March 4th 2013 - it's Autumn and my favourite season. Can't wait to leave behind the hot weather and head for warm cosy times for great knitting/felting etc. Yesterday we packed up our Pop Up shop at Open Drawer after 3 months in residence. Thanks to everyone who visited, especially those who made the trek from our old stamping ground of Fitzroy. Trading will continue on line, here on this website as well as the Precious Purl and Lara Downs Facebook Pages. Please stay in touch via one medium or the other, to keep up with our movements.

Our mohair yarns will again be featured at the Mohair stand at the Sydney Royal Easter Show coming up soon. Make sure you also get to see the Angora Goats on display (only on specified days - see show web site for details). Lots of other mohair goodies for sale as well, so if you love mohair, a visit would be well worth while.

Sept 2012: SPRING has sprung once more at Lara Downs & the various blooms & blossoms are inspiring. We have sprung into action and created yet more lovely colourways to celebrate this loveliest of seasons.

BLOSSOM is the colourway of the week - see it in all its glory on our new FACEBOOK PAGE.

We intend to use our FB Page to introduce new colourways and products as well as announce specials and other items of interest.

"LIKE" our page to receive updates on our specials and other news. The technology of Facebook makes it very easy to add regular short snippets of news and may become the spot for more regular updates than here, where its a bit more time consuming to update. Join us on FB if you are able.

August 2012 - a personal note. I have been trying to keep a (relatively) low profile this year, as my hubby and I decided to finally tackle the renovation of Lara Downs homestead. It's a huge job and we are making progress - slowly. We now have a lot of sympathy for those poor souls featured on Grand Designs (TV show) who seem to suffer through endless freezing winters in order to build their dream home. We had massive rains last November when the guys were trying to restump the whole house. You can imagine what happened to the holes as they dug 200 of them - by hand. The frogs were happy but not us, not the diggers and certainly not the Building Inspector. However the house now sits nice and solidly on its new feet, but strangely some of our doors now close where they never did, while others now refuse to close!

Next job was the bathroom - hadn't functioned properly for years. We removed everything and rebuilt from the dirt up! Tiles should start spreading over the walls any minute. The kitchen - well it has been gutted too and the fireplace rebuilt -well some of it. For too long we had to use a torch to see what we were cooking ! Lifting the height of the arch will work wonders, but it will still house a traditional wood fire stove - my hubby loves lighting fires. I hate the smoke but will put up with a bit in order to retain some of the traditional charm of the place.

Once all that is done, we will then move onto the easy jobs like replastering, painting and floor polishing in most of the other rooms. Should be a breeze after what we've been through! Our home at Lara Downs dates from the 1920's so we're hoping it will be all spruced up ready for it's 100 years celebrations - the house should make that date, but will we........!!

Hopefully the other Lara Downs - the fibre art supply business, will be able to relaunch in 2013 without all these hassles on the home front.

July 2012 - post sheep show

	CRESCENT MOON WRAP in Fifty Shades of Grey
	This intriguing shape is the latest version of my Crescent Moon wrap in a colourway inspired by that book title "Fifty shades of grey"! Haven't read it yet - it was just the title that excited me! I've always been intrigued by knitting that curves or moves in irregular ways, so expect more strange curves in due course. While this creation was too late for unveiling at the Sheep Show, I was more than pleased with reactions to my other creations including my 12 yarn (6 mohair) Cowl (pattern & kits now available) and my 3mohair1silk shrug for which I have advance orders for the pattern - not yet written! I'll post more pics and details of the Crescent Moon on my creative knitting page in due course.

June 2012 - Hooray for Winter.

People don't usually celebrate the cold but I love many aspects of our Winters in Melbourne. A great opportunity to wear all those lovely woolley knits and more time to sit in front of the fire knitting away with a glass of something nearby - bliss! My new effort at creative knitting, is in what has to be one of my favourite colourways ie glossy black, furry black and glistening gorgeous gold, copper & bronze.

I love to experiment with various mixes of yarn and I think this works rather well. Am currently working on another blend for a larger wrap. I've christened this one Crescent Moon as it curves nicely in an arc around your shoulders.

Bendigo Sheep & Wool Show is fast approaching too. I always look forward to this festive fibre celebration. Make sure you find time this year to come and celebrate all natural fibres in their wonderful diversity this July Fri 20th_Sunday22nd.

Nearly April 2012. Our world is becoming Autumnal in tones and it's a wonderful inspiration to us dyers. Who doesn't love the colour creeping into the leaves and fruit as it ripens. Being busy dyeing for the Easter Show in Sydney, I decided to use these inpiring tones to create yet more colourways. If Mother Nature can't stop, why should I?

Here's some of my efforts to capture Mother Nature's beauty. Pomegranates are wonderful fruit - so colourful and so tough in the garden. We love our tree, even if we don't make much use of the fruit apart from admiring it. I might bring some into the shop for anyone wanting to try these amazing but bitter fruits. Then again I might just use them as a dried arrangement.

March 2012. Musing about Blogging and the many faces of Lara.

I have to confess that I'm not a great blogger, given the intermittant nature of my comments. I thought if I practised quietly here and I got the hang of talking to the world on a regular basis, I might become a real blogger, but I think that the time element is always going to be against me. The same goes for my Facebook page I'm sorry to say. Just so difficult to find the time to interact with all these media options and keep up with the dyeing and all that's required to run a farm as well as a business off farm. However it's fun trying.

I was listening to RRR local Melbourne radio as I worked the other day and was glad to hear that even real bloggers have similar problems.

One problem with my Facebook presence is that it seems to be constantly confused with a lady on the other side of the world whose name is Lara Downs! I actually went to Google recently to ask it about Lara Downs to see what it found and I was amazed how many beautiful women seem to have the name Lara ! Yes I knew of Lara Bingle of course and Lara Croft but Lara Dutta was a name new to me, but such a beautiful woman. How could I not have heard of this stunning Bollywood star. I'm glad to be in such gorgeous company.

By the way our Lara is of course derived from the name of our property, given to it in the early part of last century. We are also close to the growing township of Lara, not far from Geelong. Perhaps there was a beautiful woman many years ago who lent her name to that town and to our property ! I'd love to find out more one day about where our particular Lara came from.

Melbourne Cup Day Nov 1st 2011. I've chosen a green background today because that's the colour I see everywhere right now on the farm. We have had terrific rains in the last month ("normal" levels according to the weather bureau) so the pasture is leaping away and stock are knee deep in clover, lucerne, rye grass etc - goat and sheep heaven. Dams are full and everything seems perfect but of course fly strike is lurking just around the corner for the poor merinos, so we have to keep a close eye on them.

	It is overcast this morning and the hills are a bit misty, making it very atmospheric out there with the goats who are pretty fat and happy with so much feed. The kids are growing out well and are now approx two months old except for the little one taking a snooze in the bucket who is only a few days old.
	I love public holidays like today because peace and serenity decend on the farm like at no other time. Mostly it's pretty quiet here but we notice when the winds head our way from the South and carry the road and airport noises into our valley uninvited - the hazard of living near a major city !

The goats looking wonderfully clean and shiny after heavy rain in the last week. They love camping on the stoney rises surveying the scenery.

Fibre Forum at Geelong - September 2011 .

I have just returned from the Fibre Forum at Geelong Grammer School and although quite exhausted, am buzzing with ideas for new projects, new products and the need to follow up with new contacts to add to our ever increasing network of fibre friends and business partners. It really is a stimulating environment where everyone is busy expressing their creativity to the max and having such fun doing it. Congrats to Textile Fibre Forum (Janet de Boer, Jude Skeers etc) for their ongoing fabulous work in bringing together such a wide range of creative and stimulating people. I think the star of the week was Soomee Kim a Korea born, Melbourne based Felting expert who managed to inspire her students to such an extent that they each produced three wonderful garments. Other stars were our home grown Fibre Artists including Catherine O' Leary and the Grand Purl Baa herself, Loani Prior of Wild Teacosy fame. It was an honour not only to meet them but also to supply some of them with Lara Downs products.

If you haven't been involved with the Fibre Forum and it's fibre art educational offerings todate, I recommend that you make a start today and check out the wonderful workshops that they run all around Australia.

Sept 10th 2011. The price of Wool .

Yesterday at Precious Purl a customer was complaining about the increased pricing which now applies to a number of our wool based products. Yes it's true that these have gone up in price substantially over the last six months and we commiserate with those who have got used to cheap woollen products over a long period of time. However I thought it was important that everyone understands the context of these price rises. Wool growers such as ourselves, have been doing it tough for a long time through being paid a price for our wool that didn't cover even the costs of growing that wool, let alone provide some sort of profit to cover living expenses. Farm costs have continued to be covered by off farm work and this has been the case with many farmers, particularly during the long drought.

2010-11 finally brought a reversal not only to the drought conditions but also greasy wool prices which for us have virtually doubled. At last we have been able to see a small profit after 10 long years of drought and poor wool prices. Our farm will post a profit this year for the first time in ten years or more and this is to be celebrated, but it doesn't recoup all of the lost income over those 10 bad years .

So when you're feeling grumpy about the increased prices of wool or woollen products for your felting or knitting, spare a thought for the wool growers and be glad that at least they are now being paid a reasonable return for their labour.

Close up of a cobweb sampler.

Yes it really does hold together !

June 19th 2011. Other local suppliers of LD products.

I'm pleased to say that our hand dyed goodies are now available in several new outlets around Melbourne as well as interstate and o/s. Onabee in Kensington now stocks a good range of our mohair yarns as well as several other yarns. Open Drawer in Hartwell is also a relatively new stockist of mainly felting and embellishment products as well as some yarns. Contacts for both these businesses are on our links page.

The Vic Felters: June 18th was my day for visiting the Victorian Felter's Group for the first time since becoming a member last year. It was an interesting and busy day with a formal meeting, followed by a demonstration and later a show and tell by members. In between members had the opportunity to browse through their extensive library as well as check out the various trade stands there for the day (including Lara Downs). Very informative and enjoyable sharing the day with such friendly people. I can only recommend it to other would be felters or anyone looking for support in their felting adventures. Thanks Felter's for the opportunity to have a trade stand. It was great meeting new faces as well as catching up with familiar ones from Precious Purl visits and particularly seeing the wonderful things you've made with our products. I wish I'd had a camera with me - next time !