Yeah Baby

500 liker prize draw.

2012-01-17T14:31:00.001+11:00

To celebrate making it to 500 likers, I am having a give-away.
To go into the draw to win a skein of my yarn, just put your name below here in the comments section.

I will draw a winner next Monday, 23rd Jan.
Pop your name below here and as long as you are one of my "likers" on facebook Angie's Studio and reside in Australia, you are eligible to win.

Good Luck!
Angie.

My Little Shop:

2011-12-30T18:02:00.001+11:00

I’ve moved around a fair bit with my yarns, knits and crochet for sale so this is just a quick note to say that my stuff is available for sale in my little Facebook shop Angie's Studio.

There is an album of yarn and an album of ready made “ready to go” knits and crochet.

They are:

YARN FOR SALE, READY TO GO NOW. and

Items which are ready to go (for sale now).

I also have a sale on right now which finishes New Year’s Day. The sale gives free postage Australia wide.

Please let me know if you would like to view the albums or buy something but are having problems. My email is angiecare@hotmail.com or you can comment below here.

Thanks everyone for your support :)

Angie.

I had a go at dyeing a gradient (tutorial).

2011-12-30T17:04:00.001+11:00

I’ve been admiring the beautiful colours of gradient dyed yarns that other dyers have been doing for some time now. I knew in theory how to do it I just hadn’t gotten around to having a go. So I decided it was time to have a go.

This is what I did:

First I took a 200g ball of wool and made it into 10 mini skeins of 20g each. I had my digital kitchen scales nearby so that I could weigh now and then and be aware once 20g had been wound off. I wound the yarn around my left hand and elbow, so they were only small skeins, each still joined to the next.

Then I soaked them all together in warm water with a drop of dishwashing detergent added. In this photo (below) there are 2 x 200g skeins soaking but in 2 different tubs…what a nightmare it would be to try to untangle them if they got mixed together!

Next is the fun part…getting the colours organised. I happened to take photos of my blue to brown gradient so that’s what I’ll show you in this blog entry.

Note the very important cup of tea :)

I laid out 10 containers and then organised my colours. I used 2 different browns and a lighter version of each brown. Then 3 blues with a lighter version of each of each blue. I mixed the colours a bit in the hope that they would blend nicely. Browns are at the left side in this pic blending to light blue in the middle then to dark blue.

You can do any colour arrangement that you like the look of at this stage.

Next I squeezed the excess water from the mini skeins, untangled them from each other and put each one in order above a tub of colour on the table. Once I was sure I had them not tangled, and all in the correct order, I picked each one up and plunged it into the tub of colour. I let them sit there for a while and I even fiddled with the colours by adding more colour or mixing to make the shades of colour slightly different.

Ok, next is a fiddly bit involving 10 little plastic bags. I used glad snap lock bags. I spread out 10 bags, one on the table above each tub of wool soaking in colour. I wash and reuse the little bags as many times as possible. I then started at the left and took the first mini-skein out of the colour and put it into the little plastic bag. I did this all the way along, leaving them open so that the steam created when they were heated wouldn’t pop the bags. Then I gathered each bag of coloured wool and put them all into the one big plastic container ready to go into the microwave.

This photo shows the container I use, and I forgot to say that I often cover the container with a bigger plastic bag to keep more heat and steam in with the wool.

So I put the whole lot into the microwave and set it for 3 minutes on high and pressed start. Then I set the timer on my stove for 30 minutes. I like to give the wool a good 30 minutes to take the colour even though I don’t microwave it continuously for that amount of time. I just keep checking on the wool to make sure it gets hot enough and then I close the microwave and let it sit in its own steam. Sometimes I’ll add another couple of minutes if I think it hasn’t got hot enough, or if it is cooling too soon.

After the buzzer on the stove goes I take the whole lot out of the microwave and with care not to burn myself I plop all the little bags into the sink and run some warm water into the sink.

You could do this individually with each little bag of wool just to be sure that if there is any run off of dye that it doesn’t contaminate one of the other colours.

Once they have all been rinsed, and are cooling, they can each be squeezed out and then hung out to dry.

I use my washing machine to give the whole lot (without the bags) a quick gentle spin so that they dry more quickly. I only do this with certain wools as I know they can take this sort of handling without felting.

I had such fun doing this and was really pleased with my first few tries at dying gradients.

Here are a few more pics:

Introducing Summer

2011-03-21T20:16:00.002+11:00

Introducing our gorgeous new family member Summer.

Born 7th November 2010.

Not so new now, she came to live with us back at the end of last year.

She is 5 months old now and such a joy and so cheeky.

Remembering Mango

2010-12-29T22:23:00.007+11:00

On the eve of the day we add a new girl puppy to our Family, I'm putting up some photos while I remember and think of Mango.

Puppy Mango.

Tiger and Mango:

Big sister Mango:

Forever loved.

2010-11-16T15:12:00.002+11:00

For a look at my yarn photos my flickr albums are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/34889633@N00/

Yarns for sale here: Yarn Collective, Yeah Baby.

2010-10-19T14:59:00.003+11:00

Just a quick note to say I've re-opened my store and have the below yarns for sale there and will be adding more as I am able.

http://www.yarncollective.com/store.php?SS=14

Back at the dye pots...yay!

2010-10-11T22:32:00.009+11:00

I decided that if I keep waiting for me to get the house organised and tidy then I may never dye again. So I pushed a few things aside, got some hanks soaking and got to it with colour.

It was so much fun and I still have the pots of dye in easy reach and some wool soaking for when I get a chance to play again.
I'm putting pics of my fresh colourways below, just numbered atm as I'm not in the mood for naming them.

Tea Rose Home: Tutorial ~ Jean Corsage~ (Got Old Jeans?)

2010-01-30T00:44:00.002+11:00

I've just been looking here:
Tea Rose Home: Tutorial ~ Jean Corsage~ (Got Old Jeans?)
Some nice ways to use those old jeans which no longer fit ;)

Eleanor Joy joins us (April 28th).

2009-06-19T22:40:00.008+10:00

Eleanor Joy joined our Family on the 28th of April at 6.30pm.

Weight: 4.160kg (9lb, 3oz).

Length: 54cm

Here are my gorgeous 3 girls, Layla, Ruby, and Eleanor.

Trying on a crochet top:

In Nana's loving arms (wearing a top made by me).

Meeting the resident big bunny "Buzz".

I think Buzzy boy aprroves :)
Cuddles with Daddy.

She's just gorgeous.

Buzz the balding, mischievious, sleepy, possum food pinching bunny

2008-06-11T16:19:00.004+10:00

Buzz has been losing the fur from the back of his ears now extending to the top of his shoulder blades.
No sign of mite dandruff and the vet saw him today and couldn't find any mites on a skin scraping.
The skin looks fine its just the fur isn't growing back...I thought he was moulting at first but this started about 5 months ago.
If anyone has any ideas let me know.
He doesn't seem bothered by it but it looks rather odd.

And here are my 2 mischief makers who quickly got into the bread before I was able to get all the shopping inside and out of their way.
The bread was swiftly removed as its bad for bunny tums but I couldn't resist a pic first...LOL.

Here's Buzz getting into the branches I collect for the possums and then having a nap...just 'cause he's cute ;)

Dimi

2008-06-04T22:48:00.008+10:00

Here are a couple of pics of Dimi the little orphan Brushtail possum whose Mum was hit by a car and killed.

Luckily someone thought to check her pouch and got the little bub to a wildlife carer who then sent him on to me to raise.

He was around 100g when he came in and is now 1.8kg and looks very different.

He has moved on to another carer who has an aviary available for him to get some exercise for a couple of weeks to build up strength before he goes back where he belongs...the tree tops.

This is him now:

What am I up to these days!

2008-05-21T14:09:00.002+10:00

Well in the last 6 months I've quit work...yay! I've begun wildlife careing, the house is full of possums and I often get a call out at any time of the day to go rescue an animal.
Since last September I seem to be doing far more crochet than knitting. I really need to do some dying but haven't got to that yet, I've plenty of raw yarn waiting for my colourful insprirations.
I'll get back more regularly.

AWARE

2007-10-16T13:03:00.000+10:00

For many years I've wanted to become a wildlife carer and it seems the time is coming.
I've been caring for orphaned rabbits for years and want to extend that experience into wildlife care.
There is an information evening next week that I'm going to to take the first steps towards becoming a wildlife rehabber.
Exciting!

The AWARE web site: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~beaware/main.htm

2007-10-16T12:33:00.000+10:00

I've been very busy with the crochet hook and enjoying making these tops.

The yellow one still needs a ribbon to be added.

Magic, Joobee, and Peter rabbits.

2007-10-05T12:29:00.000+10:00

A pic of my happy 3 rabbits who live in our backyard.

My first post here!

2007-10-05T12:14:00.000+10:00

Finally I'm starting my blog.

For the moment I just want to share a few pics of the crochet I've been working on...so here they are: