Yarnivorous

G'day all! Well the knitting fun never stopped whilst I was away. I got my knit mojo working well and truly! Be warned, this is a pretty big post. This month I knitted: 2 pairs of socks 3 sets of fingerless mitts (two child sized) a beanie a cowl a scarflette a small shawl a sleeve of Nathan's pullover and started a colourwork beret Alas I forgot to take pics of the beanie (from my handspun, knitted top down with ribbing on 4mm needles) and the fingerless mitts (one adult sized in cashmere, two kid size in handspun). Plain toe up socks (one with afterthought heel, one with short row heel, both with gussets) knitted in Serenity sockweight yarn by Deborah Norville (50% wool, 25% bamboo, 25% nylon). I used about 80% of the yarn. Note the twiddly bits on the cast off. This yarn is quite soft and didn't irritate my delicate ankles. It cost $3.24 a ball (plus tax). Crikey! I knitted half the first sock on the trip to Neuschwanstein. The second sock was knitted on the tri...

G'day all! We are back from our Europe trip and it was trés fantastique! But the re-entry is a real you-know-what. Especially when you wash your husband's passport cos he put it in his pant's leg pocket and you only checked the normal pockets up around the hips. And you ate something on the plane that kept you up half the night after you've been awake for 24 hours anyway. And you have to find places for the new stuff. Not that I bought any yarn at all or anything. Or about a kilo of postcards. And you already miss the place. I've been doing a little blogging on the run at my other blog. I'll put up some more travel pics and things there. Here is for yarny stuff. Here's a bit over half the yarn I came home with. Do you love the carpet in our 300€ a night hotel in Münich? I have no idea why it was so expensive. It was a bit bigger than the 80€ hotel we stayed in in Dijon and the bathroom was huge but really, it was not that much bigger or better and w...

G'day all! Je suis dans la France! Or words to that effect. Oh boy, it took some time. I knitted a whole sock (except the toe) in the time it took us to get to Heathrow. Note that we were booked to go direct from the US to Paris. Ahem. Anyway, before we rush out for a day of touring, I give you: Nathan, in a little road in the centre of Toulouse, apres "dinner" hier? My French isn't too good. Anyway, I should put future updates on my rather neglected travel blog . anon!

G'day all! I am so relieved to have handed over the horrid tangerine top, the top that blighted my life, la-la-la-laaa (now if anyone gets that reference, you had a mother or grandma who liked to listen to old-time singers, or you've had the joy of me having it on the stereo when driving, etc). See this handful of ends? That was maybe two-thirds of them. There were SO MANY ENDS! Argh. In a cotton blend too, which is never easy to make sure it stays where you want it to. The result? Well it is better than I expected but I feel not up to my usual standard. (Can you believe a fly flew past just as the camera took that shot? There's a black blur on my right shoulder/neckline.) The ladies at the LYS agreed that the duplicate stitch looks better than the intarsia/fair isle method. No surprises there! The back. Note that it drapes without curving and the frill hits just on the widest part of my hip. So flattering! Thank the gods it isn't for me! The neckline (excuse...

G'day all! A while ago, I joined a quiltalong. It's been fun so far, if you can call fun spending hours ripping out bad seams and about 20 hours pressing the seams open (mostly open except when they didn't cooperate). However, I seem to be all about the results, not the process of getting there. The zigzag quilt is an interesting one, lots of opportunity for different effects depending on the colours and fabric designs used. I chose a warm/citrusy colourway for mine - stripes of red, orange, yellow, lime, leaf green and darker greens all set off by a dark brown plain fabric. I love the look of the basted quilt - this is a quilt "sandwich" of backing material, batting (bamboo/cotton in my case) and quilt top. It looks very punk/frankenstein to me with all the safety pins holding it together. I won't say there were no dramas along the way. I won't say there are no bits of quilting that need to be ripped out. (the new quilting is already there - I just c...

G'day all! Blogger is being totally whacko at the moment. Half the blogs I look at have been flagged for objectionable content (including my own coloradoan dreaming/victorian on the move, though I did link to a piece about keeping the bush natural) but like Bea's blog? Come on! Anyway, I just wanted to pop in and wave as I run around trying to finish things and tidy things and get everything ready for our trip. Last week I had an FO to show you but never got round tuit... DH's new socks. These are knitted in Crazy Zauberball ( details on Ravelry). The yarn is fairly typical of German sock yarns in its feel but has been spun in such a way that one ply is "rainbow" coloured and the other ply goes through orange, red, green, blue and brown (in the yarn I used). (Pretty much every pic of thse was fuzzy - no idea why!) I used a 5 X 1 broken rib - 5 X 1 cos at the top you can used a 2 X 1 rib. I did mention I knitted these toe up? And used a slip stitch heel. I us...