Long Weekend

The June long weekend is upon us and we are set to go to Balingup! It should be a beautiful time down there with the cold misty mornings and hopefully a bit of sunshine. We stay at my parent's place. It is so much fun just going around their property and doing little visits down to the village. Two of my favourite places are the French bakery run by Roslyn and Jean-Marie and the Village Pedlars, which is a true collective of handmade crafty items made by the locals. I love the aprons, quilts and various knits I find there.

So, we come to the tricky moment. As you may already know, I don't find packing for myself or the boys particularly onerous but the packing of my knitting....well that takes twice as long as my clothes. This time around it should be fairly simple. I'm taking my DROPS cardigan which is now very close to 80cm.....almost to the second armhole! I'm also taking the little cardigan I'm making for my sister-in-law's soon to be born little mystery. I'm itching to start on something else ....another cardigan for a little girl or baby perhaps. I've been dreaming of a little lacy pink baby cardigan....I think this will be the element that will wait until the last minute for the final decision!

My new Serenade wool also arrived yesterday (it's a beautiful 80% merino, 20% bamboo from Bendigo Woollen Mills just released). I've earmarked it for another cardigan for myself - the Moch Cardi by Gudrun Johnston (The Shetland Trader). It incorporates my favourite fishtail lace pattern and is the perfect long sleeve flattering shape. I 've really been looking for a bright, reddish cardigan and the combination of the pattern and the Hibiscus colour should work well.

 The picture below shows the yarns I've been obsessed with lately -  the new Serenade Hibiscus (4 round balls), along with the Frog Tree Pediboo Yarn and the Bilby Yarn 4 ply at the bottom. Notice anything about them?

It only dawned on me today that they're all in really similar shades!! I'll have to get this out of my system soon and a three hour drive may be just the place to work it through.....just kidding, need to get on to those baby clothes!

Beating the Winter Blues

There are hundreds of reasons why people knit and why the pleasure of this simple craft sustains many throughout their lives. I love knitting for lots of reasons such as its calming influence, the creative aspect and the joy of sharing knitted gifts with loved ones.

I discovered another key reason only the last year -  it really helps keep the winter blues to a minimum. From adolescence I've noticed that my mood was always distinctly darker during the winter months, very much determined by the amount of sunshine around. While in Australia this is slightly less of a problem, I have found difficult at times to motivate myself in winter.

However, since I've been knitting the winter blues have been kept to a minimum.  If they do surface, the knowledge that I have a little knitted something on the go with the promise of many little treats for others and myself is enough to keep me bubbling along. If a little extra oomph is needed, well visiting my local yarn store usually does the trick!

Baby Cardigan Has Been Cast On!

Half Way...Yippee!

Phew, what a week! Busy with work but plenty of fun times as well. The garden is starting to take shape - we've planted a few more vegetables and are also growing some flowers from seed for the boys' own gardens. We also spent today baking  so apple rhubarb crumble and chocolate banana bread were made with the boys. Time now to pause, take a deep breath and relax with my lovely husband!

In knitting terms, this week had to be kept simple despite the looming deadline for the baby blanket and baby cardigan. Now that I've been telling myself to abandon the DROPS cardigan for a little while to start on the baby things....well, wouldn't you know it, I've become obsessed with the cardigan!

Here it is in its present state - all glorious 72 cm of it! Thirteen more centimetres before the next armhole is shaped and I am now officially half way.

Oh go on, tonight will be another night for the cardigan....Monday I'll take up the baby blanket again...

Perth Craft and Quilt Fair: Review from Knitter's Perspective

I made it today to the Perth Craft and Quilt Fair and what an adventure it was! Little B, my three year old little boy, and I did the trek to the Perth Convention Centre in the bus - as Little B is very fond of buses. It was a very packed out even even for a Thursday morning and the first impression was of lots of colour, fabric and glitter.

There were all kinds of crafts represented with the main focus being on needle/stitch-based crafts such as quilting, sewing and embroidery with a good smattering of beads. If you are a multi-faceted crafter this is the place for you - lots of different crafts to try and buy. If you are purely into knitting or crochet, the pickings are quite slim. Of the five yarn stores, there were four yarn stores of interest:

a) Woolly Lattes - Always one of my favourites! They had a selection of interesting yarns on sale (like Vienna by Naturally Yarns) and their staff were really friendly and happy to chat despite being very busy.

Naturally Vienna Yarn in Purple from Woolly Latte

b) Dairing - One of two really interesting yarn places. It had a selection of very different yarns including a stainless steel based one (I'd only read about it in the Yarn Harlot). They also have a range of ultra-modern, deconstructed-type designs that are also interesting. Very daring!

c) Prudence Mapstone - This was my favourite yarn store of the day. Prudence had a great range of yarn (not your usual varieties) at very reasonable prices. She also has a very interesting freeform-based knitting and does knitting workshops! Unfortunately given Little B's attention span was waning, I didn't get to explore much of it but will be looking up her website. This is the lovely rasberry coloured Frog Tree Pediboo Sock Yarn I bought from her.

Frog Tree Pediboo Sock Yarn from Prudence Mapstone

d) Jenny King Design - Jenny King was running crochet workshops and had also an interesting range of yarns including recycled sari silk and the Lotus Yarn range, which is a new yarn from China. This yarn has some beautiful colours and a soft texture, although a little more expensive . So if you're interested in crochet, this is the place to go to.

What else did we do apart from shopping and morning tea? Well Little B and I made some cards/tags with Sonia Thompson. I don't think this was meant as an activity for little kids but to Sonia's credit - she didn't bat an eyelid and she taught us both. I think the end result didn't turn out too badly! (I'm still not really sure what you're meant to do with them but they are very decorative).

 

There were workshops you could attend but none that really suited me or my little boy. No knitting workshops but I think there was one crochet workshop.

Would I go again? Well, if I went with other crafty girlfriends then probably yes as you would get enthused about heaps of things outside your own particular area of interest. Probably not for the yarn/knitting unless there is more next year.  Not sure if next year Little B will be as patient!

Time to Get Cracking!

So I've been patiently plugging away at my DROPS cardigan and have now completed a total of 50cm with another 75cm to go, despite my mind being filled with a variety of other exciting projects.

However, my one track-minded attention to the cardigan will need to give way to the needs of another. We're about a month away from having a new little niece or nephew and I seriously need to get cracking on the presents I would like to give to this little baby. The snail baby blanket is underway (about a third of the way) but needs some serious quality time devoted to it. I've only added two lines since I last showed it to you.

 In addition I'd like to make a little jacket and hat in a similar snail theme. However, I am still deciding what the colour might be.  I was originally thinking of having leaf green with perhaps a brown edge but I'm thinking of perhaps varying the colour to a crimson.

In case you're wondering the crimson 4ply is from Bilby Yarns and the brown alternative is a Bendigo Luxury 4ply (in Koala brown). The colour of the Koala Brown is a little darker than shown in this picture - more of a mid-brown colour.

The question to ask is whether the crimson would also suit a boy? Hmmmm....the jury is still out on which way to lean. Please feel free to leave a comment if you have a suggestion...

Persistence

We've just come back from the Defence Airshow at Pearse Air Base. It was a great day - over 25 degrees, beautiful sunshine and lots of planes to see. The boys were very impressed by the Super Hornets.Now everyone is very tired. It was a very long day and a lot of walking for little legs, which needed to be sustained by an amazing array of food!

On the way to the air base I was doing my first armhole for the DROPS lace cardigan I'm making with the Linbel wool (now discontinued) from my French aunt's stash. It is a real test of persistence, hence the name of today's blog. I think I discovered the black hole of knitting that Stephanie Pearl-McPhee talks about....you knit and knit and knit and yet the piece doesn't seem to grow any longer - even when you've spent hours on it and therefore should logically have grown. It has taken me absolutely ages to get to the 37cm required to start the first armhole construction.

This is an interesting construction as it is essentially a rectangle with two holes in it for the arms and is worked as one large piece. Therefore, while this is a wonderfully easy knit, it requires real patience to endure the rows required.

I have also been battling my yarn a little - Linbel by Phildar (a cotton/linen/acrylic blend) which has a beautiful four tone natural shade. After having problems of entanglement and huge messy knots in my second and third balls, I've now decided to unwind and remake all the balls into tighter, tangle free balls. Hopefully this should speed up the process and also reduce the Grrrrr....factor. Onwards and upwards I say! Even if nothing else comes of it, I'm doing my bit to show my eldest boy persistence in action (the life skill he is learning about at school at the moment)!

My version of Keira's Cardi

As promised last night, here's my little finished cardigan based on the Keira's Cardi pattern from the Blue Box in Busselton. It's made in Bendigo Woollen Mills Spring Cotton 8ply in the Spring Rose colour. A really enjoyable, fast knit!