coffee is bad

On Sunday I started and ripped back I don't know how many socks. Firstly I didn't like the pattern with the, admittedly yucky pukey, patonyle that I bought for $2 at a spottie sale.
Then after an inch of the cuff decided they should be for a child, not me, so they were too big. Then I grabbed some leftover black and grey stripped jigsaw and cast on for the Jar. Then I ripped it back and started again.
Yep, too much coffee.
That's what happens when you organise a coffee cart to be opposite your own stall at the craft market. And that's what happens when you have your first coffee of the morning at 4am, followed by another one before you leave and then get the first coffee from the machine at 7am.
And it just kept flowing.
Oh the shakes, the shakes.
But the market was good, although the knitting was bad.
So instead of knitting here is a pic of one of the dresses I whipped up for the market. That is an original 60s chennille bedspread. What a find, in perfect condition.
I can see a Zegal demanding a similar dress.

a day off

Today is one of those rare creatures - a day off.
No kids, no work and the whole day to get 'stuff' done.
But I didn't, and I did.

I managed to drop off the car to get serviced, did a bit of clothes sewing in the shed for the kids. Read the paper, had a decent home-brewed coffee and then raced around getting the car and the shopping done.

Visited the post office but the bundle of books I'm sweating on hasn't arrived, but the latest Ottobre for women had.

Then I had to deal with stall holders wanting to book into the farmers market then off to day care to pick up Jar who everyone thought was off colour, but the truth was that Grandma came around last night and instead of dinner he had cake and stayed up late playing with his new presents the naughty lad.

And I logged into ravelry which meant that all that knitting I wanted to do while throwing insults at Oprah wasn't done, maybe tonight.

killer cosies

It's been brought up on the Australian knitters' group on ravelry that there may be a swap for knitters going on.
Kris threw out the idea for comments and I couldn't resist throwing back a koala her way.
So it looks like a tea-coffee-mug-kitchen cosy swap may be on the boards.
Some like the idea of trashy, some would like stylish but I think a small project which can be a simple or as difficult as the knitter wants is a great idea. And think of the small associated goodies (beautiful tea bags and biscuits) that can be sent along. With no customs problems.
So straight away I started hunting.
While I have Killer Tea Cosies somewhere I also have a stash of old patterns and here are just some of them.

birthday boy

It was Jar's birthday on Friday but the celebrations started on Wednesday when he took cup cakes in to child care so he could share the party with his friend Zhong.
The post fairy also delivered new Birk sandals for him (and mumma) and there was a new Monster sitting at the table in the morning, but the winning present was the Spiderman bowl.

tangles

A skein from the Knittery.
Fine for the first 3/4 of the skein and then it was all(*(&^%@#! tangled up.
Not impressed.
But then again every thing gets tangled up these days.

needed one new camera

Or should that be a photographer with decent eyes.
I'm fighting with the camera at the moment, I just can't seem to get things right.
What you should be looking at is a log cabin and then a hexagon, worked in the round that will be magically joined by other 'gons for a blanket.
Nice and quick and NO SEAMING.......





The log cabin I've been doing for what seems ages. It's too big now to take to stitch and bitch, so it is now mindless television knitting.
No such thing as picking the colours for this one, my hand dives in the bag and whatever colour I pull out I knit.
These are all leftovers from the various Jar jumpers I've done in the past three years or so. Machine washable Paton's Country 8ply, although I'm going to do the border in a tighter crepe.

work socks

Finally I've done with these.
With the dense Bendigo Mills sock yarn (discontinued for many years) and on 2.5m needles and my extremely tight way of knitting these were done on 72 stitches with the pattern down the heel flap.
The first in the pair also caused a bit of an injury.
Yep those dreaded knitpicks didn't just slice the flesh, they tore the soft pad on my index finger apart. My own fault for not doing socks continental.
But the end result is beautiful.
Nice thick socks perfect to wear in boots and although they look fairly short on the leg they are fairly long, I just have a problem photographing my own feet properly.
How do people do it so artistically?
Oh so comfy.