Well, the outcomes are in– E Scoparia bark on the left and E Poyanthemos bark on the right.
As I was rinsing my pots a sudden movement caught my eye.
All those cuttings and seedlings and little trees are doing well, because, we have finally had some lovely rain!
It’s lovely to see water pooling after the long dry of summer.
And, a lovely pair of warm socks for the coming winter chilly toes have made their way off the needles!
They have gone to their happy home already…
Filed under Dye Plants, Knitting, Natural dyeing
Last weekend was a long weekend here. We do have some very strange public holidays here in Oz and this one is about a horse race. I feel about as excited by the Adelaide Cup as I do by the Queen of England’s birthday (we celebrate that as a nation too). But I love a public holiday. I spent mine (and Friday night and a good portion of the rest of the weekend…) at WOMAD. It takes place in the wonderful Botanic Park, which adjoins the Zoo and the Botanical Gardens at the edge of the city.
On the way in, the grey-headed fruit fox colony were all a-chatter. Who could blame them? No peace for their daytime sleep for a few days. I felt sorry for them… they may never have experienced Korean punk or Canadian bluegrass before… and who knows whether these things were to their taste? They seemed very disconcerted during a performance by the wonderful FourPlay (who are not your average string quartet)–especially when they covered a well known song by Rage Against the Machine. If that sounds less than gentle–you’re right. Some fruit foxes felt the need to choose new sleeping spots during that piece–but I am sure they were every bit as noisy.
I had finally identified the perfect concept for this sock yarn. I have had it for years–since I went to London for the first time. Too precious to knit with, evidently. I was overwhelmed by being in England and decided in my jetlagged state almost as soon as I arrived that I had to get out into the city. I identified a couple of yarn shops and adventured around London by public transport in an attempt to find them. I succeeded and was made very welcome by knitters at both. In fact, at IKnitLondon I met a man who was knitting knee high socks for a friend of his from sock yarn he had dyed with Kool Aid (well, of course!) and two women who had come in for chocolate crackles and a film helped me with the crochet I had tried on the plane since knitting was banned. Pretty soon I realised I was surrounded by people who could inform me about Pride London (a couple of days later), which they cheerfully did. And in the end I sat knitting with the assembled, watched most of a film and managed to find my way back to my hotel and a very profound sleep.
This yarn came from a shop that has since closed down. I had a hilarious conversation with the woman working there as she was about to shut the shop. She was from rural Victoria–so we were two Australians in a wool shop in London for a happy half hour.
It’s too much to expect I would stick to one thing. I already had this sock happening. I tried it on the intended recipient early in the weekend and a decision was made about the toe. Done! Sock two cast on.
I do love the banners at WOMAD. They ripple in the slightest breeze. The red sock grew a cuff. Here it is in an arbutus while I am queueing for dinner. Ask not what passersby were thinking. There was a man in a top hat, skirt and impressive dreadlocks nearby. They may have been looking at him and not me.
The trees in Botanic Park are truly massive in some cases…
Here I am with my friend, waiting for The Gloaming to begin in some deep shade, among all kinds of conifers, knitting.
The sock is a Jaywalker. Inelastic, but once on, it stays put and… awesomely good for a yarn like this one full of colour.
Here I am listening to The Gloaming and thinking about how much I love trees and how amazing the atmosphere of the Earth is. And how endangered. There were many opportunities to think about climate change and Indigenous solidarity at WOMAD. It heartened me to be in the presence of artists and musicians who are also trying to figure out what they can do and what they can communicate on these questions.
Next day, I think…
My trusty bag got a little coloured powder on it during the Colour of Time–a rather amazing dance spectacular. There is a good image with an odd caption (no spray paint, trust me) here if you scroll down.
Pine needles after dark… in the presence of Neneh Cherry.
A fellow beloved tree hugger.
Eventually, we gathered ourselves up and wandered off into the night to find our bicycles and pedal home to our beds. Wonderful.
Filed under Knitting
I am not much of a one to give people presents on their birthdays. I enjoy doing that when I can, but essentially, I prefer to make something and hand it over gleefully soon afterward. More than once a year maybe. Once every several years, perhaps. Or find something perfect for a friend and give it to them right away, because–why not? I am not dedicated to one day a year of gift giving. I’m awful at remembering dates and apparently I am too impatient to wait! Sometimes, though, there is planetary alignment. I finished these socks close to my beloved friend’s birthday, I managed to take a picture, and we walked them over on the very day and shared some happiness about the fact of his existence.
They were delivered tied with a piece of hand twisted silk cord, no less! For those wondering, I succumbed to Noro Silk Garden Sock again. It was so much fun the last time! The two socks are completely different. There was a green segment that was not repeated at all, and a knot in the thread that had been tied with no consideration for the colour sequence. Online knitters have led me to expect that this is what Noro will do for you. I know the recipient of these socks will not miss symmetry in this case, and I was intrigued but not troubled.
Meanwhile, I have examined my wattle seeds, collected for later use, shucked them and stored them for later planting.
Saltbush all over the city have finally started to show ripe fruit. I attracted a lot of puzzled attention from passing cyclists when I pulled over on the West terrace bike path to harvest these. For non locals, this is a major road travelling along one side of the city, with parklands and a cemetery on one side and the CBD on the other. These berries have already gone to the propagating area. If it stays warm long enough perhaps they will come up–but they sure won’t come up through the colder months. So from here on, I’ll be saving saltbush seed rather than planting it.
My mother gave me the tube, which previously held vanilla bean pods. She gives me all kinds of little treasures she can’t find a use for, with apparent confidence I will find one. I love her confidence in me! And, to finish, some spectacularly huge eucalypts I found myself enjoying recently…
Filed under Knitting, Neighbourhood pleasures
I realise that new year passed a while back… but there are a few things to report. I did some serious plying on my January holidays–
This is the indigo dyed grey crossbred fleece you might remember.
Surprisingly hard to photograph, but I like it very much.
I also plied two immense hanks of black alpaca yarn. The fleece was a gift from a community with lawnmowing sheep and alpacas. I am thinking I will check whether any of the resident knitters would like this yarn. It is deep black and happily… now virtually free of scurf. Spinning is such an educational pursuit! I had not encountered animal dandruff before, but my online research reassured me it was just one more of the things to pull and shake out and nothing to be afraid of… 
Last year’s calendars have been turned into envelopes, as they so often are. This lovely piece of whimsy covered in Indigenous animals and detail of lunar cycles is by now-local artist Lucy Everitt. She also has delectable cards and other items for sale, and a beautiful blog. Her 2015 lunar calendar is available here.
This calendar, all about Japanese art.
Did I mention the shopping trolley? My beloved and one of our friends restored the metal parts of this vintage item to their former glory.
I had the job of taking the ripped, torn and stained vinyl cover (yellow, green and white) and making a new one from red vinyl. It didn’t convert me to vinyl at all!
And then there were the late 2014 slippers. Two different models in blue alpaca yarns. 
Apparently the procession of slippers will never end, as I have long suspected might be the case… 
Filed under Knitting, Neighbourhood pleasures, Sewing, Spinning
You may have detected a quiet moment on the blog… in which I finished holidays, returned to work and ran out of pre-drafted posts. Before that, though, I had some moments of achievement. I momentarily forgot my commitment to local fibres and invested in some lovely but imported sock yarn. My daughter scored these socks.
It did make me think about spinning up colour changing sockyarn, but this Noro Silk Garden is a single.. and I can’t believe I could spin a singles that would be up to the challenge of becoming a sock. Love those colours! I have some handspun sock yarn in my stash. I was so committed to spinning it finely I have ended up with something on the light side of 4 ply (sock weight) and I am a bit intimidated by the knitting of it. Being three ply, the colours in the original fibre have been very much blended in the spinning process. This, in contrast was a fun, fast knit.
There was some quiet stitching… more on that later.
I finished another scogger for my farmer friend.
And from a different angle…
We went to visit her and saw some of her beloved rescue donkeys. She will be out feeding them come winter and that is where the scoggers will come in. They are knit with sock yarn and shirring elastic for firmness and fit. I have made several earlier versions and this is what works best.
How lucky these donkeys are to be cared for by someone so devoted in their old age!
We also saw the orchard and the fabulous chickens.
Look at these modern game bantams!
While I am showing pictures of critters, here is a spectacular caterpillar we found in a friend’s front garden (on a pink gum).
But of course, it wasn’t all knitting. There was also spinning! And lazing around sleeping, and reading and, because it is summer here, there was beach walking and swimming. On the way to the beach, a fabulous woven basket-fence.
Wonderful limestone cliffs…
And then the beach. My greetings to all of you now in midwinter. I thought you might like to be reminded of summer.
We are so lucky to live in this beautiful place.
Before the end of the year, we had a trip to Melbourne and I finally finished some socks I’ve been carrying around for quite a while. the triumphant moment when I grafted them occurred in a wonderful tea house our niece took us to. She humours me as much as her aunt, so I recorded the moment for posterity (that would really mean, your viewing pleasure).
I should admit that I don’t drink tea, so was very surprised to find myself relishing an iced peppermint and liquorice tea. It was a lovely afternoon. I have also finished the last of 2014’s (or was it 2013’s?) indigo dyed wool. The last was polwarth. I seem to recall I ran out of patience, which is always bad when you are handling wet wool, worse with fine wool, and possible only made still worse if also dealing with indigo. Let me further confess, some felting resulted, which will not surprise other spinners. This was the last of it, and I decided to just card it up and spin it lumps and all. I have been drawing batts through a diz to make a roving.
Rolled up roving:
Spinning in progress, including lumps as promised! I feel sure there are more felted slippers in my future…
So, here they are. The last 3 skeins… all different shades, some first dyed with coreopsis or osage orange, and some involving quite a bit better spinning and plying than others!
Filed under Fibre preparation, Knitting, Natural dyeing, Spinning
These socks are for my beloved. I know, we’re headed into summer and they won’t see wear for some time to come. But when winter comes, they will be welcomed.
Let it be said that apart from the fact that they are for the feet of my beloved and that’s more than special enough for me… those feet did the Port Pirie triathlon this week! Port Pirie is an industrial city about two and a half hours away, on a road I have travelled way more times than I could count, visiting family north of Adelaide. It was a mighty cold morning for swimming, but they did it anyway.
That’s the lead smelter stack you can see in the background distance below and on the left. Apparently still the highest human structure in the country.
I did not do the swim, cycle and run… I acted as photographer and general cheer squad to my sweetheart’s triumph. In between action shots, there were, or course, trees to admire!
There has been some long awaited knitting achievement in this household recently. My skills with a camera don’t show it off to best effect, but this photo gives the best sense of the colours involved.
This is Color Affection by Veera Valimaki, for those who don’t inhabit Ravelry… this pattern has been knit a lot of times! When I took it to the local knitting group, its name was called aloud by each new person arriving, and it was also recognised at the Guild last night. It is a simultaneously very clever pattern and straightforward to knit. When I was sick, I spent hours garter stitching back and forth with a stop to think things over only at the end of each (ever lengthening) row.
Years ago, beloved friends in Denmark gave me four skeins of 4 ply (fingering weight) yarn–the other one is yellow. They were so beautiful. Apparently the wool is handspun, (by a very skilled spinner), and perhaps naturally dyed, my friends didn’t know. It isn’t soft, in fact it is a little on the coarse side, certainly not for next to the skin. I have admired these skeins very much over the years I have had them, waiting for my skills and confidence to be up to putting them to good use.
I think my friends had in mind a cardigan of the style very much in favour in Denmark–and very beautiful–colourwork with a steeked front and pewter clasps. I still couldn’t do it now, though I was touched by their confidence in my knitting skill! When I received this gift the thought of knitting something so large with such fine yarn, in colourwork, without a pattern and with no certainty I had enough wool… I was profoundly intimidated at the prospect! Anyway, finally one day it came to me–and over a year later, here is the shawl. I’m delighted with it. Perhaps I’ll knit another!
In the garden, we are bracing for the scorching heat to come. Australian summers are long and very hot in this part of the country, and likely to become more so as inaction on climate change continues, especially in our beloved continent. However, right now there is a lot of flowering, seeding and harvest going on. It’s the blessed moment before you start to wonder if anything will make it through summer! The rhubarb is massive and I decided it needed fewer leaves to get through tomorrow’s predicted 37C heat. Perhaps I need more rhubarb in my diet, too. That could only be wonderful! The beetroot are in the oven roasting for a salad with a yoghurt dressing.I suspect the carrots will be bitter, but they will find a place on the menu too.
The poppies go on and on. It’s wonderful to be out in the garden before breakfast (I put more seeds in this morning) and hear the bees busy in the flowers. This poppy was the most exciting to the bees this morning…
Filed under Knitting, Neighbourhood pleasures
In the last few weeks there has been a small outbreak of hat knitting. It began with the Eleven Cloche and a skein of eucalyptus dyed grey corriedale.
Check out that leaf shape all the way from stem to brim! Such a clever design! I don’t believe I understood the full glory until I’d finished knitting it. When I chose the pattern I was attracted by its asymmetry and missed out on being charmed by the leaf connection until later. There was quite a bit of my skein left so I cast on again…
Things being what they are, I knit way too far during a movie and had to rip back, and pretty soon I had a Turn A Square for a person with a lot of hair, a big head, or both. Note to self–when adjusting needle size, also adjust stitch count. As if I should need that lesson yet again! Another clever but simple design.
My heart wants to knit more hats (for some reason the cochineal over grey wool has my fancy) but my hands have been at the sewing machine, knitting slippers when I have counting-type-knitting time and I have also begun a plying frenzy…
Filed under Knitting
I know, I know. There are repeating themes in my knitting life. Socks and slippers. Credit where it is due, these are knit from a new-to-me pattern, the Trim Clogs by Katie Starzman. More or less… since, with no provocation at all, I ignored her yarn suggestions, substituted an Australian alpaca yarn in a different gauge to the one she proposes, held it double instead of single, and changed the needle size. I also knit 5 instead of the required 4 since I had a monumental pattern reading failure. Needless to say, I cursed the pattern a lot and could not understand what the problem was. The short version is that I failed to grasp that two named sizes were being knit in the same identical manner, until I had managed to knit an entire slipper. Once I’d worked it out, it was obvious.
The penny dropped eventually and I think these are rather lovely. I also had a colossal felting surprise–the kind of thing you know can happen, but that I nevertheless did not expect. These slippers all came out of the washing machine one chilly night after the same amount of time in the machine, together. They started out the same size and were knit in different colourways of the same yarn. What’s with that?
Filed under Knitting
Local & Bespoke 