It's a zauber ball

With the view of spending our winnings, we ventured on a road trip to the delightful Sassafras in the Dandenong Ranges. YES winnings, Jen, Sarah and I won the Sheep to Shawl competition held at the Melbourne Royal Show this year, and as a prize we received a voucher to spend at the wonderful Sassafras Wool Store.

The Sheep to Shawl is organised by the spinning crazy that is Marion Wheatland. She is crazy, the ONLY person I know to take a spinning wheel to Antarctica in the world! We had four teams, though three were beginners, we won, of course, but failed to beat our time of last year. It was a wonderful day talking to each other, and talking to the public. Great fun and we will be there next year!

So, having finally found a mutually suitable time, well almost, I did have to leave after just finishing cake at the delightful cafe right next to the Wool Store. But we were there at the same time, long enough to buy our wool and have lunch and entertain L :) as she scooped yogurt all over her face!

The Sassafras Wool Store is amazing with plenty of incredible yarns and lots of other things to browse, but I had come to buy a zauber ball.

and I couldn't resist the colour and feel of:

These will turn into a pair of socks, of course. However, I still have to decide what to do with the zauber ball.

The Dandenongs were beautiful, the company wonderful and I have some new yarn. What more could you want?

Sometimes inspiration is simple!

Sometimes the best inspiration is the desire to give something to someone you love.

In the building of our extension, oldest son (Michael) had his room re-arranged and updated. Much nicer with lovely windows over his desk, good blinds (?) and a wardrobe. Unfortunately, he is the only one with:

bare floorboards. Great for the rest of the house. The rest of us have cosy carpet to keep our toes warm on a cold Melbourne morning. So a rug is called for. Colours?

This is the lightshade in his room. If you look behind you can see the tasteful paint colours (my choice) don't necessarily go with the shade (father's choice and M's approval), but when outnumbered go with the flow.

The warp has actually been on my big loom for awhile, but I've finally got around to the weaving. Having worked out that I do have enough yarn to make the size we want (more luck than good management), I've been steadily working on:

It's a Krokbragd pattern which is a very simple 3 shaft technique, the main aim is to play with the colour patterns. I started with plain black and now have incorporated all three colours and will continue the current striping till the black runs out, then add extra cream till the orange runs out and then the middle will have the remaining cream and then reverse the lot!

I love weaving at the big loom, it's such a physical process. It's wide enough that you have to move from side to side as you throw the, quite heavy, shuttles. It is a rug, so they are quite heavy with thick yarn. Your feet are moving as you change pedals to change the shafts that are required. I love it!

The only downside to Krokbragd is that it is quite slow as you need three passes for one 'row'. I have extra warp on and hope to weave a couple small rugs. I'll probably do at least one more in Krokbragd, but in a thicker yarn and then see how long it takes.

Right now I'm just enjoying weaving for Michael!

It's what inspires you that counts!

Inspiration can come from all sorts of sources, yet for many of us it is 'the yarn'. The 'must have' that gorgeous texture, feel, colour or just it's plain craziness!

I am having that reaction with the wonderful silk and stainless steel yarn from Dairing. I managed to get to their Richmond shop in Lennox St. to find a beautiful store. Yarns and more colours and their wonderful designs. I was there to buy yarns, which I did....

but I also checked out an amazing range of yarns, from the stainless steel to linen to linen paper. So now I have something to play with...

Linen paper! I saw a jacket knitted with this and, I think, it was the silk and stainless steel and it was gorgeous. It keeps suggesting to me, for some unknown reason, crochet, so I might team it with some mercerised cotton and a crochet hook and see what I come up with.

What I'd like to have a look at is their amazing designs, clothing and jewellery. Again, beautiful design and maybe a gorgeous something to wear for Christmas!

I was so excited by my purchases, that I've done three scarves for the market. They're done on the knitting machine and I manipulate the fabric to try and create folds that force the fabric to behave interestingly. I think it works!

I do feel a bit of a fraud when I say that ALL the previous scarves have sold.....I bought the first cone at the Handknitters guild and despite it being the only one it went, so next, at the Sheep and Wool show I bought two and a play cone. The play cone is still being played with but the TWO have gone. I did make a mistake and only bought four, when I'd written in my diary, buy SIX....next time. It is surprising, as usually people need a choice of colour, but there seems to always be someone who just loves them.

So here are the next three:

Now I have to go and put tags on all  the finished pieces, in time for Rose St. Market tomorrow.

UFO's the journey continues...

Remember my post about my personal unfinished objects? Well the first one is finally finished! Here are my lovely pair of socks.

I think, now, that I've done enough socks to know what I like! So the next pair will incorporate all those elements that I would like in a plain pair of socks. A k2p2 rib at the top, slip st heels AND toes, and, of course, the right length for each foot.

Of course they're already started with some yarn that was a gift from a good friend. And then there's...

the yarn I picked up at Bendigo!

See what happens when you finish a UFO, you get two more!

Bendigo in a day

The Australian Sheep and Wool show in Bendigo (or Bendigo, Bendi, or other terms of endearment) is an annual pilgrimage for those of us that appreciate wool in all its forms. This year, with the train being replaced with a bus service due to works on the line, we decided to take a car and travel together. This enabled the usual chatter, plus the bonus of a side trip to the Bendigo Woollen Mills.

I managed to spend all my money (?) on beautiful yarns, wonderful tops and NO fleeces (I have TOO many unspun fleeces.) I've even managed to pack them away....sorry....before taking pictures!

I did manage to see sheep! There's always a wide variety of breeds and the judging of the fleeces can be viewed and increases your knowledge of breeds and quality. I did manage to have a quick look at the Cashmere and Mohair goats. Next year, I'll make it to the alpacas!

A trip through the various woolcraft sheds is never complete without a visit to Lewis Harper, the wonderful wood turner.

The Woolcraft competition is wonderful, with a shed full of spinning, weaving, felting, crochet. Young and Novices and the more experienced testing their skills and displaying their craft...and...

the Experimental Spinning group won first prize in the group entry class!

So, a brilliant day, with good company, laughs, treasures, finds and plenty to keep me occupied for awhile, at least till next year!

See you there, sometime.

Just cleaning up...silk and steel!

I thought I'd better see what was remaining on the little camera. Silk and steel! A lovely yarn picked up at the Handknitters Guild fair from Dairing a new crowd in Richmond with some wonderful yarns.

Because of the silk and steel mix this yarn has a memory. If you squash it, it stays somewhat squashed. I had to try it. However, it is expensive, so I ran it through my knitting machine. They recommended a tension of 8 which is quite loose, however, the added stiffness was probably the reason. I did it on 7 and tried to create folds to try for more 3-d effects.

I was reasonably happy with how quick and how interesting it was. It displayed nicely on my little neck stand and was sold at Rose St. Artists' Market last Sunday.

So it was a success and I will be definitely be making a trip to Dairing to see what goodies I can play with.

A new toy!

It's been awhile since I had a new camera. I've been using my husband's very lovely little Nikon coolpix. It's packs quite a punch for a little compact. But I had to move on.....

It's a lovely Canon from Ted's Camera store, they had an end of financial year sale and I think I did very well. Unusual for me, especially when all I wanted when I went in the store was a battery for the Nikon and a quick look at what they had. Haven't always been happy with the service at Ted's but the lovely lady at Northland was very helpful and I couldn't resist.

Suffice to say I'm happy and now I'll have to take more pictures!