Saturday, April 14, 2012
Alex's first professional haircut
He's 5 and half (nearly) and I have always cut his hair. Last week, Chris had his hair cut (no, I don't cut his hair - he refuses to let me!), and we thought that we'd get Alex's hair cut as well. He started out pretty shaggy looking:
By the time we were done (and I do mean "we", as I had to hold him still for part of that time) he looked a lot neater:
It was also the first time he had any sort of hair product applied. Not a bad look, though I doubt I'll be running out to buy a tub of the stuff any time soon. From this experience, we learnt a few things: - clippers and Alex are not friends - scissors are much better - hair that looks good with product through it may not look as good once it is washed (note to self: look at the hair do before they rub stuff into it!)
It's evident that we are a family that likes food. Even little Alex finds it exciting to go to a new restaurant or to have something new to try. Recently we realised that the voucher for a pre-purchased meal we had at Cala Luna was going to expire at the end of this month and we hastily booked a table for ourselves. The question we were asking ourselves was whether to bring Alex or to have him babysat.
I decided I'd call the restaurant and their reaction would help me decide. So I called Cala Luna and asked them whether we they welcome children for a lunch time booking. This is not the first time I have used the phone call as a test of whether a restaurant is child friendly. If they hesitate, I know they are probably not prepared to have young children, or at least not welcoming for young children. To my delight, the person who answered the phone seemed more than happy for us to bring a child and even told me there are items on the menu that would be child friendly.
So we went for our "big outing" last Sunday. We packed a little backpack with a book, a magazine and Droidy - our android tablet. We weren't sure how well behaved he would be, seeing as the 6-course degustation meal would probably take us a couple of hours to get through. Nervous parents, we were. Alex was excited, though. We explained to him that we were going to a lunch which would have LOTS of new things to try.
We ordered the degustation menu for ourselves and a meatball sandwich for Alex. While we sat and wait for our food, and between courses, Alex asked for his book. He is currently enjoying the Tashi series of books and was more than happy to do some reading while he waited.
Along with our meal, our voucher included a bottle of wine. We chose to have the Chianti, which an imported Italian bottle. It was a very drinkable wine. Easy to drink and more-ish. I am sure tehre are better ways of describing it, but I'm no connoisseur and so I'll just call it "tasty".
Our first course was fresh pea and truffle soup. Before I tasted it I could already smell the truffle oil on top. Alex could smell it too, and he was not a fan. He turned his nose up at it and although he had a little sip, he declared that he did not like it. Well, fair enough. House rules are that he has to try everything but he does not have to like everything.
Next up was the antipasto plate with fried calamari. It was a little different from what was on the menu since the menu said it would be "Italian regional antipasto (home-made salami, Italian imported Prosciutto, olives & cheeses)". We didn't mind as what we had was delicious. Alex enjoyed it too.
From left to right, we have a cured meat of some sort (parma ham? pancetta??), fried calamari rings and arancini ball with cheese inside.
After that we had the pasta course which was "house made angel hair pasta with spanner crab, zucchini, garlic, chilli". Absolutely delicious. Alex saw the chillis and politely declined this course. He preferred to read his Lego club magazine instead.
Then we had a short break with a palate cleanser - blood orange sorbet with campari. Alex tried a little. I tried to avoid the campari that was pooling around it, but I am not sure how successful I was. We all agreed that the sorbet was lovely and refreshing with just a touch of tanginess.
Then came the fish course and Alex's meatball sandwich.
The fish was a John dory fillet on a lemon and fennel salad. The fish was nicely cooked and not at all dry as it sometimes can be. Alex ate about a third of my fish and about half of Chris's. In fact he preferred our fish course to his own meatball sandwich.
See it was not a bad meatball sandwich. In fact, Chris and I enjoyed it very much. The meatballs were moist and the sauce was fragrant and fresh. In fact if we go back again (and we probably will), I may order the meatball pasta for myself.
Next up was the meat course - home grown milk fed veal with organic eggplants, chianti & pomarola tumips. One of the features of Cala Luna, if one may call it that, is that they have their own farm in the Southern Highlands of NSW and source much of their produce from there or other local farms.
The veal was nicely done and oh so tender. That was Chris's favourite course. The eggplant had a nice char on the outside and was soft and flavourful on the inside.
Finally we were up to the dessert course. By this point of the meal, we were two hours into it and Alex had progressed past books and magazines to watching something on the tablet with headphones on. I know, it's not good manners to be reading and watching a movie at the table, but hey, would you rather a noisy child at the next table or a quiet one watching a movie quietly? I know which I'd prefer. We were allowed to order any dessert off the menu and I chose the chocolate tart and Chris chose the sticky date pudding. Since Alex had been quite well behaved, we ordered him his own serve of dessert. It was quite steep for $7, but hey, it was worth it! The sheer delight on his face was obvious. He even offered some to us!
My chocolate tart with raspberry ice cream was magnificent. The chocolate was dark and rich.
Chris's pudding was soft and luscious and went perfectly with the accompanying scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Oh and how could I forget the chips? We ordered Alex a side of chips and of course we ended up digging into it too. The chips were perfectly fried to a beautiful golden brown and crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. Absolutely delicious and oh so more-ish.
All in all we were very pleased we went. Even Alex enjoyed the whole experience, even if it did take two and a half hours in all.
Oh, and I am trying out having larger photos to see hwo they go. What do you think? do you prefer these larger photos or the smaller ones of my previous posts?
So.. this is my latest design. It's not *just* another hooded pullover. It's Pickles. It is slightly "spicy" in its construction. It looks simple, and it is simple, but a lot of care needs to be taken in the construction. Knitted top down, it's seamless from the hood all the way to the hem. I don't want to give too much away before the pattern is released, so here are justa few little "action shots" of Pickles on Alex.
Testing will begin in the next week or so. If you're interested in testing, keep an eye on the Celia's Basket group on Ravelry.
Alex loves hoods on his pullovers and jackets. He's still at an age where he loves wearing his mummy-made clothes. How could I resist? He's outgrowing his handknits rapidly. Ihad to whip up another pullover to keep him warm, but I experimented a little. It didn't all work out, unfortunately.
As you can see the neckline is a little wide. It's so wide, in fact, that I don't have to undo the buttons to pull it over his head. I wanted to make the neckline a crew neck but that didn't really work out.
I do like the cable on the sleeves, though. It is a simple 9 stitch 3x3x3 braided cable, and it's very effective in adding some interest to the jumper.
I used a skinnier version of the same cable (2x2x2) on the pocket, but the photos are not clear enough for you to see the cables.
Alex loves his new jumper. He loves it more than I do.
You know me, though. I don't give up. I am now knitting him another hoodie, with a different hood. Same concept as the hoods on my Alex jacket and Lee pullover, seamless from the top down, but a different shape with a lot less room around the face. It will also have a different neckline. That's all I can reveal right now. I'm working out the details and I'll have a picture soon. Interested? I hope to be calling for test knitters in a few weeks' time.
Alex has been nagging me for quite a while about learning to knit. I finally decided that I should give in and at least attempt to teach him. I brought out a pair of old Boye needles and some sugar and cream cotton scraps. He wanted to knit a scarf for his new Star Wars dollie that we bought today.
I cast on 30 stitches and knit the first row and cast off for him. He knit two rows. A pretty good start if you ask me!
Sunday, April 04, 2010
Of course no blog update is complete without Alex
Alex has recently learned how to hold a pen properly. He can only do it if the pen is fat enough, like the pen attached to his Magna Doodle. He used to hold it as if he were going to stab the board, but now he holds it like most grown-ups do - if I can remember the name of the grip, I'd use it, but for the life of me, I can't.
A few nights ago, Chris asked Alex to draw something for me while I was working. This is what he came up with - a robot. I think it looks more like a person than a robot but he reckons it is a robot. In fact, he is convined it is a robot, and here's his explanation of what he drew.
It's fun cooking with Alex. It's slow as he wants a go at everything, but it's fun. I love seeing the obvious joy on his face when he is allowed to help. Alex loves being "helpful". If you ever need him to do anything, the best way to convince him to do it is probably by telling him that he would be very helpful if he did it , and most of the time he WILL do it right away!
Last weekend, we made pasta. Alex helped me roll the pasta sheets out.
Then when the sheets were ready for cutting, he helped turn the handle to cut the pasta sheets while I fed it through.
After a lot of hard work from both of us..
Voila! Pasta!
Lots of it!
Alex enjoyed the fruits of his labour that night. We had the pasta with a tomato based sauce cooked with some leftover baked ham.
Then last Tuesday, during the Australia day holiday, we stayed home and cooked some more. We made dumplings on that day. I wasn't sure how Alex could help, but he wanted to, so I gave him a lump of dough to play with.
He made a worm. He lso wanted to wrap some filling when I started filling the dumplings, but I did nto want him messing around iwth raw meat, so Chris gave him two macadamia nuts to use as filling. We should have taken a photo of his "dumplings" but sadly we didnt.
We did, however, take a photo of my dumplings.
I was very proud of my dumplings. The pleating looked better as we went on. Practise makes perfect!
Well, not quite perfect, but they were very tasty!
Oh, and on that day, we gave Alex my old camera. He likes taking photos but we really didn't want him messing around with our cameras and dropping them, so we figured that siince the old one was sitting around anyway, he could use it.
Thursday, January 07, 2010
Christmas, new year, and a birthday
You think you're going to be seeing lots of photos, right? Wrong! I haven't had time to sort out all my phots from Christmas, new year and Alex's third birthday yet so those will come in the next post.
For now, I have some knitting news. I have a finished object.. FINALLY!
I have been plodding along on this project which was started in early December, but it did not progress much until I was sitting on my behind, recuperating over the Christmas holidays.
It was knitted on 4.5mm Addi turbos using Handmaiden Sea Silk in Ebony. The colour and sheen is gorgeous! I can't get over the fact that it is made from silk and SEAWEED. Seaweed! What next?!
Okay, so I stuffed up. I was meant to cast on 101 stitches but I cast on 111, and I did not realise that till I was knitting the scalloped edges and I could not work out why the stitch pattern was not working out. I recounted and discovered my boo boo. I fudged the edging. Itd oes nto quite line up with the cascading leaf patterns, but does not look too bad. In fact you probably won't notice it unless you were looking closely.
I have given it to my mother, and she has taken it with her to the Blue Mountains. I hope it keeps her nice and warm!
Oh, and soem Alex news..
We gave him a pair of training chopsticks for his third birthday. He loves using them. I think they make him feel grown up. It did not take long for him to work out how to use them.
He was even able to pick up peanuts with them! I am very impressed. Maybe I should get a pair for myself. I still don't use chopsticks the correct way and I am meant to be a grown up. Hmm.. meant to be.
As daycare is clossed for the year end break, I have Alex home with me till next week. We decided to make some gingerbread shapes. i cll them that because I don't actually have a gingerbreadman or gingerbread girl cutter. Instead we made snowmen, Christmas trees, stars and angels. The biscuits went quickly. I tooks ome over to Janet's to share with her family and we're down to the last few here. What better excuse to make another batch!
Thank you for all your kind comments and messages regarding my recent surgery. I am recovering very well, and will soon be back to "normal".
Merry Christmas to all of you. I hope all of you had at least as good a Christmas as I did.
On Christmas eve we had dinner with my in-laws. This is the first time my parents are in Sydney for Christmas and so they were invited too. As usual, I made roast pork with crackling.
The recipe is actually very simple. This year I ordered 2kg of boneless pork belly with the skin left on. I left it out in the open to "dry" from about 9 in the morning. Every couple of hours or so, I sprinkled some salt on the skin and wiped off the moisture with a clean paper towel. At about midday, I used a knife to puncture the meat side of the pork belly and rubbed liberally with light soy sauce and Chinese 5-spice powder, and left it to dry further with the skin side up. By about 2 in the afternoon, the skin looked nice and dry. I baked it in the oven for about 2 hours, with the skin side up on a rack in a tray with about 1cm of water. Oh, and the oven (fan-forced) was set to about 180 degrees. I checked on it about 1 hour and 30 minutes into the baking time to see what parts had crackled and what had not. teh parts that did not crackle were gently dried with a clean paper towel and brushed lightly with some lemon juice (you can also use vinegar). The pork was then popped back into the oven for further baking and pulled out just before two hours. if you are not sure whether it is cooked, use a meat thermometer to check. Cutting it to check for pinkness and then re-baking will cause it to dry out. There you have it.. my very simple roast pork with crackling.
I also made potato bake, but this year it was a failure. As I am still recovering and did not want to have to do everything in one stretch, I peeled the potatoes early and soaked them in water, ready to be assembled into a tray in the afternoon. Unfortunately they must have absorbed water and released said water during the cooking. My potato bake turned out more watery than usual and definitely not as rich and delicious as it normally is. Very unfortunate!
Chris's mother made her very popular coconut prawns dish. Don't ask me for the recipe as I have never made it. I know it has prawns, pumpkin, chokoes, ginger and coconut milk in it and it is very delicious. Unfortunately, I was unable to indulge as prawns in large quantities make me itch. I did eat a little, and it was definitely delicious and rich.
During dinner, Chris's parents pulled out a headband with antlers for Alex. I made the bad bad mistake of calling them ears. Oops. Now he calls them "Rudolph's ears".
As usual, Alex scored the largest number of presents, including a new bike. It came with a helmet and although the bicycle is not yet assembled, Alex has been wearing the helmet daily. He just won't leave it alone! He wears it in the car, falls asleep and then my dad who sits next to him in the car has to try to take it off without waking him!
The other big present he received was from my parents - a bed! Alex now sleeps in a toddler bed. I am very surprised how good he has been. i was expecting to be woken at all hours of the night by a little boy wanting to climb into our bed, but he only comes round in the morning, usually at about six, but soemtiems at seven. When he does come in he is very good and climbs into our bed and snuggles. Sometimes he even goes back to sleep!
I think I did better than Alex this year, though. Amongst my many presents, i got a Food safari cookbook and a handmade shawl! I participated in the Christmas exchange on Ravelry and Helen, the person who sent to me, made me a shawl. It is a pattern that she saw was both on her queue and mine. How lovely is that?!
You have probably noticed how shaggy Alex was looking in those Christmas photos. He was long overdue for a haircut. I had grown used to seeing him shaggy and quite liked the look. Today we decided to give him a haircut.
Haircuts are a family affair here.. Alex to sit still, me to hold the scissors and cut, and Chris to take photos!
I much prefer him with long hair. Luckily, it will grow long again before too long.
It was my intention to post after Christmas with photos of knitting and spinning done over Christmas, and news of an impending bundle of joy. However, that was not meant to be. On the Friday that just passed, I had to join the queue in the emergency department of my local hospital with what I thought were terrible gas pains. I am now so relieved I got it checked out, eventhough I did think at the time that I'd really look the fool if they did turn out to be "just gas", as they found that the pregnancy was ectopic and it had ruptured my right fallopian tube.
It all went very quickly after they found the ruptured ectopic pregnancy in the ultrasounds. What I did not know when I was at home was that the aches and gas pains I was experiencing was from internal bleeding caused by the rupture. According to the obstetrics registrar on duty that day, if left too long, I could have died! I have never "nearly died" before. I had never, up till that time, had surgery before. I had never been under any sort of general anaesthetic before. It was all quite an experience, and not a very pleasant one.
I wanted my "regular" obstetrician to do the surgery and for that I would have had to transfer to the local private hospital which was about 10 minutes away. That would have been doable, but the private hospital did not have room for me. My "regular" was very good about it, though, and recommended an obstetrician in the hospital where I was and assured me I was in good hands. I was indeed. He turned out to be very nice, and in some ways reminded me of my "regular".
The surgery was successful and took less than an hour. It was minimally invasive (and that is not to say it was NOT invasive) as it was done via laparoscopy. I am now left with three tiny holes (stitched up, of course) in my belly and just some residual pain. I was lucky they caught it in time and managed to find the ruptured tube easily and removed it and the ectopic pregnancy and cleaned out what they could. Who knows what the outcome could have been had I waited. I was going to wait for Chris to finish work on Friday, and I am now glad I did not. He missed his office Christmas party. Had I waited, I would have been much more sick from the bleeding. In the 3 hours when we waited in the emergency department's waiting room, my blood pressure dove down to about 97/68 (or thereabouts). I started feeling a bit light-headed and a lot more pain. The pain that had started in my tummy had started to spread up my backto my shoulders. By the time they wheeled me into the theatre for the operation, the pain in my shoulder was quite unbearable.
This is not the most desirable outcome from a pregnancy. Far from it, in fact, but I am grateful to be alive. The staff at the hospital took great care of me and they were all very gentle and sympathetic. Even the nurse removing my catheter tried to distract me while she was doing it when she found out I had never had one before.
It was a scary time for all of us. Something I hope to not have to go through again.
I think not enough is said to pregnant women to encourage them to seek medical attention when they have aches and pains during the pregnancy. I have heard others tell me that they have been told, "You're pregnant, what do you expect?" Well, I thought that too. I was pregnant. gas is part of being pregnant, what did I expect? I was lucky, I think, because I have a GP who is vigilant. I had been spotting very lightly for about 2 weeks prior to the ectopic pregnancy being discovered. He was monitoring my HCG levels very closely, and they were going up satisfactorily. In fact, the last test, taken the day before, showed the HCG level to be at about 3700, an acceptable level for someone who was 6 weeks pregnant. I was meant to have another test this week and then a scan, but of course that is probably all unnecessary now. My GP emphsised to me every time he saw me or spoke to me that if I had any pain I needed to go to the emergency department and tell them that I was pregnant, spotting and had pain. It was because of him that I decided not to wait. Better safe than sorry, and this time, it was certainly much better safe as sorry would have been too late.
Aside from the recuperation that needs to happen physically, there's probably going to be a lot of emotional baggage that will come along. This pregnancy was never going to be a baby as such since it was ectopic, but for a few weeks, it was the promise of a baby. We were all excited. Alex had placed an order for a sister. In fact he was absolutely convinced it was a sister. When I told him I did not know whether it would be a boy or a girl, he retorted, "YOU don't know, but I know! It is a sister!" None of us have said anything to him about there being no more sister, but he has not mentioned her once since the operation. He knows that I am not feeling very well and I have "owies" on my tummy where he should not press on me, but we have not said anything about the sister being gone. He just seems to know. I wonder how. He has not asked to say goodnight to his sister since I came home from the hospital, but he used to say goodnight to my ytummy every night before that.
From now on, if we were to get pregnant again, we'll have to be ever so vigilant. I am sure my GP will be. He always is. I will have to be too. I am sure we will all be very nervous about a repeat of this happening and will probably not be able to rest till we get a scan showing the baby to be in the uterus. Oh, what a lot of stress!
On the bright side of things, I am glad it is Christmas and I am able to take the next couple of weeks off from work to rest and to enjoy my family.
Merry Christmas everyone! I will be back after Christmas (if not before!) with photos of more completed projects.
A lot has happened in the last couple of months. Where do I start?
Chris left his old job, and started a new one. There was a bit of uncertainty while he looked for a new job but he found a new one quickly. He wasn't dismissed. He left, in case you're wondering, because things just weren't so pleasant anymore. I am pleased that he seems much happier to go to work now and comes home a happier man. Happy husband/Daddy makes for happy wife/child.
I have been busy. The project I am working on didn't go so well once it was in production and I have been working hard, osmetimes late at night supporting users, testing patches, etc. Pretty much doing the things I normally do, and more. That has now calmed down too. Thank goodness. I was not sure I could handle much more stress. In that time I found a white hair. Oh my! I hope it was just stress and not old age. I am not that old yet, am I? I haven't found another, but to be honest, I am not looking that hard either. If you see one (or two or three), please don't tell me. I don't want to know!
As for Alex.. well, as you would probably have guessed from the previous post, he is growing up quickly. He likes painting and drawing, and gluing and folding, but not cutting, apparently. There is something about cutting that frustrates him. He hates it and won't do any craft that requires cutting, or so I am told. He is also slightly obsessed with cutting straight lines and gets frustrated when his little fingers can't manage it. That said, he does have a "thing" for straight lines and orderliness. Hmm.. I am nto so sure that this child is related to me after all. Orderliness is what I am not!
Aside from work, I have also been very busy knitting and sewing.
I found a kit to make this at my local Salvos shop:
It only cost me $9 and the only thing I had to supply aside from thread was the cotton batting inside. Alex loves it and calls it his duck blanket. It really is Mother Goose, but he thinks it's a duck and who am I to argue with toddler wisdom?
It was completed in one day and easier than I expected. Don't look too closely, though. The applique work is really dodgy, despite it all having been cut out for me and all I had to do was sew. It's also not bound at the sides like a "real quilt" normally is. I sewed it all together (inside out) leaving a gap and turned it right side out and then top-stitched it. The layers were then tied together with bits of thread. A bit of a cheat but an effective one! My binding skills are crap, despite having watched dozens of tutorials on youtube.
I am now working on a shawl (which can be used as a lap blanket).
I am using some handspun Blue-faced leicester (hand-dyed by me, of course) which I had plied with two strands of commercially produced cashmere/silk.
Then.. horror of horrors, I ran out and it was still too small for a shawl. So I had to find another yarn to go with it and finally settled on this:
I am way past that point now, having completed about 10 repeats of the pattern. I am basing it on the Kiri Shawl buy Polly Outhwaite, but making it a square instead of a triangle. It's actually working out quite well. I have a gazillion stitches on the needles now though and each round is taking me longer. I think I will give up soon, maybe when I reach twelve repeats of the pattern. I still need to make sure I have enough yarn to finish the edging. I'd hate to run out again and have this look like a scrappy shawl, which it should not be.
More recently I have also been dreaming up another simple pattern for a hat. this time it's a girly hat.
It's pretty simple and can be knitted up in a day or two. I took longer because of many interruptions and also feeling the need to concentrate on the shawl, which must be finished and blocked by the end of November as it is a gift for someone very special to Chris and I. I'll have to fine-tune the pattern and get it test-knitted. The yarn I used for this hat is actually a "seconds" lot from my store. the brown part has spots that are darker than the rest, and so it is a "seconds". I actually don't mind that and I think it's not very noticeable, and it goes well with the white/cream spots.
I have been spinning too, but don't have that much to show for it.
This one I call "Pure Dark Chocolate"
Spun from Bond fleece purchased from Shiloh Wool. It’s deliciously soft, which is, to me, so unusual for Corriedale, but I guess Bond is very special Corriedale. It is bred to have finer fleece than your run-of-the-mill Corriedale. It is approximately 24 to 25 microns and I didn’t think it would spin up so nicely, but it did.
It’s going to be a scarf for Alex as he wants a scarf to be “just like you, Mummy”.
Then there is this one which I spun for a customer, who is also a friend.
The hand-dyed superfine merino top is from Selah. It's not one of mine. It was a joy to spin as it really is quite soft. I navajo-plied it to keepthe colours together. I would imagine that it would stripe madly across whatever Anna decided to knit with it. I love how bright the colours are. they're not "my colours" but I did enjoy spinning them and just looking at the colours make me happy. The yellow is such a cheerful yellow and the reds and blues are so bright.
That's all I have energy for today.. but I do have more to post later.
Friday, July 03, 2009
It's not like I have been sitting around twiddling thumbs
Life, and work, just got in the way of blogging. I have so much to share I don't know where to start.
Perhaps I will start with the smallest.. a tiny little cardigan for my colleague who is expecting her first after a long journey towards motherhood.
She has been a great help to me specially in the last couple of years. I am going to miss her when she goes on maternity leave for six months, but I know she has been waiting for this for a long time and will be savouring every moment she has with her baby girl.
The pattern is Paxton, written by StitchyMama. It is a free Ravelry download and comes in three sizes. This is the middle size and only used about 60g of Bendigo Woollen Mills 8ply cotton yarn in Mango.
I also managed to finish knitting a jumper for Alex out of Utiku Multicolours (Ocean colourway) and grey Scheller Stahl Edelweiss(now discontinued). The boy is growing so fast that he's nearly too big for the one I made for him at the end of last winter. I made it big, so that it will last all of this winter as well. Alas.. it won't be long before he outgrows that one. This one, I had hoped, will last him till the end of next winter. However, when he tried it on, I realised that it is not as big as I had thought.
If I am lucky, it will last till the end of this winter.
I have another one in the works.
The yarn is an 8ply 19-micron merino yarn I bought from a local mill. I am testing it out as I intend to stock it in my store. It's knitting up quite nicely. Once I know that it washes and wears well, I will be more than happy to stock it. It is nice to knit as it is lovely and soft. I find it not the slightest bit prickly.
I hand-dyed it in shades of green, blue and brown. I am hoping that the colours won't pool. You know how unpredictable that can be sometimes. It is looking like it won't. So I am happy.
I also dyed up a batch of organic 19-micron merino wool from the same mill. It is dryign outside right now. I am hoping to be able to stock that too.
The wheel has not been at rest either. I have been busy spinning some corn and bamboo as well as some soybean fibre. I found teh corn very difficult to manage. It is like cotton - short fine fibres and the fine line between enough twist and too much twist. I gave up and ended up carding it with some bamboo and spinning a thick/thin lofty single which I plied with a bamboo single. Bamboo and Soybean are both a joy to spin. Lovely soft fine fibres with a long staple. Photos next time as I have not managed to snap decent pictures of them yet.
Now that I am done spinning all that I have moved on to some English Leicester lambswool that I bought from Moseley Park. It has a lovely sheen and nicelong staple. Being lamb's fleece it is also soft, but not in the same way as merino, which I am used to spinning. I am hand carding the locks together into large rolags and spinning those long draw. See, here is where a drum carder would be really nice, and I am still saving up for one of those babies.
I also bought some "Joe" from Jane, who runs Moseley Park. Joe is a Border Leicester x Corriedale x English Leicester x Finn. Definitely a cross-bred sheep! His fleece is a joy to spin. It practically spins itself. Once I am done with the English Leicester lamb, I plan on spinning up all of Joe's fleece taht I have and turning it into a jumper for the kid. It's quite a soft fleece - soft enough that Alex probably won't complain.
Oh, and the sewing machine has been busy too.
Presenting...
my first quilt!
I am so proud of it. I used pre-cut blocks for most of the top, matched with strips cut from some curtain fabric remnant and some blue homespun cotton. In case you can't see it, the picture blocks are Bob the Builder blocks.
I used a printed cotton flanelette fabric for the backing
You know what's the best thing about this? Alex likes it. He has been sleeping with it all week!
I have also been making reinforced undies for him. My little boy is growing up. He has been very good about going to the toilet and trying to keep his nappies dry and clean. Soon he will be in undies. I am sewing on an extra few layers of absorbent fabric for catching little accidents. I am using 1 layer of bamboo and 2 layers of plain white cotton flanelette. It's not mean to catch a lot of liquid, just enough that it doesn't go everywhere. I hope it works!
(C) 2004 Celia Ng and Chris Hernandez. All rights reserved. This page designed by Chris Hernandez. Many thanks to Amy at www.IndiGirl.com for the original Project Progress Tracker.
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