What I made, by Sharon

The time that happens in every major project where I'm convinced it is too long, too short, too wide, too narrow, too yellow, too not teal enough, just WRONG.  I cast off the body of Elton last night, and now I think it's too short. I could rip back and add an extra couple of rows. although it has to be 8 rows, because of the pattern. And if it was longer it would be too long. And this is my last chance to decide, because once the button bands are on I'm not ripping. I can't say the idea of taking out the sewn cast off is much fun, but I would do it if it I thought it would help. But it isn't actually too short, although it looks too short off and maybe it's ok. It might be exactly right. I spent about 20 minutes in the bathroom at work taking awkward bathroom selfies and worrying about it. Instead, of ripping I'm going to take deep breaths and remember that actually, cardigans come in lots of lengths, and this one is (probably) just righ...

It's been a bit of a weird week - a marvellous weekend away, and now back to work. I've been a bit all over the place with my reading - I'm still slowly working through The gift Of Pain It's a paper book, so I'm leaving it at work to read at lunch.The problem is I haven't been reading at lunch, I've been obsessively knitting on Elton . I'll probably get the body finished tomorrow. I took this picture on the floor of Lincraft while choosing buttons. Which would you choose?It's an addictive knit. it grows so fast, and the stripes make me feel like I am constantly making progress. I'm not convinced it will be as oversize as the pattern suggests, but I'm going to block it once I finish the body. "Luckily" its going to be 40 degrees on Friday, so it should dry very quickly.  While I've been knitting this, I've been listening to The Widow . I had to stop yesterday with only the final half hour to go, so today I'll ...

We had Monday off for a public holiday, and took the opportunity to go hiking in the Cathedral Ranges , which is near  Marysville , where my parents have a holiday house. They drove us up Friday night and on Saturday morning dropped us off at the beginning of the hike.  It was so great to get out into the countryside. Perfect weather and a challenging hike was so very satisfying.  I took Elton , and got a little bit done (this is me knitting at our lunch stop) but, like long distance running , hiking makes my hands puffy and my mind calm, so it's one of the few times when I'm not driven to knit. Even though you can do the Northern circuit in a day, we chose to camp: a bush camping situation, with no facilities at all. It was so peaceful, and we actually saw lyrebirds.  In all the hiking and camping I've done, I've never seen them in the wild. We also saw frogs and lots of lizards. Mainly little newts, but a few of these bigger ones. If...

I'm linking up with Kat for Unravelled Wednesday, as I generally do on a Wednesday. This post is written in a bit of a hurry and (I shamefacedly admit) from work. This is one of those weeks when I am out every night, except Thursday, and on Thursday we have to pack and prepare because we are going away for the upcoming long weekend, including an overnight hike. I am stoked to be getting out into the bush - fire conditions allowing, of course. Tonight we are seeing Amanda Palmer, which I am also stoked about, although the show is 4 hours long. But I am relived because it is called "There will be no intermission, and apparently there is an intermission. I can't imagine sitting for 4 hours. So, in knitting this week I finished a pair of sneaker liners. I used the Fork In the Road pattern and I love how it looks in self striping yarn. I also took the photos at the gym this morning, in the two minutes I had between taking off my bike shoes and putting on my gym shoes. Ne...

I bought the pattern for the Beeswax Hat during the Indie-designer-Gift-a-Along , and then didn't actually cast it on until two weeks after the GAL finished! I  I cast on and knit the first repeat according to the pattern ... or at least  I thought according the the pattern as I didn't really read it. it's one by one cables, charted, no worries. When I got to the end of the first repeat I took a good look, and realised my right twists and left twists looked very different from each other, to the point where it was distorting the fabric. Then I reviewed the pattern and it turns out that I was doing the left twists wrong. I mean, the designer  has a tutorial  explaining how to do it right. The reason I'm glad I made this mistake now, on this little hat is that I spent this morning "designing" Leon's winter set, which is based around an arrow stitch made of one by one cables. This way I learnt the right way to do them, and only had to rip back 12 rounds...

I love a rant! I just finished Ysolda's wee Envelope . Very cute pattern and it's the third time I've knit it. Oddly, the first time was January 2015, and the second January 2018.  Maybe it's my January baby jumper/ I remembered that the second time I had some trouble at the beginning of the yoke, but I was knitting on the way back from a beer festival , so I thought that might be the issue. it's not. there are two parts of the instruction that don't make a lot of sense. There is a tutorial on Ysolda's website, and when I looked at that both the start and end of the yoke made sense, but I can't understand why the pattern wasn't written to include all the information needed to successfully knit this sweet jumper. And look how sweet it is.  Despite my earlier rant, this is such a cute little jumper, and I think, the only thing (other than the ubiquitous Baby Surprise) that I have knit this often. I'm sure I will be making it again. In f...

I have today off as carers leave for my father (dropping him off and picking him up from a standard surgical procedure) and was going about my day when I realised it was Wednesday. That fact has surprised me three time already today. Strange. Ironing, knitting..my messy day in a photo. And you would think that a bonus day off would be very productive - well, I would think so. And in some ways it has been. I rode to my parents place and picked up the car dropped my dad at the hospital and then went to the supermarket WITH A CAR. Very exciting. There are some things that are not all that convenient on a bicycle, like sacks of flour and large tins of olive oil. I met Elise for coffee.   I did get dinner made, and the ironing done, and a small amount of knitting. I'm knitting "in between" stuff, before I start the Elton Cardigan , so I'm knitting a hat , and then a pair of sneaker liners, and then I'm back to the big stuff. I'm reading Aftershocks b...

It's tough right now. The country is literally on fire, the oceans are full of plastic, our government doesn't seem to care and it's easy to despair. I know we all want to do something, but anything I can do feels so, so tiny. Still a million tiny actions add up, so I try to do what I can, because I can only do what I can. On Saturday I went to the monthly St Kilda beach Beach Patrol cleanup where as a group we picked up 69 kilograms of rubbish.  I'm in pink, on the left. So much rubbish. At least I took some of it out of circulation.   Then in the afternoon I went to Jen's place and learnt to use her knitting machine to make pouches for injured wildlife. I also took my sewing machine and sewed some pouches. I got my annual sewing incident out of the way early!   On Sunday and Monday I crotchetted a set of nests that can be used for orphaned wildlife, from tiny birds to larger creatures. I know, crocheting at the end of last year and at th...

I finished Greis dress on Sunday ... well I say I finished it, but the ends took me hours on Tuesday night. Still, I'm really happy with it, and thrilled that it never had time to get boring. I highly recommend doing a big project like this while on holidays, and having lots of knitting time. I think I might do another dress in the Christmas / New year period next year. I really love it. I only made two changes: 1) I lengthened it. I want to be able to wear it to work without tights underneath, and even at my (short) height, it would have been two short. I blocked it when it was about 5 centimeters short of the 66 I wanted for the body. I grew the extra distance, and ended up the perfect length.The Buachialle yarn also softened and bloomed noticeably on blocking. 2) I knit the smallest size, but went one size up for the sleeves. I could have gone two sizes up. I've got CrossFitters arms! And that was it! I know I've ranted about Kate Davies pattern's i...

Normal, as in I'm back at work and writing an Unravelled post, linking up with Kat . Hopefully Unravelled will continue. Once Upon a Sock has been discontinued, and I'm not sure what happened to the Yarnalong ,but I'm still here, sharing my thoughts, plans and knitting! I finished Greis dress yesterday.  I had done all the knitting by Sunday, but I still needed to graft the underarms and sew in the ends. So many ends. Look at the ends:   I've blocked it now, and will try to get photos later in the week. I should actually be woollen dress wearing weather. I'm wearing my Still Light right now. In January. But the county is on fire. Who knows what I'll be wearing by march. Anyway, random thoughts. it's a bit weird, everything smells like smoke, and, since I work in a role connected to emergency services, everyone is very busy. But because they are busy doing what they do, we are extra quiet. So, a weird vibe. Anyway, after finishing such a big project,...

Today marks the last day of my ten day Christmas and New Years break. It seems fitting that after days of sunshine and beautiful weather today is cold and raining. I'm not complaining, half the country is on fire, hopefully it's raining where it needs to.  It has been a very relaxing break. The day the cricket finished, I started N.K. Jemisin's The Stone Sky . It was such a perfect book to read during this quiet period with so much reading time available to me. I finished it this morning, reading in bed after a sleep in. Glorious. I 've also been knitting away on Greis , and am currently 5 fairly brief rows from the cast off. I'll get that done before bed time. It feels very satisfying to complete that before going back to work. I didn't really expect to finish a dress in two weeks, but there you have it. And I still have to do the finishing. There are a lot of ends in there! Before After (less pink!) I did get that leftover yarn dyed up, and am r...

I love end of year stats. It's not about knitting more, for me, it's just about analysing what happened over the last twelve months. Last yea r I was trying to be all mindful and skipped the stats part!  This year I knit a rather ridiculous 57 projects, using 20491 metres of yarn. This included: Nearly 2 dresses (1 just has the yoke to go) 4 pairs of sneaker liners 11  pairs of calf length socks  1 pair of baby booties 10 hats  7  baby jumpers 7 adult jumpers / cardigans / tops  5 scarves / shawls / cowls  7 toys / decorations / homewares / whimsical things 3 pairs of mitts The stash currently stands at 12717 meters. Turns out that I get edgy as it edges it's way towards ten kilometers, my long stated goal. Also people keep giving me yarn! Of my 30 yarns on Ravelry 7 of them were gifts / prizes. My oldest yarns are not two years old, and given how much I generally knit, as long as I don't let things languish at the bottom...