Thank You

I am constantly reading of the kindness and generosity of the worldwide knitting community, knitters are indeed a wonderful bunch of people. I have witnessed this first hand this week, through comments left on my blog and many emails received in regards to my son Haydens operation. Wonderful knitting folk whom I may have never met face to face but you are true friends indeed. So a huge big thank you from the bottom of my heart to you all and just to let you know that Hayden is okay, a sore mouth but he is fine. I mean what 11 year old boy wouldn't be when at the moment his diet consists of custard, jelly and icecream. Oh and soup, thanks to his Uncle Ed who has a bit of a reputation in our family for his awesome soup.

Of course I do have something to show for five hours sitting at the hospital on Tuesday. I managed to knit this much of the front of the 60's cabled jumper, and it proved to be a wise choice as there is just enough happening in the pattern to distract my mind off what was happening, well slightly anyway.

Also another act of generosity from Sue in Melbourne, we are now in the process of doing a swap. She is getting some of my stitch markers in return for a set of Pony dpns. The poor postie will be having to make a quick getaway on his bike as this crazy sock knitting woman will be running out to the letterbox, to check for her parcel of prized knitting needles.

So once again, thank you everyone and happy knitting to you all

Anyone Interested In Doing A Swap?

Oh dear another bamboo sock needle bites the dust. I am obviously a very aggressive knitter and my sock needles cop a fair battering it seems. I have tried plastic, they break, steel are too hard on my wrists so I switched to bamboo which are perfect for a while, then they start to bow and then as the photo above shows, they break. I have knitted quite a few socks with these so they have done a pretty good job.


Then I found these, plastic but reinforced with steel for strength, so they would be perfect for my wrists and I wouldn't be able to break them. I contacted the Australian agent for the above sock needles and the size I am after, 2.5mm, aren't stocked by anyone here in Australia or New Zealand. I emailed an on-line store in the US over a week ago and have had no reply, and I also posted on a Needle and Tool swap listing over at Knitters Review Forum with no luck so far.

So now I thought that I would try here and see if anyone can help me out here. If your LYS stocks Pony plastic reinforced with steel dpn sock needles in 15cm length 2.5mm or if you have some in your needle collection that you no longer use, would you be interested in doing a swap with me. Maybe there is something here in Australia you would like. Maybe there is someone here in Australia who has them but no longer use them. If so leave a comment here or you can email me, my email address is in the profile section of my blog. I would love to hear from you if you can help me out and we can have a bit of fun at the same time doing a swap.

Tomorrow Hayden my 11yo is going into hospital for some surgery, he has had extra teeth growing and up until now they have come through normally and have been able to be removed in the dentists chair. This time however this one has decided to lodge its way in amongst the buds of his adult teeth that haven't grown yet (an x-ray revealed all this stuff) so tomorrow it is being removed. Needless to say I am going to be doing a fair bit of waiting at the hospital which of course means a lot of knitting time but at the same time I will be very anxious about my little man until it is all over. So I think that the 60's Cabled Jumper will be perfect for this as there is enough in the pattern to keep my mind busy and hopefully make the time fly by.

Laura mentioned in the previous posts comments about adding her blog button to my sidebar, yes I must admit that I have a few new ones to add and as yet haven't got around to doing so, but I promise I will as soon as I get an afternoon free. I still after all this time hate adding things to my sidebar it makes me go all weak at the knees!!

Toast And Marmalade For Tea

The Opal socks destined for Saturdays market, in a way I hope that they don't sell as I really like this pair. The colours of browns, greens and blues are so me, they would look rather nice on my feet.

Now there are many who think that all I do is knit, especially the kids and Mr Brickie (I've decided that sounds much better than DH which here in Australia has a totally different meaning!!). Now this is simply not true, I have been known to have domestic moments in true Nigella style as this photo proves.

Some freshly made Tangello and Passionfruit marmalade, my whole house smells of citrus, it is lovely. Marmalade on muffins for breakfast tomorrow, yum!!

I visited Sober Knitting and she had a link to this so I am going to do my bit and knit a blue square. I definately take for granted fresh water straight out of the tap as I am sure most of us do.

Betty Boop-oop-a-doop

You are all too clever, how did you guess? Yes I suppose those legs are a bit of a give away. This winter I bought myself some Betty Boop pyjamas which gave me the idea to knit her and sent me on a knitting pattern search. I tried ebay but kept getting outbid, there is only so much I was prepared to pay for the gal. Then one day I went into my very own LYS and was looking through the patterns and would you believe there she was, hiding on the bottom shelf. Now this pattern was designed for jumpers but after being inspired by Cindys Doctor Who zippy uppy cardi, I decided that she belonged on a jacket. The next decision was what colour would I make the jacket, and really there was only one choice, pink. Then what yarn, well Betty herself was easy, I could use leftovers in the stash but for the main part I have chosen Cleckheaton Country Silk.

Intarsia is fiddly but also very addictive, it is so exciting as each row produces a bit more of the picture. The biggest thrill so far has been reaching her lovely sea green eyes, that is when she really came alive. Now I feel like I am on the home stretch as only the top of her head to go and the main part will be finished, then it will just be plain knitting for the remainder of the jacket. It is like doing counted cross stitch really but thankfully a lot faster. What about all the dreaded ends that intarsia produces at the back of the work? Well where possible I have knitted them in as I go but when you are working black and light colours this shows through, so they are all there dangling waiting for me to sew them all in when finished.

Now of course there can only be one winner and as most of you guessed correctly, I thought that the fairest thing to do was to do a draw of all the correct guesses. And the winner is *insert drum roll* Donna and coincidently Donna was also the first to guess correctly as well.

Then as promised I did a draw for everyone who had a guess and the winner is *insert drum roll* Cindy. Congratulations to you both and thanks to everyone for having a bit of fun.

What Is This?

I have been itching to do some Intarsia again, why I do not know because it irks me but hey only a knitter can understand these things. Yes I know I am working on lots of things at the moment but that also is only something that knitters can understand.

What or should I say who is it? Leave a guess and there will be a prize for whoever guesses correctly. I will say that I was inspired by Cindys Doctor Who Zippy Uppy Cardigan, proudly displayed over on her blog. This is the first time that I have ever had a blog competition but I like entering them as they are a lot of fun, so I thought that it was my turn. I will also do a random draw of all guesses, so that everyone has a chance of winning something. This competition will close Tuesday 20th June @ 2pm AEST and is open to everyone, and of course no correspondence will be entered into, he he.

I do hope to finish the 2nd sock this weekend but of course that all depends on what plans the family have in store for me. I am supposed to be going to Poatina today, as Hayden is taking part in a billycart derby, it snows in Poatina, I feel the cold. I really don't want to go, oh the sacrifices we make for our kids. I wonder would he mind if I sit in the car and knit watch!!!

Michelles Socks

Now that the lovely Michelle has received her socks I can post a photo of them. They were my part of the swap I did with Michelle and in return she designed the fabulous template for my new look blog. As she is a pink girl there was no question as to what colour to make them in.


It seems that I can't get enough of socks or sock yarn lately, here is the first of the Opal sock finished. I really do like this one and if they don't sell at the market, I will probably be keeping them for myself.

I have been drooling over Socks That Rock yarn and lamenting the fact that they don't ship outside of the US. Well Cindy has discovered The Knittery and they do some lovely hand dyed yarn, including 4ply sock yarn and they are Australian yippee!!!

Why I Love Long Weekends

Why do I love long weekends, well of course there is an extra sleep in but not that I get any extra sleep because I stay up till all hours telling myself that I can sleep in tomorrow. Which of course I don't end up doing because the whole point to a long weekend is the fact that I get to spend more time knitting. So what does all this mean?

Ta da I have a FO, it was started back in April last year, got shelved and I found it again last week. The main body of the jumper which is knitted in the round was complete but still to be knitted were the sleeves and the fair isle yoke.
It is a size small so I have asked Janelle to model it for me, the pattern is from The Best Of Lopi and the yarn used is Grignasco Tyrol a lovely soft Italian yarn that my LYS stocks or should I say stocked as they told me that when it sells out they aren't going to stock it anymore. I don't know what I am going to do with this yet as it is too small for me and it is not 'Janellish' (a term used for Janelles tastes in everything from clothing to room decorating) so it may end up on the stall at the market but with a price tag of $160 (there is $150 worth of yarn in the thing) that might scare people off, especially here in little old Launceston.

I started another pair of socks, this pair for the market at the end of the month. Once again using Opal and Shazzas Socks pattern I think that I can now do these in my sleep. I quite often read on blogs and forums of knitters who hate plain stocking stitch, I for one still love it and I personally think that most self patterned yarn needs no further stitch enhancing, especially this colourway as there is so much happening with the colours anyway. So as you can see that is why I love long weekends, I can get so much knitting done.

What's So Funny???

According to my children, these are. I bought a delightful old 1960s Villawool pattern book off ebay especially for these slipper/socks, and all the little darlings can do is crack up everytime they look at them. They are knitted with 12ply wool on size 3.75mm needles, much smaller than would normally be recommended, but the result is a nice firm fabric. I am yet to knit its mate as maybe I am the only one who can't see what a joke they are, so tell me what do you think? Be honest, I can take it. Believe me over the last few days I have heard it all, kids are so cruel honest!!

About this time last year I started a fair isle jumper for my SIL, anyway to cut a long story short and to prevent myself venting about it again, lets just say that the project got shelved. I rediscovered it this morning and thought it was just way too nice to be sitting 1/2 finished in the bottom of my wardrobe, so I have started working on it again. What I will do with it when finished, who knows, I may even keep it for myself. This weekend is a long weekend due to the Queen of Englands birthday, this may seem strange to many but she is the head honcho of our country. Whatever your beliefs on the monarchy are, if it gives me an extra day this weekend, I for one will take it and spend it knitting what else!!

More Stash

My friend Vicki called in on Monday and left me with all of this as she no longer has the time to knit. Obviously there is way too much here for me and as there is baby wool and cotton amongst it, neither of which I normally knit with, I intend to share it.

I have now sorted through it all and decided what I am going to keep and the rest I am taking along to SnB on Tuesday and they can have fun choosing what to add to their stashes. I have already put the light mauve on the left, aside for Katt a nice 4ply pure wool. Thanks Vicki, I know she reads my blog, and be assured your stash is going to very good yarn loving homes.

I am currently knitting for the market which is held on the last Saturday of the month in Yorktown Square, I have completed some Muse Hats out of Patons Jet, which is a lovely soft 12ply yarn consisting of 70% wool and 30% alpaca. I am yet to cast on for the Opal socks, but that will happen over the next few days, for the time being I am going to knit a couple of Pantas and see how they go.

This photo was taken at about 8.30 this morning, just to prove to the rest of Australia that we do actually get sun down here!! Oh okay so it is only 1 degree, but at least the sun is shining.

It is school holidays here in Tasmania so my house looks like a bomb site, sounds like an amusement parlour and my cupboards and fridge are bare, but there is an upside to all this, they are actually letting me knit!!! The little darlings :)

My Labour Of Love

There was a time when I would knit and sew the majority of my childrens clothes, that was until they discovered Billabong, Roxy and in my boys case Pumpkin Patch. Then Mums creations suddenly weren't as cool anymore. So when Janelle found a jumper that she liked in Creative Knitting, I didn't hesitate in offering to knit it for her. I suppose there is a part of me that still likes to create garments for my children, other than hats, socks and beanies which are obviously still cool enough to be accepted. So without further ado I introduce Janelles Lacy Jumper.

Yes this one was definately a labour of love as I don't know if I would ever knit it again. Now that sounds as if I hated knitting it, which I didn't, I actually enjoyed knitting it. Until I reached the dreaded shaping and then it was a bit of a nightmare. I know I have this love/hate relationship with lace but this one really tested my loving side to the limit. When there is a note at the start of the pattern warning the knitter to take extra care during the shaping, that should have made me think twice but oh no all I thought was how hard could it possibly be????? Well anyway it is finished and Janelle loves it so all the muttering and mumbling and swearing off lace knitting forever was worth every hour put into it.

If you would like to give it a go it is in the Australian Creative Knitting magazine issue 11. It is also available in Patons book #1230 Resort Knits. It is knitted in Patons Zhivago which is 50% tencel and 50% acrylic.