Stitch markers

One of the North East Victorian Ravelry ladies (Dawn) made these stitch markers and brought them for a swap on the dyeing day. My friend Maree got them and then gifted them to me (because it was my birthday). I think they're gorgeous. Cherry red is my favourite colour.

Pretty, aren't they?

A left over little stash from my favourite jumper

It's a lovely navy blue - and my grandmothers spun and knitted the jumper for me when I was a teenager. I still have it, I still like it, even though it's a bit long in the sleeves, it's just so comfortable.
I wanted to make this with the wool, I'm enticed by the pattern, but the wool will be too thick I think. (Going to check with one of my knitting friends who's made a Clap)
I'm keeping my eye out for something else. I love the wool so this one will be all for me.

All wound up

I finally found the photos of my dyed wool wound into balls.
It was going to make socks, but I'm not sure. There's probably enough to make a small vest for my little boy, and a shawl/small blanket for my dear daughter. Maybe I'd be motivated to get them done.

Another dyed one

Some of Mum's white handspun shoved in the dyepot at the end of the day.
(Done in preparation for a yellow swap on Ravelry..... I could just keep it though, it's nice)

Lucky Swap

At the NEVYL day we also did a yarn ball swap and G ended up with these wonderful balls of wool from Deb
Now just to decide what to do with them.

NEVYL dyeing day

While I was down visiting Mum over the Summer holidays the North East Victorian Yarn Lovers Group from Ravelry met at the farm and we had a dyeing day. Yay!The dyes were Gaywool and everyone brought their own wool.
The wool needed no preparation except to be skeined and not previously washed with wool wash.
Once you've put the dyes on the wool, you then wrap your wool parcel in plastic and pop it in one of the pots to be steamed.
And enjoy a bbq.
The kids enjoyed it too.

Admiring the end results.

What comes out of the pot isn't what it always looks like finished either - but here is some straight out of the pot.

Mum and I were the last couple working... I had such fun. I watched everyone do theirs so had a chance to think about how I wanted mine to turn out.
I had two lots of lovely 4ply wool from the Mill, in white. I separated it into two skeins, one for each of the kids, with the intention of making a pair of socks for each of them. (I actually had about 200gms of wool in each skein.)
I used pink + purple one one skein and did sections about 20cms long for each colour, but overlapped them.
For the other I used red and yellow and only did red/yellow/red/yellow - red in the middle and yellow on the ends, but with the colours overlapping to give a nice mixed orange part.

I was very happy and excited with the results.
The wool was fantastic to dye and I am looking forward to knitting it as it was really nice to work with.
Simply gorgeous.

What a very addictive hobby... I could do the dyeing all day - like I need more yarn in my already overflowing craft room.

I am a one woman salad production sweat shop

My daughter doesn't much like sandwiches - she'll eat them occasionally, but on the whole they get by passed.
She does, however, like salad (as does my 18 month old son, and the rest of us in the house).
So for her lunches I thought I'd just make her a little box of salad while I'm making the dinner salad. Well this has grown to

• a salad for dinner
• a salad for her morning tea (recess)
  
• a fruit salad for lunch
• a salad for my husband's lunch
• and then a box for me to eat with lunch

That's a lot of salad! I'm a regular at our grocers, they also do freshly sliced turkey and yummy ham (for the man of the house only, the rest of us can't eat it)

The lunch box at the front is hubby's and it has ham wrapped and packed in the middle, it's my box behind that, then G's two boxes and the dinner bowl.
Yummmmmmmmm.....
This lunch looked so yummy he's lucky he got it.