What I made, by Sharon

Or maybe it's a five part series. I can't keep up with my own purchases!  I've been rather bored at work, as as usual, I'm dealing with it by shopping on the internet. I have shown some self control, in that I haven't bought any yarn, but I've bought lots of things that go with yarn. The first to arrive is some ribbon, possibly for the button bands on my Epistrophy cardigan. I think the music notes on the bottom really fit the music theme of the cardigan. I just liked the stars, and I'm a sucker for combining postage.

I had an hour to kill between work and needing to be anywhere yesterday, so I sat by the river and worked on my Kokkeluri mitten.I'm finally getting into the flow of it. I'm listening to Oprah Winfey's What I know for Sure . It's a rather rambling collection of thoughts, but it's read wonderfully by Oprah herself, and I needed an inspirational pick me up. I'm reading Valley of the Dolls. It's a trashy, pretty terrible book. It's worth clicking through to the Goodreads   link, because the reviews are hilarious. And that's me for another week in the sunshine. Click through to Ginny's blog to see what she and the rest of the yarnalong are up to this week.    

I had a fabulous weekend. The weather is starting to warm up and Leon and I took a Kayaking course. We went out on Port Phillip Bay, and kayaked down the river through the Docklands and it was magnificent. I didn't have my camera with me, because I didn't want it getting wet, so this is the only photo I took: I didn't get much knitting done on the next Kate Davies Seven Skeins Club Pattern. I'm choosing to do the Kokkelur i mittens. I cast on on Friday night, and messed up the vikkel braid twice. Then I finally cast on successfully on Saturday. I hadn't had a chance to print out the pattern, and was fining it horrible working the chart on my tablet, so i put it aside for the rest of the weekend.This is all I got done: Instead of knitting the mittens, I finished the body of Epistrophy . I was a bit surprised it knit up so fast, since I'm spending most of my time on the Seven Skein Club. Right, now I'm off to get really stuck into those mittens.

I decided to knit the stripped version of the seven skeins club house socks. I wanted to be able to wear them in sneakers, because I love the way they don't fall down at the ankle and the clever heel construction. I had to make a couple of changes to the pattern, but I think they keep the spirit of the original. I cast on in left over sock weight yarn, using 64 stitches and 2.25 mm needles. I knit the toes and the foot as the pattern suggested, and then did the heel in stocking stitch. I knit two together at the centre point of the heel for a few row, to try to reduce the pointy heel situation Generally I am very happy with them. It is a fun, simple way to make sneaker liners, and I was excited to make two patterns for the first week of the Seven Skeins Club. I am very much looking forward to what comes next in this adventure.

I'm so excited that it is getting warmer here, and I can sit on my balcony and knit, read and listen to books. This week I am knitting striped Baffies , to go with the stranded ones I knit at the beginning of the week. They are from Kate Davies Seven Skeins Club , and I cannot express how much fun I am having knitting them.  I am reading Daryl Gregory's Afterparty    and loving it. I want to keep reading all the time to find out what happens, but I also don't want this book to end. I've had a few books in a row that I have really enjoyed, and this is definitely one of them. As for the audiobooks I gave up on  Guns Germ and Steel   three hours in. I was really uncomfortable that he kept referring to native Americans as Indians, and then he tried to answer the question "why were people hunter gatherers after farming had been invented".  That's like me asking "since I love my e-reader, why are people sti...

As promised, the first pattern for the Seven Skeins Club arrived on Friday night. I was stoked to see that Kate Davies had sent us a pattern for sneaker liners .  She thinks these are house socks, but i know the squishy goodness is going to be so comfortable in my bike shoes. They have a really interesting construction, and knit up ridiculously quickly.  The club actually included two separate patterns, one for  colourwork socks, which i chose to make in the same colours and yarn and the club yarn. But there is also another pattern included, for two colour ones with stripes rather than colourwork. It wouldn't be difficult to do the maths and knit these with regular sock wool... watch this space.

I had such a lovely day today. First I went to Isabella's birthday party (the family one, not the one full of children) where I gave her  the Mimi Man u. It fits and it suits and we are both very happy: Then I did some other things that were great, but not related to the fibre arts, so I won't tell you about them yet  -although it was related to reducing my hand pain and numbness, so if it works I'll tell you about it. Then I went to Anna's and finally finished t he coat for Sunny . It was too small to begin with, but since they got her Sunny has filled out. She's such a beautiful, placid sweetheart of a dog. And that was my day. two finished objects, gifted and off to fulfil their destinies on the world. Here's a final picture of Sunny, and a link i n case you want to adopt a greyhound, because they are the best dogs, and I was so lucky to be able to smooth that face today.

My yarn for the Seven Skeins Club arrived today! It's lovely. Sheepy but still soft, with lovely colours and a glorious smell/ And here it is: This is the before photo. Now, in eight weeks, I will (all things going to plan) have an after photo, with seven finished objects and a whole lot less unknit yarn. 

I've finished both the sleeves of Epistrophy , and what you can see here is the cast on for the body. I haven't even knit the first round of the body, but I will tell you, based on the sleeves, that I am loving the White Gum Wool . Knowing it's local and organic just makes the whole thing sweeter. I'm reading Chris Cleve's The Other Hand . I don't remember who recommended it, but i found it in my wish list and it's brilliant. I'm just wrapped up in the characters, and hoping that everything works out, but knowing it might not. I'm nearly finished, and I don't want it to end. And I just started listening to Guns Germ and Steel by Jared Diamond. I've only just started, and so far I am not a fan, because while arguing that he is not making cultural assumptions about what is better he makes a load of cultural assumptions about intelligence. Anyway, hopefully it will grow on me. Click over to  Ginny's blog to see what she, and the r...

I thought I would kick the Kate Davies madness off by knitting the little tea cosy I'm basing on Kate Davies'  Sheep Heid.  The first time I cast on (after I remembered how to do two coloured ribbing) I calculated the numbers for the bottom of the cosy correctly, but realised it wouldn't stretch over the handle to go on.    The second time I got those numbers right but, when I went to knit the first patterned row I realised that I had the right number of stitches to do seven repeats of the pattern, but that would mean that one of the sheep would be partly on the left of the spout, and partly on the right. That's not nice either. Now, I can do more maths and change the numbers, either up or down. I can split two of the sheep evenly, one on the spout side and one on the handle side. What I actually did though, was go back to Epistrophy , the Kate Davies cardigan that is fully and thoroughly designed by someone else, no thought, decis...

After I finished Mini Manu (pictures to follow) I couldn't work out what to knit next. Starting on the 16th of October, as part of her yarn club I'm going to be getting a small Kate Davies pattern every Friday for seven weeks! I have decided to knit them as they come and to knit each one, no matter what. But it's ten days until those patterns start arriving, and they won't be enough to keep me knitting for a whole week. So I decided to cast on Epistrophy by (obviously) Kate Davies. I'm going to knit this in the background, and stop and knit the club pattern as they come. So now it really is all Kate Davies, all the time!

I'm not sure that noting that this week has been about knitting Kate Davies patterns is particularly noteworthy, since it's all Kate Davies all the time around here. I'm still knitting Mini Manu . I'm so close to being finished though. One pocket, and kitchenering the underarms, and then I am done. I just finished reading Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love . Nancy Mitford was, rather surprisingly, namechecked in last weeks book , the military science fiction book The End Of All Things, so I looked her up and wondered why I have never read any of her books. The best way to buy it on Kindle was the collected works and I loved The Pursuit of Love so I expect I'll be reading loads more of her books soon.  And I'm still listening to The Hare with the Amber Eyes .It's quite pleasant, but at the moment I'm not sure where it is really going, if anywhere. Click over to  Ginny's blog to see what she, and the rest of the yarnalong are knit...

Because of the brand new Grand Final public holiday  we went camping at Wilson's Promontory.   I haven';t been there for at least ten years, and it was glorious. Good weather, great hiking and trail running and fabulous company. I didn't get all that much knitting done, since at night it was dark we we were watching the stars, and during the day we were doing outdoorsy stuff. I only took one photo all weekend: You can just see my knitting sitting on the chair in the background. With the driving there and back though, I am on the second final stage of my Mini Manu, which is iCord cast off all the way around. I expect we'll be here for a while!

I remembered, while purling back on the long purl rows on the yoke of my mini manu, that I hate purling . Now, this won't be news to anyone who regularly reads my blog, but I had basically forgotten. I looked on Ravelry and discovered I have not knit anything with significant amounts of purling since May. I wasn't deliberately avoiding them, it just happened that way.  My hands are largely pain free these days, but I avoid 1 x1 cables, and purling doesn't make them feel better. And it's so slow. So when I heard about Portugese knitting I decided to buy the Craftsy class and learn it. Now I just need to take the time to do the class and learn the skills!