More Fibre goodness

I don't know that I ever actually explained to you how I ended up spending a large portion of Easter at the Bendigo Showgrounds, but in a nutshell the story goes like this:

The denizens of Emu Creek, otherwise known as Pete-and-Brenda, are keen Chrysanthemum growers as well as their more usual guise of gurus of all things goaty.
Anyway, a year, or so, ago they decided that Bendigo really needed a Goat Show. I mean really, really, reallly [ no arguments from me ] and the easiest way to do it without headaches over venues and public liability insurance and the rest, was to create a goat sub-group in the local Chrysanthemum Club and ride along as part of the long-standing Easter Chryssie show at the Prince Of Wales Showgrounds - better known to readers of any knitting blog based in Oz as the home of the Australian Wool & Sheep Show. [ prize for most run-on and parenthetical sentence of the month ]
As is often the case, someone who fully intended to be there, selling her spinning wheels, fibre and yarns, had to bow out fairly late in the piece, and all the advertising mentioned spinning, so a spinner there had to be, even if she was only there to demo... and guess who is the only spinner that Pete-and-Brenda could call to mind ???
Yes
got it in one

And actually, now that I've written that, ONE advertisement came out touting the presence of " sinners" as I found out on the Saturday when one smartypants enquired " Are you one of them sinners I was reading about?"

Anyway
this is the alpaca/ kid angora singles that I managed to get spun over the two days of constant interruptions - like having to go pet sweet, snuggly caprines and camelids
this is how it looked on Sunday night when I plied it with a Corriedale-cross singles that was hanging around begging to be used


and the plied, wetted-and-whacked end product

Those lumpy bumpy bits all seemed to happen when I was trying to answer questions

as did any and all yarn breakages

any perfect spinning occurred when I was not being scrutinised

of course

and we will not even begin to discuss the subject of how one copes with the discovery [ beginning of day 2 ] that one has left the [ absolutely vital ] orifice hook sitting in yesterday's bag on the coffee table 50 kilometres away !!!!

Goat Showy Goodness Now With Added Alpaca

All roads lead to Bendigo

Last October I was able to cross yet another life ambition off The List when I achieved near immortality by having a goat named after me

"Self" I thought at the time, " It doesn't get any better than this" [ which my family and friends would probably tell you says volumes about my life ]
Self agreed with me, but it turns out that both of us were completely incorrect.

It turns out that leading your namesake into the judging ring at the inaugural Bendigo Goat Show is pretty nifty too


and even better is when she wins Best Anglo-Nubian Doe in her age group [ narrowly beating out another of PND's doelings, Ms Hannah ]

and, cheesy grin notwithstanding, if you click for big, you can read what it says on my shirt

Almost lost for words

chris found this on line

I can't decide whether it's so twee that it's cute [ maybe with a white 'beard' as an elf ]

or whether it's just ...

oh, heck, you decide :)

finished object

Castlemaine State Festival 2011 ; the final washup

So here's the thing

Pretty much every day for the last week and a half, I've composed mental blog posts... mostly in the car ... or under the shower.

They were witty and polished.
Moving even.
They would have really made you want to jump on a bus/train/plane and get yourself up/down/over here ... if I had, in point of fact, actually got as far as the keyboard,
but alack
and alas even
there was just sooooo much going on, that just didn't happen.
as you may have noticed

there was:
mass dancing in the streets at the Opening Ceremony
marvelous pieces of theatre to be seen/heard/enjoyed in venues both traditional and decidedly not.*
wonderful exhibitions by just about every practising artist in the area
fabulous concerts [ the standout for Nadie and I had to be Toronto-based Klezmer band ' Beyond The Pale' and their Beyond Mozart concert

... the divine Wolfgang Amadeus played on electric mandolin, violin, clarinet, piano accordion and bass ... some of it in Balkan 7/8 time !!!! ]

singing ... in the street outside the Castlemaine Fruit & Veg with the Peace Choir
singing ... at the railway station [ at 6 am ] with the Chat Warblers
singing ... with a cast of what seemed like thousands in the IGA Supermarket [ and apparently we were on ABC Radio too but I missed it ]
some seriously frocked-up** singing ... with soloists from Victorian opera conducted by Richard Gill in a sing-your-own Mozart to Mayhem concert.

Surprisingly, I have almost no voice left, and and seriously need to buy shares in whichever pharmaceutical company makes Strepsils.

Oh, and I mustn't forget that David got involved too

and then there was the all-day closing party yesterday
but I'm all tuckered out so I'm going to leave that for tomorrow


* down a Goldmine

**frocked up: the condition of being very, very dressed up for an occasion such as The Opera or The Ballet.
In the case of my friend Janey, it meant swapping her habitual checked-work-shirt-and -jeans for a pristine white-shirt-and-jeans.

Some of us who did frock up as directed, scored double pass tickets to a Victorian Opera production in Melbourne later in the year.

spot the Catsmum

Forget Where's Wally? ... can you find moi in this group of pajama-clad ladies warbling at the Castlemaine Train Station at 6-flipping-AM on Monday ?