What I made, by Sharon

And here we are again, the last Wednesday (and the last day) of another month. A couple of weeks ago I was at a work conference, where I bumped in to an acquaintance, someone who used to be close friends with Leon, but went back to Ballarat when he had his first child. Somewhere in the conversation he mentioned that his wife had convinced him to have another child…and that it turned out to be twins! They were born last week, and I’m pumping out a couple of Baby Surprise Jackets. The first one is made from part balls of socks yarn – the self striping was given to me by Kris, and the plain blue by Katherine. I love these little jumpers, they are so fun to knit, and look amazing no matter what arrangement of stripes I choose. I’m reading the 4th Jackson Brodie novel, by Kate Atkinson Started Early Took My Dog . I just love the way she ties everything from all the books together. This one was given to me in exchange for a review from NetGalley (for reasons I will never be able to ...

At the Bendigo show I was eating from a bag of mini-doughnuts and walking past someone selling mattresses. I exclaimed loudly " I might dye it myself. I'm good at dyeing." The mattress guy said "dieing? That's quite a skill". I gave him a doughnut and went on my way. The very next stall I went in to was Bellevue Park Wool . Single source Australian wool? Ten ply hanks for Chuck? Yes please. The only thing is I didn't love the hand-dye job, and the undyed hanks were 10 dollars cheaper. So I bought the undyded, and scuttled over to the Handweavers stall, where they sell the dyes I use. I dyed up all four hanks yesterday. I don't think I've ever dyed a jumper's worth in my little dye pot. I normally wrap my skeins or put them in a zip lock, because I'm pretty sure my op-shop bought dye pot in aluminium. I started this wrapped in glad-wrap, but it escaped. I'm really happy with how they came out. the one below is the most varieg...

There is not a lot to say about this project. Rachey asked fort a pink hat, because she had lost the hat she wears to walk the dogs. Rachey is very knitworthy, the shawl around her neck is the Endless Rainbow I knit for her two years ago, and she's been wearing it constantly.  I went in to Morris and Sons (an actual real life yarn shop 10 minutes walk from where I work) I chose this stunning pink yarn, cast on and two days later - viola a hat. This is the second Lutu hat I've made, and I'm really happy with it. It's suits, it fits, it's done and the recipient seems very happy with it. I just love this photo. The smiles on Rachey and Kris' faces, the shawls, the knitting, the pub's wallpaper, my knitting and knitworthy friends. 

I'm really enjoying joining in with Kat on these posts, it feels like a chance to just chat about what is going on in my week. I've put away all the yarn I bought, and am now playing with it in my head. I think I messed up my yarn amounts for Waiting for Rain , and I want to get the dying done for Chuck sweater .  I bought inners for the cushion covers I bought at the show, and now I have sheep pillows on my couch. This delights me.  I finished Dottir and ended up loving it. If you are a Crossfitter, or know anything about Crossfit this memoir is worth checking out. Now I'm reading Amor Towles'  Rules of Civility . It is nothing like A Gentleman in Moscow . If I have to compare it to something it would be Elizabeth Gilbert's City of Girls although I am enjoying my current read more. I'm knitting away on my Suburban Scarf , the knitting itself is going fine, but if I was following the pattern, this would be the final set of stripes, and then a few...

And what a weekend it was. I caught the train up on the Friday night, and Suzanne hosted the Richmond Knitters for cheese, knitting and pizza.  The house that Kris organised for us was adorable, and it had a deck. After we were exhausted from sopping and seeing sheep we actually got to sit on the deck in the sun and knit and relax before dinner. I am very pleased with my purchases. Pretty close to my list , with a heavy emphasis on Australian yarn (a lot of which is milled in New Zealand, but that's a blog post for another time). I bought a  jumpers worth of 'Field of Dreams" for Leon, which is a Polworth, Suri and linen mix, milled in Australia. A  jumpers worth of teal Millpost Merino , I love this colour so much, and will (probably)  make a Kildarton : A jumpers worth of Bellevue Park merino 10ply for Chuck   (undyed, and I bought the dye to make it the colour I want)  As planned, some Dyed by Hand   in smooth a...

I like to check in with my stash before Bendigo, just to be sure I', aware of, and greatful for what I already have. Pointless photo, because everything is in bags, but the Stash Box is half empty. More meaningful is my Rav stash page: Yep, 29 entries, I'm pretty pleased with it. And meterage count, is 9397 meters which is the least I've had since I started counting! This excludes Left Over Sock Yarn, since I have no idea how much of it I currently have. I don't have much of a shopping list for Bendigo, which doesn't mean I won't do a lot of shopping! I want some yarn for Waiting for Rain, probably including some Fluff from Purl Box, a jumpers worth for Leon and maybe a dress worth for me. I'd rather not buy sock yarn, I have plenty and I'd love to dye more. Mainly I'm looking forward to hanging out with the Richmond Knitters and seeing some sheep. I'll be back on Sunday with an update from my favourite weekend of the year.

Last week I misnamed my post "untangled Wednesday" and I do rather like the idea of untangling my week, rather than my week unravelling. Unravelled Wednesday is hosted by Kat, over at As Kat Knits .  This has been a good week. I'm finally knitting a substantial project: Joji's Suburban wrap . it's a fun knit, with a bit of lace, and some stripes, then eyelets and a "texture" section, so it's always fun immediately and then it changes to something else equally fun. I also finally got the buttons on to my Gidday Baby cardigan , and washed it. I also took new photos of it and the booties, although it's a bit big on this teddy. I was racing what light there is to get these photos.  I got everything updated on my Ravelry project page . I was a few weeks behind, and I find it tricky when I'm knitting lots of little things, trying to keep track of dates and yarn amounts. I'm pedantic when it comes to tracking my projects and stash, s...

I finished my Soldonta crop last Sunday, blocked it and sewed in the (many, many) ends. I was worried about wearing it, because it's a very strange style, but Rachel put up a post on how to style these kind of garments. Basically over a dress:  Or over high pants. I actually did two photo shoots, because I wanted to show it both ways. I like it better over the trousers.  I love these trousers, but have had a lot of trouble styling them, since the waist is so high, and the bow makes anything over it look odd. I love the colours that Sonia picked for me. It's a mix of Pear Tree, Jo Sharp and Little Dipper yarns, and I just think it's delightful. It was such a quick knit (5 days!) and only weighs less than 200 grams, so probably less work than the average pair of socks. I'm so looking forward to wearing it at Bendigo with my other Soldonta friends!   

I decided I HAVE to knit Joji Locatelli’s suburban wrap, and it HAS to use this beautiful lilac alpaca that Katie gave me. Since it’s a three colour shawl, I was excited to be able to use the light green sparkle yarn I won in the Richmond Knitters sOctober 'how many socks can you knit" competition last year .. The third colour needed to be dark, and I have a couple of colours in stash that would work well, like a very normal Bendigo Woolen Mills grey. Yes, that would work, but it’s so dull, and I’ve got it (and about 7 other balls) earmarked for socks for Leon. I also had this, which Kris destashed my way a couple of weeks ago:  Which was very, very bright. I thought it would be fun to overdye it. I wanted it dark, but with a bit of liveliness to it, and preferably not brown, so I threw it on a dye bath with navy:  I'm really happy with how it came out, it's got depth and nuance and lots of different colours in there, and it's nice and dark and will look p...

My brother in law Keiran sent me a desperate message on Friday. His mitts were broken and they are unfixable. He also sent me a photo. It looked as if he has worn through the cast off edge, and they are starting to disintegrate from there. I found the leftovers of the original yarn in my stash box and repaired them. Still, I made them in 2016, he's worn them pretty constantly and I figured he deserves new ones. I got him to try on my Tough and Toasty mitts, and they were good on him. I pulled out a leftover 33 grams (85 meters) of Woobu from the stash box. the pattern should take 75 meters, so I decided this game of yarn chicken was worth it. And it was, except when I finished them I had plenty of yarn left over, and they were rather small.  Left one reknit bigger, right one in the original size Also, while I was trying them on to check the size I realised I had made the second mitt wrong: sometimes Knit Night is not the most productive! Since I had to reknit the to...

Good morning. I'm publishing this on Tuesday, because I really love taking part in Untangled Wednesday but this week my blogging schedule works better this way. it's all the same in the end, since, like last week , the week before and the week before that - I'm in between projects. Since last week I finished the baby booties, and started and finished a Soldonta Crop, which is currently drying after it's bath. I do still have to put the ends in as well. Today I am knitting blanket squares again. I am about to start a hat for Rachey - she lost her commercial one and asked for a pink slouch beanie. She was all apologetic about it, because she couldn't find what she wanted in the shops. NO, just ask me. I love knitting for me friends, and Rachey is totally knitworthy. Anyway, I bought this stunning pink Manos yarn, and am really looking forward to knitting it up. I've worked hard over the last couple of years to get my stash down, but it's only now th...

This weekend I went to the Yarra Valley with my school friends. My friend Stella married Benjie (who I used to date in my very early 20s). His parents own a vineyard. We used to go down there and hang out, drink beer and wine, walk around the lake and talk crap. Now we're in our early forties, and we hung out, drank wine, walked around the lake and talked crap. There was more talk about children, and more knitting, but other than that, it felt very familiar and lovely..   I worked away on my Soldonta cro p. The colours Sonia chose for me have turned out very well, although both the pale pink and pale green turned into yarn chicken, I won both rounds. Everyone says this knits up very fast, and I guess that's because it's fairly cropped. I'm planning to make it just hit the narrowest part of my stomach, so a few repeats to go. honestly, it doesn't feel that fast - but also, I cast on on Wednesday and now it's Sunday afternoon, so it's certainly not s...

This month I knitted one pair of adorable baby booties , which sort of count as socks, right? Aren't they cute? They were really easy, and I adore the way they match the baby jump er (I still haven't had time to block it or sew the buttons on).  This month I also dyed some sock yarn, but have not had a chance to knit it. I had a little lull in "things I urgently want to knit" but that has gone now, and I want to knit ALL THE THINGS, which, for me, tends to keep the sock knitting a little quieter, especially in winter, when I want to knit ALL THE WARM THINGS. I think, by next months "Once Upon a Sock" I will probably have a pair of socks on the needles, but no guarantees! I'm joining in with "Once Upon a Sock" a monthly link party where we talk about our sock knitting. Come check it out here .

Ah Wednesday, you come around so fast. I feel like every Unravelled and Yarnalong since I finished The Dress , I’ve said ‘I’ve just finished something small, and I’m about to start something else small, but I’ve been working on my Blankie ”, and this week was almost like that. I’ve almost finished a pair of baby booties, which I will photograph properly  and talk about on Thursday for Once Upon a Sock. I was going to knit something small next, because I really didn’t have any major knitting plans (except the blanket, the endless blanket) BUT. Sonia of Richmond Knitters fame is knitting a Soldotna Crop to wear to Bendigo. At least two of the other knitters are as well. I was joking that I would knit one, but I don’t have the yarn. Sonia decided she wouldn’t let that stop me, and said she would find some yarn for me in her stash. At this point I thought we were joking, but no. On the weekend I got a text from her with some stunning yarn selections. I didn’t go to Knit Night...