Whoops! .. and a new camera

Ok so I am guilty of forgetting this thing, if it were a pet I'd have the SPCA on my back. Well in the news lately, my camera gave up on me after struggling to hang in there over the last few months. I was suddenly faced with having to replace it but as I had not been in the market for one I had no idea what I wanted. I spent a couple of nights online checking out sales and reviews, I decided to stick with panasonic as I had been pretty happy with the previous one and they always seem to get fairly decent reviews, that only left me with the question of how much camera did I need.

I had been wanting to up my game a bit on the photography front, and had been toying with the idea of jumping into the DLSR pool. However aside from the cost of them, I wasn't overly thrilled by the idea of the size of it, and extra lenses and batteries and all the extra gear that people lug about with them. I wanted a camera that did great closeups and awesome colour, the two models I kept coming back to were the panasonic LX3 and LX5.. ouch on the price though. I managed to find an LX3 on sale for $200 off, I had lucked into needing a new camera the week that the LX5 had hit the market, and so LX3's were being sold off. Yay! not only did I get $200 off the camera, but I picked up a spare battery for half price too, and another SD card.

I love my new camera, it's a little bigger then my previous one, but it is still small enough to slip into my handbag or a pocket. It takes awesome photos! I love not having to fiddle with colour and exposure, I just point, click and load it straight to flickr, and with the grid overlay on the screen to help me when taking the shots, I barely even need to crop. Hopefully this means I will have even better looking project pictures on Ravelry, and more importantly, better pictures for my patterns for sale. Now all I need is a light tent/box set up, I am planning to build that from pvc pipe and white nylon.

Skein winder mods

Ok to start with, I'm feeling rather smug about my new mods. I'm sure others have done it before, but I unvented this from my own ideas so I'm rather chuffed about it. I've been needing a way to measure the length of my yarn as I wind it. And looking about at yarn measuring products they seem to be either a fishing line meter, or a distance measuring wheel, repackaged and repriced for the knitting market. From what I saw with the line meter, it can get jammed up with the lint that comes off wool, it also won't measure anything too fine, nor too thick. The wheel based ones look like they might be more accurate, however I still feel there is potential for slippage.

So the thinking cap, or should I say caps as my hubby was helping to think, went on. I came up with the idea of using a laser, like in the way a shop door alert works as a customer passes through and breaks the beam. However we don't want it to blip when the beam was broken, we wanted something that could measure when the beam was completed. And looking at lasery things it all looked a little expensive. Second though was if not lasers, why not magnets? something that could cause enough pull to click a lever as it passed by, so i'd be able to count how many times my skein winder had gone around, multiply it by the circumference of my winder and then figure out the distance. We were getting closer to a solution!

I didn't want anything that needed physical contact, the bearings on my winder are a little wibbly and I couldn't be certain it would pass by in exactly the same position each time. And then it hit me, my sons bike odometer! it works by magnet, as the magnet that is placed on the wheel passes by the sensor, the computer then translates this information into speed and distance, based on the size of wheel you have put in at the set up. so not only can I tell what length of yarn I am winding, but how fast! extra bonus.

I searched around and found a relatively cheap one online, you can pick one up for just a few dollars if you do a bit of looking, be sure to get one that allows you to specify the wheel size though. I experimented with various mounting points before settling on having the sensor and magnet fairly close to the center, this gives less leeway for movement and less chance of the arms swiping the sensor as they pass by. I had to drill a wee hold for the magnet mount to anchor into, I'll make this more permanent with glue once I am happy this is the best set up. The readout screen I secured to the base, it was just the easiest place to mount it with the ties that were included, and it's easy enough to read down there. I did need to secure teh wire to the upright at the place where the knobs pass, because they caught up the wire and I nearly had a major malfunction. So, I give you the yarn measurey skein winder thingy! I'll be testing it out over the next week as I have alot of skeins to wind.

Weather, Kauni, Needlefood and stuff

Firstly, to all you non believers out there, just to prove we do have decent weather during a Wellington winter, here's a photo of the beach just before sunset no wind well ok the beach is covered in seaweed that got washed up during a southerly storm, but we do still get breathing space between them where we can poke our noses out and enjoy the outdoors!

Today I woke up to find a package from Australia on my doorstep, should I be ashamed I am still sleeping while the courier is already out and about and hard at work? Inside were the four balls of Kauni yarns I had ordered from Knits and Pretties . I had been wanting to try this yarn for a while now, and finding a supplier so close to home just pushed me over the edge. I'm casting on today with the pink (EE) and blue (ES) colour ways to test knit my next hat pattern. While I adore working with the Wollmeise yarns, I do think I need to show my patterns can be worked in other types. I look forward to seeing how the colours of the kauni work together. My first thought was ick, that pink and blue together is just a no, but experience has taught me that it is always the colours that I have that reaction to that end up looking best with each other. No point trying to be too matchy matchy or it just ends up looking blah.

I also need to finish of my first knit of a project bag design, I'm working in needlefood yarn and loving it! it is such a pleasure to knit, it just feels so good on my hands. I'm not sure about the finished size I've ended up with so I think once this one is done I will cast on and tweak my numbers a bit for a smaller one. Not to worry, I have a treasure chest of mini skeins of needlefood to work from and already my mind is racing ahead to an alternate colour work chart for the main body of the bag. I should have plenty left to knit up a finished sample in my newer hat design as well.

First things first

Ok, so I finally ventured into the world of blogging. I feel like maybe trumpets should blare in unison, heralding my entrance into a world that has until now remained a mystery to me. Who am I kidding, this is still a mystery! but perhaps if I am determined enough I'll figure it all out and wonder why on earth I never jumped into this years ago.

So this is where you get to hear all about what I am up to, what I am working on and why. I'm really not sure what kind of direction this blog will take, maybe I'll ramble about my home life, include recipes and funny anecdotes of life with teens. Can life with teens actually be funny? I guess there are times we just have to laugh, or we'd end up in tears. Perhaps I will focus more on just the knitting side of things and use my blog as a place to pimp out my pattern design business ( lol! I've sold maybe 2 dozen, can it be called a business yet?) Who knows how this will evolve I look forward to the ride though.

Why Tui Song Cottage? yeah, well I needed a name to brand my hand knits and patterns under, and all those cute and witty and clever knitting inspired names are gone! yes, I realised how I am not nearly as original as I had hoped when I started using google to check up on my short list. So I went back to the start of the process again and decided to use the things around me as my inspiration. From where I sit at the computer I see a kowhai tree, it is often visited by tuis, even in winter when there is no nectar laden blooms. Tuis are a native NZ bird, they chatter and sing all day long around my neighbourhood. They really are the most wonderful sounding bird and are great mimics too, there is one nearby that imitates the sound my phone makes when it is ringing! I've been known to go racing inside to answer the phone when it was just the bird somewhere over the back. So we have the tui song, but what of the cottage? well my home is in truth a bungalow, the actual architectual style is known in NZ as californian bungalow and was very popular here around the 1920's when my home was built. Tui Song Bungalow just doesn't have the same ring to it so I used creative license and threw cottage into the mix.

So here I am, looking for packaging materials online trying to sketch a tui for use as a logo and wondering if it really is a good idea for me to take the next financial jump into developing a small business, but with my children now teens I need to do something with my life, I'd rather remain at home running a small business then try to gain employment after 20 years out of the workplace, so it is worth a shot to me.