Spring Storms.

I spent most of Thursday and Friday on the phone trying to secure a motor home rental. Finally succeeded on Friday. EQC phoned Friday afternoon to say the dates have been changed but no one knew what to. I wasn't impressed. Then I received another call just before 5p.m. to say it would now be the 8th October. We shall wait and see.

Yesterday started really good, weather sunny but warm, a bit of a breeze. By 3 p.m. I could see a southerly storm moving in very quick. Did we get a battering! Hail, sleet, rain, winds, thunder and lightning. The sky was black. It lasted about 4 hours. Absolutely wild. The thunder was so loud it felt like the house was shaking.

I went outside this morning to survey the damage to the garden, all my cheerful daffodils and tulips are flattened and my peonies look like they have been through a mangle.

On close inspection of the veggie garden I found this little beauty peeping through:

The asparagus will soon be ready to pick ~ it grows quickly once it bursts through the ground. This is early for us, I'm sure we didn't see it until October last year but I did see the first of it in the shops 2 weeks ago at $18 per kg. I've planted peas, radish, salad onions and cos lettuce so far and have lots more to put in once the weather gets more reliable. The potato beds are ready to go- waiting for the early Liseta potatoes to go in, I'm waiting on them sprouting a little more before planting and I won't be storing the frost cloth away just yet.



The cherry trees are just starting to bloom

I made 36 Macarons at the weekend and the 3 in the photograph are the only perfect ones I got out of the whole batch. I've made them before and they were fine so I'm not sure what went wrong this time. They were still edible but had cracked on top.

2 years on.....

It's 2 years since we had the first earthquake, I don't talk about it really ~ I may have mentioned it once or twice but I know there are families who are in a much worse situation than we could ever be. I always look for the positive in any negativity, but I'm all out of positives - at the point where I could pull out my fingernails through frustration with 'the system'.

Our house had an EQC assessment in November 2010, 3 months before we purchased it.

July 2011 - Had the log burner/chimney replaced as the chimney had fallen down in the September  quake. Informed that our second heat source (a range in the kitchen with wet back and chimney) would get replaced at the end of that year. It didn't/hasn't.

October 2011 ~  had a further assessment.
We received a copy of this just before christmas and again it was wrong, no mention of the range/chimney/damage to master bedroom ceiling.

No further communication from anyone EQC related until May 2012 when we had a 'scope' assessment. Told repairs would start within 3 months. They didn't/haven't.

The thing that annoys me most of all is how they presume:

1. You have a spare empty house that you can move into while the repairs are carried out.
2. You have an invisible storage facility of cavernous proportions on your property capable of storing the contents of your home while repairs are carried out.
3. You can drop everything to accommodate them wanting to visit at 5 minutes notice.

Observations I have made:

1. Trying to get any information out of the 'system' is like pulling teeth. No-one knows anything.
2. Our second heat source seems to have been forgotten about ~ yet EQC regularly advertise in the newspapers telling everyone how many heat sources they have replaced to date. Save the advertising costs and invest the money in point 5.
3. Conflicting information ~ for example, some people can only choose wallpaper at $45 per roll while others have no set price limit.
4. If 1 wall in a room is damaged they will only paint that one wall once repaired, so you will have mis-matched decoration, which beggars belief when there are people who had a small crack in their foundation slab yet got their house demolished and completely rebuilt. Now they are splitting hairs over a bit of paint?
5. EQC needs to use some of the cash that we have paid into this fund to pay for eye tests. Our assessor was adamant he couldn't see ceiling/wall cracks that are clearly visible to everyone else. 
6. They believe seismic waves don't travel through interior stud walls and affect the room beyond. See point 7.
7. Most of the assessors don't have any qualification to assess anything.
8. They need reminding that some exterior damage looks old ~ it's 2 years since the damage occurred. Of course there will be moss and dirt in exterior cracks after being exposed to 2 winters, gail force winds, snow and -11 deg temperatures.
9. The paint called 'half black white' is actually grey.

We were told yesterday that our repairs are now booked to start on 1st October ~ I spent most of the afternoon trying to sort out a storage container and somewhere for us to live. We decided the best option for us is to rent a motorhome and live onsite. It would be ok for a week, maybe 2 ~ but we may be in it for 4 weeks or more. I will have my knitting to keep me sane. It's going to be a tough time in many ways but we have been through worse. I will be looking forward to getting nicely settled back in our home before Christmas. It will be such a relief to get it over and done with, we will be pleased to finally move on from what has happened during the last 2 years.

TdF & Ravellenics...

As soon as the Tour de Fleece over I was straight onto the Ravellenics.

I didn't manage to spin everything I had hoped during TdF, but at least I spun every day which in itself was a challenge for me.

Here's what I spun:

I managed to reduce my stash by 440g. I then added to the stash by purchasing 300g of Polwarth that I couldn't resist. I really enjoyed taking part in this and will look forward to participating again next year. I won a prize, and it was one of those wonderful prizes that I usually fail to win:

It's a hand dyed silk brick. I keep looking at it and touching it, wondering what it will become.
















So I signed up for the Ravellenics as a last minute thing and then wondered what on earth I was going to knit ~ I knew I wanted to use some of the yarn I spun during TdF. I finally decided on Pear Drop with the singles silk/merino yarn I had spun but wondered how it would work out as I usually stick to semi solid or tonal yarns for lace work. I worried that I would run out of yarn or that the yarn would keep breaking on me. Neither happened:

This is how the yarn looked after skeining and lightly fulling. I was very cautious with the fulling as I know there's a very fine line between fulling and ending up with an unusable mess.

The yarn was still a bit too energised for my liking at this stage so I set up the ball winder and skeiner at opposite ends of the room and let the yarn relax while travelling between them. This seemed to do the trick and removed the unwanted energy.

I used 93g of yarn.




I went to spinning today and came home with a bag of unknown fleece. There's 500g of crimpy sheepy lanolin scented beauty. Staples are 7" long, it's a fine and fairly soft fleece. It's definitely not Corridale. The lady who I got it from thinks that it may be Romney. I know Romney can vary enormously, I've had some awful carded Romney when I first started spinning which is why I thought I hated the stuff, then I got some carded top from a local coloured sheep breeder and it's one of the nicest fibres I have ever spun, so maybe this is Romney after all. A few of the very experienced spinners thought it could be a merino cross or halfbred because of the crimp:

I'm planning on flick carding just the tips and spinning it from the locks, in the grease. I just spun a mini sample skein and washed it to see how it finishes. I have it drying now by the fire on this extremely wet and grey cold day.

Tour de Fleece, so far so good...

Day 1:

Serenknitty batt, 39g

Day 2:

 Above singles plied ~ 98 yards, DK weight

Sweet Georgia yarns merino/silk singles

Looking forward to day 3 :-)

Little Bird

Every morning for the past few weeks when I open the kitchen blinds just after sunrise I see this little chap:

Little Bird

He sits there warming himself up in the sunshine and half an hour later he'll fly off but always returns the next day. I like how round and plump he looks.

I started knitting the alpaca yarn I spun a few weeks ago. I finally decided on Age of Brass and Steam, as much as I wanted to knit the Northumbria Cowl there would have been lots of yarn left over and I'd like to use this up. I have a smaller batch of this same fibre that I aim to spin during TdF and hope to knit some matching mitts. The yarn is knitting up beautifully, it's the most consistently even yarn I have ever spun and it's perfectly balanced. It has a wonderful sheen which isn't very visible in the picture and I think it will have a nice drape after blocking.

Alpaca/Polwarth/Silk

I'm off to batten down the hatches, there's a big storm/weather bomb heading our way.

The countdown begins....

It's going to be a busy week. TdFstarts in 5 days. My To Do list:

1. Make sure all my bobbins are empty (that means I have heaps of plying to do)

2. Oil and service my wheel (wouldn't want it breaking down on me or going clunky)

3. Change the drive band (apparently it's recommended you change it every 2 months, I never knew that, did you? Mine must be 2 years old lol)      

4. Sort out what I would like to spin  Already done, see below for new additions.

5. Have fun and be realistic, I'm never going to spin all this fluff!

Corridale/Kid Mohair/Silk in Paua

This is my new pet, Patch.

Merino/Silk Chocolate & Gold

Alpaca/Polwarth/Silk

Ashford's Corridale Striped Sliver in Summer Days

Southern Alpacas pure carded alpaca fibre

Tour de Fleece

I've signed up for the Tour de Fleece over on Ravelry. I'm in Team Ashford and joined the Rookies group  ~ being a TdF newbie I may be in need of some guidance.

I'm hoping that participating will push me to do more spinning full stop. Currently I go to a spinning guild twice a month which equates to two half days, sometimes I spin for a couple more hours in the afternoon after the meet up, but not always. More often than not I go to get my wheel to go to the meeting and realise that I haven't touched it since the lastone. Then I feel sad :-(

So back to the TdF ~ the guidelines state that you are to spin each day that the tour rides. The dates are 30th June - 22nd July. There are 2 rest days ~ 10th & 17th July.

I'm still thinking of personal challenges/aims but I'm thinking my aim will be to spin every day for the duration and hope this will get me into the habit of spinning on a more regular basis in the future. On challenge day we are to spin something challenging and I'm thinking that will be the braid of fibre in this pic:




Sweet Georgia Yarns merino/silk 50/50 blend in the stunning Midnight Garden colourway. Happily received in a recent swap. This will be challenging for me because I've never spun anything with such a high percentage of silk. The fibre seems tightly compressed so I'll do a fair bit of predrafting.


The HiyaHiya needles are working out great. I would highly recommend them, the swivel action on the joins is amazing and actually works. I'm using them to knit the Ramona Cowl.