Finished Object Friday

Ok, so it's Saturday now but I did finish these last night.    I was planning on going to the guild today but Thomas isn't well so I've worn them instead.

Meet my Patchwork Socks

They're the reverse of eachother which I really like.   There's a mix of yarns in there.   Opal, hand-dyed, 100PureWool, indie dyed, Wandering Cat Yarns (Jungle Cat in Vampire), Regia, hand-dyed, Handmaiden Casbah Sock, handspun, Vintage Purls, handspun silk, handspun Merino/silk, Vintage Purls, WCY (Jungle Cat) and finally Regia again.   Nice and comfy too.  I will make more of these, but not straight away.

I'm also spinning, Tour de Fleece officially starts at midnight today here, but I've started today simply because I won't be up at midnight.  I've filled 2 bobbins with blue Romney and will probably get some more done tonight.   Once the Romney is done I have some Gotland to do; though some of that will also be used for dryer balls.

Car Update

Got her back from the radiator place today, $402 later and we have a brand new radiator.  The old one was so gunged up they couldn't even get the cleaning rods down the channels!    He replaced the crackling hoses as well and at this point thinks that the water pump and head gasket are both ok.   Hope he's right.   At least it means in the meantime that we don't have to replace the car and as I said to the chap at the shop "it cost more than I'd hoped, but less than I feared".

I think I'll move onto nicer things now.   My second patchwork sock is now up to the heel flap, so I'm hopeful I'll get it finished by the deadline, which is the end of the month.   Then I can start my second Garnet sock so that'll be all finished before my next test-knit.   I'm testing a rather gorgeous sock for Val of Wandering Cat Yarns; the end result will be for my husband and she's sending me some lovely sock yarn in a colour called Peter Pan, it's a greyed tealy shade and will look fantastic in this sock.   If you want to see the sock you can go here.   Val has been incredibly generous, as well as the yarn to knit the pattern she's also sending me a beautiful red in her tabby cat yarn that I fell for.   I think I like being paid in yarn!

I'm partway through shifting my fabric stash into the new hutch dresser, most of my Lilliput Lane is already in the top after a good dusting.   Now the need for dusting will hopefully be closer to my inclination to dust; previously they weren't behind glass and they were very dusty.   Once the quilting fabric is in there I can fix the piece of furniture that most of it was in.   I will need some plastic storage containers to keep the fat quarters in, but that's not high on the list of priorities right now for some reason (car).

And now, some photo's from my alpaca weekend:

Cria, aren't they cute?

Feeding the girls

One of the stud males

This is a blanket that got wet before shearing, all that tippy looking stuff will wash right out

Another male stud, beautiful in black.

Queen of the castle

The last photo was taken from inside which is why the reflections.   I don't have photoshop or anything to get rid of those.   Each of the females took a turn on the hillock though, keeping watch.

Aside from the car thing it was a wonderful weekend.   Anne Field took the class which was on various ways to spin alpaca and showed us some of the differences in how alpaca spins compared to the sheeps wool we're used to.  We spun true worsted, semi-worsted, semi-woollen and woollen.   My semi-woollen looked like something I'd pulled out of the drain, but the rest were actually pretty good.

Car troubles

Car was leaking again when I got home from my Spinning Alpaca Course.   Still had water in the reservoir tank so Thomas went and used the trailer to pick up our new hutch dresser from his sister.  When he got home it was boiling; this is not a good thing.  I've had to beg a lift for tomorrow's session at the course seeing as even if I can get more coolant tonight I'm not going to put her through a trip on the open road until she's fixed.   I'll have to ring the mechanic on Monday; can't really do it before then even if he does work from home.   Hope it is ok to drive to work in the meantime as she hasn't been overheating from that sort of thing and work is urgent.

Sunshine!

The weather here has been absolutely miserable for the last few weeks.   Sunday we had a little break in the weather but it was freezing!   Luckily I'd covered the car as the boys were part of the What Now studio audience and had to be there at 7am.  Thomas took them and it went well, both boys had fun even though it was cold.  Aside from that one day it's been wet and cold the whole time.  Today we had a small break in the weather; it was drizzly this morning but cleared and we've had sun and we got over 10 degrees celcius (just).

 You can see the result of all the rain on the bit of the drive that got dug up back in March

Today I got the carpet remnants dropped off to be overlocked; should get them back next week before school holidays which will be great.   I've picked up a couple of activities for the holidays as well, some Hama beads (the pirate pack) and some Origami paper.  Hoping it'll be fine as well so we can get out of the house.

In sewing news I've done nothing, work is too busy at the moment and all I've managed is to get the fabric out to make new curtains for the boys room and the sewing room.  Have to check how much lining I have and also how much tape before doing more than the boys ones though.

Knitting has been a little more productive; I've made 2 socks, but not finished a pair yet.  I've also just committed to another test knit for a pair of socks for Thomas.   Not sure if I'm allowed to share details at this point, so that's all I'm saying.

I finished this one today, the knitting was done yesterday, but had to graft the toe.   Love it and have cast on for its mate.   The other sock will be a fraternal twin, same pattern, different order.   Wonder if I could reverse it?

The other sock is the first of a pair, the test knit for Morag of Vintage Purls, love this sock too.  I only had to complete one for the test knit so the second will be done after I finish my second patchwork sock and if need be will be put aside for the other test knit.

These need photo's taken during daylight with the good camera and someone else to take them, too hard to photograph your own feet and have it look good.

I'll be going to an Alpaca spinning course this weekend, will probably only take the not-so-good camera as alpaca's are horribly dusty and I don't want to ruin the good one.  Looking forward to it though!

Carpet is in!

It's beautiful and squooshy and lovely on the feet.   Having the old stuff left in the dining room really emphasizes the difference.   Wish EQC would get their A into G so we could get the dining room sorted; but we can't do anything till they give the claim to Fletchers.    In the meantime I'm going to appreciate the squooshiness of the rest of the house and continue to shift stuff back into the right places.   Most has moved already, but there's some fabric and yarn and books to move still; lots of books in particular!

Once everything is shifted there will be some sewing to do.  The boys room needs new curtains and to be honest so does the sewing room.  I have the fabric, hopefully I have enough lining fabric as well as the fabric I'm using for the curtains are not thermally lined.  That probably won't happen this week though, I'm back at work after a weeks holiday and it's Ian's birthday party on Saturday.   Sunday both boys are joining the audience for What Now which is a New Zealand kids programme.  They're really looking forward to it and one of Ian's best friends from school is going to be there as well.   Downside is it's a really early start; they need to be there at 7am!

So, my to do list:

- Finish shifting things back to their rightful places
- Curtains for 2 bedrooms
- George's quilt
- Finish 2 pairs of socks
- Get ready for Tour de Fleece spinning

I think I might be busy for a while.   I'd like to make myself some more clothes too now that I've lost some weight I have less stuff that fits.

Exhausted!

Today I have been really busy and had very little help.  Thomas is at a judo coaching course all today and tomorrow so I've been clearing out the bedrooms for the carpet on Monday.  The only thing left in them is the beds now; I've shifted several pieces of furniture out, vacuumed under where the beds were after shifting them, cut the carpet away from the edge of the wardrobes and lifted and rolled the carpet in the sewing room.    On top of that I've fed the boys, kept them away from the computer for the first half of the day and made a roast lamb for dinner.
Oh, and when opening the curtains to the silly little window above our bed I discovered that some of the curtain gliders had died, and there was a patch of water from condensation, plus lots of dead flies so cleaned that up too; ick!  New gliders; lots of holding my arms above my head so now my shoulders are not best described as happy.
No knitting at all, no gaming and very little sitting down time at all.   In a few days time I get to do it all over again, in reverse.   I keep telling myself it's worth it, and I know it is cos I love the new carpet; but at the moment it just feels like bloody hard work.

Tonight Thomas will have to help me get the carpet out of the sewing room and tomorrow once he gets home we'll shift our bed into the lounge and lift our carpet, the boys beds will shift too, but their mattresses will stay in their room and first thing on Monday those will move and we'll lift their carpet.  No way anyone would get any sleep with the lot of us in the lounge on Sunday night.  Won't take long to do though; I've already done all the hard work!

Carpet and snow!

First up the carpet; this is what our lounge did look like

And this is what it looks like with new carpet; I'll take another photo once the furniture is back in but it's wonderful!  We went with the thickest underlay available so it's nice and bouncy; the only problem is it's quite dark so it's hard to see the cats at night!

Snow day yesterday, this is what the boys got up to:

The family snowman; a great effort by the males in the family; I provided the eyes and nose

Snow angel!

Snowball fight!!

Then there was the cat play

Cat in motion; chasing her sister who was camera shy

What's this strange thing my people are doing?

This morning's fine day showed a couple of changes from yesterday

The towel on Thomas's motorbike last night; standing up by itself this morning!

Our neighbour's tree which is now our tree apparently, lol.   It's broken in 2 places so will have to be cut back on the weekend; it's vulnerable to disease in its current state.

And finally my knitting progress; none made today as the doors were all open, no fire and my hands were unresponsive.

There's the equivilent of a whole sock between the two of them; both have turned the heel.  Tomorrow I should get more done as I'll be able to keep the doors shut and the fire on.

Offline for a day or two, maybe

Tomorrow our carpet is going down in the lounge and hall (if the snow lets them get here), so today we're ripping it up.  I don't know if I'll be able to get online as the computer won't be in the lounge any more and our broadband may or may not work plugged in elsewhere.

At the moment this is what it looks like outside:

This is the earliest we've ever had snow in the winter; heck, it's only just winter!   Kids are home from school as it's shut, personally I don't really think the snow is bad enough for that and I don't come from somewhere it snows on a regular basis!  

At least I got the second loo fixed yesterday; it's been leaking into the bowl for quite some time, finally took it apart and replaced the washer yesterday and now it's working well; such a nice change.

On the knitting front I'm at the heel turn for both my single socks; might get more done tonight seeing as I'm on leave from work; would be really nice to get to the next stage on both of them.