This is the colourway I have been spinning up for the show.  It is dyed by Treetops Colours out of Western Australia and the fibre is so soft and fine.  I had purchsed the wool to used for felting, but with the show looming, I grabbed it and started spinning.  Although this stuff doesn't need it, I have been predrafing this fibre in an attempt to get a really even yarn.

Last night we played our third game of touch footy for the season.  I made a try... my first try for two seasons.   This is my third season of touch footy, and it is the first team sport I've ever competed in, so I suppose I'm not programmed to read play and anticipate where I should go to maximise my chances of getting the ball at the right moment.  I sort of see myself as being good at wing defence, I understand what I have to do and I do it well.  I love it when the other team thinks they can target me out on the edge, but they can't get by me (most times) :-)

Madras colourway from Treetops Colours

Last year I was so enthusiastic about entering my spinning and knitting into the local agricultural show, I even spent many weeks at Spinners and Handweavers trying to convince them all to enter as well. 

This week I was shamed to realise that I have nothing to enter this year and the show is next weekend.  So on Friday, in a weird fit of optimism, I trotted down to the showground and filled in the entry form for knited garment made from handspun wool and a skein a handspun wool.   They have to be delivered at the showground by Wednesday night.

I suppose it was not only optimistic, but foolhardy, since I had a thought of entering a knitted beanie, and I had a thought that it would be a colour work beanie, and I have never knitted with two colours before, and I didn't have a pattern so I had to design the beanie as well.I determined on Friday Night that I am capable of dealing with two strands of yarn at a time, a comforting thought given my aim. And I discovered that designing the colourwork pattern in excel is a billion times faster and better than doing it on graph paper.  I used the Bea Ellis hats and Hello Yarn's Pirate Hat as inspiration, but pretty much nutted it out for my self.  I especially like the striped top.

Saturday was taken up with Kayaking, but today, with the help of the Cricket on the telly, I sat on my bum and knitted.  I knitted until my ribs hurt (I think I hunch over or something), I knit until my hands hurt and I knit until I finished!!

The hat is sized for a small baby ... well I think it is... the last small baby I held was my sister and she is about to turn 14.  So the size thing is a guess.  If it is too small, I'll call it a doll hat and be done with it.  I dyed the orange yarn and spun both yarns.  The white yarn is from the skein that one the prize at last year's show :-) 

The next two evenings will be taken up with spinning.  I want a new skein to enter as well. 

First attempt at two colour knitting.

Oh yeah.  Our first paddle of the summer :-)  As you can see from the photo it was glassy calm, which isn't totally fun, but given that we haven't outfitted ourselves with spray decks yet and one of our paddles was very cruddy (borrowed), I couldn't have asked for better.

We paddled up one side of Raymond Island near Paynesville.  There were hundreds of black swans floating all over the place.  They take flight very easily and we set them off a couple of times.  The sound of hundreds of enormous birds trying to take off is bloody amazing - like a deep thwacking applause.  Their wings are actually generously tipped with white.  There were a couple of pelicans soaring ahead and we caught sight jumping fish on occasion.  In other words it was a great start to our Summer of Paddling.  

We are now pretty good at getting the kayak on and off the x-trail.  A great relief since I am no where near tall enough to lift it off normally, but with the help of a wheel step I've got it covered.

Over the next couple of weeks we should be organised and outfitted enough to go away for some overnight trips.  I am thinking that Snake Island should be our first trip.

First Kayak of the summer

I've probably lost most of my spinning readers since I have been largely silent on the spinning front for well over 6 months now.  A combination of 1) I haven't been spinning much and 2)  when I have been spinning it has been plain old white yarn for my jumper.

So.  On Wednesday I borrowed a drum carder from my spinners and handweavers club.  I had visions of me being able to process huge quantities of fleece in one night so I can just concentrate on spinning spinning spinning!  Well I don't know if it is just me, my technique, the wool or the carder, but I really hate the batts I have produced.  They take ages to produce and then end up on the slubby side anyway.

Compared to my lovely hand carded rolags this is a real let down.  I also think I can card my fleece faster using hand cards too. 

Anyway, I thought I try out some blending on the drum carder and grabbed some old merino tops and mohair clumps and roughly carded a batt up. I put it trough twice, so it wasn't really blended.  The above little skein is the result.  It actually looks better in the photo than real life.  I quite like the colours, I'm sort of bummed that I have run out of the greeny merino and this is all I will ever produce of this 'colourway'.  There is only 45m of yarn here, so it is pretty much unusable.

I've wound up the endless white yarn into balls so I'm now ready to embark on the sleeves of my jumper.   Now I've just got to find my copy of Knitting without tears so I can workout how to knit them!

Brown and yellowy green merino 'blended' with bits of orange and red mohair