Monday, September 26, 2005

My Labour Of Love Is Finished



Squirrel Jacket was finally finished last week I just have had a hard time getting the model and the jacket together when I have a few minutes to take some photos. He is not a very willing model might I add, hence the neck down shots, we compromised. I also wanted to take it along to SnB (knitting coven as Cindy calls it, I like the name, not saying that we are a bunch of witches??) to show it to everyone there first. It is knitted in Bendigo Woollen Mills Aran with Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran for the squirrels and other brown bits, everyone at SnB thought it funny that the squirrels cost more than the rest of the wool used in the jacket. I still can't say that I enjoy intarsia but a motif here or there is okay.

A huge big thanks to everyone who wished me a happy birthday, yes I had a great day on Saturday, well put it this way I spent a lot of time resting (recovering) on the couch yesterday. I was very spoilt with lots of lovely pressies, especially my new mobile phone from Geoff and the kids, which now has a knitted pig cover, of course and my MIL also gave me a gift voucher to spend at my LYS.

That is about it for now, I did receive some wool from Bendigo last week which I am itching to start but I must finish a couple of almost completed items first, I am going to be strict, till next time happy knitting.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Saturday 24th of September, 1966

On this day in 1966 St Kilda played in and won the AFL (then VFL) Grand Final, against Collingwood and Jimi Hendrix arrived in England from Greenwich Village, soon to become a star, The Rolling Stones played at the Leeds Odeon and the great lady herself, Janis Joplin was playing at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. Oh and little ol' Shazza was born on this day, way back then. I am going to spend the day with my family watching the AFL Grand Final and sipping a glass or two of red, it would have been fantastic if my footy team were playing but that was not to be this year, there is always next year. As for today 'GO SWANS'

Thursday, September 22, 2005

This Little Piggy ..............

In our local newspaper each morning there are a number of catalogues selling all sorts of wonderful products, which of course DD grabs and finds many things to add to her 'I want' list. Well amongst this mornings offerings were of all things socks for mini ipods, now Janelle has been saving all her pocket money over the last 12 months to buy a mini ipod and so combined with the money she received for her birthday she could finally get one. You can see where this is heading can't you? Yes the socks were a 'I want them' and at $50 a packet for 5 socks, oh yes admittedly they were all in different colours, but hey that is still $10 each and who needs 5 anyway no matter how pretty. I could recall a cute little pig mobile phone cover in the Stitch 'N' Bitch Nation and thought that would do the job, showed DD, she loved it, so went and had a look in the stash and found a lovely bright pink Bendigo 8ply and voila, we now have a pig ipod cover. However no pig is complete without curly tail so I added a tail to him and now he is finished so if you would like to make him and add a tail this is what I did:
cast on loosely 10 sts
Row 1 (k1, k1 tbl, k1) in each stitch across
Row 2 Cast off purlwise.
Twist into shape, and there you have a little tail.

Monday, September 19, 2005

An Interesting Meme

The lovely Jacqueline has tagged me so here it is finally, weekends are always a bit hectic around here and I have to share the computer not only with the kids but DH as well.
THE RULES:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five people to do the same.

'"Well as it turns out she had six different Harry Potter Lego sets, so we did a deal and I left there with the lot, for a good price might I add."'

Not as interesting as Jacquelines answer but I do remember being very happy indeed about picking up such a bargain, which the kids get a lot of fun out of.

Now the five people I have chosen to tag with this meme are:
KATT
2PAW
BECKY
RACHAEL
KITTENS MITTENS
If they want to that is.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Sock It To Me

Socks, I must knit socks, especially after seeing the fabulous new sock pattern over at KNITTY the socks are knitted toe up and I was going to make them to my own sock pattern and just adjust the stitches but the pattern is so easily written I figured it was a good way for me to learn. I am using Patons Patonyle knitted on 2.25mm needles, I always use my trusty old bamboo 2.5mm but as they are in use I had to use the smaller ones. The other sock is another opal, this time these are going to one of my dearest friends, remember the last pair I was working on for her I gave to MIL for her birthday, they are a suprise for her as she has always dropped little hints about having some of my handknitted socks so when finished I am going to post them to her so that she will get a nice little suprise in the mail.

Janelles opal socks in pink, what else, are done and dusted and I had to drag them off her feet to get this photo. I have knitted quite a few pairs of Opal socks and this is the second time that the printed pattern in the wool has turned back the other way, not happy when this happens as the wool is not cheap and you would expect better. I wound the wool so that at least the leg part of the socks matched as the feet will be hidden, but I am a perfectionist with my knitting so I am not 100% happy with them, but the main thing is that Janelle loves them so who cares?

Squirrel is 1/4 of the way sewn up, I love knitting, hate finishing but at least I have a bit of a deadline to get my act into gear, we are having a S'n'B on Tuesday and my fellow knitters want to see it FINISHED!!


Monday, September 12, 2005

Where Have I Been??

I do try and post every couple of days but the last week has just flown by and nothing has appeared here, but I did mention in the last entry that it is school holidays and that of course means that I have to fight three kids for the computer. I have however been busy knitting LOOK:


All the knitted pieces are finished now I have to block, which by the way I don't go to too much bother with blocking, I have always just used a damp tea towel and iron and voila my pieces are blocked. Purists are cringeing now but I find unless it is a very heavy lace pattern this is all that is needed and I always press on the wrong side of the piece. There are a lot of ends to sew in so that will take a while and then the final piecing together and sewing up, so hopefully by the end of the day I may just have a finished item. Must go now, I can feel eyes peering at me to see if I am off the computer yet!!

Tuesday, September 06, 2005

It's School Holidays Again

Yes it's that time again, but don't get the wrong idea here, I love school holidays. Yeah sure I have got the kids home but we have fun and as they are getting older they amuse themselves and if the weather is ok they spend a lot of time outside. The other thing I love is no routine, no clock watching YAY!! Which means that I can spend a bit more time doing what I love, knitting. I am currently working on some pink opal socks for Janelle and still the squirrel jacket for Ashley. I have started the sleeve which should knit up pretty quickly I can see that with each piece the intarsia squirrel is getting neater so perhaps I am improving here??? I still would never choose to do an all over intarsia knit 'a la Kaffee Fasset' I think they would have to come and take me away in a straight jacket!!

I have ordered some more yarn, yes I am a bad girl, the person I have been spoiling in SP5 is the lovely Jacqueline and she has made the ribby cardy from Chicknits and although I have seen many finished ribbys on blogs everywhere none has grabbed me like hers so I am going to make one in the exact same yarn and colour. As I said to her I am sure we will never be in the same room at the same time wearing the same cardi, would we??

Today is my local S'n'B get together, I look forward to these meetings so much, funny how we all understand the lure of needles and yarn and never grow tired of chatting about it as well as seeing what everyone has worked on over the last month or which great patterns have been 'discovered'

Friday, September 02, 2005

My SP Has Spoilt Me Again


This beautiful chunky hand dyed yarn is more green than the picture shows and it matches my lounge room beautifully. It is going to become a table runner on my coffee table so that I can constantly be reminded of my SP.

This is some lovely hand dyed yarn which is destined to become a pair of socks.

But wait there is more, look at all the goodies, I love all of them. I have had a wonderful person spoiling me, she has found such interesting and different gifts which has made the whole SP5 thing a wonderful experience for me, so I thank you so much. Now she also sent a seperate envelope with a note on the outside saying 'only to be opened when you need to know who I am! (no peeking!!)' Are you kidding I am dying to know who this special person is who knows all about me and I know nothing of her SO YES I PEEKED!!!!!!!! and I now know who my SP is and I am going over to her blog right now and start to find out a bit about her.

So a BIG THANKYOU BECKY for being a great secret pal and I know I have made a knitting friend for life.