Tour de Fleece day 7 plus knitting.

A little more done on Denimberry, this is taking a while due to me spinning it fine.   Haven't weighed the remainder yet.

The cushion cover from handspun, see the sheep?    This is not my favourite thing to knit, I prefer to knit fair-isle in lighter weight yarn I think.   Gotta finish this one though before I can cast on for a sock.

Ian's Scott Base sock, I really do like how this is turning out in the faux-isle yarn.

This arrived yesterday, 1770's patterns, I have some striped furnishing fabric which I'm hoping will work for the dress part.   It's quite a wide stripe, but I think it should be ok, and one of the colours in it is a slightly darker version of the background colour in the canvas I showed you last night.   I think it's meant.

Arrivals and Creations

A cone of shetland wool for weaving, there was also my brass hook thing so I can warp the loom, a couple of bobbins for my shuttles and another shuttle as well.  I still need to make some warping sticks and a raddle, but I have everything I need to make them.

4 skeins of Madelinetosh Pashmina in Tart; for some thing for me.

2 yards of canvas for a corset most likely, another yard of fabric arrived with this, but it's not as pretty and it's folded inside out so no photograph yet

Day 1 & 2 of the Tour de Fleece, a bobbin of English Leicester; I suspect probably lamb

George's new vest courtesy of his grandma (my mum), he wore it for 2 straight days, then it got warm.

What I'm spinning next, 100g of Heavenly Wools in the colour Denimberry on light grey

Latest from Vintage Purls winter sock club, very intense.

Denimberry singles, day 3 & 4 of Tour de Fleece

Our new floor, still have some cleaning to do (obviously), but it looks much better!   Got to talk to them about how to deal with scratches though.

Silk singles on an acorn spindle on day 6 of Tour de Fleece; I didn't have much time today, and none at all yesterday!

Tomorrow I hope to mow the lawn (jungle) and tidy the kitchen bench (tip).  Also the new bench tile should be going in first thing and then our repairs (garage and section aside) are complete!
Today I did 8 loads of washing, 8!   I couldn't hang the last load off as the line was chocka.

Driveway is being assessed on Monday, will be interesting to see what they have to say about the landscape out there.
Garage consent is at the council, considering the situation there I'm not holding my breath, even should they approve it quickly who's to know if that approval actually holds water?

A Frog

The socks I was knitting for Ian?    They got 10 rows into the leg and then I tried them on him, no way in a month of Sunday's was that ever going over his heel so it's off to the frog pond.   I chose what should have been the right size, so the next thing I decided to try was putting on a sock that I knit for me.
It fit him pretty well!   So instead I might try the smaller version of Scott Base Socks for him and see how that goes.   At least the main rib is standard!

Oh, and no work on the floor today, our flooring guy is sick so now it's changed to Monday.   It's jinxed.  The tiler was true to form and didn't show up this week at all.

Good news though, my order from Webs showed up, I now have 4 skeins of Madelinetosh Pashmina in Tart, it's delicious!

When is it too much rain?

On Thursday night we got a knock on the window to tell us we couldn't use the driveway exit as they were putting a pump hose across it to move sewerage into the open drain that runs down the side of our property, the grass verge did not cope well.

Our lawn is not normally this waterlogged

The path does not normally require gumboots

Nor does this area normally require them

This is however not unusual since the earthquakes moved our land around

Nor is this, but it is rather worse than normal after rain.

This is the highest it's ever been, this is the normally just rain filled drain, now flavoured with sewerage (I saw loo paper in here).   It's usually about 2" off the bottom, this time it reached the ground level

The pipe carrying the icky bits, and our verge which is not the best at this point

Finally the view down the street to Gainsborough.   They were 3' deep in water at one point on the road and I hope for their sakes it didn't end up in their houses.  In the 13 years we've lived in this house it's never flooded, certainly nothing like this before.

Luckily it's stopped raining, the flood water was pumped down our drain, which meant me checking it fairly frequently in the hopes it didn't break its banks and the drain is now down to about 6" off the bottom which is much better; at least I think it's 6", it's hard to tell through the mucky stuff that's masquerading as water down there.

In renovation news our floor was meant to be down today, unfortunately we hit a snag, quite an expensive snag in as far as the flooring we have has reacted too much to temperature changes after being stored in the conservatory (post earthquake, pre-quake it was in the dining room) and is not prepared to stay put.   We have to buy new flooring, and we chose it this afternoon, not happy and we're going to see if we can claim on EQC/insurance as it would have been fine had we not had to wait for EQC to get things sorted.   Not holding my breath on that one though.

That long line?  That was what should be going in this room, but it's bowed on the ends and won't stay stuck.

The one we're going to use is the one on the right, it's darker in real life, and will work in well with the rest of the flooring in the house, which is also dark.   It'll contrast well with the wall and furniture too.

I'll pick the new flooring up tomorrow, hoping it'll be laid on Saturday as all the prep work has been done.   Wish us luck!

In knitting news I've got a few rows into the cushion cover and am not sure if my floats are long enough, but it's hard to tell on circulars, I think it should block ok.
Ian's socks are almost to the end of the ribbing on the first one.
No sewing, can't move in my sewing room, or the lounge either.

Finished Object Friday

Well, I really finished it on Wednesday night while Dh was in Auckland, but he didn't get to see it till today so I'm counting it as done today.
His Scott Base Socks are completed!

I would have run out of yarn if NZlulubell on Ravelry hadn't come to the rescue, thanks for that!   Next pair will be shorter so I don't run the same risk again.   He doesn't get this pair yet, they need to go in for 2 exhibitions first.
This was part of Matariki Crafting
Next I'm working on socks for youngest and the cushion cover for the guild, and of course I need to pull out the fibre I'm going to spin for the Tour de Fleece.

Monday our flooring gets started, will be a short period of mayhem here and then hopefully things will get back to normal.

Photo's as promised plus a birthday

Yesterday Ian turned 9, I have no idea how that happened, seems like yesterday he was just crawling!    He's doing really well at school, the previous day he came first in the maths challenge which he was really proud of.    He's doing his 8 times tables and getting them right too, his brother is 18 months older and doing the same tables, but he doesn't have the same strength in maths that Ian does, he's a reader instead.   
Ian got a fair bit of Lego Ninjago for his birthday, plus a book on snakes and lizards and a brainbox kit.   We also went to Orana Park despite the weather and had a great time.  All the photo's are on my old camera, wasn't prepared to take the DSLR with rain threatening.

First Ninjago present, he loved it.   I will be cutting the mop on his head on the next fine day we have.

Cute wee meercats.

Even cuter otters, I love these wee guys!

A very cheeky kea.   This guy sat on Thomas' head and nibbled his ear.   The sign on the outside warns you he's cheeky and says to move away, but we weren't sure how to do that when he's actually on your head!

Lions doing what they do best between meals

A young (about 6 months old) giraffe, we got to feed them too.

 He had a great day, chose what he wanted for lunch, had visitors, chocolate cake and finally got on the computer at about 3pm!

I got 23 rows done on Thomas' sock yesterday when we got home and our visitors all admired our finished painting.

Dining area after undercoating and cutting in.  Original wallpaper was 1970's vases with flowers in shades of yellow and orange.   It had been covered with beige/salmon/gold random brushstroke thing.

This is how it looks now, nighttime shot so the colour is slightly off, it's less yellow than it looks here.

Our new loo, the old one had a crack in the base from earthquakes and it was peach in colour.  This is so much nicer and we've not had to use a full flush on it yet!

Laundry while I was re-stopping the gib.   The original plasterwork had mostly come off with the old wallpaper.   The old wallpaper was skyblue with little white flowers.

Our new look, the colour is the same as the toilet area, Robin's Egg Blue from Resene.  I still have to put the shelf up on the wall above the washing machine, but it looks so much nicer!

I only need to do a little wallpaper repair work in the lounge now and we're done for a while, plus of course the doors and doorframes and windowframes, but they're not urgent till I open the tin of paint I got.   It's not tinted so won't go funny if left for a while.   I also need to think about what I'll paint the doors in here with.   At the moment they're still skyblue, they're louvred so tend to stand out a bit.  Someone suggested a slightly darker version of the main paint, but I'm thinking maybe slightly lighter with the frame done in the lighter shade as well.   Might have to get a 1litre tin of the same base in white and add it till I'm happy.

Fire is still wrapped up and will be till the flooring is done, hope that's soon, but not too soon as Dh has a trip up north later this week and I'll need his help to shift the bigger bits of furniture.

Photo's will come, I promise

But for the moment I'm too busy!   The professional painter finished on Friday, the builder finished outside this week and he re-grouted the tiles in the conservatory, if the grout cracks again then we need to get Fix-It to put a variation in to EQC.   We'll see what happens on that.    We have a new toilet as well.
The only 2 things we're still waiting on from the house repair are the tiler to replace the kitchen bench hot-tile and the chap who's going to resurface the shower base.   I wish they'd hurry up!
I don't count the flooring, cos although it's being done through Fix-It the job is not earthquake related, even if the earthquakes did put it off for several years.
In the meantime I've just finished (I hope, won't know till daylight tomorrow) painting the laundry.   Interesting fact on this, my plastering which isn't as good as I wanted, is no worse than that of the painter who's been doing it for years.   At least now the wallboards are all sealed, so if there's a leak from the tub then it won't do any damage if we get to it quickly.   There was evidence that there has been one in the past, wallpaper does not seal a wall and the original owners didn't put gib-sealer on the walls.  Now there is sealer and 2 coats of Resene Robins Egg Blue in a semi-gloss finish; much better.

There's only one room left to paint now aside from the lounge (which we like as it is), that's the boys room, but it'll wait till after George moves into what is currently my sewing room and that depends on when the garage goes up.   The plans are at the council, no timeframe on that and if you've been watching the news you'll know why I say that.   I'm figuring probably 8 weeks, but I'm happy to be pleasantly surprised.  Oh, and I do need to paint the doors and window frames, but no hurry on that one.

In crafting news there's been no sewing due to a distinct lack of room in the sewing room, there has been some knitting on Thomas' socks, I'm now up to the gusset decreases, and I've cast on for the sheep cushion cover for the guild rooms.   I'm using the Snowy Sheep Pillow pattern but I've changed it to knit in the round with a steek; gonna cut my knitting for the first time!
I may have visited Knitworld's sale too, got 2 jersey lots of yarn, 1 DK and 1 worsted weight.

Not even time to breathe!

At least that's what it feels like at the moment.   Lots going on with the repairs, the roof is completed, and that was just before our first snowstorm of the winter (much earlier than normal).   Inside is getting there, the boys room is almost finished, and the shower room is finished (they were doing the ceiling, I did the walls).   I'll post a completed photo later.

Very little knitting as I've got urgent work and I'm so distracted at the moment my hours are all weird.

Scaffolding to keep the roofie safe.   This went up a day and a half late and the weather closed in the day after it came down.

Several bits of furniture now look like this, and the floor is covered in plastic too.

The only bit of knitting I've got much done on was the fingerless mitts for Ian's teacher aide

The lovely Spud and Chloe yarn that I won, it arrived but Dh put it somewhere safe and I got it a fortnight late.

My weaving, not got much done on that either, but done a wee bit of practicing.   I've now got it ready to start a new section that will hopefully be something lovely.

Gratuitous cat photo.   Star was I think stuck, it took a bit of manouvering to get her back out.

This week the painter will I hope finish our room, the laundry and the lounge and get a fair bit done on the dining/kitchen area.   Then I can plaster the laundry walls and get them ready to paint before the flooring gets done.   The tiler will also be doing the bench tile and the conservatory grouting this week and hopefully the plumber and painter will get the toilet completed too.
There's still a little to be done outside with the mortar and 2 stone blocks to replace on the south wall.    The garage plans are almost ready to go the council, will be glad to have that underway.

I really want to get back to normal though, I've got knitting to do for the guild as well as for Dh and youngest.    Plus I'd really like to get our house back to just us.

As you know I love Craftsy, for those of you who also do or who have yet to try it, they've got a sale on for Memorial Day which is being celebrated over there this weekend.   They have great classes for knitting, sewing, quilting, baking and cake decoration (not that I do this) and other bits and bobs.   I do get a little something out of it if you buy a class using my links, but to be honest I just want people to know about it as the classes in general are great and if you're not happy their customer service is amazing!

This Memorial Day weekend, join Craftsy in honoring the brave men and women who have served in the US Armed Forces. For every class sold this weekend, Craftsy will donate a portion of the proceeds to benefit a veterans' organization. Select classes will be on sale up to 60% off! Have all the classes you want? Consider gifting a class to your favorite service member!

The house is all wrapped up

Plastic on the floor, some of the furniture is wrapped too, it sounds like we're walking on bubble wrap!  
I've got a little more weaving done today, got two shuttles today, so I could wind some weft for my practice; I think I've remembered what I'm doing.   It looks good anyway, so I'm going to say I remember.
No photo's yet, I want to get a little further along first.  

I've one photo I want to share with you though, this was a week or so back when the fog was coming in.

A little fuzzy due to low light and camera shake, that house you can just glimpse is only across the road.

Service may become intermittent

Tomorrow the protection people come in and cover stuff up, things like carpet, furniture and the recommendation is to remove electronics from rooms that will have plaster dust, which means this room.    Considering our internet service comes from here too this could get interesting, everything will have to move to the sewing room, which has no plug for the internet.   I might be able to put it in the bedroom, but can't be certain till I try it; that room may possibly get a little plaster too as there is a dent in the wall.
I'll try and take photo's as things go, but to be honest I think we'll all be in survival mode.   Boys won't have their computer either, so it'll be the sort of survival that happens in the wilderness, except without the fascination of bugs and things to keep them busy.
Oh, and there won't be any sewing going on, no room in there if all the electronics end up there, I'll be knitting and working, full stop.

A little knitting and a new craft joins the stable

I've finished my first mitt for Ian's teacher aide, I'm really pleased with it and the second is up to the start of the thumb gusset, hopefully I'll get that started tonight.

the ends still need weaving in, but it's perfect!

I got quite a bit done on it in the weekend in breaks during my learn to weave course.   Comments were made on how I never let my hands do nothing, lol.  I explained it was either that or pacing, and I prefer the knitting.    I really enjoyed the weaving course and have ordered some yarn to use as weft and a couple of shuttles as I only have one that I can currently use and the fabric I want to weave requires two.   As soon as a second shuttle arrives I'll be doing more weaving as I really enjoyed it and apparently I may have a knack for it too.

Warping up

the other side of the loom

I've taken photo's of the weaving I've done, but not had a chance to download it to my computer, I'll post it later when I'm not doing the headless chook impression.   Anne Field is a wonderful tutor and she had a lot of help from Fay as well, which we all appreciated.   At the end of it I was actually helping to show someone else how to do one of the techniques which I think helped cement it in my head too.  I'm glad I already have my own loom, though I still need to make cross-sticks and a raddle to help with future warping up.

My fibre swap haul which includes lovely batts, beautiful yarn, a wood crochet hook, cute sheep buttons and a hand-made notebook.   Dh has already eaten the chocolate and I'm drinking the hot chocolate :)

On Monday this arrived in the mail, my swapper was Doe Arnott of Hang's by a Thread.   She does lovely dye jobs (the yarn is hers) and the batts are just divine!  I just wish I had time to use it at the moment, but my days are full of tidying, taking stuff to the lock-up and working.

I'm going to go to the guild this weekend though no matter what, I need the break and I'm going to spin some more of my natural brown English Leicester for the sheep pillow.

Oh, and I got an email this morning to tell me I've won a pattern from Anke from a competition on the Knitting with Olof blog.  I'm choosing Same Same but Different which is a nice basic 4-ply cardigan pattern.  One of those "wear everywhere" patterns.

Oh, and on the way home from school this morning I noticed someone climbing in a window of a house, luckily I had my cell on me so called 111.    The police arrived before their callcentre had even finished taking my details.   It turned out to be relatively innocent (guy described as dodgy, but had a good reason to be there that checked out), I was glad to find out it was ok in the end and the police thanked me for calling them.   First time I've called them for years when it's not related to Ian!   Last time was over 10 years ago for a domestic disturbance.

Being Creative in Other Ways

Instead of knitting and sewing I'm DIYing and tidying.

I am getting a little knitting done, but not much I'm afraid.   I've just reached the thumb gusset stage on the first mitt for Ian's teacher aide, but it's not going very fast due to all the other stuff I'm doing in preparation for our repairs.

I've taken all the wallpaper off the shower room now, done the plastering, discovered some of the plastering originally done is best described as "shonky" and touched up some of that.  I'm going to have to get some of the mold treatment stuff Resene sells as there is mildew on the walls where the sheets of wallpaper met.    No point in replacing all those sheets though as eventually we'll be redoing the whole room with a new shower and it'll all go then, this is just a stop-gap measure.

Next room to strip will be the laundry, but I can't start that till the red bin is emptied as it's completely chocka and the recycling bin is not suitable for wallpaper.

As well as the above I've also met with the painter and project manager and we now have an order that the rooms will be done in, first room is the boys room along with the bathroom/toilet/shower area.   Bathroom won't take long, it's just the door surround, so that won't be overly disruptive and the boys room is just the ceiling so also won't be too bad.   Our room is the walls, the lounge is the ceiling and the dining/kitchen/laundry is going to be messy as it's floor (not earthquake related), walls and trim.  We won't be able to use that room for about 10 days, so no laundry, cooking etc.   I might get some paper plates, it's not ecologically sound, but it might help keep us sane.   The boys will have to re-use their school clothes more than normal or I'll have to handwash.   I'm praying that no bugs hit in that time, also that youngest doesn't wet the bed.  I think we'll have to put the washing machine in the bathroom till it's done, fridge in the conservatory and dryer in the hall.   Microwave and BBQ meals might be the norm plus takeaways which the boys will love!

I need to get more tidying done in the sewing room so I can move stuff around and out of the way, there will obviously be no sewing as that room will no doubt end up filled with furniture from elsewhere in the house, I'll have to make sure I have everything I need for knitting accessible.
First thing is to put all the yarn that's in there in safe places, some is already in boxes apparently (according to Ravelry) so I'll put those ones where they should be, find spaces in boxes for the newer stuff and that's going to make a big difference!  I'll be back once that's tidy, wish me luck.

One thing leads to another

For our earthquake repairs the ceiling in the shower room is going to be overlaid with new GIB (gypsum board for my international readers), as they were concerned about the wallpaper on the existing boards I said I'd remove that (we want to repaint in there anyway).    Yesterday I started and found that the existing GIB above the shower is showing signs of water damage so we've just gone and spent $94 at Mitre 10 for a new sheet of Aqualine GIB (water resistant), plus the stopping compound, the screws and the tape, plus a spray bottle to get the wallpaper off.    I also found another crack in a join in the existing GIB that's staying put so I'll fix that myself I think.
Got to wonder what else we'll find as we go!
The damaged GIB is now off, and looks like I'm spending mother's day doing that instead of what I'd planned in my last free weekend before the work starts.    I need to make something for Ian's teacher aide, funnily enough I'm not in the mood with all this, but I think I'm going to make the bag still but start off with some fingerless gloves in the same yarn I used for my Central Park Hoodie.  It's an aran weight so will knit up quickly and I'm going to make a pattern I've used before, Humanity Mitts.   I love my pair and they'll be lovely and warm for the winter.
In the meantime I'm going to go back into the shower room and try and remove the old glue and stuff off the studs so I can measure and cut the new stuff to go up.

Eek!

Got given a date for our repairs to start today, it's not far away, in fact it's this month!    We'll be living here during it which will be interesting, hopefully most of it will be done in the day while the kids are at school.    Before it all starts though I have a few jobs to do.

1. Strip the wallpaper in the shower room so they can put a new ceiling up easily
2. Get any sewing done now, so that's the mending pile and also the present for Ian's teacher aide who left yesterday (whoops).
3. Make a meal plan for the time we won't have the kitchen and make sure we have everything we need to do dishes in the bathroom.
4. Get the fan/light/heat unit for the shower room as the existing one can't be ducted and is therefore not legal to reinstall.
5. Clean, tidy and get rid of stuff we don't have any need for; this is the biggie.
6. Spend one full weekend learning to weave while worrying about all of the above.    Didn't know this was coming when I booked that in though.

Funny how much easier this would be if we had the garage already, but we don't so we'll muddle through and once it's done (before the school holidays all going well), we'll look back on it and say "that wasn't so bad", or possibly "thank god that's over!".   I'm hoping for the former.

However at the end of it I'll be able to tell what's left for me to do to get the place up to spec, aside from painting what will be Ian's room to disguise what they did to the wallpaper in there.   Our room and the kitchen/dining will be all painted.   I'll need to do the laundry; I wonder where the paint is for that?   Probably in storage, it'd be nice to do that while everything's out of there too, but might not be practical.

Wish us luck!

A good day

First up I'm wearing my Central Park Hoodie today, and it's lovely and warm!

Can you tell I love it?

You can see the lovely cables on the back and arms; yum!

When I booted up the pc this morning I found an email to say I'd won some yarn and a pattern from the Spud and Chloe Blog; I've chosen my yarn colours already and am really looking forward to that arriving.    I picked up my new shoulder bag yesterday, so I can carry my knitting with me.  I've been looking for one for a while, but have been unable to find something suitable.  Finally found it on Friday and they've put a new strap on it so I can wear it cross-body as well as on my shoulder.

It's navy leather, photo is under electric light so doesn't show well.

I've also had yarn arrive that I bought, I'm now back on my yarn diet.  

We've signed the contract for our garage, so now waiting for the first invoice so the bank will release payment, once that's done then they'll get the papers ready for the neighbours to approve the build, so things are definitely moving.

3 years later

3 years ago on 01.05.2010 I cast on my Central Park Hoodie; this afternoon I sewed it together.  It's now waiting for the zipper but it's at a point where I consider it finished!  You'll get photo's once the zipper is in, I have to buy one first though as the ones I have in my stash are all too short.

I got some fibre today too, photo's also to come as the light is horrible at the moment.   It's 900g of dark grey suri alpaca from Sherlin Alpacas.   It'll be spun up and knit into a shawl I think, can't get started on it yet though, need to get my grey crossbred done first.  The boys had a great time feeding the alpaca mums and the crias.   The farm owners were very impressed by the boys patience when feeding them, so were we, especially as they hadn't wanted to come.

Scott Base Socks

I finished the first sock today, I've used 51g of yarn which means I'll be short on the second sock.   I have hopes that someone might have a little left over and if she does then I should hear today, if not then I have another similar colour that might work if I alternate rows near the toe; luckily it's not a solid colour.   Keeping my fingers crossed for leftovers though.

Without further ado here is my first Scott Base Sock!

I think I need a larger sock blocker for Thomas's socks, mine are just too small and don't show the detail well at all.  I do have to say I love this sock though, it's squishy but still feels robust and it looks wonderful on!    The second will be slightly delayed though due to me needing my Central Park Hoodie; that shouldn't take too much longer now that I've decided to get rid of the hood in favour of a collar.

While I'm knitting the 2x2 rib on that I might watch a couple of Craftsy's free courses.   I've already watched Sewing Machine 911 which was really useful.

The next 2 free Craftsy mini-courses I'm going to take are:
1. Short Rows which should be handy for all sorts of things, at the moment I have to look it up each time I want to use short rows, being a visual learner I think the course will help immensely on this.
2. Know Your Wool , yes I have lots of books on this, but I think it'll be very interesting to actually hear about them while I'm knitting.

Check out all of the other free Craftsy mini-courses by clicking here.  There are quilting, cake and knitting ones that I know of and probably others too.   The interaction on these isn't with the tutors, but other students instead which is I think a wonderful thing.

Anyway, I'll leave you with a photo of Star as she was while I was working hard on painting the house

It is so hard to photograph a black cat properly!