I've been a slacko blogger, you know how it is when you get back from a holiday... the routine is shot to bits. I've been tinkering away with stuff though. We picked up a frame (with mat) from IKEA a few weeks ago and I whipped up a bit of 'wall filler' art with some of that muslin I dyed before I went to Fiji:

Yesterday I was in Bairnsdale (again!) for work and dropped into a shop called Locally Made Arts and Crafts (or something like that), it was a wonderful little shop with items ranging from glassware, to wooden toys, knitted and felted apparel and fleece. This is what I came home with, as well as a little packed of multicoloured merino silk blended top:

I have also started a feather and fan variation scarf... no photos yet :-) We are just about to move this blog from to an external server (Riscy is sick of my traffic interferring with his internet game playing). The address will stay the same, so I hope things don't disappear on me.

Penelope Dullaghan has set a list of goals on her blog today. She did the same thing some time ago and is amazed that lots of those things have come to fruition. Hmmmm. I'm gonna try it myself :-) What I would like to accomplish in the second half of 2005: Traditional Quilting # Work on the KS bed quilt every week to get it done before Chelsea' wedding. # Get the binding on that Triple Irish Chain quilt and start using it. Spinning and Knitting #Knit a jumper (sweater) from hand spun, hand dyed wool. Bags # Finish the bag I promised Diane # Make 3 knitting bags, 3 hand bags, and 5 knitting needle holders for the baazar at TFF Geelong in September. Art #Make a large wall peice for the dining room. #Continue to use my art journal. Health and Fitness #I want to be able to run continuously for 30 minutes. I have a plan to accomplish this and a suitable reward thought out :-) #Drink Water House #Work on the garden 5 minutes every day #Keep up with dishes and clothes

Fiji was great. Way different to what I imagined, the islands are really mountainous and craggy and not jungled as I imagined, mainly grassed or low bush. It was quite luxurious as we even had access to composting toilets and limited running water for bathing on most nights ;-) When we were in the Whitsundays we went 6 days without a shower and had mostly very full 'hole in the ground' loos. The paddling was pretty easy. The longest day was 21km and with virtully no hassles with currents or tides it was a breeze for me and Riscy in our double kayak. Snorkeling was very very good. The water was so warm you could swim all day if you could put up with getting wrinkled skin :-) The big attraction to snorkeling there was the coral would drop off into these huge deep chasms and fissures which provided lots of opportunity for diving down and getting views up under ledges. Riscy liked to go through underground arches, but I had to veto one particulary trecherous looking one, as I knew I wouldn't be able to rescue him if he got caught down there. Two nights we stayed in a village on the island of Tevewa, I wasn't totally comfortable with being there, but most everyone else loved interacting with the villagers as they got on with their everyday lives. The little kids were great. We didn't really see the school aged kids as they go to boarding school on the other side of the island during the week. We participated in a kava ceremony. My impression of it is that it is a mild aneasthetic (like a throat lozenge) which tastes a bit like varnishy dirty water. We stayed two nights on an uninhabited island. The hermit crabs reigned free, there were millions of them, the ground seethed with them. Can you imagine the sound of a million hermit crabs chowing down on a carpet of leaves and palm fronds? that's what it was like, very hitchcockian. We also had some resident goats. They are let loose, to breed and roam then herded up and taken to the main island for the indian population to eat. They cause some major soil erosion though. For those who are interested in Geography, we paddled in the northern Yasawas which is a chain of islands north west of the main island. To get there we caught a catamaran called the Yasawa Flyier which stops at the many many resorts and backpacker beaches in the Yasawas. Our last day in Fiji we visited the most amazing garden near Nadi (prounouned Nandi) called the Garden of the Sleeping Giants, the most beautiful garden I've ever seen. A wonderful collection of orchids, palms and ferns. It was pretty sad to come back to my own neglected garden :-( Photos will follow later. Cheers

Well it's two sleeps really if you count our overnight flight (will I sleep??) Excitement is reaching fever pitch, I've got two weeks off work (Yay!!) and I'm not packed for Fiji, not one bit, but I've got all tommorow morning to get organised. I'll be packing a heap of these though:

I dyed 4 tshirts especially for our kayaking trip :-) I'll be totally cool on the high seas! Earlier this week I finished this scarf, knitted from my hand dyed, handspun yarn :-)

I'll be back in the blogging saddle on Monday 20 June. So see ya then.

Thought I'd show you a recent spinning effort.

It turned out way prettier than I thought it would. I don't think it'll knit up as yummy as it looks in the skein. Actually, that's nearly always the way for me. I love the swirl of colours of my skeined yarns, but I know its gonna knit stripey, not as nice :-(

First let me start by saying that Muslin has a different meaning in Australia than it does in the US, and some other cloths and sewing things have different names too: Aust. = US Muslin = ? (Gauze?) Calico = Muslin Homespun = Broadcloth? (economical, plain evenweave fabric I dye and use in all my quilts) Wadding = Batting Having never been to the US and not knowing any americans or canadians personally, I could have these wrong... I've picked it up from learning quilting from the internet :-) Here is some muslin I dyed on the weekend. Its so light and airy and crinkly and soft and bright... I love Muslin.

I bought 2 metres of this fabric a few weekends ago when I had a bee in my bonnet to try nuno felting. I've lost interest a bit in the nuno felting now, I want to use the soft, light properties of the muslin as it is. It'll have to wait 'til I get back from Fiji though ;-).

We dropped into Chadstone yesterday, I nearly bought a set of crockery, but really, we should spend our money on getting some chairs for our dining table.... I hate being rational. I then ummed and ahhhhed over the purchase of a new mobile phone. Didn't get one in the end. Ventured into Borders. Mmmmm Knitting. I couldn't resist:

I took A gathering of Lace into work and sneaked peeks at it all day :-0 It's a lovely book, I'd have to commit to a major spinning and knitting extravaganza, so maybe I'll put it off 'til later in the year as I'd like to attempt a jumper (sweater) first.