Friday 7 December 2007

Handspun and flatworms.




It's a lovely peaceful Friday afternoon in Mogland, Molly the dog-on-loan is snoozing in front of the telly and Magnus is asleep in front of the fire. Cats always get the warmest bit. The Christmas light count in the village has gone through the roof and believe me, if the householders could get onto the roof, there would be even more shiny stuff. Some have put lights around their chimneys which in my mind could cause a tripping hazard for anyone trying to climb down on Christmas Eve.

Today is my big brother Tom's birthday so I hope he is having a good one and that many presents have been forthcoming. Me, I'm awaiting orders as to what present he would like although I do know of a knitted Dalek pattern......

The Knitting Bee was great fun except that my carding advisor couldn't make it so I will have to live with grazed knuckles for a while longer. The Bee hostess, Marianne made the most spectacular squidgy chocolate brownies which were gone in seconds. I spun some dyed Wensleydale and it turned out fine. Not sure what to do with it next though. Nell's thing that requires a roar has finally been finished - see above for details. It's very good for making funny faces with and I'm sure the roaring will be load and scary. All I need to do now is finish her little sister's bird and my holiday knitting will be over.

The icky worm picture is a true horror story - New Zealand Flatworms are living in my compost. This is a very bad thing as they eat earthworms by curling around them and disolving them with stickiness. I had to report them to the Scottish Crop Research Institute to help them to map out how widespread they are in Scotland. As the name suggests, they are not a native species. Apparently the best thing to do is to boil the buggers by pouring a kettle of water onto the compost. It might sound a bit medieval but the earthworms need revenged!

Tonight a man is coming to our house to collect a juicer, some hair dye, some Jiffy bags for posting and a couple of DVDs. I put them on Freecycle yesterday and he was the person to write the nicest email. It will clear a bit more unwanted junk from the house and hopefully improve my Karma after the Flatworm boiling incident !

4 comments:

Cindy G said...

Oh, I love (!) Nell's Thing. Worth waiting for the pic. Ugh about the flatworm (shudder).

Purple Fuzzy Mittens said...

Flatworms from New Zealand are kinda cool, but they don't belong in Scottish composte, so eradication is the only answer. (Dyer's woad is a nasty alien invader of the western U.S. so fiber folks around here have to resist the temptation to smuggle it into Nevada - Utah is suffering big time from it.)

The Thing that Roars is fabulous! I'd be tempted to drop everything and make one, but, being a life-long fan of the Good Doctor, I am more likely to knit a dalek first. My sister still has the K-9 I knit for her years ago from a pattern in the Doctor Who Pattern Book. :-)

Tom said...

We had a jolly good time at the party - but we had to improvise a bi with the candle, see zanak.blogspot.com

I remember when the Daleks used to frighten you, they still frighten me!

magnusmog said...

A K9? Is it a real toy? I might make one for Tom ( brother )