He’s home! Yay! It’s been a journey for him, a very painful one, but he’s made it through and is one the road to recovery! He had is tail docked as it was completely broken right up near the base – Oh his beautiful tail! He now has a 2-4cm long stub with heaps of sutures but it looks neat and tidy and, when his fur grows back, he’ll look ok. We love him anyway! The Lort Smith Animal Hospital was great and he was really well looked after for a reasonable price (having pets can be a very expensive business if you are a responsible pet owner…..responsible pet owners don’t leave their cats out at night (we really do bring him in every night, except the one he got hurt 
…)).
I have come to terms with the docked tail and, in fact, that became a minor issue when I heard that my sister-in-law’s brother has to get his beloved dog of 12 years put down on Monday for cancer….a docked tail is a blessing really! Anyway, thank you all for your thoughts – he’s going well and will be back to “normal” in a couple of weeks!
For me, I’m off to meet my Spinning group today and get the rest of that carded Aplaca:Silk spun up to show off!
Spinning is difficult when you are a beginner, Spinning is hard when you don’t allow yourself time to sit and relax and enjoy it and Spinning is almost impossible with two under two! Sophie wants to help and it makes my heart swell with love and pride watching a 20month old putting fibre up to the orifice and trying to turn the wheel. Sam thinks that the whole thing is great and keeps grabbing bits as they move and rolling under the treadle….hmmm it is still progressing though, I have done about 1/4 of the fibre I blended last weekend and it is so lovely and soft and unique! Yay for me! Got to go spin and play with my Possums (aka Sophie and Sam!). Have a great day and if you are spinning up something a bit different let me know, I’d love to have a look!
My cat has gone to hospital . I only got him back about 2 weeks ago – he has been living with my Dad for about 5 years and since he s about 7 that probably makes him Dad’s cat – and he is big and lush and fluffy and loves the kids. Sophie can practically lie on him and he takes it all in his stride but yesterday he wouldn’t come. I called him and called him – not like him at all. When he arrived here he just walked in like he’d always lived here – loves the company I think. He arrived at about 1pm with his beautiful bushy tail (one of his best features) hanging limply behind him and crying occasionally. I went to pick him up and he growled so I called by friend Al who knows about these things and she went us off to Lort Smith with thoughts of tail amputation in my mind. Good advice on all accounts – the wait was long (about 2 hours which is standard there) and the kids were grumpy and tired and hungry (lovely husband came and picked them up on his way home from work) and I was hungry and tired and upset – he had to stay in, he was in so much pain, they were going to give him some pain relief and then, if he can pass urine, they’ll do some x-rays and probably do a tail amputation. You know, when they said this I burst into tears, I was embarrassed, there are people there who are putting down sick beloved animals and here I am crying over a tail – oh, but what a tail! I hope he can wee and I still hope they can “save” the tail (even though I know they can’t) but you know, most of all, it’s made me realise what a part of our family he really is and that I don’t even have a photo of him and his tail to post . Makes me want to go and take a hundred photos of the kids 
! I’ll find out at lunch time what they think we should do so I think it will be a long week….
Our Beginner Spinning group got together yesterday for a great afternoon. Nat was a gem and brought her new drum carder which I hogged all afternoon, Trudi brought her loom, Valree and Danielle brought their wheels and Helen came armed with knitting, crochet and Christmas gifts.
Trudi made a hand towel, just like that, she got out her loom, wired it up and off she went – it was awesome! Nat was spinning fairy floss and Danielle was whipping up a silken storm that is soon to become hand spun, hand knitted fish-net stockings (can’t wait to see them – she’ll have to do a guest post here to show them off!).
Nat’s spinning is so fine and even….I wish!
I spent my whole afternoon making up roving for Henley Perfected (you’ll get sick of reading those words by the time it is finished) and it was a most satisfying experience. I think I managed to blend about 100g of fibre so I am off to a good start.
Drum carding silk and alpaca
Christmas Spirit!
And then there was a very thoughtful Christmas gift for each of us from Helen that can be purchased here:
Thank you Helen, I hope I do it justice – maybe I’ll have to come for some classes… And, thank you everyone for a lovely afternoon!
Here is the flourless cake recipe I promised:
Flourless Lemon cake
206gm ground almonds
1 lemon rind finely grated
1/4 – 1/2 tsp cinnamon
5 eggs
220g castor sugar
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Butter and line a 24cm springform tin.
2. With an electric beater and large bowl beat eggs and sugar together until thick and pale (takes about 10 minutes).
3. Add remaining ingredients and fold through with a metal spoon until just combined.
4. Bake for 40 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.
5 . Remove from over and allow to cool in tin for 10 minutes before removing sides.
6. Cool and dust with icing sugar
7. Eat with fun people and tea from a pot!!
This recipe was given to me by a friend so I am not 100% sure where it originated but there are many many variations on the Internet – this recipe is pretty quick and simple. I buy the ground almonds from a local nut and grain store and they only cost about $3.50 which is much better than at the supermarket – it’s worth shopping around!
I’m not really sure I can call it progress on Henley Perfected but it certainly is progress towards Henley Perfected! Yesterday I combed out some of my Alpaca that I washed the other day…. let me firstly say that it needs more washing, I think I washed too large a batch at once but I am not too worried as it is mostly clean and I think it will wash up ok after it is spun.
I went into the Guild and bought 200g of mulberry silk – it is so lovely and white and “silky” for want of a better word – and was asked by a few people what I was up to. They all seem so interested and it makes me feel great about my passion even though I don’t really feel like I am getting very far. It was meeting day yesterday and the place was swarming with like minded people – it felt so alive and exiting and I made a silent pledge to myself that I will attend a meeting soon, they have an activity in the morning and then the meeting in the afternoon but people seem to mill around from 10am onwards. It will have to be a Daddy day when I go…
Today the Beginner Spinning group are coming over for a session and Nat is going to bring along her new drum carder so we can play around with the alpaca and silk… I will post some pictures later in the week… I don’t think I’ll get more than 100g of batts made as I have only combed out about 42g of alpaca…I may get more done but I don’t think so… next week I am meeting with the Next Step Spinning group, also with Nat, so I am going to try and have another 50g combed up for then to card together….I guess all this just shows that Henley Perfected is a long way off!
Yes, I have cast on and I feel very smug… I am finally knitting for charity! I am knitting this pattern which many people seem to have knit before – with 398,000 woollens knitted and sent overseas I think a few people have done it!
My plan for charity knitting is to use up “stash” that I don’t think I’d use otherwise (sorry recipients, you deserve the best, not the left overs), if a yarn doesn’t knit up very well I’ll turn it into blanket strips. I am going to try and knit 12 of these a year to start, if I get through that I’ll be pretty happy and look at increasing my output and varying it!
I was worried that my jumper is turning out too big but on reading the site they need bigger ones anyway – I am not sure of the ply/weight I am knitting with as it is part of the gifted stash rejects from Trudi. It is actually looking very nice knitted up but I am not sure that it is soft enough for a little one to wear…hopefully it will soften with washing…
Knitting for Charity
It shouldn’t be surprising but when you look around there are many different causes to knit for!
