The derms, the derms!

(from Weebl and Bob, a hilarious webtoon featuring two eggs)

Honestly, we have never been so sick so often. Matilda's daycare to blame. She just picks up every little bug that goes around and then shares the love at home! Fortunately she has a pretty strong constitution (yay for breastfeeding) so after the derms hop onto us she's always the first to shrug it off... only to sit back and watch mummy and daddy suffer with blocked noses, dead tastebuds and racking coughs.

Daycare is proving to be a mixed blessing. She's at a lovely one that really emphasises one-on-one caregiver attachments. Downsides are the derms, and they are starting to show an aversion to using cloth during the day there. They provide awesome meals and the caregivers are sweethearts. Matilda gets to socialise with other kids and Mummy gets time to take care of business.

Naughty naughty knitter!

The Marihone kit arrived last week. I just couldn't help myself so yep have started yet another project. The differences in wool weight and needle size between the sweater and my other on-the-needles is really refreshing. You just need a change sometime y'know? So it's nice to swap between knitting with aran on 5.5mm and baby 4ply on 2.0mm. Besides I think as a knitterly WAHM it's healthy to have personal projects on the go.

Ahh, I can justify it all I want LOL

Anyway, I dived right in and cast on for the sweater 198 stitches, soon to be increased to 228. No gauge swatch, (that's the naughty naughty bit). I hope I don't have to "pay" for this naughtiness later on down the track when I begin the fair isle and knit a whole bunch only to find the gauge way off. I'm using the recommended sizes of 2.0mm and 2.5mm. The halfway-right thing to do would have been to at least start on the sleeves or the hat (less stitches to frog if all goes to pot with the gauge) but I figure if I'm going to be naughty I might as well be terrible!

(This post is grammatical mush! My brain has been a bit like that lately with the damn flu. So back to the comfort knitting.)

"Kokoda" colourway

I am absolutely ga-ga over how this colourway knits up:

As you can see, it's a mottled effect with absolutely no colour pooling whatsoever. And the best thing is, the longie legs look exactly like the body part -- no wierd stripes changing sizes!

I think I will be using this dyeing technique a lot more in the future!

(Oh, and I have a really gorg embellishment slated for these toddler-sized CurlyPickyPants! Think Aussie fauna ;))

Wednesday go buh-bye :(

Something terrible happened on Wednesday arvo and I've been trying to soldier on and trying not to think about it and keeping busy with the business and stuff.

One of the chicks must got out from their daytime pen and disappeared. There are lots of crows about so DP reckons that's what took it. There's a foot and a half of mesh all around the chainlink pen so it must have flown up and squeezed through the chainlink. We were so sad to lose one, we're getting rather attached to them. We went around the place holding another chick to give alarm calls hoping W would answer but no luck :(

I can recognise three of the others now, Sunday (with his tailed all healed), Friday (the darkest and most feathered) and Tuesday (some feathers stick out of the half-feathered feathered/half-downy wing, really cute).

They are growing so much and have an insatiable appetite! They've been really bored lately because it's been raining so much we haven't been able to let them out during the day. Then last night there was a fracas and two of them flew out of the box. So we've transferred them to a much bigger box, which DP's new pocket bike (yuck yuck yuck I hate it) came in.

It's so nice to watch them do chicken things like scratch and take mini dust baths when they're in their pen (also the grown-up chook pen at night; during the day they free-range around the yard). The chicks love to do flying hops around the place and are really boisterous. Mabel and Emily (the two hens we already had) won't know what hit them when these guys are big enough to stay outside full-time.

It must be really itchy growing all those new feathers :P

Anyway, I hope Wednesday didn't suffer too much. :(

My knit list

This list has been doing the rounds, so I thought I'd give it a go :)

Bold - knitted at least once
Italics - plan to do soon

Afghan
I-cord
Garter stitch
Knitting with metal wire
Shawl
Stockinette stitch
Socks: top-down
Socks: toe-up
Knitting with camel yarn
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down
Hat
Knitting with silk
Moebius band knitting
Participating in a KAL
Sweater
Drop stitch patterns
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Slip stitch patterns
Knitting with banana fiber yarn
Domino Knitting (modular knitting)
Twisted Stitch patterns
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Two end knitting
Charity knitting
Knitting with soy yarn
Cardigan
Toy/doll clothing
Knitting with circular needles
Knitting with your own handspun yarn
Slippers
Grafitti knitting (knitting items on, or to be left on the street)
Continental knitting
Designing knitted garments
Cable stitch patterns (incl. Aran)
Lace patterns
Publishing a knitting book
Scarf (started, never finished LOL)
Teaching a child to knit
American/English knitting (as opposed to continental)
Knitting to make money
Button holes
Knitting with alpaca
Fair Isle knitting
Norwegian knitting
Dyeing with plant colours
Knitting items for a wedding
Household items (dishcloths, washcloths, tea cozies…)
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items) on two circulars
Olympic knitting (once I work out what this is!)
Knitting with DPNs
Knitting with someone else's handspun yarn
Holiday related knitting
Teaching a male how to knit
Bobbles
Knitting for a living
Knitting with cotton
Knitting smocking
Dyeing yarn
Steeks (Marihone kit on its way!)
Knitting art (if you could call it that... won't say what it was but it was fun LOL)
Knitting two socks (or other small tubular items) on two circulars simultaneously
Knitting two socks (or other small tubular items) on one long circular simultaneously
Fulling/felting
Knitting with wool
Textured knitting
Kitchener BO
Purses/bags
Knitting with beads
Swatching
Long Tail CO
Entrelac
Knitting and purling backwards
Machine knitting
Knitting with self-patterning/self-striping/variegating yarn
Stuffed toys
Baby items
Knitting with cashmere
Darning
Jewelry
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Writing a pattern
Gloves
Intarsia
Knitting with linen
Knitting for preemies
Tubular CO
Freeform knitting
Short rows
Cuffs/fingerless mitts/arm warmers
Pillows
Knitting a pattern from an online knitting mag
Rug
Knitting on a loom
Thrummed knitting
Knitting a gift
Knitting for pets
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Knitting with dog/cat hair
Hair accessories
Knitting in public

Dale of Norway Marihone

I've wanted to do a Norwegian sweater for as long as I can remember, so I took the plunge and ordered this kit from the US:

It will be a nice knit, I'm a bit unsure about the steeking (the sweater is knit in the round and then cut -- yes cut! -- and seamed) but it's something I'd love to try. Lots of patterning in bright colours which will keep me busy :)

I've ordered the 24 month old kit so it should fit M for next winter -- that's my deadline!

Hey there chickie babes

I've been thoroughly crook the past few days, to the point that *shock horror* the thought of knitting anything just makes me want to throw up (no I'm not preggers LOL)

So when Roy dragged me and M out for a drive on Saturday I wasn't as enthusiastic as I might have been.

But we came home with 7 little chicklets, they are Barnevelder breed. They were only a week old at the time. Only 3-4 days later and we can already see they've noticeably grown.

I call them Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Only we can't tell which is which yet. That is, apart from Sunday who's a bit redder than the rest and had an unfortunate scrape with the puppy on Sunday, losing a tail in the process :( :( But he's healed really well and is still the most boisterous of the bunch.

Well at least we hope he's a boy there's no way of knowing at this point (apparently chicken experts can sex chicks at a day old but I ain't no chicken expert!!) We hope to have mostly hens and only one rooster so might have to adopt out the other boys when the time comes.

It's gorgeous having chicks again. Once upon a time in the freezing Central Oregon early spring I was living in a caravan and was raising them in the caravan! Gosh did it stink. Not to mention we had to run the generator for long periods to power the heat lamp. Yes we were off the grid, and living on solar power. I think I was a little crazy back then...

She works hard for her money

(post written on non-internet laptop evening of June 7th)

I have been so slack at blogging, there's just so many other things that need to be done when I hop on the computer. So I thought I would write in the laptop in bed and then transfer it online when I get the time.

Being a WAHM isn't all fun and games! It's now almost midnight and I've just spent the last 14 hours dyeing up 4.25kg (yikes!) of wool. My back is killing me and my hands look ready to crack. My fingernails are coloured and hangnails are ouch.

It was interesting trying to dye so much wool without proper facilities. The dye studio is slowly being built (concrete pad poured, metal posts are up). I have this great stainless steel dyeing bench that Roy picked up at auction so that was moved slightly into the shed (it was raining hard today) and I used a camping stove in a pinch.

I'm pretty happy with the results though. Some of it has been slated for other projects, but most of it is destined for the shop. There's a great mix of wools in there -- Pandora 12ply Pear Tree Merino (drool), Tara worsted Targhee hot from the US (OMG I call this the Brawny wool it's soooo thick and thirsty), a few skeins of Achilles superwash merino sock yarn, Athena Aran BFL, supersoft Venus "singles" merino and some Lucinda 12ply for the budget conscious.

I've come up with lots of new colourways I hope you will enjoy. I think I will have a Wild Woolly Weekend soon :)