More needle holders

This time we're visiting the continent of Australia (with a side trip into the land of Acrylic).

The Coolibah tree was, of course made famous in the song Waltzing Matilda. The Mallee tree was used for medicine by the aboriginal inhabitants of Australia. The Sheoak is (surprise!) like an English oak tree, but weaker, so the dratted Victorians called it a "She" oak. Grrr.

Anyhow, $25 paypalled to drhpang AT verizon DOT net, with a clear description (material, number of bumps, etc.) of which holder you'd like will get it mailed to you from me. You can also email me directly.

All done and off

The cardigan's finished, as of last night, and it's sitting (damply) on a judging table at the fairgrounds.


I was really unhappy with the arms -- both the sleeves and armscyes just stink. Partly my skills (I kept thinking about all the advice about poor finishing ruining a good knitting job) and partly because the sleeves were too big at the top. Too big for a good fit either on me or into the arm holes.

I may get out the sewing machine after the fair and have a go at it. It's already cut; I don't see that I can ruin it any more. But I'll ask a more experienced finisher for advice first.

It sure is pretty, though.

Steeking while Camping

My sister and I were in charge of activities on this camping trip. We planned none.

I had joked about having "steeking" being an activity, but was sure I was going to get to it after I'd done all the preparation needed for a camping trip. I didn't.

So it turned out to be something to do while we were there. (Hey, you can't play dodge ball, wade in the creek, or hike all the time!)

I cleared a space on the Stump By The Fire, and started in.


I didn't bother sewing stay stitches on these, because I planned to sew up the sleeves using mattress stitch right away, and they aren't going to be under any stress. I just sort of eyeballed a line down the middle.

The back side was fairly attractive.


But apparently the euphoria of cutting apart knitting got to me, because modeling them seemed like an appropriate behavior.


And then it was serious time.


They went together fairly easily, although I'm not thrilled with the seam myself, it will definitely do.


Once they were seamed, I couldn't resist a little creative basting.


I did get one sewn into the armhole, but realized afterwards that I'd wandered off the straight line and have to pick it out. After that I put them away in a fit of pique and darned an old sock instead. Plenty of time to seam, weave ends, wash and block before Saturday, right?

Guess who showed up?

While I was moving camping equipment down in the basement yesterday in preparation for a weekend away, I found a shed snakeskin. It was pretty big. "Uh oh," I thought.

Then I looked up and saw 5" of tail sticking out from behind a piece of wall. I must confess, I seriously considered not telling Ellie and just letting him be -- obviously he is/was thriving! But he's not, technically, my snake. So I took a deep breath, and called her.

To her credit, she worked for about 1/2 hour, with an ice pack, a long sleeved jacket, and a lot of patient tugging, enduring being hissed at and even snapped at once, and she's got her Zipper back.

Sigh.

Going, going, almost gone

More of the needle cases are gone, off to new homes to make their owners very happy. My father in law has a new set, based on Australian hardwoods, that are coming available, but you can see here which ones are still around.

Haven't cut the sleeve steeks yet, because I had a wild, wild day in the beehive yesterday, followed by many household responsibility-before-going-camping sorts of things. I did discover that Costco sells bagels that I love and the balance bars my spouse eats at work are less expensive there than at Trader Joe's. The things you learn.