Of Shawls and Spring and OpShopping

Everywhere around the place, bulbs are pushing their heads out of the ground, wattle trees are a riot of golden colour and cherry blossoms look like small pink and white firecrackers, going off with a fizz and a bang on the side of the road. Nature would have us believe it is spring, and in a week, the calendar would have us believing it too. 

I call bullshit. If you were in or around where I live today, that would seem pretty hard to swallow! I doubt it reached double digits in the temps all day long, it poured with rain and even after being in front of the heater for hours now - I still feel like I've barely begun to defrost. 

Today was spent starting to take the first (second, third and fourth) of many small loads of stuff over to the new house. So this may explain the frozen feelings. There was a nice interlude though, where I got to give a friend of mine a gift, someone who has been so amazing and supportive over the last 9 weeks or so of hell. 

For Lisa, in a riot of bright colour is this Multnomah shawlette. 

It is knit from Zauberball 'crazy' yarn, that I managed to score when I went down to the craft show at Jeff's Shed. 

It hasn't taken long to knit, is nice and warm, and the striping of the long colour repeats is so effective!

The main thing is that she seemed to like it though, and thats what it's all about :)

I also managed a score of my own the other day on a visit to the opshop. I was trying to find bench stools, and while I didn't find any, what I did find was a few metres of a really nice charcoal jersey fabric, and a pattern I quite like which the jersey will be perfect for. 

All for the princely sum of 4 bucks. Bargain!

I love me some opshopping and re purposing. 

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The House Of Mouse

Hi. 

My name is Cinder. I belong to a small Mister Mayhem. I was going to be named 'Arthur' but it was pointed out that I was, actually a girl. So he changed his mind and named me Cinder. As in, 'Like Cinderella Mum, duh'. 

Of the three mice that live here in our little cagey house, I am the smallest, the fastest, the darkest, and the most daring and brave too. When the dog got a little too close and tried to poke her face into the cage, I nibbled her nose. She won't be doing that again in a hurry. 

Also, because I am so small, I often get beat on by my other two sisters. We all live together. Ninja is a bossy so and so, and she nibbled my ear. Not cool, man. 

Hey! 

my name is Star, and I belong to Miss Chaos. Of the three of us, I am the most timid and easily frightened. But I have my own bag of tricks. I like to climb onto the sides of our cage, and sliiiide all the way down to the bottom. Occasionally I like to sleep on the roof of our little house too. It's a bit odd, but I like it. I'm the medium sized mouse within the three of us. I'm also a bit of a trickster. I like to get a laugh by waiting till Ninja is going flat out on the wheel, then I stop it with a paw, and watch her go shooting out the side of it. Ha!

Hello. 

I'm Ninja, and I belong to the writer of this particular blog. I'm the biggest mouse here, so don't forget that yeah? There's a definite pecking order that needs to be followed. My hobbies include sleeping, beating on my sisters occasionally, and I love the wheel. It's my wheel. I use it the most, I get it going the fastest - therefore - mine. 

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It's funny. We spent nearly a year reading Miss Chaos's favourite book 'Shh Little Mouse' I never thought of getting mice till we visited someone who had three of them in a cage. Then the kids wouldn't shut up about getting them. So we did, but I never for a moment thought they would be as.. interactive.. or downright amusing as they are. I could watch them for hours, living out their mousey little lives within the cage. They have squeaky little arguments with each other, they fight, they play tricks on one another, and they curl up and sleep all huddled together, tails wrapped around each other. 

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In other news, we picked up the keys to our new home today, and we start to move the smaller things across tomorrow, so that should be good. I also went to the GP this morning to find I have 5 infected spider bites on my back. I'm unimpressed, but would certainly explain why I have been feeling so craptacular. 

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I should have more purdy pictures soon. A couple of gifts for friends, one crazy colourful, the other muted and elegant, and a cowl for myself made out of the squishy green softness handspun in my previous post. Cast on last night, finished tonight. Hows THAT for a speedy little knit!?

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Wheels are spinning (and I AM going somewhere!)

Spinning round, spinning round. 

With so much going on in my head at the moment, I find the fastest way to calm down and get things ordered, is spin. If I have a conundrum, I sit down at the wheel for a little while, and I soon have my answer, after letting my mind wander a little in the rhythm of the process. 

The upside of all this of course, is that it is quite productive.  

'Coloured Stone' Blue Faced Leicester Sheep. 

I've been going on this for a while. It was a Ewe Give Me The Knits fibre club installment ages back. 

3 ply / light fingering weight and 762 metres. Whee! That's a BIG hank right there. 

Also, I purchased a weeny 50g braid of Cashmerino Bunny from the lovely Ixchel / Charly at Bendigo Sheep and wool. Such a lovely blend of mossy greens I could not resist. 

Again, a 3ply / light fingering weight yarn, this one comes in at 150 metres, and is quite frankly the softest stuff I have ever felt. It will soon be knit up into a lovely cowl, just for me. 

I'll endeavour to update more frequently from now, even if it is just a random series of photo's with no seeming link to them. But it is worth noting at this point that the little Mayhem and Chaos family are on the move again - this weekend in fact. We are hoping for little to no break in communications, but of course.. you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men, right?

To a new start! (again)

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I know, I know

It's been a while. 

Short pictorial catch up:

There has been spinning:

'Clown Factory' Handspun. 3 ply, Superwash Merino, dyed by Ewe Give Me The knits

'Golden Orb' Handspun. 2 ply, oatmeal BFL, dyed by Southern Cross Fibre

'Barry' Handspun. Single spun. Merino/Rose fibre dyed by Ewe Give Me The knits

There has been Knitting, too:

'Black Tea and Sympathy' Cardigan (also known as Tiny Tea Leaves) in BWM Luxury

'Goldfish' Cowl. Knit from Merino/Bamboo handspun, dyed by Ewe Give Me The knits

Hand knit socks for Miss Chaos, Knit from Colinette Jitterbug

Of course, in there, the great fest that is the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show occurred, as did the Ravelry events that go along with them. I will say a good time was had by all, and there is no pictorial evidence to be blog shared - mostly because 99% of the pictures I took were of people, and I have rules about not sharing pics of people without their permission on the blog. I had a blast though! Roll on 2011, and in the meantime I will continue to try and whittle down the various stashed to make room for more stash. 

Another minor mention goes here to everything that has NOT occurred since my last blog - no sewing has occurred (though there has been more fabric brought into the house, but that's another blog post entirely) and very few Mayhem and Chaos updates have occurred. This is mostly due to life turning to.. well. not to put too fine a point on it - shit. It's still that way, due to a number of catastrophic instances, but I am looking at things with a different perspective now and muddling through. And that's all I really care to say on the subject at the moment. 

So where to from here? Well at this moment I have some knit items blocking, two work in progress(es) on the needles, and three work in progresses on the wheel / spindles. One of which is currently being plyed:

The other braid of this has now been spun up into singles, and I am setting about plying. There is 200grams there of laceweight spun BFL singles, in beautiful Jewel coloured tones. I've plyed for two solid hours now and would estimate to be about a third of the way through. And before anyone asks - no. I have NO idea at all of what it wants to be. 

I hope to clear a path between myself and the sewing machines at some point this week, and I also hope to be able to snap a few more recent photo's of various interesting things including fabric aquisitions. 

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