What I made, by Sharon

Well, it's raining, the renovations are progressing, and the government is discussing whether to start lifting lockdown in a couple of weeks, or to wait and see if we can eradicate this thing completely.  This is how my building looks now from the outside: This week I'm knitting lots of little things. I've made a pair of mittens, two hats and now I'm making a teeny, tiny cover for my teeny tiny hot water bottle. Come back on Friday and I'll do a full Finished Object Friday post. In reading: I finished This Terrible Beauty . I didn't particularity enjoy it, but I didn't realise how much I hadn't enjoyed it until I started my next book: Kerry Greenwood's The Spotted Dog . This is the sixth in the Corina Chapman cosy mystery series. The main character is a baker, who lives and works in central Melbourne, not far from where I work. It's so evocative of my city and such a fun read. Suddenly, I want to read all the time! One nice thing ...

Early this year, my knitting group The Richmond Knitters, decided to do a knit-a-long, for the Australian Sheep and Wool Show (also know as Bendigo). We debated different patterns, settling for the lovely Birkin . I found some "local" yarn for the body - I'm not sure where it was made, but it is sold by the lovely I xchel Bunny in the Yarra Valley. I was using left-overs for all the contrast colours. I thought the yellow / green might be a bit much, and I wished that the red was pink, but I went ahead. Before I bought the yarn, it was clear that Bendigo wasn't going to go ahead this year. A few of the Richmond Knitters were already knitting theirs and I had rather fallen in love with the pattern, so I went ahead. I'm really happy with how it came out. The colours worked better than I could have hoped. I knit a larger than I usually would size (large for the yoke, and then kind of medium for the body). I added the leaf motive on the sleeves and around...

But first, a baby. I adore it when people send me pictures of their baby's wearing the baby gifts I make. This is Pen, wearing the Gidday Baby I made last June. I mentioned the other day that I had one last yarn delivery coming. That was sort of true:, but I also just received April's Stranded in Oz Club  package, and she sent me a bonus skein for using the first club skein! The colour is nicer in real life. The club yarn is a light worsted, although it seems more like an 8 ply to me and came like this:   But it's not a multi coloured yarn, it's three small skeins. Designed for Elizabeth Zimmerman's May Mitred Mittens.  Perfect, and I'm so excited to cast these on. I also got a Knit Picks delivery. Yarn for Kate Davies Sleeve Island, that I am going to dye deep teal and light turquoise and it's going to me like wearing a lagoon: Yarn for the Tracery vest, that I have been wanting to knit for years, but I couldn't get the the...

Everyone is currently joking about how they can't tell what day of the week it is. I don't really have that problem. I do have a different problem, which is that everything is the same as last week around here. Except the renos. They blocked off the balcony, took down the heater and took off the balcony railings this morning, so that's really happening! I have made serious progress on Birkin . I finished the body, and I'm just a little way off finishing the first sleeve. I'm looking forward to wearing this,  it seems slightly oversized and a nice jumper for being locked down in. I'm still reading the NetGalley review copy of  This Terrible Beauty   by Katrin Schumann. It's a good book, well written and interesting. I guess with the change of lifestyle I'm not reading as much as usual. And I'm still listening to  The Caine Mutiny  . I must admit it's rather annoying me. Right now it's the story of an incompetent manager. One w...

I thought lock-down would mean I had nothing write about - but I have more to say than ever, and I feel like I am doing as much as ever, just in a more "at-home" way. This weekend we had a degustation dinner delivered - four courses with four matched beers, which we served to ourselves with elegance and style. Then, Sunday morning the weather was beautiful and Leon and I rode down Beach road to Sandringham. We ride a lot, but it's normally for transport or commuting. Melbourne is normally just too full of cars to make riding fun. Not during pandemic lockdown! The most fun fibre arts thing I did this weekend was to do some dyeing. I dyed the teal and navy yarn for hats yarn I talk about here.   I also dyed some 20 gram skeins that will eventually go into a pair of Elizabeth Zimmerman's nether garments. I also tried to speckle dye some sock yarn for Joji's Flores Socks .  As far as speckle yarn goes they are a complete failure. As far as spectacula...

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you'll know I knit a lot. There are two parts to getting a lot of knitting produced - one is knitting fast, as in each stitch is made fast, and one is spending a lot of time knitting. I do both. I am not saying this to brag, because there is a down side, which is I have a lot of knitted stuff. This makes me happy, but also my (not overly large) wardrobe is full. My sock draw is full. Leon's floordrobe is full. Luckily, in May I am going to be knitting for other people!  Firstly, I recently found out that my mother wears an old pair of ski mittens to keep her hands warm in winter. Not knitted ones, but bulky padded nylon things. So, mittens for her. I have an active trivia group, with an associated, chatty messenger group. We're still at it on Tuesday nights, although now it is via Zoom: For reasons I can't explain, I asked if anyone wanted a hat, and got 4 requests.  I ordered yarn from Bendigo -...

Everything is going OK here. They wrapped the scaffolding, and it's a very light wrap, so that's surprisingly good. It doesn't look like they are planning to scaffold the side of the balcony right now. Allegedly we loose access to the balcony on Thursday, but that remains to be seen. Anyway, this feels like the last of the nice days, weather wise. Knitting wise, I divided for the sleeves of Birkin this afternoon, which is always a fun moment, going from large numbers of colourwork stitches, to fewer stitches and plain. I'm going to repeat the leaf motif on the ends of the body and sleeves, just for the fun of it.  I'm reading  This Terrible Beauty by Katrin Schumann. It's a review copy from NetGalley.  Set in post war East Germany and Chicago, this has a duel timeline. I'm not very far into it, but I am enjoying the writing, and how the story is developing. As well as still listening to The Caine Mutiny   (we'll be here for a while on...

I stayed home. The end. OK, there is a bit more to it than that. Except for a daily trip to the park to work out and a daily walk we did stay home, but I started a new knitting project, and it was perfect. My knitting group decided to knit Caitlin Hunter's  Birkin as a KAL for Bendigo (otherwise known as the Australian Sheep and Wool show.) Bendigo is cancelled, and I thought about repurposing the yarn (probably for Kate Davie's Coofle , which I am quite taken with. But then I looked back at Birkin, and realised how much I like the design, especially the leaves and flowers. So, I started it on Thursday night. We had a 4 day weekend, and it was a joy to have an interesting, complicated pattern to keep me busy. I've never done three colour-colourwork before, and it is quite a mission. I do it by holding 2 colours in my left hand and one in my right, and rather ignoring colour dominance.  Prior to starting I thought I would manage all the colourwork i thi...

I started knitting Elizabeth Zimmerman's  February Baby Leggings for Tara's baby shower - also because they were the February Stranded in Oz club pattern and they looked like  a lot of fun.   Which they were - and super quick to knit. Three days, start to finish. I reduced the depth of the waist by a little bit, since they look really deep, and some people commented that they were designed to fit old fashioned cloth nappies. I don't know. I always figure if they fit this (my smaller bear) they will fit a newborn. But newborns probably have longer legs. Sometimes I think I should get a more human biologically accurate model. Anyway, they were such fun, I'm now planning a me size version - charmingly called " nether garments " by Mrs Zimmerman.  I called Tara to confirm that her baby shower was (obviously) cancelled and to have a catch up, she told be that she also has gestational diabetes .  I thought I might make a jumper wi...

What's new this week? Well, the scaffolding is up on one side of the building, and they appear to be starting on the side bit now. They still have to wrap it, but apparently I will still have access to the balcony for the Easter long weekend. Then, no more balcony until they finish, which I think is another 4 to six weeks. It's getting colder here anyway, and we go out to the park once a day to work out, so it will be fine.  This week I'm knitting baby clothes for my friend Tara. Her baby shower was meant to be next week, and the baby is due in June. Her husband does FIFO, so she is pretty isolated, but she seems to be doing ok. I made Elizabeth Zimmerman's February Baby Leggings , which was part of the Stranded in Oz club , and now I'm using the left over yarn from that and Japan sleeves to make a wee Envelope - my second favourite baby jumper. I'll mail it all to her when I'm done, since I don't think we'll be seeing each other for a while. ...

This jumper felt like it took forever, but actually only took two weeks. Time seems to be standing still right now. It was largely an enjoyable knit, although I had some drama and made a couple of changes. The first change was I decided to cast on for the extra small and then change the numbers up, so that the arms are shorter, but the body has the numbers for the medium. I also decided to cast on fewer stitches for the neck, so it isn't as wide as the pattern. I didn't do maths and work out how that would impact on my overall stitch count. Once I finished the sleeves and yoke (which are knit all in one) I seamed the sleeves. Joji suggests doing this at the end, but I wanted to try it on, which turned out to be a very good thing, since the sleeves were skin tights. I ripped out the "bottom sleeve shaping" and added quite a lot to the width of the sleeves. I then ran out of contrast colour. You can see the bottom two stripes are in a plain grey that I ...

I was planning to do half a year's shopping at Bendigo, and I really think it's going to be cancelled. Also, with my small stash, I just started to feel a bit panicky last Sunday, so I bought some yarn from The Purl Box . I love these guys, and actually have the privilege of knowing them in real life. Their "shop brand" that they dye themselves is called Oyster yarns, and I bought 3 of the Edens Blend and 3 of the Fluff to make ...something. i might just make a slightly oversized raglan with the yarns held together, although I am open to any suggestions. The Eden's Blend is a smooth BLF, silk and cashmere, and the Fluff is mohair and silk, so it will be quite the luxury jumper. I also bought some Field of Dreams , to replace the jumper that I knot Leon last year, and felted on blocking. I went for the dark green and it is stunning. Field of dreams is a locally produced yarn, made of Polworth, Suri and linen. Stunning, I also threw in this teal sock ...