Holiday Fibres.

This evening, i went about painting myself some fibre to spin while I go on holiday with my family. Jordis, Ryan and I are going away to visit my folks for a week. It promises to be busy and relaxing at the same time. I may have somewhat ambitiously estimated how much spinning i should be able to get done, and i have dyed myself 200 grams. :D



Either way, i am looking forward to it! I am also taking two of my knitting projects. The Cabled feather cowl and a cardigan which I plan to do using the Cleckheaton Vintage Hues I got from Danielle. This last I am taking with me just in case i finish the rest! although i doubt i will. But who knows. My grandmother is a professional knitter, so I imagine we will spend allot of time together. I have not seen her since i started seriously knitting. I am looking forward to getting some professional advice from her, mainly on patterns.

So it is all very exciting! I hope i don't forget anything!

WOW DANIELLE

So, Danielle is closed down. :( Wool on Wheels is officially gone. It makes me very sad. There is now no-where in town to get wool. I know I have expressed a discontent towards my being unable to afford good quality wool. This in no way means that i do not appreciate it. Far from it. Without Wool on wheels, we will have to get our wool from the Internet and from wool markets. And although there is a wealth of great wool to be gotten this way, it is also not readily available, and there is no Danielle. I loved to go in an talk with Danielle even when i didn't have the money to buy anything, simply because she is a lovely lady with similar passions to myself. I already feel the loss of the store, as I am sure that allot of people do. But I wish Danielle all the best! And I also thank her so much for her service and her GENEROSITY! :D I hope you and David will be very happy!

Christmas

Well, my Christmas was something new.

I was making a shawl for my mother in law, but i failed to finish it in time, so they all had to settle for shortbread and peanut brittle from me.

I am nearly finished the shawl and i will probably give it to her for her birthday now.


I on the other hand was given 2 full Maxwell and Williams dinner sets. :/ so now i owe big time for next year.


I have finished spinning Rae's wool. I am pretty happy with how it turned out. the very dark green bit you see hanging out is the leader and tie. I really hoe she will be happy with it.



I ate far too much chocolate, drank far too much wine but had a blast all the same.

On a downer note, my sister's ex made her Christmas very unpleasant. My sister came all the way from Melbourne to see her daughters for Christmas, and he tried to blackmail her into staying at his house while she was hear by saying she wasn't going to see the girls unless she did. This is NOT fair. She had a friend with he rand she had told him so. He said her friend was not allowed to stay with them, so she refused to stay. fair enough. To use the children as a playing card in his sick games is twisted and it is abusive to the children and to Leah. He is filling their heads with lies, and right in front of Leah too! telling the girls that Leah has been lying and manipulating them and that she doesn't love them anymore and that is why she didn't want to stay at their house. It makes me so angry. :( I really hope Leah goes and sees a lawyer when she gets back to Melbourne so she can assure her rights to visit her daughters, and then Justin wont be able to black mail her any more.

I hope everyone elses christmas was as...colourful as mine! Cheers to wine and cheers to fruit mince pies and turkey!

Communism

I cannot express how distressed I feel at the very thought of this subject.

I feel compelled now to write about it because of a recent incident that i still feel the lingering effects of. For the sake of readability and gossip, i suppose before i go expressing my views on communism, i should firstly relate the events that have lead to this post; although I'm not sure how much i will be able to separate the two. I am hoping one will lead naturally into the other.

So i an researching Che Guevara for a school assignment, and i was on YouTube looking for a good documentary, as one of my favourite ways to study is to watch documentaries and knit. Naturally, it is only a beginning, but it gives me the gist and ideas for further study once i am in the mood to look into things more deeply.

Anyway, I came across a music video by a musician called Natalie Cardone. The song itself is not important, but rather, I made the stupid mistake of reading the comments on the video. There was, at the time an argument going on, in which someone was arguing the evils and immorality of communism and the sanctity of capitalism.

Now anyone who has ever had a politically fueled conversation with me will already be getting ready for what is to come. I am not an advocate of communism at all. But i am also a very ardent critic of capitalism and anyone who makes the very rash and ignorant statement of:-

"Innocent deaths attributable to capitalism: 0

Innocent deaths attributable to communism: 150,000,000+ (and counting)"

is certain to get an earful from me. I am of the opinion, that there have been few political and economical ideologies that have not been responsible, in practice for the death of many innocent people. And capitalism, is, by far, one of the worst. Countries who go to war for access to resources, or suppl;y the means for war to boost their economies, such as the united states, are a perfect example of this. That aside, if anyone cares to remember the cold war, how many innocent people were killed in the name of democracy, capitalism and 'freedom'?

At least the ideology behind communism was fairness, justice and equality, unlike capitalism, behind which the ideology was economy, competition and profit. I will give it to capitalism though - It really succeeded in reaching its goal, and even went so far as to render all other ideologies useless, because it is so ingrained in the minds of the people who live within the societies that there is little hope of change.

Communism clearly didn't achieve what it was intended to. I attribute this to too short of a capitalist period. it is written in the communist manifesto, as one of the only pieces of advice that Marx actually gives about how to bring communism about, that any society would need to undergo a period of democratic capitalism, through which the means of production, products and economy could be built to a sustainable level. I feel the inability to acknowledge this, or impatience had a significant effect on the outcome. It resulted in extremely controlled economy. rather than a shared wealth. It, in essence, wasn't communism at all, it was Leninism, and Stalinism and Maoism etc.

It seems however, that anytime i bring these points up with people, i automatically become a fascist and a Nazi and a supporter of genocide (how this conclusion is reached, is beyond me. See future posts on Fascism.). The overbearing ignorance of most people regarding these subjects wouldn't bother me half so much if they would refrain from arguing about it with me.

The fact of the matter is that i haven't even finished my high school education yet, and i STILL know more about communism than the average American (or Australian for that matter) which is extremely disconcerting.

EASY AS scone recipe

I love to bake and cook. I have worked in kitchens as my primary form of employment and have come across many wonderful recipes. Of all of the wonderfully delightful fun time and company snacks, nothing beats good scones, but if you are anything like me, no amount of experience has allowed for the making of a decent batch using the traditional methods. Traditionally, scones are made with cold butter (HAS to be cold or the scones will be greasy), plain flour, milk, baking soda, sugar, and salt. It is a precise and precarious process which involves practically having a PhD in chemistry and I hate it. But my love for scones led me to find a new method that produced superior scones with zero fuss. I found this method. 3 ingredients, no hastles.

EASY AS scones.

2 cups Self Raising Flour

2/3 cup thickened cream

2/3 cup of cold lemonade

1. Preheat the oven to 225 degrees Celsius

2. Mix lemonade and cream together.

3. Sift in flour and fold together (not too much or scones will be tough)

4. Turn out onto floured bench and give a light squish until all combined and pat out to about 2 cm thickness.

5. For cutting, you can use a scone cutter, or a knife. Flour you cutter/knife EVERY time you press it into the dough so that the edges don't get pushed down too much, as pressed down edges will prevent the scones from rising properly. I prefer to cut my scones into squares with a floured knife, as it uses all the dough in one hit. You should be able to get 9 regular sized scones or six large scones out of this mix.

6. Place the scones on a greased and floured baking tray. To aid in the rising, scones should be placed very close together. Cook for about 10-15 minutes. They should be lightly golden.

So there you go. Quick, easy, yummy scones for any occasion! Serve with jam and cream!

Experimenting with fibres

This is Rae. Rae is a Goddess.
Quite recently, she gifted me (yes, GIFTED me) with nearly 2 kilos of merino and alpaca roving. It is absolutely lovely stuff. Apparently her father had bought it, but hadn't used it all and so rather than having it sit there doing nothing, she thought she would indulge my new found curiosity in dying and spinning.

Now those of you who spin will know how much of a generous gift this was. Those who don't, well let me just say, that I am poor. And this gift has given me the opportunity to experiment with fibres on a level i would not have been able to afford otherwise. Oh and HAVE I been experimenting! So far i have dyed 3 lots of roving, one in berry colours, one in greens and blues, which i have spun, and another small amount in purple, which was an experiment for a large lot i am going to do for Rae as a thank you. Below you can see the ones i have done so far, in order from top to bottom. You can also see my ability improving with each one. :P


I LOVE dying roving. I LOVE it. I have seen many methods for dying roving, the most common being to paint the dye on and then wrap it and heat it. But i have found a method that i find positively delightful. It is far from precise, but is so exiting as you never really know what you will get. if you are pedantic about your dying then this method is not for you, but i love it.


Pot Dying Method as used by ERYN

1. Soak the roving in warm water and a fair amount of white vinegar for about half an hour, in the same saucepan you will be heating it in. The amount of vinegar is not important, except that the more you have, the better the dye will set. If you are going for a pastel look, less vinegar is better, if you want deep, rich colours, then more vinegar is better.

2. Prepare your dyes. I use Queens food dyes. They are completely edible and safe to use in your regular pots and pans and the colours are pretty good (the blue is a bit iffy and i am still working on getting it to be brilliant) plus i am poor and they are $1 a bottle.

Mix a quantity of dye (more for darker colours) in straight white vinegar to the quantity of dye you want. Eg, if you want 1 cup of dye, use one cup of vinegar and pour the colour into it and mix. You can mix colors, but be prepared for them to separate a little bit, especially the blue. For me though, this is part of the charm of this method.

3. Once your roving has finished soaking, pour off the excess vinegar and water so that there is just enough to cover the roving (reserve the water and vinegar and put it in your wash with your whites as the vinegar removes yellowness from white clothes). Put the pot on the stove on a LOW HEAT. You do not want the wool to boil too much as it will cause the roving to matt, making it difficult to draft.

4. Once the liquid is very hot, pour the dyes in.you can do this any way you want. The dyes will run together where they are touching and make new colours, so you should keep this in mind when you choose your colours and when you are pouring them in. The dyes will sink below the surface of the wool, and all is a mystery! What the dyes do under the surface, you will not know until it has finished! WONDERFUL! You can of course do this with a single colour, but you WILL get many different variations in the shade of the colour.

Cover and let it SIMMER for half an hour NOT BOIL. if it starts to get too hot and begins to boil, turn down the heat. To check if the dye has been absorbed, push a clear measuring cup into the pot and collect some of the liquid. if there is still colour in it, it needs a bit longer.

5. Once all the dye has been absorbed and the liquid is clear, you need to take it off the heat and let it sit until it is cold. This is the hard part! I get so impatient! but once it is cool, drain off the liquid and squeeze out the excess from the roving(you can use this in the wash too). Then, hang it up to dry. Done! It is at this point that you will get to see what the dyes have done. it is fascinating to see the way that the colours have all run together and blended. i think it is just WONDERFUL!


It really is a delight. I think this may be the beginning of a new obsession....

Surprise visitor.

So, lastnight, I had a surprise visitor.


His name is Guiseppi. He only stopped in for a shor visit whilest I was washing the dishes. It was somehwat amusing. I was washing up and he suddenly just appeared out of the ether and was attempting to climb the kitchen tiles. I wanted to take a picture of him, but realised my battery was flat, so I watched him attentitvely while i washed up and my battery charged. I then proceeded to harras the poor little blighter for a full 15 minutes taking photos of him and generally being amused by his arm flapping and odd rocking from side to side.
He was so tiny; not 2 cm long, that my camera had troubles focusing on him. i was using the super macro setting, so i had to get up close and Guiseppi thought it would be great fun to scare the living daylights out of me, by leaping from the bottle he had climbed attop to my camera lens. I tell you, you would have laughed at me. So anyway, i put him back and continued to harrass him further, until he thought itbest to climb the tomato sauce bottle and then to leave.

I thought it was very odd, that he seemed to be trying to get to the highest point possible, but it could just be me; either assuming that that is odd, or that was even what he was doing. but any which way you look at it, i do hope he had an adventure. It is true that Praying Mantis' are great creatures to have living in your garden, and although he is only a baby at the moment, i have high hopes that Guiseppi will live on and fruitfully multiply in my rose beds. and with bugs, we know that where there is one, there is sure to be more not too far off, so itis a comforting thought....all the tiny cannibalistic insects running around, eating he aphids off my boysenberries. It does bring leaps of joy to one's heart. Hopefully my cats can obstain from eating them, as its never a nice sight to see four, pink, speckled wings on the kitchen floor with no sign of the rest of guiseppi senior or the culprit responsible for his fall from grace.

here we pretty well see him heading for the hills. Bye Guiseppi!