The Flantastic Four

That would not be me, two Labradors and a dessert, because I am way below the 'flantastic' level. Still.

I have made a No Cook Chocolate Tart in my fluted rectangular flan tin. Jessie brought it all the way back from Paris for me!!! C'est tres bon!!(bonne??) C'est magnifique!!! Truly, this only took me 9 or 10 minutes to assemble. Which is a good things as 9 or 10 minutes is about as long as I can stand standing!!!

So, nothing is happening, I am off to bed this afternoon. The Labradors had a walk. There has been no knitting, sewing or even any Enterprise watching. The last season has begun : not with the episode we need to see, Part 2 of last year's cliffhanger, but we should be grateful for small mercies I expect...         

Lock Both Ways

I am having a Georgette Heyer Health Decline!! Yesterday I was miffed in the Library queue and then when I arrived at the Knitting Coven I locked my keys in the car and almost needed to cry. Thank you MrsMacGyver who lent me her phone and Sandra D who lent me the RACT number and the RACT man who was there within 10 minutes and opened my car!! When you lock everything in your car you have no licence, RACT card, spare keys etc!!

I slept last night and afternoon and all the way till past 9am this morning but I am still feeling pale. But what is the use of feeling pale at home when I can feel pale in the company of others???

MrsMacGyver was special guest at the Knitting Coven (unlike Amanda J : some people think you are a figment of my imagination!!!) I paid little or no attention to what everyone was knitting, and I am too pathetic to list who was there and what they were doing. Thank you to Vicki, who gave stash to Sharon, who gave this lovely aqua cotton to me!!!

I made MrsMacGyver's god daughter a bag , pity about the button, but would I have a lovely subtle pale pink, apricot or white button? No, I think not.

The Labradors have 8 new TeddyBunnies and they are playing with them very nicely thank you very much!!! If you live in Lonnie, fill in a form from 'The Council who want to close it down even though they said they never would' to save the Royal Park Museum site : Option 5 if you please, by Friday!!!!!

The new YARN Magazine is out but mine is not here yet. It is the sock issue!!!!

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Knit, Knit, Knit!!!

Go on : Vote for the Fabulous Miss Knitabulous here in The Amazing Lace competition. She is entrant #5 and the lone Australian competitor. If only we could muster the same fanatical obsession with this as is being exerted by the round football game people. Her entry is fantastic anyway, so there's no electoral bias: this is not Florida!!!

Project Spectrum in the bag

As I have done nothing for Project Spectrum : June, I whipped up a little bag from one of MollyChicken's tutorials this morning, and the little embellishment was inspired by her too. I am sending this off with my Wall of Yarn square today. I used some of the fabric from the dyeing night expedition and some I already had. It is blue, turquoise, aqua and  OK, Green as well!!!

At 11-30am it was stilll 4*C but this didn't stop Harki and Peri from having a most exciting, if unobservant, walk. A "Kangaroo' hopped right past them and they were oblivious!! It was not afraid, and made its way through a gap under the wire fence. When they realised the 'kangaroo' was right by, they were too stunned to do anything and decided it was more fun to romp rowdily on the frosty grass!!!

A Tale of Two Sockies by What-the Dickens

It was the best of socks, it was the worst of socks.

One Turing sock is complete, but what you see before you is the result of a complicated process. I THOUGHT that it was going to be tight, a photo finish perhaps : there was going to be just enough wool and no more. In fact I soon found out that I would need a tad more so I dyed some left over 4ply for the toes. I cut off the cuff and 2 colour repeats, picked up the stitches, and knitted another cuff in an upwards direction!!! I did a cool stretchy cast off :

Purl the first two stitches together, then loosen that stitch a little and place it back onto the left needle. Do the same thing again...purl the loosened stitch, now the first stitch on the left needle, together with the second stitch. Loosen it up and slip it back over to the left needle. Continue purling 2 together and slipping the loosened stitch back to the left all the way across. Pull the end through the last stitch left.

I found the mass of the completed sock : 36g and the mass of the remaining wool and cut off cuff: also 36g. I love it when a plan comes together!!!!! It looks like that's a go for the remaining Turing Sock.

With maths in mind I bought a new pattern book with, supposedly, 1000 'sweater' patterns. This is not so.

• There are 31 'sweater' body options
• 15 sleeve options
• 28 neck/collar options
• 2 belt options
• and finally 5 pocket options

When you work this out ( compliments of my Grade 9 Combinations and Permutations) it is

31.15.28.2.5 which equals 130,200 options, or 130.2 times as many options as they offered. A bargain in any language!!!!!

Yesterday I slept late, went out for supplies, and then slept again for most of the day. I bought The Labradors a present at the shop. They have 2 new Squeaky toys, well, actually only one is left as Peri liked the plastic sleeve and Harki liked the squeaky soft part of one. The other is a lime green squeaky barbell. Harki has taken to dropping it out of the front window. It is a new and very exhausting game if she persists. I have to keep going down and then up the stairs.

This morning there was the sleeping in again and then after reading the paper, more sleeping. I am exceedingly tired, but as I only need to be doing NOTHING this matters not!!! I think I am suffering normal boogelly tiredness, plus the ongoing effects of the cold/sinus thing and the over excitement of the Dyeing night!!!

I might just finish the othe Turing Sock tonight and then I MUST FINISH THE HOUSE OF ELLIOTT SOCKS OR ELSE!!! I am mentioning Project Spectrum June because that is about all the attention it is getting so far. Oh, no, I have some fabric from Cathy's neighbour!!!! I have an inkling that I might sew something.....

Turing over a new Leaf

Yes, yes, yes, we all know The Green Hornet : mild mannered journalist by day and crime fighter par excellence by night, but my dyed wool is The Green Stormet. It lulls you into a false sense of security: you stroll through the lush grass green colour and then experience the happiness of Oz with the vibrant emerald green, and then the bright acid of lime green to cheer you up and then, suddenly, BLACK. Not, dark green, not very dark green, not even very, very dark green. I couldn't even pass this off as indigo : no, it is BLACK. It is black as the blackest storm clouds, and thusly named.

I wound the wool into a ball and now I have started knitting The Turing Socks. Alan Turing, the most famous British Mathematician worked on SIGSALY, a secure WWII communications device, with the code name : The Green Hornet. Alan Turing also features in The Turing Test, an Eighth Doctor Who book!!! And there is always the sideways glance at him in Enigma, and the docudrama Breaking the Code. I am so circuitous and all Word Association football that I could disappear up my own analogy!!!!

I slept very late and I have been doing nothing all day. Sitting down, and well, sitting down some more. The Labradors, chiefly Harki, have made a big, massive mess today. She has played with bubble wrap, plastic bags, a box and a TeddyBunny. Peri has been helping too, and she likes to be right in the centre of the action : see what I have to contend with?????

I am knitting The Turing Socks (TTS) on my lovely new green needles from the Lovely Donna. They are so short and so nippy and so green!!! I was going to do a pattern on TTS, but I decided to just do stocking stitch and enjoy their wholesome green goodness.

Later on: Tianne, I was sitting on the couch while Harki and Peri played!! I watched then make the massive mess!!! Harki was playing the "Put a toy in a plastic bag or box and then get it out again" game and Peri played "Carrying things in my mouth and occasionally tearing them up." I rarely have to growl at The Labradors, and if they are wicked while I am out it is too late to growl then!! The are inordinately cute, aren't they? Not that I'm biased, or anything!! I think they have faces that many more people than a mother could love.....

Oh and now I am up to the heel of my Turing Sock #1!!

Dyeing to Sleep

Can't go to sleep till my tablets kick in so here is a mini report on the dyeing : It was such fun!!!!

Katt and Fifi were the experts and they helped Cathy and me. I did dyeing with food dye on the stove. I added the wool to water and white vinegar and nuked it for about 2 minutes. Then I made four colours and I measured the food dye's mass with my scales to get the proprtions right. I mixed Lime Green, Aqua, Dark Green and just the normal Green colour. We put the dye in jars in a pan and as it was boiling, put each of the quarters of the wool into the dye. I wriggled it back and forth so the colours would merge and then cooked it for about 20 minutes. I am impatient and should have waited longer, but I couldn't. Then I ran it under cold water till the water ran (almost) clear. See how the impatience thing reared its ugly head again?

Meanwhile Fifi had made a heathery mix of purple, lilac, red and blue using KoolAid, Cathy made her rainbow mixture for socks, Katt made watermelon colours and them Fifi used some of my dye to make more green wool.

Sharon, Suzi and Sandra gave moral support!!!

Please bear in mind that these are pictures taken during the night!!! I hope to maybe get some better pictures later on!!

I had to come home as I was worn out with excitement and running out of medicinal fortitude!!! I plan to dye every day all the time now!! Well, not quite, but I can see that this could be my newest obsession!!!

Ye canna change the laws of physics, Jim*

Yes, we are preparing to dye at Warp Speed here on the Starship Labrador-eyes. We are rendezvousing with the other Starships at Planet Cathy at 1900 hours tonight!!!

Dyeing : The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Labrador-eyes. Its 5 hour mission : to explore strange new wools, to seek out new dyes and new craftualisations, to boldly colour where no dyer has gone before!! La laa la la la la laaa!!! La la laaaaaa, la la la la laaa! Laa, la la la la la la la laaaaaa!! etc

Sing-along-a-Star Trek*!!

I bought some wood and some giant nails and with the help of my Girls' Carpentry Skills, a Girls' Hammer and my trusty pencil and ruler I made a Warping Board. In case this 'blows' there is always the other side and I have about 88 more nails!! The Labradors hid, as they associate stomping with my crossness ( as in Where are my jolly  .......s??? [insert any word here, I lose a lot of stuff]) and there was a lot of hammering, more hammering than Thor.

I wound the wool around the nails in my own fashion, as when I looked at one tutorial, ( click on the sock wool to see it : Flickr was having a 'rest') I had NO IDEA how it was actually meant to work. I need about 75g and/or 297 metres to make a pair of 4ply socks so I gathered the appropriate amount of wool and wound it this special way!! It took 6 minutes. I think this is "why I abandoned the whole "walk a mile in a circular direction around 2 chairs placed 6 metres part" gig. There is no way I can walk that far!!! Then in 2 more minutes I tied off the wool at 40cm lengths, and then de-zigzagged the wool, coiled it into 3, tied it off again for presoaking and then coiled it into one of those cute twisty things!!

I have KoolAid. I have Food dye. I have Wool.

Be Afraid : Be Very Afraid!!!

Project Spectrum May : Green

Could this be any more perfect??  OK, it's late, but better late than never, I am still on a go slow.There are 4 things here that I can't show in full as they are for a swap or a present and I don't want to give anything away - there are just snippets!!!. My green top is not quite finished ( BIG understatement!!)  Here are the green things I made or finished, in May.    

The Need for Speed.......

Over the counter cold and 'flu tablets are great!! When you take them you start to feel half way human. Now they keep the tablets way behind the counter as apparently if you have enough of them you can make 'Speed'. All I want is a clear head, no headache and to feel better!!! I have been eating white bread, I only eat white bread when I'm not well, chicken noodle soup, crisps and drinking Lucozade. I have been sleeping all day or dozing on the couch with my new blanket and my hot water bottle.

Thank you for all your wellness wishes - I am positive they have helped!!!! I am a big believer in the Pollyanna Glad Game, and that's kind of all about being positive and looking for the silver lining - or in my case the green lining!!!

MrsMacGyver made delicious chicken sandwiches on Saturday, and today I finally felt up to real food: a pesto chicken bagel and Earl Grey tea at Pierre's. It is the school holidays, so we had brunch and then a little shop, where I accidentally bought 6 green tops for only $60 -they were all 50% off!!! They are greener than they look in the picture!!! I also bought a new book, the third part of Alison Croggan's Pellinor series. 

Now, of course, I am deathly tired again, but my cold is definitely on the wane!! The Labradors have been very good, they can't open bottles or boil water for tea, but they can lie next to you and be a comfort and they can gaze adoringly at you!!! They missed one walk but I rallied briefly and took them yesterday and they ran for the whole time. The like the cold weather and play and gambol in the frost.

Little Purl, my Dr Who ZUC is the only thing I want to wear now. I have worn it every time I have gone out since it was finished. I love it to death!!!!

Now I have lots of internet catching up to do and then, what a surprise, I think I will have a little nap!!!! I want to be very well indeed for the Knitting Coven's Dyeing night this week!!!