What I made, by Sharon

Or at least I've got my knitting packed, and that's the important thing, right?  So, we're heading for the airport today. I get quite tense before trips, I worry about the cats - who are being cared for in my house by my marvelous brother in law. I worry about all sort of irrational things that i started listing here, but it just made me look crazy, so I deleted the list.  I worry about running out of knitting. Of all the things  the one I can control is not running out of knitting. I'm still debating chucking in yarn for another shawl... I'll be off line while I'm away - no blogging, tweeting or even a phone. I like to travel like its 1990! Have a great time, and I'll tell you everything when I get back. 

If possible, I like to finish whatever I'm working on before I go on holidays, and start a new project on the way the the airport. I finished the knitting of Angostura on Thursday, and decided that, with five days to go, the best thing to knit would be a pair of sneaker liners. I wanted to use the three colours of yarn that I used for my Follow your Arrow shawls. Originally I was going to do some fancy colourwork, but I started it and struggled with the colourwork and ripped it. Instead I used the Fish Lips Kiss Heel again. They came out OK. I was planning to rest my hands tonight, but instead I think I'll do a couple of squares on the old sock yarn blanket .

I finished my Angostura, and on Sunday Leon and I went off to Two Row in Smith Street to have a couple of beers and take photos. The light and pretty bar turned out to be the perfect backdrop for the photos, and upstairs there are couches, great lighting and cushions made by Kate . Sunday afternoon knitting session, anyone?  Despite how I felt while knitting some of this, I am very happy with the way it came out. The detailing is wonderful, the possum yarn is incredibly warm and I think I'll get a lot of wear out of it this winter.

I'm going on holidays next week I started leave this afternoon and I have five weeks off. I'm very excited! Leon and I are heading off to Israel for pesach. We're going with Elise , her brothers and their partners and her dad and the whole family. Seven of us rented a flat together for the first week. After that we are all going our separate ways, Leon and I are heading to Jordan and then back to Israel. All up we will be away for exactly a month.   And the biggest question, when planning a whole month away is - what should I knit? I've had a number of thoughts, but my most recent (although not at all final) decision is that I will knit a shawls for Elise - Brickless , by Martina Behm, and a shawl for Rachey - Miss Winkle also by Martina Behm. These should be interesting enough, but I should be able to knit them while travelling, or tired or drunk. I'm also taking yarn for two pairs of socks for Leon. I think I'll make Milo by Cookie A, b...

This week I'm still knitting Ysolda's Angastora Vest, and I'm still annoyed about the way the pattern is written. The vest itself is lovely, but there have been a couple of times when I just could not understand what the pattern was asking me to do, and times when Ysolda has just not obeyed pattern writing conventions, which has made life confusing. On one row the patterns say to "knit all stitches" when the picture looks like it's in the rib. There is a 19 row chart which has 13 charted stitches, but I'm knitting 16 stitches and it says to maintin the three border stitches on each side. It just doesn't add up. I shouldn't be guessing. If I wanted to make up the pattern myself I could have just looked at the picture and hoped, which is basically what I am doing now anyway.Don't get me wrong, I'm loving the project, it's just I expect more of Ysolda. Anyway, I'm up to the second part of the front, so I'll be done in a c...