Happy Hotest 100 day

Today is Triple J's Hottest 100 day, which is the day when they play their listeners favourite 100 songs released in the last year. Usually when you vote you go into a draw to win CDs released by all the artists. This year you can get tickets to all the gigs supported by Triple J. That would be pretty cool. I have listend to the Hottest 100 for the last few years, it is always held on Australia Day. I have only missed a little bit of it last year when I was on call and had to go to work for a caesar. Usually I hang out near the radio doing some stitching, it is great to listen to some great music, and see where my fave songs rate. Already I am disappointed that one of my favourite songs for the year, Sun Dirt Water by the Waifs only rated in the 92. I think last year 7 of my 10 picks were in the top 20

This afternoon my stitching group is having a get together to celebrate the Australia Day weekend. I have just rescued the potatoes from the stove - I am making potato salad. Here are some pics of the knitting WIP that I will be taking with me.

It is a wrap vest from the zhivago booklet all wrapped up. It is one piece, and has holes for the arms. I bought the yarn from Yarns Galore at the craft show in Canberra last year. I was determined that I was going to buy myself something for a special project, and I found the perfect one. There was a lady from Threads and More modelling her vest (pattern 5 in th booklet), she said you can flip it upside down and wear it that way as well. It looked great. Yarns Galore had a blue version on their stand, and I found this gorgeous pink yarn to knit it in.

The yarn is Diamond Luxury Collection Natal, 75% baby alpaca, 18% silk and 7% polyamide. I am knitting it on 5mm circular addis. It has the most beautiful feel. I am not very far into the wrap, I am about to cast off to create the first arm hole. It is very easy to make, all knit stitch. The hardest thing is counting the stitches, because it is knitted in one piece.

Tomorrow I am going to be celebrating my 2nd nieces first birthday. It is going to be heaps of fun. She shouldn't be one yet, but she came early. Her big sister is 2, and loves birthdays. She loves to sing happy birthday, have presents and eat cake!

When I had my birthday at the end of last year, I pulled my fave present out of the bag with Niece1 watching. When I spread it out to get a good look at it Niece1 immediately layed down on it and said "pretty quilt". She has really good taste. The gift was a large piece of a Ricky Timms fabric, big enough for the backing of a quilt. My Mum and I saw it in Braidwood when we went for the Airing of the Quilts in November. I think it is 4m worth.

I had promised my Mum that I would put up a pic of her scrumtious sponge cake. It is the yummiest birthday cake you could have. I am yet to attempt to make one, it fits into the category of foods that your Mum makes that you know will not taste as good when you make it.
My mouth is watering just looking at the picture of the cake. Luckily her contribution today is cream puffs - yum.

Gotta love colour

On Friday my sister and I did a class with Helen Godden. She was teaching us how to dye fabric with Genesis Creations Liquid Radiance, an Australian fabric dye. It was a really fun day, and it was cool to see the different effects of the techniques. I could not replicate what I did, cos I can't remember what colours I used. I think next time I play with the dyes, I will have to take step by step pics and notes. My big sis and I will be playing with colour again, cos we couldn't resist buying the starter set.



This one is a shibori, and the one below looks a bit like a gerbera. Love the colours.

The one above uses the techniques of scrunching and squashing - isn't the terminology cool?
The next one has yellow (my least favourite colour), and uses epson salts to give the effect of coral, don't know how well you can see that in the photos.

Tie dye to look like a garden above, and grading on a slope below. If you are clever you can create sunsets, or landscapes. I just played with colour.

This last one was supposed to be a flower. I wasn't that happy with my technique, but the photo looks pretty good. If I had Helen's skill, I could do some more focussed painting to give a centre, and quilt it to really make it look like a flower. Maybe one day.



Another experiment that my sister and I will try is dyeing on a warm dry day. The day that we did the class was cool and cloudy, with showers in the afternoon. The rain was very inconvenient when we were trying to dry the fabric. Apparently warm dry days = bright colours, cool days = softer colours. The dye is really cool cos it works on cotton, polyester, silk or wool. If I never get round to knitting socks, I could always dye a plain pair, lol.

Lonely days

I probably shouldn't have named my blog "The Cat Rules". Unfortunately my darling Katie went to sleep last week, it has been 10 days now. The poor thing was really crook one morning, so I got her to the vet as soon as I could, but I had a feeling that she wasn't going to be coming home. She had liver and heart failure, and probably wouldn't have lasted the night so she was put down. I didn't like the idea of her possibly dying alone. It was sad that Katie got crook so quick. She was good last month when she had her checkup, but her previous health problems caught up with her.



The crew at the Kippax Vets were great, especially Calista. They had helped me keep Katie healthy after being diagnosed with thyroid disease. She went to Sydney and had radiotherapy, which cured her of any thyroid problem. Unfortunately, thyroid disease can mean that you then get heart disease. At the start of the thyroid hassles, Katie got so crook so quickly that she went into heart failure. We cured that too. Then last year she got diabetes, which went into remission after 2 weeks of insulin (luckily, it is very hard to give regular injections when you work shifts).



She was a very expensive cat, and a very loved cat. It is lonely not having her here, I miss hearing her meow when I get out of the car in the garage. Calista (Katie's vet), and the other girls at the vet were wonderful. It was so hard making the decision to give the green medicine, but I had to. My poor baby was so crook that she didn't feel any different after the injection to what she did when she was alive. I had been regularly stopping patting her to make sure she was still breathing.



I think at the end of the year I may get another cat, but at the moment I will enjoy my memories of Katie. I am sorry if this post doesn't make much sense, but I am still very sad, and typing through tears.

Thanks to Michelle for showing me how to add photos where I want them