A new yarn swift - home made

What is a yarn swift?
Well...you know when you are watching a movie in the evening and decide to ball up some yarn for a new project you are just dying to knit? The inevitable problem is to get someone (partner, visitor, small child, family dog) to hold the skein while you ball up the yarn. Nobody wants to do it so you end up trying to ball from a skein hung over two chair legs or over your own feet (which is a bit like yoga) leading to knots and snarls (knots in the yarn, snarls on your face). A yarn swift is a mechanical helper who will hold the yarn steady for you whenever you like while you make cute little balls of knitting materials.

I guess my mostly absent partner got very tired of being met at the door by arm loads of skeins because he made me a swift.

First we did a bit of internet research to find the right design;

Then the building began...

He built pretty much to the instructions in the clip (the difference between us... I can't follow instructions).

The base is a piece of spare ply

Finding the centre to drill the hole

Drilling the hole

The bolt thingy in the base for the arms to swing around.

A spacer so the arms aren't too close to the base.

Sawing the arms to the right length

The arms are notched so they sit level with each other

See

Drilling the hole right through the middle

A bit of copper pipe in the middle holds it all together

Yes...it spins

The finished unit. Thanks Hon

Local insects and animals - St Andrews Cross spider

A lot of people seem to be frightened by spiders, I don't know why. Maybe it's the way they move or the fact that a small (really small) proportion of them are poisonous? These don't seem like good reasons; after all a small (really small) proportion of people are murderous, and we still keep talking to them...
On my recent trip to my mother's garden I managed to snap a picture of a really pretty spider, so I thought I would try to identify it.

X marks the spot

After a little bit of internet searching I discovered that this is a St Andrews Cross spider (as you probably guessed from the post title). I also discovered some amazing facts about Australian spiders (as is the way with internet searches);

• Spiders have eyes like ours; not segmented or faceted like an insects.
• The funnel web and red back are the only really venomous species in Australia, the bites of other spiders can be irritating but not dangerous (unless you are operating heavy machinery, but that's another story).
• Mating is very dangerous for some male spiders; females may not even wait to mate before eating him.
• There are some killer knit and crochet patterns out there for spiders and spider webs (I got distracted, OK?)

As for the St Andrews Cross spider specifically;

• They are a species of orb spider; known for their beautiful web spinning.
• There are at least three sub species of St Andrews Cross; Argiope keyserlingi and Argiope picta and Argiope mangal (based on our geographical location, the one above is a Argiope keyserlingi).
• They make that beautiful cross that they sit on from a special UV reflective web which they use to attract insects to their web.
•  The spider gets it's name from the shape of the cross it makes in it's web. In short; St Andrew was a Christian priest in Turkey or Greece who convinced a Roman commander's wife to give up sex, the commander had him crucified for it (Freud would be right onto that one) but he requested that he be tied to a saltire (an X rather than a +) as he was not worthy of being crucified in the same way as his Christ.

They are certainly beautiful little spiders. They are not venomous, they catch insects for a living and they build art in the garden, what's not to like?

Lanikai - My Mum's garden - some more photos.

Last post was really photo heavy, and so is this one. Mum's garden is an amazing place and I just want to share it. So here's another photo feast;

No they aren't real. They are just one of the little tableau to be found scattered around the garden.  

Here's another one

Lanikai - My Mum's garden

Recently I attended a garden day at my Mum's place. The local Garden Club visits members gardens once a month and there are always cuttings to be had. I haven't been for a long while (years in fact) due to work/study/life commitments, but I had a day free and my mother invited me, so I went.

As I wandered around the garden, catching up with friends I hadn't seen for a while, it struck me that this garden had matured and changed over the last three decades. This is the garden I grew up in and it had changed along with me. The old swings had gone and a fish pond taken their place, the vegetable garden and orchards had changed places several times and the trees had grown in size and number. It has matured into a stunningly beautiful place to spend time and somewhere it is possible to get lost in the endless grassy paths leading to secret spaces. These days Mum and Dad run a camping place and charge people $5 for a tour of the garden and a cup of tea with scones (usually some cuttings too), and it is well worth the visit.

I would like to share some pictures of my mum's garden with you.
This is a random selection of images from the garden, there is more that I haven't shown, and no they aren't all from the garden day I went on, some are taken by  my Dad at other times.

Local insects and animals - King parrots

Australia has a lot of parrots; 56 species to be exact. The king parrot is one of the most beautiful of them. A lot of people in our area see them as pests because they can be extremely destructive and will destroy a vegetable garden in the blink of an eye. I think they are beautiful, but I take care to keep my vegetables growing in secure cages.

We have a little family of king parrots who visit in search of food regularly. There is Steve; the dad of the group, he may have been hand raised (I'm not sure) as he isn't scared to come into the house to steal bites from fruit and chew things. Next is Kerry; the mum, she is shy and hard to photograph, she flies away as soon as she sees me. They have two babies every year who stay with them until they get full plumage, this years babies have yet to come to the house.

Steve, waiting for me to fill the feeders.

Feeding wild birds is never a good idea (unless you are planting shrubs for them to feed off) they get used to being fed and rely on the food source without bothering to find more. They also get obese and are easy prey for predators. Having said that, our wild birds visit the chook pens and eat anything left over after feeding time. I don't encourage this, but I don't actively discourage it either. What can I say...I'm weak, I like to see them flying around the place and know they are all OK. They can be a pain in the proverbial though...

We came home from work one day and found the house in disarray, from the evidence, we had either been vandalised or the king parrot family had come over for coffee and found us not home. They pushed books off the shelves, chewed the back off a chair and tipped over some bottles in the kitchen. They also tore a cardboard box apart to expose the fire extinguisher inside, and had a good go at figuring out how to activate it (the pin was pulled out but the handle proved too hard for them to work).

A close up of Steve, he was in the house and had to be caught and escorted outside.

The chair back they chewed up.

Do you have king parrots? Do you love them or hate them?

Spinning and Plying cotton - part two

Now for the fun bit...
Spinning cotton requires patience and practice. The method is different to wool and the settings on your wheel are different too.

First, the wheel. My wheel has a double band drive, which is not recommended for spinning using the long draw method (commonly used for cotton) as it is hard to adjust the wheel to take up the yarn slowly enough. I have found it is possible to use the long draw method with a double band wheel, you just need to be patient and keep a close eye on the yarn.

 I use what I would call a medium draw method that works efficiently for me. Instead of drawing the fibre back past my hip, as you do with the long draw, I draw back about 30 cm at a time before letting the yarn wind onto the bobbin. I also 'bend' the yarn a bit so I can control the twist in the yarn I am drafting. For non- spinners; drafting is pulling the fibre out into a thin line before the spinning wheel puts twist into it.

The clip below shows how an expert spins cotton using the long draw method.

This clip shows how I spin using my medium draw method.

It takes a long time for me to spin a bobbin of cotton, but I enjoy the challenge of getting the single (the un-plyed strand of yarn) smooth and even.

The singles are getting fairly even.

Almost filled a bobbin, just a few more nests.

When the bobbin is full it is time to ply the yarn....see you then.