At last I have a mostly working pc. Yaaaay! I can download and crop images. I can upload them to blogs. But I don’t yet have working email.

There are at least nine knitblog entries I want to make. I figure I’ll work backwards through them, mainly because I still have a lot of photo sorting and writing to do for some of them and this one is going to be easy…

A few days before I finished and delivered The Book and headed off to New Zealand, I wrote a list of things I had been putting off because of lack of time and weekends. It was rather large – about 80 items. Some of the items on it were serious, like getting my passport renewed or painting the fence. Some were fun, like taking a weaving class and having an extension-warming party.

One was to try out my new local s’n’b. At last one had started locally that wasn’t held during work hours. So I hopped on over to Ringwood East yesterday morning, and was stunned by the number of knitters who turned up.

The two hours went in a flash. I took the socks I’d started when I arrived in New Zealand, and finished them but for the sewn cast off. (Then, like the ditzy brunette I am, I left one behind.) In fact, the sock knitting seemed to intrigue and I can see there are some potential sock knitting converts to be made…

One of the group is a spinner, and she brought a plastic tub full of handspun dyed with eucalyptus to give away. It’s a bit to harsh to knit into clothing, but would make nice woven placemats, table runners and may even be robust enought for floor rugs.

The beau observed that the oranges were the colours of our cat. All that was missing was white. Then I remembered that the first handspun I’d made had been in a harsh white fleece, so I dug it out. So the oranges and white are going to become the Peri Peri rug.

The shop lighting wasn’t great, and I’d thought the pale yellow matched the lighter parts of the dark brown-grey, but it doesn’t. The pale coffee coloured yarn I bought as warp for the Gum Tree Blanket was a good match, though. That’s going to become place mats.

I asked the spinner if she spun on commission. Of course, she was concerned immediately that I wouldn’t realise how time-consuming and therefore expensive it would be, not realising I’d learned to spin and knew. But I’d like to know how much it would cost, before I sell, give away or do anything funky like felting with the fibre stash. Could be the finn fleece is worth spending the money on, but not the rest. We’ll see.

There’ll be another meeting next week and I’m looking forward to going. I’m tempted to warp up the loom and make a placemat to show off. But that would add yet another item to my enormous list of thing to do. Best stick to more urgent crafty tasks.

I’m back! Well, sort of. Even if I hadn’t gone to New Zealand for two weeks I wouldn’t have been able to post here. As if going back to dial-up speed wasn’t painful enough, my pc became mortally ill and had to be replaced, and the beau has spent many, many hours swearing over the new one in his attempts to get it running.

The New Zealand trip was fantastic. I signed up to the Kiwi Knitters group on Ravelry before we left, and found a thread especially for visitors that listed the worthwhile yarn shops to visit. I have to say, NZ knitters don’t know how lucky they are. All the disparaging comments about the Knit World shops totally undeserved. Imagine a chain of knitting-only shops the size of Wondoflex, with stores reachable by foot in most major cities. I think the problem is Knit World only has a little bit of imported yarn – a bit of italian stuff, some Rowan (yawn), Regia and ACS yarns – but they have LOTS of local yarn, which may be overly familiar and boring to locals. In fact, I was constantly surprised at how much local yarn there was. I not only managed to find a ball of New Zealand yarn in every place I visited for my souvenir travel blanket, but each was a different brand and even after ten balls I could have kept adding more new manufacturers to add.

I deliberately packed VERY light so I could fit lots of yarn in my suitcase. By the end of the trip 2/3 of the space was filled with yarn and the expanding section had been expanded, and I’d bought an extra carry bag as well. Trouble was, the yarn got cheaper and more interesting at every shop! Some serious stash enhancement took place, and the only reason it’s all still on display on the day bed is because I’m not sure where I’m going to store it. I can’t wait to post a photo of it all. Along with photos of fos. And a couple of snapshots of NZ’s spectacular scenery.

But that’ll have to wait until I have a working pc again. Soon. Sooooooon.