Well this can't be good - a fortnight of silence from me - sorry guys. Busy doing random stuff.

Most of it has been fairly ho hum usual round of business, and some has been fun. For example, I finished cleaning the bank the other day and noticed that the RSL had taken to serving evening meals. In the interests of supporting local business (of course) I popped in and it turned out to be burger night. There was me and the two kitchen staff, so clearly not a roaring trade but I have to say the food is delicious - the chips are superb!

What you are looking at is a layer of egg (beautifully cooked with a runny middle), a layer of melted cheese, some well cooked steak and then various layers of beetroot, tomato, lettuce etc - very nice indeed and strangely without the after-effects of indigestion that such a meal might usually inspire.

I have taken delivery of various loads of firewood, most of which are now stacked and the remainder sufficiently out of the way not to be too concerned about doing that. Add to this that one of those unstacked piles is covered in lichen and I have the perfect excuse for not doing so.

Non-spinners will not, perhaps realise that lichen provides dyes. The main sort here will probably produce a deep magenta purple or shades thereof. There are two other varieties on the logs that I have yet to identify but I am scraping them off and storing them in various paper bags pending the day when I get to play with them. I will need quite a few paper bags for the main lichen!

Also on the spinning and knitting front I have produced various things - the gottland spun up nicely and once washed was a nice white base with grey and black strands in it.

I also rediscovered the little cigar of cotton that was given me by the Guild member who visited our group. While it is scarcely a work of art, I am pleased to say I managed to create a continuous yarn - which is apparently quite a challenge.

I also completed two hats for the Show - a beanie with a fair isle panel and a tam 'o' shanter that is presently being blocked in the shed. Don't panic when you look at the photo - I have since discovered the best way to block them is with a dinner plate inside, and that is how it is presently completing the drying process.

Two more art yarns complete the works to date - one is like a dark and stormy night. I discovered angelina (which is basically fine tinsel without the string) and blended that roughly by hand with torn up staples of black wool, then plyed it with a fine bronze glittery thread.

You can't see much glitter and it is out of focus as the breeze was blowing today, but it basically looks like a dark and stormy night with stars.

The other, yet to be felted, is thick and thin yarn in red, plyed with a limey yellow glittery thread from the Guild Shop (yes, I have joined).

Monday - a day of leisure usually but once a month the History Room has a meeting, so I trotted off to that. The person who tried to take over my Tuesday afternoons has never forgiven me for doing so, so for the last several meetings has been coming up with things I can do. First they asked for a 'kitchen in a cupboard' - I scotched that by drawing attention to the intrusion into the display area and the need to move plumbing and electricity, so at the last meeting was asked to draw up plans for an alternative. This was duly done and today we were discussing it, when she piped up and suggested there was no need to be change the existing arrangements (my original line). So I agreed that this was an excellent idea and suggested that instead, we get a plumber to sort out the taps and perhaps since she knew one, she could obtain a quote.

I plyed the dyed yarn and finished off the art yarn this evening before heading back to clean the bank.

When you are limited to a 50 gm skein you don't get much art yarn for your money. And I am not terribly happy with the way the buttons hang away from the yarn. This is actually 52 gm, and will weigh more once i add the ties, so I will phone up and check if that is critical.

The chain plyed dyed yarn looks a bit better and I love the way the colours have come together.

Tomorrow I will spin some Gottland fleece up for my 'skein of natural wool - 50gm' entry. I will spin from the fold to counteract the strength of the fleece, though to be frank, it seems pretty soft to me as it is. Time will tell.

And the blind in the loungeroom fell off again as I was lowering it today - so I am presently screened by a large blue flannelette sheet.

It was the monthly get together of our spinning group today. Georgina was not able to attend, but Dot did instead. She is very much an old-school spinner - fleece or nothing for her and she finds our various bits of fluff interesting but not something she would use. She is the founder of the group but rarely puts in an appearance. This morning she tried to convince us to move out of the small warm room into the large cold drafty room (with poorer light) but we ganged up on her and refused to move. There was talk of alternate venues and again she tried to persuade us to stay, but again we ganged up on her. So she left early and the three of us remaining had a lovely chat and spin.

I worked on the dyed tops I made and have now spun them and plyed them (chain plyed) and as far as I can see on the bobbin, looking rather nice. Some problems with spin from time to time, but I should be able to extract 50g that looks respectable. Once I have it in a skein I will take a photo. The chain plying allows the individual colours to be seen (which get masked when you do normal plying as a result of different colours coinciding), as you will be able to tell once I have skeined it.

Tomorrow will be nine degrees so my term at the History Room will be a punishment as it will also be overcast and raining. I will dig out some more thermals I think.

Bit of rain this afternoon but nothing like they forecast so I assume it will arrive overnight.

A nice sunny day once the fog cleared, somewhat belatedly. I stacked some more firewood, did some spinning and rummaged for garniture for the Art Yarn. Successfully as it turns out.

I do love a rummage in the button boxes - some lovely buttons in there, for all I don't use them terribly often. This box comes from Dad's side of the family and contains buttons going back several generations. Including the minute square and circular ones I found that presumably once adorned the breast of a lawn shirtwaist back in the day.

The silver disc is a plastic one dollar gaming chip souvenir from the opening of Wrest Point Casino which our family attended in full regalia. I would draw your attention to the almost transparent button in the lower left - a thing of beauty!

 Between the button box and my bead collection I have more than sufficient to embellish the Art Yarn In the top right are the white tiny buttons, there is a string of tiny white 'pearls', beads sequins (including some antique gold metal ones, and a few more mundane buttons also. The grey yarn is a silk yarn which resists breaking when I don leather gloves and try to tear it apart, so should be sturdy enough for the task.


This is the 'tops' I dyed. I decided against trying to overdye the supposed-to-be-red bits and have instead drawn on the red tops I have been playing with so far. I am just careful to introduce them at points where the fibre is transitioning to red. I have pulled the fibre apart by colour group and am spinning it in strips of colour. I will then chain ply it for the entry at the Show.

So apart from bank cleaning, typing up a letter for the Railway committee and delivering it to the Treasurer, stacking more wood, and preparing for two days of rain, I have not actually achieved terribly much at all!

A very slow day in the History Room today, but of course a rush of visitors at 3:30 - grrr. Including one chap who settled down to do some research without so much as a by your leave who announced he was a regular user (and therefore should know our hours of opening!!!). Got rid of him at four nevertheless as I started packing up the car which reminded him to check what time we closed.

I did, however successfully spin a bobbin of Art Yarn - despite major challenges with the size of the orifice which will only increase when it comes time to ply. As a consequence, much of it is wildly overspun, so I will need to up-ply the silk to prevent it coming unstuck as I ply the two together. I am rather pleased with the result though the photo shows little of its promise.

My little bags of inserts came in handy and there is heaps of variety along the length with some tinsel thread for glitter as well. I have just been rummaging in my bead collection and found a few bugle beads that may survive a journey through the orifice that I can thread onto some sewing cotton or similar. I used to have some glitter thread but suspect I passed it on as I had nothing to use it for at the time. I will rummage.

Another chilly day today so I mucked around with dyes. As you know i am aiming for an Art Yarn for the Campbell Town Show and I am also entering in a couple of other classes - 50g skein of natural wool, 50g skein of tops, etc. So the dying was going toward that end.

The Art Yarn saga is ongoing as I ran out of the thread I was using to ply the red tops with. I am fairly pleased with the result - it looks a bit like lava, but the Lucky Ewe is not open this week so I will have to defer doing the rest of that till she gets back from Launceston.

 It's not terribly adventurous but I have plyed with one strand wrapping around the other (and then vice versa) and added the occasional knop for interest.

The next effort will involve a lumpy woollen spun yarn constructed from the remaining Ryeland and with some of the blue/purple/brown variable dye corriedale I used in the scarf.
This will be plyed with silk and possibly also a moorit single that I felted.

 So think something lumpen like this:

 Plyed with silk thread dyed thus

And possibly this also (subject to changes of mind).


I am limited by the size of the orifice but can probably use some of the lumpen wool at right angles during plying from time to time for added interest.

I also had a go at dying a corriedale top with a view to spinning that fractally - the red was dampened a little too thoroughly by the yellow but I have gone back over it with more red to see what happens (though clearly will have to wash and reheat it at some point). The colourway is inspired by the medlar's autumn colours, and apart from the red, seems to be what I wanted.


The silk was spun, then made into a centre pull ball, soaked and placed on a piece of dowel to stop it collapsing while wet. I then patted it into a cube and, using a syringe, applied a different colour to each of the four faces - it seems to have worked to a certain extent and if I use the stronger coloured end should manage to achieve 50gm before i run out (there is 68 g in the silk all up and the other yarns will add weight too).

Silk takes up dye very well, so while I was syringing colour on at one side, clear water was coming out the other side. Unfortunately I ran out of courage before the colour penetrated all the way.

During the course of this work I nearly set fire to the microwave as the timber dowel got charred! Lesson learned - next time I will soak it in water before I get started!. I also melted the bottom out of a plastic pan that is supposedly microwave safe, but apparently not if it doesn't have water in it!

Yesterday was supposed to be 16. It got there, briefly. But it was overcast and cloudy and soon started down to the day we had today (brrrrr!). As a consequence I concentrated on indoor activities and cleared out another pantry cabinet. It takes a while as I need to ensure that things go in places where I can still access what I need. I moved the chest of drawers full of spinning stuff into the spare bedroom, the cabinet from the kitchen into the loungeroom (which has been rearranged to make space for the fridge and freezer when the time comes to move them) and the contents of the pantry into the cupboard (whose contents are now in the shed). The pantry cabinets are now minus their doors and the connectors are all removed bar one screw into the side wall (which is proving incooperative and since I have stripped the phillips head screwdriver head is staying where it is for the time being).

I will empty out the two cabinets attached to the second pantry cabinet tomorrow and moving some of the cupboards into the spare bedroom. I will also be dyeing the tops using the dyes I have to hand so I can spin a coloured top for the Show.

Today was the History Room and fortunately it was sunny as it was bitterly cold and would have been miserable if I had not had that sun. Two people and a visit from a local wanting me to type a letter for him and that was it for the day. I did get a bobbin of red single spun which will in due course form the base for an Art Yarn. I have two packs of baubles I bought at the Spin In and suspect I can find some other trinkets in the sewing room. I will have to watch some YouTube videos to see how they are constructed. I have ideas but not really a clue about how to go about it.