Knit-tinK, Blogtoberfest

I knit two rows on my shawl today, then I unknit them as I was one stitch out and it was obvious.   At least I had some yarn and some fabric to make me feel better.   The yarn arrived in the mail and I picked the fabric up from an online friend across town today.

Wandering Cat Yarns, 2 different bases in slightly different weights but hoping they'll play nice together anyway.

Fleece Artist Trail Socks in Mine Gold; to go with some Vintage Purls green yarn

Quilting cottons, including batiks as I don't have many

Got to get the car warranted tomorrow, so the second sock will be started while I'm waiting.  I'll have another go at the shawl after I get home, hopefully row 88 will work the second time around.

Boys just got a new book, I think it's called "The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby", I can't check though as they're reading it together at the moment and don't want to let it go.

October 5th, Blogtoberfest

I had problems settling to the knitting today, I kept feeling like I should be doing something more in the nature of spring cleaning.   As a result I got only one pattern repeat done instead of the two I'd planned.  Should get some more done tonight, but this is it so far:

The light was starting to go when I took this, it is lovely to behold.

Yesterday's dyeing has now dried, I overdyed it using an orange red last night and this is the result on the line this morning:

It's a perfect red, the pink is the mink yarn, I don't think it changed much.

Here's what it looked like before the overdye:

You can see it was more pinky before the second dye bath, a lovely colour, but not what I was aiming for.

Tomorrow I have the guild, will be dropping in some magazines that were donated from a lady in Auckland and hopefully doing some work on CPH; I learned last weekend that my shawl is just too concentration heavy for a social environment.  Might drop into the storage unit on the way home if I remember and get the window washing equipment.

In EQC news we're now considering opting out of the Fletchers EQR scheme, I'll be ringing EQC on Monday to sort out the Scope of Works and find out what it involves from their side and then I'll contact a couple of the firms doing that sort of work to see what the story is from their side and what we have to do, costs, and whether they'll take on the extra work we want done at the same time.

In the meantime I've started a design book to note what we want to do with the garage, shower room and kitchen.   The only one that EQC will be involved with is the garage I suspect, but I'm thinking we should be able to do a lot of the shower room ourselves, especially as we won't be moving any plumbing.
In the kitchen eventually I want to repaint the melteca cupboards to something other than cream and replace the benchtop with something other than beige.  I'd love a stone benchtop as it's impossible to persuade Thomas that he should use a cutting board, as a result our formica benchtop is a little sad.

October 4th, Blogtoberfest

The list I made for today:

1. Cleaning Windows
George did the lounge and conservatory and Ian did the dining room.  That's just the inside, but now they're mildew free which is nice.   The outside will mean a visit to the storage unit to get the gear to do the cleaning; might do that on Saturday as it's close to spinning.

2. Making bread
Despite me using the old jar of yeast and then having to add some fresh and whoops on one of the kneading bits it seems to have worked and didn't take a lot of time either!  I'll be cleaning the breadmaker and putting it on Trademe, if I'm going to make bread I'm just as likely to do it using the Kitchenaide as I am using the breadmaker.  It's a really good breadmaker and deserves a home where it will get used rather more often.

It was delicious, I'll be making more, lots more!

3. Maybe make some real pasta now that I have a drying rack for it.
Didn't get around to this, maybe on the weekend.

4. More gardening
We vacuumed instead, lounge/dining/kitchen now all sorted, but we did water the lettuces and seedlings.  Only things not showing any sign of movement yet are the celery, tomatoes and zucchini.

5. I want to start sewing George's quilt so he and I can decide on a layout
I did get started, 2/3rds of the way through the 2.5" strip piecing.

About halfway through the piecing.

6. Play another game with the boys
No, didn't do this

7. Work
done

8. Knitting - probably CPH as the shawl is a bit too involved to do when there is the potential for interruptions, as proved by today's little debacle.
Dyed 200g of sock yarn, I think it needs another dip in a tomato red as the crimson has come out a little too pink.   Might do that tonight.  The yarn was from the Milton Mill, 200g worth.  I've run out of time for knitting now, but tomorrow's a new day.

A bit too pink, that lighter bit is the mink yarn which has taken the colour differently.

I think I've also worked out what's causing my dry hands, it is likely the pump soap in the kitchen and I've just put bar soap there instead.

Tomorrow is going to be devoted to knitting, I'll drop the boys off at their day activity and then sit down and knit (please no tink).  A wee bike ride to Barrington to get some printer ink will be the only other thing aside from possibly some Xbox time.

+ and -

In many ways today and yesterday have been really good.    Yesterday was a wonderful yarny day and I'll post pictures down the bottom of the post as one lot could be considered spoilers for Morag of Vintage Purls wonderful summer sock club.
Today started really well, kids are at school, I went to a bloggers meet up at the Christchurch South Library which was really nice and got to meet a bunch of lovely ladies most of whom I've only seen pictures of on their blogs before now.   I handed over a ski jacket to one of them which means one less thing in my closet.  It was a really good ski jacket, but I never ski and now that I have my down jacket it wasn't being worn.   I washed it first and it came through really well; gotta love front loaders!
On the way out of the library I got a call on my cellphone, getting used to having Abba's Rock Me playing now so did actually answer it; the hair clippers were all sharpened so I could pick them up.   When I cut Ian's hair last week it sort of chewed through it, so having them sharp again will be brilliant.  Those things have saved us a huge amount of money over the years.

After I got home I decided to call EQC to check and find out if we could replace our carpet without it impacting on the Fletchers repairs; the answer to that was yes, which is just as well.   Our current carpet is down to the backing, and it won't be long before we've worn through that as well.   While I had them on the phone I thought I'd clarify the garage situation.   When it was assessed there was no mention of whether we could continue using it or not so we sort of assumed it was safe.   A few weeks back my brother-in-law pushed the north facing wall and the whole thing moved, which made me wonder.   I checked today, no, it's not safe and we shouldn't be using it at all.   I pointed out that we really do need that garage and asked what we could do; they've referred it as urgent to Fletchers.   In the meantime we're going to treat it as yellow stickered and just go in to grab stuff we need; otherwise it will be kept shut to keep the boys out of it.
Hope nothing happens, we've got a lot of tools in there and there is nowhere else to keep them.   Thomas is not happy, all his hobby stuff is in there too so I've told him he can grab stuff to paint, but he'll have to paint them inside or on the deck; it's just not worth the risk.   There are a couple of things in there we have to be able to get to, the chest freezer and the motor mower; so we'll shift them to just behind the door so easy access.

Right, back to happy things now; here's the yarn I got yesterday in the mail

Party Girl by Wandering Cat Yarns; I won this

Honeysuckle also won from Wandering Cat Yarns

Summer sock club; pattern is Demelza a shawl and the yarn is called Sunshine.  This will not be knitted up as the shawl, I see a pair of bobby socks in the chaussettes de beauxbatons pattern

Zauberball sock yarn, this came with the sock club and will be a shawl I think; not sure which one yet, but most likely a triangular one.

Oh, and finally, just found out Mum is reading my blog, so "Hi Mum"!

Christchurch Earthquake Auction

Originally I'd planned to spin something, and I still may later, but at the moment I have my hands full with my family, all the extra work we need to do to keep them safe after the earthquake and my actual paying work which I'll be starting tomorrow.   Instead I decided I'd go stash diving and find something that people will like instead.   I decided to go with some Vintage Purls yarn, it needed to be old enough to not be affected by the failed superwash issue that came up (I kept the yarns that I had that were affected by this).   The yarn I came up with is from the Winter 2009 sock club.   It's for the yarn only, but it's beautiful yarn.

It's called "Taimi".  Now the way this works is you bid using the comments.  I'll close this off 5pm Friday 04th March NZ time.  I'll post it at my cost to the winner, but not until the winner has provided me with an emailed copy of the deposit with the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal, this can be done by credit card, or over the counter; more details are here: http://www.christchurchearthquakeappeal.govt.nz/

I figure this way I know the donation is definitely made, and you know that I didn't pocket it.   I will send anywhere in the world, not sure on timing as of course it's dependent on when my local post shop is open.  

All bidders need to put an email or Rav name in the comment as well as the amount they are bidding.