Knitterings

Knit All the Things!

2012-01-11T17:24:00.001+11:00

So far in January.

Finished off a hat in my handspun (Detention)

Dyed my merino in green-blue. The rust spots were an unexpected present from the wire mesh basket I made to lift it from the slow cooker, but its ok. Just adds flecky interest...

Jasmine, wearing the woven scarf I made her (Potions) in Three Hours. It's 2.6m long.

New baby lamb, and her mum, Daisy.

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn.

LL Solemates sock yarn

Manos del Uruguay Silk blend

More Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend

More LL Shepherd Sock :)

And a jumper-worth of Madelinetosh Vintage in Sequoia. Very pretty red-brown.

I've spun 2 of the 5 braids for my OWL (into singles, anyway) and then, bored of plain blue-green :) dyed some merino-silk into rainbow colors. Half of that is spun so far. I've started Zach's 2nd birthday jumper (11 days to go); I've done the back and half the front, though the intarsia is ~~hateful~~ ~~challenging~~ ~~frustrating~~ something that I won't bother to do again for a while! (The concept is simple. The ends are making me crazy!). I've also started two hats, one in handspun and one in Noro scraps. For Quidditch this term, I'm going to make lots of little sheep, I think. (At least, I'll make one and see if it makes me want to make more) And for my Order of the Phoenix mission, I'm approved to make Ginevra's Pullover.

I feel busy.

The Slytherins have a saying: Knit All The Things!! It comes from this funny blog post, which always cracks me up. It's hard to read it and not say "Oh no... that's me!" hehehe.

Merino

2011-12-20T21:21:00.002+11:00

I have some merino socks that I just darned. I wore them for one day, and there are two more holes! Luckily, I am enjoying the darning at the moment, but soft merino just isn't good sock wool for me.

But the last time I was "at" Petlins, looking for a dye set, I decided to get some plain white wool to spin. As I said, I'm using it for my Transfiguration OWL next term of the HPKCHC. I had an option to buy "Crossbred" for $5.75 per 100g or "Merino" for $7.80. I decided to get the soft stuff! And it arrived yesterday

along with a lovely little boxful of Ashford Dyes. Last night I spun up the extra 30g that they'd thrown in, and realized that my "spinning without thinking" thickness has decreased! My 2ply turned out to be thinner than the yarn needed for the vest. So I spun a tiny bit more, and 3-plied it. There you go. 9 wraps per inch is Worsted Weight. Perfect.

Only that means that I now need to spin three 1000m plies instead of two. I know I still have time to do that, but it just added a fair bit of time to the project.

So my $39 of beautiful, clean, carded merino will give me many hours of lovely spinning, and then a vest. I'm sure to have a few leftovers, too. I also found this website which has given me lots of good advice about yarn balance and twist. Once I choose a color to dye it, I'm ready to go. On January 1.

sigh.

The kids are waiting for Christmas. And I'm waiting for the New Year.

Stash Up 2012

2011-12-16T15:59:00.000+11:00

Today I did an approximate weigh in:

3.8 kg - Worsted weight+ box
4.4 kg - Fibre and Handspun box (2.1 fibre and 2.3 handspun)
1.8 kg - DK weight (warm colors) box
4.3 kg - DK weight (cool colors) box
5.2 kg - Zero to Sport weight box
3.9 kg - Madelinetosh Underbed box

---------

23.4 kilos.

The reason it's approximate is that I know there is yarn lying about, in WIP's and such. It's hard to be too accurate! I might attempt to collect it all at the end of the year, and get a more accurate number.

Next year I'm having a Stash Up.

I had a stash down in 2010, which didn't work very well. As soon as I finished the yarn diet, I overindulged :) This year my plan is to Knit All The Things (as the Slytherins say) and still gain 5kg of stash weight, from Jan 1 to Dec 31. It's the only New Year's Resolution I'm going to make. He he he he.

I also have an OWL worked out for the Winter Term (though it's Summer here, of course.) For the subject of Transfiguration there is an Option that says "Dye and Spin enough fibre to produce sufficient yarn to craft a small adult garment." I bought 500g of nice merino (which hasn't arrived yet... must add it to the stash when it does) to make this vest. I'll dye the fibre, spin it into a 2ply worsted weight (about 2km of singles), and then make the vest. Technically you don't have to knit the garment, just make enough fibre for it, but I think I can spin 100g a week pretty easily (I did in the Tour de Fleece) and an OWL is supposed to be a 8-12 week project.

The OWL advisors look at the projects you've done, and the time it takes you to do things, and I'm not sure they would have approved just the spinning. Anyway, you've got to challenge yourself!

I would like to make a new jumper, but I think I might leave that project for an Order of the Phoenix Mission (which is supposed to take 6-8 weeks) and make Ginevra. I have some pinkish matching worsted and lace weight...

...It's nice not to worry about Christmas at this time of year! All the 11 scarves are finished (I had to twist the longer fringes), washed, ironed and wrapped, and the 7 I had to post are long gone. I asked for World Vision donations for myself, though I did get myself an Ashford Dye set. (I may also be waiting for some more yarn from overseas... hope it will arrive soon!)

The big shiny cup

2011-12-10T15:14:00.001+11:00

This game has taken over my head a bit these last 6 months, and since I've planned my knitting for the next three months already, it's not likely to change. Especially when we win the house cup!

There are about 640 players in the Harry Potter Knitting and Crochet House Cup on Ravelry. We all earned 122,031 points in the Sept, Oct, Nov "school year", which is about 200 points each. (I got over 700... woo hoo!) Slytherin beat Gryffindor by a mere 500 points or so, which is small. The gap between 3rd and 4th was ridiculously small!

Hufflepuff 46431
Ravenclaw 46615
Gryffindor 52158
Slytherin 52721

Hufflepuff took home the Quidditch Cup again, though.

Ravenclaw 5971
Gryffindor 6136
Slytherin 6825
Hufflepuff 8899

In the whole school this term there were
13 NEWTs (worth 350 each, because they're supposed to be a project that will take 3-4 months.)
156 OWLs (worth 150 each, because they're supposed to be a project that will take 8-12 weeks)
134 Order of the Phoenix Missions (worth 100 points, because they're supposed to be a project that will take 6-8 weeks)

The thread for getting Sorted (which I have to do each time) will come up in a few days, and then I'll be a third year. I'm planning my next OWL...

A few little things

2011-12-03T11:21:00.001+11:00

This one is a quick hat made for my little friend, Saphy, whose 2nd birthday party is today. Her big sister swore her favorite color was orange :) (AKA Charms homework)

This one started out as a sock... then became a small sock... then became a little bag. I really just wanted to try some colorwork. (AKA Care of Magical Creatures homework)

This is a little dye and ply. I wanted blue and white, so I got some alpaca singles that someone gave me, dyed one blue, and plied them together. (AKA Muggle studies homework)

And this was a 200g ball of alpaca (BWM) in a boring beige, that got recycled into some Jasmine Pink. I wanted to make self-striping yarn, so I made this skein that is 40m around. The skein goes around the gateposts, but with the clothesline to "bend it in the middle". The clothesline, being 10m away, makes it a 40m skein. I dipped one end into pink, and one end into purple, slowly, so the colors would meld in the middle.

(AKA Divination homework)

So far, for the game, I'm on almost 700 points, but the class bonus points for November haven't been handed out yet. You don't get much for dyeing, but the DADA spinning should earn a few. Hopefully.

No, please, not more scarves! ;)

2011-12-01T21:14:00.001+11:00

Happy Summer! (to those in the south... hehe. All you cold ones will have to wait.)

First, I suppose I could show a bit more of the last scarves, since I showed the first seven. This one is 8, for my 8-year-old nephew, Ben. For him I chose a solid grey warp (Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury 4ply in Ghost) with thin strips of a variegated grey Koigu. The weft was the same alpaca as Tim's, except in the colorway Denim, a pale blue. I loved this one... it looks like silver, only fluffy :)

I made a darker one then, out of two EGMTK yarns I had obtained. They were both dark green, but one had bits of brown in it, so I used that one for the warp. It was very Deep Dark Woods kind of color, and hard to photograph. (Robert Frost kept going around in my head...) It also had teeny undyed specks of white, like teeny bits of sunlight getting in. This one is for my brother, Simon, I decided. (I was going to give him number 1, but this one is longer, and he is taller than Dad).

Number 10 was for the youngest member of "my side" of the family (except for my unborn niece, who has enough handknits to start her off). So for Ezra I mixed up some party colors with some "I match my brothers" alpaca in the Light Fawn. The colorful one is a Bendigo Woollen Mills sock yarn that they don't make any more, and it changes colors every few centimeters. Weaving it made me think of fireworks in the clouds, which seemed appropriate for the Last One!

I made it! I finished my 10 scarves by Nov 26, and I have spent the last few days of the month whipping up a few little things for extra points in the HP game. I dyed, plied, and pulled out the chunky yarn for an extra few points. But I'll save that for next time.

This month, I'm working on Vivian, if you can believe that, (I've done three-quarters of a row tonight) and reading books, so yarnworks might be scarce.

Perhaps I can just fill the space with... um... acquisitions :)

BROOM

2011-11-28T22:57:00.001+11:00

This has been part of a secret mission for the Order of the Phoenix. I can only show you a snippet, but I can give you some stats....

-23.24 meters of weaving (about 76 feet)
-1.228 kg of yarn used (about 43 oz)
-4.176 km (4567 yards) of yarn destashed
-70-80 hours of work, and Nope. Not sick of weaving yet!

But for variety, I did a bit of spinning. It's a merino/bamboo/silk mix from the Bendigo Sheep and Wool festival this year. Took me a while to fit it into DADA homework for the HP game. I had to make something that could be used as a form of identification (like a security question). Hmmmm...?

Luckily, there was a lot of spin-time to think about it.

And now I've finished my goals for this month, so I'm going to relax a bit and READ. Currently reading "Les Miserables", which is a great book, except for Victor Hugo (as he does) going off on a tangent for dozens of pages...(Just as Jean escapes jail, Hugo decides to give a 40-page account of the Battle of Waterloo. I slogged through it all, so it had better be relevant later!) There's a new movie version coming out in the near future, which I'm going to see, but I'm going to read the book first. It's quite heavy (especially when you tend to read in bed, like I do) (I kept drifting off to sleep and dropping it on my face!) :) so I bought a Kindle just for that book ...I may have uploaded a few more since then. Hehehe.

Having said that, I have some letters to write, some parcels to post, some housework to do, socks to darn... and I want to finish some more knitting... and cast something else on...

:)

Hoot Hoot

2011-11-20T20:32:00.001+11:00

Zach is into Owls at the moment, probably because of the one who helps "host" the cartoons each morning. I'm kind of over OWLs at the moment, because this one took a lot of work (and about 10 skeins of worsted weight Madelinetosh!)

I mad a new Paper Moon hat. My last one was dark grey, and fit so well. I loved this brown color (Glazed Pecan). Think I'll have to obtain some more somehow...

I stuck to the pattern this time, and it came out a bit tight. But other people on Ravelry have talked about how "Vintage" grows when you wash it, so I was counting on it blocking a bit bigger. I washed it and dried it on a balloon. Fits perfectly :)

Also made another scarf :)

This one is worsted weight, but it still seemed to take forever. It's the first time I tried to use two colors in the weft, so there was a little bit of fiddling there. I knew I didn't have enough of the medium brown color (Nutmeg) to do the whole length, so I left it off the middle 70 or 80cm. the whole thing is about 2.5m.

Of course, it's the jumper part that took the longest. This one is the Opulent Raglan, and I got the pattern as a prize from Seakame (on Ravelry). (The prize was a random draw of all the people who completed a class in May, I think.) I did get to choose the pattern :)

Reasonably simple, but lots of knitting. No seams, and all stocking stitch in the round (once you get down to the underarms) except for the cable section, which breaks up the monotony quite nicely.

And that's the Muggle Studies OWL done. Next term (Jan-Mar) I might have to whip up another jumper, I think. Maybe even two...

Possibly scarves...

2011-11-17T22:30:00.001+11:00

hehehe. If you haven't gathered this by now, I'm making ten woven scarves for Christmas presents. The deadline (because it's also part of the Harry Potter game on Ravelry) is the end of November, so if you're feeling a little sick of the weaving, the end is in sight.

But until then...

...a matching scarf for Kylie (the brown and green one from the last post is for my brother, Matt, and this is for his wife Kylie. The stripe pattern is the same.) The red is WM in Sanguinella, and the black is some BWM sock yarn, I think.

Then there's Abby's

She's my niece, so she gets a colorful one, which is half Dazzle (the blue that I used for my "All You Need Is Love" mittens, a present from Kelly in England, which is blue with speckles of green and purple) and half hand-dyed. I remember making a really long skein, 12 meters, and dipping each end slowly into the dyes until the color faded away.

This one is for Tim. The warp is that Bugga sock yarn that made my Elijah look like he was wearing army camo. The weft is Wired For Fibre alpaca 4ply, which is really soft, though it did have some grass in it. It lightened the color a lot, so it doesn't look army green, but would still match all his army-green clothes ;)

Well, Zach is awake, so I'll give him a drink, and then get back to work. I've nearly finished my "Muggle Studies OWL" (lol) so, a post on that in a few days :)

And more scarves

2011-11-02T19:41:00.000+11:00

I have been buying a little bit of Wollmeise from Ravelry lately. This purple/white/black looked much nicer in the photo than it did in real life. I actually tried to leach out the color with Dyelon, but nothing happened. lol. Anyway, when my sister-in-law saw it (while searching the stash for her own scarf color) she immediately picked this out for Mum.

I'm not sure about it. I told Mum she could overdye it darker if she liked. The warp is actually a pale multicolored bamboo/wool/nylon mix from Wired For Fibre, with pink and blue and green... but from a distance it looks grey, and I thought it would soften the colors, as well as being nice and soft. Hmmm.

Love this one, though. This is another Kylie choice, for her own hubby, my brother Matt. It's a dark brown Wollmeise called Ebenholz, and the green is Dream in Color's Spring Tickle. It's the same color I made Jasmines birthday jumper in last July, and (for some unknown crazy reason) I just love it.

I'm thinking of making socks with this brown and some red/orange Wollmeise called "Orient". I started the toe, but I'm not yet sure of the pattern... think I'll make something up :) I put the two colors together, and all I can think of is apple trees, which makes me feel happy. I don't have time for colorwork socks this month, but... erm... hehehe.

First I have a jumper to finish, and a hat, and seven more scarves.

More scarves

2011-10-18T23:23:00.000+11:00

Scarf number 1/10 has a dark green warp of Wired For Fibre: Joan, the same sport-weight I used for the Bloom. The weft is Noro in blue/green/grey. It's hard to get a photo of the color change, which is pretty subtle. Thought it would be good boy-color, though it had better soften up a bit in the wash... This one is for my brother Simon.

Scarf 2/10 doesn't need anything to be soft. The warp is Lorna's Laces in "Intelligence" and the weft is Madelinetosh sock in Winter Wheat. Kelly picked the yarn from my Ravelry stash page (best she could do from the other side of the world...) so this one is hers.

Today I finished off the body of my Opulent Raglan. It just needs a neckband and sleeves. I added about 15cm to the length, and finished it with the same twisted rib that runs down the side of the main cable (instead of a turned under hem).

It's been great Spring weather here this week. Byron keeps saying to me, "Why don't you knit outside?". lol. Here are Byron and Jasmine having a go at knitting. By the end of the day there was a spiderweb around the swings, puncture marks in one of their toy chairs, and the needles were banned. Again. But they had fun...

Jasmine is very keen. I'm not going to teach her how to knit yet. Maybe when she's 4 or 5. At the moment she just likes to run around with a piece of material saying, "Look at my beautiful knitting!" and thread circulars through and through a ball of wool. hehe.

I also made some armwarmers, and a Kindle cover that became an oven glove (because it refused to felt and shrink). More projects are in the works for this month. I hope to do at least 2 more scarves, a bit of spinning and dyeing and finish off Poppy. And do some weeding :)

September stuff

2011-10-04T16:16:00.002+11:00

Quidditch (task 1). Spin thick and thin cotton. I bought a pack of cotton balls. It was not pretty :) but it was fun.
Charms: Craft something you need now. (I needed this for Elijah)
Detention: Kitchenered the toes on Sept 1. (Detention is for finishing WIP's)
Care of Magical Creatures: Elijah is so cute, but my hands ached from the tight M1R's.
Herbology: Bloom took the most time, but I love it heaps :)
Quidditch (Yule Ball): Paired up with Mediaperuana (on Ravelry) and we each made these booties
Muggle Studies: Knit for a charity. 20x20cm garter stitch squares.
Div: Didn't much like spinning with angora and 'glitz'.
Astronomy: toilet roll holder. The flowers lift up like a lid. Fun.

At the moment I'm working on

Detention (WIP's). I started a hat a few hours before the official start of October.
OWL. I've done 4 pattern repeats of the cable now. Jumpers take forever!
Potions. I don't have to do it this month, but it was kind of easy and fun. I'm washing some fleece.
BROOM (Order of the Phoenix Mission). Woven scarf number 1 (of 10)

and I'm thinking about how to fit Poppy and Tiny Shoes and spinning into classes about Icelandic Staves, Animagi and Fractals (That's Ancient Runes, Transfiguration and Arithmancy). I might have to get creative. I'm also trying to figure out what to do for Quidditch. I want to make a felted Kindle cover, but I don't know quite how to relate it to the goal of "make something to represent Charlie Weasley".

This month is a Thinker, that's for sure.

Knit Night tonight! I'm taking my OWL and working on the 5th cable repeat. I think I need to do 7 or 8, and I have to finish the body by the end of the month. Work work work.

Yarnz

2011-09-29T21:09:00.001+10:00

A little bit of new yarn...

Some lovely Wollmeise from Aussie destashers on Ravelry:

Wollmeise Sockenwoll 80/20 in Versuchskaninchen (Forest Green)

Wollmeise 100% merino Superwash in Skandal um Rosi (From a song)

Wollmeise merino Superwash in Ebenholz.

And from Jimmy Beans, a little bit of Madeline Tosh, an actual boxful :)

Vintage in Opaline, Luster and Morning Dove, Pashmina in Thyme, Vintage in Nutmeg.

And a whole jumper-worth of Vintage in Corsage: 7 skeins.

I don't buy much pink yarn, that's for sure, but I like this greyed-down, close to purplish shade.

School Report: It's the 29th, and I have 44 more hours of official time to knit. But all I have to do is 1 and a half ears on Elijah, and he is done. Then I have done 6 classes, the 2 Quidditch options, detention and almost a third of my OWL. I'm up to date!

My chosen mission this year is to do The Order of the Serpent Third Class. I have completed Detention and 6 of the 11 different classes. Next month I need to do Ancient Runes, Arithmancy and Transfiguration, as it's the only month those three are offered, which leaves Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts for November. I've done some Quidditch (The First Task and the first part of the Yule Ball), but I'll try and continue on with it, since I'm on the team as a beater, and have to set a good example. (And those Hufflepuffs are beating us, which is just not on.) I have to finish my OWL, and I have to finish my Order Mission (which I can't start until Oct 1).

So much fun :)

P.S.

2011-09-28T19:45:00.000+10:00

A girl has to have matching shoes, right? I've replaced the ribbon with a better silver, and I'm planning to make her some silver silk Tiny Shoes...Knitting for girls is fun!

I also joined in the toilet roll cover madness that started here. ... Slytherins are a juvenile bunch ;) but we are coordinated. We all agreed to hand in our Astronomy projects on the planet Uranus on the 25th. Mine was a bit late, but it didn't actually matter.

This week has been a good post week for me. Not only did I splurge on a boxful of Madelinetosh, but I bought 4 skeins of Wollmeise from people on Ravelry. Two are at the post office still, but when I get them tomorrow, I'll put up some pictures.

Cuteness alert

2011-09-22T00:35:00.003+10:00

*Warning: Contains Cuteness*

Look! It fits a newborn (-sized doll) and a 3yo!

Well, it took me about 3 weeks to knit (though I wasn't exactly monogamous), but it's time well-spent if Babyniece can get 3 years out of it. In fact, I'm pretty sure it would fit Jasmine for another year, because it wasn't tight. That ribbing in the top is veeeery stretchy.

*end cuteness alert*

Half done

2011-09-16T22:34:00.000+10:00

Babyniece's Bloom. The skirt has little lace diamonds, and balloons out a bit. It looks very small, but I can see that it will stretch.

OWL project, which is (mainly) the Opulent Raglan. It is like a short cropped singlet at the moment, but it fits

A bit of dyeing for a couple of matching projects.

one of which is...

An actual finished thing: a 107g skein of "Gaga", which is angora, glitz and wool, and I will not be buying it again. Angora is soft but yukky to spin, and glitz is like plastic. Bleurgh!

A couple of squares for blankets. I was going to do a whole blanket, but they finish on September 30. :(

So far in September

2011-09-09T23:44:00.002+10:00

So far in September, I've done about 5000 stitches of 1x1 ribbing for my babyniece's little dress, and used up about 150g of yarn on my jumper. I have 10 rows of ribbing left before I start the skirt part, and I've done one repeat of the jumper cable.

I'm partnering up with Hufflepuff 7th-year Mediaperuana for the Yule Ball (we're making booties), and I'm in a trio with Victrix and Lunathecat making creatures for the Care of Magical Creatures class. I've got two other classes planned, and I'll probably get sucked into Quidditch (I'm a Beater).

The only problem is, I'm not sure I'll ever finish this ribbing!!

And here's another problem. Mediaperuana had this queued....

Spring at last!

2011-09-02T22:10:00.003+10:00

I'll admit, I haven't been expecting sunny Spring weather, although we've had strangely nice weather lately. The first two days were awful, because I couldn't wash all the little clothes faster than my mudlets could unwash them! But when the mud dried up and they were outside playing all day, I got a little knitting in.

This is basically all I did for August.

And I had to resist the temptation to kitchener the toe until September 1 (at 5pm) so that I could claim 10 points for detention. They are Charades, knit top-down (for a change) in worsted weight yarn and 3.75mm needles. I'm wearing them now (at MacDonalds again, using the wifi) and they're very warm. But I'm going back to toeup...

I also entertained myself with a little dyeing, because I had a Babyniece project in mind that required skintoned yarn. I skeined up the leftover ball of madelinetosh sport (the good stuff for my little niece) and put 30g of coffee grounds in some boiling water.

Soaked the yarn in some dishwashing liquid (to make it soak in quicker) and citric acid (to make the color stick better; like vinegar but smells better!) for about 20 minutes.

Then kept it hot but not boiling in a pot on the stove (and yes, I strained out the coffee grounds through some cloth first! Was glad I thought of it in time...)

Turned a good color. The little white bit is the original color. Since this I overdyed it in a very pale red, because it was a little too yellow.

(Esther, don't read my blog for a while or look me up on Ravelry if you want Surprises next year, ok...)

It's going to be a small Poppy. Since it's 5ply instead of 8, it should come out smaller than Jasmine's one, and I'm going to make babyniece's Poppy with a matching Bloom. I asked my sister-in-law if there were any Ravelry patterns she liked, and she sent me a list, including Bloom, which I'd wanted to make in the past but hadn't gotten around to. I thought, "I'll work out how to shrink it, to make Babyniece and Poppy matching dresses", so I was pretty pleased to find that, after buying the pattern, it included a free pattern for a matching doll dress! lol.

Anyway, the real reason I've been itching for Spring is to start my second year as a Slytherin. LOL! I'm addicted to this silly game because the others are so funny! There are about 160 Slytherins, and this year I got a job as reporter for the Dungeon Bulletin Board, which is fun. So, at 5pm (because we all go by the same timezone) I put in my OWL proposal and it was approved in no time. Before it was approved, though, I was working on my first class assignment, for which I am doing Bloom in Green, and I plan to do... erm... one or two other projects for Babyniece this month.

Though I seem to have gotten sucked into the ridiculously funny Toilet Roll Holder KnitAlong that the Slytherins have agreed upon as the perfect Astronomy assignment, since we're studying Uranus.

Giggles. I know. I'm 9 years old.

P.S.

2011-08-19T23:31:00.003+10:00

Second post of the day, just to say...

I'm getting a new niece! And I want to knit All The Cute Girly Things! Help...!

hehe

2011-08-19T22:39:00.003+10:00

Here's a new woven scarf made from self-striping handspun I made a few months back.

It's shorter than I meant it to be, and felted a little bit in the wash (which I wanted). Felting doesn't seem to shrink the fabric at all (nor can you seem to block it bigger) but it does get fluffier and mesh the mesh.

It was a "Potions class" for the Ravelry group. Next "year" I'm planning a Muggle Studies OWL, making a jumper and a hat and a scarf. The jumper will be the Opulent raglan, using the Madelinetosh MCN in Warm Mushroom, and the scarf and hat will be in this:

which is Madelinetosh Vintage in Ginger, Warm mushroom (x2) and Glazed Pecan (bottom). I'm thinking of another PaperMoon hat, probably in Pecan, and a woven scarf with all the scraps :)

I've applied to be a Slytherin for second year, because Slytherin is a fun group. Plus, Slytherins have an advantage down in the dungeons... we have a secret stash of celebrity helpers. You can choose one or as many as you need. I "had to" choose an Aussie, of course...

Most helpful. hehe.

Friday

2011-08-13T20:35:00.002+10:00

I haven't even started the jumper planned with the last lot of Madelinetosh I bought yet. (Planned for next month) but I was considering this pretty blue called Nebula. I had just decided I shouldn't spend so much until I'd used up the jumper-yarn I had first, when someone decided to sell 8 skeins of this exact stuff second-hand (but untouched) on Ravelry for about half price :)

It's MCN worsted, which is merino, cashmere and nylon. It's very very lovely to knit. I took the kids to an indoor playground and neglected them while I knit a square out of the mushroom-colored stuff. Sigh. For something that's going to take me about 500 hours to knit ;) I may as well spend an extra few cents an hour on Nice Yarn.

I also got a package of baby alpaca to spin, all the way from Knit Nation in London (care of my little sister). I sent her something from Bendi, so it's swaps all around :) This stuff is so soft it feels like you're putting your hand in a bag of cotton balls.

Next loom project is a scarf for Byron, one which he wanted but does not want to actually wear. LOL. He wanted all black, but I found some BWM rustic 12ply that I'd overdyed black, which had bits of dark purple and green showing through, and some almost-black green (the leftovers from his birthday jumper) and warped the loom with alternating strands of those two. Then I did the weft part with all black BWM luxury 10ply.

Just enough color to keep it interesting, but not enough for Mr AbsolutelyNoColors to be happy with. He assures me he likes it. He just doesn't want to wear it "right now" thanks.

Cupcakes for all!

2011-08-09T16:59:00.004+10:00

Firstie Alrischa hands the microphone to Headmistress Needlesnswiffers...

Coming in 4th place, scoring an amazing 5,145 points is

GRYFFINDOR!!!

Coming in 3rd place, scoring an awesome 5,269 points is

RAVENCLAW!!!

Coming in 2nd place, scoring an incredible 8,401 points is

SLYTHERIN!!!

And, the Winners of the QIX Quidditch Cup, with an impressive 8,628 points is:

HUFFLEPUFF!

Well we came second. Not bad, and it was pretty darn close...

Hang on... Quidditch?

And now, without further ado, the final standings for the Spring 2011 term of the HPKCHC!

In fourth place, with a mighty 35,898 points - Gryffindor!

In third place, with an amazing 40,883 points - Hufflepuff!!

(was that pause long and dramatic enough? ;) )

In second place, with a magnificent showing of 42,034 points - Ravenclaw!!!

In first place, the winners of the House Cup, with an astounding 45,957 points - Slytherin!!!!

Thanks, Headmistress Needlesnswiffers, for a fun first year at Hogwarts. It was lots of fun. For the record, 863 of those points were mine, so there must have been a lot of people working hard in Slytherin the last 3 months.

hehehe.

Gotta love fingering-weight scarves

2011-08-05T23:19:00.004+10:00

I finally sat down and finished the Lacy Baktus. This Waterlilies color is hard to photograph, but it's very multicolored in a very subtle way. Being a long triangle, it blocked nicely from a 140cm scarf to 234! Perhaps I overdid it, because the ends are very pointy and the whole thing looks narrow, but I love it long :)

I hung it on the line for the last bit of drying, with one peg on each point.

Then I finished my second woven scarf. I used a different (smaller) heddle, which makes the gap between the lengthways yarn. This heddle is a "10dpi" and the lengthways yarn, called the "warp" is about 90g of the rest of the blue Serena from May (same as your gloves, Kelly). I used it all up, which ended up being 78 strings. I used some hand dyed sock yarn to do the acrossways yarns (the "weft") and I ended up running out of space, which is amazing, since my "warp" was 3.8 meters!! The scarf wasn't that long once the ends were cut off. A bit over 3m, I think. (I'm updating at MacDonalds because their WiFi is better than my home internet, though the details of this scarf are at home...) (edited to add "3.3 meters or 130")

What's funny about a 3m scarf, is that it is for my little 3yo :)

Jasmine loves it, though. I put it through the washer and dryer and it came out lovely and fluffy! Imagine making a scarf with 200g of fingering weight that takes less than a week to finish. Sigh. I love this loom-thing!

Here's a pic for you, Kelly. The yarn didn't fade at all, and I loved the colors. It's mostly blue, but there were pretty bits of purples and greens... as you probably remember. It just left a tiny line over my left index finger, where it rubbed.

For my next trick, I owe Byron a scarf. (As I neglect the trio when I'm weaving, I promised Byron and Jasmine a scarf each. They were both keen. Unfortunately for me, he takes after Daddy in his color preferences.

"Black."

"Black and red? You like black and red."

"No, just black."

"What about a tiny bit of red, just a few little stripes...?"

"I just want Black, Mummy. No other colors. No little bits of colors. Just black. Only black. All black."

"Sigh..."

"But not as long as Jasmine's scarf, okay?"

hehehe.

Hip hip

2011-07-30T13:56:00.003+10:00

The last mittens: All You Need Is Love

Knitted in MadelineTosh Sport (white) and the yarn Kelly sent me all the way from England (blue). They didn't look that great until they got a good blocking. I massacred one of Byron's foam alphabet squares, turned them inside out, shoved the high tech blockers in, and steamed them over a pot. I would have given them a good soaking, but the blue was coming off on my left finger as I knitted, and a steam block worked fine.

Obviously, I couldn't decide which color I liked best for the background/pattern, so I did one of each ;) Now I think I like the right one best. More color, and a 'cleaner' pattern, I guess.

Now I've finished my OWL, which was 4 pairs of mittens in the three months of the Harry Potter game "school year". And when I've finished just one more project (which is nearly done) I'll have done 18 classes, as well as doing pretty well as a Quidditch chaser.

Next month is a break from Hogwarts, so I'll be doing a few old WIPs, and a little bit more of this...

Thankyou for taking too much tax, Julia, because giving it back in a chunk means I have enough spending money to buy a Knitter's Loom, and one can never have too many yarny toys!

Tour de Fleece

2011-07-25T01:04:00.003+10:00

2,923 yards (2,672m) of singles. Phew!

It's 1am. Click for more.... Yaaaawwnn

Bendigo!

2011-07-15T22:11:00.008+10:00

Hooray! The 15th of July is a day I've been looking forward to for months, and not because my little brother turns 34 (Happy Birthday, Simon!). No, today is the first day of the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Festival weekend.

It was a difficult and boring drive for 2 hours... :)

They hold the Wool Festival at the showgrounds, and it's a pretty big event, the biggest wool festival in Australia, I'd say. There are big tents and sheds full of fibery goodness! I bought a few things from Mandie at EGMTK.

(Spent about 30 minutes sorting through the piles, with an armful of ever-changing fibre selections. So long that other customers started asking me questions... lol)

There are three merino/bamboo/silk ones there, and one merino/seacell (number 4) and one merino/milk (number 2).

Also chose some fibre from Ixchel. L-R they are BFL(blue faced leicester)/glitz(?)/angora, merino/angora/tencel and cashmere/tencel/glitz/bamboo. (Touching that last one was deadly. I warned off two other customers). I'm noticing I picked a few similar colors, but there's nothing wrong with that ;)

This is SpinningWoodie (on Rav) who makes knitterly woodcraft. I bought the niddy noddy and the darning mushroom from him, and asked if I could take his photo. He said his wife knocked up the knitted Viking gear.

(The fibre there was from Kathy's shop, but since it's called "Timber" I thought it belonged)

Here are a couple of things from the display cabinets I liked: a woven scarf whose ends were twisted and plied, a crocheted-hearts scarf and a hexagon-lace knitted scarf.

I also bought a book on weaving with Ashford knitter's looms (as I plan to buy one with some tax return money, having not spent enough today) and a jumbo flyer and bobbin for my wheel, which will make life easier in my spinning universe.

Pretty soon, though, it occurred to me that I'd spent a fair bit of money without buying any yarn!

Top left is some laceweight silk from Ixchel, and the top right is DK possum/merino/alpaca/nylon from Fibreworks. Also from Fibreworks, some DK merino in a color I loved. Bought three, because I can't always do one-skein projects.

Here is the other color (merino/silk) that I got from Kathy's, as well as a matching fibre called Sparkle. LOL. I don't know if/how I'll spin them together, but I might find a way.

Somewhere in amongst all that shopping, I grabbed a mini pumpkin pizza from the brick pizza oven, watched a fashion parade and chatted with strangers about my hat and gloves and their spinning wheels and dyes. I looked at the baby animals (the black baby piglet was so cute but would not stand still), wandered around the sheep tents, watched the dog herding, and didn't get in one single stitch of knitting... (I did compare my half-knitted Proposition glove with a shopkeeper's completed pair of Propositions, though, so it was worth carrying it around.)

Then I headed out of the showgrounds and straight down the road to the Bendigo Woollen Mills bargain room. Just got some Luxury 4ply (green and middle-grey) and some cotton 4ply (left and right greys).

I stopped in at the Lansell shopping center for a bit before driving home. And now I have 5 minutes left of the day to do some spinning for TdF, or I won't be able to say I spun every day...

ihasta luego!

Happy Birthday!

2011-07-08T22:50:00.005+10:00

Happy Birthday, Gorgeous girl!

I don't know where she gets her utter girliness from. Not me. She loves bags, shoes, dolls, dresses, fairies, dancing, makeup, jewellery...

...so today she was a very lucky little 3-year-old. She got a new doll (with a bottle! lol), a doll house, a tea set, a toy guinea pig, a toaster, a fairy costume and some other nice things. (She really likes the bug-keeper, which is a funny twist on the girliness, and went bug-hunting with Daddy, but it was too cold to find any today.) And, of course, the Weasley Sweater.

Now, I loved this green, but my Mum bought her a light pink sparkley acrylic knitted top from KMart which (dammit) suits her much better! LOL! But making this was a pleasure, and I finished it on time. Love that back cable...

Not a lot of love for the white buttons, but I can replace them at my whim. And it still hasn't had the blocking it needs to add a smidgeon of length to the sleeves.

But she's very warm and happy in it :)

Love you, baby.

It wasn't my day, today.

2011-07-07T21:14:00.003+10:00

It wasn't my day, today. The baby is sick. And snotty. My back hurts. My ball winder broke. The laptop is broken. The other computer thought seriously about breaking, too. The house is a mess. The cake for tomorrow is not made. The fish came out of the oven half-raw. The internet refused to connect. The kids fought. And I couldn't find buttons I liked for Jasmine's new jumper, so it didn't even get blocked.

Nope. Today was somebody else's good day.

But I did finish this. The Wurm of Awe!

1. It looks like a plain tube. And it is.
2. But it is the best, warmest hat ever
3. and it's the thickest cowl.
4. See, it has a folded over top edge, with an icord tie
5. which you can tuck into the inside if you like.
6. It will come in handy for those bank robberies or too-cold-to-breathe-outside mornings
7. but right now I'm wearing it with my hair hanging out the back, like a super headband.

My friend, Telly, just rang to organize a movie night (HP next week) and I'm going to add some Slytherin silver to the hat somehow and wear it to the movie. Also, Nathan fixed the ball-winder and the internet. And now that the kids are asleep, it is very quiet and peaceful. I'm drinking cocoa and eating some dark dark chocolate. After that I'm going to make a chocolate cake, blow up some balloons and get cracking on the OWL gloves, which I'm getting rather behind on!

Yes, a bit of cake and colorwork is just what I need.

Tour de Fleece Day 4.

2011-07-06T00:54:00.002+10:00

I've been doing a little spinning each day, and this is what I finished on Day 2 of the Tour de Fleece...

120g of 2-plied merino/bamboo/nylon. The fibre is from EGMTK, and it's called "Hermione", so I made it my DADA assignment (Craft something inspired by a member of Dumbledore's Army). It's 251m, making it about worsted weight, maybe a fraction thinner. (It's 10 yards per 100g longer than Cascade 220).

This one might beat it, though.
This is the yarn so far at the end of Day 4. I'm aiming for sport weight, which will have to be about 300m per 100g after it's 2-plied. I've only snapped it twice so far, which is not bad for me, but this little bit is about 20g or so. It'll take me forever, but I'm looking forward to seeing how long I can get it.

Some of the daily posts on the TdF group are amazing. They're so good; some are as thin as cobwebs. Sigh.

Went to Knit Night tonight, and worked on my Jasmine 3. It's been a bit neglected, especially considering Jasmine's birthday is on Friday, but I've been at work the last 2 days. I have one button band and a neck to do. Also working on the Wurm, which has 22 yards left (to be the required 300y for Quidditch :D). Hope to finish both tomorrow, if I can get a little bit of car-knitting in... Ü

Stupid black ribbing...

2011-06-25T00:29:00.003+10:00

Finished the silly thing. K3P2K3P2K3P2....

That Cleckheaton Country Tartan 8ply is not bad stuff. Not completely black. But black enough.

Here's where I got up to on my first All You Need Is Love gLove. Took me a while to decide whether to do the white or blue background, but I'm glad I picked white. It's easier to follow the chart when white is white.
See that odd square on the left? Pattern problem. It's where the start and end of the chart meet, only it's a spiral, of course, and when you get to the start again you're a row higher. Will fix that later with some duplicate stitch, and do the other one a bit differently.

Here is 434g of merino ready for the Tour de Fleece! The idea is to 'spin' with the cyclists on the Tour de France, each day from July 2-24 (with days off on the 11th and 18th). This yarn, and the 300g I recently got from EGMTK, will have to hold me until July 15, when I get some more from the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Festival. It's my annual day off!! I'm also going to look into a small loom to play with.

Yet more knitting :)

2011-06-22T16:30:00.002+10:00

Part of the fun of this knitting game is finding ways to do your own thing, and work it into the parameters of the classes. For instance this little Wurm was made for the daughter of the previous Wurm recipient. She's turning 4 next week, and I said I'd make her a hat "like Mummy", only she requested "pink and blue". But for the class, I had to call it a Cauldron :D

Yes, I took a picture of it, upside down on the stove.

I wanted to do some spinning, because it's easy (I did most of this in an evening) and gets good bonus points for yardage. This is Transfiguration class, because I'm "planning" to turn it into a colorwork something in the future.

Here's what the boy was doing behind me just before. I finished plying the green while they were having a nap (supposedly) and so left out the wheel. When Byron "woke up" shortly after going to bed, I let him have a spin. He used two feet on the pedal, but he got it going round and round eventually. hehe.

I'm going to Mandie's shop at Bendigo (her stall at the Sheep and Wool Festival) in about 3 weeks, but I couldn't resist a little fluff from her online store. This one in the "Hermione" colorway will definitely be in a class somehow.

But this is my favorite. Wonder how it will spin up...

She promised me that she's mixing up some good merino/silk colors for Bendigo, so I'll come home with a bit, I suspect.

I have been knitting. Here is where the Jasmine 3 is up to as we speak. I've finished the body, and I just have arms to do, a button band and some kind of neck. Love everything about this top so far.

And now, back to the boring class... A hat Nathan asked for in all black ribbing. Only a few inches to go...

So far at School :)

2011-06-10T11:20:00.008+10:00

I've been busy knitting and spinning things for 'classes' for this fun Harry Potter knitting game. Didn't realize how slack I've been putting some of them on the blog, though. You've seen the astronomy spin, the first OWL gloves, and the Muggle Studies yarn bomb. Here are a few other school things :D

First, OWL gloves number 2. (Mahayanas).

A cootie. An argument started in the Slytherin common room about people who have cooties, and we realized the cootie infestation was so widely spread that we made it the theme of the month. The challenge was to make a cootie, and sneak it into assignment pictures all over Hogwarts ;)

A japanese fighting beetle for Defence against the Dark Arts (note cootie)

A lined knitting bag for Care of Magical Creatures

A phone sock with an ipod pocket inside for Ancient Runes
Self striping yarn for Potions. Since this was EGMTK fibre, I put it on the EGMTK group for the "May spin", and won a random prize, which is waiting at the Post Office for me... pics later.

Quidditch. Didn't participate in all "quaffles" but did make this little Snape

and an Animal Cracker hat

So far this month I've made a Wurm hat for History of Magic

and a new outfit for Poppy for Muggle Studies.

Total points for Slytherin so far, aside from Quidditch and the June classes, is 221. Woohoo!

Link to stash picture of the merino I won from Mandie

I got mail

2011-06-02T14:58:00.002+10:00

Madeline Tosh MCN worsted 80/10/10 in Warm Mushroom. 700g, so it should be enough to make a jumper some time... but which one? (Need to browse Ravelry some more!)

Wollmeise sock yarn in a very lovely green. I put it on the kitchen scales. It's 170g. Think I could get two pairs of socks out of that.

And a little bit of Shelter.

It's June, so I'm scouring the House Cup classes trying to think of ideas for classes. In particular, I'm trying to fit Wurm into one of the options, because my friend Telly asked for a hat, and an extra pair of gloves, which Nathan asked for. Any suggestions are welcome.

Meanwhile, I've finished glove number 3 of my Arithmancy OWL, and the 4th is near the end of the wrist ribbing. It's a fun stitch pattern, and much easier than it looks.

P.S. Live Below the Line is finished! The first thing I ate was lemonade and a bit of chocolate birthday cake I'd frozen. (Didn't want to miss out on my 4yo's cake, especially since he helped me make it.) Nice to eat what I like again, but I'm trying to stick with the small meals still. Lost 7 kilos in May, and it would be ~~fun~~ a shame to gain it all back in chocolate.

Starry

2011-05-21T17:33:00.002+10:00

Garments and Gadgets merino in Manganese. I spun about 70g of it and two-plied it. Then I threaded up a silver thread with tiny beads, and spun it around.

See the beads? They're only tiny, and my phone camera is a bit dodgy with close-ups.

I suppose there are about 200 beads on there. The silver thread was a pain in the neck, not coming off the reel well, and not sticking to the wool at all. But this is 'art' yarn for Astronomy, and I think it is very fitting. Hehe.

Happy Birthdays

2011-05-17T15:16:00.004+10:00

Happy Birthday, Byron! On one hand, I can't believe he's already 4. On the other hand, it feels like we've had him much longer than 4 years!

This morning, while Byron was anxiously waiting for everyone else to wake up so he could open presents, I sewed the last buttons on these little mittens. They are the handwarmers from the Powder River Set. They're very soft and light, so I'm not sure if they're "UK-level warmth" but they've been posted over to Kelly, who's birthday is coming up.

While I posted those, Byron and I picked up his present from Auntie Kelly. We don't often go anywhere without his little brother and sister, so he wanted to prolong the trip with a cool little walk up and down the street.

I think it's a good jumper to wear over a white shirt. A bit of a haircut, and he'd be very swish :)

Happy Birthday little boy! And Happy thirty-mmpphhth birthday for the end of the month, little sister! hehe.

Muggle studies homework

2011-05-15T14:44:00.000+10:00

Jasmine is spinning

2011-05-12T13:14:00.000+10:00

LOL. Is that title a bit deceptive on a knitting blog? Sorry ;)

I bought Jasmine this awesome 'spin dress' from an online shop called "Playing Fair". This is about as still as she would stand, because "dancing music" was on! It's Fair trade fortnight, and since I can't have Fair Trade chocolate or coffee, I thought I could at least buy FT cotton clothes. Also bought her a little "ballerina belt"...

which is popular. She is a dress-girl, that's for sure. Don't know where she gets it from. She always wants to wear her long white flowergirl dress everywhere, so for $18, I'm going to get her a few more spin dresses.

There wasn't much I liked in the boys' clothes, unfortunately, or I would have spent three times as much. But Jas loves these. They seem really well made, and I like supporting women who are being paid properly, especially since I started reading this:

Nadiah at "Playing Fair" offered me a discount for mentioning her shop on my blog, since she only really advertises by Word of Mouth, but I decided not to take it. It's so cheap I don't need a discount, and I would have mentioned it anyway.

Live below the Line is going well. I probably should have eaten more before going to the blood bank, but that's my own fault entirely. It didn't occur to me that an 1130 appointment was close to lunch, and with a few problems and delays it was 2:30 by the time I finished my platelet donation. So I got a bit dizzy! lol! First time in about 110 donations... they made me lay on the floor, laughing and a bit embarrassed, with my feet on a chair. I ate what they gave me, because you can't be dizzy when you drive your kids home, but next time I'll be prepared.

And now, the kids are in bed for a nap, and I'm going to grab the wheel and do some spinning, too :D

$2 a day

2011-05-08T19:48:00.003+10:00

Breaky: 3 cheap weetbix, watered down milk and sugar, microwaved into mush ;) and three pikelets with jam (made a batch and froze them the other day) and some hot chocolate.

Lunch: half a tin of baked beans, 2 vegemite sandwiches and enough cocoa/sugar to make three hot chocolates (though I only had two), packed up to take to Mum's, where everyone else got to eat... oh... delicious-looking stuff...

Dinner: 100g of rice with a spoon of tomato paste, a spoon of gravy, some herbs and parmesan and 100g of chopped fried veges.

I still feel vaguely hungry most of the time, but nothing worth whinging about, of course! This is temporary. I have gotten about $100 in donations, though, which is extremely nice.

Manos in May is going well. I've nearly finished one mitten, which hasn't even used half a 50g ball of Serena. I've been distracted spinning a bit of EGMTK fibre up into a self-striping n-plied yarn. It's going to be kind-of thick, I think, because navajo-plying is 3-ply, and even my singles are not as slim as the last spin I did. I'm blaming the lack of silk ;)

Happy Mum's day, Mum! And everyone else :)

Dramas and diets

2011-05-04T00:20:00.002+10:00

Firstly, and MOST importantly, I'm in Slytherin! (hehehe)
I've put in my OWL application, and while waiting for approval I've been working on my first class assignment. I chose to do the Potions class, to spin a self-striping yarn.

However, in the spirit of teamwork, I also signed up for a Quest within my house, which is to do 18 classes this "year" (May to July) and participate in Quidditch, on top of the OWL. We'll see how I go. I might have to be admited to St. Mungos yet...

I've had to pull out half what I'd done on the first PowderRiver mitten, because the instructions (which are perfectly clear in hindsight) completely confounded me. I'm blaming the diet! I'm also planning to pull out what I've done on the AllYouNeedIsLove mittens, because I did my compulsory swatch with cheap white 5ply, as my nice Madtosh sport had not yet arrived in the mail. I got it today. (But I can't reknit it until next month, because it's Manos in May).

The drama of the week has been work. I was on the casual nurse bank before having a baby or three... I haven't done any shifts for about 2 years, but since I never resigned, I just assumed I was still on the list. I called and left my name and number. The supervisor called and gave me a shift. I worked Sunday morning. No problems.

Until Monday, when a different supervisor rang and said that now, if you are inactive for 3 months you are automatically 'resigned'. So, "Sorry, but you won't be getting paid. You're not an employee."

!!

I was a bit cross and sad that my weekend labor was so cheap. So I called the payroll people today. They said, "It's no problem. Just get the supervisor to authorize it." Hmm. The man from Monday didn't seem likely to do that. I rang him, but it was a different supervisor. Yay! A woman who said, "of course you deserve to get paid, and you will" and even used the term "over my dead body!" which made me quite cheerful.

So now I am in the process of applying for the silly job again, to the hospital where I've worked since 2000. Dramaramas.

As for the diet (phew, this is a long 'quick update') I have been feasting on al-cheapo vitabrits and skim milk, rice and tomato paste, handfuls of chopped frozen veges, and good-old-worth-every-cent cocoa! Oh, and vegemite sandwiches.

My head feels slightly foggy (but it's almost 1am, I guess) and my muscles feel a bit shakey sometimes. I feel hungry quite a bit, but it makes me appreciate the next meal so much! Tonight I had pasta with tomato paste, gravy and veges. It was so good! lol. My only concern is that if I don't ration this stuff well, I may have some hungry days at the end of the month!

Oh, one more bonus. Not only did I get yarn in the mail, but Sue from Hawthorne Cottages sent a heap of old magazines to the knitting night tonight. (She was sick and couldn't come). So I came home with 7 new knitting magazines.

This blog has been hijacked

2011-04-30T20:27:00.003+10:00

When I was little, May used to be "Missionary Month", where we talked about missionaries in church. As a small taste of how others lived in the world, Mum and Dad often used to turn the electricity off for a week during this month. It's a lesson that stuck with me always, though it was just one small sacrifice.

This month I'm devoting the 31 days of May to Live Below the Line. I am only allowed to spend $2 (Australian) on food per day. It's a fundraiser for charity, of course, though I'm not asking for money here (though I encourage you to search through the donors and support someone who's doing the challenge with no sponsors yet... it's fun!) but it's one of those eye-opening experiences that you have to do to understand.

$2Aus-a-day buys the same amount of food as the official "poverty line" under which 1.4billion people live every day of their lives. That's a fifth of the world. And their "$2" also pays for health, housing, water, clothes and everything else a body needs.

Also, I'm going to do a Fair Trade change this month, and only use Manos del Uruguay yarn. It's Fairtrade fortnight soon. All my (many) WIPs are put away for May, and the Serena and Silk Blend is coming out! I was going to have a yarn limit, but I decided I want more colors. LOL!

Now I gotta go cook 100g of rice and mix up some 'sauce' for lunch tomorrow. I'm working for the first time in about 2 years! (bites nails)

Ready set...

2011-04-30T16:53:00.000+10:00

Deserves its own post

2011-04-29T16:33:00.002+10:00

My sister left for England just before my birthday. She left me a helpful little device to keep track of rows during cabling, and promised to send me some very English wool.

It arrived yesterday. Not only is it very English, but it's also called Robin Hood! lol!

And it's perfectly Sport Weight. And a fantastic color which I love so much I rolled it straight up into a ball. But couldn't think of anything to cast on immediately, so it's just sitting on the bench being admired.

I think this will work great for colorwork mittens. In June.

P.S. I'm a Slytherin. It was my first preferenssse. Mwah haha!

I can do entrelac

2011-04-23T14:35:00.003+10:00

This is my first attempt at entrelac. It's going to be my first pair of mittens for my first OWL, so I thought "Opal: Harry Potter" sock yarn in "Hedwig" was funny. I'm actually loving the colors, though they're mainly dull green/grays. (Plus I love the way they coordinate with the knitting bag I bought from Kelly.)

We have to do a swatch for each pattern in our OWL, but we are allowed to do the first inch or two of a sock or mitten AS the swatch. Unfortunately, at this point, I decided to Rippit Rippit. It got frogged, because it's huge. I can fit two arms in there.

Found this in my letterbox. I did pay for it, mostly! I ordered some of Sue's nice sock yarn, and paid, but she was out of the color I ordered. Her webpage wasn't subtracting her sales, apparently. She gave me a choice between the only two left. She was going to start dyeing again soon with larger skeins, she said, but the one I ordered was 100g. So I was surprised to get this, with a 120g label and a price sticker for a bit more than I paid. Plus, when I threw it on my kitchen scales (because it just felt heavy!) it was actually 130g! This is Two Tees in "The Blues".

And I may have bought some more on Ravelry... some white Madeline Tosh sport for mittens. That makes it school supplies, which is not only acceptable but, erm, required. hehe.

Nutkins

2011-04-20T09:04:00.002+10:00

So I finally forced myself to finish the Nutkins for the S62011 sock club. The pattern was easy, and I did a toe up version with a heel flap and ribbing. But after doing the first sock and not thinking too much of it, it was hard to overcome the dreaded Second Sock Syndrome!

I didn't like the way the yarn variegation had overpowered the pattern. I hated how the left increase and decrease on every row makes them twist around on your leg. I didn't like the lack of stretch that makes it hard to pull over your heel, even when you've increased the leg size to compensate a bit.

But they do fit (once you get them on) and they're warm and comfy. And since I threw them back in the pot with a speck of black food dye and immitation chocolate to even out the color, I'm liking them a bit more.

Even dodgy handknitted socks are superior to cheap cotton store-bought socks :D

The next pattern is Leyburn, and while I love it I'm taking a break from socks. I'm doing Manos in May ;) and working on assignments for the Hogwarts group (that still makes me laugh at my own fan-silliness, but I'm looking forward to it). I'll use my Manos to make one class assignment, and I'm also going to try and do an OWL. I don't get the class assignments until next month, but here's what I'm doing for my Arithmancy OWL, if my OWL proposal is accepted:

"Arithmancy OWL, Option 2: Create multiples (at least 8) of the same object. You may vary the size, colors, and pattern of the objects, but you must make the same kind of object. Please note that one sock is considered one object for this O.W.L. only."

I'm making 4 pairs of mittens including colorwork, entrelac, and gloves based on Leyburns. lol. I have about 2 months to do it, from when it's approved (hopefully in May) until the end of July. All of them are fingering weight, so it will be a bit of work for me, except the ones I'm doing in Manos Serena (which is about sport weight by all accounts).

P.S. to Kelly; I'll make you the Powder River mitts in Serena, though they won't be done by your birthday, in the Tide color. But if you like Green Tea better, let me know :)

Byron 4

2011-04-19T08:34:00.006+10:00

It's about 4 weeks until Byron's birthday, but I finished his Weasley Jumper early this year. He requested black this year, one of his favorite colors, but I don't like knitting in black much. Since green is my favorite color and I am doing all the work, we compromised with this very dark green.

Byron calls it "black" but I call it "Dream in Color Classy: Still Spruce".

It's pretty simple, a top-down seamless jumper with a slip-stitch pattern. A boy jumper!

Do you think I could persuade him to let me take pictures? I had to bribe him with Twisties... but when the pictures were done, he wouldn't take it off! Here he is, running off into the back yard with his little brother (who is wearing Byron 2) :)

Pattern: Byron 4

Size: 4 year old

Needle: 5mm

Yarn: Dream in Color Classy in Still Spruce (worsted weight) 2 skeins.

Main pattern

row 1: K3, (slip 1 purlwise, knit 6) repeat to last 3, K3.

row 2. Knit (on right side) or purl (on wrong side).

Rib pattern

row 1: K1, P2, (slip 1, P2, K2, P2) repeat to last 3, P2, K1

row 2: K1, P2, (K1, P2, K2, P2) repeat to last 3, P2, K1

1. Shoulders: back

Cast on 49 stitches with a scrap piece of yarn. Change to main color and work in main pattern.

After 24 rows, increase on each edge of the right side rows.

(NOTE: as you increase, incorporate slip stitch columns where they go)

After 14 rows (63) finish after a wrong side row and cut yarn.

2. Shoulder: front right.

Hold your work up by the caston edge, right side facing you. Pick up 10 of your provisionally caston stitches on the right edge.

Knit 10 rows in main pattern.

Start adding a stitch to the neck edge (left) every right side row.

After 14 rows (17) start also increasing on arm edge side.

Do 14 more rows until you have 31 stitches. Finish on a right side row.

3. Shoulders: front left

Hold up the back, as before, with caston edge up and the right side of the back facing you.

Pick up first 10st (on left). As with the other side, do 10 rows of main pattern, 14 rows of increases on the neck edge, and 14 rows of increases on both sides. Finish on a wrong side row, at the center front. (31)

4. Body:

You should be able to fold at the caston edge and join all your live stitches in a round beginning at the center front. I added a stitch at the center front when I came around to it the first time, to make 126st (to fit the multiple-of-seven pattern). Knit in the main pattern, then rib pattern until desired length. I did 64 rows of main pattern and 16 rows of rib, ending with "Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bindoff".

If you like, you can do the collar and sleeves first and then use up the yarn on the body length :D

5. Sleeves.

Pick up 42 stitches around the sleeve hole, starting at underarm, and work 80 rows (or desired length. Finish with 10 rounds of rib pattern and stretchy bindoff.

6. Neck.

Pick up 77 stitches around the neck, including the remaining provisionally caston ones. Begin rib pattern. Make sure the front-center stitch is a slip stitch column.

Every slip-stitch round, decrease around the front-center stitch with: ssk, slip stitch, k2tog.

After 10 or 12 rounds, decrease with a super stretchy bindoff.

P.S. It's 10am, and his jumper is covered with cobwebs or something! It's been confiscated until his birthday. hehe. :D

Potty.

2011-04-09T20:42:00.002+10:00

Must be time to read Harry Potter again. I joined the Hogwarts House Cup on Ravelry. lol. Some magic requires two wands.

Next month

2011-04-04T15:05:00.003+10:00

Manos Del Uruguay Silk Blend in "Topaz"

Manos Del Uruguay Serena in "Green Tea" and "Tide"

Next month I'm doing the "Live Below the Line" challenge again, but this time for the whole month. More on that in May, I dare say, but on the knitting side I decided to restrict myself to $3 a day, and it has to be Fair Trade certified yarn. The only Fair Trade yarn company is "Manos Del Uruguay", and I can only get it from one place in Australia: "Evoke yarn and fabric".

This measley :) little packet of (beautiful) yarn is 250g/1040m. That gives me 8g/33m of yarn each day. Also, all my spending money for the month is going towards sponsoring participants.

I have a few things to finish in April, and some projects to choose for May...

35

2011-04-02T14:38:00.003+11:00

First there was yarn (Madeline Tosh Sock in "Posy") which arrived last night. Note the teeny tiny Addi Circular: it is a 2.5mm 20cm one, and I'm itching to try and knit a sock on it! hehehe. I bought it last week, but now Nathan has given me yarn money, so it's from him... Then breakfast (note the cup, ravelers :D ) Then baileys... erm... chocolate! And some knitting on a colorful old WIP Shopping for some lunch, just me and the girl.

And for lunch, a little cake of Ginger Kisses

Now I'm off to search yarn stores. I have birthday-yarn-money leftover!

March spin

2011-03-30T22:02:00.002+11:00

Finished my March spin with one day to spare. Here are 3 balls of singles totalling 200g. Seems I can only fit about 70g on the bobbin at a time, but it's easy to wind it off onto the ball winder. The fiber is Ewe Give Me The Knits merino/silk in "Peppercorn". I'm pleased with my consistency this time, and the 2ply yarn came out at 400m, which makes it about Worsted Weight. I do not know how people can spin a three-ply sock yarn!

Could not get a good shot of the true color, but there's a better photo on Ravelry, which is what inspired me to buy Peppercorn in the first place :D.

More blue

2011-03-21T14:21:00.004+11:00

I rolled up the yarn from the last post and started my scarf straight away :)

All I did, basically, was knit a magic loop tube of 30 stitches.

Two meters/ 310 rows/ 9300 stitches later, my 200g ball of Luxury 10ply came to an end.

And because it's just a tube, not only do I get a double-sided non-rolly stocking stitch scarf, but I can turn it inside out for some variety.

I considered giving this to my sister, who is heading off to Freezengland to be a nanny (of sorts). I imagined her wrapping it twice around her neck and then putting an arm in each end. Or wrapping it around the neck of "her" two year old's neck, and putting an end on the head of each twin baby. Or putting a knot in one end and using it to store her English yarn stash.

But I love it!

Sorry, Kel. Maybe I'll have to make another one!

Cables, yarn, puppies

2011-03-12T13:35:00.004+11:00

This is my Star Crossed Slouchy Beret. Sort of.

I made the whole thing with 5mm needles instead of 8mm needles (oooops!) and now it's Jasmine's.

She loves it, but she's developed a camera-aversion, and ran off after this. Must make another one in the proper size. It's a simple, free, easy, quick and nice hat, and looks good in BWM luxury "denim".

Decided I was in a blue mood yesterday, so while my sister was over (distracting the kids) I made a big skein of Luxury in "cream" (200g) and wet it, pulled it out (wrapping it around my wrist), added dye to the pot, and slowly lowered it in. My plan is to make socks with blue and white stripes. We'll see. The way things are going they'll be legwarmers for the girl, to match my blue cabled hat, and the cream cowl that will probably fit her better than me.

Maybe I'll make myself a scarf with 8mm needles ;)

This skein, twisted up tightly, was longer than I am, so about 6-foot :D

Just a random photo of Byron from the other day. We went to visit my brother's dog (Bella) and the seven Beagle puppies. Sigh!

Bored of stitches...

2011-03-08T22:32:00.003+11:00

Since I currently have a shelf-ful of WIP's (and don't feel like working on any of them) I decided to whip up a quick felted scarf for the sheer satisfaction of finishing something!

This time I was determined to make it thinner, so I laid down three thin layers of Mocha and Nutmeg from Garments and Gadgets (which I bought in Bendigo last July). It was about 3m long at the beginning, but 2m when felted. It's a bit fragile-feeling, but fairly evenly see-through, and weighs 46g. Only took a couple of hours, and most of that was 'during the ad breaks'. hehe.

Sorry about the dodgy photo. Want to see some more brown?

Nutkin number one has passed the heel, but I am now a bit sick of that pattern.

I've recently started a pond-scum-green cable jumper and pink socks for Jasmine, a blue hat and a white cowl for me. Byron's birthday comes first, though, so I'm thinking up ideas for him. He wants black. Sigh. I barely have any black, but it's his favorite color, so I may have to shop... ;)

Shur'tugals woohoo!

2011-02-26T11:28:00.003+11:00

Fiiiiiiinally finished my first socks for the SS62011 sock club. Thank goodness we have 2 months to finish them. (Of course, it would also help if I could stop getting distracted by other projects!)

I finished them last night, sitting in Macka's listening to "The Boy From Oz" on my ipod, and doing the "Jeny's super stretchy bindoff". I got so distracted by Jarrod Emick's polished voice, I actually almost left them on the table!! lol!

I just love the way the pattern flows into the heel flap, toes and ribbing. The pattern itself is a bunch of twists that's supposed to look like dragon scales. Red "Smooshy" was a good yarn for it, but I've seen so many beautiful versions from the sock club group.

I did the large size (72st around) with 2.5mm needles, and modified it for toe-up, which worked out fine. I ended up with 25g left, too. Hmmm... red Elijah?...

Here's another little finished object... yet another phone sock. I did this one on 2.5mm, so it's a bit of a tighter fabric, and I ended (at the top) with an icord edge that turned into a crochet chain. Then I threaded the crochet chain through the icord. Looks neat, but doesn't pull open as smoothly as I thought it would. Anyway, nice to use a bit more of the Casbah up.

And look what arrived about 10 days ago! Yarn from Webs, which only took two-and-a-half months to get here! lol. The green is destined to be one of Jacki's patterns...

An unpublished one. Mysterious...

At the moment, though, I'm in the mood to work on Vivian. After all, I started it in 2008... it should be a bit closer to completion than it is!

Valentine

2011-02-14T15:29:00.003+11:00

At Bendi last May I bought a bit of "Ewe Give Me the Knits" fibre that was 80% merino and 20% tussah silk. It's the softest stuff to spin. I dyed it up first to make a Valentine's Day themed color. The 100g braid on the left was thrown into a pot as is, and the others were a bit more spread out. But they all got the same mix of red food dye (with a smidgeon of pink, black and yellow).

The 100g that wasn't braided spun up fairly dark pink, and even though pink is far from my favorite color, I did like this. It had specks of pale green in it, and different shades of pink, and made me think of roses. Awww. ;)

The braided one is on the right. It was much paler, as you can see, so I decided to ply the two different colors together. I find it a bit easier to wind the singles off the bobbin straight onto a ball-winder. Then I let the 'yarn cakes' bounce around in the washing basket while I ply them on the wheel.

The end product ended up a bit thick-and-thin looking. Perhaps it's because the colors contrast, or maybe because I was being a bit lazy. Hehe. This is 208g and 188m. So fairly thick for a 2ply. Hmmm. Laziness it is...

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Too cute

2011-02-11T14:36:00.003+11:00

You just can't help but love Elijah!

I did this one with Sanguine Gryphon Bugga and 2.5mm circs. The circulars were a tiny bit awkward at times...

but they worked. This Elijah is a present for an unborn baby, and the yarn, I thought, was a nice neutral gold/green color. Remember this pic? Well, the skein I got, knitted up, was a bit less gold, and a bit more "army camo". Since it's no longer quite as "gender neutral" I decided to add an optional pink scarf, with a bit of hand-dyed merino scraps ;) I'm sure a girl will like him just fine, but you know... tiny knitted accessories... I just needed an excuse.

I just love his little round feet :D

Here is a little handspun. I entered the 'competition' on the Ewe Give Me the Knits rav group, and the theme for January was "Australia". Tried to make rusty orange/green/blue. Byron even helped me dye it, which he thought was fun. But I found that I disliked the orange and blue plied together. Can't imagine what I'll knit it into. One for the stash-heap. lol.

February's spin challenge is "Valentine's Day". I dyed last night and started spinning today while the kids were having a nap. It is very pink!

January 26th is...

2011-01-26T00:50:00.003+11:00

Happy Australia Day!

I have been looking and looking for a charted map of Australia, in vain, so I made one up. This little one goes 4 times around a hat I knitted today, but my stranded knitting needs some work... I pull the unused color across the back too tightly, and so the hat is a bit tight and warped!

However, I'm thinking that duplicate stitching would work well, and that it would fit nicely onto the heel flap of a sock...

Zachary

2011-01-22T16:25:00.002+11:00

Zachary Ethan, my cute little dark-haired boy

has morphed into a happy little blonde cherub

and so he gets his birthday jumper, made from BWM classic 12ply and handspun from Garments and Gadgets.

I started with the scarf, for something to do. But when it became clear that my DEC 4th order from WEBS was not going to make it in time (and it is still unsent) I decided to pick up some stitches on the side and knit it down into a birthday jumper. To add some yarn (as I only had 200g of the pale green) I used about 100g of handspun, and I'm actually pretty pleased how good the dodgy stuff looks, when mixed with some factory-made yarn ;)

Not completely happy with the fit, but it is as warm as toast, and looks cute.

Now, to sweep the floor, blow up some more balloons, and get that icecream cake out of the freezer!

Happy first birthday, baby boy!

Yarn diets.

2011-01-14T23:45:00.003+11:00

I lost 1.2 kilos of stash in the last half of 2010. Then I spent ALL my money on yarn. I'm expecting 5, yes five, yes FIVE parcels of wool, adding up to about 4.5 kilos.
.
If any of you are thinking about yarn dieting, beware. The rebound weight gain can be severe!
.
I got my first package on Tuesday, but didn't have a chance to go to the post office until today (Friday) when Nathan came home early from work so as not to be trapped out of his house by rising rivers and flooded roads. It wasn't too severe, as it turned out, but since he was home, I went for a little drive. It did take me about 40 minutes to find a way to the post office, but I made it! Now I've got a supply of Bendi Luxury 10ply (because you should always have a supply of that). Exactly 1.2 kilos. lol.

Here's a bit of s62011 sock club progress. My Shur'tugals are up to the gusset increases. I'm enjoying the twisty pattern, and even started doing the infamous left twists as instructed. The yarn is great, too; it's Dream in Color Smooshy, and it's very smooshy so far. I haven't been doing much else, though I must get onto a Birthday Jumper soon, if Webs would just send me my yarn!!

...

Loopy Ewe

2011-01-08T20:38:00.003+11:00

Thankyou, Loopy Ewe. I just wanted to try some Sanguine Gryphon Bugga sock yarn, but I ended up with all these.

Sigh. My feet will be so warm!

Summer knitting.

2011-01-06T15:02:00.003+11:00

Pizzabox sock blockers. LOL.
And a new hat, which I started while waiting to start the s62011 sock club.

I took one quick photo and whipped it back off. It's 35ºC. Haven't had need of the socks yet, either.

P.S. Happy birthday to my dear hubby. He is getting along in years (36) but I still love the old codger.

A secret shawl

2011-01-01T18:09:00.003+11:00

This one is called "Brangian" and it was a secret little scarf for my SIL, Esther. Used some very nice Wired for Fibre: Olivia in one of the blues. Actually, two of the blues... I ran out of the slightly darker color and used a tiny skein of lighter blue to do the picot edge, as you can see.
.
I prefer to call it Christmas Frosting.

Was about a meter wide when I finished it, but it blocked out to about 150cm. I love blocking!
.
I didn't do the complete pattern. I did the Medium stocking stitch section, two "chart one"s and a little bit of chart two (the little circles that don't line up). The last row has about 400 stitches, and there are two errors that I know of ;)

Finished on the 21st, a bit too late to post to Sydney (as Esther's family went camping before Christmas) and then, on the New Year's Eve/ Christmas party I forgot to take it! Sigh. So we took it today, and now, after many months, I can finally mention in on the blog!

I think I started it in May!

ALSO my yarn diet ends in December. I managed to lose 1.2 kilos of stash these last 6m, from 18.4kg at the end of June, to 17.2 now.

End of November 17.4

minus

108 -Brangian

27 from November

60 cinders

110g Kris Kringle

105 casbah socks

=410

Plus

200g Handspun Kris Kringle yarn

=210g off.=17.2kg

I didn't end up giving away a kilo, because Webs still haven't got my order ready. I ordered what the website said was available, but as soon as I'd paid I got an email saying one was "backordered". Subsequent email inquiry after 3 weeks found that their supplier was closed until the New Year. So perhaps I shall get it soon!

Goal for next year. 6 pairs of socks, 3 kids' jumpers and some bigger things.

Here, hold my socks...

2010-12-30T15:18:00.002+11:00

Nathan is on holidays, which is particularly great in the Summer because we can do some good outside things with the kids! The other day we went to the local Ballarat Wildlife Park and the kids had a ball feeding the massive (lazy) roos.

I got one to hold my sock while the kids played on the playground. I hardly got the photo taken before he started nibbling my knitpicks needles!

Roos are such a pest in Australia. (But roo meat is very nice!)
.
Finally, today, I cast off the Casbah socks!

Got to love Jeny's Super Stretchy Cast off for toe-up socks. It uses about 5m of yarn (hehe) but you could get both your feet into it.
.

I used my standard toe-up pattern, but with 60st around and 2.5mm needles. The pattern is a rib that is K3 P3 on one row, and K5 P1 on alternate rows. The yarn is the very lovely Handmaiden Casbah! I shalt buy thee again!

P.S. White legs are "in fashion" in Australia, so you know! ;D

Cinderella

2010-12-16T14:44:00.001+11:00

hehehehehe.

S62011

2010-12-12T16:38:00.004+11:00

My Casbah socks are going so slowly that they're almost going backwards. My Peppermint Crisp socks are actually going backwards, as the pattern I picked wasn't working out and I ripped back to the toes. The Soctoberpuss socks are tiny, but they're not really getting any time.
So I don't think I'm going to manage a pair a month next year, even if the Yarn Harlot can. Instead, I'm joining the Super Special Six Pattern Sock Club 2011 (!) to make 6 pairs. Here are my yarn choices...

1. Patonyle sock yarn, chocolate-dyed by me.

2. Dream in Color Smooshy. Color: Spring Tickle

3. EGMTK. Color: dark green

4. Wired For Fibre Greta. Color: denim

5. Two Tees. Color: Kaleidoscope

6. Dream in Color Smooshy. Color: In Vino Veritas

Here's a link to the chosen sock patterns, with knitting dates and pictures. We're all doing Shur’tugal, Nutkin, Leyburns, Fox Faces, Nanner and Boyfriend Socks.

You might not have heard of Two Tees, as I think 'Sue from the knitting group" has only just started dyeing it. I got some pretty quick, from her HawthorneCottage site. Luckily she lives "around the corner", so she put it in my letterbox, all balled up for me :)

My eyes are bigger than my stomach at the moment. I have a contagious case of startitis, so stay away! hehe.

Green and gold Christmas

2010-12-08T16:51:00.002+11:00

We may not have been winning the cricket lately, but I have been buying some Green and Gold anyway...

9 skeins, adding almost 1kg to the stash! But I have a plan (as part of my Christmas present to myself) to get rid of a less-lovely kilo of yarn to some op-shops, maybe with some spare needles...

(BTW, the first two are Dream in Color Classy, colors "Spring Tickle" and "Still Spruce". The second two are Madelinetosh DK, colors "Forestry" and "Winter Wheat". Stole the images straight from Webs.)

Noviembre

2010-12-03T11:39:00.003+11:00

End of October: 17.8kg
.
minus
12g Matt's phone sock
60g eucalypt given to Kelly
95g chocolate hat
120 Fargyles
85 Picovoli extra (1 whole ball)
40 Baby's Jet dress
50g sacrificed to kids entertainment
-----462
plus
45g from last month
------427
.
End of November: 17.4
.
I have such a craving to buy yarn. LOL. We'll see if I can hold off until next year :)

Fleecey

2010-11-28T22:36:00.002+11:00

Last year's shearing has produced, in this year, a 20g ball of 2ply brown wire that is tough and scratchy and horrible. This year I said I didn't want to keep any, until Nathan sent Byron in to give me a little handful of this:

Barely a hint of dirt or grass with long white fibers... Why on earth did I start with the short, dirty stuff from the black sheep last year? I haven't washed it. Just trimmed the very end off, which is felted into tiny curly tips. Makes your hands a bit greasy, but spins up great as it is! I've been pulling it from the side, just like that, though I can't do it quickly enough to use my wheel with this stuff.
.
Inspired by my baby sister, I thought I'd attempt a felted scarf. I laid out my long strip of bubble wrap (3m at the post office was about $2.50) and laid out a mat of fibre running acrossways. Layer two was lengthways. Layer three was stripes of pale blue and pale green (as opposed to the white), and layer 4 was more white.
.

This is 250cm x 30cm, laid out on towels on the floor (while the kids had a nap). Then I wet it, rolled it up, and agitated it around, scrunched it, microwaved it, threw it against a chair, washed it again, put it in the dryer... even ironed it. I also did Kelly's trick of trimming the sides with scissors!

The blue and green stripes were supposed to be hard to see, but this was a bit too light. Anyway, it ended up 200x25cm, and was far thicker than I guess it should be, but I wore it out on Friday and it was warm!!

See the storm coming in? It's rained all weekend.

I have done some socking, including 8 teensy heels, but I got distracted again by the Lacy Baktus version of Baktus.

The colors don't really look like that. Silly fluoro light bulbs. It's WFF Elizabeth in Waterlilies, a rainbow mix of very soft colors.

No yarn purchased so far this month. Pity I can't take off 200g for the felt scarf, but I didn't count my fibre in the big yarnweigh.

Two and a half FO's.

2010-11-20T21:46:00.002+11:00

A little beanie whipped up out of the BWM rustic 12ply I dyed with RIT. I cabled the top with a random-make-it-up-as-you-go method that worked ok. Though cables are a bit pointless with dark yarn, hey?

Here's Zachy, fast asleep on the beanbags at playgroup, while 20 or so kids ran around him screaming! Can't half tell he's a number 3 child!

My Casbah socks are up to the gusset increases. They are taking forever, as 4ply socks with 2.5mm needles two-at-a-time do when you have three littlies. But I am loving every soft stitch! And weirdly (I don't even know why I chose these colors) the teal and purple and gold are appealing to me very much. Hmm.

Another FO! I actually finished this back in July or something, but it was too short and rolly. So I snipped off the ribbing and knit another skein on (about 6 inches) with some double garter on the bottom. Sorry about the dodgy photo. It's dark green Picovoli.

And yes, I have a few Zachary/chocolate rolls to shed yet. Must get onto that some time. Yaaaaawwwn!!!

Byron and Jasmine picked me these from one of Nathan's many natives in the front yard. Not sure what it is. Some kind of purple bottle brush. Cute.

More green Fargyles.

2010-11-09T15:46:00.002+11:00

Yep, I ran out of yarn. They're short little Fargyles, but I love em, and the Tosh Vintage was really nice to knit with. I don't seem to have the hang of twists; instead, I just do single cables, and this tightly twisted yarn is nice and non-splitty, which is pretty good for cabling without a cable needle. Also, I'm starting to think that knitting is a little bit like my brother described carpentry: All the skill is in covering your mistakes well! Hehehe.

Stash sums for October

2010-10-31T19:47:00.003+11:00

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

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

2010-10-30T12:00:00.003+11:00

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

2010-10-21T20:52:00.004+11:00

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"?

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!"

Kids!

Goodnight.

Minisox

2010-10-13T16:27:00.005+11:00

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

2010-10-07T13:44:00.002+11:00

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

2010-10-04T23:54:00.003+11:00

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.

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

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

2010-10-01T11:12:00.003+10:00

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.

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.

Oops...

2010-09-23T21:15:00.003+10:00

...My credit card slipped...

Do not know what to make with this, but it's Handmaiden Casbah cashmerey goodness.

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Got 100g of Koigu in greys, too.

Then some Dream in Color Smooshy fell into the cart. Sigh. Tempted to copy this project... with the same amount of the same yarn.

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Have also finished two small things. One new phone sock

and two for the feet. I'm wearing them now. Thick and warm :D

August

2010-09-01T14:17:00.003+10:00

So this month I finished two "Second socks" (the first socks were knitted a while ago, and therefore not counted in the big stash-weigh), a pair of thick socks, a knitted ball and another big Milo. I was given 100g of acrylic (in a color that will match the bridesmaids) by my future sister-in-law, to make Jasmine a wrap. I also bought 650g of yarn. I gained 88g of stash :D
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Let's call it 100g, so my total will be 17.8kg, and 12g off for September.
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Here is a knitted woven ball, which was fun.

It's just 6 strips of stocking stitch. I did a 10stitch icord, with the yarn laddering loosely across the back, so I didn't have to purl. lol. That part is easy. Then you follow the instructions, weaving it together and sewing the ends together. It doesn't even need to be stuffed. Zach loves it.
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Then, to stash bust, I knitted a size 18month Milo but with 6mm needles and two strands held together. Thought it would be big enough for Zach. It's actually a bit too big for Byron. LOL. I ran out of black, so I carried on with some yarn from a different colorway. I test-dyed a piece black, and it comes out just like the first yarn. Even the non-wool flecks refuse to take up the color, so it's nicely heathered.

Of course, I don't have any more black food dye until I go shopping, but it's knitted and therefore counted!!

This isn't mine. It's Jasmine's made by Grandma (my Mum), who has taken up knitting lately. She's made a heap of charity hats, and is now doing the 'grandma thing' by knitting some jumpers. It's a nice soft acrylic. Cute color on Jasmine, too.

And now I'm off to increase my stash by plying some G&G spun singles :D

edit: Here we go. 112g and 112m of navajo-plied wool with nice long green and blue color changes. Should be stripey :D

Wired for Fibre

2010-08-25T23:20:00.004+10:00

Katie is my favorite indie dyer and sells my Luxury Yarn at Wired for Fibre . So when I got some tax back, I decided I'd better honor my recent Stash Pledge (lol) of Quality over Quantity. So, before I could spend up on barrels of bargains, I headed to WFF and filled up my trolley with very nice stuff.

Here they all are again, L to R...

This one is Tidal, which I used once before, I think, on Zachary's little kimono sweater. He was wearing it today, but he's almost grown out of it, little chubber. I got just a bit of "Lauren", which is 10-12ply/ heavy worsted, because it was beautiful to knit up my Paper Moon hat with.

Haystacks. The photos made it seem mainly green and yellow, and I bought it for it's Springish colors (it's very wet and yukky-grey here lately). But there are a lot more colors in there, and they're all mixed so well... sigh. I'm glad I got two.

This one is such a color-mix. No plans for it yet, but I love it. It's mostly rusty reds, but it's also got some grey-blue and some gold... hmmm.

Elizabeth is a fingering-weight merino. In spite of my hatred for all the grey clouds, I love the grey color range, so I bought some 4ply. It's not the cashmered-up one, but I'm still thinking a shawl or lace scarf...

Also thought I'd try some 100% silk in a semisolid gray. What shall I do with 230m of silver silk? Hmmm... :D

Fate would have to be my favorite colorway from WFF. It's just a dark green semisolid, but I love it a lot. This one's an 8ply, because I already have one, and decided I needed another (to have enough to make anything). I'm thinking of mixing it up with another skein I have of... hmmm... elusiyan, I think, and making Jasmine something.

And now I have to knit knit knit, or my stash-weight is going up this month. Can I knit half a kilo in a week? :D hehehehhe.

Fat socks

2010-08-24T00:37:00.002+10:00

Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury 10ply, in Ice (light blue) overdyed with some green and brown.

Not sure how well that blue cuff matches, but it's under my jeans, anyway. I ran out of yarn just a bit after turning the heel. These are 130g.
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The foot pattern is inadvertantly similar to jaywalkers. I just K2tog, K3, YO, K1, YO, K3, SSK twice on the 22 stitches on top, and did it all the way around after the heel. Like the way it pulls the toe and heel-back into a heart-shape.

They're not identical, but close enough for a dye-dip job.
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And very thick. I hear that Luxury wears well as socks, and these are fairly tightly knit. So we'll see how long they last before they wear holes :D

I do love that Fleegle Heel. So easy and fits so well, and never leaves a hole at that corner. Hmm.

Stay tuned for a little yarn-splurge. Got some tax return money to spend, and my destash got hijacked for a few minutes. Just a few minutes, but that's all it takes with online shopping! They should arrive here in a day or two.

Nuffin

2010-08-19T20:04:00.002+10:00

Sorry for the lack of posts. Not much going on over here.
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:DX

The math

2010-08-02T02:21:00.002+10:00

Stash out:
73g - leftover from June
70g - Jelly socks
107g - bag for J
95g - scarf for B
84g - moebius bag
250g - Picovoli
adds up to 679g.
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Stash in:
Remains of finished objects previously unweighed: 220g
Bendi loot, not counting unspun fibre: 218g
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241g off. That brings me from 17.9kg down to 17.7. LOL. It seems I have enough yarn for 265 years.

Live Below the Line

2010-07-31T00:33:00.003+10:00

I just spent about 2 hours browsing the supermarket, late at night, notepad in hand, and then 10 minutes collecting and buying this:

The Global Poverty Project is raising awareness about the 1.4 billion people in the world who live on the equivalent of $2 Australian every day. So I am joining in (see here) to live on ten bucks of food from Monday to Friday next week. No room for luxuries, let me tell you! I couldn't even sneak in a little pack of tea. I pondered my list for a while. No cereal was cheap enough. No way could I afford meat. I got full-cream milk with the intention of watering it down. Stock cubes were 10c cheaper than salt. Yukky cheap marg was cheaper than butter. I haven't got a menu planned out, but it's going to involve homemade bread with no yeast, pancakes with no egg, and NO MILO AT ALL.
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Only 5 days, though. Imagine eating like this every day, with no full pantry to fall back on. Don't know how I'd keep my kids healthy.
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I'm down to the bottom edge of Picovoli, doing a little 7x1 rib with a smidgeon of lace. Because I'm bored of stockinette... It's just Wool Ease, but I'm loving the tweedy green.
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Also I'm spinning a bit of blue and green.

And I used some soft handspun to knit a felted moebius bag. I'm planning to give it to Mum, though I'm unhappy with the long handle. Perhaps it will entertain my math-minded Dad. I'll tell him it's knit in one piece with no seams, yet it's a moebius strip (one edge, one side)... so how did I do it? He'll like that :D

Some wool may also have fallen into the dye pot. This is actually Rit dye, which I apparently should not have used a cooking pot for, but Oh Well. This was BWM Rustic in "Aran". I think it wants to be slippers...

And now I must put my meagre groceries away and get into bed, as it's 1am :) Goodnight.

Bendi 2010 PICTURES

2010-07-19T13:58:00.005+10:00

The Bendigo Sheep and Wool Festival was on this last weekend, and Kelly and I, having saved our money for a bit, headed up on Sunday to buy all the leftovers! Wonderful Dear Hubby looked after the babies all day, and I only saw them for about 15min before I left and 15 minutes when I got home, which was weird for me, but a nice holiday, too. (I bought Nathan some fluoro yellow explorer socks as a thankyou.)
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We left Kel's place in my shakey old car and headed up to Bendi, stopping at the Daylesford market on the way. We arrived at the showgrounds a bit before 10am, and left a bit after 4pm. Lots of shopping time :D
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Here is Kel, learning to spin from the guy who hooked me into it last year. She got the hang of it, but I don't think she's hooked.

I think she's hooked here instead. The felting lady (check out the umbrella!) showed her how it works, and Kelly left Bendigo with quite a bit of merino and silk fibre!

There was fibre galore. More fibre than yarn, I think.

We sat and watched the fashion parade. I stood behind the "T" to try and get some photos, but the models wouldn't stand still! This girl makes me want to knit shawls for Jasmine.

When I sat down with the crowd, I was next to a little girl, about 5 years old, who kept going "Ooooh! Ahhh! Wow!!" every time someone colorful came out. It was hilarious! There was a lot of great stuff this year, particularly felted clothes.
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Kelly found some good chai tea after we left that shed. (I was satisfied with my Kahlua Fudge.)

We checked out the competition display shed. (This felted seahorse was one winner.)

I've heard a lot of bad press about the Sydney show's poor displays. The displays here were fantastic. They even had a massive cabinet just for handspuns. Hard to take pics through the glass, though, with the light reflecting. Anyway.

Here are some beautiful felted scarves at Garments and Gadgets. I've been particularly saving for this shop (though you can get their stuff online)

I wanted some more of the merino that my brother and sister-in-law bought me. Here are the lovely ladies who unwound 150g of 6 different colors off the big rolls of merino for me. It took a while. And filled a bag. Kel got some, too.

WHAT I CAME HOME WITH:

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Three new bobbins for my wheel, and a handful of buttons,

a stitch dictionary and a book about Moebius bags by Cat Bordhi,

a little fibre from G and G, in colors Nutmeg, silver, ice green, mocha, manganese and natural (with some blue mix and green mix on the left) and some blocking wires,

some merino/tussah silk (80%20%) (300g), a cute little spinning wheel keychain and some dark green semisolid sock yarn from EGMTK,

one tiny skein of Noro in this beautiful jewelly color (for $10, but sadly the only one left in that colorway)

and a 68g skein of dusky pink cashmere/merino (30%70%) from Ixchel. It's the first laceweight yarn I've ever bought, and I'm just impressed that it's 750 meters.

My feet were sore, and I had to drive home in the rain (which started at 4pm!) but it was a such a fun day off! I'll be back to Bendi next year!

P.S. Here are a heap more pictures :D

July 8

2010-07-08T23:59:00.003+10:00

Here's a little bag I made my birthday girl. It's a little bit of cheating in the destash department, because the cabled handle was already done (from this bag) and accidently weighed with the stash. All I did was a rectangle of garter stitch, sewn in, with some crochet inside the top. It's just the right size for the little doll in there :)

Here's a bit more cheating. An easy 100g, almost. This little scarf for Byron is made from that bizarre pompom stuff ... I lost the ball band. It took me a while to figure out how to get going, but then it flew along. I get rid of some acrylic, to be replaced by nice stuff soon!
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So today was a long day for me. We went to Macka's in the morning, Mum and Dad's for a short hour, then home for the afternoon. Sounds like nothing much, but I was very glad that Kel turned up to distract them while I did some cleaning and present construction. Here she is checking out a long-distance present from her U&A in Sydney.

She wore her birthday jumper all day, except when I pulled it off her hot little self when she was tearing around like Samson's foxes at Macka's. My hubby also kindly removed it before she got into the birthday cake!

Happy second birthday, my little sugared-up chicky.

Dyed with jelly

2010-07-03T14:42:00.004+10:00

This is a bit of 10ply merino with some nylon that I got "from" my brother and sil (who gave me a spotlight voucher). I dyed it with a panadol dropper, three types of jelly (berryblue, mango and blackberry) vinegar and a microwave.
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Socks for me! Almost finished them last night, sitting in the theatre waiting for "Eclipse" to start, but the lights dimmed. At least I entertained the nice old bloke near me for ten minutes.

As to the vest, I'm thinking Picovoli. Not sure what color. For all that stash, I don't seem to have enough of any one yarn. LOL. Might have to go stripey :D

The end of June

2010-06-30T22:08:00.002+10:00

So this month I used:
20g for Zara's Mousie hammock
50g for Kylie's wheatbag covers
324g for Jasmine's jumper
70g for Nathan's two glasses bags
23g for Mum's phone cover
86g for Zach's milo vest
=
573g.
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I am going to subtract Point Five from the stash total of 18.4, bringing my official stash total down to 17.9kg. Woo hoo! (Because now I can buy at least 5 guilt-free skeins at Bendi... hehehe) And I'll add the leftover 73g to next month's total.
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It's been fun keeping track, but it occurs to me that I don't knit a lot for myself. I have a jumper in the works that I know isn't going to fit well (until I lose some of the kilos I'm blaming Zacky for), so I don't work on it much. Then there is... the occasional hat? I have a few hats. Some scarves. Worn socks.
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Next month, in addition to the jelly socks that are almost done, I'm going to knit myself something with a bit of weight! I'm thinking a vest to keep my heart from freezing in the Ballarat Wind ;). Time to go trawling 'Ravelry...

Milo

2010-06-26T22:31:00.002+10:00

I swear sometimes clouds look so heavy you wonder how they float up there. Here's a shot with sun and rain and blue sky and sunset and clouds.
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And a slightly less impressive little number called milo, which I made for Zach. Love the xoxo cable Ü

It fits, thank goodness. I made the 9month size with 4.5mm needles (instead of 4mm) and it fits well, though not with a great deal of room. Of course it would have helped if I'd read the line that mentioned increasing 10 stitches... Love that black Cleckheaton Country naturals. I have a few more balls that I got for $2 each (back when Kmart sold wool). Might do Milos for all three kids...
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Also did a quick camera cover for Mum. Used up a teeny bit of handspun. It was nice and soft to knit with, I must say. It'd probably die in the wash, but it'll be nice and squishy until then...

Well, I've still managed to not buy yarn, so I'll add up the total for June in a few days (see if I can finish some socks first). I've been buying stuff instead of yarn, though, so I've not saved a lot. Beads, tiny crochet hooks, patterns, bags.

I've also been distracted from knitting by the good old Sims! My great dad (HAPPY BIRTHDAY FOR TODAY!) gave me his old laptop, and it's so much faster than this one that I can play the sims. I have been building up my own town called Yarnotopia. lol. Pity they can't knit, but they can have knittery names and wear woollies :)

Jasmine

2010-06-23T01:17:00.002+10:00

I threw on the slightly-wet jumper and chased her around with the camera. This is the best I could do! Sigh. She's nearly two, I suppose.
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Gotta love pigtails on little curly girls...

Clearly I would have had plenty of yarn if I didn't make it twice as wide as necessary.

In the bowl: biscuits and apricot squares, to try and keep her still.

The sleeves are a bit long, but fingertip-length sleeves aren't a bad thing in Winter.

Then I whipped it off and hung it almost on top of the heater. I think it's dry now!!

Ah, stripes

2010-06-21T23:44:00.002+10:00

The perfect cover-up. Yep, my 100g of dark pink and 200g of pale pink wasn't enough, and I ended up with some white stripes before the white ribbed cuff. lol.

And now it's done.

It looks short, I know, but it grew a bit just by wetting it and laying it out (from 30cm up to about 36). Jasmine hasn't worn it yet (because it's STILL wet, stupid Winter) but it seemed a good length before wet-blocking. Perhaps the sleeves are a bit long... we'll see, one day when it dries...

That's what I did to the inside of the hem. The last few rows of moss stitch weren't enough to stop the silly stocking stitch curl, but pulling in on the back like this did the trick.

Something about the picture above makes me feel sea sick. hehehe.

And another little WIP, some 10ply merino sock yarn handpainted with jelly. It's purple, blue, yellow and green with bits of white. It changes color almost every stitch, but I'm getting sick of the pastelly nature of these, I must say, in spite of the appeal of the butterfly blocks.

Note the project bag by Kelgell which I love. I bought this silvery one to be fairly neutral, and a bright pink one "For Jasmine", but I'm starting to change my mind about giving it to her, to be honest... you can't have too many project bags Ü

I've also cast on my first Milo because a little girl at the knitting group looked so cute in it! I'm sure I'll make a few of these. This first one is in a black tweedy yarn, size 9 months, for Zachary, who will be 5 months in about 20 minutes. (Hope it's not too small! lol). I knit a fair bit watching the World Cup, where we tied with Ghana to give ourselves the most unlikely place from which to rise up and win the whole thing... hehe. One more game to watch, and hopefully they will thrash Serbia and give us a few more games.

I'm in the Australian team on the WorldCup2010 ravelry group. Go Knitaroos! hehe.

My socks

2010-06-12T23:08:00.004+10:00

Just for the fun of linking my plain socks to my own pattern:

Yarn: DK or worsted

Needles: two 4mm circulars

toe: Cast on 8 with circular cast-on. Join in round by doing one round like icord. Increase into every stitch and divide onto two needles. (16)
1. k1, kf&b, k to last 3, kf&b, k2 for each needle
2. knit round

repeat 1 and 2 until 44st, ending with row 1.

foot:

Start striping or doing "the pattern" on the top-of-the-foot needle.

When it is long enough to touch the front of your ankle (on the top of the foot) start doing the gusset of a Fleegle Heel.

(Increase one stitch on each side of the sole, every second round.
When you have the same number on the sole needle as you used to have on the whole foot, start the heel turn:
Knit to just past the center, K2tog, K1, turn.
Slip 1, purl to just past the center, p2tog, p1, turn
1. slip 1, knit to a stitch before the gap, k2tog over the gap, k1, turn.
2. slip 1, purl to a stitch before the gap, p2tog over the gap, p1, turn.
repeat 1 and 2 until you are at the sides. Continue doing rounds. Decrease out any necessary sole-needle stitches the next few rounds. )

leg: Make it as long as the foot (folded at the heel). Then do 10 rows of 2x2 rib and cast-off with a sewn bind-off or Jeny's super stretchy bindoff.

Da da.

Mods for fingering weight. I use 2.5mm needles and 60st around.

No new yarn!

2010-06-08T13:10:00.003+10:00

I know! I have resisted, since weighing the stash, though I have been looking through the yarn shops. The fact is, though, that I'm planning on taking all my savings to Bendigo next month, and buying some nice stuff, and my only goal there is quality instead of quantity.
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But I have knitted a bit of stash. This one doesn't count, as it was half-done (and thus, not weighed). Little hat for Zach out of the Jet I dyed a while ago, with earflaps and a knitted toggle.

This is one of two wheat bag covers for my (soon-to-be) sister-in-law, who walks to work with cold hands. You microwave the wheat bags and hold them in your pockets. :D
50g of Cameo (which is the leftovers from her mittens).
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This is what happens when you're in a hurry, and you just grab a needle and some leftover yarn as you run off. I had no project in mind, so I started making Jasmine a Calorimetry. As it was too small, it turned into a hammock for Zara's blue mousie instead. 20g.
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This one will add some weight, though. It's the start of "Jasmine 2", a pattern called Neighborly that I'm adding sleeves to, if I have enough yarn. If not, it's a cute warm vest. I'm using BWM Luxury 10ply (the dark pink I dyed) and some Cleckheaton Country 12ply I picked up for $1 a ball. If I use all the yarn (300g) it will have cost less than $10.
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Also, I won a blog prize :D Thankyou, Knitabulous! She's sending me a little Japanese box for calling her yarn funny names. Nice!

18.4 kilos.

2010-05-28T22:17:00.004+10:00

This was going to be a new year's resolution, but I changed my mind.
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Here is the yarn from three shopping bags. One is yarn for my sock-club next year. This basketful weighed 6.4 kilos (after subtracting the laundry basket).
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The insides of the bags.
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Further yarn stash, in the big suitcase under the bed. Mostly big balls of Bendi. 4.7 kilos.

And here is what I could find on the shelves... another 7.3 kilos.

That's 18.4 kilos.

So my goal for the next 7 months is to decrease that number. What I buy will be added and what I knit will be subtracted. I think it will help me be more selective about what I spend my money on. No more: "$2 each... woohoo... I'll buy 15!" My yarn weighs quite a bit more than any of my children (though perhaps Zach will overtake it by the end of the year...) and it would probably be good for me to lighten the burden on the shelves and make a bit more house room, for, you know, living in and stuff. Ü

Bootleg and Beaded Bags

2010-05-26T23:39:00.004+10:00

As my sister has just Thursday, Friday and Saturday left of her 20's, she's having a 1920's Theme party on Saturday night. I'm not much of a dress-up sort of 'skirt', but I didn't really need much of an excuse to cast on for this:
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It's Paper Moon by Beth Hahn. You start with a long, wide band with odd cables and a picot-type edge. It has about 2000 "through the back of the loop" instructions, and every line is just written out. There were 3 repeats of a 40-row pattern, then about 60 more rows for the button band, which wraps around the outside.
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My button didn't fit through the buttonhole, but I just tacked it all down anyway. I picked up 128 stitches instead of 120 to give it a bit more width (I don't have regulation flapper-hair) and then ran out of yarn (!) with about 10 decrease rounds to go! Fortunately, it was already tall enough to just decrease from about 40 to about 10 in one swift round of sk2po's. It looks fine.
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The yarn is Wired For Fibre, Lauren, in "infinite". Jake to knit with, and certainly makes some darb get-up. It's the bee's knees :)
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See you Saturday, sis. With hooch ;)
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Paper Moon

2010-05-22T14:44:00.002+10:00

This is the first repeat of the hat band for an interesting-looking, differently-contructed hat called Paper Moon. It's for a 1920's party next weekend.
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I'm loving the soft, dark grey, thick wool, and my shiny Addi Turbos are just the thing to knit it with. But it's not really TV knitting, so I've been whipping up this. It's an all-knit, make-up-as-you-go dress for Gillian, who has been far too naked since the kids lost most of her clothes ;-)
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I was watching day-time TV (as you do when three kids sleep all at the same time but you're too tired to take advantage of the quietness to do Housework) and saw on a cooking show that honeycomb is Amazingly Simple!

Boil up some water, sugar and golden syrup, mix in some bicarb, let it cool. (Just don't let it cool in the pot, or you'll never use that pot again!) lol.

Blue-ergh

2010-05-20T22:00:00.002+10:00

Cyanotic. Hehe.
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Wired For Fibre: Olivia (20% cashmere, 80% merino) semisolid blue and pale purple. Happy Birthday, Zara Kate.

This will be for the Brick Boy. He needs a hat, too. There are hats everywhere. None seem to fit him.

Having said that, I've just wound up a ball of WFF Lauren, which is a 10ply superwash, to knit a new hat for myself. It's going to be dark greys, but nice.

I'm three

2010-05-18T00:00:00.005+10:00

The poor little kid was so worked up about his birthday that he had trouble sleeping the night before. He had a wonderful day, though, opening presents and playing with some friends at MacDonald's, seeing more family, heaps of balloons, yet more presents, and icecream cake!

Naturally, he vomitted all over his birthday jumper soon after this, but it was mummy's fault, really... for not taking him seriously enough when he said, "I'm going to vomit"! I took him more seriously the next time, and whipped him and his sister out of the bath in time. Now he's made it a hatrick, but with less mess, as there's nothing left. Happy birthday!

I enjoyed the jumper yarn so much I decided to use it for a hat. It's A Hat Fit For a Nephew, my nephew, Michael. I posted it, though he lives 15 minutes away: the parcel in the mail is part of the birthday present! hehe. Byron is my model again:

Tried to get Zach with both mittens on. He seems to love them. Must be tasty wool. Wouldn't hold them still At All. Funny little monkey...

Also been giving in to the dyeing addiction. I divided up a 200g ball of Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury 10ply (in the Ice colorway, which is pale blue) and did some coloring in.

They worked out ok. I think I could eat them both... I had to put them away in the yarn stash, out of sight.

Now that I'm finished my blue jumper and blue hat, I'm onto another blue project. Byron's little best friend, Zara, flicked through my WLK book one day, and I told her she could pick something for a birthday present. She picked Mousie, in "blue, please". lol. So I'm making her a very nice cashmerey one with some WFF Olivia mini skeins I bought myself for my birthday.

I may or may not have also gotten a few other luxuries. But that was a while ago, now. I have saved up my cash again, and have $180 so far, for Bendigo. Two months to go!

Byron's 3rd birthday jumper

2010-05-12T23:00:00.006+10:00

Almost three years ago we were holding the beginnings...

of this little monkey!
How cute has he gotten!?
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And here is the Weasley Sweater AKA Byron 3. This is Bendigo Woollen Mills Luxury 8ply in Oceanic and Lake; I held one of each strand as I knit with 7mm needles. It's good stuff! He only had a singlet on under it, and he did not want to take it off Ü

7mm was a teeny bit loose, but my 6mm ones were unavailable Ü . I loved the speckly mix of two similar colors. It's just a plain bottom up jumper, knit in the round as much as possible with a slab of Double BasketWeave on the front. I love it. It looks very blocky in this shot, but very curvy in 'real life'.

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Striking a model pose. LOL! He thought he was pretty funny.

The neck was a little wide, I thought, but it's only really a pattern for my own reference! Next time I'd probably use 6mm needles, but I'd leave the rest how it is, a bit oversize and chunky.

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The back is plain.

And after this I took it off him for wrapping! It's not his third birthday until May 17.

Pattern:

Wool: two strands of DK weight yarn held together

Needles: 7mm circulars

Cast on 113, 56 for front, 57 for back. Do Moss stitch edgings, 9 rows

Knit 9 rows

Do a 2 wide DB on the front, ie, k5, do DB pattern, k5 on the front. (36 rows)

Then separate front and back after 56 rows.

(On the back: Knit.)

Back top: cast off two at the start of first two rows. Then knit (or purl) two together at the start of each row until there are 45 st left. Knit until 6" from beg of armhole. K12 onto holder, cast off until final 12, knit 12 onto holder.

Front top: Decrease for arm holes same as back, until 46 st left. Knit 4 more rows. Knit 18, cast off 10, knit 18.

On each strap, cast off two on the neck side every right-side row, until there are 10st left per strap. Knit 9 rows, inc 2, then kitchener to the back shoulder.

Neck: pick up and knit 66. Rib 9 rows.
Sleeves: pick up and knit 45. Every 5th row, decrease one under the arm. Finish when long enough with 9 rounds of moss (requires an odd number of stitches). I did 45 rounds before starting moss stitch.

[nb: all the multiples of 3... Ü ]

DB pattern (in the round)
(st. no. required: Multiple of 18 plus 10)

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Row 1. *K11, p2, k2, p2, k1. Repeat from * across, ending k10.
Row 2. *K1, P8, (K2 P2) twice, k1 repeat from * to last 10, K1, P8, k1
Row 3: as row 2
Row 4: as row 1
Repeat 1-4.

Row 9: Knit.

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Row 10: *(k2p2) twice, k10. Repeat from * until last 10, k2p2 k2p2 k2
Row 11: *(k2p2) twice, k2, p8. Repeat from * across, ending (k2, p2) twice, k2.
Row 12: as row 11
Row 13: as row 10
Repeat 10-13.

Row 18: purl.

Well, it's after midnight again, so I'd better... just do a few more quick things before I go to bed :D

Have a KIP

2010-05-01T15:30:00.004+10:00

I like knitting in public. I knit in church and creche and playgroup. I often head over to Stockland (an indoor shopping center) on my Friday evenings "off" and knit, and people sometimes stop to chat. Knitting and babies: good conversation starters. Today I headed into Spotlight because they'd advertised a knitting day. Kelly kindly offered to mind the kids for a bit so I could go solo (muuuch easier Ü). They didn't have much in the way of bargains. Some of the specials from my last visit were back to full price, and I think Spotlight is slowly being overtaken by acrylics. But there were a heap of people, sitting around the table knitting!

That impresses me, because I thought our little knitting group was likely to be all the knitters in the Ballarat area; apparently that was a bit misguided! I didn't even know anyone there, except a woman I used to do night shift with. Half of them were learners; they had a stack of acrylic and needles and hooks. I chatted to a woman called Isabella, who was knitting left-handed (and it took me a while to figure that out) about the Bendi S&W festival while I knitted some stripey socks. Two of the knitters were about 10, and each had half a white scarf already done. There were half-a-dozen high-school age girls, teaching each other.

There was barely room to sit around the table, and we were getting in the way of other customers Ü. I did move for a pram, because the baby in it had a very cute hand-knitted jumper on, but the mum stopped to join in.

Thanks, Spotlight, for putting on a day. You might be sliding downhill into Acrylic Valley, but you're ok.

A little picnic

2010-04-28T13:41:00.005+10:00

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.