Dear Diana

I was shocked at Diana's recent monthly vid. on her cone winder. She has mentioned my blog on occasions and now it's my turn to return the favour.

Diana's review - Silver Needles Cone Winder

Of course I recognised the family resemblance immediately I have it's great, great, great grandparent. And it comes with it's own special story - of course it does.

It goes like this. My friend gave it to me. Initially I said - Oh No! I can't just take it, I must give you something for it - Oh no, you must take it, I don't need it anymore, I bought a new one.

OKOK says me. So I take it home and rapidly going off the idea of giving money for it - and then I used it... OK that settles it, I should have been paid to take it away.

Here we have the transformer. Which is, as we all know necessary to transform our 240V into something great grand dad can use, I put it on the bathroom scales so you can get an idea of it's weight, 15.4 kg, which is about 34lbs in the old money. Very, very heavy and all care must be taken not to drop it on my toes, the tiles, the cat etc. etc.

Once over that shock, no pun intended but it does have have that lovely 1950s hum, which I'm sure you all remember - if you need a reminder - just the opening seconds of the Beatles I Feel Fine will give you the sound it makes. But for as long as it's on.

And now for the unit itself - no knot turns it off next to the switch, no that would be my toe.. and the lovely new improvement of the yarn feeder to the cone... well I did have to bend mine a little bit to get it to work, really it looks like an old bit of bent coat hanger wire..

And it's sooooooo slllloooooowwww, 30 minutes to wind (beautifully wind I might say) 100g of the 2/28 that I need to wind off for a blanket.. while holding the yarn - just so - above it, while operating the patented on/off knot detecting foot operated switch.

So while I don't envy anyone anything, I just thought I'd like to share The World's Worst Cone Winder That Winds A Very Nice Cone (Mostly). And the 15.4kg transformer that the 1950s called and wants back to operate some Cold War spying-dogoodery, but was highjacked instead into a cone winder.

Now while I have every respect for Diana, and her blog, I wasn't sure that the added bits along with her nice lightweight transformer were appreciated. Really now, aren't you all glad I shared.

Southland Seminar at Invercargill, South Is, New Zealand

 Here we go again, another trip to New Zealand to enjoy a week of machine knitting fun.

We travelled by plane, Christchurch to Invercargill in a smallish prop plane.

There were 17 Aussies this year and here we are:

Our tutors this year were
Mary Avery, who did edges, Anne Baxter who did Passapy things, Marilyn Clements who did felted fabrics and bags, Vicky Evans who did cut and sew necks and one of her patterns, Sandy Idle who did dyeing, Bronwyn Jensens, a new knitter who talked about knitting from hand knitting patterns, Margaret Ryan who did hems and edges, And lastly Carol Watson who did exploring the manual.

All in all, I had an excellent time with the variety of tutors and workshops they gave.

Mary showing us how to

Vicky doing what she does, breaking it down and keeping it simple

And as usual they have their competition in many categories. My socks got a first and my sock pattern got a second. My other entries looked good and were beaten by a lovely selection in all categories. It was a marvellous display of machine knitting and I was thrilled to have my pieces as part of the display.

Barbara, Audrey and Owen had excellent wins as well.

For everyone who couldn't go, here are a few more photos of the displays. Enjoy!

Fashion winners

Baby section

Regional displays

Regional displays