What I made, by Sharon

 I finished the hat for Leon's set while we were on the first part of our holiday, so Skip took this photo, which I love. The rest of the set I knit over the rest of the holiday. Lots and lots of one by one rib! Because of this I knit the entire set flat. The main detail that I love is that I used a  tubular cast on and cast off . I love the way this looks, like the edge just sort of wraps around. The only issue is that it is mean to be a super stretchy cast on/off and, particularity on the mitts, it really isn't as stretchy as I expected. I've had a couple of people ask me how I did the scarf - it's just intasia. So, I cast on 16 stitches in the main colour, 8 in the Noro (contrast colour) and then 32 using another ball of the main colour. Then I just did one by one rib forever, making sure to wrap the yarn at each colour change. It was simple enough, but I did feel like I spent as much time untangling the yarn as I did knitting. The mitts I also kni...

As promised, here are the photos of my jumper that Skip took when we went away three weeks ago!   The place we were staying backed on to a railyard full of abandoned old railcarriages, which made for a fun place to do a photoshoot. It was really nice having someone who actually enjoys taking photos as my photographer! Regarding the actual jumper- Ysolda's Blank Canvas I'm pretty happy with how it came out. It did not use the kilometer worth of yarn that the pattern said I would, but I absolutely love the way the stripe pattern came out, so that's a win. It fits quite well , and is really comfortable to wear. I'd call this one a success.

The computer should be fixed later this week. It feels very weird for me not to have my projects up to date on Ravelry and I really don't enjoy typing on a touch screen. Anyway this week I’ve been knitting the Baby Girl Fair IsleCardigan . So far I’m not up to the Fair Isle  bit, and it’s a very straightforward knit, although the instructions are somewhat odd, and involve breaking the yarn three times when attaching the sleeves and the body, which seems quite unnecessary. The yarn is Little DipperYarns , and it’s so pretty. I’m reading The Girl on the Train , by Paula Hawkins. It’s a thriller, I guess, a bit like Gone Girl . I’m about half way through and enjoying it. I’m listening to As You Wish, which is Cary Elwes' story about filming The Princess Bride. The book has five star reviews on Audible and it’s about one of my favourite movies, but I’m finding it rather tedious. It’s repetitious and full of humble bragging and how nice everyone was. Whic...

In short, I'm at home (actually I'm at work right now) and I've been knitting. I have been absent from the blog though, because our home computer died last Thursday morning. Theoretically I could blog from my phone or tablet, but I cannot get used to typing on a touch screen. I'm blogging from work, so I'll keep it short. I've almost finished Leon's Winter Set (2015). I used a different cast on and cast off, and I'm loving it - can't wait to show you photos. Also -  I ordered some yarn, for Ursula , which I'm doing as a KAL with Kate. But before that, I'm about top start my baby stalker cardigan !

So today I flew to Mildura, and back. On the plane on the way out I finished T he Quaker Cafe  which I loved. awesome story, nicely narrated. The other day I was basically crying in Journal Cafe  while I was listening to this. I had a little bit of time to read Rachael Heron's Splinters of Light.  I'm loving this, in the sense that it's real, believable and I want to cry all the time. This one should come with a trigger warning.  And all the time I've been knit-knit-knitting away on Leon's winter scarf (2015).That's a great deal of 1x1 rib.  That's me for this week. Makes sure you pop over to Ginny's blog  to see what everyone else is up to this week. 

So, a month ago I told you all how I feel about knitting with alpaca yarn, and how I wasn't going to do it again . And then last week I signed up to Kickstart an alpaca mill. Why? You may well ask. Well, mainly because I believe in onshore processing of Australian fibres. I'd love to see something like this for sheep wool, but that wasn't what was being offered. So, around December I'll be getting six balls of alpaca yarn in three different colours. I foresee Leon's next winter set being in alpaca, either woven or knitted chevron stripes. If you want to know more about this Kickstarter click here. We could do a knitalong!

Note - I wrote this blog post, and then plugged my phone in to get the photos that I took on the trip off, and they have completely vanished. So you'll just have to use your imaginations! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We started our holiday with a weekend in Queenscliffe. We shared a house with some friends, including Skip, who actually likes taking photos ! He's my official photographer, and he took some lovely photos of my latest jumper, and then he did fancy things on his computer to make the light look right, but he hasn't emailed them through yet. But I promise they are lovely. And then we went to Adelaide for the Fringe and saw lots of great shows and did lots of stuff, but I'm only going to tell you about the yarn beast related stories. The hotel we were staying at had this in the foyer: [pretend there is a photo here] It's a sheep's head that ...

We're going on holidays today! I'm pretty excited, we're spending a weekend in Queencliffe for a friend's party, and then off to Adelaide for the Fringe . It means we get to avoid the horrors of the Grand Prix too, which is a bonus. For scale, those are ukuleles, not guitars! But the key question here is what will I be knitting? I've just started Leon's Winter Set (2015) which really should take me through the whole time we are away, but I'm paranoid I will run out and have nothing to knit. Although I will, of course, be visiting Stranded in Oz Mel down at the Port Markets. I am taking my tablet, so theoretically I  might blog while I'm away, but I'm not a big fan of typing on a touch screen, so, if I don't touch base before, I'll see you all in a couple of weeks.

Princess Daisy thinks the best place to sleep is on a plastic bag full of yarn, next to me when I am sitting on the floor knitting. In this case I have just cast on for the hat for Leon's Winter Set (2015). I'm knitting a top down hat with a vertical stripe, hence the decision to knit flat, rather than in the round. I've only just started, I really hope this works. I'm listening to The Quaker Cafe . I'm rather enjoying it, which is a bit of a relief. I abandoned The Paying Guests  . You may recall that last wee k I wasn't sure about it - after a lot more listening I realised that I didn't like any of the characters, and I really didn't care if they went under a bus, so I stopped. I'm reading The Ghost Brigades    by John Scalzi. It's the second in the Old Man's War series, and I really enjoyed the first book, so I imagine this one will be just as good. And that's what I'm listening to. reading and knitting. Pop over to Ginny...

So, we're up to late Sunday afternoon and I haven't knit a stitch all weekend. I have been doing other things including some sewing. a friend of mine had twins, and for the baby shower we sere all sent packets of fabric and requested to make a quilt square.  I ignored the project for quite a while, because designing sewing scares me. But Jen suggested using a buttonhole stitch to seal the edges, so I didn't have to mess about with folding the edges under, and that worked really well.  I (mainly) managed to both cut and sew in straight lines too! I'm really happy with how mine came out. Everyone made really nice squares - I'll have to pop a photo up here once the quilt is all assembled.