It's a white board

Yes it is a white board. This is my latest challenge. A friend is curator for the Heidelberg Theatre Company and they're putting on the play 'Don's Party'. An iconic Australian play set on Federal election night in 1969. For the foyer 'exhibition' she's asking artist's to paint a board to reflect this time, and, I'm one of them.

That year was interesting for a number of reasons. I was turning 12 and starting my first year of high school. (Yes, I was a year early, wouldn't recommend it, but don't get me started!) It was also when man first landed on the moon. I don't remember much about starting High school (Williamstown Girls' High) but I do remember the moon landing. We watched it on my girlfriends' portable television, which she brought to school. It was a fabulous moment in time.

However, back to the board. I think I'll just take it one step at a time. First, the background colour. An obvious choice is lime green, pink, mission brown......I'll look through some photos of the time and see....

Finally some yarn

Remember this bobbin...yes the bobbin spun from the fibre sandwich, from Harrietville, way back in March. Well, I didn't actually spin it in March, but....Anyway, remember I couldn't decide on the colour of the single to spin...black, purple??? I finally decided on purple and spun....

this. It's First Editions Merino top in their colour Merlot. I had great difficulty photographing this, but it's much darker/dirtier purple. More like the purple you can see in the first bobbin.

I spun the 100gms fairly finely and plyed them together, allowing the fibre sandwich single to wrap gently around the merlot single. Just to get a little bit more texture into the resulting yarn and to try and minimise the effect of the merlot. It's supposed to 'sit behind' the fibre sandwich, just enough to give the resulting yarn some consistency.

It worked and these are the resulting two skeins. The purple is showing alot in the picture, but I'm happy with the result.

I was going to navaho ply the remainder of the merlot, but there is far too much. This was supposed to be an exercise in cleaning up my bobbins. I think I'll now stash hunt and find some matching top and take it to Country Conference on the weekend.

Today is SnB, I'm having such fun knitting for myself....half a sleeve to go!

Knitting for love

Sometimes it's just nice, knitting a basic pattern, with wool from your stash for family. A no-brainer with a happily satisfied receiver.

My oldest son (17) is obviously feeling the cold at the moment and put in a request for some gloves. Could I make them for tomorrow?....no, but I'll do them on the weekend.

He didn't want fingers as he wants to wear them in class and even short fingers can be awkward, so we modified the pattern, kept the thumb, left off the fingers. Did both of them yesterday, met with approval and we're all happy.

It did mean that I had to find this very safe and reliable pattern book. I don't know how many times I've used this book for measurements, patterns...just the basics. I even lost it for awhile and HAD to buy another before I eventually found it.

It is a bit dated, but what the heck!

The garden is bursting

Despite the cold, wet weather we're having...we do need the rain, still only around 30% of capacity in our dams....where is all this water going?....the plants in my garden and all around know that something has changed.

This wattle has been teasing me with beautiful little buds and finally is bursting out.

Once that happened, these two have also decided to show their particular style of flower.

Walking around my neighbourhood, the magnolias are just magnificant and blossom is appearing on trees. I love the way plants herald what is to come, so somewhere there is Spring.

9"x5" Quality Makers Market - 1st birthday

Tomorrow is market day and we're celebrating our first birthday. It should be a fun day with balloons, cake and champagne. There'll be a raffle and hopefully lots of people will come and enjoy our market.

In honour, I've made a bunch of wrist warmers with new special packaging and a special price for the day. Hopefully they'll work out.

If you come to the market, come and have a chat, I'll have my spinning wheel going and I've been threatened with some cat hair to spin!

Solar Dyeing surprise

Well now I'm intrigued. I pulled out the 'solar dyed' skein and rinsed it out. More of a 'want a look' rather than any surety that the dye had taken. I rinsed it out....not much dye came out....good...

As you can see, the left is the heated with strong bits of colour, fairly well defined, the right skein is the solar dyed, the colours have mixed in alot so it is uniform and 'muddy'.



I did not expect this as I had done the two skeins at exactly the same time with what I thought were similarities in both technique and dye quantities. However, it was not a scientific test, and this result suggests that I should do another lot!



I have some commercial yarn, crying out for change in colour, I'll just have to sacrifice that to the cause!

Using the heat of the oven after cooking and turned off, what a good idea, though that does suggest I cook! Further suggestions for 'free' heat are gratefully received.

Woollahra Sculpture Award

Well it's done. I've sent off the entry form for the Woollahra Sculpture award. That was hard. The award attracted over 400 entries last year, with only 40 selected for the $10,000 first prize. So it's difficult to imagine that I'll make the cut, so motivation was quite difficult.


I am, however, very pleased with what I have submitted. I had been worried that I haven't been doing as much sculpture over the last year as I've concentrated on the 9x5 market and other retail opportunities, and that, as a result, my work wouldn't be strong. This is probably one of my best resolved pieces with the ideas coming together and the construction falling into place as well. And it is alot better submission than I put in two years ago.


I do need to keep working on this, I do want to finish, so I have something available if other opportunities arise. And I wait for the 22nd August, when the final 40 are announced.