Best Twenty Eight Dollars I ever spent....

Earlier this year I had the good fortune to buy four Brown Chooks from a free- range farm in the hills of Willunga. They were 18 months old and apparently not good enough to be commercially viable in the egg laying department. I payed $28 for them and that is the best $28 I ever spent...

I picked them up in wine boxes and settled them into my chook run on fresh hay with a bowl of water and some pellets which are meant to give them all the nutrients they need.

The following morning , as a "thank you" they presented me with four eggs and wandered into the spacious yard where I had dropped a wheel barrow load of hay from a round bale that was still in the paddock close by.

They loved scratching around in it and it was a huge success with them and still is. The bale is nearly finished now but there is another one in the paddock which will be brought over with the tractor. They have laid a constant four eggs a day with occasionally only three.....right through the winter months. My friends love buying these happy eggs and so their feed bill is taken care of as well..

This photo on the left, shows the Tawny Frogmouth parents on the top limb with the two chicks below them. Again he was a long time sitting on the eggs, they seem to take four weeks to hatch. They stay on the nest for a week or so more and then suddenly the chicks fledge and  they are off into the wide world beyond the Ash tree where they were born.

You may have to click on the photo to see them more clearly...another successful spring..

Haiku for September II

                                                     Raven Robbing Nests

                                                      Hopefully the Noisy Miner's

                                                       Sadly the Blackbird's 

Haiku for September I

                                                 Wild Winds Wet the Rain

                                                  Animals Huddled for Warmth

                                                Books Beckon on the Sofa 

Haiku for August II

                                                         The World seems Chaos

                                                           War Roaring Floods Kill Destroy

                                                            Still the Setting Sun 

 

            In a way I ought not to explain the Haiku but it was inspired by seeing those roaring and huge 

            floods in Afghanistan and the total destruction Putin is causing by bombing Russia's neighbour

            We have had devastating floods in Queensland and NSW as well this year. 

Haiku for August

                                                 What Heartache is this

                                                 Crumbling Ruins on the Far Hill

                                                   Someone Dreamt here Once

 

Origami jumper construction

Here are the photos of what I did with the two lengths of knit-weaving after they were completed.

I sewed part of them together and  marked where the neckline needed to go with a contrasting thread. Then took it into the Studio and did a zig-zag stitch just outside of the contrasting thread. That was repeated so as to make sure that when the inside area was cut away the knitting would not unravel. this was done yesterday.

This morning I hung the knitted strips onto the needles of the machine, the wrong side facing out. Then carefully pushed each needle through the cloth ( 144 needles in all). Carefully knitted each needle back so as to have the loops on the needles and the garment hanging down. Knitted 12 rows on Tension dial 7 then did one row on Tension dial 10 and another 12 rows on TD 7. Carefully picked up all the loops which were created when I first hung the garment and hand knitted those back one by one. Did one row with the carriage and cast off around the pegs.

 You can see by the above photo that it makes a neat neckline hiding all the cut bits of thread when the circle was cut out. 

On the left is the Origami folded garment which now needs to be hand stitched together.

I have spent about 20 hours , designing, swatching, knit-weaving,doing the neckline and hand sewing.....so at $30/hour that would come to $600 plus the handspun Merino/silk yarn and other yarns...

The garment is for sale at $700.00 and please don't rush me....Hahahahahaha

Origami and Knit-Weaving

It has taken a while for me to get  my enthusiasm back for knit-weaving. I do enjoy it, as it is a very straight forward process on the knitting machine I use. Doing the origami garments is excellent for using up oddments of yarn in the weaving in process.

I had to refer to my notes of years ago when I taught this method at the South Australian Machine Knitting camp at Melrose. Putting in the neckline is the most difficult part as it has to be a cut-and-sew job which can be very tricky if you have cut the knitted piece and find it is in the wrong position...

I will show the finished garment later in the week after having sewn it together and put in the neck opening.

My sister Jo, came to stay over the Easter break and we decided , that rather than drive anywhere, we would have our picnic in what we call "The Hundred Acre Wood" which is about fifty yards from the kitchen. Not only did we enjoy our picnic but were able to drink a bottle of Pinot Gris and not have to worry about breathalisers ....we had a lovely rest in the Studio afterwards, listening to Vivaldi's cello concertos...five of them....

 The Autumn light in the morning can be very lovely at the moment, it is my favourite time of the year...cool days and crispy mornings...

The vines are all colouring now and no doubt the wine is fermenting nicely in the winery vats....it will be interesting what the winemakers think of this vintage....

Let certain overseas countries drink Aqua Pura......