birthday wool

Hugh had to go to Adelaide for work two weeks ago. Since we were planning to spend Easter there as well, he decided to drive to Adelaide and stay there until James, Emma, and I flew over. Then we all drove back together. So I had to spend a week and a half without my man! Eep! It was hard. I really like being around him!

Anyway, Hugh picked us up from the airport first thing Friday morning. His parents were staying at their vacation home so that we could have the house, but his dad stuck around in town long enough to say "hello" and to give me a birthday present. What a sweetie! And guess what? It was a huge lot of gorgeous wool! What a triple sweetie! (There were five balls in total.)

It's hand-spun and hand-dyed wool from the Handspinners and Weavers Guild of South Australia. I'm not sure yet what I'll make with it. It's a bit on the stiff and scratchy side, so wouldn't be ideal for a sweater, but I'm thinking maybe a vest? Like this one from Brooklyn Tweed, called Huxley? Or maybe a shawl. Dunno.

fire in the night scarf

Another sunny day, another distillery photoshoot.

I finished the very soft, very long scarf for Hugh on Saturday night, wove in the ends Sunday morning, and then dragged him out of the apartment to pose for pictures in it!

There were several grumpy faces before he finally smiled. Then there were some more grumpy faces, lol! He's so cute when he tries to be grumpy!

Hugh has been begging me for a Doctor Who-length scarf for ages. I keep buying him really pretty, really expensive wool to make a scarf, and then the scarf ends up too short because I can't afford to buy much. Hugh bought me this wool in Seattle, when he was exploring Capitol Hill one day on his own. It turned out to be the perfect amount for a nice long scarf! It's three skeins of Cascade Yarns Baby Alpaca Chunky Paints, which I assume he spent a fairly significant amount of money on! It's soooo soft and wonderful.

I used the Cinder scarf pattern from Brooklyn Tweed (they have THE MOST BEAUTIFUL knitting patterns you will see ANYWHERE.) I modified the pattern, though, cutting the number of stitches in half because my wool was pretty chunky and it would have been a much wider and shorter scarf. This had the effect of making the cables much more subtle, just curvy bumps along the way, which I really love in the end. I think it was defos the right choice.

Work in progress: Stella jumper

I have been knitting a jumper (translation: sweater) lately. I fell in love with this sparkly wool when I first saw it months ago, but I didn't have the funds to buy it. (It's Patons Australia Stella.) I think it was $7-$8 a ball. Then it got discontinued and disappeared from our local craft store! But then I found a few left at a fabric store in the city, for half the original price, so I snatched up 8 balls.

I started to knit another Agnes sweater (from Quince&Co.), and I got most of the way done with it before I remembered that I'd seen a chunky knit lace sweater pattern in Knitsy that might be fun to try out. But that pattern was knit in flat pieces and I prefer to knit top-down in the round.

See, a bit boring.

There are lots of reasons why I prefer to knit top-down in the round: you can try on as you go, and knitting on circular needles puts less strain on your wrists; but mainly, I'm lazy and impatient. Knitting flat pieces means you have to seam everything together at the end, and I just like to be done once the knitting has finished! Let's call it efficiency instead if laziness.

Anyway, I started to knit this lace pattern in the round. It involves repeats of 8 stitches, and I arbitrarily decided when to start the repeats. When I got to the bit where you separate the sleeves from the body, I realised that my lace pattern would be a big old mess because I hadn't placed it correctly to finish one repeat and then start another. It was more like, "get halfway through the lace repeat then start the next repeat three stitches in."

So I pulled out some graph paper and started sketching, working backwards from the separation stage to the collar stage.

I made a few mistakes along the way.

Sadly, I still didn't get it quite right, but it's much better! The interruption in the pattern happens under the arms, so it shouldn't be very noticeable. I might try to write the pattern up for Ravelry, in which case I'll fix the mistake.

Work in progress: frustrating scarf

Why do I continue to knit when I find it eternally frustrating??

I'm trying to knit Hugh a scarf. I love this wool so much, but I'm not loving trying to find an appropriate pattern for it. Hugh and I agreed that a simple (stockinette stitch) pattern would show off the wool best, but even after blocking the scarf on the left, it still curls up horribly (middle of the photo).

Plus, soaking it caused a significant change to the color, which is still pretty but no longer matches skein 2 (not shown). So I decided to try a 1x1rib, which makes it successfully lay flat, and I'm alternating skeins every two rows so there's no obvious color difference, but I just don't think the scarf on the right is as pretty, because the ribbing interrupts the natural flow of the color changes :-(

Am I just being too picky? Probably. But I want my man to love it!

crafty weekend

Hugh and I got super crafty this weekend! On Saturday, I was planning to go to an introductory sewing course (for free!) at the Wood Street Arts Space. At the last minute, Hugh decided to come along, too. The Arts Space had sewing machines for us to use, and I took all my bits of fabric I've been collecting for the last few months. The problem was, some bits weren't washed, and others were washed but not ironed. Oops! We decided to make a cushion cover out of the world map fabric I got from Spotlight. The woman leading the class gave us lots of helpful tips about stitches to use and how to make a button closure. We switched spots so we both got to work on the machine. This pillow was a team effort! Couples sewing is fun!

After sewing, we went to Spotlight, because they were having a 40% off sale on all their yarn! I bought 12 balls of yarn, and Hugh grabbed some supplies to work on his own sewing project. Then we came home and got to work!

 

I made napkins! I used my 1-2-3 Sew! book--napkins are the second pattern in the book. In this project, you learn mitered corners. Trying to figure out what the instructions were telling me to do took a while, and there was a point where I wanted to shoot the author, the napkin, and myself. But once I figured it out, I was so impressed! Mitered corners are fun! I was really pleased with the result, even if it wasn't exactly square.

It rained heavily on Saturday, and I was really hoping my softball game on Sunday would be cancelled so I could stay home and craft some more. Joy of joys, it was cancelled and I got to stay home and craft! Result!

Recycled yarn

I was in the mood yesterday to do some second-hand store trawling, but I've been to our local Salvo's (Salvation Army)  recently and there's never much there. So I caught a bus to the Salvo's in Brunswick East, which someone recommended.

First, I found a pair of daimty purple and black heels, in my size, which might be just the thing for Amy and Diana's wedding.

Then I found some melamine souvenir ring dishes from Malta. One in particular caught my eye and I figured I could use it on my dresser to hold all the random bits that inevitably collect there. It has a photo of a sunshiney scene with palm trees. That makes me happy.

Then I found a knit sweater that I thought was rather ugly, but which was made with a cool rose-and-metallic yarn that is just what I've been looking for! I've been seeing lots online about unpicking op shop sweaters to recycle the wool, so I've had my eye out lately. Patons has a great chunky wool with metallic bits called Stella that I quite like, but the balls are $7.99 each. While that's actually really cheap for yarn, it still means I'd have to pay about $60 for enough to make a sweater. But here was a sweater's worth of metallic yarn for $6.99! I couldn't pass that up.

This sweater was actually hand-knit by someone. It doesn't have manufacturer's tags or anything, and that hole on the front is an error, not a rip. It made me feel a little bad undoing it, but the maker (or recipient?) obviously wasn't very happy with it, and I am providing an opportunity for it to be reincarnated. Lots of love surely went into it, and it deserves to be pretty and appreciated.

I spent the evening unpicking it all, then I soaked my hanks in hot water with a bit of shampoo. I meant to only soak for a couple hours, but I forgot about it and left it for ages. Makes no difference, though. Now the hanks are drying in our dish drying rack ;-)

Smurf Pixie hat

I knit this thing. I used this pattern, which I really like and will probably try again with a more suitable wool. I think it looks a bit someone put a Smurf in the dryer. I used Noro Silk Mountain, which Hugh bought because he liked the colors (he has such good taste). I probably should have knit something for him with it, but instead, I offered it to Aparna. It's cold over in jolly old England these days, and I thought she could do with a blue pick-me-up. I did warn her that it looks like a Smurf but that just seemed to make her all the more keen!

 

Goodies!!!

I got a rubber-banded packet of mail yesterday, as if the post office was saving it all up in order to deliver it all in one go! There were lots of lovely goodies: a Christmas card from Jocky, a gorgeous, sparkly vellum letter from Mama with card-making stickers, a funny photo letter from Ralph and Wanda, and some organic cotton yarn from Jody! Today, I got Sarah and Brian's annual family newsletter and a card from Aunt Chris. Love it!

Finished object: Snowy Christmas Stocking

I finished my Christmas stocking. Generally, I'm pretty pleased with it. The heel and the toe are a bit odd, and floppy because the contrasting wool is a totally different weight and thickness to the main wool. Maybe someday, if I find a better wool, I'll replace them, but I think this stocking will serve me just fine for the upcoming holiday season!

Like snow covering a city...

Work in Progress: Chunky Socks

This is my favorite wool in the whole entire world. I'm pretty sure this color has long since been discontinued, but I would swim in pools of this wool if I could. It is the softest yarn I've ever touched. And it's my absolute favorite color.  I would knit every single project out of it if possible.

Sadly, I have not actually had any luck turning it into something. I first made it into a scarf, with an improvised (i.e. very simple and boring) lace pattern. I finished knitting it but didn't block it or weave in the ends for a year and a half. I moved it from one continent, to another, to yet another. And then I realised that I had never finished it because I didn't really like it.

So I undid the whole thing, and tried making socks. Several false starts only to abandon and undo them.

I tried making fingerless gloves. Three false starts, then I finally started getting somewhere with them. But the guage was much too tight, and so were the gloves. Undo.

Then I saw a pattern for long, chunky, cabled stockings in a book. They were beautiful. This yarn was born to make them.

Except I ran out of wool on the toe of the second sock. That was two months ago, and I'm still debating what to do. I'm leaning towards shortening both by a couple cable repeats and hoping for the best. Since it took me three days to figure out how to do the heel properly, and I'm not sure I remember how I did it in the end, I'm a bit wary of undoing it all. But this yarn deserves to be made into something beautiful.

E for Ethel

Because I'm sad and lonely and don't know anyone in Adelaide, I joined some local groups on Meetup.com. One of them is a crafters group (yay!) and they were advertising a crocheting event at a place called E for Ethel in North Adelaide.

I thought maybe, just maybe, this place would sell yarn, because they have regular crochet classes and events. I went to check it out a couple weeks ago, and then I attended the crochet event on Thursday night.

Sadly, they do not sell yarn. But I'm still in love with E for Ethel. It's a cafe and shop mix, and they sell original artwork, graphic prints, and handmade knickknacks of all sorts, all made in Australia. It's wonderful!! I know where I'll be getting any gifts for the next year. Ethel celebrated her 1st birthday last week, so she's relatively new to the Adelaide cafe scene.

 
Sorry, that photo's a bit fuzzy, but I was trying to be slightly stealthy about photographing my work in public. (I don't know why I bother owning a camera if I'm gonna be frightened of taking pictures in public, but whatever.) There is a large basket of de-stashed yarn, and I was able to snag a ball that matched the project I'm currently working on.

On my previous visit, I had spotted these crochet hook sets by UrbanSiesta, and since I got paid on Thursday, I couldn't possibly resist buying one!

Oh, and wool!