Stash sums for October

OCTOBER
minus
270 Little Jet hats for kids
10 Cardi for Gill
35 socks for Byron
300 Jasmine's dress
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-615

plus
200g uruguay wool
460g wool from Webs
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+660

end of September 17.8
end of October 17.8
+45g


If I could resist buying new yarn, I would be doing so well! Hehehe.

Jasmine's dress

As part of Fair Trade fortnight, I did a bit of shopping at Tribes and Nations and found some little knitting bags! They're a good size for socks :D

Also finished one little dress for my 2yo. It's the Milo pattern, altered into a dress. I also used 10ply instead of 8, so this size 3 came out quite loose on Jasmine. I used up every skerrick of yarn, and even had to do a bit of green on that icord hem. LOL.

Here are my side seams. I increased every third row on either side of my 10 marked-off stitches under the arm. Then I used up my green with about 6 rounds of garter stitch. To weight it down a bit, I bound off with an icord edge, which is so neat, but eats up the yarn like crazy! lol. Now that it's done, it occurs to me that it now looks like the bottom has curled up. hehehe.

But it's enough to pull down the stocking stitch curl quite well. Jasmine condescended to have her singlet swapped for it, and even stood still for a picture or two.

It's a little loose, which is fine. It's more of a Winter dress anyway, to wear over tights and long sleeves. Looks like it will fit her for a few years!

The blue sky is now gone, and it's raining buckets. That's Spring for you.

Yarnvest

The Browns' chook hopped over the fence to tell me the Tosh Gum was ready for harvest.
And she was right. Thanks girl.

Picked three Madeline Tosh skeins in the flavors Forestry, Amber Trinket and Filigree.

Also found some Dream in Color Smooshy out on the log, wearing a name tag that said "En vino veritas". Doesn't that mean something like, "The truth will come out if you drink too much red"?

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In the letterbox was a little parcel from Fair Trade Connections. I'm doing a little 2 weeks challenge, where you have to spend $2 a day on Fair Trade products. Got this green wallet from an Indian leather shop, where they get paid a decent wage for their work for once.

I had a break from socks to whip up matching hats for the kids. It stash busted a few grams of yarn, and they all wore them for a few days, until it turned warm. Spring!

Then I had another anti-socktober tantrum, and cast on a milo dress for Jasmine. I'm making this in Lauren (by Wired For Fibre) and it's speeding along nicely. Already used about 200g.

Byron is wearing his socks around with enthusiasm. Last week he said to me as I walked past, "These socks are nice and comfy and warm!"

"That's good, Byron," I replied. "Maybe you can tell people at playgroup that I made them for you."

"NO! They might say, 'you can't have those socks!'... I don't want to tell anyone! I'm serious!"

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Kids!

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Goodnight.

Minisox

I think I'm one of the slowest knitters I know! Apart from the recent wedding, the gardening, the little girl's first haircut, reading Tara Moss and "Eat Pray Love" and my book about Grameen again, and watching Australia blitz the Commonwealth Games (between cartoons) I've had nothing to do except these tiny socks, and it's taken me almost 2 weeks!
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Slack. (The three kids and 6 other pairs of socks are no excuse.)
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I do like the multi-tone effect caused by accidently dyeing the skein while twisted up (where is my brain?) and despite how huge they seem to me, they somehow fit Byron's feet well. Sigh.
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Also bought 200g of fingering handspun from overseas somewhere. It was more multicolored in the picture, I thought, but I just plan to ply it together and knit some soft hats or something.
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35g knitted, 200g bought. Hmmm.

8 toes

Here's a pic for DrK. Eight little sock toes on two circs. Each sock is only 22 stitches around, so they're not much work each, though it takes a while to get around them all. Bit of fun. L-R: a grey/pink/blue bamboo sock yarn from Wired for Fibre, multicolored sock yarn from Bendigo Woollen Mills (bargain room), green Dream in Color smooshy, Elizabeth (by Wired for Fibre) in Waterlillies, BWM luxury 4ply handdyed, grey Koigu, handdyed 4ply sock yarn (?Sullivans) in rainbow stripes, WFF Rita (sock yarn) in Opulent.


A little blue and yellow stripey 10ply sock yarn for quick and easy socks for my 3yo.

One finished blue sock that will probably suffer SSS for the rest of its life. The afterthought heel worked well, though I should have made it bigger, I think.

Zach in his little fat hat, which is just a tube of Jet, two strands held together, kitchenered at the top. Why make anything complicated when he looks so cute in the simple stuff?

Here they all are in the back seat. Three baby seats are going to be squashed in there for a while, as you need a kids seat until they're 7, now. Note Byron's new jumper from Grandma :D

Socktober

I joined Soctoberfest on Ravelry this year. Then, in a seizure of startitis, I started 14 socks. I have 14 toes on needles (not on the same needle, like one man I mentioned a while ago), though I do have 8 on a pair of circs..

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But first, here are my sister-in-law's socks. My brother got married on Saturday, and poor Kylie, who used to live up North, has just experienced her first Ballarat Winter. So Kelly made them (her) a blanket to wear while she sits on the couch. And I coordinated (kind of) to make them socks. I used the Mulga and Eucalyptus (as in Kelly's project) of Bendigo Woollen Mills classic 8ply, and threw a dice to randomize the stripes. :D

Here are Matt's. He is about 6'4, so his socks were a bit more work!

These last few days I've cast on

1. Socks for me in the new Casbah

2. Socks for me in some old EGMTK in a brown and green that makes me thing "Peppermint Crisp!"

3. Blue and yellow hand-dyed 10ply to make some for Byron, because he says he wants them.

4, 5, 6 and 7. Socktopus. LOL.

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I'm not sure any of them will get finished, but it will be nice to have some sock-choice! :)

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Now, I swear I tried and tried, but when I finally got Jasmine to put on her wrap, she Would Not Stand Still. See?...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ObdJlm42fw

Yesterday and Tomorrow

Yesterday was the end of the month :D. I basically spun/bought 500g and also knit 500g. (The difference was about 10g in the right direction). So I'm stash steady on 17.8kg.
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Some finished objectlings:
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Fingerless gloves for Nathan, which he requested many moons ago for work. I got... sidetracked... from the boring black, but I whipped up number two in time for our 11th anniversary. (I'm old. I know.) They are Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury 10ply, two strands held together, knit on 5mm needles, so pretty tight and thick. The pattern was something like "garter stitch 3, stocking stitch 15, garter stitch 10" until it goes around, then sew up the cast on/off, leaving a thumb gap. Basic but warm.

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Garter stitch wrap. Green acrylic (that I was given last month) on 4mm needles. Difficult to contain my boredom. Should look cute on this, though...

...if she can just smile a bit! Tomorrow she is going to be a little flowergirl at my baby brother's wedding. The wrap should keep her arms warm, and match the bridesmaids. Mum made the one for her 10yo cousin and fellow flowergirl, thank goodness. And it only seemed to take her a week. lol.

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Then I whipped up this. The perfect project for a nice 100g skein of worsted weight yarn.

Burberry Inspired cowl. Big loose cables. Katie's perfect yarn. Somehow it's now pink instead of red, but I still love it.

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