jolly jumbuck journal

Sadness...

2011-01-03T01:08:00.000+08:00

We leave the land of smiles tomorrow... I am sad, will miss the food and shopping. But also eager to get home to cuddle Gryph (who got some serious bling bling!!) and Sox... so miss them.

I'll share my loot in the next post.

See ya back in Oz!

Adieu, goodbye, auf wiedersehen, farewell!

2010-12-20T13:32:00.001+08:00

Squeeeeee!

About to go to the airport. House-sitter is settling in nicely. Gryph in the doting hands of Roy's parents. Sox in the same cat motel she's gone to last four years. Plenty of knitting WIP's packed. I wanted more, but hey... realistically there's already about 7 or 8 (I'm afraid to count!). I'm actually pretty thrilled in that all my WIP's are now organised; we needed the suitcase they were willy-nilly jammed in LOL so I went and got some handbag organisers that hang in your wardrobe and I've never been more organised!

My Thailand lies over the ocean,
My Thailand lies over the sea,
My Thailand lies over the ocean,
Bring me back to Thailand yippee!

(our last trip there was when Matilda was living in my belly :))
--- and no I'm not from Thailand, but Malaysia. It didn't stop the locals trying to speak Thai to me though!

Sawatdee-ka!

PS -- if you never hear from me again it's because we bought one of those million-baht houses and have decided to stay. :-P

Sick as a dog...

2010-12-14T23:08:00.000+08:00

...(Dog! Stop eating my sick!!) GRYPH! COME HERE NOW!!!

We've had a spectacular run of gross, gushing V&D this past week. (That's, for the blissfully inexperienced stands for vomit and diarrhoea). :P

It started with a great day at the Variety Club Xmas party. Spectacular rides (with M's favourite being the pirate ship slide, even though there were lots of kids she asserted herself when she needed to!), face painting (rainbow butterfly to match her rainbow Rainbow Dress and Pinwheel Sunhat), AND a circus! We'd gone to the Joseph Ashton Circus before, they're always touring around Perth; that was a few years ago. Interesting to see them grown up a bit, what a family enterprise! And a lot, a lot, a lot of food. There were sandwiches and R was telling me he overheard a lady asking for gluten-free food and was basically laughed at. So we let her indulge.

Later that night, four or five times of Matilda just waking up, big hurl, change bed change sheets change PJ's, and then pretty much go back to sleep again til the next vomit. And horrid, horrid poos in the morning.

Well a couple of days later it's my turn. Nothing says class more than driving down Welshpool Rd in peak hour, discreetly (ah, you think?!) dry-retching into a Kleenex tube... I just wanted to get home. And 5pm I'm in bed curled up under two doonas but still freezing. Thank you Roy for stepping up and taking care of Matilda tonight despite your mate being here xoxo.

Ate some leftover dinner, ten minutes later it's out. And Gryph is feasting. Ugh!

End of comfort blogging. I might have the man-flu.

TMI? Ya think!

She loves it, she really really loves it!

2010-12-10T15:47:00.001+08:00

Woot! After a series of two-hour "welcome to pre-primary" sessions in the last six weeks, Matilda had her first full day at "big kids school" (a local, public, friendly and multicultural) Pre-Primary school today. She just CANNOT stop talking about how great it is. There are enough kids for two PP classes, and even though unfortunately the small handful of kids she knew from kindy are actually placed in the other class, she still can't stop talking about the kids in her class, by name (which in itself is a major milestone for her, she has only started referring to specific people by name in the last month or so). Already it's Cameron said this, Ella did that, etc etc. I am so thrilled, to the point of tears (happy ones of course), that she has developed SO MUCH socially, she is like a totally different child to when she was diagnosed with ASD. Now you can't shut her up, now I am a mother who has to deal with "Why?" questions all the time. Now she is happy and sociable and loves meeting new kids and having new experiences. I'm just SO proud of my little girl... so you'll have to forgive my gushings. I'm proud, I'm loud about it, and I want to tell the whole world!!!

Times like this, I want to have more kids. But I don't think I will ever again summon up the level of love and pride that I feel about my one and only.

Tomorrow, we've been invited to the Variety Club's Christmas Party for special needs kids. A couple of weeks ago we went to a similar event and were showered with gifts, free rides, ice-cream (a special enough occasion to break the dairy ban).

My world is a pretty happy place right now.

I LOVE YOU, MATILDA M. S.!!! Forever and a day (or two)....

Ah, the perils of anonymous comments

2010-12-09T10:10:00.000+08:00

I just had to share this comment I recently got on one of my posts, the spam filter missed it.

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Hilarious, no??? I have NO idea what it's supposed to mean, or what the native language of the person/bot (more likely) leaving it, but I just found it funny to try to decipher.

All jokes aside, people, please please please (OK three's my limit for begging) leave me some comments! I'd like to know who's reading this lonely old blog. I want to try to link up to other blogs (I've seen "blog rolls" on others' blogs) but can't quite work it out yet. Teknologically challenged is what I am. So go ahead and give me some hints eh?

To Megan...

2010-12-08T11:11:00.000+08:00

(I had a very interesting, unusual encounter with a stranger yesterday. The parking lot at early intervention was unusually full and I had to park illegally, drop off (the already late) Matilda, and then rush back to my car to move it into a spot that had just freed up. I was stopped by a stranger, a lovely woman who was doing a seminar on personal development and one of their homework tasks was to approach a stranger with a sealed envelope, ask the stranger to open it and read out some questions about their personal goals, dreams and achievements)

To the lovely Megan, I'm sorry we didn't have more time to talk, what you are participating in sounds very intriguing. I give kudos for you wanting to improve your personal development, and feel very strongly in the little time we had to talk that you will achieve your "purpose in life", and be damned good at it. Stress not, it will come in time, life moves in mysterious ways and on it's own timeline. In the meantime I applaud your desire to help the kids and I wish you all the best in your endeavours. Thank you for adding a little bit of life-outside-my-own to my day and week. It is very highly unlikely that you will read this, but I will send it out there to the cosmos anyway. May your path in life be smooth and clear. And when it's not, may the trials make you stronger. xoxo

Muggles in my studio

2010-12-05T13:25:00.005+08:00

Urgh. I have the heeby-jeebies at this moment in time. Roy's parents are here for an *extremely rare* visit, and he and his dad are taking apart something in my studio! I need to get in there and dye. Instead I am sitting here feeling wierd that there are muggles in my studio poking around. MY space! MINE MINE MINE!!!

To fill out this post, some recent pics of little Diva Princess (so much so in the past couple of weeks) modeling some recent and not-so-recent FO's.

A "Flirty Skirty" (more than three years old!) in APHRODITE (never shaved, good as new!), with a couple of "Rainbows and Ringlets" tops

Geisha Girl: an "In-Threes" with ATHENA Monochromal Gradual Gradient in "My Sweet Valentine"

"Ningaloo Maxi" Super-twirly in Dec 2010 yarn club, dress is in yarn boot camp! (used, abused, washed carelessly)

"Citrus Garden" in hand-dyed ARTEMIS (BWM cotton 8ply), definitely a pattern to be repeated (longer length, cotton shrinks)

An IvyAnna test knit from Zanz 10ply dishcloth cotton

Dyeing in the moonlight...

2010-11-28T00:44:00.000+08:00

Once again, I'm making another late-night post. I've just dyed up some more cottons and my mind is buzzing, awash with colour and what I'm gonna do tomorrow (it's past midnight, time to turn off the radio I dye to and give the neighbours a break).

It's just been so hot during the afternoons, with the sun beating down on my back (sunscreen has become a vital part of my PPE) as my dye studio is semi-open and orientated so that the sun shines directly into it in the afternoons (mornings are for family).

I struggle sometimes with finding a balance between satisfying my creative urges, and spending time with the family. So often the only uninterrupted dyeing time I have is at night, under the moonlight (daylight flouro lights help too!). I'm awfully pleased with how tonight's session went, and I've already placed my dibs on some yarn (fringe benefits). I'm also a bit of a night-owl in general so this is when my brain is most active, after the dinnertime slump when all I want to do is to shower and dress Matilda and chuck her in bed and cozy up with a book and some knitting. Then night descends and I come wide awake. I worked the 6pm to 6am shift at Hewlett Packard in Corvallis, Oregon once and it was the best job ever.

I was dyeing cottons and cotton-blends in 200g skeins (variegated) with 100g trim. I hope the trim colours I chose are OK; I don't know if I will be packaging them all up as 300g lots or making the trims optional. What do you think?

I hope to have these yarns as well as the December instalment of the yarn club all ready to go and stocked by mid-December. We're going on holiday from the 20th so I will have to discuss with Annette (the JJ Yarn Fairy) whether she will be able to send out orders while I am gone or whether I will have to shut up shop for two weeks. I can't wait to show off what I've dyed!

Shriekingly, shamefully scared of slithering snakes

2010-11-27T13:31:00.000+08:00

I saw a 1.5m long dugite snake when I went to hang out some laundry this morning. My voice is still hoarse from the shameful shrieking I did. Roy says I took five years off his life when he heard me. Matilda and Gryph who were both outside just looked at me bemusedly (I'm glad I didn't pass on my fear to M). It's really not surprising to see a snake on our property, we are semi-rural and surrounded by horse paddocks and tall grass. But this one was on concrete (granted, slithering away from me, and slithering very speedily when he/she heard my shrieks), and it just gave me a terrible fright. I'm not usually a timid type of person, but snakes just terrify me. Sometimes when I'm reading a picture book and a photo of a snake shows up I won't even touch the page. Irrational? Yes! Maybe I was a mouse deer in a previous life and prey to snakes. Maybe I was traumatised by a visit to the Snake Temple in Penang when I was a child. Maybe I'm just silly, stupid, and senseless, to be scared of slithering snakes!

By the way, Roy chased it off with a rake with G, M and I cowering in the house. Matilda laughed at me. Gryph thought it was all great fun. I shudder to think what would have happened if he'd discovered the snake himself. Shivers...

I'm now too scared to go out to my dye studio but I will, with my trusty gumboots on! More cottons to dye :)

I need a new slogan

2010-11-27T00:24:00.000+08:00

For years, the slogan for Jolly Jumbuck has been "For the love of wool". Well it's time to update it as I've also fallen in love with dyeing and using cottons and cotton-blends.

So, I could go with:

"For the love of yarn"
or
"Hand-dyed happiness"
or
"Jolly good yarn"
or
"Bloody good yarn", as in "Jolly Jumbuck - Bloody good yarn!"

Some of these are suggestions from my friends at Jolly Jumbuck Mates on Ravelry. I'm running a little competition to come up with a groovy new slogan for the shop, the person who comes up with the slogan I decide on will win 300g of ARIADNE (100purewool 3ply superwash) custom-dyed just for them. If I choose a slogan that I came up with myself, I will put the names of everyone who suggested a slogan in a hat and draw out a name.

So, please leave a comment on what you think my new slogan should be!

Also, I've noticed that the "Yarnies, know thy yarn!" post has netted some disagree's. Which is fantastic, the world is full of people with differing opinions and a healthy debate is always welcome. But I would really love to know what exactly people are disagreeing with, that is why I've enabled anonymous comments (thank goodness for spam filters though!). Could you leave me a note as to what you are disagreeing with? Is it because I've broken the unspoken taboo of criticising my peers? Or do you think it's not important for a dyer to familiarise themselves with their products? Do you think it's OK to chase the popular yarns based on other peoples' reviews or what other dyers are using? After all, in the current environment yarn bases are pretty transparent (at least I try to inform my customers which yarns I'm using), and with a yarn that is universally available do you think it is OK for the dyer to rely on reviews and word of mouth? Or do you object to my somewhat superior, snobby tone? None of these are going to change my views, and I will continue to use and live with the yarns that I dye, and share my experiences because I owe it to myself as a dyer and a knitter too. But it sure would be nice to know what people are disagreeing with. I look forward to some comments.

Now I shall take my insomniac self off to bed and dream of what I'm going to knit next with from my current batch of yarns.

PS -- Just dyed: "Thanksgiving" from the Circle of Stash yarn club, and a bunch of variegateds with trim on Henry's Attic cottons. 200g variegated, 100g trim. Hopefully some will make it through the Irene-Tax/Market Research checkpoint and onto the shop!

Time for a facelift

2010-11-24T13:22:00.000+08:00

All these months away from my blog (previous to the last two posts), I have been thinking about what direction I'm going to go with it. No one reads it any more, this is because I'm so sporadic at posting and it's all drivel anyway LOL

But I decided that it needed a facelift, so I've been mucking around with templates. The old one was really old, at a time when Blogger gave you ten templates to choose from. Well I've found one that's to my liking, but had to do a bit of tinkering to get it to work. That's why it's been set to Private view; the dates and graphics just weren't lining up. I hope you like what I ended up with. I'll be tinkering in the next few weeks to make it just like a "Jolly Jumbuck Journal".

Yarnies, know thy yarn!

2010-11-17T15:41:00.005+08:00

Feel it, touch it, fondle it all you want. Even take it to bed with you if you must. But most of all, use it. Knit (or crochet) with it, feel the texture, amount of give, best gauge, etc. Then, wear it. Wash it. Again and again. Live with it. Only then will you get to know the yarn. Not by reading reviews on Ravelry and other places, not by scoping out "the next popular yarn", not going by brand names and what other dyers are using.

Unlike painting, where the composition of the canvas is of minor importance to the art of the piece (although I do like a good oil on canvas, the textures created by brush and knife), dyeing yarn is not just adding colour to strands of white. The yarn itself, the base, is an *integral* part of the final product. To sell it, you need to know it. How many people would eat meat dishes made by a vegetarian chef who hasn't tasted it? Or modern cloth nappies from a WAHM who uses disposables full-time on her own children? Or, heaven forbid, a designer who hasn't actually knit her own pattern? And yet, nobody hesitates to buy yarn from someone who doesn't knit or crochet, or somebody who has had the yarn base for more than a year and yet hasn't knit with it.

I just don't get it. First, how can these dyers be surrounded by such tactile goods as lush yarn, and not want to attack it with needles or hooks? To get to know it, to learn about it, to familiarise herself with it's pro's and con's. Where are they getting feedback on yarn performance over time from -- their customers, members on Ravelry? Even though I myself find this feedback invaluable, it doesn't stop me from wanting to experience it myself. And I am not saying that I knit every colourway that I dye, that would be ludicrous. But I do knit an item of each type of dyeing process, and I knit garments with every one of my many many bases over the years.

That's where I form my opinions on the pro's and con's of each yarn base. They all do have con's, you know. To not have personally used the yarn itself is cheating yourself and your customers of an objective view on the yarn's not-so-good points. This is where I develop my favourites which I will continue to stock and dye, knowing that the yarn itself will perform well over time. There are "popular" yarns out there that I have tried, but decided against for whatever reason. And the yarns I like won't be the yarns everyone else likes, so I do stock yarns that I personally wouldn't seek out to use. Then, once in a while, I hit upon a yarn that even though I have kg's and kg's of and unlimited future access to, in the secret squirrel stasher part of my heart I want to keep all to myself! (But I don't, because that would be selfish!)

I might not have a garment knit and being worn in certain base yarns before selling them, but the avid knitter in me is faster than my hands -- I literally cannot wait to try a new base as a garment. So I will get there, soon. Or I don't feel qualified to judge a yarn's inner qualities as a functional and colourful product.

Now I know this has been a very controversial post, but those who know me will know that over the years I've never been hesitant to speak out about things I am passionate about. And dyeing is my passion, as well as my profession. So I will voice my opinion out loud, here on my blog (who nobody much reads anyway). Anonymous comments are possible.

Chucking a sickie...

2010-11-10T19:32:00.004+08:00

Sometimes, despite your best intentions, life just hands you a "free day off" pass and forces you to take it. Today was one of those days. Having planned a day of listing yarn for the next store stocking tomorrow night (as we'll be out all day tomorrow), this morning I got a phone call from kindy to say that Matilda had had very runny poos and please to come and get her.

So, I resigned myself to staying up tonight instead, sat back and enjoyed the day. M was in very good spirits, happy and smiley. It had to happen on a day we were using woollies though... poo explosions are much easier to clean off normal clothes and were very unpleasant on her Flirty Skirty. The washing machine is my friend. So I popped her in a disposable nappy instead in case it happened again.

We then locked ourselves away in her bedroom, all doors closed, as it's the room furthest away from the workshop where dad was hard at work fixing his parent's car. We *hate* loud noises! Turned on the clock radio (which *I* grew up with) to 6IX (80's classics?), sang and boogied a little bit. She did her felt pictures, we're chattering away to each other. I got to work on my Sea Princess jacket -- mmmm great yarn great pattern, thoroughly satisfying cables.

After a bit of this we went and laid down on the couch and cuddled to watch TV. I might have even fallen asleep a little!

And all this also on what was supposed to be "Cleaning Day" for me... I took a sickie off from that too!

By the way, no more poos were forthcoming although she's asking if she can stay home from Star School (early intervention) tomorrow :) I'll think about it!

ETA: Oh I forgot! Guess what she painted this morning before I picked her up... I wish I could show it here as it's hilarious (but still drying at kindy). It was a painting of "me on the potty" and "mummy on the toilet", both of us with huge grins on our faces and rainbow-type bands above our heads... not quite true to life in my case but quite topical.

Hi Nancy :)

2010-08-09T10:57:00.002+08:00

Peekaboo I see you! :) :) :)

Hey sis Roy told me that you read my blog and my heart almost stopped! I realise that I may have posted some stuff in the past whingeing about you and your bro but please don't judge me too harshly, this is a place I go to unload. And then there are months in between when I keep it all bottled in, so this blog isn't an indication of my total wellbeing, you know?

Anyway, I hear you're into handbag designs now. Don't forget the cables!!! LOL I actually still have a Intro to Cables book I bought you a long time ago.

And thanks for your invitations to join Facebook. I'm just not going there!!! No FB for me!

xoxo
Your SIL

Inspiration -- West Coast Sunset GG

2010-08-08T01:33:00.006+08:00

A shot taken while returning from fishing at Carnac Island last weekend:

The vision: a Gradual Gradient type "set" comprising of starry deep blue skies at the top, ranging towards lighter blue and finally to the magnificent golds and oranges of a west coast sunset. Add a bottom border of black, embroider your choice of silhouette ... it's easier to execute and show than it is to explain! My pattern of choice? Versa! Love the neckline, fits my girl exactly.

Something juicy that's been simmering in my brain for a while now, a great re-introduction to dyeing...

The store will re-open very soon!

Oh, Sox...

2010-08-02T15:55:00.002+08:00

*sigh* two posts in one week, it's always feast or famine with my blog posting.

Not a good one this time around either. Sox had another "vestibular episode" last night, and it's quite distressing to see her this way. The head tilt, repeated eye movements, and not being able to walk properly. I see that she's got off the bed and taking refuge in M's room at the back of the house. I've just made her up a bed on the floor next to the heater. She ought to improve enough to get to the litter box and food/water in a day or two but the first few days have been described as like having sea-sickness as her three-dimensional sense of feeling is all out of tilt. This has happened twice before so this time around wasn't quite the shock of her first one in which it was described to us as a "stroke". Sadly there is nothing beyond making her comfortable that we can do, the symptoms do get better gradually.

My girl, my best friend, is about 17 at best guess. She was adopted from an ex-partner so I don't know her exact birth date but it's around 1993. A Californian girl, driven north to Oregon where she lived in town and then the badlands of central Oregon, out-living three other, younger cats from the predatory coyotes around. Shipped half way across the world, 90 days in quarantine here in Byford, and three house moves and she's still going strong. Spends most of her days in bed, most of her nights in my arms.

She pee'd in the bed last night, so a big load of laundry. Pee's and poo's like a greyhound (or so the saying goes), the crystal stuff that is supposed to last one cat, one month, barely makes it through the week. I'm just dreading the conversation tonight, if Roy brings up the "green dream" I am going to have to choke him. I've held pets in my arms for euthanasia, both as a vet nurse and a pet owner. Each time the decision and time was right to say goodbye and let go, but now is not the time for Sox. She is destined to live out her days in lazy comfort, heck it's inconvenient and smelly, but she is in no pain. Gryph and Matilda have both learnt to respect her boundaries, and gosh darn it she just makes me happy. So no, I won't be considering euthanasia for her. There is no pain, just occasional vestibular episodes like this one, her last bloods were completely normal, and she's very well-loved. I'm pretty sure I'm not in denial about this, but if anyone has any comments to make please do so I will consider all points of views.

A Horror Week

2010-07-24T11:11:00.003+08:00

It has been a bit of a horror week here... starting off with having to take Matilda to the emergency room in the middle of the night (problem all sorted now, thankfully), and culminating in the scary, scary events of last night. A portion of Roy's workshop (where he keeps all the paints, kero bath for cleaning parts, and other inflammables) setting on fire. Thankfully he looked out the door at just the right time and saw some of the flames through the cracks in the door. Ran out, heard paint cans exploding, and reached for the fire extinguisher on his truck. That was soon empty so we both struggled with the hose. The fire just wouldn't go out... and M came out and started calling for me. I unhooked the boat cover and grabbed the fire extinguisher from there and chucked it to Roy and then ran back to M and took her inside. Finally after a while he had it under control. What a mess there is this morning though. We think that if he'd spotted it a minute or two later it would have taken out the whole workshop, my adjoining dye studio, and perhaps even spread to the house. So, we were very, very lucky. The flames were just terrible it seemed as though they would never be put out by extinguisher or water. We don't know what started it but we do know there's a lot of cleaning up to do! And Roy is very, very depressed about it.

I was so looking forward to this week; back to school finally. The school holidays were a challenge. M really missed the routine and straight-out fun that school (kindy and Ei) offered, so when we didn't have that it was a real struggle to keep things interesting. We tried to plan an activity out of the house each day... swimming (unfortunately our local pool has shut down for renovations so we had to travel to the next nearest), playdates, even a movie with me sneaking in butterless popcorn :)

I shut down Jolly Jumbuck a few weeks ago; Abby was having personal problems and could no longer work for me sending out the orders. But it seems that I got more enquiries after I shut down the shop! There are a lot of people I need to reply to via PM and email. I just haven't had the online time to do so. So yeah, I've read the messages but put off replying to each one which would take hours, hours that I don't have with miss climbing up on me every time I open the computer. Roy is taking M out a few times this weekend so I'm going to catch up. I just feel really torn between dealing with M and the family, and keeping up my online presence and other commitments I've made including finding a way to pay for a recent Henry's Attic order. As she is growing there are more and more autistic traits making their way into everyday life, challenges hard to see from the outside. Those who meet M comment on how "good" she is, ie. will sit and wait while I have a medical appointment, but they don't see the bad days. The dawdling, the determination to finish her crafty things, the funny little quirks. The tanties while I'm trying to drive through heavy traffic. I wasn't born maternal, and to have a child with special needs is... not what I thought my life would be. There's just no respite; there's no family we can call on for a break, friends have their own families, and I just feel drained. Roy has his work and his drinking friends but I can't just spontaneously go out. When M goes to bed of an evening, the LAST thing I want to do is to think about going online and dealing with this and that. So I take refuge in knitting, and watching TV or reading novels to escape the drudgery of everyday life.

Alright.
Enough whining. On the knitting front I've got lots done. My Central Park Hoodie was shoulder-seamed and the hood started, then I realised that I may not have enough yarn (hand-dyed in a non-reproducible colour) to finish the hood and add the pockets I deem essential. So it's sitting waiting for me to undo what I've done of the hood, rip back the shoulder and armhole shapings, and reducing the length a little. True to form, I found a new project to work on while I procrastinate on that. I was just browsing the newsagents the other day and picked up a copy of "Designer Knitting". In the past something like this would not have appealed to me but I found at least three garments I'd like to make from it. I've been wanting a belted cardigan so cast on the cable and lace one with Highlands Cinder and it's stimulating. There is patterning on both sides, so it's a bit piquant but a really fun knit. I've also been making a few Gidget sweaters from "Doggie Style" for our dog Gryph (a red rough Griffon Bruxellois). The first was a bit of a tight fit and the design looks better with lots of positive ease, so I will be offering it up for free on Rav sometime soon, it should suit a chihuaha or similar. The second one I just went to town and added all sorts of cables and twisted stitches. I'm very happy with it but still have to sew on the snap tape and faux buttons. It's been cold so he's worn it a few times already. I also started a cabled cardi for Matilda but it is turning out very huge so it's hibernating as she's got a lot of growing to do before it will fit.

Side note: if you've emailed me at jollyjumbuck at iprimus dot com dot au in the past month or so, please send again to irene at jollyjumbuck dot net. I'm having trouble retrieving the iprimus emails.

Grief

2010-02-11T20:14:00.001+08:00

1) Denial.
2) Anger.
3) Bargaining.
4) Depression.
5) Acceptance.

13:15, 10 Feb 2010.

Do ya think I need to lose weight???!

2010-02-08T16:20:00.005+08:00

Matilda came home with some kindy art today.

Here is a painting of daddy:

And, here is mummy!:

Seriously though, Roy and I are like Jack Sprat and his wife. He can't get fat no matter what he eats whereas I have to exercise and watch every bite I eat. It's OK though, in May last year I was up to 76kg, with 44% body fat! (I have a cool set of scales that somehow measure body fat percentage). A couple of years ago at my mum's wedding all the guests thought that I was pregnant..

Right now I'm hovering around 65-66kg, with a body fat of about 33%. Gotta be happy with that :) Actually I didn't really do much to get to this weight, just being a bit more conscious of our diets.

This is what exercise I'm doing now:
* 15 minute ride to and from kindy twice a week.

* (Hopefully), swimming laps after M's weekly swimming class (I plan on swimming with her for a while after the class then into creche while I get back into the swimming -- it's such a great form of relaxation)
* Running around like a mad woman whenever I can, cleaning, dyeing, whatever.
* Sunday kneeboarding at the river.
* Consciously trying to use the car a lot less.

It's not much but I can't really go to the gym or pool, our schedules just don't allow that.

My goal is; I want to get below 60kg, but would be really thrilled if I can make it to 55kg.

Bloomin' Beautiful!

2010-02-07T10:46:00.011+08:00

Just thought I would do a quickie blog post while R's getting the boat ready for what's become our special Sunday session out on the river. By tonight I'll be too sore to do anything much less type :)

As I said before, I am addicted to tiKKi's Bloom pattern. It's all I've been knitting lately and I have more planned. I'm even considering licensing the pattern and going back to selling knits -- after all, how many versions of the same dress can Matilda (and *all* her girl cousins and friends) have LOL!

Anyway, this was my first Bloom. I hand-dyed 100g kettle-dyed blues and greens BWM spinning fibre and 100g teal. I spun the singles on my electric spinner and plied them on my Ashford Joy. It looked to be like a heavy worsted yarn. So I had 200g of this and decided to cast on. I knew I wouldn't have enough but I was planning on spinning up some more in a more solid teal for the bottom pattern (below the skirt diamonds). Well I didn't get very far with the yarn:

I have since frogged it and knit the bodice in some BWM Mystique 16ply (seen in above photo) that I had leftover from my Counterpane Pullover. Yes you heard right, 16ply!! I am knitting this one to pattern, the lighter handspun will be good for the skirt part.

My second Bloom was for Matilda's 4th birthday dress. I knit this one in BWM 10ply Luxury in Ruby, from the stash and a colour I've loved for ages and just had to have (with no particular project in mind). I added an extra pattern of diamonds on the skirt, making a total of five rows of diamonds for a longer skirt. The hardest part was choosing the ribbon, I must have spent about half an hour at Spotlight trying to pick the perfect one.

Here she is on the day...

Blowing out the candles... (how embarassing is that cake, but hey it was the best I could do with gluten free, egg free, dairy free, lots of sugar LOL deeeelicious!)

The gorgeous little girl in the background is Shinae, her 5 year old cousin. She's getting a pink (her fave colour) Bloom soon :)

And this is Samantha, her 10 year old cousin who is getting a large Bloom made out of this Gradual Gradient of dark cobalt to light, light aqua to dark and back to light (as you can see, her favourite colour is blue. I took measurements on the day LOL). The yarn is BRIDGHID, a nice plump superwash worsted. I will have to do some maths for this one.

While we're showing off pictures, there is also a Bloom in Mikayla's future. She's Abby's 8month old daughter. I think a light lilac BWM alpaca one for her, gifted to me by the generous Kelly G. Mikayla looks great in that colour.

And the piece-de-resistance... a Bloom for Matilda's dolly! She has a really big head and is really quite pudgy so the standard dolly pattern didn't fit over her head, so I did some modifications and cast on 76 stitches. The bodice is in 10ply Luxury leftover from M's dress, and the skirt in 8ply Luxury in the same colour. Here is dolly in her box...

The ladybug stickers were expertly applied by Matilda before I wrapped things up, I thought they added a bit of jazz to good ol dolly who's been fingernail painted, texta'ed, and stickered throughout her time with us.

Dolly was quite the party animal (was it the punch???), here she is the day after:

And a great end to a great day... (shall I make Bloom's for these guys too?? Hmmm...) My brother and Roy.

Right now I'm knitting a black Medium Bloom for mamasue's JDRF auction. Bodice in Merino Deluxe DK and the rest in a very dark Athabasca in MAIA (Henry's Attic Worsted). It will be top length instead of a dress as I only have 100g hand-dyed yarn. About to do the diamond panels on the bottom.

See, some knitting content :) :) :)

Proudest mumma on earth

2010-01-22T16:02:00.003+08:00

(Those of you squeamish about bodily functions and their products should tune out now)

OK, I know this is supposed to be a knitting blog, but really I don't see it that way. I see it as a place to share about the entire Jolly Jumbuck family, so here goes!.....

Yes, that is what you think it is. Yes, I have a photo of a poo on my blog. Yes, I'm the proudest mumma on earth right about now. This is the very first time that sweet, lovely Matilda has done a poo all by herself, without being asked or told to go to the potty. She had a wee accident in her knickers, and I asked her to go change her knickers. Off she goes... and then comes back and says "I just did a poo". I assumed she was talking about the wee, so I said "No, you did a wee". A little later on I walked into the laundry/toilet and the above picture is what greeted me! Woohoo!!! She had even put her wet knickers in the laundry basket, wiped her bum independently, and put on fresh knickers! I was sooo happy and astounded.

She turned 4 on the 19th, and will be having her party this Sunday. It seems like she makes these milestone leaps around her birthdays... for example she took her first independent steps on the day after she turned two.

Now, I promise the next post will have *some* knitting content, even if it's just photos of her in her new Bloom dress with matching dolly from her birthday party :)

A breakthrough!

2010-01-15T12:46:00.002+08:00

You know you're a parent when the *most* exciting thing in your day is your almost-4 daughter tells you she needs to go wee-wees, and then does a big one in the potty!!! Matilda hasn't been quite ready before now, despite many attempts at weaning her off nappies and into knickers, there would be many accidents and the occasional fluke, with a reluctance to use the potty. Sometimes she would tell us about the accidents after the fact, most times not. We were in panic mode about kindy this year, but thankfully we have ended up with a kindy and caring teacher who didn't bat an eyelid when I mentioned that she was not potty trained.

We had enrolled her in a private/independent K-12 Anglican school, all the way into the orientation day. Well it just did not *feel* right, and they were quite blase about her autism and need for extra help from an aide. So at the very last minute we made the decision that the best way to meet her needs would be to go through the public system... and luckily the local kindy had someone pull out at the last minute, so we got a place in it. When I went to visit the kindy and the teacher, all of my worries just evaporated. Mrs H genuinely cares about her kids, and it's not just a job being a teacher, it's a passion. And best of all it is within walking distance (quite a long walk, but nevertheless...), and M will have opportunities to make friends within the local community.

So anyway, I've been a fulltime mum for the past month or so, until the school term starts on the 1st Feb. Then it really ramps up, with kindy Mon and Wed, and early intervention therapy across the city on Tue and Thurs, leaving us Fri's for our regular playdates with her cousins which she really enjoys (and me too, Mandi their mum is such a rock for me).

It has been such a joy to see her bloom and blossom, and for her gorgeous personality to shine through. Neither Roy or I have much family support but that is OK. I do miss my mum and wish that she could be more a part of our lives, but she has a new husband and a new life now in the US and I've decided to stop being bitter about it and just deal!

The diet proves to be a challenge but I've decided to go with the flow and deal with that too. We'll do a review at the end of the year...

Haven't done much dyeing lately as it's impossible during the day with M, and there is no more daycare. And at night after her bedtime, I am way too tired to think about dyeing. So all I've been doing is checking my email for orders and taking care of them when I can, I haven't been on Ravelry for months now -- I do miss the community but not the time wasting and stress. I'm still knitting, although very sporadically compared to before. I've just finished a Bloom dress for M's 4th birthday with a matching one for her dolly. She is four in four days! Amazing it's been so long since we looked at each other and said hello.

I'm looking foward to school starting and having a few hours a week to myself, hopefully I can dye a little bit then. I'm really not that concerned about slowing down on the Jolly Jumbuck front, my priority lies with getting M through the early years of autism now. She will be amazingly "all right" at the end of it all. I am swamped by feelings of love and protectiveness for her that not much else matters anymore. And Roy and I are getting along better having come to an understanding. He is very busy at work and I'm busy doing the housewife thing. I even feed his offsider (employee and friend) most nights! We're all basically on the same diet, GF/CF with restrictions on eggs, tomatoes, etc.

The poor chooks, we can't even eat their eggs anymore. And we were surprised with a huge brood of chicks (15!) hatched about a week ago. We don't need any more chooks so will be selling the chicks ASAP.

On top of this all, we have another new addition to the family -- a puppy! I will introduce her soon.

Glorious Gradual Gradients

2009-12-16T12:39:00.004+08:00

I've just finished up a big wholesale order of Gradual Gradient yarns:

There are 40 x 100g balls, in four different rainbow colourways (Primary Rainbow, Gypsy Rainbow, Sandry's Rainbow and Pastel Rainbow). The yarn is a sinfully soft organic and free-trade baby alpaca called Angel Touch, a sportweight yarn.

These will be exclusively available from Ecoyarns soon.

The wild, wild west

2009-12-08T12:08:00.003+08:00

A lot has changed since I entered WAHM-dom by opening Jolly Jumbuck on Ozebaby way back in August 06. Back then, there were only a handful of dyers in Australia and it seemed a more genteel time. A time where etiquette played a larger part than it does now.

Dyers respected others' colourways, names of colourways, and even the base yarns used. If XY of OPQ Yarns was using Blackberry Ridge, for example, I would think long and hard before adding BBR to my line of yarns. If I named a colourway the same or similar to another dyer's, I would get a polite but firm email to please change the name on mine to avoid confusion.

Now, it's a free-for-all. Signature colourways have been replicated, yarn bases copied ad hoc, colourway names the same (there are some skeins for sale RIGHT NOW that have similar or identical names to mine)... it's easy to take it personally but I try not to. Or I would go nuts.

That said, it's time for a new direction in my dyeing. Rather than giving it up completely next year, I think I can be organised to have yarn prep nights before M's school days, and dye about once a week. I'm giving up "colourways". I'll be dyeing OOAK sets of skeins and that's all I will have for sale. This fits in with me and my current mood as an indie dyer in this environment.

undyed yarn LOVE

2009-12-08T11:28:00.002+08:00

As some of you may have noticed, I'm trying to clear some room by having an *undyed yarn* sale. Well it's been going well and I've cleared quite a few totes -- creative storage is a must in this house.

I only skein up the yarn as I get the orders in, so I've been playing with quite a lot of undyed yarn in the past couple of weeks. I really do miss this part of dyeing, the skeins have so much potential and are just lovely in their natural state.

The sale was recently boosted by a large order from a very special customer... I can't wait to see what goodies she comes up with with all these "canvases"!

Matilda's NEW diet

2009-11-20T11:06:00.003+08:00

We received some really disappointing news yesterday. I feel as though we are taking one step forwards, and two steps back! A bit of history...

A few months ago Matilda was diagnosed with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), high functioning. Roy had done some research on the net and a lot of parents are finding better results with their autistic child on a GF/CF (gluten free, dairy casein free) diet. So we went on the GF/CF diet for about four months, it was a really hard slog. *Everything* seems to have gluten in it... even lollies of all brands. She was having her own packed lunch at daycare, usually extra's from the night before.

Then, we decided to get her tested for food intolerances with the Imupro 100 test. Not cheap, and getting the blood sample wasn't exactly a walk in the park either. So we went back to an unrestricted diet for about a month so that she will have gluten and casein back in her system. The test tests for IgG antibodies to specific foods.

The unrestricted diet was *wonderful*!! We were all much relaxed and happier, and Matilda was making leaps and bounds of progress with her speech and behaviour. She now speaks in full sentences and we can actually have conversations now. She has really blossomed in the past few months.

Well, yesterday the results from the Imupro test came back. Not only is she moderately intolerant to gluten, she is severely intolerant to cow's milk and chicken eggs (goodbye, chooks)! And also, she is moderately intolerant to tomatoes and bizarrely, watermelon. She is even slightly intolerant to rice, which is a staple of our gluten-free diet.

Now, I am not a great cook. I have about five or six dishes in my repertoire and that's it. With the new diet, two more dishes are now out of bounds -- spaghetti bolognese (with gluten free pasta) and quiche (with no pastry or really expensive GF pastry). And baked beans, her very favourite. I just don't know what to cook anymore, especially knowing that she has a slight intolerance to rice as well!!

So, feeling a bit lost and desperate at the moment...

Damn VM!!!

2009-11-05T12:13:00.002+08:00

This is a frustration overload post. Last week I dyed up two 200g lots of Australian Superfine (17 micron) Merino top, in the Vegas and Wild Orchid colourways. I wanted to make M some pretty dresses, and since I haven't been able to knit anything but my handspun lately, I thought I would seriously enjoy the projects. The dye jobs turned out beautiful, I was really happy.

Well I hung them out to dry, BUT forgot to peg them. That night the wind was wild (it's often very windy where we are). The next morning I woke to find both rovings on the lawn, and coated in lawn clippings!! Roy had just mowed the lawn.

So now it's going to take me literally hours to pick out all the VM out of the roving before I can spin it! To add to my frustration, I just picked up my new Joy sliding flyer from the post office but now have nothing to spin!

By the way, Ashford NZ (they rock) found the last electric spinner (for my model) motor in captivity and sent it over. Dr Mike did the heart replacement surgery but Sadie was a little noisy, so Dr Roy opened her up again and finetuned things, now she spins like a dream! I only use her for plying these days as she has awesome huge bobbins and I really enjoy treadling with my new Joy.

We're going camping in one spot by the coast over Xmas, and guess who will be coming along? Suzie! (my Joy). I like to take her out to the back yard and spin while watching the horses next door. She's even been out to Citinits, travelling on the train. I'm so pleased with my choice of wheel...

Heart transplant failed :(

2009-08-31T21:37:00.003+08:00

Thank you lovely ladies who left a comment. It's nice to know someone is out there ;)

I have bad news; Sadie's heart transplant failed. I drove to the sewing machine shop nice and early... but the guy took one look at the spinner and went out back... and came back with a motor probably older than Sadie itself. I took it home, Roy and his offsider took a look at it, pulled everything apart but couldn't make it work. They're pretty clued on when it comes to things like this so I took their word at it. Drove back to the shop for a refund. Sigh... still no wheel. I am so spin-less; I just don't feel much like knitting.

Plan B: I am in contact with Ashford for a replacement motor heart, so all is not lost... yet.

Also, I will soon have a new Ashford girl in my life; I have just placed an order for an Ashford Joy spinning wheel!

AND, Jolly Jumbuck is now an Ashford dealer :) I am slowly loading the products up at the shop

Open heart surgery

2009-08-30T13:01:00.002+08:00

I haven't posted for so long, I don't think anyone is reading anymore. Anyhow...

This is Sadie:

She is a circa 1990's (???) Ashford "Motorized Spinner" that I recently purchased off the first and only owner. I have been resisting learning to spin for so long, always saying "not till Matilda goes to school", but I had to give in. I bought a drop spindle but was horrible at it, the spindle wouldn't spin for very long before changing directions.

So when Sadie came up for sale in the Hand Spinners and Weavers Guild newsletter, I snapped her up. She's great to spin on, but a little bit like driving an automatic as opposed to a manual car.

Two nights ago, her motor just seized. Roy had a look at it and says the motor is stuffed. Fortunately it was labelled "Sewing Motor" so we've found a place in Perth that services and sells parts for sewing machines. I'm looking forward to heading there tomorrow, and hopefully Roy can wire in her new heart. I've been going bonkers the last couple of days; have some lovely hand-dyed fibre to spin for a swap, but no wheel.

Cinderella's Stash

2008-12-09T12:49:00.003+09:00

Look what the lovely Donna sent me the other day:
(bugger the picture upload on blogger is not working at the moment I'll come back and fix it later)

A library bag for Matilda, with a gorgeous little piggy embroidered on it. It is a nice size large enough for the largest picture books and the puppets she loves to borrow from the library. And a drawstring too to keep everything safe.

A pack of 5 velour wipes for Abby's new bub. She/he won't be a cloth baby but Abby has admired my wipes before so now she can use them too. I will be making more for her but nothing beats the quality of these ones.

Two mumma pads for me, one in lush red velour and the other in a tiger print. Almost makes me wish for my moon-tide now but they'll be tested out next month. Love my mama pads!

And, a tester crochet dishcloth which will be put to good use as I've often wanted to make dishcloths but other projects get in the way. The stitching is immaculate and Donna has asked me to assess shrinkage etc. I think they will be a hit.

I wanted to add some of the goats milk soaps she had as well but too late Donna is too efficient in sending out her parcels :) I highly recommend this shop, I know she's a mate but I'd recommend it anyway even if she was a stranger!

Everything was just so fantastic, quality wise. The stitching is perfect and there are no loose threads etc. Kudos to Donna for sourcing such quality products for ther utterly gorgeous store:
Cinderella's Stash

MY DAY IS RUINED!!!

2008-12-06T15:07:00.009+09:00

Right now, I don't know whether to cry, or cry even harder. The tears have been flowing as have the swear words. Let me explain...

I had a lovely morning with the family, and looking forward to Citinits at 2.30pm. I had a couple of skeins of yarn to wind first though, to take along for various people.

The first two skeins of sock yarn went very well. OK, now I'm ready to tackle the 200g skein of laceweight 50% merino 50% silk (ie. very expensive yarn). I was planning a huge shawl with this yarn, it's equivalent to Zephyr Jaggerspun and just gorgeous.

Well, it didn't go so well. Pictured above are the results three hours and many tears/swear words/knots later... (the photo doesn't show the true colour of the yarn, which is "Grapeful Dead" and purpley grape)

I'm too depressed (and too late) to go to the knitting group now. And I missed out on swimming with M and R as well as I refused to give up on all that lovely yarn. Which is not so lovely right now. If I was cruel enough to torture some other poor knitter with the mess I'd put it up for free on the Australian Knitters group on Ravelry. But I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. So I want to burn it or something. A nuclear bomb would be nice too.

Silk! Merino! Laceweight! 200g! RUINED!!!

Think I should have stayed in bed today. Oh well at least I learnt a lesson and that's not to dye such big skeins of laceweight, and to unwind into a ball before reskeining in case there's a tangle. I hate myself right now. Even more than I hate that pile of beautifully coloured yarn.

First pictures

2008-11-28T12:40:00.004+09:00

We had a sneaky hen who's been hiding her stash of eggs, and the first we knew about it was when we heard the cheeping of little chicks. She started off with six chicks but two of them didn't make it.

Here's the first pictures of the little chicklets:

And now all the other ladies are getting broody again (in two separate nest sites). One nest site is in the corner of my dye studio and there's three of them on there! Whenever I get too close while dyeing they show their displeasure... One of them even attacks me! I don't know, maybe having chicks is the latest vogue in Chooktopia ROFL

Mother Envy

2008-11-26T16:58:00.004+09:00

I *really* envy those women who are lucky enough to have their mums close to them, both geographically and in the relationship. I'm really missing my mum today, for some reason. She is in the US with her new husband and his family. It's not fair! I want her here with her family!!!

We only had about three years together in Perth (I had recently returned from 8 years in Oregon) before she met K and they got married last year. He's lived in Arizona and has kids and grandchildren there so they decided to live there first to obtain mutual visas. The plan (promise?) was to spend winter months on two continents, but unfortunately it's not working out that way. Deep down, I know that I'm really angry at the situation but on the other hand I'm thrilled that she has found happiness again, later in life (after the death of my beloved stepdad a few years ago). But who knows how many more years we are granted and I really, really want us to be together!

It makes me cry sometimes when M does something new, and mum is not here to see it, any of it. It's not about childcare, it's about spending time together. Even now I try to mention Grandma a lot to M so she doesn't forget. Kids grow up so quick and mum is not here to see any of it! She also has a couple more grandchildren here in Perth, and some in Brunei. Yes, we are an international family!

I've decided that, whether she wants it or not, I'll always live within driving distance of Matilda. There's just something very special about the adult to adult relationship you have with your parents that just can't be truly appreciated until you've had children of your own. I only had a little bit of it with mum but it was really special.

Oh and another thought, lately I've met a few daughter-mum pairs who knit/craft together and they are so inspiring! I am fully green with jealousy when I look upon their relationship...

Alright, I'll stop being maudlin now. I've emailed her and hope to hear back soon (hint hint if you're reading this mum!! -- Love you!!)

I just wanna cry!

2008-11-20T11:26:00.003+09:00

Why? Well because I have close on 8 pages of products on my jj.net site that needs to be deleted, one by one by one! Seems like the web design for the new site/cart won't be ready for awhile, and I'm paying the fees anyway, so I've decided to go back to my own site instead of listing everything on YC. I have way too many products and am outgrowing (and hogging the space!) on YC, so...

Find me on here:
http://store.jollyjumbuck.net

PS -- *sigh* sometimes, just sometimes, it feels as though I am cursed when it comes to my site. Every time I want to work on it (which is not often), the site goes down and the file continues no data or some such thing...

I just wish I could delete the obsolete listings while knitting, I have tried but no go.

Our Evenings

2008-11-20T11:12:00.004+09:00

Last night was a typical evening, hanging out in the shed/workshop with Roy. He has been working so hard on the Bedford project, countdown less than five weeks to our trip. I'm clueless when it comes to cars and things mechanical, but there has been much grinding, welding, oxy torching, drilling and etc etc.

He is trying to get the gas-guzzler converted over to turbo LPG. The LPG guy will do some of the work but the rest is on R's shoulders with no help. Just a knitting cheering team (me) egging him on by calling the poor thing a Deadford.

So he welds and grinds and cuts away while I sit there with my knitting and we just chat about everything and nothing. Last night the TV (tiny and old) even got turned on for my weekly dose of "House". This has been our routine for a while now. When he's not feeling up to working (you have to remember, he does a full day of the same stuff out and about in his hydraulics business), we *blush* play Grand Theft Auto on the Xbox and I knit. I get most of my knitting done after M has gone to bed!

Last night there was a little bonus of a thunderstorm, it was lovely.

Anyway, I promised him no pics on my blog until we are in Esperance and well on our way to Victoria, but promises are meant to be broken (ha!) and he was so proud of this piece of *thing* that I can't resist showing off on his behalf. He started off with a few metal bits and a long length of 3" stainless steel piping. And in one night look what he made! I feel a little bit like the Wollmeise with her metalworker husband!!!

Avast! Beware ye knitters arrrrr

2008-11-12T21:21:00.007+09:00

(photos will be added when I can whip my camera into shape)

This is what I'm working on between other projects: It is a boyfriend sweater! Not really a sweater's a zippered cardigan), and not THE Boyfriend Sweater, but definitely for my boyfriend, who shall one day be my husband (but that's another blog post!)

The yarn is Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted, in Loden Leaf. I've gone on a bit of an ebay/Brown Sheep binge lately but this yarn is from about 2001. Bought about 14 skeins from Juniper Fibreworks in Bend, Oregon. The colour is a dark sage green, or army green. It really reminds me of our first (only) Kombi van which we travelled across the Nullarbor in, my biological family, when I was about 6 or so.

The yarn had to be frogged from a 1/4 finished jumper with kangaroo pocket in double moss stitch, a Dale design knit in the round that I never finished. That sweater was destined for my ex but of course has just sat unfinished, with remaining skeins used up or given away, after we broke up.

So I frogged it all and ended up with a 479g ball o' yarn, wound on my new Jumbo ball winder. Love it! Also love knitting from such a huge ball.

I had a turn around point when I knit about four rows after picking up from the cabled band, then decided that I didn't like the picking up job. Uggh! So I frogged back and re-did the picking up. For some reason the first time around I had just the right number of stitches (221), but the second time around I could only manage to pick up 150 stitches. So frog back again and added some increases. The increases makes me think it was really a waste of time to frog back, as it still looks a bit poorly.

This cardigan is a bit like Roy and mine's relationship: born of previous luggage, with the hard and complex part at the beginning. Now it is smooth sailing for a while. I was afraid that this would instead be bored to tears but I'm really enjoying the knit and can't wait to pick up while I should be finishing other things. And the picking up bit just didn't reflect how our relationship is travelling at the moment, so I had to re-do it. Make no mistake, it's not a perfect piece of work but a work in progress! I'm planning on lengthening it as Roy has a long torso.

I'm hoping to have this ready as a Christmas present, and yes I'm going to make him model it in the December heat!! I need to clear some room in my knitting plate, for our trip to Victoria this summer. I'm quite nervous about more picking up and putting in a zipper, something I haven't done for knitwear before.

I figure if I can finish this man-size project then I can finish other grown-up knits. So goes the theory,...

Postscript: Ooops! I forgot to detail the pattern I am using. It is the Avast zip-up cardigan with a cabled band, by Jesse Loesberg, and can be found on Knitty. Roy chose it out of quite a few Knitty sweater choices I presented him with. I was surprised but pleased at his choice, I thought he would choose a simple ribbed pullover.

My (updated) knit list

2008-10-30T11:03:00.004+09:00

Yay, a knitting-related post! Still having various camera issues, so I thought I'd re-visit my knit list to see what progress (and un-progress, in the case of steeking) I've made since then:

Bold - knitted at least once
Italics - plan to do soon
Red - progress since last knit list

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 KALSweater
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
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
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
Knitting art
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

Wonky Cat

2008-10-24T12:42:00.003+08:00

Wonky Cat is doing really, really well. She still walks around with her head tilted to one side, looking like she's saying "Huh? What's up?". I hope her neck doesn't hurt too much. She does take a lot of naps like she used to. Then mean old mumma walks in with a pill hidden in her hand and proceeds to get all her skin scratched off trying to administer the med's!

Sox is eating a LOT, which I'm very happy about. Must be the pred... And she can go to the loo too, which I am *really* happy about!

Last night she looked quite unsteady on her feet, usually she has her back legs spread wider to balance better but last night she was just wobbling around and falling over. She is better today though.

Wanting some Dine cat food whereas usually she just eats dry cat food. She'll just lick all the juices off the canned stuff and then we can give the leftovers to the chooks. Whatever makes my girl happy! She will be much happy when the pills are gone, although is getting used to the sneaky mumma attack ;-P

Stroke

2008-10-19T16:02:00.002+08:00

My baby had a stroke on Friday night :*( :*( :*(

My best friend Sox (at least 16 years old, probably a bit more) was holding her head tilted down to one side, and sort of stumbling around on the bed. After a call to the emergency vet then a sleepless night we took her to where I used to work as a vet nurse.

Dr M is a good vet, and he diagnosed her as having a stroke on the brain near the inner ear drum. The part that co-ordinates balance etc. May have been caused by an ear infection, though she doesn't have history. He says Sox is probably feeling a bit nauseaus at the moment like sudden seasickness. Thankfully she will most likely get better over time; it will always be there but there should be improvements. Phew!

She's on prednisolone and Clavulox bid, both very fun to administer --- NOT! I have scratches to prove it. I'm a bit out of practice with the pill-giving but hopefully getting better. The pred will increase her appetite too. Which is good as she is all skin and bones now :( When Roy first met her she used to be a very amply-girthed cat, but not any more.

Send healing thoughts to my girl, I need her around a while longer yet!

xoxo

D@mn RATS!!!

2008-10-17T15:26:00.002+08:00

We've lost all our chickies-to-be :(

It's been about three weeks since Monday and Thursday started sitting on those eggs, and I checked under them yesterday. Nothing! All the eggs are gone with shell fragments though I did make a heartbreaking find -- a fully formed chick still half in it's shell with what looks like bite marks on it.

I think it's rats; the chook food has been disappearing faster than usual and we hear them at night. There was another nest similarly raided a few months ago.

I'm so mad! Out with the Ratsack!

Congo Cart

2008-10-15T13:38:00.001+08:00

... gives me the poops! So far I've been on Ozebaby, my own site, and Yarn Collective, all using the Congo Cart platform. From the get-go when I was looking at getting my own site I knew it wouldn't meet my needs, so I've been considering osCommerce. Which is just not user-friendly enough for me I'm afraid.

Right now I'm getting a brand new site, on a new platform, for the jollyjumbuck.net domain set up, it is being done by a professional graphic artist. Let me tell you, this won't happen soon enough!

I have two huge totes of yarn to list and the CC site is playing up. Think I will pick up my knitting (currently, a Clapotis for my mum) and try again later. Looks like another late night.

By the way, I'm not going to go into the ways that CC is inadequate. I don't have enough time to list all the faults! *grumble grumble*

Off the whinge-train now...

I'm like an expectant mother!

2008-10-15T11:57:00.002+08:00

My latest book purchase:
Well we have decided that it's time to move on and give love to another dog. Last year was very difficult in that we lost two dogs to the green dream (euthanasia). Lulu was a paraplegic and Missy was just really, really old. Our hearts have been healing, and now that we finally have a proper front gate installed, we feel it's time. So after our holidays this summer we are going to visit Poundwatch for a four-legged friend.

I've already found a few projects from this book I'd love to knit, but am holding off till we find the right friend, he/she could be any breed, any size.

Looped-out chicken

2008-09-28T12:00:00.002+08:00

Ahhhh, spring. The season of chook insanity, of broody behaviour, fluffy new life, and a mathematical problem. Population of Chooktopia is set to increase in about 22 days; we have more than enough hens to meet our egg consumption and gifting needs. And definitely more than enough roosters! (we still have one more, "Pretty Boy", than we need -- but he is too pretty to relegate to the oven just yet). And the numbers seem set to rise at an exponential rate.

On Monday we were shocked to discover that Sophie, my favourite chook, had gone missing! Later on the day she showed up clucking and generally just being a looped-out chicken. Tracked her back to her hidden nest (among the bamboo), and discovered a sizable clutch of 14 eggs. Oh great, too late to rescue for the kitchen (a partly-foetus'ed egg -- not a pretty sight). So we let her be. But Sophie's problem is that she is breed-wise related to the battery hen chooks. So whilst she might have discovered her motherly instincts in the glorious spring days, she's not quite all there as a mother. The foodie in her dictates that she hops off the nest much too often, and then once she's off she'll start pecking at little bits on the ground for her not-yet-in-existence chicks!

It has happened once too often so I've just marked all the eggs and transferred them to the main roosting nest (where three other broody chooks have taken up permanent residence).

Oh, fun and games. I'll let you know in a further 22 days or so, what is happening in Chooktopia!

xoxo

A pictorial post

2008-09-01T12:15:00.006+08:00

Because I'm as tired now, as Matilda was when this photo was taken, I'll just let a few photos do the talking...

i has been knitting

2008-08-19T22:16:00.005+08:00

Finally, my knitting mojo is back!!! I blame the Olympics, perfect knitting weather.

This is what I've been madly into lately:

Gypsy Swallowtail Shawl

Noro Kureyon Sock Yarn
colourway S180A -- turqouise, orange, gold, pink, red, purple
4mm KP Options on 120cm cord

I started this one with no purpose (and indeed, a few other more pressing WIP's) when I came across the Noro Kureyon Sock in my stash. With a cast on of only 4 stitches, Swallowtail seemed irresistable. I hated the feel of the yarn (but I already knew that) but wasn't prepared for the low quality of the entire ball. My first knot came very suddenly, knitting away on the orange and bam a knot into purple. I was shocked into knitting on without trying to fiddle with the colour changes. Which, when continuous, are awesome to watch and knit, they are very gradual.

I actually knit an additional 5 repeats of the Budding Lace, which added 30 rows. Three rows into the Lily of the Valley Lace, I had a panic attack about running out of yarn (I did not did not did not want to fork out good money on more crap yarn -- in the same gaudy colourway no less), and ripped back to the prescribed 14 repeats. Now that I'm done with the Lily of the Valley Lace, I wish I had kept those rows because there is plenty of yarn left. I'm adding an extra Lily repeat, which makes the shawl look lopsided. Not enough "filler" and too much border.

But I'm sure my niece will love it. She turns 9 next month and I hope the bright colours will make her day. Luckily we're in the same city so she can return it for washings.

Well, I am almost done with the shawl now and the ball had a total of eight knots. A couple were OK, turquoise into turquoise for example. Sometimes you could spit-splice long lengths of adjoining colours together if the yarn was thin enough at that point. This is definitely not yarn for the anal knitter! It drove me up the wall a few times but I kept knitting whatever surprise came up. Some of the colour changes were very very strange, I wondered if the yarn was even from the same lot.

I wouldn't use this yarn for socks. Well not socks for me, anyway. I don't mind the hand-washing thing, but I wear my socks and I don't think even with kid-glove treatment they would wear very well. I cringe at the prospect of coming upon a really thin spot on a sole stitch. Never mind all those knots!

Now I'm on a gradual-colour-change kick and am bringing in a small stock of Kauni yarn into Australia! These are jumbo 160-170g balls and I'm so eager to see how the colour changes compare. Not to mention quality. I wanted so badly for Noro to be a great yarn (because it is beautiful to look at!), but it just wasn't good yarn. I have high hopes for the Kauni!

Check out these luscious Kauni projects on Ravelry:
Ravelry -- Kauni projects

Gone: Green and Gold on CASBAH 120g

2008-08-03T13:55:00.011+08:00

I've got three skeins left of a special self-striping yarn I created for some Olympic knitting. Dyed on the sinfully luxurious CASBAH (from Hand Maiden). Each "skein" consists of approx 100g self-striping bright Green and Gold, and approx 23g in a solid, darker heritage green to get your socks Heeled and Toe'd. Or your scarf Trimmed or Fringed? I'm knitting finger-up fingerless gloves, elbow length.

The stripes range in width from one to three rows, depending on what you're knitting, of course. I swatched a 48 stitch tube on 3.00mm needles, magic loop (oh Addi LACE how I love thee!):

Dyeing this yarn was, shall we say, a learning experience all the way. I ended up with a large skein (too large for the width of the stripes I was doing). Unwinding it was a nightmare, so the self-striping yarn was handled quite a bit.

Anyway, the sets are $38 including Express Postage. The first three people to email me at irene at jollyjumbuck dot net shall have it.

Yarn details: CASBAH by Hand Maiden 80% Superwash Merino, 10% Cashmere, 10% Nylon28st/10cm over 2.50-3.00mm needles

Countdown five days to the Olympics!

I'm so spoilt...

2008-07-31T16:25:00.004+08:00

In terms of the awesome quality time I get to spend with Matilda. She is at the absolute sweetest stage right now, learning new words all the time and constantly chatting away. I even get asked for "kiss" and "cuddle" once in a while. There's a lot of demands to "show me", "open", "close", etc. She's a pretty happy kid; sometimes quick to temper but always quick to get over it (unlike her wayward mum..)

Rather than moping around wishing the rain away today (when I know we need it and the rainwater tank loves it), we went to the pool. She loves to swim and splash around. A little while with her "superman muscles" (arm floaties) and a little time walking around in the shallows.

We feed the chooks, hang around and cook together, and just generally have a lazy old good time. I'm cherishing the time as I know it's not going to last forever.

News on the knitting front:

(ie. NOTHING! I seem to have temporarily lost my knitting mojo. One round into the current sock project (last worked on about three weeks ago) and I just couldn't keep up with the easy pattern!)

I spent the last night and some of today untangling the Olympic mega skein of self-striping yarn. The skein was about 8 metres around. Never, ever again am I going to dye self-striping yarn this way again! There was about 300g worth of Casbah and I was asked more than once, "why are you bothering?" by Roy. And to think I was going to breeze through 15 skeins of this for the July Yarn Collective sock club!

I am going to temporarily re-open the Ozebaby store to list the 3 skeins of Olympic yarn -- it's either that individually disable each and every product (there are about 9 full pages of active products) on jollyjumbuck.net.

Getting on with it.

2008-07-30T12:05:00.002+08:00

Right. It has been a rocky couple of months but I'm getting on with it now. We ran into a few problems and there was a point in there where Matilda and I moved out for a bit, but we are back now and working on it. A little more conversation helps greatly. Sometimes I think we are back at square one again but nevertheless I can't stay in this limbo forever.

I'm really sorry for pulling the plug on Jolly Jumbuck so suddenly (and at times gracelessly as I stuffed up the cart so orders were still coming through), but I really did need to focus on getting things back on track domestically. Something had to give and the only thing I could sacrifice wasn't my family, or my health, but my work.

Jolly Jumbuck is going to stay closed for a little while longer while I take this opportunity to do what I have been needing to do for a while now, and that is to transfer over to either osCommerce or Zencart cart. Congo has been fabulous but was always a temporary thing. So that's the Renovations part of it.

In the meantime whenever the muse strikes me I am dyeing up stock. Just a few skeins here and there whenever there is some free time. Matilda is down to one day a week at daycare now so you can imagine I'm not getting that much done.

And the best part, I can now reveal. I have been quietly putting my feelers out for an employee. I just can't keep on doing both the retail and dyeing part -- at least not the way I want to do it. So. the plan is this person will be handling the retail side of things when everything is all set up.

It's not a done deal yet, but my friend Abby (mum to James, three) seems really interested. What it will involve is I label and bring her the skeins, she photographs and lists them and then when orders come it they are filled from her home. So she can work from home and earn some money/computer experience at the same time.

On an unrelated matter, I have three skeins of yarn that needs to be skeined up and listed pronto. It is self-striping "Green and Gold" on Casbah, especially created for the Olympics.

Putting the Mum back in WAHM

2008-05-29T17:04:00.003+08:00

A few people have contacted me lately, asking why things were so quiet on the Jolly Jumbuck front. Well, I've been busy behind the scenes doing large dye orders for a couple of places (hopefully I will find some time to catch-up blog about them later on).

But most of all, I've been busy being Mum. Matilda now has two additional days a week with me. My mum has moved away and daycare fees have gone up so that's why the change. We really enjoy spending days together, she's a very "sticky rice baby" and we have a lot of fun. It's a lot more exhausting than anything else though, so by the time she's in bed all I want to do is to knit and relax.

The past week has been quite distressing at night, she is usually a great night sleeper but has been having growing pains or something. Would go to sleep as normal but then wake up an hour or so later and not be able to go back to sleep for hours!

The plan is to do dyeing at night but as I said most days I'm just too exhausted. The new lights in the dye studio makes it a possibility when things settle down though. Right now I'm cancelling the dye-to-orders, and just focusing on dyeing up a stockpile for the occasional stocking. And other behind-the-scenes non retail stuff as well.

So that's a quickie explanation and another post in this dismally-maintained blog!

PS -- my laptop is well and truly dead and I'm too tired to fight for the computer at night so the next stocking won't be till June. I will update the newsletter soon.

PS #2, 5 minutes later: Eeep! Roy has just surprised me by nearly doubling my studio space and finally attaching the sink etc. I was wondering what all that banging was :) Now I really will have to dye more to make use of it! Anyone know where I can stretch time out to 36 hours a day?

Technology HELL

2008-04-23T13:42:00.002+08:00

I don't know where to start!!! It has been one thing after another this month -- NOT happy. I am waiting for the next disaster to strike at this point.

Roy (and his sidekick R, I call them Beavis and Butthead) decides to do a complete computer overhaul (his PC is great now, BTW, but we'll get to that in a minute)
Mucks around with this modem and that modem -- everything is now networked and I've lost my wireless. Fine, I can drag a LAN line along everywhere.
Uhhh, where did the internet go? Call iprimus tech support, listen to crappy elevator muzak.
ISP is doing work on the line? A day or two? OK... thanks for the warning, but I suppose I can deal with not having net access on the weekend.
It's been four days, what the hell is going on? At this point I don't know or care where the fault is, I just need it fixed. Or at least back the way it was before you two f***ed around with it!!!
Right, internet is finally back. Manage to get the old ADSL modem to work on the home PC. I drag out my laptop -- untouched for the past week.
It's DEAD. Can't detect a hard drive.
Thankfully still under warranty, the last issue I had the replacement part came within one day. But, have I lost everything in the hard drive?? I think so. Did I back up? Of course not.
Wrestle B and B off the home PC (stop playing Spring already!) to check email.
Frantically trying to catch up. Only, I think I have lost a bunch of those too. I had 27 messages when I checked webmail from the library, but now they are gone. Off the server, into the great unknown. So if you have emailed me in the past week or so please re-send it.

I pull the plug on all technology (I wish)

cough sniffle moan groan

2008-04-10T12:40:00.003+08:00

I've just spent the last two and a half days curled up in bed, drinking endless cups of honey and lemon, and basically feeling like death warmed up! Thankfully Roy has been really good, and so has my mum in taking M, and better still I haven't (yet) spread the derms on -- I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy!!!

Things at JJ have basically come to a screeching halt! Some of the sock yarns are up, but there are still more, and all the soaker yarns still have to be listed.

I hope to feel better tomorrow, to catch up on the listings and orders, but right now I'm going back to being miserable. Should have got a flu shot!

xoxo

Amazon splurge

2008-03-19T00:41:00.003+09:00

To reward myself for saving so much money, I went on an Amazon shopping splurge. I spent up big, but not quite $580.62!

Some of the books on the way:

Favorite Socks
Last-Minute Knitted Gifts
Harmony Guide: Lace & Eyelets
Vogue Knitting The Ultimate Sock Book
Ocean Breezes: Knitted Scarves Inspired by the Sea
New Pathways for Sock Knitters
One-Skein Wonders
The Knitter's Book of Yarn

I get it now!

2008-03-16T20:51:00.003+09:00

I'm a bit of a clueless blogger! Have just received a gentle reminder that I've been tagged by Donna (Cinderella's Stash) months ago for an award. I was very touched by the award but didn't get that you actually had to do the same to three more bloggers :P

So here it is..

In turn, I would like to pass on the award on to three lovely Perth ladies:
Helen (Knitting in Perth)
Ann (1morerow)
Sasha (Knit Nutt)

In other news, I have been AWOL online for a while now (you only have to look at the sparseness of blog posts to deduce that!), but am slowly coming out of my "hibernation". I just wish that I had more time to keep up with blogs and podcasts and forums, but it just doesn't work out that way. Miss M is keeping me busy (and sometimes tearing my hair out as I'm chasing her from aisle to aisle in the shopping centre -- suddenly holding hands just ain't cool anymore). Anyway, that's why there hasn't been a yarn stocking in ages. I've got quite the stockpile building up, and am planning on holding what I'd like to call a "yarn banquet" after the Easter holidays. More details in the newsletter!

I'm also happy to announce that Jolly Jumbuck yarn is available in the US, from a fabulous new store called Yarny Goodness. Pam searches out the coolest indie dyers and crafters, go take a look. I've just sent off a shipment of yarn so they will be appearing in the store soon.

Also, I have a new helper! Her name is Alice, and she is so very very helpful to the business. She's an electric skein winder from Ball and Skein :-D I love Alice! Might share a pic in a future post.

What's going on

2008-02-27T16:06:00.000+09:00

How sad is this blog?!? Very. The thought crossed my mind to take it off altogether, but that would have entailed some sort of effort... *smirk*

Anyway, sorry for the long stretch of silence. I'm dealing with some personal health issues at the moment; the light is at the end of the tunnel but for now I'm barely keeping things afloat. Haven't been on forums for weeks!

Business is good; there are so many things I need to do but have put off. First priority is to deal with the current orders, so many plans in the head but the lack of time or strength to deal with them. Family coming first.

Still haven't smoked a fag since 1/1/08 -- many times when I've been sorely tempted but thankfully not given in.

To better times ahead... they will come back soon!

PS -- the one thing keeping me sane are the knitting groups -- words can't really express what an impact they're having on my mental stability! Thanks guys, you know who you are.

Knitting is like playing Hearts

2008-01-10T16:38:00.000+09:00

I'm reading this book by Stephen King (usually not my favourite author, but this one's not too supernatural and is really good) at the moment, called "Hearts in Atlantis". I think there's a movie of the same name out there somewhere, but can't be sure. Anyway if there is I'd love to see it.

Side note: For some plane reading, I took SK's "Four After Midnight" to Malaysia. It's a book of four short novels. I had just finished "Secret Window, Secret Garden" and was onto the next one, when I noticed Roy was watching a movie on the hotel cable network. It's called "Secret Window" and has Johnny Depp as the lead character. Turns out it was based on that very same story! The ending was a little different though... but what a coinkidink! (coincidence -- we at the S/JJ household like to make up silly words)

Anyway, back to "Hearts in Atlantis". The book is a series of five related stories over a 40 year time frame, and the title story of the same name tells of a guy in college who gets addicted to playing Hearts (a card game) in the Vietnam War era -- when flunking out of college could mean being drafted to the war. He just couldn't stop playing Hearts, and nor could the rest of his dorm floor. More than half of them end up dropping out. He knew it was consuming him and all that, but just couldn't stop staying up late and cutting classes and failing exams.

Well, my point is that right now, knitting is like playing Hearts. I just can't stop doing it! There are *so* many other things I should be doing. And late nights, hey I'm a bit of a nightowl anyway but last night was shocking. I just had to finish my Pomatomus socks, and at 4am Roy wakes up and tells me what time it was. I was flabbergasted, where did the night go?!

Must stop knitting, must stop knitting, must stop knitting (so I type as in my mind I am itching to cast on the next pair of socks).

My nasty, dirty little secret

2008-01-08T16:12:00.000+09:00

I have a dirty little secret... a few months after I stopped breastfeeding, I took up smoking again. At first it was a social thing (which started, of all places, at a mummy dinner where another mum who had continually smoked all through her pregnancies offered me one), then it became a way to get some time-out on the back porch, and soon enough the horrible addiction had taken hold again. Yeah I was pretty disappointed at myself as it took so much effort to quit the last time, a few weeks before I got pregnant with Matilda.

I had my last cigarette at midnight on New Year's Eve. The few days after that in KL was pretty bad as everyone and their dog smokes, and cig's are cheap as chips.

Well, I will never call myself a non-smoker. I'm an ex-smoker. Like a recovering alcoholic will always be an alcoholic, you know? It would be so easy to be a smoker again, but it's dealing with one craving at a time. Nicotine lozenges help a lot too. When I'm thinking I can't bear it anymore, I just want one (but with me it's not just one, as soon as I have one I think "what the heck I've already fallen off the wagon I'll just have another, and another and another..."), sucking a lozenge gets me over the hump and pretty soon I'm fine again. That, and lots and lots of water. Try to avoid the food distraction too!

The thing is too, I have never been heavier and more unhealthy. I weigh more now that I weighed even when 9 months pregnant! I can't do any exercise when I'm smoking, I just get so puffed out. Most people say they gain weight when they quit smoking, but for me in the past it's been the other way around! I have more energy to exercise (swim laps) and all round am a healthier person. Roy has agreed to do bedtime duties so that I can start going to the pool again in the evenings.

The "smoke-free" ticker is based on a conservative 10 cig's a day and $15/pack. Amazing how it all adds up isn't it! Methinks the money saved should be diverted to a yarn stash fund... or better still Matilda's ejumication fund ;)

Wish me luck :)

Sock it to me

2007-12-12T18:17:00.001+09:00

May I introduce, our latest batch of sock yarns:

Stained Glass Solids

on Fleece Artist Sea Wool.
The colour and shiny yarn combo is fantastic... just like spun gold. I thought about calling this one "Rumplestilskin" but "Coolgardie" (a gold mining town in WA) seemed more fitting.

on Fleece Artist Casbah.
... oh the drape!
Also available on Hercules.

on Fleece Artist Somoko.
Just like your favourite pair of blue jeans!

on Casbah.
A base of raspberry pink is topped with blues, resulting in a vivid violet semi-solid yarn.

on Hercules
Rich, earthy shades of brown topped with dark dirt.

on Hercules.
Fizzy, fun semi-solid with a base of peachy yellow and layered with delicious raspberry.

Variegated
on Hercules.
It's lime, it's violet. Could it be "L & V"? Colourway inspired by my indie yarn swap partner.

on Hercules.
Have you ever seen or tasted blue corn? Red corn? It's yummy! Try it in corn chips :)
(my dear footy-mad partner wanted to call this one "Brisbane Lions"... no way jose!)

on Hercules.
Rich, sophisticated jewel tones of teals, fuschia and purple.

on Hercules.
Go on, have a fling of this colourway.
Candy floss pink, pastel limes and lemon, with sherbet orange.

on Hercules.
Dyed in short colour repeats for a mottled effect with reduced pooling.

on Hercules.
Rich, saturated hues of teal, marine and purple with the occasional white cap.

on Hercules.
Not a terribly imaginative name, but there is no other way to describe this colourway.
Dark mints, delicious chocs, and swirls of creamy french vanilla.

on Hercules.
Imagine a trek in the shadowy forest... many shades and hues of green merge with browns in an organic manner. Dyed to give a mottled effect when knit.

on Hercules.
Glittering rubies, sapphires and emeralds.
on Hercules.
Zingy chartreuse and lime, surrounded by cool aqua and accents of purple.

on Hercules (slight seconds)
One of our most popular colourways translated into sock yarn.
Bright, clear colours of the rainbow accented in with the darkest deepest black, placed randomly along the rainbow spectrum.

........................................

Now for the cryptic bit:
"gnineve yadirF no pu dekaens eb lliw nraY"
@ JollyJumbuck.net!

(if that's too cryptic for you, you could always just sign up to the JJ mailing list!)

Walking Matilda

2007-12-12T18:10:00.000+09:00

Mummy got her Christmas wish early this year... December 10th!

All I want for Christmas is for Tilda to walk
For Tilda to walk
See my daughter walk?!

M has been so very very close to taking independent steps for a long time now. She loves to walk with us holding her hand, but thus far when we let go she sits down. Well, a stunning breakthrough happened on Monday night. She let go, walked to Roy (3 or 4 steps). Then back to me. Then back to Roy. Then back to me. The best thing is she repeated it! It brought tears to my eyes as we've been waiting for this for so very long! Just one and a bit months shy of her 2nd birthday :)

I love you sugarplum! You are such a clever little monkey *smooooooch*

Sock yarn

2007-11-16T14:02:00.000+09:00

Stained Glass Solids: colour is applied in layers, resulting in a yarn with highlights and shadows to complement stitch patterns instead of overpowering or obscuring them.

Swirls of subtle colour like on the surface of an oil slick.

All of the above are on ACHILLES, 4ply Superwash Australian Merino, and instock now at Jolly Jumbuck.

Ugggh

2007-11-13T19:29:00.000+09:00

Yuck yuck yuck --- sums up how we've been feeling lately. I got M's gastro in a bad way so the past weekend hasn't been fun at all with the V&D and the heat on top of that. Roy managed to dodge it!

Feeling slightly more human today so will be catching up on emails (sorry guys) and then having an early night.

I blame Jane!

2007-11-08T15:24:00.000+09:00

I blame Jane for my recent sleep deprivation -- and YES I love the Naive socks now, DPN's and all. I've been contantly thinking about these socks during the day with no way to work on them, and then wham M goes to bed and out with the socks! Knitting way way way into the night, I won't tell you exactly how late, but let's say roosters having crowing contests when you're just about to fall asleep is no fun at all!

Last night I kept saying just one more round, which then turned into just one more cable cross, which turned into "OWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!" as the super-sharp Knit Picks went under my left index nail right into the nailbed. I kept going, tired as I was (hence the carelessness), but holy moly the second poke in the same spot hurt like nothing else!

A few things; I prefer a tighter knit for socks than 2.75mm needles but by the time I decided this I was CBB to start over. Like climbing a mountain and going past the half way point. And, I didn't do the heel turning written in the pattern: "Say what?? yo??? Doesn't yo make holes?" So I abandoned that and fudged my own heel turning.

The pattern kicks your butt if you don't have a row counter as all the cables cross at different rows. I copied and pasted the pattern chart to make it a bit easier. Then I just wrote down each cable and on which rows it crosses in a list. The sheep row counter I got from the last Simply Knitting mag around my neck saved my bacon many times.

Three inches into the sock I abandoned the DPN cable needle (or it abandoned me under the bed) and came up with cabling without a cable needle for all except the 3/3L cables. Works great! Then I googled cabling without a cable needle and was pleased to see I was doing it "right" :)

I made only 2 repeats of the opening rib instead of 3, and only made the leg 6" instead of 8". The yarn is a bit busy for the socks, but it's OK.

I cast on late Tue night, it's now Thurs arvo, here is the sock so far:

(I've put a TV remote inside it to stretch it out a little bit and show off the cables). Last try-on it fit great.

I need to do some non-Naive knitting for a while but I don't know if I can until I reach the peak of the mountain! Thanks Jane :o)

Efficient...

2007-11-06T23:28:00.000+09:00

... that I am not! Crazy, crazy I tells ya -- yes I am knitting socks on DPN's again. Why??? (I started out knitting socks on DPN's many years ago but have since convincingly switched to magic loop). At this point, I don't know, but the Naive socks keep calling my name so I casted on tonight for the Sock Knitters Anonymous November Sockdown (homegrown designers). Thanks Ann for the Knit Picks DPNs in 2.75mm (unfortunately not available either circular or DPN in Addi's).

Do I love it? No, not yet. The yarn is turning out a lot better than I had hoped though; I thought the striping would be a lot narrower, but it looks fine:

(And I should clarify at this point that I don't love it yet because of the DPN's, and not the pattern! The pattern rocks!)

I'm making the legs shorter than written because my yarn yardage is only 380m instead of 440yd as written. This yarn (ONline Cotton Beach Color 948) is gone at the supplier so I have to make do with one ball. Much as I love it, I just needed a break from TOFUtsies TOFUtsies TOFUtsies!

Let's hope I can finish these socks (ie. two socks not a single) in 2007...

BTW, congratulations Efficient on winning the 07 Melbourne Cup :)

Sox and Socks

2007-11-06T13:40:00.000+09:00

This is my best friend Sox:

And these are the just-finished Jaywalker socks from the Woolaholics KAL (from way back in January!):

(Regia Ringel from my stash)
Knit 2 at a time, 2.5mm 100cm magic loop.
Mods: square toe.

A few Rainy Day socks :

(2 strands TOFUtsies on one 3.25mm 30cm circular)

The purple pair is mine, it's about 2 months old and continually worn, machine washed, dried, worn, washed, dried. Look how well it's wearing:
I love TOFUtsies!

Et voila!!

2007-11-05T04:26:00.000+09:00

One Rainy Day sock:

(cast on late Fri night). I couldn't go to bed till this was done but will leave the Kitchener for tomorrow (along with one Jaywalker to be grafted also).

The only mod's I made was a slipped stitch heel flap for better wear.

I love the Rainy Day pattern for quickie sock fixes! I used two strands of TOFUtsies on one 30cm (3.25mm) Addi Turbo (with a second for heel flap and toe).

Will take pics of my first pair exactly like this (different colour) tomorrow -- that one's seen some tough usage and still looks super nice.

Ready to cast on second sock tomorrow. I hope they fit the intended recipient! ;)

Waffle Sunday

2007-11-04T16:10:00.000+09:00

M and I are having a lovely day together. Sundays are usually daddy days but daddy's off racing his sports bike round and round and round a racetrack today. Fingers crossed for no broken bones this time ;)

We started off with waffles (M and dad's Sunday brekky) and I didn't too bad. Well little miss polished off a whole waffle by herself! A dob of icecream and honey does the trick. The chooks even got half a waffle from leftover batter. I'm not usually too keen on these but I had a little one for myself too.

Then we went for a little bike ride down to the river and my favourite one-way bridge. At least now M's helmet fits her, it was a little big for Rottnest early this year.

Off to mum's for dinner tonight so princess is having a nap and I get to post...

More yarn pr0n:

(Sebastian, Black Rainbow, Retro Prince, Black Rainbow)

These are some from Friday dye day, the rest aren't dry yet.

And some maiden eggs from the weekday girls! So cute and perfect strong shells; most of the time first eggs are a bit weak but not these! I think the cackleberry queens (Emily and Mabel) will have some competition from the new layers on the block! (oh and the roosters are enjoying their burgeoning maturity too sometimes too too much chook sex! We need to adopt out Saturday there's nothing worse than having two roosters to one yard!)

Phoebe love

2007-11-01T16:19:00.001+09:00

Some recent addyetions:
(Clown Fish, Spring Zing, Splish Splash)

This new batch of Phoebe (8ply Pear Tree Merino) has reminded me of why I fell in love with the wool in the first place! Buttery, creamy, I haven't touched anything softer!

And some Rainbow Tweed:

All will make an instock appearance next week :)

Spring Zing for Ella

2007-11-01T16:13:00.001+09:00

A custom Flirty Skirty for the new girl in Pip's life!

The wool (Aphrodite):
(that's about all I've got so far -- lots of knitting to do!)

Rainbow Bridge

2007-11-01T15:54:00.000+09:00

I'm thrilled with how the Black Rainbow colourway has turned out on this Flirty Skirty:

Not happy with the lace part though, it will look so much more striking in solid black. So off to the frog pond for it! (I'm going to knit a new lace section and graft it on to the skirt)

I'll let the newsletter subscribers know when it's time to go live :)

Fare thee well, Missy

2007-10-28T13:10:00.000+09:00

Well, Missy and Lulu are together again at last. We said goodbye to Missy yesterday, a cold and blustery day, just the sort of day for a funeral. I was really heartsick to think of her in the cold wet ground last night... Lulu is growing an orange tree and we got a mandarin tree for Missy.

Tell you what though, Lulu won't be able to recognise Missy beyond the Rainbow Bridge! She will be young again, and oh-so-sprightly. They will run the fields together until we join them.

At almost 15, Missy has been living on borrowed time. She was blind, half-deaf and skinny beyond greyhound skinny! She eats so much but just can't put the weight on. Well for the past few weeks she has been having trouble getting out of her beanbag, even to go to the toilet. It was sad to put her to sleep but not the same sort of sadness as with Lulu --- I know she's had a good life and I'm just lucky I got to spend some of it with her.

Here is a pic of them together in happier times...

A Pet's Prayer

If it be I grow frail and weak
And pain should wake me from my sleep,
Then you must do what must be done,
For this last battle can't be won.

You will be sad I understand
Don't let your grief then stay your hand.
For this day, more than all the rest,
Your love and friendship stand the test,
We've had so many happy years,
What is to come will hold no fears,
You'd not want me to suffer... so
When the time comes,
Please let me go.

Take me where all my needs they'll tend,
But stay with me until the end.
And hold me firm and speak to me
Until my eyes no longer see.

I know in time you too will see,
It is kindness you do to me.
Although my tail its last has waved,
From pain and suffering I've been saved.

Do not grieve that it should be you
Who must decide this thing to do
We've been so close, we two, these years,
Don't let your heart hold any tears.

Smile, for we walked together for a little while

(From Pocket Inspirations)

Ravelry, finally

2007-10-09T09:56:00.001+08:00

I know what I'll be doing for the next few days :)

(my username is JollyJumbuck)

I just want to knit

2007-10-07T16:11:00.000+08:00

I am so itching to step away from the keyboard and knit knit knit! Here are the projects calling my name at the moment:

Knitting Needle Knitting Bag -- in a grape purple (cheapo Spotlight 8ply wool, 2 strands), with bamboo knitting needles and a gorgeous Russian Doll fabric in lilac/pink for the lining. The berry stitch is beautiful front and back.
Cabled socks (my pattern) for Roy in TOFUtsies 722 Stand on Your Own Two Feet -- for summer.
Hedera for moi in TOFUtsies 784 "A Walk in the Park" -- blimey it's limey! I chose Hedera because the pattern is very similar to "Gull Wings" from Socks Socks Socks that I made years ago, nostalgic knitting!
A lace sweater for my mum in (yuck) Zhivago. The pattern is beautiful (from Creative Knitting mag) but I'm hating the yarn. Should I persevere or give up and make her a lace shawl instead? We'll see.
Rainy Day Socks for Matilda to match mine (I used two strands TOFUtsies for mine, will use one strand for M's in leftover yarn)

Anyway, whine over. Back to work.

Monday's the day

2007-10-06T12:30:00.000+08:00

Well I set myself a deadline of Monday to open up the doors to my new store --- it definitely won't be all done by then (too much stuff, and I'm too much of a Virgo so each listing gets tweaked a few times, times that by the number of listings and well you get the idea!). Anyway, I'll go with what I have and keep on adding stuff as I go. At least it'll be open. I've put a little ad in YARN magazine so it has to be open! Haven't managed to get my hands on the Oct issue yet so it's nervous anticipation.

I've had a ton of fun trying to pick the Fleece Artist/Hand Maiden order, OMG it all looks so good! The sock yarns I've settled on are:

Merino -- 100% Superwash Merino
Sea Wool -- 70% Merino, 30% Seacell
Somoko -- 65% Merino wool, 20% Kid, 10% Nylon, 5% Silk
Casbah -- 80% Superwash Merino, 10% Cashmere, 10% Nylon
and for soakers:
Minerva -- 100% BFL, DK (22st/4")
Athena -- 100% BFL, Aran (16st/4")
Bertha -- 100% BFL, "Big Blue" Bulky (12st/4")

The samples I have are simply lush!! I can't wait to nab a skein of Casbah for myself (indulgence to the max) and Sea Wool for a pair of summer socks for my mum who's moving to Arizona soon. Pretty chuffed with landing this supplier, there's only one other FA/HM stockist in Australia -- and they are stocking totally different yarns to the ones I have picked.

I knew that knitting one pair of socks a week in the cold winters of Central Oregon would lead to something one day! LMAO

Jolly Jumbuck will be focusing on yarns for socks, soakers, and something else :) You pick the something else's!

I need to nail down the colourways for the sock yarns by the end of the weekend too! Arrrgh so very very hard. So the store will have yarns dyed by the FA/HM artisans, plus I am getting some in undyed for my colourways ;)

I'm changing the way yarn is sold; it will now be dyed to order. You choose the yarn and choose the colourway, so you end up with the yarn that is just right for you! I hope to dye every Friday, limited slots available. There will still be instock yarns for those who don't wanna wait ;)

Alright, back to work!

xoxo

Come on Fleece Artist!!!

2007-10-01T04:15:00.000+08:00

I'm going nuts waiting on the Fleece Artist BFL that was sent seamail instead of airmail due to bad communication on my part :(

At the moment I am BFL-less! (almost - just enough to cover Cuffed&Waisted orders).

In the meantime I'm about to place another order for some OMGTDF Fleece Artist sock yarns and will be adding a little bit of BFL to it, who knows when my ship will dock LOL!

On other news: I've closed down JJ@OzB for a couple of weeks while I focus focus focus on getting JJ.net up and running -- there's a bit of a deadline, the reason for this will be revealed in October ;)

I also have lots of backwards/catch-up blogging to do, where does the time go!

Last minute Irene

2007-08-29T15:34:00.000+08:00

They don't call me Last Minute Irene for nothing. I have just finished some items for Friday's stocking (yes only two days away) and they are drying furiously in front of the heater as we speak! I foresee some late nights ahead...

I don't know why I stockpiled all these longies rather than listing them as they were done (probably because I don't feel the urge to visit my to-be-embellished pile very often)! A couple of pairs still aren't done yet -- "Sugar Gliders" never got finished. I'm keeping that one for next winter. And I didn't have the time to do the fairy penquins on the "Winter Blues" Targhee pair.

I shouldn't be listing longies at this time, but shorties!
TBH I don't think it will sell. So I will have to have the motivation of finishing both pairs for next year.

I don't want to! I want to cast on for Amanda's custom, the wool is just sitting there looking at me...

Chooks!

2007-08-22T14:28:00.000+08:00

Here are some of my poultry friends...

The cackleberry (egg) queens Emily (left) and Mabel (right). These girls are finishing off some leftover Weet-Bix as little M is off her food at the moment. They keep us well in eggs, apart from a six-pack bought while we went camping we haven't bought eggs for about 3 years now.

Haven't they grown!!! This is Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday chilling under the big lantana bush next to my dye studio. I'm 99% sure we have two roosters, in the front guarding the girls. Caught them play cock-fighting the other day! These guys are a treat to watch :)

Some new colourways

2007-08-21T13:32:00.000+08:00

These and more are previewing now on Ozebaby and will go live next Friday night (31st August) at 7pm Perth time

Splish Splash
Rainbow Tweed
Cheeky Monkey
Crown Jewels
Spring Zing
Spring Fling
Clownfish
Icecream Princess
Enchanted Eggplant
Retro Prince
Bird of Paradise

My brother is a bloody GENIUS!!!

2007-08-17T19:42:00.000+08:00

I am now happily writing this post from the living room, thank you very much! Yay yay yay!!! I am wireless! After having the router for more than a month and not being able to get it working, my brother risked the wrath of his wife (they had plans tonight) and made an impromptu technical call to set it all up for us. YOU ROCK SHAW!!! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Yarn tank

2007-08-17T09:52:00.001+08:00

Here's a quick pic of my fish tank -- has a ledge in front perfect for displaying yummy yarn :)

Off to do more dyeing today, close-up pics to come later ;)

Happy shopper

2007-08-14T23:20:00.000+08:00

Look what I picked up at my local spinning shop (Bilby Yarns, a bit of a drive for me but wonderful shop and amazing service) today:
(don't mind the "mountain of laundry" in the playpen)
Ashford wooden umbrella swift: I've been saving my pennies for a new swift for a while now. I have a plastic umbrella one but really wanted a wooden swift -- mainly because I like working with bigger skeins. This one takes two metre skeins no problems. It's lovely :) Love the feel of wood.

Back-issues that I didn't have of YARN magazine. Have already picked out at least four wanna-knits from them. Including some summer projects.

And a cone of 1-1/2 ply embroidery yarn in darkest brown. Impulse shopping!

DROOL.....

2007-08-10T15:48:00.000+08:00

Look what just landed at my house:

Lots and lots of TOFUtsies yarn! Knit with soy fibres and chitin -- a fibre from shrimp and crab shells (naturally antibacterial) with warm superwash wool and absorbent cotton. No wonder they call it "A Great Yarn for Socks".

All 30 colours are instock -- some with quirky names like "Put Your Foot Down" (723), "Foot in the Door" (725), "Off on the Right Foot" (718) -- but be quick!

I've got dibs on a few colours already ;)

Slowly listing these on Ozebaby...
(Come out and play, sun!)

Secret Yarn Enablers' Business

2007-07-27T21:44:00.000+08:00

I've been hard at work behind the scenes ;)

Working feverishly, and most other times frustratingly, on installing a decent shopfront on my website www.jollyjumbuck.net. Now I know why I'm a yarn enabler and not a website designer! All that code just spins my head around. I think I've come up with the perfect solution for now so that I don't need to hurry through building my own PHP store. Now that I keep finding so many fantastic products to stock in the store, I need more control about how everything is categorised. I'll still be selling out of Ozebaby of course!

But that's pretty boring stuff compared to what I have arranged to stock in my store. First, a completely unique source of luscious BFL, different to what is currently on the Aussie market. I can't wait to get my hands on, and nose into, that 13kg of wool! I've tried this yarn hand-dyed by another WAHM in Canada before and it is to die for BFL.

Secondly, "a yarn for your new obsession" and that's all I'll say about it! ;) ;) ;)

Another product flying its way to Perth soon is something that I've stocked in my store before. Naturally Luxe 50% organic lanolin woolwash! The hardest part was choosing the fragrances, and I have a HUGE box coming my way.

Lastly, there's another instalment coming up in the "Year of the Pig" series :P
"Pigs in Mud", medium/large CurlyPickyPants in Aphrodite ("Cuppacino" colourway)

And oh yeah there will be plenty more in the store when it's built! In the meantime check back and you might see a random knitting tip or two ;P

xoxo

The past week

2007-07-27T21:24:00.000+08:00

We said "goodbye, see you later OK monkey" to Lulu this week -- she is now frolicking on all fours with Althalus, a cat she knew her puppyhood who eventually ran away and was never seen of again. Hope she had a good journey over that Rainbow Bridge! xoxo

My feelings are still really raw and well, private, so I've turned the other blog into a private diary.

They say that hard work chases away the grief even temporarily, so I've been trying to throw myself into it. Sometimes it just doesn't work and I just have to deal with it, spend some time with Matilda and Roy and come back to it later. The hard work bit comes in the next blog post.

I've been doing a lot of reading lately, nothing non-fiction no way (even when I've read everything in the house and am way overdue for a library visit, and desperate for a book to read while knitting). The aim here is to escape, so I've been getting stuck into some fantasy novels. Most are from the Junior/Young Adult section. Right now it's a book by Terry Prachett about some nomes (gnomes) who live entirely within an old department store and do not believe there is an Outside until the store is demolished.

It's quite a nice read, but pales in comparison to the one I read before that -- Magyk: Book 1 Septimus Heap trilogy by Angie Sage. It was the perfect size, about 15x15cm square and oh such a pleasure to read. I was really really sad when it ended-- as you get when you finish a great book -- but I'm very much looking forward to the sequel, Flyte.

Nothing compares with knitting while reading at the same time. Sometimes if there's a mindless show on TV that gets done too. I feel like I'm wasting my time if I just watch TV, or just read (unless it's a fantastic book like Magyk), or just knit.

Back to knitting

2007-07-15T12:50:00.000+08:00

For this blog, at any rate. I am finding that blogging about Lulu is quite helpful in sorting out feelings and documenting accomplishments (two last night, yay!), so I've started another blog called "Adventures with Lulu" if you would like to follow the amazing monkey's courageous journey!

Back to knitting...

I haven't really done much "work" knitting lately, I tend to take comfort in knitting things for my family when life is a bit tough. Marihone is progressing along nicely. I knit about seven rounds of fair-isle before deciding that yes I am a tight knitter and yes I do have to go up a needle size! So I started again with 2.50mm and 3.00mm needles. Will have to work on it a bit more before showing pics of Marihone. My Jaywalker socks (two posts back) are almost to the toe. Magic looping two at a time rocks!

This is a FO I will be embellishing tonight:Toddler (extra large) size CurlyPickyPants in Athena BFL, "Kokoda" colourway. Really reminds me of colours of the Aussie bush so I have an Australian animal (no other clues yet) charted out and ready to go. The tangle of yarn you see next to the pants are handdyed 12ply for the embellishment. Looking from the colours there (various shades of grey, very light tan, tanbark brown and a touch of blush pink... I also have some green but it doesn't contrast enough with the pants so I'm going to have to dye up some more) you might guess a koala, but nope it's not a koala! This will be an instock on Ozebaby.

Nappies for Lulu?

2007-07-14T19:01:00.000+08:00

Well, it looks like Lulu is not going to regain use of her hind legs. She has even lost the deep pain sensation that she had before the surgery, a result of an irreversible cascading effect from the spinal cord trauma.

We received this devastating news on Monday, more than 72 hours after the surgery. And were given the advice to euthanise her. Lots of crying ensued as you can imagine.

But, we wanted to bring her home to say goodbye, so she came home with us on Tuesday, 8 days after the MVA. Once she got home she was quite depressed, because she had to be isolated in order that she doesn't catch her "type II biplanar external skeletal fixator" (eight pins going into the vertebrae surrounding the fractured one to reduce and stabilise it) on anything. We bought a playpen for this purpose.

It soon became obvious that with supervision she was much happier being out of the playpen, ie. lying with Missy the greyhound and resuming her licking duties. And OMG can she move (scoot) when she wants to!!! We were amazed at how fast she can pull herself along with her front legs, dragging the back knees and trailing the dwelling urinary catheter bag behind her.

The catheter was left in because the vet wanted a few quality days with us, and did not think we would react very well to urine dribbling everywhere. Lulu also doesn't have control of her bowels so we were told that poos would be quite unpredictable. But, a couple of times we've taken her out for a walk and drink (she refuses to drink out of her "sickbay" bowl and wants to go outside to drink from her normal bowl), that was when the poos came. And due to her dry food diet, the stools were firm and easy-peasy to deal with.

She has physiotherapy at least twice a day, involving moving the back legs through their natural range of motion, like bicycling them etc. We also take her out with a stretchy bandage slung around her belly to support the back legs and she can move quite fast that way, although she gets confused that the "lead" is behind her instead of at her collar... she was very well trained to heel pre-paralysis. We are yet to try hydrotherapy but because she's such a small dog a bathtub would work well for this. Must try this tomorrow! It's a shame she hasn't really been exposed to much water before this except for baths. So I don't know how she will react to it but it's really good for her.

Within a couple days of her being home she is now a lot brighter... and we realised that euthanasia is no longer an option. We are of course terrified that we won't be good enough parents but want to try our best. There are lots of paraplegic dog information sites on the internet and we are slowly reading through them. A "doggie wheelchair" (cart) for her would run about $450 but that is small peanuts compared to what we've already had to pay (almost $4500). So we won't have funds for central heating in the house for a couple more years.

Right now she is not eating very much and refuses to eat unless the food is hand-fed to her. Hoping this will change. We are trying to get things "back to normal" and instead of making her eat in her playpen, feeding the two dogs outside like we used to. Since we adopted this attitude instead of isolating Lulu she seems much happier. She goes in the playpen at sleep time (after a few quality hours with us as we sit in bed, watch TV and knit etc -- haha she's always wanted to chill on the bed with us) and when we have to go out and can't supervise her, so that she doesn't injure herself by catching the plate on something.

I think the vet is expecting us to bring her in for euthanasia this week so I will have to call him on Monday and discuss our decision. The doggie wheelchairs are all made in the US so we would like to order soon as they can take a few weeks. I think she will positively love having the mobility and we won't be able to catch her!

Anyway, I just tried one of Matilda's outgrown small Bummis SWW on her with a booster pad inside, and here is Lulu wearing it -- her back knees are tucked into the cover and I'm not sure if I have to design something that would prevent that but for now it helps protect the knees when she drags along. I think this sort of thing would work well and am looking forward to the trailing catheter bag going! We will have to express her bladder three times a day to prevent infections and the nappy is to catch drips etc.

So much to learn! And lots of care to give, but seeing as I used to be a vet nurse in my previous life I think we will cope OK. That's the easy part TBH. Emotionally is another story but we can't give up on her now.

When life gets you down...

2007-07-07T14:35:00.001+08:00

Buy a book

And knit some socks

Needless to say, I'm not getting much "work" done. Oh well.

Lulu

2007-07-05T13:59:00.000+08:00

It seems I spoke too soon :(

That first vet got our hopes up so high only to send them crashing down again. She was referred to Murdoch yesterday; basically there's a severe fracture on her T12 vertebra which is on the most mobile part of the back. Don't ask me how the first vet missed the fracture, but the orthopaedic vet was pretty pessimistic as soon as he saw her radiographs.

So yesterday evening they did a CT scan to determine whether there were bone chips etc in the spinal column itself, in order to plan the way forward with the surgery. Thankfully there wasn't, so last night Lulu underwent surgery and had pins and plates inserted into her back. She has lost three of the four responses in the back legs, with only deep pain response left (thank god). There's a 50/50 chance of her recovering function in the back legs or being paralysed.

So now it's just wait and see. Apparently the first few days is really critical to see how well the healing is going.

It's all a bit of a tragic week here and the waiting is the hardest part.

Bittersweet

2007-07-03T13:31:00.000+08:00

Yesterday turned out to be a bittersweet day. You know how I was so happy with the parcel? Well something bad happened because of it's delivery.

Lulu, our little 2yo Brussels Griffon bitch, got out without my noticing and was hit by a car. The driver didn't stop but others did and a vet happened by and also stopped and took her to a vet hospital. Luckily she was microchipped because Roy had picked yesterday of all days to leave his phone at home (that's whose number was on her tag). So they eventually reached me and broke the news.

I feel like shit! I thought I had heard her yelp but assumed it was our other dog stepping on her or something, this happens quite a bit, Missy is a very old blind greyhound and Lulu gets under her feet. And then I thought they were just hanging out in the back yard.

Anyway, when we visited her last night she was panting with pain and shock. She'd had pain relief but not too much. The vet couldn't tell us the extent of her injuries because she was still in shock (no outward bleeding or anything) and wanted her to stabilise before doing x-rays etc. So we spent last night worrying and praying. Lulu is a PITA sometimes, but in a good way. She loves to be involved in everything and was just starting to interact with Matilda so the thought of losing her made me sick.

She pulled through. And the most amazing thing?? There are NO broken bones or spinal injuries whatsoever!!! The vet thinks it's just a lot of tissue bruising etc. Another day in the hospital for observations and home to cage rest. I think we'll get one big enough for Missy to get in too, she doesn't move much anyway and Lulu will get a lot of comfort from Missy. She licks her incessantly as a pacifier type action I think.

I'm amazed and so is the vet, and we are so very very lucky this time. Roy's last dog (also a Griffon) was hit by a car at his old house and didn't survive. Griffons are toy dogs so it's amazing that little monkey went up against a ton of metal and made it.

We are so thankful...

I'm in Marr Haven HEAVEN!!

2007-07-02T15:17:00.000+08:00

After spending the last few days in bed with the flu, I was so cheered up by today's postie delivery!!

4 cones and 6 skeins of the most luscious, elastic, minimally processed, chemical-free mule-spun Merino-Rambouillet wool. NO carbonising, no bleaching, and only water, soap and salt used in scouring (cleaning) the wool. Results in softer yarn and plenty of lanolin retained (smells so divinely sheepish too). They don't pay for organic certification but the wool and processes are 100% chemical free... Read about all this here: National Organic Program

I could go on and on but you can read about it here: Marr Haven

And here's a review of the yarn on Knitter's Review.

This is something I've been keeping a shhh-ecret since I tried a sample skein a few months ago. But now the shipment is here I can shout it to the rooftops LOL!!

I know what I'll be doing tonight -- petting wool! I am so very very happy and will be doing my happy wool dance for a while yet ;) Baa! Baaaaaa!!!!

Available soon on Ozebaby (once I take out the "Matilda tax" and some for my own personal stash LMAO). This yarn is fantastic for soakers. And AFAIK it's not available anywhere else in Australia.

Bliss...

The derms, the derms!

2007-06-29T12:12:00.000+08:00

(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!

2007-06-29T12:03:00.000+08:00

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

2007-06-28T16:17:00.000+08:00

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 :(

2007-06-23T22:38:00.000+08:00

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

2007-06-15T16:16:00.001+08:00

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

2007-06-15T16:07:00.000+08:00

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

2007-06-12T13:04:00.000+08:00

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

2007-06-12T12:09:00.000+08:00

(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 :)

Smell the sheep in the wool

2007-05-04T02:15:00.000+08:00

Some wools "smell" better than others. Take this new lot of BFL I just got... I just can't stop sniffing it! It seems less processed (and softer) than the last lot, which I had a bit of left to compare with. Same original source, just about six or more months apart! I'm glad I got 6kg of it (wish it had been more now LOL -- spoken like a true wool hoarder!)

It's funny how different batches of the same wool will vary. I have some Pear Tree Merino here that is not like the very first batch I got. It was steamed to bulk it up a bit, and still is creamy soft, but not as much IYKWIM? And not as lustrous either. Fortunately future lots won't be steamed. I look forward to them!

Enough waffling, one last sniff of the BFL and I'm off to bed!

xoxo

Oink oink!

2007-04-30T05:50:00.000+08:00

Some pig snouts hot from the oven! :P

Sorry...

2007-04-29T17:54:00.000+08:00

I haven't been very good at keeping up-to-date with my blog! We're in the midst of packing up boxes ready to go (ahhh it's good to see the Sold! sign outside the house -- especially as drivers go slightly nuts -- even more than usual! -- when it rains and we've been treated to several car crashes on this intersection lately).

Another thing that has been heavily taxing on my time is that I'm in the process of doing a four-week course in Small Business Management. I'd forgotten how tiring fulltime Mon-Fri can be. Thankfully mum is home (in Perth) now and able to look after Matilda on some days, and even better she is really enjoying daycare on the other days and actually taking naps too so phew! Only two more weeks to go but HEAPS of homework too. My business plan has never looked so good and I'm learning heaps about marketing and financials etc. When it all gets a bit hard I just think about where I want to go with Jolly Jumbuck, and that is to make it into a serious business capable of generating income so that I never have to leave M (and any future munchkins LOL) with someone else to go to work outside the house. While contributing to the household expenses in some way. You know what I mean?

On another note, as soon as this course finishes me and M will be taking part in an attachment parenting program called "Through The Looking Glass". This is only one day a week though. I can't wait!

Homeless artist -- needs dye studio

2007-04-05T15:34:00.000+08:00

So I've been relegated to dyeing outside until we move and the much-anticipated dye studio is built.

It's a bit of a PITA actually; today I was meant to do all my custom dyeing (about 1.5kg worth) and ended up only doing three lots of 200g before the rain came. Arrrgh!

Anyway, it'll be nice to have an enclosed, lockable dedicated dyeing area. I'm scouring roadsides and freecycle for a double sink and have the stove all sorted. It will be well-lit so I can dye at night if need be. I can't wait to (a) get out of this house and (b) crack the whip on Roy to get a-building *WEG*

We've accepted an offer to sell the house and so it's all up to financing for the other guys now. Hopefully we'll be settled in the new place by May.