noice

As I mentioned last post, a parcel has disappeared and an angel tea cosy swap parcel has to be put together.
Now I already had a few warrssshhhh (there is always a voice in my head that says this word in a funny way) cloths at the ready and a basic, shamrock stitch cosy ready to embellish.

Well, unfortunately KatieV's kitchen is green and yellow, so the lovely bright red cloths are out, but thankfully I have some nice thick and bright yellow cotton ready to whip into shape tonight.

Now when it came to topping the cosy I immediately thought of some thing Red Dwarfish as KatieV is a fan, she is also a fan of Dr Who and Torchwood, which means her television viewing habits are of the highest quality.
Then I remembered she was trying to find the pattern of the babies beanie from Kath and Kim with wattle on the top.

Bonza (hey it's the Oz day public holiday give me a break) thought I as I started digging for appropriate greens. I didn't have anything suitable for the leaves or the wattle, but I still had some cream left over from the teapot which is hand wash only so I set about knocking over plenty of leaves and bobble-like things of my own invention to be dyed and felted.

Then when trying to see if there is any 'nice' yarn that I could include as a treat as there isn't time to get anything sent I went to her stash and project pages to look at the colours and types of fibres and weights she used.

Damn and blast and all that. There on the bottom of the projects was a pompom topped green tea cosy. Yep, she had already done a 'wattle' tea cosy.

But never fear, she has one style of wattle, there are many, many more and a quick dive into the fellas locked reference bookcase and I started looking at the various flora of Australia.

So she will be getting some of my special bobble wattle, leaves and if I can pull it off gum nuts as well.
Luckily in my wandering I found a stash of Lopi in a range of single ball colours that the fella brought back from Canberra during one of his guilty i've-left-her-once-again-with-the-kids-on-her-own wool buying trips so I have brown at the ready.

So tonight I'll be playing around and what was going to be a Noice tea cosy is heading down the May Gibbs street.

And I finally got around to taking a few pics, the little one is the other colours left for the travelling Tofutsies sock that Viv from ecoyarns has passed onto the Knit and Yarners to have fun with. A travelling sock comprises of little balls and each knitter grabs a colour, does two at a time and their own stitch pattern. When the ball ends, the sock is passed onto the next knitter who starts the new colour and their own preferred pattern until the toe is grafted.


And the pic at the beginning of the post is one of, um, several, coughsplutter, skeins that ended up in the post box this week.

a three hour drive to get to a real yarn store

I finally managed to gather together most of the sock yarn purchases from the past couple of weeks.
A lot of the yarns bought were ones I've read about and seen on blogs but had never touched in person.
While some are happy to buy without touching, squishing and yes, sniffing, I'm not, particularly considering the cost of the yarn and then the postage on top.

I can't just go to a yarn store and buy sock yarn. Patonyle yes, but it's an hour round trip at least. I've had people tell me to stop being upset about Patonyle being discontinued as there are so many lovely hand dyed sock yarns available in yarn stores.
There might be where they live, but it is a three plus hour drive to get to the closest store that stocks anything coming close to a hand dyed yarn. In fact that same store would also be the closest store that is a yarn store, not a quilt, beading, fabric, clothing store, that has put up a stand of ACS in the corner.

But my lust for sock yarn and my need to try other yarns without wasting money on unfortunate purchases has been solved. A lot of this yarn (barring the Ranco and knittery) was bought via Ravelry in the trades and swaps, which means heavily discounted and decent postage costs from overseas. Yes I can have some Jitterbug socks for less than a pair of Patonyle, ditto for the KPPM, Cherry Tree Hill, Wildfoote and that's all delivered to my door I don't have a huge drive on my hands either.

So now I'll begin the process of finding out if I like these particular yarns, if they stand up to the various reviews around the place.
So in this little pile of merino goodness are two hanks of Jitterbug (bottom aqua and left side pinks and red). The KPPM is in the tuxedo colourway on the bottom left, then there is some Brown Sheep lime green, some purple variegated Knit Picks and some Skacel stretch. Hidden somewhere else is a heap of Regia and I also bought more Knittery and three Rancos in a brick red, variegated purple and solid grey. The top is already caked and ready to be cast on Cherry Tree Hill which I don't mind at all, having already scored some a few years ago.

Now if I like any of these previously exotic I won't have any qualms in handing over cash at online stores, but I have to try them first and this is an easy and cheap way to do it. So far none of the deals have gone sour, I've trusted the seller and all has been good.

And then there is the Noro sock yarn. Yes it is scratchy and feels tough and seems incredibly thin, despite this extreme closeup making the yarn look plump.


But before I start knitting there are a few other pairs that have to be finished.


In other sock news, I no longer have to the 20th to finish my grandmother's socks. Yesterday my mother had 'the call' and had to scramble to get the first available flight to Manchester. The earliest is this Monday, so I doubt I can finish anything by then and I do hope grandma manages to hang on, the mind is sharp as a tack even thou she is in her 90s, but the body is old.

a lesson

For the past few days I've been busily knitting away with what was left over from Zegal's toasty toes.
The idea was to learn toe up construction with a reverse heel, two at once on two circular needles.
And as I want to do a pair of socks for Mum to take OS to my Grandma at the end of Jan I thought that this would be the perfect pair.
While my Grandma has tiny feet length wise, I think at 91 you can safely assume a bit of old lady foot spread has occurred so a rib pattern with the DK weight on 3mm circs with a stitch count of 64 it was. I'd normally do a 48 on 3.25m for myself with a rib, but I wanted them to be soft, a little bit denser and warmer but with plenty of room for her and easy to get on.

So on I cast using the magic cast on and I was off and racing, literally, working on them once everybody else in the house had crawled off to bed.
They took absolutely no time at all to get to the heels and the heels were a breeze and it was so easy that I was able to enjoy the SBS Godzilla movie the other night and last night's Japanese cult movie. But at about 2am when the weird French movie ended I was about seven rows into the cuff with maybe five meters left!

What to do?
For starters I propped my feet up on the table this morning and took pics of the socks. Tonight Zegal and I will enjoy ripping them back and rewinding the yarn so that later on I can cast on 48 stitches and make some warm winter socks for myself.
It also means digging out some silk alpaca for Grandma and putting aside all other socks until they are done.


While the lack of yardage was a bummer, this partial pair has been a great experience. I now know that while I do prefer DPNs I could use circs if I had to for socks. Although I will be getting some Addis to have that colour difference with the Knit Picks.
While I prefer cuff down, where yardage may be an issue I can easily reverse the process which bodes well for the Jitterbug.
And knitting toe up because of a yardage issue is no guarantee of avoiding these issues.


Now for more sock news, but beautiful sock news.
In the past week I've received a few packages, no not more than usual, but the contents have been decidedly special.
Firstly was some Hercules by Jolly Jumbuck in a beautiful athabasca colourway. I tried to photograph it's deep, oil slick colours but just couldn't do it justice.

The second was a package of goodies, some of which were shown in the last post. Along with the biscuits there were rum balls (I ate them all 'cause I love me rum balls and promptly fell asleep on the lounge), and a chocolate log and a little notepad which was quickly appropriated by Zegal who declares that Spiraling is her special friend there was also some sock wool.

The sock yarn is beautiful and it looks like this.



Now to find a pattern worthy of the yarn. Any ideas?

merry crimbo

So much to eat, so much sweet stuff, so many pressies, so much yarn, so many books and patterns.

It's hard to know where to start, that I won't tonight, but here is a pic of the Jar trying his best to pose for a photo when his mouth is full of yummy biscuit from spiraling.

too busy

I'm trying to do four weeks worth of work in one week.
Yep it's holiday season again so I have to do as much as possible before I leave my desk on Friday.
So no time to really post, or take pictures of the goodness that has been turning up.
Like cascade 220 superwash, like more Ranco in grey, like Knitpics Options Set and extra cables, like the 12ply Tapestry and Craft bright red wool.

But one wonderful piece of news, FOAT has asked me to knit him a jumper! Seems it's now cool at school to wear hand knits, apparently it was in winter but in true Foat boy style he's only gotten around to asking me now.

Not black, no skulls (sniff) and not holey, which I've interpreted to mean, dark dark navy blue, boring, and at a decent dense gauge.
This will be my holiday knitting when I get sick of the socks and the skaters top.

look what i got

Today when I went to the post office I found a little box waiting for me.
And what was in the box but 5 ounces of an 8 ounce hank of toasty toes dk sport weight.
Oh it's ugly, oh sooo pink and orange and the red and purple.

It was a hard one to photograph and I really didn't capture the true colours. It's deep pink rather than a light pink and Zegal gasped when she saw it.

She wants a pair of socks from it. This is the gal who refused to wear pink and I mean REFUSED until just recently.

So I'm going to try it out.

And the first of the Teaspoon awards for the Australian Knitters' tea cosy swap were announced a moment ago.
There will be more to come.

sss

Two more pairs down in the SSS. First is the black dk weight baby alpaca and silk plain socks (plain with a 5k, 1p repeat on the leg all the way down the toe) for mum for Christmas and the second pair is the sock pixie free zig zag in Knitpicks Landscape yarn that I bought off Ravelry.

I really like the sock pixie pattern with it's two row repeat pattern. Not complicated enough that I can't watch television, read or deal with children while doing it, but not boring enough like straight stocking stitch that I end up dumping it behind the lounge and forgetting about it.

The pattern is also stretchy, but after a while the colours just came across as not me, but more mum, so this year the woman gets two pairs. There is quite a bit leftover from the KPs as I don't like overly long socks so the Jar or Zegal may get a mini pair as well.



I've already cast on for some more Jar Jar socks, 54 stitches, 2.25m with opal for a nice dense hard-to-kill sock and I have some Ranco that needs to be balled and used.

Hmmm ranco.


And as I am now officially old as my eldest boy turned 11 today, I'm going to cheer myself up with a set of Knitpicks options.

Yes, it will be my birthing day present, as in this house each time the children have a birthday, I celebrate birthing day as it was I that did the hard work, that gave them life and then coped untold pain during the whole process, not to mention what I have to do to get and remain pregnant, so I deserve a present.

big smoke

A quick trip to sydney and back for work meant a stop at Tapestry and Craft. Which of course meant falling down the stairs straight into the Ranco display.
So I ended up with a skein in the brick red colourway. It looks so much better in the flesh than it does on the screen so I'm glad I didn't order online as I would have ended up with the cherry red which just didn't move me the way the brick red colour did. I also really like the grey, but I did leave it there.
Then I stumbled up the few steps and crashed into the Rowan books and ended up having to get Rowan 40. Beautiful but I'll have to keep this one away from my mum, otherwise she'll borrow it and I'll have to fight to get it back.

The work side was good, although we kept stopping to watch skynews' live broadcasts from Canberra. When they finally got to Rudd making his cabinet announcements there were hoots all around, but not as loud or as rude as those when Costello came out to announce the Liberal leadership decision. So how many times will there be a change in the libs before the next election?

Trip home was a nightmare of sorts but still fun. The train was full when it left Central and then the slow all-stations train in front broke down and they all climbed aboard at Strathfield. There were people sitting and standing in the aisle and the stairs and I spent the trip until Fassifern squished in a corner. But the oldies who penned me in were a delightful bunch. One old dear, who had recently lost her husband after more than 50 years of marriage, was telling tales about Keating. She used to work for him in Bankstown. She was a wealth of knowledge and had some pretty broad views and told me she was delighted to meet a youngster who not only had a grasp of politics but could turn a fine heel as well. My completed landscapes sock was passed around the group who obviously knew their hand knitted socks well and knew what I was doing when turning the heel on the second sock.
One old dear asked me what I was going to do with the sock I was knitting. I turned to her deadpan and said "wear it" and that got them started about the benefits of socks and how no one knits them and how good they were and all the complaints they can cure.
That's right if I always wear hand knit socks, my golf game will improve, as will my aches and pains, not to mention my circulation. Yes despite the heat in the carriage and no space, it was an entertaining ride home.

Still no camera, but it and the fellow and Zegal should be home on Sunday. Zegal probably will want to stay there forever as there is SNOW and she has had a ball in the snow.

done, next please

Finally the Zegal's shawl jumper is done.
It looks great, there is enough room for growth or heavy jumpers underneath and she is pretty damn impressed with it.
The shiny buttons clinched it for her.
The buttons are two hand-made mother of pearl or shell buttons that I had in my vintage button collection. What I hear you ask, a button collection, well a gal who has vintage dresses, fabric, wool and patterns both sewing and knitting must have an old rusty tin full of old, old buttons.
So it's finished, although that shawl seemed to take forever, and there are one or two wraps that I didn't managed to pick up properly to disguise but they are under the fold and her hair, so stuff it.
Do you know how hard it is to knit at 1am in the morning when your eyes are twitching from lack of sleep and you keep being sucked into watching that Carry On movie.
Take out the Carry On movie and it's a fair bet most of you know what I'm talking about, that deadline is approaching, stuff sleep style of knitting.
So what next: Mum's xmas socks in silk alpaca (she doesn't know about the blog haha), then a few second socks to complete pairs for me and I have more than a dozen balls of Rowan Cotton Glace sitting in the bookshelf to be turned into the Skaters Undertop for me.
Oh and they bloody want another two pairs of convict pants for the play!

the ceiling is falling down

The June long weekend storms just didn't flood houses, there were plenty of downed trees, flying roofs and basic mayhem.
While my brother's house and workshop went under water in a dramatic way, my parent's house had trees crash thru the second level and we had fences squashed and branches played that old fashioned game of elastics with the wires holding the antenna in place.
You could say that the branches lost and had to go to the back of the line as they crashed into the wires, causing the other wires to pull up and then go back down. Which was fine until the winds blew and the rain came down and those roofing sheets loosened in the game of elastics let rain in.
End result: Holes in really thick plaster, moulded plaster ceilings cracking and threatening to fall down and huge growing stains on my once white walls.
But finally it looks like my insurance company has come to the party.
Not only did they try and get out of paying for the new roof (which thankfully is already on) they were trying to say the ceilings and walls were already damaged, until I casually dropped into the mix the fact we had taken photos of said ceilings and walls and you can see when they were entered into the computer.
So five months down the track work will start! Soon the Zegal will have her bedroom back (the collapsing area is right over where her bed was)and I won't have to look at brown stained walls.
Next is the fence and then we change insurance companies so bloody quickly and name and shame them loudly.

But that story is just a diversion so that you don't notice the photograph of the wool above, on the bottom is J. Knits hand dyed, with looks soft and spongy and possibly pill-y while the top is some AYE AYE me hearties Yarn Pirate in the Dahlia colourway which looks like a stunning yarn, a finer version of CTH. Both were bought from ravelry so therefore don't count as buying wool.

SSOS and whose a naughty girl

Well I can't manage to keep sticking to the compacting rules. Those are the rules where you just buy the basics, basic toiletries, no new clothing, no gadgets, no dvds, no (sob) yarn.
Well I make clothing from retro, reclaimed fabrics so I've had plenty of new clothes which fit into the compacting rules.
Underwear of course is allowed, I have an unlimited source of product so I never have to buy it so I can cope with that, I also get a heap of preview movies, again no buying, but the yarn has got me.
This week some hand-dyed J. Knits sock yarn has turned up, some undyed sock wool from the UK, both of which could be loosely termed recycled so not really against the compacting bargain, but the four Knitscenes are bad, along with all my other previous book purchases.
At least I haven't bought any gadgets thou I'm so keen to buy another laptop so I don't have to fight with the fellow. The other old laptop is shite, my big lunky desktop computer is a dinosaur so I reckon a new laptop and a wireless modem so I can work out in the shed and life would be grand.
All the presents this year have been handmade and with my three kids we are definitely on the birthday party roster.
So I think I've done fairly well so far since the beginning of the year, just that ruddy yarn and knitting books have broken the compacting rules.
So I'm going to try and stick to another pact, my Southern Summer of Socks mantra is finish what you've got before you cast on for more.
I wonder how long that will take to break?

winning a double

Not on the cup, but I did manage to buy two different lots of yarn today. Firstly I did a bit of a search on the trade or sell at Ravelry and some mighty fine Yarn Pirate sock wool is coming my way.
Secondly 15 balls of Rowan Cotton Glace is winging my way from the UK. Including shipping it's about $100US, which these days will be a scratch over $100 Australia.
All I can say is I'm glad 'he' don't read the blog.
Well I better get off and finish that half sleeve and start cutting out those pants.
And from next week I'll be haunting the post office.

sliding in some stash

I made the decision a while ago not to go buying yarn. Well not new yarn, stuff found at the opshops was fine, but no bulk purchases until I'd cleared some stash.
Well I managed to get some Knit Picks Landscapes Socks, but I could slide it into the stash without too much stress.
You see I bought it second hand in a round about way.
I did a search on Ravelry for this particular yarn and up popped a few that were for sale or trade, so trade I did.
So really it was second hand and not a bust out.

a party means work

I've been busy working out exactly what wool I have stashed in the shed, on the piano, hidden behind the lounge and crammed into my bookcases.
You see I've finally found the best way to keep track of what I have.
No more scraps of paper and good intentions of keeping track of wool purchases, let alone cataloguing the needles, you see, an invite to Ravelry turned up earlier this week and I've been working away on my profile, logging in wool as I remember it.
So far I haven't taken pics and have only put in a smidgen of my stash, let alone collated the needles, but already the possibilities that are Ravelry are clear.
I'll finally know what I have, down to the yardage thanks to Ravelry magic, so I won't be going out and buying wool for a project only to stumble across suitable yarn in the stash months down the track.
And the patterns, oh the patterns, and the work of other knitters.
Mindblowing.