The Swannies are slogging it out with the Saints at the SCG in a downpour and I got so angry at the refereeing that I turned it off. One too many decisions which when done by the opposition is fine but when the Swans do it, it results in a free kick to the other side. Any match played in a downpour in not a game of skill and AFL is a skill sport not a brute force sport like NFL or gridiron as it is called here. Akin to trying to play a passing game in a blizzard.

Since we have a wet long weekend, I have done exciting things like re-organize my knitting needles (all circulars in steel, bamboo, rosewood, ebony, etc.) and find a pattern for S's Christmas present. He's an 8 and I wanted an Aran but not an excessive Aran. Why do so many children's knitting patterns stop before or at size 8? Even the patterns that had adult versions had an enormous gap between the largest child's size and the smallest adult. I ended up with a semi-vintage Paton's booklet from the 70's with all the children looking surly in the photos. The yarn is bottle green superwash. I salvaged some really heavy-duty plastic sleeves for knitting patterns from some discarded material at the library. They won't disintegrate easily.

I found needles to knit my MIL a scarf out of Plymouth Eros after she admired mine. Hers will be greens and blues as mine was blues and purples. I have a real thing at the moment for ribbon and railroad yarns. But I am SO over eyelash yarn.

I also got TWO packages from Amazon today, one of which contained Deb Menz's Color in Spinning which I have been pining for for when it was out of print and finally bought, as well as Yarns to Dye for so I am keen to dye something. I have done some dyeing before but never in a controlled fashion. While I love to buy the richly dyed roving seen at fibre fests, I am often disappointed that the colours mingle so when spun. I almost prefer to hand-dye yarns rather than the roving but both give wonderful results in different ways. Trying to dye roving so that the resulting spun yarn will not only look good on its own but also maintain its colourway when knitted into a garment sometimes seems too hard. Deb had many swatches in her book and I had a hard time imagining them in garments, or which garments would suit which colour combination. Thus I have books on dyeing roving, dyeing yarn, knitting with handpainted yarn, etc. Try to put all the pieces together from plain wool to finished garment will be a goal when I tavckle one of those lumps of white wool.

I know I said that I adored podcasts. Well, I listened to one knitting one yesterday that was so bad I wanted to scream. It sounded like a 6th grade book report, both in the content and the delivery. I will not name names because I am too polite but I will not listen again. If that's the best that can be produced I am ashamed of the the knitting community which produces wonderful blogs.