A selfish knitter.

Is exactly how I describe myself! It doesn't sound good at all, does it?

I was chatting with some very good friends of ours on the weekend about starting small businesses, particularly online businesses. I have harboured a long-term goal for myself that eventually I would be well-practiced enough to be able to spin and dye yarns that are appropriate to be sold. The fact that I have one small child and one on the way hasn't interrupted this idea too much, it's mostly a thought that I will spend the best part of the next five to ten years building my skills and buying better equipment so that I will be able to devote enough time to this harebrained scheme and have it pay off as a legitimate career venture.

I've always felt very strongly that if you do something that you love as a career, you will never view it as 'work', or as something that you 'have to do'. However, this idea had a bit of a shake up on the weekend when Pete suggested that I could knit and sell the knitted items, particularly babies and children's clothes.

I thought about that and found that I just had to respond, saying "No, I don't think I could at this stage". I don't knit super-fast right now, and don't have huge, huge tracts of knit-time and so as I said to Pete, "When would I knit for me?" ('me' meaning me, my family and close friends - I'm not that selfish!).

And so, as much as I'm really looking forward to unleashing my peculiar talents on the world (and expecting them to pay, of course!)... for now, I'm incredibly grateful for any time I get to craft for me and my loved ones. Every stitch is an effort, a step towards a completed project (whether a jumper or a washcloth) that says "I made this for you".

Even if that 'you' is really 'me'.

Happy Birthday, Dear Petey...

Before I go on to tell of my fibre-washing exploits today, I must send a quick shout out to my darling husband for his birthday. We're pretty sure it's his 33rd, but you couldn't look at that face and not tell me he doesn't look a day over 21? Of course not.

And so, here's to the guy who laughs at my ridiculous jokes, fears my dancing (both tap and orangutan dancing. I'm proficient at both.), tolerates my knitting and spinning... and most of all, loves me to bits.

Here he is, in all his husband-y glory. Let us all bask awhile.

Love you, honey!

And now, having lauded Pete for having a birthday today, I shall get on with the fibre-related content of this post.

I just updated my Facebook status with the following:

"Jennifer is washing her precious skein of handspun and hoping to God it doesn't felt."

Can I get an 'Amen' from any other spinners out there? I have been absolutely terrified with the mere thought of subjecting my yarn to water of any variety, let alone stinking hot water. I go into the laundry every ten minutes or so, just to check on the bucket, but I'm frightened to get too close, lest I breathe on the water in the wrong way, resulting in a wonderfully felted wreath.

I researched this step online for quite some time today, never quite finding a site with information I felt wholly comfortable about. I've read that I should have washed the fleece before spinning, that I should let the yarn soak in water of 70+ degrees Celsius and a cupful of dish detergent, then let it sit in barely body temperature water to rinse. I read I should plunge and beat the yarn with a potato masher (!) in very hot water, then rinse in cold.

I mean, I'm sure the person who wrote that last one knows what they're talking about but that scared the crap out of me. Tell me that's not an recipe for instant felting, go on... Can't do it? No, neither could I.

So as you can imagine, I was very pleasantly surprised (not to mention extremely relieved!) to see that the whole process seems to have worked! Here's the photographic evidence...These shots are of us going through the wash and rinse. Do note that for me, that first photo was totally brown-trousers time.

I have to say, I wasn't prepared for just how much dirt was going to come out of the yarn, I really wasn't. That mucky bucket photo was taken only five minutes after the yarn was submerged, and I'm certain that although the yarn looks and smells quite reasonable now, if I were to rewash the yarn it would probably make quite dirty water again.
It's turned out really quite nicely, the fibres are light and have fluffed up a little to make an attractive yarn. Now that the grease is out, I can see where I have underspun the ply (a fair bit in some places), but that's something that I can learn from and keep practicing as I go. I'm filling another bobbin as we speak (not literally - that would be fibre-talent to shout about - blogging and spinning at the same time!)...

Now that I've already found a pattern for the hat I want to make with this yarn, the big question is: do I do a rewash to be thorough, or do I get on and start swatching this stuff and working out gauge for the hat?

Serendipity

I love that word, don't you?

Yesterday, I listened to Brenda Dayne's most recent episode of 'Cast On', entitled "Heads Up", and spoke about working hard to make herself finish knitting the Modern Quilt Wrap, designed by Mags Kandis. She described it as a project that she was finding hard to get back into, until she took it with her to complete on train trips to and from Cardiff one day. Then, she says, she got her 'knitting mojo back', and found it just flying off the needles.

She went on from there to discuss planning a journey somewhere not too far away, but somewhere you'd always wanted to go but had never got around to. Take public transport (let someone else do the driving), pack a lunch, and bring a specific project for the journey. Luverly.

Back to today. Not that this journey was specifically planned for my knitting, but I happen to find the coincidence, the parallels between Brenda's story and my day to be quite serendipitous.

I spent today at one of the major hospitals in Sydney, (I'm fine, no need to worry!) keeping Pete company as he had to have a biopsy today (again, no need to panic - quite a routine procedure) and this is an all day event. First, we are up at 4.00AM in order to get to Sydney in time for Pete to have blood tests first thing in the morning, then a spot of breakfast before an ultrasound and biopsy.

Then comes the fun part. The poor bugger then has to lie flat on his back for four hours, with a heavy sandbag weight on the biopsy site to prevent any bleeding. It's not much fun for Pete, and I hope my being there was at most, helpful and at least, not too irritating.

I used this opportunity to make a real go on the Hearts and Stars baby blanket for my good friend Ali. I have to say, I was terribly proud of my progress - eighteen rows done in one day! That might not sound like much, but for me when there's a pattern of knit, purl and moss stitches to keep track of and the rows are reasonably long (for me, anyway!), that feels like a bit of an achievement.

Such was my project for the journey. It shook it up a bit for me, gave me some great progress and inspiration (read: kick up the bum) to really really push to the end. I can't wait to see it blocked.

Plus, it won't be long before I'll be giving it to Ali and a very special little girl.

Baby Ava Rose was born in the early hours of this morning. How's that for serendipity?

Days of Love and Pikelets

Ah, Valentine's Day. The day that florists and card companies look forward to more than any other in the year.

Pete and I don't 'do' Valentine's Day, apart from cards, and we like it that way. I prefer cards actually cause I can keep them. Flowers die and chocolate gets eaten, but I keep cards.

I have chosen to mark today in all it's pink and perfume-scented glory by making pikelets. Half are plain, for raspberry jam, and the other half have blueberries stirred through. Why? Just felt like it. That's why I cook most things.
I do have something of a heart-motif to show y'all today though - I have finished the first row of stars and hearts in the aptly named "Hearts and Stars Blanket". So far, so good, I have to say. The pattern is engaging and not boring, while also not being challenging enough to drop the whole thing off a tall building. I seem to be motoring along on it quite well and I'm also pretty pleased to see that this row has taken two balls of yarn (Shepherd 'Colour 4 Me' 50g balls) to complete, so I feel I'm pretty well on track for gauge and yarn usage. Niiiiice.I'm *hoping* to have this completed and ready to give by the end of March, but I'm also trying to be realistic. my problem, as with all blankets knit on circular needles, is the time it takes me to complete each row. So, if there's something even remotely interesting on TV at night, sometimes I'm lucky to get just one row done. Ouch. Must try harder.

Ooh - good news - I just checked my account at "Jolly Jumbuck", to find that the lovely people there have shipped my 4ply! Hooray! So I am expecting this gorgeous bundle:...to be arriving in my letterbox early next week. That'll make the ol' Monday/Tuesday combination a little more tolerable! It's a Hand Maiden 'Casbah' sock yarn, 80% Superwash Merino, 10% Cashmere, 10% Nylon and has THE most beautiful name for the colourway. It's called "Paris", and they just got it so right. I think that's why I liked it so much straight away. I actually found the yarn first , and then went searching on Ravelry for a pattern I could use it in. I don't really want to use it for socks, mostly cause of the cashmere (I don't want to wear holes in it!!) but also because I love love love the colours so very much, I want it to be a garment that will really show them off.

So, in the spirit of the upcoming Aussie autumn and winter, I plan on knitting it into a lace scarf called "Branching Out", by Susan Lawrence. It's free pattern featured in Knitty Spring 05. I can't wait to see it teamed against my black coat, or with several three-quarter sleeve tops I have, in either blue, black, pink, teal or even brown. I am so looking forward to this glorious really, truly Hand Maiden deliciousness being in my hot little hands that I'm just a little worried for the current projects...

I get it right, on occasion

I have to type quickly, as our new kitten, Luna (as in 'Lovegood', for all the Harry Potter-philes out there) is insisting on helping me here.

Today is Pete's and my fifth wedding anniversary, which to people who have been married twenty-plus years I'm sure is a mere blip in the greater scheme of things. However for us, it's a bit of a big deal, especially since this year is also the tenth anniversary of our first meeting.

And so, in the spirit of that sentiment, I splurged a little on Pete, treating him to a voucher to race a real, live V8 racecar at Eastern Creek raceway! It was lovely to see him so excited when he first looked it over, thinking it was a ride in a V8, a 'hot lap', till I said "You do know, they're gonna let you drive the thing, don't you?"

I'd fully explain his response, but since most of it involved the repeated use of the word "Bullsh!t", I feel that everyone would already get the general idea of his surprise and happiness... the V8RACE Experience website is here, for those interested in seeing how much I love my husband!

I love surprising him and making a big deal of special events and gifts, and I especially love his reactions when I put these things together.

In return, Pete is taking me to Sydney next weekend for a lovely overnight stay and dinner on a Harbour Cruise, which will be divine. I love being able to relax on a boat, and Sydney Harbour would have to be the ultimate place for it - beautiful at all times day and night.

In knitting-related news, I am waiting desperately for the Baby Sleeping bag to dry after I wet-blocked it this morning... Since it's cream and I've been knitting it so long, I really felt that a) it definitely needed a bath in a nice woolwash before giving it away (it's lovely and soft and smells of eucalyptus now), and that b) I should block it properly before attempting to sew in the zipper.

The downside of all this careful thought and planning is that now I'm desperate for the damn thing to dry so I can sew in the zip, as the baby shower for this particular expectant mum is tomorrow at 2pm. In Sydney. Where I will be attempting to drive all on my own (I'm not the most confident driver, and this is my first trip to Sydney alone).

I don't need this kind of stress!

I want it yesterday!

I'm an impatient person. Combine this with the fact that I fall in love easily, and I fall hard - well, I can suffer tremendously from a dangerous affliction, usually seen in Western society; I want it all, and I want it now. I think the technical term is "consumerism", but here's the thing - I don't want merely to have these things (actually, not just material posessions; it's experiences and ways of being, too) for a temporary time, merely to dispose of them when they are no longer as fashionable - crikey, I don't do fashion in any sense of the word - I usually want these things because they are a piece of the life I want to be leading, or the person I want to be.

I see the handspun yarns advertised in 'Creative Knitting'; they're so beautiful, absolutely delicious-looking, but if you were to ask me, I couldn't even tell you immediately what I'd knit from this skein of $35 luxury cashmere or four-ply. But I'll see it, see the time, and skill, and patience that went into spinning and dyeing it, and that's what I want. Instantly.

I see the yarns that Stephanie Pearl-McPhee describes knitting with, and I feel 'desperate' to have them, to knit as she's knitting - I want to be able to make and own something as beautiful as that. But time and money are, as always, issues for us all. And if I were to own it, right now? It would either join the queue in the stash cupboard, or it would bump another project back in the line.

I am currently planning a vegetable garden. My aim is for my family to be a little more self-sufficient, and I want for us to be eating better produce, whose origin I can be certain of. I even went so far as to actually plan, then revise and plan again so I wouldn't go off half-cocked (like so many half-built IKEA purchases squirreled in cupboards around our house - but that's not for here). I researched. I called different landscape garden suppliers. I read books and internet articles. I talked it through with my Mum. I ordered heirloom seeds from the huge, huge range available from The Digger's Club at their exceptional prices, instead of more expensive seedlings from the limited range at some nurseries. I reduced costs (and built enviro-cred) by finding old pine posts and concrete pavers at Mum and Dad's to recycle for garden edging.

And yet, just as I am on the cusp of putting the whole lot together, while I am still on school holidays and so have time available to do this... Money has become an issue. Plus, I'm inconveniencing Pete and Wonderboy for at least a couple of days, having to drag them around and force participation (we need to borrow a trailer to pick up aforementioned posts, pavers and some hay and lucerne bales, plus a trailer load of garden mix - heavy lifting is smarter done in teams!).

I just feel like I get so close to achieving a goal, to find it's just beyond my reach, or totally swept out from under me. I do enjoy and totally love the process of creating the garment, the yarn, or the garden, but something inside me has set off a wee alarm clock - much like a biological clock, but this one's telling me I'm going to run out of time to achieve all the things I want to do, learn, see and experience. Excellence in spinning and dyeing? Tick-tock. Speed, accuracy and creativity in knitting? Tick-tock. Improving and maintaining our home and garden?

Time's running out, and Money is covering Time's back as he makes his getaway in a stolen car.


And then I read back over all that, and realise what a selfish being I can be. I have a beautiful son who, admittedly, allows me to fit some knitting, spinning and gardening into his busy schedule. I have a wonderful husband who tolerates m going on and on and on about these same subjects. I live in a nice home, and have a garden to work in and improve. I have my health, my eyesight and full use of limbs.

I'm doing pretty damn well, and push myself to think some Pollyanna thoughts (glad thoughts, or thanks-giving, I suppose). I think of people out there who are grateful just to be able to procure some seeds and a meagre patch of dirt with which to grow vegetables - and these may be all their family have to live on. People who would and could knit twine on a couple of bush sticks, had arthritis not taken their once dexterous hands.

This will hopefully serve to remind me of how lucky I am to be who and where I am. Things that come to us without effort sometimes weren't worth having in the first place.