A little picnic

It's Autumn here in Victoria, which is one of the nicest seasons. At times. Today is cold and windy, but the other day it was perfect picnic weather. We all sat out here under the purple wattle tree

and had a little picnic in the back yard.

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The G&G fibre that I spun recently

has become a hat. It's a good, basic rib pattern (k3p2) with a neatly decreased top.

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My dear little angel of a son saw this picture below and said, "Look, Mummy; a dog!" hmmm.

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The kids mittens are nearly done: Zachary's simple little thumbless ones are complete. One more yellow one to go (for Jasmine), and then I have to, umm, find the stripey ones I made for Byron...

The yarn was a brown attempt that turned the perfect colors of ripe and unripe tomatoes. For some reason I just loved it! Made me think of old gold that someone had tried to paint with watered-down red.

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Here's Byron's birthday jumper so far. I'm using 1 strand each of Oceanic and Lake in Bendigo Woolen Mills luxury 8ply. It's 285g, sleeveless. Unfortunately I only had 330-or-so grams, because I'd made a hat for Matt with it. So I had to order more from Bendigo. What a shame! I have a post office slip in my pocket right now, but I can't go get it, because Byron and Jasmine are both asleep. I may have gotten a few balls of Classic as well... we'll see ;D

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Of all the 40 colors I've tried, these two were my favorites.

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I'm planning some knitting resolutions for next year. One will be a DIY sock club (I seem to have about 20 socks worth of sock yarn to get through) and the other will be a diet for my stash! I'm going to throw it all into a laundry basket on the scales, which should be interesting! Hehehe.

Done

100g of fiber, spun into 80m. My first attempt at Navajo plying (which is basically just a long chain of big crochet singles, like finger knitting), though I did some practice with old acrylic baby yarn. So it's 3 plies, and ended up being almost 80m. Super bulky! Should make a hat, though:
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Cameo project:

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Tiny shoes, dyed with jelly. He he he:

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Just more knitting

Knit night. There weren't a lot of people this month; just three. But we had the armchairs, which is very cosy, if a little dim!



That brown ball of yarn is part of my birthday present; my brother and his fiancee gave me a voucher for Spotlight, and I found some worsted weight sock yarn on special. I bought enough for 5 pairs of socks, 4 of which will be dyed first :D

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The green/blue things behind it are the Cameo project on my Ravelry list, but Cameo is just the name of the yarn. It's very nice, merino and angora, but it's a secret project at the moment. hehe.

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And here's an excuse for photographing my gorgeous girl; the pinwheel still fits. The dye ran and pinked up the white edging and the center of the pinwheel, but I don't really care. It's a bit of a red/pink/orange mix anyway. Can't believe I used to fold up the sleeves to her armpits!

This is what I did all afternoon. All of us (local) family had lunch and tea at Mum and Dad's today, and since my kids were having too much fun to be very naughty, I sat next to my (crocheting) sister and added a few rows of this.

It's Byron's third birthday present. I think it's going to be a bit big, but that's hardly a problem, is it? I love that double basket weave pattern :D

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Then there is this: My brother, Matt, and his fiancee, Kylie (who is SUCH a good influence on him Ü) found a travelling fibre shop in their travels, and bought me back 100g of this beautiful red mix. I had just run out of EGMTK fibre, and was imagining a spinning-diet lasting until I could buy some more in July's wool festival. I didn't really pace myself, did I? I've spun up half of it already. I hope Garments and Gadgets have a store at the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Festival!

HB34

Today, I got to sleep in until 9:30! I wasn't asleep after 8:30 but I listened to some knitting podcasts so I could lay in bed and enjoy it. hehe. Then I had milo, my normal breaky, but supersized in a big mug Byron picked for me. Jasmine also gave me a mug, and my hubby (and several other family members) gave me yarn money.
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I spent my spare time sorting out knitting needles (see below), knitting the start of some more tiny shoes (addictive little things) and eating chocolate (I got some yesterday, and my mother-in-law dropped more in todayÜ).
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Had pizza for lunch. Did some weeding and treadmilling, ate more chocolate and had spaghetti for tea. Once the kids were asleep, I pulled out my wheel and spun 100g of very dodgy 2ply. Now I'm eating a leftover-spaghetti sandwich in today's homemade bread, and it's just clicked over to April 3.
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HB to me Ü


These are by no means all my needles. There's a big pile I plan to get rid of, and a heap more in WIPs Ü. Kelly made this for me. It actually holds those 80cm bamboo circulars well!
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Very 'thick and thin' but it doesn't matter! It's just fun to spin it.