So Much to Say

In the words of Dave Matthews I have so much to say. So many thing have been going on that I have been too busy to update anything.


Some of the recent excitement includes...

I finished drying my hand painted felted wool and the color looks great. I have been able to wind two of the skeins into balls to get the full effect of the color changes that appear. I have also taken the next BIG STEP and cast on 276 stitches in the hopes of completing the Circular Shrug pattern listed on Ravelry.com. This project is going nowhere fast as there is an extended amount of K2P2 ribbing to get through but it is exciting to be knitting again. I am even looking into getting a shrug on the needles for Melody.Here is some yarn Eye Candy.

On the kids front, while shopping at our local New World Melody believes she sees the character from one of her favorite book series, The Time Soldiers. She was amazed at the fact that she saw teenagers in the supermarket dressed in camouflage outfits and wearing the same hard hats that she had seen the Time Soldiers wear. After seeing the Time Soldiers, the fire alarm sounds and we make a mad dash for the exit, leaving our cart of groceries behind. We later put 2 and 2 together and realize that seeing the Time Soldiers and the sounding of the fire alarm are no coincidence. We figure that the men in black suits were attempting to capture the Time Soldiers with the ruse of a fire. Luckily though, they escaped as we noticed they did not return to the store to purchase the groceries they had left behind.

Last Friday, Arnold and I were able to go out and have a nice dinner at Pedro's Restaurant to celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary. Arnold enjoyed their calamari and whole grilled fish while I had the sampler of dry cured Spanish meats and a mixed seafood platter which included king prawns, grouper, and Morton Bay Bugs. This was my first time at Pedro's but it won't be my last. I think it is the best restaurant that I have been to in New Zealand.

Last Saturday, I took the girls to see RNZB production of Romeo and Juliet. Unfortunately, the RNZB has re-interpreted Romeo and Juliet and turned it into West Side Story meets Gangster Rap and we leave after the second act. I think that Ivy may be put off of ballet after this last performance but we hope to get her back on track and are looking into renting a classic version of the play.

Lastly, we have recently been lucky enough to find someone to help us get our garden in shape as Arnold is very busy with work and it seems to rain EVERY weekend. Mike is doing a splendid job and the children couldn't be happier with the way he lets them help!

I'm Dyeing

Today, I was excited to accept the invitation of my friend Shirley to come over and dye some wool. Shirley is quite experienced in all things dyeing and I greatly appreciated her mentoring me through my first foray into color.

I started with my Classic Elite Yarns 100% Felted Merino in 100 gram hanks. The choice of colors was truly overwhelming and narrowing down my picks was not an easy job. I settled for Cherry Red, Salmon, Golden Yellow and Rose Pink. Here you can see Shirley demonstrating how to wet the hanks in warm water with a squirt of dish washing liquid.

Then the hanks are squeezed out and placed on a towel where they continue to dry and wait for the dye to be applied.

Next, Shirley mixed my colors. She stressed the importance of remembering to add the acid (vinegar) to the water and dye. She enlightened me on technical dying terms like "splosh". Here you can see Shirley mixing thing up.

Then came the application of the dyes on the hanks. I found this to be incredibly labor intensive and can see why the cost of hand painted yarns is what it is. After applying the dyes, I wrapped the hank in plastic wrap and then zapped it in the microwave for 3 minutes. The yarn rested for 2-3 minutes and then was zapped again for 3 minutes.

After using the microwave, it was time to rinse the yarn in cold water and gently squeeze out any excess. I took my bag of dyed hanks home and placed them on my drying rack in the bathroom to finish drying.

While I am not sure how I feel about the finished product, I am sure that this was a great experience. I have to admit that I am terribly color challenged and I think this is just what I needed to get away from my usual array of browns, dull greens, and blacks! As these hanks dry, they are really growing on me. I think I'll survive to dye another day.

If you are interested in the finer points of my experience and some of the dyeing that Shirley did today, please check out her blog www.shirleygoodwin.blogspot.com.

Playing Catch Up

I have not been able to get to the computer much this past week. Between the terrible flooding that we experienced in North Canterbury, Arnold's illness and the seemingly never ending rain I have had my hands full.

Prior to the 31st of July, it seemed as though we had two solid weeks of rain . On the 31st the terrible storm that had hit the North Island traveled down South and let us have it. Here is a picture taken on the 31st of the Ashley River during the downpour.

Environment Canterbury (http://www.ecan.govt.nz/home/)Surface Water Hydrologists were out with there fancy equipment measuring the flow rate of the river and checking that the bridge was safe. Thankfully it was and we were able to travel more directly to Rangiora for supplies like diapers, chocolate and potato chips to help us ride out the storm.

I was lucky enough to get one day of sunshine on the 2nd of August before everything "turned to custard" again on Sunday. I made the most of my time outside by working in the flower/herb area and worked at removing all of the grass plants that continue to sprout and grow as a result of some careless reseeding of our lawn by a landscaping firm. Here you can see the area before and after I had a go at it. It is amazing that so many bulbs are sprounting and that the Daphne has decided to flower this year. The artichokes aren't looking bad either. Even Ivy's carnation has a few flowers to show.

On Sunday, the 3rd of August, the rain set in again. The children were becoming very antsy inside and I was getting a bit antsy too. Despite Arnold not feeling great, we were able to take the kids to the new indoor entertainment center in Christchurch (on Cranford) to blow off some steam. All of the kids enjoyed the bouncy castles and inflated obstacle course. Ivy and Melody also enjoyed bouncing on the trampolines while attached to rubber bands and Cruz liked the Desperado atrraction where he could sit in a wagon and shoot at "naughty people" on the screen. In fact, Cruz had the third highest score of everyone that played during his round. Bravo!

We have had a few days of rain since then but it seems as though the pattern is temporarily changing and we have been able to get out a little more. Yesterday, the kids took their bikes out and rode around on the driveway. They also got into a little trouble in the puddles and had a bit of a splash around.

Today, after a early morning work session, everyone headed back outside to enjoy the sun. I worked more in the garden. Cruz was very helpful in emptying out my weed bucket and removing trimmings to the compost pile. He can be such a good helper. Ivy and Melody invited Cruz on a garden walk where they walked a good portion of the perimeter of our property behind the shrubs. The girls reported in the Cruz found a pine cone behind one of the bushes and that his face broke out in a rash after licking it. Oh my!

Ivy has had an achievement that I would like to note. She has been working on her reading and last night read the entire book Angelina's Ballet Class that had been given to her by her Uncle Eric. She is really progressing with her reading and can read so many things. She is also learning to recite another poem. This one is called The Bush Mouse. She continues to work in her Singapore Math book and is attempting to put to memory the basic math addition facts. She enjoys playing games online to reinforce these topics.

Melody has a new game from Every Educaid called Ladybug Letters. She is playing it to brush up on her alphabet recognition and letter sound skills. She is also keen to work on math and is working with her Father on the concepts of bigger and smaller.

Cruz wants to use scissors and is very interested in using and tasting the glue sticks.

Knitting Doldrums

I have been desperately looking for something to get me out of my knitting doldrums. I had previously set out to use as many of the leftover bits and pieces in my stash as I could to make the kids some sweaters. I think this is where my problem started.

So far, I have only managed to complete one v-neck pullover. I have a v-neck sleevesless vest, which is for Cruz, still on the needles and am really struggling to get this thing finished. I designed the vest myself and used my leftover Manos del Uruguay yarn (bio on the company at http://manosdeluruguay.co.uk/manosdeluruguayyarns.html) which I had purchased many moons ago from a lovely knitting shop in Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A. called The Knitting Basket.

Here you can see me working in the round using 4 double pointed needles to complete the neck.

Needless to say, after completing the neck I was unable to pull the thing over Cruz's head. It didn't even make it past his forehead. I ripped out all of my hard work and will pick up even MORE stitches this time around. As an aside, I would just like to say that I HATE THIS YARN! I have found that it is easy enough to knit with but that it is incredibly scratchy, wears terribly and pills like you wouldn't believe. I have no plans to buy Manos del Uruguay again anytime soon.

On a brighter note, I have also been planning to do some creative dying with another one of my stash items. I can't even recall where I purchased this from (could have been Patternworks.com) but it is beautifully soft New Zealand merino wool that is called "Waterspun" by Classic Elite. There is no twist here, the wool is felted. I have spent the better part of two nights in front of the TV watching Farscape (on DVD) and getting all of the Waterspun onto a niddy noddy and into 100 gram skeins. I am hoping that with the assistance of my new friend Shirley, I will be able to turn this into something fabulous.


Honestly though, I just couldn't wait any longer to buy something that would make me feel like knitting. Yesterday, while in Christchurch, I stopped by the Arts Centre (http://www.artscentre.org.nz/) and popped in at the Wool Yarns and Fibres Shop and purchased these two beautiful skeins of handspun merino wool.

I was so moved by the colors that I couldn't wait to knit this up and rushed home to look through my patterns. I think that I will knit the Lacy, Leafy Luxury Shawl from Knitter's Winter 2000 issue. But, on closer examination, the pattern calls for four balls at 205 m each and I only have 732 m. What will I do?

I always seem to have trouble getting started but once I've started, WATCH OUT!

Today was a crazy day. It was filled with intrigue and excitement, tears and laughter. Today was big for both of the girls as Ivy was to have her stitch removed and Melody was to have the mysterious foreign body removed from her ear.

On Sunday night, Melody told me that she thought she had a big piece of wax in her ear. After peeking in and seeing soemthing in there we proceeded to try to remove it at home. After many attempts with the bulb syringe we gave up and committed to seeing the doctor the next morning. Upon seeing the GP on duty, we were given the number of an EAR CLINIC to visit as the doctor did not believe he could remove the offending oject from her ear in the office. So, this morning, Melody went to the North Canterbury Ear Health Clinic and was treated by two lovely nurses. They each had a go at getting the object (what was now believed to be a polystyrene ball- more on this later) out of her ear canal.

After much suctioning and even attempts with forceps we were resigned to have to go to the hospital in town. Given one last look, the expert nurse removed a large ball from Mel's ear. YEAH!

Melody was so glad to have the object removed from her ear that she immediately asked, "Mom can I have a treat?" Melody and her foreign object left the office far better than when they had arrived.

After a bit of pasta and a wee play outside it was off to Ivy's ballet lesson and then on to the GPs office to have her stitch removed.

Just to recap, Ivy had hit her head about a week ago. Her sister had pushed her and she fell into the corner of the wall. After much bleeding and crying, we made it to the doctor's office for a stitch to the upper forehead. Ivy was very brave and managed to handle the injection of anesthetic and the feeling of having sewing happening on her head. She didn't seem the least amused when the GP mentioned she was being sewn up with BLUE thread. I am sure she would have preferred PINK. Anyways, today was the day for her stitch to be snipped and she was a real trooper. Here you can see the stitch being liberated from her head.

Ivy was excited to show Dad the stitch that had been removed and the nurse was kind enough to put it in a jar to take home.

After a day like today, I feel like I am ready for a holiday!