Unlike the turd below :-(

And onto the apology. I really want to make art quilts, I want to lock myself into my sewing room and CREATE. But this wool is calling me, the knitting wont let me go. I'm starting to get worried that the urge to quilt has left me for good :-(. Should I resign from the Artful Quilters Webring until the muse returns? And to make matters worse, I have this bloody King Sized wedding quilt to finish... I hate hate hate it. So boring (blue and white Jacobs ladder, blah) and I'm worried that the blue fabric will run into the white fabric in the first wash and all that work will be wasted. I'm such a whiner, I should get over myself. (Monica, if you read this, take it with a grain of salt)

This is going to be hellish to spin as it is badly felted, I dyed it twice, and didn't treat it as well as I should have. It does improve though when I tear it into thin strips.

Beautiful soft merino tops dyed by me and the microvave. I used landscape dyes which I mixed to get the colours of my choice. This is going to be a dream to spin.

L-R: Two Ply, Navajo Ply and for reference, one of the my first attempts at spinning merino, clearly not enough twist... that's something I've been working on.

I tried dyeing some wool yesterday with some fibre reactive dyes (Procion), but I mustn't have used enough vinegar as a most promising orange and green mix ended up a washed out yellow and pale green :-( I'm going to overdye. In fact I was going to do it tonight, but I've been watching a DVD of an old (1967) TV show called The Prisoner. I'd never heard of it before, but I've been sucked in good and proper (thanks Frank!).

Knit from my hand dyed, hand spun merino wool I knit this on 3.75mm circs, then dpns towards the end. First time using dpns and I have to report that they sucked, especially towards the end.

Riscy and I have decided to accept the Eat Local challenge. It is mid winter here, so I think we will need to be fairly creative this August :-) My definition of local is Gippsland and the Greater Melbourne area. My personal committment to this challenge is that I will try to source everything from a local producer, if I can't establish if an item is local, I will either go without or buy the item from small, local family owned businesses. Ok, being realistic here: Our goal is to eat greater than 80% local foods. There are some things which aren't grown locally like Tea and Coffee and perhaps some things I will have to assume is local, like milk. Why am I doing this? I hate that animals are battery farmed. Until recently, we had a little double standard going, we'd buy free range eggs, but ignored the source of our chicken meat. Then I was startled to find out that even the red meat we buy from the supermarket is most probably battery grown. It makes my stomach heave just thinking about it. How did I become so dissassociated from my food that I would ignore my own participation in something I am totally opposed to. It is just plain laziness. This August I commmit to THINKING about the source of my food and ACTING on this committment by eating local. Our farmers market is only once a month, so on Monday morning I will contact the market coordinator so I can find growers in my area. Mary from Knitting Notes posted some lovely buttons for this challenge and also mentioned a book which I totally enjoyed called Prodigal Summer by Barbera Kingsolver. One of the characters has really stuck with me as she refused to plant the monocrop of her area (tobacco) and made her own way as a primary producer (goats). This story tapped into my old university escape fantasy of becoming a goat farmer and cheese producer. LOL not lottery win dreams for me back then!