I'm three

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!

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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!

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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...

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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.

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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.

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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!

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Byron's 3rd birthday jumper

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.)

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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[nb: all the multiples of 3... Ü ]

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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.

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

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Have a KIP

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!

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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.

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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.

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

A little picnic

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

and had a little picnic in the back yard.

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The G&G fibre that I spun recently

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Done

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

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Tiny shoes, dyed with jelly. He he he:

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Just more knitting

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

HB34

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


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