Monday, April 20, 2015

winter is coming...




Autumn has arrived in Melbourne, and it has been a wee bit chillier. It's not quite cool enough for my winter coat (which is too small anyway), but thick, cozy sweaters are needed. Over the last week, I keep finding myself going through my sweater basket and coming away disappointed. On Friday, I wore my trusty University of Washington hoodie (purchased in 2000...) over a cardigan. A sweater over a sweater. My current cardigans and sweaters just don't cut the mustard for warmth! Several of them are 3/4 length sleeves, as well. Useless!

So I went digging in my knitting pile and pulled out a chunky sweater I started February 2014. I haven't worked on it in months, and was surprised to find that it was only a couple of inches of one sleeve from being finished! C'mon Karen, get 'er done!

So I should have a new chunky sweater to wear soon. But here are some other patterns I have my eye on.

image title
Taking a Break, by Debbie Bliss

Naima, by ANKESTRiCK (pictured is lilalu's version)

Fallow, by Maria Magnusson in The Knitter


And while I'm at it, how about some of these:

Aisling, by Justyna Lorkowska

Drachenfels, by Melanie Berg (pictured is michamade's version)

Adventurer's Cowl, by Katherine Leek


Maybe if I wear them ALL together, THEN I'll be warm!!

Sunday, February 15, 2015

a February project

Last week, I decided it was time to give up the ghost of my blog. I'm obviously not motivated to keep it going, I've got a lot on my plate at work and at home, and I decided to let it go to seed.

And then this week, I changed my mind. 😄

I have had a bit of time lately to hit up a couple local libraries, and I keep grabbing crafting and home decor books, and it feels like every other page inspires a new project for our new home. There's so much space to decorate, and the house already has so much charm that it takes decoration well.

So I decided that I might try to refocus my blog into just projects. And since I'm slow with projects (real slow), and I don't want to over-commit myself, I've decided to aim to blog a new project each month.

We bought some gorgeous new furniture from IKEA a couple weeks ago (is that an oxymoron?) It's aqua/teal-coloured metal! My new fav colour! But one of the pieces in our living room is looking bare and needs some stuff on top. I thought a furniture cozy might help, so I knitted one!


I used some yarn I bought from Spotlight ages ago (I think it's a wool-acrylic blend, but no one needs to know). I used two skeins. It's a thick-and-thin, chunky yarn, so I knit it on 9.0 mm (US 13) needles. I cast on 30 stitches and knit in seed stitch.



Seed stitch:
Row 1: [Knit 1, purl 1] to end of row.
Row 2: [Purl 1, knit 1] to end of row.
Then just repeat those two rows until desired length! Voilà!