What I made, by Sharon

Many of my sneaker liners have been striped. this is partly because I like stripes, but mainly because it takes me about 40 grams of yarn to make a pair of sneaker liners, and I have lots of left over balls of 30 grams. So, I took my only plain white yarn from the stash, put it in two skeins and  died them different colours. I haven't dyed since April last year , and, as usual I took a slightly slap dash approach. till the results are goos. I love the shade this came out, although wheat you can't see in this picture is that there was some dye transference, and bits of it have purple flecks. I know what I did wrong, so if I do dye again, I can avoid this. I'm also quite happy with the purple, although I thought it was going to come out a lot lighter. Unfortunately, when I was reskeining  the yarn prioir to dyeing it, it got a bit tangled. Now I'm going to have to sit down and ball it up, very, very carefully. Overall though, I'm happy with how these came o...

I'm kind of sentimental about the yarn I used for Paperdolls. I decided to knit this pattern because I had yarn in stash for it and it seemed like a fine use for this lovely yarn.  For the body I used left overs from the cone of Jamieson and Smiths I bought for my Ursula Cardigan , which I did as a knitalong with Kate .  You know, Kate who moved back to New Zealand two weeks ago, and I'm still sad about it. That Kate. The blue in the hems was bought by me for for Kate's Ursula, because she though she might run out and I was putting in an order with Jamiesons. When she didn't run out I kept it, because I am so in love with the colour. And the light grey used for the paper dolls themselves? Left overs from Kate's Ursula that she didn't want to ship back to New Zealand. So, the yarn is a bit of a homage to our Ursulas and also to absent friends. Sentimental, I know, but it makes me love this top even more.

I put down my knitting to take this week's Yarnalong photo and Tarragon immediatly came to see what was going on. He flopped down on the couch behind my knitting...  but when he realised I was taking photos he decided that he had to be in them So he was. He's such a supermodel.  This week I'm reading Women in Black by Madeline St John. They have just made a musical of it, so everyone is talking about it, and reading it, and you know how I like to read what everyone else is. I'm enjoying it, it's light and pleasant. I'm still knitting Kate Davies' Paper Dolls. I'm up to the yoke and watching the dolls' legs and bodies appear is so much fin. I've been listening to pod casts because, although the book about ancient Rome did get better, I still don't care. I'm off to Audible to return it and get a book I might actually enjoy listening to. And that's another glorious week of reading and knitting just flying by. Pop ov...

Over the last couple of days I've fallen into one of those moods where I want to plan all the future knitting. Which is funny, because I have (at least) the next three months planned for sure already. I'm spending a lot of time on Ravelry looking at patterns, and at work doing random Google searches, since Ravelry is blocked at work. The result of all this thinking, planning and scheming is: I've requeued Romi Hill's Village Sweater Wrap. I had it in the queue last year  and then decided  it was odd, but I'm getting more and more into making longer and flowing tops, so back into the queue it goes, although I may well modify it quite a bit, because it is quite an odd garment: Image copywrite Romi Hill And I think I solved the problem of the alpaca . Stephen West's Boneyard shawl, knit in some kind of stripe pattern, until I run out of yarn. it should end up quite large, and I can wrap it around me like a blanket - what I intended for my house hap , a BIG...

This week I am reading The Danish Girl , a book about a transgendered person at the beginning of the 20th century. It's quite good, but (at this stage) very gentle. I'm not sure how it will work as a movie. I'm listening to SPQR:A History a Ancient Rome . I decided to listen to it after a recommendation in The Age , but I'm really not sure I care, even if it is well written, and I'm not even convinced of that, as it seems to rattle around in a thousand year time period, telling seemingly unconnected stories. I'm not all that  far into it, so we will see. And, as discussed yesterday , I'm knitting and enjoying Kate Davies' P aper Dolls, despite some challenges I foresee for later in the project . And that's me for this week. Click over to Ginny's Blog to see what she, and the rest of the yarnalong, are up to this week.

Last week I started Kate Davies' Paper Dolls short sleeved jumper. I'm knitting it because I have the yarn in stash ( Jamieson and Smith , love it), it's really cute and well, we all know how obsessed I am with Kate Davies. One of my main concerns is if I'll have enough yarn. I should have 660 yards, and the pattern calls for 600, but that is based on weight, and the yarn is from an oiled cone. I'm sure it will be fine because I'm taking at least an inch off the body. The other issue is that my arms are proportionately bigger than my bust size, and I can't just increase the number of stitches for the little sleeves. I have some thoughts about how to fix this - besides quitting CrossFit and letting my arms whither away! Other than that, the body is knitting up surprisingly fast, given that it is 4ply on 3mm needles. I am, of course, enjoying it. Stocking stitch in the round in Jamieson and Smith yarn? My dreams are coming true.

A couple of weeks ago Kate announced she was returning to her homeland of New Zealand. Now Kate occupies a very special place in my heart, because she is both a knitter and a craft beer person. These both being niche groups, the overlap is quite small. In fact, I think Kate and I might be the only people occupying the crossover point.  In true Richmond Knitters' tradition we are knitting a blanket for her. We all got together for a crafty afternoon last Sunday to knit blanket squares. I also knit this cabled one. While I am obviously sad another friend is moving away, I'm really excited that she is making decisions that support the direction she wants her life to go. Also, that Kate is moving to Wellington, home of Beervana  and Holland Road Yarn Company. Good luck Kate, and I'll see you in August.

I finished my ninth pair of socks from Rachel Coopey's Discworld sock club this week. These are for Leon, and they are called Ook . Named after the Librarian at the Unseen University, the yarn was a perfect match for a sock named for an orangutan. Knit in Cascade Heritage , they were delightful. Portable , fun, easy to memorise, a fabulous yarn and pattern match.    I only have one observation, and its about me as a knitter. For the first sock  (on the right above, on the left below) I picked up the stitches, and they were not very nice. They are structurally sound, but a bit wonky and not nice looking. For the second sock I picked up the stitches and twisted them at the same time, and look how much nicer they are. A neat row of perfect stitches.    And now a final picture of the back of these lovely socks:  

This isn't a very exciting week in my knitting and reading life, everything is just trotting along nicely enough. I'm up to the toe of my Rachel Coopey Ook socks . They've been a really fun, satisfying knit. I'm still listening to Terry Pratchett's    Feet of Clay ,  because I always listen to Discworld audiobooks while knitting Discworld themed socks. I'm reading   Dark Currents  the second book in the Emperor's Edge. It's fine.  A fun, forgettable read. I wasn't sure after I finished the first one if the series is worth continuing, and I'm still not sure. And that's what I've been up to this week. Pop over to Ginny's blog to see what the rest of the yarnalong are knitting and reading this week.

Saturday was Geelong Beer Festival, and by a stroke of good timing I'm knitting a sock .  It was nice to have a small project that actually fits in my handbag, that I can pull out easily on the train, has an easy to memorise repeat and that doesn't need a whole separate bag of its own ! It was a lovely day, not mainly because of the sock - perfect weather, good company and tasty craft beer, but having the perfect project did no harm at all..

I finished Tir Chonail a week and a half ago, but I couldn't blog about it until I had taken photos and these proved difficult to secure. Kate Davies took photos of this as a wrap , but it's not. It's a blanket. Yes, you can wrap it around yourself, but it's still a blanket. I tried to replicate her wrap photos: It wasn't good. I promise I am actually wearing a dress under there. I didn't want to take outside photos, because it's a blanket. Should I wrap it around a tree? Place it on a hedge? (Actually, now I think about it, this would make an amazing picnic blanket) This is my favourite photo, but isn't perfect for showing the actual finished blanket, although it does show how pretty Juniper is: The wrap up of the project is that it was a whole lot of fun to knit. I went down a needle size, and increased it by a repeat in all directions, giving a finished size of 1 meter by 1.07. Instead of doing the steek sandw...

If you are a follower of Ginny, the host of the Yarnalong, you may recall that she read LM Montgomery's "The Blue Castle" last November. It sounded good, so I bought it and am now reading it. It's such a pleasant book, gentle and lovely and just a tiny bit silly. I am knitting a Discworld Sock Club pattern - Ook . Such a fun sock, and I love the colour, for a sock named after the Librarian, who is an orang-utan. I could knit Rachel Coopey socks for the rest of time. To go with it I am listening to the nineteenth Discworld novel, Feet of Clay . So all in all a very satisfying week in my knitting, listening and reading worlds. To see what Ginny and the rest of the yarnalong are reading and knitting this week pop over to her blog .

As promised I decided to knit the H at H eel S ock as part of my sub sneakerliner project playing with different sock construct ions . H ere's my thoughts on this one . I t looks really interesting in a self stripping yarn: There are a lot of edges and picked up stitches in parts of my foot that don't need ridges , an d it will be interesting to see how these wea r. They are qui te skimpy, which is not the pattern's fault, I had only almost just enough yarn and I should have just done the toes in a different colour. I nstead i just knit the ribbing really short. Despite this, they don't dissapear into my shoes, like lots of other socks do. In an exciting ribbing development, I seem to have found a solution to my toe up c ast off problem. after knitting the l ast round o f 1x1 ribbing, I slipped the purl stitches to a separate needle and kit ch enere d them together. Simple and no ru ffling. Now I jst need to work out how to do this on 2x2 rib... ...