Award and update

I got this award from Sarah over at Class and Coffee, so if you regularly comment on my blog, I’m awarding this to you! I love this – I’ve been saying ‘OTT’ quite a bit lately about different things, so its very fitting!

Now the fun part! You have to answer these questions, only using ONE WORD:

1. Where is your cell phone? handbag
2. Your hair? frizzy
3. Your mother? Smiley
4. Your father? Funny!
5. Your favorite food? Grapes
6. Your dream last night? None
7. Your favorite drink? tea
8. Your dream/goal? Happiness (I’m stealing Sarah’s answer!)
9. What room are you in? office
10. Your hobby? Knitting…
11. Your fear? Loneliness (again, stealing answers!)
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? married
13. Where were you last night? Lounge-room
14. Something that you aren’t? quick!
15. Muffins? Yum
16. Wish list item? Touch-phone
17. Where did you grow up? Australia
18. Last thing you did? Typed…
19. What are you wearing? Yellow
20. Your TV? Old!
21. Your pets? Cobby
22. Friends? Few
23. Your life? Limbo
24. Your mood? Bored!
25. Missing someone? Family
26. Vehicle? Dying
27. Something you’re not wearing? Necklace
28. Your favorite store? Spotlight!
29. Your favorite color? Blue
30. When was the last time you laughed? 7am
31. Last time you cried? June
32. Your best friend? Unknown…
33. One place that I go to over and over? Subway
34. One person who emails me regularly? Matt
35. Favorite place to eat? BNZ (ok, it seems weird with just the one word – yes, it’s a bank, but they have an amazing foodcourt underneath!)

Let me know when you’ve come up with your answers, I’d love to check them out!

Knitting update
I’m working on lots of things at the moment.

• I’ve seamed up one shoulder of the Baby Surprise Jacket, so I have to do the other one and sew on the buttons.
• I’m making a red mohair beret out of some stashed yarn I have, so I have something pretty and warm to wear in New York in January – I think it will have a matching scarf too! I couldn’t find a pattern I absolutely loved so I’m kinda just making it up. So far so good – about halfway through!
• There’s a little purple preemie beanie sitting staring at me from my desk that needs to be finished too… just need to figure out how to stop the stitches at the ends of each DPN being so loose, its not looking that great.
• We had a craft day with some ladies from church on the weekend and we've now knit enough squares for three small baby blankets for Casa Kiwi! They need to be sewn together.
  
• I knit up a cotton bath mitt last night, as something I might be able to sell –unfortunately it’s a little too big but again I was making up the pattern, so I know what to fix for the next one.
• Speaking of selling, I have to get my A into G, a craft fair is coming up the first week of September and someone has offered to sell my stuff there, so I have to get a move on with lots of knitting and sewing for this! I have visions of tote bags floating around in my head…
• That Buttony sweater is now my new lunchtime project – I’m managing at least two rows per break, because there are so many stitches, but slow and steady wins the race – at least I’m working on it again!
• I’ve been reminded that its about 130 days until Christmas, so I’m thinking about Christmas knitting in the back of my head… probably not a lot this year, since I’m going away, but who knows!

What’s on your to-do list? Have you started thinking about your Christmas knitting?

~Happy knitting!~

I'm still here!

Sorry to not have had a decent blog post for a while - i'm still alive, just busy with all things non-knitting, so I haven't got alot to report!

Well, that's not strictly true - I've been working on some easter presents for the family, which I can't show you until next week or it will spoil the suprise :)

I'm also starting to get into the habit of making at least one Casa Kiwi blanket square each night before I go to bed, so I think i'm almost ready to make up one blanket. Mum got me some black yarn to sew them together with, so I think they'll look pretty smart. Don't forget you can help out with squares too if you want - just leave me a comment and i'll send you some more details. Here are a bunch of squares that I received a while ago from a Ravelry friend - the colours match perfectly with the other squares that i've made!

Over Easter i'm only taking Buttony with me, so I should have some more progress on that to show you upon my return (amidst the painting and gardening over the weekend of course!).

Also - thanks for your feedback about the butterfly hat! I believe i'll be frogging it and starting on a shawlette in the near future :)

~Happy knitting!~

A new book review

The Reptile Room
Author: Lemony Snicket
Started: 9-Mar-09
Finished: 17-Mar-09

From audible.com

Following on from the first book, A Series of Unfortunate Events (which I read a while ago, but it doesn't look like I did a review on it!), this reading was slightly different, with Tim Curry covering all the voices, instead of having different readers. I very much enjoyed this book - after seeing the movie which covered all the different stories, it was good to get a bit more information about the characters. It was alot shorter than I was expecting though, so the story was rather basic, and a little predictable. Still recommended though :)

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Knitting update

I'm still in a bit of a knitting funk. I'm at the depressing stage of Buttony where it doesn't seem to be getting any longer, but for fear that one day i'll measure it and it will be perfect to put onto scrap yarn, i'm only knitting it at home when I have scrap yarn around! I needed some road trip knitting though last week so I cast on for Fern Glade again, and so far so good - although its stretching quite a bit around the cable, so I'll need to get a shorter one before I go much further. So far i've done one full pattern repeat (while sitting at a homestead looking out over the country side - it was lovely!) so there are five more to go for my size. The green acrylic is interesting to knit with...

I have a friend coming over tomorrow night to have his first knitting lesson; i'm definately looking forward to that! I might get him started on some squares for the Casa Kiwi blankets, to speed that project along a little, while I continue to forge my way through Buttony some more, aided by a nice glass of white...

~Happy knitting!~

Stash tidy up

Sadly I didn't make it to the carnival on the weekend :( When I got up on Saturday I was hit by a strange cleaning bug which wanted to attack my room - and since that hits so rarely, who am I to say no? Room cleaning went well, thanks to a quiet house and trashy Saturday tv! I even vacuumed! (and broke the vacuum cleaner, but its all better now...)

After that was done, I consulted my Yarn Harlot page-a-day calendar, which suggested a good weekend chore would be to clean out one's stash, not only to remind it what the light of day looks like, but also to remind yourself what you have! Here are my results:

Most of, but not all of, my stash - collected since April 2008

Ok, now I realise that I probably have enough stash to last me a while, and I have no excuses whatsoever to go and by more! (Well, I do - one of the managers at work is having a baby girl, and I don't have any nice pink in my stash to make something, but I promise that's all i'll buy!! Cough cough...)

It is also now resorted into the different types of fibre - bamboo and cotton, mohair (of which I have an awful lot!) - as well as a box of yarn for toys, and one for odd balls and leftovers that can be used for charity stuff. Out of that I was able to sort out which yarns are predestined for projects, and bagged those together with their patterns so I can just pick them up and go when i'm ready to start. I also have a box of 5+ balls of different yarns which are pure stash with no projects in mind - the fun part will be matching those up with projects :)

Knitting update

With all that lovely fibre floating around, of course I was tempted to knit something! Details to come shortly.... Once that was done though I carried on with some squares for the Casa Kiwi blankets - I think I almost have enough now to make one blanket, with promises for more squares from a couple of others to come! I was asked the other day if there was any information about this project on their website, which of course there isn't, because they don't know its happening - it will just be a lovely suprise when these blankets turn up! Feel free to comment if you want to help out :)

Quote of the week

It turns out my page-a-day calendar also does quotes for Sundays! If any come up that are share-worthy i'll pass them on... This week's one is particularly inspirational, and something i've come across in my thinking before:

"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about."

- Charles Kingsley

So, what are you enthusiastic about? For me, its definately my knitting, as well as my bass guitar (she's at the doctors at the moment, i'll introduce you to her when she's all better!)

~Happy knitting!~

I wish I had a camera

If I had the foresight, I would have set my camera up on a timer last night, so you could all see the fun I had.

I bought a new ballwinder off TradeMe on Friday and it arrived yesterday morning! (Amazing quick service!) Of course, I couldn't wait to try it out, so I pulled out the skeins I have of Cascade 220 that i'm using for my Talia, and attempted to wind them into balls. However, as I am yet to purchase a swift to hold the skein, I had to hunt around to try and find something to use.... the clothes airer worked for a while, but sadly after a few turns of the handle the skein fell off into a heap on the floor (and no, it wasn't a case of simply picking it back up, the rest of the night was spent untangling the stupid thing - a great lesson in patience, and I even managed without a glass of wine!) so I had to search for other means. I still had other skeins to do, so in the end I thought, hey, i'm sure I can do this myself! Little did I know...


So, if you've tried it, i'm sure you can picture what it looked like, but for those who haven't, i'll give you a clue. The way to do it is to hold the skein between your hands, so that it can be pulled easily without tangling (as I learnt, it also pays to take off ALL jewellry so that it doesn't catch!). So if your hands are busy holding the skein, how do you turn the handle of the ball winder? Why, with your feet of course! Here's where a picture would have come in handy, as i'm sure I looked rediculous, with one foot up in the air turning the handle to wind the ball, and my hands holding on to the skein while attempting to also control the tension as the ball was wound so it didn't come out all loose. To top it off, I couldn't wind that fast because as it turns out my feet are rather unco at that kind of thing, as they should be, and I had to keep swapping legs because my muscles were getting sore. Who needs the gym, just trying winding a skein like this, its a much better workout!


Luckily it seemed to work ok, until it got down to the last few strands when it started tangling, and I had to untangle it as it went. As for the giant tangled mess, I was successful it getting it all untangled, and it only took around an hour to do (which I think is quite good!) and I was able to wind that into a ball just from the pile on the floor without any more major tangles. Perhaps that's the key, to lie it all spread out on the floor and pick it up like that! Although the hand-foot thing was quite fun :) If you don't have a swift and have figured out a simple way of doing it please let me know!


Before all these ball-winding adventures, I went to the local 'knitting circle' on Monday night, and although there were only three of us there, I got lots done. Here are some pics I took before I went (sorry for the quality, I only had the camera on my phone):
This is the hooded scarf for Chastity - its done in Lion Brand Wool-ease and the colour is Dark Rose Heather, its really pretty. Its a simple lace pattern for one row, then one row of purl and two of knit, so it doesn't take too long to get through one pattern repeat. Since this photo was taken i've done another 10 or so repeats, so its quite a bit longer. The hood part is just straight garter stitch for a few inches, and then the pattern back down the other side.

These are some of the blocks i've got so far for the Casa Kiwi blankets. I've got a few girls from church knitting up some more too, so I should be able to get at least one blanket done shortly. I'm thinking 16 squares for a baby blanket, and perhaps bigger ones for beds or something - I guess it depends how many squares I get. If you'd like to help out with squares, just follow the instructions on the ball band of any yarn for making a 10cm x 10cm (4" x 4") square in any pattern you like, or just plain. The yarn should be something that can easily be washed, so superwash or acrylic etc. Leave me a comment if you'd like more information, and thanks for helping!

Happy knitting :)

Update

Ok, i'm back to blogging! No, I still haven't finished my study, but i'm well on the way now to handing in my final assignment - just a few more days I think, then i'll be done :)

On the knitting front, I've been good, and i've only been knitting on the weekends just to feed my addiction (saving study for during the week) and on knit nights, but still my second baby Christmas present is almost complete! I think i'll be finished with that one tonight! Sadly though, I can't show any piccys because that will ruin the suprise, but if your lucky I might put some up on Ravelry so you can have a sneek peek. I'm suprised at how quickly I got through the second one - although i'm looking forward to getting out of the habit of knitting every pattern twice, which i've done for my last few projects!

Next on the list will be to finally finish Coachella, so I can wear that for summer, as well as carrying on with squares for my Casa Kiwi blankets (see previous post...) and a cute little x-back top out of that lovely ribbon yarn I scored a while ago, although i'm yet to decide on a colour - any suggestions? I've also managed to come across some cheap tweed to use for a Central Park Hoodie (Rav link), but that's a little way down the list I think. I've had my eye on the pattern for a while though, so i'll be glad when that's done! Also on my list is a Coffee Tunic (Rav link) using Taieri Plains 8ply yarn in a plain creamy colour from The Yarn Queen (a cool new online store in Wellington), a Talia vest by Sweaterbabe using Cascade 220 in blue heathers, and a Buttony Sweater using Gedifra Shanina in red. I think that will keep me out of mischief for a while! Although, don't hold me to that list, as something is bound to bump into the middle and take me off track! What did knitters do before Ravelry came along???

In non-knitting news, I took a day out on Saturday to come into town and get started on my Christmas shopping! I got most of it done too, I just need a few little bits and pieces then i'm done! AND to top that off, they are all wrapped and sitting in a box ready to be given out! I feel very proud of myself :)

That's it for now, happy knitting!

"Make blankets for Casa Kiwi in Romania": a challenge

As a youth group leader I get to hear about lots of interesting stuff – and one day we were watching a video of inspiring New Zealand people who were out there working for God. One of them was Sue, who formed the organisation “Orphans Aid International” to help place orphans in Romania from hospitals into foster care, to enable them to have happy and healthy childhoods, instead of banging their heads against their cots and stunting their growth both physically and mentally.

I have decided to help them by putting together a whole lot of little knitted squares and making them into blankets, that they can either sell in their store, or give away to families.

If you would like to help me that would be great – just leave me a comment with your email address and i’ll send you some more information. Thanks!

See more progress on: Make blankets for Casa Kiwi in Romania