July is Busting Out All Over

Hello!
Gosh- it's been so long since I posted- things have changed from the pre-published side of things.
I think I like them!
:)

So- how is everyone?
Not much new here at the moment- but soon RJB will be starting kindergarten!
Little did we know that at the tender age of 5, he is out of the loop already with school things!
We called the local kindy place at Moana and were promptly told he couldn't be there as he was too old! Children who are 5 go to first grade!
Now- for most children that may be OK- but we live rather unsocial ( for lack of a better word) lives so being among a bunch of strangers AND expected to know all about school and how it works ( being in first grade and all) seemed daunting to US let alone DS. He had even lately gone into hiding behind me when people spoke to him...much to my embarrassment. I mean- I didn't expect him to talk away,but did think he would be able to say HI or at least wave!
Ah well- how the tables have turned- we've got an interview with the Willunga Waldorf (Steiner) school this coming Tuesday (followed Wed. with a dental appt. for me- can anyone say 'suffering with nerves?'), then at some point they come for a home visit to chat, then he should get to start their Kindy program ( first year of Kindy is age 5 and three part days a week, age 6 is second year kindy where he goes all day...not sure how many days a week- I'll worry about that when we get to it......). They have a gentle approach it seems, and while I think he will be disappointed that he is not going to have a desk and all that- I am hoping he will enjoy getting the social skills that we were unable (or unwilling in the case of daycare) to offer him. PLUS he has now taken to wanting to go ( alone! "Mum/Mom- you stay here") visiting the neighbours. Thankfully the folks he goes to see are very kind and caring and don't mind at all that he comes to visit.....although I am sure if he visited like he wants ( every day all day) he'd wear out his welcome quickly.
These folks have places to go and things they do!
Anyway- trying to cut down the visiting to one house/person per day and only once a week per person! lol The odd part is how he much prefers to go alone! I will not lie and say it doesn't hurt my feelings. It does. But only because ( I think) it feels as though I've done something wrong that he doesn't want me around while he talks. Not sure what I've done to create it- if I have...
but while it's nice to have him out and being social and having a bit of time for myself- it does feel weird/odd. I figured I'd lose him to school before I'd lose him to friends! lol
So- I do intend to update things about school and all as it happens- or during.....
fingers crossed we can afford to keep him in the Waldorf system- all school costs 'something' here (as opposed to the USA where public school is free to attend), but this one is def. more expensive. But hey- what price can you place on FREEDOM!? -He doesn't have to wear a uniform! YAY! Although- again, is this my child?- he actually wants to wear one- he has a shirt all picked out for it- a deep golden yellow colour. Not sure if he has the bottoms figured out yet. We'll worry about that part later too! lol
We'll be driving him there- about 20 mins each way....... which I am mostly not looking forward to- but there are no school buses that I am aware of to take him there and I wouldn't put him on the public bus ! I am also not keen on early mornings. But that too will be dealt with.....it'll be interesting to see how it goes for DS as well. He likes mornings- but gets up when he wants- no schedule. I don't expect I'll have any trouble the first day. ;)

Well- that's about it for me....
I continue to spin- am loving this time of year with lots of fresh fleeces available...
the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show is happening in Victoria at the moment- so most fleecey folks are at that this weekend. Maybe next year for us. But for now I have so much fibre to spin it isn't funny ( delightful to know, but guilt inducing when I buy more and cant' figure out where to put it as the spare room is about full to the ceiling with boxes of fluff now!), and Aug. 8 is the second of two events we like to attend- Mt Pleasant's SACSOS fibre event day. And this year- Jane from Moseley Wool over in Kimba is making the trip to sell her fleeces- which will be the first time I get to touch before I buy! and of course I am looking forward to Kathy B's things- her batts and 2 new colourways in the roving/tops!!! By the way- she has a new online store- I haven't posted since she opened I believe- all her colourways are there except the 2 new ones- I am sure she will be adding them soon..... why not go have a peek and treat yourself to some amazing colourways on 24micron wool? Plus lots of other things on offer- including matching yarn to the spinning fibre colourways! I think that is brilliant. She offers lots of interesting fibres on her webstore- click HERE for Kathy's webstore . :)

Well- I hear my little angel calling for his Dad- so I better get going.
This has been an EXCEPTIONALLY wet winter for us here in SA and I am loving it.
This is the most rain I've seen in 7 years in Australia! Woo hoo!
Everything is so green and lovely.
I do wish winter would not hurry so much.
Spring will see the grass start to turn brown and I am not ready for that-haven't had enough of green yet.
Maybe we will go to Kuitpo Forest tomorrow!

Must go- "Dad" is not responding the bleats!

Hope all is well.

Longtime No Blog

Aw heck!
What can I say?! No excuses offered ( even though I have reasons why I haven't blogged-but who cares in the end, really?)- Ravelry is where I tend to spend most of my online 'free' time- and my blog has suffered.
This weekend we went to the Fiber event in Littlehampton and when Chris *waves to Chris* saw us she mentioned it had been since FEBRUARY (!!) since I blogged! I honestly hadn't realised it had been that long!

I don't have any pictures resized to post today- but will try to get back soon to show off what we brought home at the Adelaide Spinners and Weavers Guild Open day... but it's too close to dinner time to do alot of photo editing and adding.

Suffice to say I've been busy with life in general- have had a few times when I've been feeling pretty crappy- and am currently dealing with pain from a tooth extraction. What a fancy word- extraction. It's been a week and a piece of jawbone did come out with the tooth- but am wondering how long it is to be hurting and when I need to worry things aren't right.

Spinning is still my preferred free time filler and spin whenever I can. I now have a wheel and two spindles on the go with active spinning on them! Nearly every spindle I own has some sort of fiber on them- but mostly are small bits I've spun from leftover singles and there they sit! lol

Next post I will write about yesterday's fiber fun and add pics- and will show a few of RJB- as he is nearing his 5th birthday and is just growing up so fast. We also are going this week to check out a school for him ...... he will need to go starting in June or July I think it is.
It's going to be a rough first few days I think- but we have bought workbooks from the stores and he does them with ease on most things- understanding what i mean before I even explain the instructions and let me tell you- I am one proud momma/mum! Math is going to be so easy for him..... I fear he will outsmart us at grade 3! lol he whizzes through math related things so easily and can read some words as well! His writing is coming along so well- he wouldn't write letters with me when I tried to get him to- but with these write on/wipe off books that I got- he writes the letters and fills in the numbers and all that with ease! The workbooks that I got are more for children in 1-2 grade- and he is still doing them so easily. And MAZES- he can do those so quickly with no or very few mistakes it is awe inspiring! I reckon I sound a bit of a mother peahen about him - but for all the times people have expressed concern about his not being in school *yet*... I think he is going to show everyone that he is s.m.a.r.t! ;)
It's the social part of it and leaving me/us that is going to be the challenge- as most children do have day care experience while ours has been spoiled and raised with me and not away from me.
It's pretty overwhelming at times- but I am proud to be a SAHM! ANd Ideally I would like to continue that or be a WAHM. ( Yarn anyone!?) but one thing at a time- let's get DS in school and settled. We've done ok this far and believe things will be good for us after he goes to school as well.

OK- off to get things around for dinner/tea. Thanks for reading!
If you are on Ravelry- I am Twirlygig ( if you don't know it already! lol) and have way too much posted there for you to read if you want to look me up and read my posts! ;)
I also Twitter under the same name- let me know if you Twitter too- follow me! I do have my tweets protected so I don't have to deal with s p a m too much.....but if you just let me know who you are I will be glad to have you follow me and I will follow you! ( strains of John Denver's "Follow Me" are playing in my mind now...... bless him.)

Hope all is well!

Back for more!

After two days of less hot ( still above 30°c/in the 90°'s f) weather the old heatwave has decided to give us a 1-2 punch in the kidneys and we are meant to be 40°c (103°f) plus today with humidity and an overnight temp of over 30°c!!!! And then tomorrow is meant to be WINDY and HOT until the cool change comes through- but they can't (or won't) predict just when that will be- meanwhile they are forecasting another HOT day. I know you are doing it rough in parts of the USA with such cold temps..... I wish you some of our heat and we'll take some of your cold,ok? Please? Just looking forward to Sunday now.
OK- enough about the weather- how about some yarn and other pictures to see?
(Can you imagine!? On this blog!?? ) ;)

First off is a continuity set of photos of a roving I got back in Aug of last year... created by Kathy Baschiera of SA. ( There are rumblings of the birth of a new website for this talented lady- updates as I know them! )



This photo below is not so great but shows the whole hank/skein in not it's quite true colours. The camera we have doesn't like greens, purples, or oranges. I've tried different settings,etc.- no no avail- so now I try to find something that will colour balance the item I am trying to get.

Sometimes it works- sometimes it doesn't. This one didn't- but you can see the whole amount of yarn I made and then see the closer pictures for true colours.
The next photos are of some fibre called Rockmelon Fizz from Moseley Park Home. It was this most amazing electric peach colour- until I left it to soak (unintentionally, it was the rinse and I forogt about them being in the basin!) with another skein that has some blue in it and that coloured the water and didn't this take up some of it and toned it down! :( I bought more so this time it will be washed by itself!! ( Lesson learned!) It's soft and squooshy. :)

This is the fibre in lock form and after I hand carded it into rolags...

Light and airy rolags are fun and easy to spin!

The singles before plying...

The finished 2ply yarn. :)

This next picture shows lovely dark purple and lime green machine dyed merino blend I did after reading about it in Spin-Off magazine. It was an interesting experiment- doubt that I will try it again any time soon- wsa very prep. intensive and I am not keen on alot of prep time. I like to SPIN!!!!!!!!!! : D This was as close to purple as I was going to get- nothing else added to the picture would make it more purple...*sigh*

Speaking of shocking colour differences- here is nearly the true colour of a skein of yarn made from some mixed wool ( can't remember the combo- romneyX?) batts Jane of MPH sent dh and I as a surprise at Christmas! He spun a batt and I spun one- then we combined them. Each plying a skein. This is Dh's... since they showed up awful on camera- I didn't bother to try the other one! lol Such a lovely dark Teal colour- verrrrry nice! Once again- I apologise for the awful picture.... it was the best i could do to get close to the real colour. Another squooshy yarn,too.

But here's how the skein shows!! Shocking/Crazy- isn't it??

OK- and now I have to add on just a few garden photos of pre-heatwave....Here is the beginning- corn and various squash/pumpkin vines.

It was nice to sit in the early morning and late evening then and enjoy the garden and its changes.
Then it all grew and grew and grew!!!!!!

Some zucchini's are in there!

The corn did well- the best we've ever done

And here are the spoils!

Here are some sunflowers and my butterfly bush in bloom- the honeyeaters love the butterfly bush! I love them both! :)

And this little beauty is my Salpiglossis! I didn't get a photo of the yellow one. :(

But I had three that looked like this. They didn't get as large as they could've- I've seen them in Longwood Gardens, near Philadelphia,PA,USA- but am so delighted I finally got some to grow!

I will try for a better place next year!

OK- been here for hours now- need to get up and move, plus the rest of the family is awake! lol

Hope you are well.

ps. Happy Birthday Mom - Feb. 5 - I miss you every day.

Pics of Yarn, Yarn, and Oh- Did I Mention Yarn?

Will keep this short word-wise ( don't be shocked! )
and will post many photos of my current FY- ( finished yarns ) - and even some hand dyed roving we did!~
Before all that though- Happy Groundhog Day! ;) Go Phil!

Below is a photo of our first attempts at dyeing wool roving/tops with food colouring.
These two were dyed with leftover dye......







Then the 3 pictures below this is the one RJB did mostly on his own-the top one shows the true colours best.

OK and to the yarn- this I just finished today- not even washed yet! It's English Leicester Locks in the "Fairy" colourway done by fabulous Jane at Moseley Wool. :)
On the spindle is the small amount I had left over of singles so I navajo plied (3ply) them on the spindle so I could free up my bobbin for the next yarn. The yarn skeins show yarn I spun on my Ashford Traditional spinning wheel- 2 ply. Don't know the WPI or the length yet- sorry!







This shows it up close- I really wanted to have lots of 'hairiness' to it. While it isn't as much as I had hoped for- it is still wonderful!

The next bunch of photos are of a Merino roving I got given at Christmas from DH- (also from Jane's store)- called "Kalaidascope" (2 ply)... the top picture is of the fibre after I split it into thinner long pieces to do less drafting of the fibre so I could keep the colourway intact as much as possible. :) It's always so soft and fluffy in this state- you just want to bury your face in it! yummmmmm. :)

On the bobbin- the plied yarn waits for the niddy noddy ......


Then here are the before and afters of some EL locks ( From Jane's store Moseley Park Home, of course! lol! ) done in the 'Hotshots' colourway- the yarn is once again a 2 ply.... LOVE this one- one of my very favourite colourways- I hope she does more one day! :) I took OOOOOooooooodles of pictures- but only chose a few for here- the bottom picture shows the colours most true... yellow and pink and white and peachy colours!



OK- need to call it quits for now. More to share- but see I need photos of it! Thought I had done so before washing! Ooops!

Thanks for looking- will post some garden/flower pics inthe near future- from before the heatwave that is! ha!

Hope you are well.

Hot enough for ya?

While my friends and family in the USA are generally suffering the harshness of Winter- we here in Australia are having a wild summer.
Once again this year we are having a heatwave.....
temps near or over 100°F (39°C) ( and UP!) we are breaking 70 yr old records for the state of South Australia and I, for one, am NOT loving making history!
We had an overnight low of 33°C the other night- ( that's over 90°F) - in the house it never got below 34°C! The day temps were then well over 100°F with a high of 45 being recorded in the city of Adelaide- it was likely 43 or so here. I didn't venture out to guess. Sweltering in my home in front of a fan is plenty enough confrontation with it all!!!!!!! lol ( I can laugh now- at the moment we are having gusty winds and the temps are nearing high 70°'s (24°C). This is like heaven for us.)
We have another week of this to go. Temps all above 35°C being forecast for the next week- here's hoping we are a bit cooler than they say. Times like these I really sincerely kick myself for not having an A/C!! Most times of the year we dont' really need one.... it's just these blinging summer heatwaves that keep coming back...
ah well.
Anyway- I didn't come here to just write about the weather- I got yarn and fiber to write about as well! LOL
OK _ I actually just came to add my SARK button along the side bar..... it's time for some serious SARK-dom! ( yeah right- oxymoron there!) Check her out. I have been a fan of hers for YEARS now- ever since I found one of her books at the Waldenbooks bookstore I worked in at the Lycoming County Mall in Muncy,PA.
I do NOT miss working retail..... not one bit- but I sure do miss the stores.
and the discounts! ;)
Will try to post a bit more when the weather has cooled- I really have spun yarn and washed it and dried it and we even tried our hands at doing our own hand dyed merino tops/rovings! What a hoot- once we got started I mean! I can see us doing more real soon. We 'cooked' it in the car even- solar power at it's finest!
Will post pictures soon- need to edit them down to the right size.
PS) Garden is all but dead with this heat and no rain for weeks and weeks and weeks.
I do still have some flowers hanging in there- even SALPIGLOSSIS!!!! yes! I grew my own- well- two! One pink and one yellow one..... the yellow one had the unfortunate timing to come out just as the heatwave hit.....but it is doing OK!
We got some corn, cucumbers, and zucchini from the garden before this though- so I feel fortunate. :)

Hope all is well.

Happy New Year!

I guess even being 15 days late it is still ok to wish everyone a happy new year- heck - I figure we have 'til April 1st! ( I'd read somewhere that the reason it is called April Fool's Day was because by then if you are still writing the wrong year on your paperwork then you are a 'fool'. I have since read other explanations for the day, but none stuck like this story....)

Seems there is not much to write about and yet alot.
Summer has been pretty kind to us so far this year- we have only had about 3 hot days with one stupidly hot day earlier this week.
I am loving a cooler summer- and am on Ravelry trying to figure a way to get my arse to New Zealand to live!

Great news from Christmas - my sister (waves to Donna, "HI Donna!" :) )got a new computer for Christmas so she can see pictures of RJB and lots of others and can finally see my blog!

I also have to squee a bit about 'one' of my gifts- lots of spinning fibre from DH from Jane's Moseley Park Home online store! I haven't taken photos of what I got yet- and have actually spun or am in the process of spinning some already that I won't be able to photograph it all together. ( Plus Jane was an absolute doll and threw in some extras for us - what fun! And THANKS JANE!;)

I will try to be better at posting things here- I tend to write and show more on the Ravelry boards lately.

Would like to get photos of my scarf and amulet bag from the Scarf exchange 2008 put on here- have them taken- just didn't get them on here yet.
No photos today.

On a 'sad' note- I didn't get any Christmas cards sent like I intended this year. It's just my northern hemisphere brain I guess.....hard to get in the holiday spirit when it is 90°F outside! But I want you all to know I thought of you all and gave thanks for all the friends and family I have. I am truly thankful.

Hope all is well.