Yarnivorous

G'day all! I must be feeling better this week. I've done a fair bit of spinning (was halfway through spinning that up, got the bobbin full then two-plied it and it is thinner than I expected. Such is life! But after it is washed and thwacked into shape that may change... Fleece is from a Black Pines sheep CVM/Romeldale called Laura. Plying may or may not be dodgy.) I've also spun up 4oz of BFL. It is not as smooth as I am used to BFL being and I think I'll list it in my shop - I don't think I will use it but other people are not as princess and the pea when it comes to wool as I am. It is *very* me colours though. No pic yet - have to set the twist and thwack it yet. I managed to finish a fingerless mitt, of my own design, three times in 18 hours. Grr! I thought it was done then decided it was too tight, re-did it, realised I had mucked up the striping going into the ribbing, redid it. I would have almost had a pair by now if I had just done it right the f...

G'day all! A couple of weeks ago I bought some Mini Mochi. Oh pretty rainbow colours! On Tuesday, I started knitting it up. Since then I've been obsessed. Here's the result. The yarn is really fuzzy. I've been pulling out the hairiest hairs but it is still fuzzy - as fuzzy as various of the sock that I have washed a few times. Will be interesting to see how this sock washes up. Yes, I will make a second one and see if I can wrinkle out some issues with the pattern. At the moment, after doing the setup repeat, it doesn't really follow the chart, just common sense. Biggest problem with the yarn, apart from splittiness due to its singles nature, is The green crocked. Pics are not great but I think you can get the idea of where I tension the yarn and what bits actually hold the needles, at least for my right, throwing, hand. First, I have to finish a fingerless mitten and get cracking on my Feb socks (on Sunday). They will be husbandly socks. Speaking of which,...

G'day all! This is the last FO for the moment unless I get a bee in my bonnet about finishing things I haven't actually started (like the fingerless mitts to go with today's FO). As I was knitting it, I thought it looked like (stripy) stained glass, but someone else saw it as being piratey. So ahhhhrrrr, me hearties, I give you the pirate beret (without pirate ahhhhrrr expression cos y'know it ain't that attractive and I have some meagre standards about my appearance.) I think it looks a lot better on that off - it looks like a funny little bag thing. It wouldn't sit flat. Yarn: Mission Falls 1824 in eggplant (024), Koigu Kersti in pretty much every colour. 4.5mm needles. Pattern: Though the Loops beret recipe . Fun to knit! anon!

G'day all! What do you do when you pick up a languishing UFO and decide to finish it, only to find that after one row, your ears and throat are itching and your hands are burning? Is this why it is a UFO? Because you are allergic to alpaca and it has 10% alpaca? You've knitted and worn a jacket made out of the same yarn (in a different colour) without any problems, but that was before you tried processing and spinning alpaca fleece. So do I take antihistamines and finish it or do I frog it and try to pass on the yarn to a new home (preferably by swapping for something else). It may be dusty, though it has been kept in bags and/or boxes. In the meantime, another UFO has been glaring at me from half under my armchair. I put it there so it would guilt me into finishing it. That plan did work, eventually - a month or so later I pulled my finger out. After all it is tedious having to pick it up to vacuum under it. Looks like a mess, doesn't it? It is made out of some Mar...

G'day all! Last Friday I decided that I needed a beret to wear, a nice slouchy beret, dare I say it a fashionable beret. I dug around in the stash, looking for my lovely skein heathered icy blue Stonehedge Fiber Mill Shepherd's wool . I got pretty cranky cos it was not where it should've been, but calm was restored when I found it in the Wrong Box. I had also been looking around at patterns and had had Woolly Wormhead 's Mystery Beret (Meret) on my list of funky things to make. (Not necessarily in my Ravelry queue though, LOL.) This was a fun knit, though I did finish it once, put it on and decide that for my boofhead I needed some extra boof. I did four repeats of the pattern. Blocking it was not easy as it is much bigger than a dinner plate (see boofhead above). The yarn is absolutely a delight to knit with. I had bought it to make a little baby something out of but it is not machine washable = disaster for a mum with two little girls and a new baby. It is so...

G'day all! I've recently suffered a case of finishitis (wish I'd finish some old wips though!). Here's some socks: I dyed some 50:50 merino:tencel so that it would stripe. Tick! It stripes! I put a little flower motif on the sides of the cuff. I tried out two different ways to make the leaves - yo/decrease and twisted stitch. The yo version shows up better. The heel has the reinforced ribbing look to it rather than the eye of partridge that I like so much. Eye of partridge would not show up so well with boldly striped yarn. They are knitted with my usual toe up recipe. I should write the recipe up for you, but it is not a pattern, just a recipe. (I'll be listing some wool nylon blend in the same colourway on my etsy shop as soon as I get off my lazy butt and actually list it. Note that the wool nylon blend dyed more consistently.) So January's socks are done. I need to get a wriggle on with February's socks but it isn't Feb yet. They will be Val...

G'day all! Finally we have a day with some sun! Hooray! This means photos. I was given a lovely book for Christmas. I started knitting a scarf with a pattern based on one of the jumper patterns as a reciprocal gift. Whilst I was sick sick, I took a break from knitting anything for others. I figured that it was yucky to infest gifts with my germs. Early this week I finally finished the scarf. It seemed to take ages, though when I got stuck into it, it flew! I used two strands of lace/fingering weight handspun that I . The fleece is grey merino from a sheep named Sarah. It is lovely to work with. I originally used the yarn for my mystery stole 4 but well, let's just say that pattern was not for me and was frogged. I can't say how much I used - I spun up about 800m and used a good 2/3 of that, though remember I used it double stranded. The pattern is very simple - multiple of 4 + 2. You can add a selvedge stitch or three if you want. Row 1: Knit. Row 2: Purl. Row 3:...

G'sday all! I was naughty a little while ago. Here is evidence of naughtiness. Ahem! The first two pictured I want to play against each other but really the thought of doing a whole 1X1 rib for The Scarf on size 2 US needles seems a little MAD! So I might make some mittens or something instead. The rainbow ones will become socks, as their manufacturer intended. I had no idea what to expect from the yarn itself. I just went WANT! and bought two days later. It is soft but has some wiry hairs in it. It is also a single - will be interesting to see how it will wear! I have almost finished this month's socks, hooray! In another 1.5 hours they will be done! It is good to finish stuff. And I finished the gift scarf but still don't have pics. After weeks of sun, we now have days of gray, and getting good shots of a grey scarf on a grey day.... I've been a member of the Rockin' Sock Club since its inception. This year, despite all the big name designers, I didn...

G'day all! A miracle occurred yesterday! One of my ears sorta cleared. I can now hear more stuff! Hooray! Plus it makes riding my bike a lot easier - I feel more stable. So I've been celebrating by riding to Wholefoods and back two days in a row. That wouldn't be because I forgot to buy vegies to go with the roast leg o lamb for tonight though, would it? Ahem. So last night was the monthly knitting guild meeting. This time around, we stencilled tshirts for the upcoming Stitches West. Cutting out the stencils was not real fun but the painting was! Here's my tshirt all stencilled up and painted: And the result? Imperfect but I am not too fussed. After all, the tie-dye job on the tshirt is pretty average too ;-) I got some yarn today... anon!

G'day all! After my swatching fest the other day, I decided to do some more swatches in a larger size to givew me more idea about how the yarn works up in the different patterns. Normally I use a sleeve or the front of a cardi as my swatch but in this case I do not have a pattern . This makes things considerably more exciting and swatches are absolutely necessary. I grabbed the four favourites from my last post and eliminated one pretty quickly in the larger swatch. The leafy type pattern - she gone! I have to say the ribby cables look absolutely fantastic. The problem with such a fitted cardi is that I don't have many fitted tshirts/etc to wear underneath it and I absolutely must have something between me and the wool on my body and any part of my neck that it touches. My arms are made of tougher stuff though if the cuffs grabbed around my wrists or rubs the crease of my elbow, they will complain too. I still like the daisy pattern, no idea why, it just appeals to me. This...

G'day all! The electricians have been and gone. Can you believe that in our 750sq foot apartment, there were TEN two point power plugs? 10! I forgot completely about two of them and another one is in the kitchen. Anyway, it is now three point plugs all round! Yay! Watching them install the power points was interesting - lever out the old, clip four wires off the back (two were green and brown - old wiring?) then the put connectors on instead. The connectors look like cat-5/LAN connectors. Crimp em, clip the connectors into the new powerpoint on (the point is an integrated box so I guess all the wiring is done within it), force it back into the wall, screw it on, faceplate on, Bob's your uncle! Now I am surrounded by single glowing green eyes. I've been sitting here wondering what was wrong with my vision. It is getting steadily dimmer. Then it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, the darkness is something to do with the sun disappearing behind the apartment bloc...

G'day all! I'm calling this an FO - I have to put a snap on one side, a tie on the other (methinks a toggle) and it is done. I'll probably not get another shot of it. It can go to the shop tomorrow where I will discuss the finishing touches. (If you can see grot on the floor, sue me, I'm the housekeeper around here and I've been otherwise occupied with vast piles of tissues.) Details: wrap jacket by Sandi Prosser for Kertzer Yarns. Yarn is On Your Toes Bamboo. I really did not like the way the decrease was done across the front. One stitch in with the shaping going in what I thought was the wrong direction. When it came to picking up the stitches, if I picked up between the first stitch and the decrease, I ended up with a holey gap that looked rather average. Knitting into the back of the picked up stitch didn't work either. so I had to knit into the decreases themselves. Peeving. Very peeving. It made the commissioned cardi look like the dream boat it...