2009: FO #1

The hooded scarf is finished!

Completed halfway through the roadtrip to Hamilton for the week. I think mum and dad got sick of the countdown - 10 repeats to go! 8 to go! 5 to go! Last one!

It still requires washing and blocking, and i'm still debating about adding the fringe - I think it looks quite nice without it, because the ends are scalloped (and i'm running out of the yarn, so it wouldn't be much of a fringe!)

Chastity, its on its way soon :)

(Excuse this terrible photo, i'm awful at taking decent photos of myself!)

Things to do on a 7-hr road trip

1. Knit

2. Sleep

3. Knit

4. Re-paint toenails :)

5. Knit

6. Continue with The Time Travellers Wife on audiobook (I can't actually read books in the car, it makes me ill...)

7. Sleep

8. Knit

9. Eat!

10. Knit :)

Now you know my plan for tomorrow! We are heading up to Hamilton for a music course which will span all of next week (23 years I managed to escape going to school on my birthday, but not this year!) followed by an intense weekend at Parachute.

You can see from all the knitting time I have, that I should have no excuse to not finish Chastity's scarf! And hopefully get a little work done on some other projects too. Which means, next time we meet, I WILL have some FO pictures for you!

In the meantime, I'll leave you with this DELICIOUS image:

Brioche. 'Raspberry/white-chocolate with sugar-top' brioche to be precise :) Oh so good!

Something new and different

Something new for the new year - yes, another new blog layout! I think i'm finally happy with this one, I was able to design the header myself, and I like the clean layout of the text. Yay! Just bear with me while I fix the sidebar, but things should be fully up and running again soon.

On the knitting front, i'm well on my way with Chastity's hooded scarf - all other projects are put aside until I can get this one out of the way. I'm pretty much finished the hood section, just a few decrease rows to go, then the 23in of pattern then its done! Its looking so cozy, I might just have to make one for me too...

Happy knitting :)

Holiday projects

I got my new needles yesterday as promised ages ago, so I could get started on the coffee tunic and the ribbon x-back, in hopes that I could start to figure out which projects to take overseas with me. I've settled on a sweet little baby jacket (Ravelry link) for a friend, as that only takes one ball - i'm going to use Paton's Big Baby with 3mm needles - and I figured I would be able to take either the tunic OR the x-back, and I picked the x-back since that only needs 3 balls, where as the tunic needs around 9. I'm also going to take Chastity's hooded scarf, if I don't get that finished before I go. So there! I'm half packed already! Hehe :)

I'm hoping to post up some WIP pictures before I leave, but in the meantime, 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 :)

Is there such a thing...

...as a 'good' sick day? I would say yes! Unfortunately I've been bogged down with a minor throat infection for the last two days, so i've been home from work (i'm going back in later today though!) and i'm suprised at how much you can get done while you sick and have nothing to do while you stay in bed!

First things first, Monday was spent finishing my assignment! Hooray, its FINALLY done! I'm going to post it off later today. It went suprisingly quick in the end - I got most of the research done over the weekend, so Monday I just had to master my first ever perspective drawing, and wala! All done :) I'm SO pleased!!!

Of course, that means I now have time for knitting! I'm pleased to report that the two baby christmas presents are now blocked and hanging up outside to dry out, then they are ready to be wrapped. If you're a member, there are pics on my Ravery page if you want to have a look.

One month until Christmas! Did I scare you??

Yesterday's project was to finish off Coachella, which has been sitting around waiting for me to finish the presents. Its finally done too! My mods were to add a little length, and use 4.5mm needles for the whole thing rather than changing up a size. I also added some 3x1 ribbing around the bottom to make it a little more stretchy, and a did some crochet around the arm holes to strengthen them. I tried it on before blocking and it seemed to fit ok, so we'll see what blocking does to it (no, silly, of course I didn't swatch!).

As for my next project, after a quick look through my Rav queue, I decided to start on the Talia vest from Sweaterbabe.com. I give you permission to call me silly for starting a pure woolen vest just as summer is starting :) Unfortunately i didn't have the right size needles for either the ribbon x-back top or the coffee tunic, so I settled with the one I could start right away. Friday's trip to the yarn shop should help solve those problems, but I had itchy fingers so I just had to start something! I have no problems with the vest going into hibernation while I work on a couple of summery tops.

I'm also still working on the hooded scarf for Chastity, but because the pattern is so simple, i'm going to keep that as my travel/knit night project. I've found a cute pattern too for some mini-Christmas stockings, and I hope to do one a night of those, since they are only supposed to take 1 hour.

Happy knitting!