I promised studio photos when I cleaned up the studio. That doesn't seem to be high on the list these days and I feel like I owe my loyal readers (whoever you are) promised content. So, at left is part of the right wall. Out of view further right are bags of alpaca, more of Robin's fleece, and a wardrobe with miscellaneous other textile stuff such as dyes, quilt fabric and a half done quilt, my sewing basket, an unwashed fleece, etc. The bookcase houses all of my craft books, and behind the doors at the bottom, boxes of magazines. I've dropped all my subscriptions except Interweave knits and Handwoven. I seriously have enough patterns and ideas. The two white bookcases have my coned yarn (weaving) stash. Most of it mill ends since shipping fibre from the states costs the earth. The black thing with the red patch is an apron from the ANU School of Art, and the white thing is the Bear's old lab coat. Between the bookcases covered with a plaid cloth is my inkle loom, which I have also neglected. It has a second warp of my hand spun and dyed English Leicester which I intend to make a tote style bag out of. In the blue plastic bag in front of the back bookcases is clean brown alpaca. Beyond the bookcases is my spinning stash (5 plastic boxes).

Turning left and taken from the opposite end of the room are my two looms. They are on a cheap door bought at the hardware store for $20, which is supported by the Bear's school desk and a filing cabinet. I was thinking I'd have room for my sewing machine but that was before the 16-shaft arrived. The 4 shaft is closest to the camera and has my sad tea towel on it. I haven't warped the other one yet, but a tea towel I bought from Laura Fry is draped over the breast beam to taunt me. Since they each cost a whopping $200, I don't feel as guilty as if they were expensive and neglected looms.

It's unfortunate that I get spurts of energy and ideas when I don't have the time to do anything with them. Plus the old fibro thing makes me so tired all the time that, given the choice, I usually take a nap instead of doing something interesting. That or do chores around the house. Today it will be ironing. When I retire and can wear T-shirts eery day instead of trying to look halfway presentable at work there will be no ironing.

What appears at left is not just a skein of handspun wool, but a very carefully designed skein of sock wool. Wool and nylon blend, tightly spun and plied. Looks damn fine if I do say so myself. I wish I had more of this wool to spin in decent colors. Whatever possessed me to pick out yellow and peach is a mystery. I got it at Bendigo several year ago and haven't a clue as to which vendor.

No knitting to report on as I have been working through the bag of brown alpaca (which annoys the Imp because it means I have no lap) and can see the end in sight. I was trapped in my studio on Friday as I had air conditioning installers taking over the house and cutting off the power. I was going to card alpaca but discovered the drums on the drum carder had bedome misaligned somewhere along the line and I couldn't figure out how to align them. Ashford's helpful staff in Cooma told me to go online and look at their website, which I couldn't do without power to the wireless router. So I was forced TO WEAVE, and weave I did, a whole 4 cm. But it is weaving and it looks so nice and listening the "loom music" of shafts and beater was a joy. I hope I don't have to wait for similar circumstances before I get back at it.

I am totally out of commission as far as doing anything productive today. The installation of the a/c revealed a hole in the outside of the house where the old furnace was. I need to find a bricklayer but I also wanted to assemble bricks for him to use and I know I had bricks. So I spent Saturday accumulating bricks from various palces around the house, which also involved cutting/pulling the vinca next to the main shed where I knew there was a pile of bricks. At the end of this exercise I was knackered. Sunday I managed to stagger to the markets for supplies. By luck or because I was too weak, I couldn't start the lawnmower so that chore remains (as does the ankle high green patch in the back yard). I did just manage to plant 3 rows of beans (Romano, Tendercrop and Gourmet's delight) before collapsing.Today my feet and hands and very sore and I am still very tired. A day of rest is called for. My peas are now all up and need some supports. I had asparagus for dinner last night and the rhunarb roots I planted are already sending up leaves. Since the rest of the week's weather forecast is for a daily increase in temeratures to end at 28C I may be ready to plant tomatoes etc. soon.

I'm reading Out of Mao's Shadow by Philip Pan which is fascinating and bizarre. Watching the Communist party deny things that everyone could see and forbid people from talking about what everyone knew is so alien to what we in the west take for granted. Now that they are battling the Internet, it's a now world that they don't seem able to conquer.

This blog seems to becoming weekly, but not by design. We had another blast from the central desert this week with a few days of 37C and this time it didn't cool off at night. It was pretty miserable and one could do is sit in front of a fan. The Imp became very flat and sprawled out on the lino. So I didn't do much either, went into work later, came home later, to avoid the hot box of the house. I also had the stitches removed from my scalp and now only have a scab (so I'm told since I can't see it). I spent way too much money getting my knees X-rayed before I see the orthopedic surgeon. But if his fee is too high, I will have to postpone the surgery until the super mess is sorted out. I do not want to hit my savings any more.

This week it seems to be fibro fatigue that is hitting, perhaps because of the heat. I just get so sleepy and intend on taking a short nap, but end up sleeping all afternoon. I feel like I'm sleeping my life away, which is why I am not accomplishing the things I want to. The only progress on the fibre front is that I have spent the last two evenings carding alpaca. This is more to do with removing stuff from the dining room table than anything else, but I do want to spin some more, because I gave the bulk of what I had spun the BFLB. I have finished spinning the 4 oz of Clematis Vine colourway Targhee from Susan and I think it will turn out to be a firm and bouncy yarn and good for socks. I always like my spun fibre to rest a few days before I ply it or take it off the bobbin. It may be an old spinner's tale that it helps to do this, but maybe I just like looking at the bobbins while they are resting. It's been too hot to have the entire front of a wool jumper in my lap to knit.

I got caught up (almost) with Weavecast and Syne has had some outstanding interviews. She had the incredible luck to interview Peter Collingwood shortly before he passed away. He was such a towering figure in the weaving community and altho I will probably never weave rugs (altho I'd like to) his book on rug weaving covers much more than that topic. Syne does a great job putting the podcast together and she deserves any help you can give her so if you can spare a few dollars, it would definitely go to a good place.

As any of you who read this blog regularly will know, I am a podcast junkie. I currently have about 150 podcasts on my iPod, covering everything from science to cooking to weaving to society. I listen at work, I sometimes listen in the car but that's sometimes awkward if I'm stopping and starting, and I listen at home while I do housework. It's almost like reading while you do something mindless but necessary with your hands. I listen to a lot of public radio: ABC Radio National, NPR and the BBC. Sometimes I can't imagine life before the iPod.

I think I've solved The Imp's fussy eating problem. It turns out she adores kangaroo, even the stuff that's been marinated in herbs and garlic. She has inhaled the first batch I put down, asked for more, ate that and asked for more again. She's lucky that the was the only red meat I had in the house, and I'm lucky that I finally found something she will eat.

I will be up late Tues night/Weds morning to watch the Inauguration. Too bad it's so cold in DC but I remember inaugurations in the freezing cold, even when there had been snow pushed away to get access. This is Important.

And thank you all, whoever you ar for turning the counter over to 13,000 hits. I truly appreciate it and that you find my rambings interesting.

Firstly a belated HAPPY NEW YEAR! For the first time in many years I stayed up to watch because I was sucked into the hype on TV about how wonderful they'd be. And they were. I almost think watching them on TV is better because the display covers most of the inner harbour and one can't see it all from ground level or even from a high rise. Also, on this night, it was very still and the smoke just hung in the air. It would have impeded the view for those on the ground. I love to watch stuff come off the bridge but you have to be facing the bridge to get the full effect. At any rate, I ate cheese & crackers and spreadable smoked salmon and drank a margarita instead of tacking the full bottle of bubbly in the fridge.

My apologies for the gap in posting (you must be really tired of hearing that). My dear MIL came up for the weekend between Christmas and New Years and for the most part I have been busy with other things. Exciting things like weeding and tearing out ivy, pruning the plum tree, picking berries and making jam, untangling financial stuff that had piled up while I was gone, doing laundry and ironing, you get my drift. Today I am due to mow the lawn but we've suddenly had a cold front go through and it's bloody cold out. No good for hurrying along tomato plants. I planted some watermelon and pumpkin is the vast emptiness but they would really like hot weather. I've had poor germination on beans as well, so this may be a very sparse year.

I am reading Peggy Osterkamp's third volume in her series New Guide to Weaving which is Weaving & Drafting your Own Cloth. This is about how to weave, and boy I wish I had read it before I went to the Weavers School. I was such a total newbie. I didn't know how to sit down and weave cloth, because I'd never actually done it (a scarf doesn't count). I'll admit the section on troubleshooting and all the things that can go wrong is daunting because I'm positive every one of them will happen to me, but everything I've read to far has been helpful. Mind you, she has her prejudices, but every weaver does and you just have to try and get more and more opinions and examples.

P.S. Mowed lawn, took out the "lady's chainsaw" and cut up the piece of dead plumcot into pieces small enough to get into the traskpack, cut down 2 of the main offending shrubs in my neighbour's back yard (with his permission) but the chain jammed and my skill with a chainsaw was exhausted, mulched zucchinis (flowering) and cucumbers (flowering) and fertilized them, watered the citrus, rescued a pot of portulaca that had been sitting totally neglected since before I went overseas and managed to divide and plant 5 seedlings. I swear you cannot kill portulaca. It will be perfectly happy and flower its little head off in a terracotta tub for the rest of the summer whether I water it or not.

I know, again. I have been trying to run at full speed for the past week or so, trying to crank up my metabolism and burn some calories. I don't know whether that part's working but I am doing a lot. I bought an apple tree with 3 different varieties grafted to the one tree. So I had to dig a hole to put it in. This would have been a Bear task but I had to try and do it myself. I got it planted although I don't think I dug deep enough. There is a limit to how far I can dig. I chose one of those annoying jogs in the back paved area (These people never made anything straight when they could add an angle) and eliminated some lawn as well. I also bought a grafted citrus with lemon and orange but I haven't potted it out yet (it's in a pot but the apple was bare rooted) because I'd like to put it in a half barrel. I've killed a lot of lemon trees so fingers crossed. The little darling has already produced a good sized lemon. Speaking of lemons, I got a shopping bag full of lemons from a work friend and have made 2 batches of honey-lemon jelly. It takes almost a kg of honey to make a batch of jelly, which is 3 small jars. I shall have to try and see if one can stir it directly into tea when you have a cold. Since it only has honey, lemon juice and pectin in it I would think so. I am going to have to learn about preventing fruit fly because apples, citrus and pears are all targets.

I have been knitting furiously on the Komi hat in an attempt to finish it before the Swans match in Canberra this weekend but I don't think I'll make it. The Swannies are playing quite well (altho kicking accuracy is still a problem) and are in the top 4 at the moment.

That little venture into family history has become an obsession. I've added great chunks to my mother's side of the family about which I knew little. I've traced various branches back to Germany and Ulster in Northern Ireland. It's fascinating to think that these people were the pioneers in the US, going out to settle in Indian land in the 1700's and 1800's. Also the trend in migration from the east coast into the middle frontier of Pennsylvania and then on to Michigan and Wisconsin. My grandfather's family all came from Elgin County, Canada and are represented in the cemetery there. Goodness, I'm one quarter Canadian, altho my grandfather told the census takers he was German despite being born in Canada. I have to keep myself from doing more searches now that there are so many sources, like cemetery records, online.

It's also soup weather and I made (very) roasted pumpkin soup, which unfortunately took my last pumpkins. Then they were selling huge cauliflowers at the markets for $1.50, so I had to make another pot of curried cauliflower soup. I coaxed the bread machine to produce a loaf of dark rye but it's not as good as its white breads. I may have to replace the bread machine when I can afford it.

I vowed I was going to start weaving today and I did. So many threading errors of the silly type (2 threads right next to each other) which don't show up when you just check for a clean shed. My sett is Way too loose so it won't be very sturdy. It did give me that foolish idea of weaving drapery cloth again but I need to weave something before I go off to school in October. I know all the principles; but executing them down to the finest detail is difficult especially when your errors don't show up until everything is tied on. Perhaps I should try heavier weft.

The road to hell is paved with overexpectations of one's abilities. I painted myself into the corner of Saturday and Sunday for warping the loom by saying "How long can it take?" and ignoring the little voice reminding me how slow I was at threading the loom in class. So I spent 4 hours threading the thing after not being happy about how the warp was all scrunched together on the back beam. My loom only has about 4" between the back beam and the heddles, so there isn't a lot of room to arrange the warp. So I unwound it, re-raddled it, spread it out before winding on and wound on again. There aren't any fancy warp designs, just stripes. I just threaded plain weave but I made the same threading errors over and over. You can't thread the third heddle if the fourth is in front of it (in order). Make sure you didn't push the new heddles to be threaded so far over than they are now snuggled up to the already threaded ones and you pull out another instead. And so it went. I think most of the heddles outside the centre 4" have never been used on this loom.

I fully intended to go back at it on Sunday but I had forgotten that the girls were going blackberrying on Sunday morning. After that adventure (I didn't fall in a hole! I only got a little scratched because the berries were right there asking to be picked!), I had lunch, a shower, and a bit of a lie-down. Then something irrational flipped in my brain and I suddenly couldn't live another day surrounded by boxes of books, so I decided to shift the bookcases by myself. What was I thinking? Yes, I had done it before but not at the end of the day. So I did it and yes I have many fewer boxes of books to look at because most of the ones for my bedroom are now in their new location. And boy was I sore the next day which of course was my first day back at work. And after that I had to go grocery shopping because I was out of cat food and that's just not on. Tues I had my stitches out. Ick. It's now Weds and I am still sore.

Book reports: Peter Hamilton's The Dreaming Void. I know this is the first of a new trilogy and by the time the next book arrives I will have forgotten all the characters.which is what happened with his last trilogy. I found this one something i wanted to continue. The disparate character were all beginning to slot into place, even tho I hadn't read the preceding trilogy which I think would have explained the chronology a bit better. I really liked his Greg Mandel series, and the following ones less so. There may come a point where I find them too much work and move on to somebody new. Next up Sherry Tepper's Gate to the Women's Country.

Napoleon's Buttons ; How 17 molecules Changed history. This was my latest BBB and I found it fascinating even tho I didn't "get" the bit about molecular structures. (Mr. Snow, my high school chemistry teacher,, would be so disappointed). Each molecule is introduced in its social context, why this commodity (soap, spices) was commercially important, and how it was discovered and refined with what results. A very good read even if you don't understand chemical bonds.

Well, I'm getting there, little by little. Here is my first warp ready to go on the loom. One book advised that new weavers to make lots of short warps in their early days so you get over your fear of warping and get the physical side of the process down so it's not so intimidating. This is only 5/2 (I think) cotton from mill ends bought on ebay and the colours do not match anything I own, but they're what I had the most of and wouldn't mind using as a learning tool. I spent this morning making a raddle but I think I will have to get a better one made using harder wood because this one threatened to split as I was pounding in nails and hoping I wasn't nailing it to my kitchen benchtop. We are supposed to have one more day of 34C which means I will try and do this early in the morning.

Today I got 3 parcels but one was an M bag addressed to me but containing Martha Stewart books for somebody in Malaysia. I wonder how Martha handled Muslim holy days. The other two were socks yarn (bad knitter, naughty knitter) but when I heard about Noro sock yarns, how could I resist? I also picked up a couple of lairy red yarns from On Line and Opal. More red socks are needed. The photo does not do any sort of justice to the gorgeous colours of the Noro; the left one is greens and blues with a shot of god and white, while the one on the right is purples and golds shading to red. I almost am afraid to actually knit with Noro because it costs so much. I nearly passed out laughing at a sweater patter knit with 20+ balls of Noro. My pockets ain't that deep.

In the AM I made plum jam, which made an exceedingly small dent in the bowl of plums I had picked. I foisted some off on my Tongan neighbour and the tree is still loaded. Use of bird netting means I have fully ripe plums on the tree for the first time, but it also means I have a bloody lot of them as well. Anyone in Canberra want plums? Will trade for sock yarn (no, naughty knitter).

I am halfway through the second sleeve of the red top so I may have it done to wear to work next week. Then I can go back to sock knitting and finish my wool vest and start my fair isle.

The Imp got out twice today. I have routinely taken to shutting her up in the guest bedroom when I go out the back but sometimes even after I think she is obeying at the front, she zooms out. The second time it was night and I had gone out to feed the possums and I said to her that I had half a mind to leave her out there. Them Mum & bub possums arrived and she was entranced and I think intended to jump them (that could only end badly) so I scooped her up and threw her back inside. The thing is, she doesn't really like it outside and makes it very easy to capture her. It's just her Burmese devil inside that likes running amuck.

This blog is not meant to be weekly, it just seems to turn out that way. If I had that direct brain to computer wifi capability I dream about, I would post daily. "Computer, personal log, star date...." Otherwise it takes something to stop me in my hurtling around to do it. Today yesterday hit me while standing in a queue at Bunnings (Home Depot) so I am taking a small pause before going back at it.

People who have known me a long time know I should really be kept away from sharp implements. I am constantly cutting myself; my ex bought me my first food processor so I wouldn't bleed into the cole slaw. I have even cut myself on display knives in kitchen supply stores. Yesterday I was trying to avoid my next door neighbour's visitor's singing along with the already loud Tongan choir music on the stereo by going into the garden and continuing my battle with couch and vinca under the pear tree, when a cross arm maneuver resulted in me burying the sharp end of the secateurs (pruning shears) in my left arm. It wasn't very wide, less than a cm (half an inch) but gaped rather nauseatingly and the secateurs were not clean. So I took myself off to the clinic where I got 3 stitches and a bandage which promptly tried to fall off so I taped it back on. I was chuffed that there was no pain this morning until in the queue at Bunnings I shifted the basket to my left arm to dig into my purse for money and OW! Now it hurts. Add this to the painful bruised buttock I got when I fell earlier in the day scouting for blackberries in the mountains and I am feeling battered. And not in the sense of ready to be fried.

I was at Bunnings to get nails for the raddle because the staples I got just didn't seem long enough. Unfortunately the staples they had that were long enough were all galvanized and probably not suited to separating warp treads so I got nails instead. Now I get the hit my fingers with a hammer. First wind a warp which shouldn't involve hurting myself. I have teal blue, true blue and burgundy 5/2 cotton and only aim for a dish towel. At this moment, sitting in my recliner I have a furry grey headrest who just yawned widely and stuck a foot in my ear.

Wow! A friend returned from one of her epic backpacking trips that included Peru and Bolivia (as well as hiking Hadrian's Wall). She brought me three outstanding weaving presents which she tried very hard to get from genuine sources and not commercial, possibly mechanically produced, items. The band is double weave and is differently coloured on each side. The bag uses (I think with my very primitive weaver's brain) supplementary warp for the white motifs. The book is Textiles of Ancient Peru which is a visual treat and I haven't even delved into it. I just went to try and find a link and could find none probably because it was published in Peru so I feel very pleased that I have it. I am getting so consumed with the desire to weave and am so frustrated my inability to do so because of lack of time and trying to force myself to pace myself and NOT be exhausted. I have multiple issues of Handwoven and I want to do everything in them.

When I managed to drag myself into work yesterday after firstly being forced to go to the medical clinic pharmacy because I ran out of MS Contin and park illegally because it was busy and I couldn't walk from where I could park legally and hauled myself in to work and my boss immediately told me I looked horrible; later in the morning she shanghaied a colleague to go get me a cappucino! This morning I have done one load of laundry and sent the greywater out the back, I managed to get most of what I had already packed of the Bear's clothes into the car to take to the Salvos, but when I opened his wardrobe to look further I felt the big bubble of grief begin to form and I said to myself, "Stop now." The box of beer I found was one from his workplace where they had replaced the photo of the local wine merchant on the side with photos of The Bear. I cannot part with the box and neither can I part with the socks I knit him. I can stand have the door to his bedroom open, which also helps now that it's warm. I have had a rubbish removalist in clean out the back shed. I need to get to get to financial place where I can hire assistance for the yard and housework.

In reading All About Fibromyalgia I keep reading case studies where someone had some event that eventually diagnose them with fibromyalgia and their treatment involved taking some ibuprofen and taking a mild sleeping aid for a few weeks/months and now is fine. I want that kind of fibromyalgia. I don't want the kind I have where I am exhausted after 5 hours of work, after doing the amount of "housework" I have described above and may have to rest the rest of the day. The book is full of advice on pacing yourself and avoiding doing some things that are too tiring (vacuuming). This may mean that the vacuum cleaner is always out and simply moves from room to room in a progressive task that never ends.