Here is a not very good photo of the back of the shawl knit by BFLB. Not very good in the sense that my dear MIL is not all that familiar with the operation of a Nikon D50 SLR or how to frame a shot. It also includes far too much of the mess that is my kitchen which includes many things attached to the fridge or on top of it (my favourite biscuit tin is a Tim Tam one that says "Life's too short to eat fruit" on one side) plus part of the cookbook collection in the background. But the shawl is gorgeous and is knit from handspun, hand-dyed (neither by me) wool in eggplant purple tones that I didn't trust myself to do justice to. BFLB knits these things like I could eat Tim Tams. It hasn't been blocked thoroughly since it was squished in a box, and now will be packed away where m*ths can't get to it. (Speaking of moths, The Imp was having difficulty with her tiny brain distinguishing the shadow of a moth from the actual moth. When I finally showed her the thing flying around up at the ceiling she made herself as tall as possible as if willing herself to fly and then made a very plaintive "Mow!")

I neglected to mention last week that I am now the proud owner of a Bosworth Moosie spindle, for which you go on a waiting list for about 9 months. My name finally made it to the top of the list and I have one which does not look like what I was expecting a moose antler spindle to look like. I am glad Sheila didn't identify the source of the raw material on the customs declaration because AQIS probably thinks you have to kill an endangered moose to get an antler or that it is harbouring some germ to infect Australia's vast moose population. Actually it looks and feels like grey marble.

The other exciting news to report is that M, my weaving instructor, completely dismantled the loom in an hour. I was totally flabberghasted that she could do it so easily (until I saw her loom which is a distant cousin of mine). The rusty bolts were in fact all quite loose and what was glued together was in a part that didn't need to be dismantled. It is actually a 10 shaft loom, but only 8 had been installed, and has 10 treadles installed with 2 additional ones in the bundle of sticks the movers handed me in the night. We don't know what wood the loom is made of; it almost looks to me like American oak, but that's unlikely, and it wasn't heavy enough to be oak I think. I should try and track down the maker and find out. It is now all in pieces that would easily go through a door and I might move it all home and save myself the cost of a storage locker even if I can't re-assemble it yet since there is not yet room in the rearrangement of furniture in various rooms. I was relieved that she suggested replacing the linen string heddles with Texsolv ones because I wanted to but didn't know how "real" weavers (I don't count myself as one yet, still a wannabe) felt about the sacred nature of linen heddles.

Usually I await the blooming of the first wattle with great excitement. This year I didn't even notice the one in bloom outside my bedroom window. I think my mind has been elsewhere. I did notice however, that in the past week lambs have been popping out of all the sheep on my usual drive to work. I love lambs and I miss the Bear's particular voice he used to describe "little lambies."

I still have done very few of the the tasks I wanted to do this week except for pruning one of the fruit trees while my MIL held the ladder and pulling some weeds (a great way to take out frustrations and anger over things one has no control over). I am making progress on getting to things in the computer room, collecting bits of dead computers to recycle, throwing out 5 year old issues of Scientific American, etc. My good buddies at ADFA Library not only took all the Civil War books but also said they'd take all the rest as well and send what they didn't want to the local book charity anyway. That will make things much easier and when the shed has been emptied of books there might be room for bags of alpaca or even a dismantled loom.