouse as we call her) and another female who is visible in one of the tank pics.

Then a friend who I had given some fish to a few years back when I was emptying my tank, decided she was sick of her tank and needed to get rid of the fish in her tank.  She had been systematically neglecting them to death for a while but had a few hardy souls left.  I was only planning on getting the couple she had of mine still but ended up rescuing them all.

My tank being far too new to stand an influx of so many fish at one time, I quickly rang my local pet store and asked if they would take them.  They did, and I ended up only keeping the Kuhli loach that I had originally given her and her sons Siamese Fighter who was the most pathetic fish I have ever seen.  He'd been living in a tank 4" square by 2" deep, his fins were all tattered and he was very sad.

His fins are coming right and he's gradually learning to swim in a big tank.  He needs to build up his stamina again so most of the time he just sits on the bottom of the tank.  Sporadically he swims to the surface and gradually he is playing in the bubbles and filter current more each day.

Here he is taking an interest in what the Loach is doing...

The loach is the hungriest fish I have seen in ages and I have never seen a Kuhli so active all the time.  When I last had a tank they would mostly hide, this little guy is cruising around almost constantly.

And fighters are a very maligned fish.  Mostly you see them in little jars looking pretty and pathetic.  But put them in a community tank and you see a completely different fish.  They have great personalities, they can turn their heads and look around corners.  I love them!!

Well that is it on the photo front for this time.  Today I am off to see if I can find some more plants for the tank.  Of course the plants I have will grow but I still need more of them and the ones on eBay have exorbitant postage costs.

I have been busy.....

Yes indeedy, I have.

I started some Bouclé yarn at the show and have since finished two skeins of it.

Looks impressive doesn't it?  It's not actually all that hard to do and it's fun once in a while.  The fibre is English Leicester and doing this makes it nice and soft and shiny.

this is a before....

I do have a plan for it once I have finished spinning it up. 

I have had the odd side track as well.

This Polwarth from New Zealand..

It is very very soft and lovely!!! Much to the locals disgust, I have said often that I prefer NZ Polwarth over AU Merino anyday.

And in the last couple of days, this 3 ply sock yarn out of some generic wool I traded for from a lovely lady in the US.

It is apparently mostly Rambouilett but I think there is a little something stronger as well as it spun up fine wonderfully and I think it will make sturdy socks.

On the knitting side, I have once again given my RSI a work out and finished my Big Gal Blue jumper...The fibre is chunky, handdyed BFL/silk.

Pattern is my own,  I am really pleased with how it has turned out.

It is knitted from the top down without seams.  It has cables front and back, down the top of the sleeves also underneath and down the sides.  There is front and back shaping as well for a fantastic fit.

I also have a new shipment of fibre but that will be for another post......

Australian Sheep and Wool Show

My favourite time of year!  Three days of fibre yumminess, you just can't beat it.  I have the privilege of working at my friends stall.  She's the one from SA that we visited earlier in the year.  I meet many friends at this show.  Some I have only written to, some I have met at previous shows.  SO, I suppose I had better share some photos..

The Stall

And the People...

Jane, me, Jane's girl and my wee spinner/knitter.

I sent the wee one off with my camera and a friend of mine, she took a lot of photos like this.....

And these.....

I did a fair bit of this.....

Oddly enough it's a good sales technique as most people can't resist a spinning wheel.  Men and kids just flock to it and I did the Majacraft name a huge trade.  I know of at least 4 purchases of this wheel at the show, two of which were told to me by the owner of the company who had heard the people saying that they bought the wheel because they saw it me on it working.

Over the 3 days I was spinning up this...

English Leicester from Moseley Park

I finished it yesterday, the blue boucle was done at the show and I had started on the silk binding thread.

It now looks like this..

262g 216 metres

Couldn't quite get it all on one bobbin so I have another mini skein of 59g

I met the lovely Joanne and Otto Strauch from Strauch Fibre Products(sorry, no link as I haven't been able to get it to work at all) at the show too.

They were plugging their carding equipment.  I was very interested in this and Otto put down the challenge of bringing some of my usual fibre along for carding. 

Which I did.

I took some of the English Leicester, pictured above and some EL/Merino cross I had washed.

Here are the outcomes, compared to the same job done on my Ashford carder.

This was done on the medium sized Strauch carder (Otto pulled the batt out into a more of a roving strand), and below is the Ashford equivalent.

The EL/Merino off the Strauch

Joanne demonstrated, diz'ing it off the carder

Here is the Ashford batt.

I kept an open mind when I was comparing the two carders.  If I had of seen a marked difference in the Strauch outcome, I would have bought one.  But there wasn't enough of a difference to consider changing what I have now.  Strauch is a nicely made machine and if I wasn't having to pay import duties it would be on my list.  But, the price is more than other machines so I, like most people, have to take that into account and as I said above, it's not so outstanding as to over-ride budget constraints.

Another very interesting person I met at the show as Nicola Bota from Ashford NZ.

A couple of years ago I suggested to Richard Ashford that he needed to make a new sized standard bobbin as the normal one was losing him sales.

He listened and the result was the new 90cm bobbin that fits his new sliding hook flyer and the new wild flyer for the portable Joy spinning wheel.

It was nice to have my observations listened to and acted upon.

It was a real pleasure meeting Nicola and she goes back to NZ with another problem to fix up that Jenny from Virginia Farms Woolworks, pointed out when I was buying the double heddle kit for my Ashford Knitters Loom.

I did do a bit of shopping at the show, although the only fibre I bought home, I haven't got here or was a gift.

Clothes from Wrapt Ya

I got a new plying bobbin for my Majacraft wheels , a Double Heddle kit for my Ashford Knitters Loom,  Lovely bunny fibre from Ixchel Bunny , a pair of Knit Pick 3.25mm interchangeable needles, oh and I lied, I did get some Corriedale in natural colours from Wirraworra Wool.

And my helping out gifts..some EL fleece and sock yarn.

I had such a great time, I think I should be paying Jane..

Next year I am going to be having a stall with a wood working friend from SA.  It's a double edged sword as I will miss the time spent with Jane but I do think it's about time Woolz'N'yarnZ had it's own stall.