What I made, by Sharon

After last week's dramas, this week was quite calm and normal. Except I got what may be asthma or may be mild bronchitis, and of course I'm coughing and  had to get a COVID test this morning. Ugg. Anyway, I've finished my mother's cardigan, and also a baby cardigan . Just need to put buttons on both of them. I'm waiting for my mother's in the mail, but have stash buttons for the baby jumper. I've got left over yarn, so I'll make a matching hat.  I'm knitting along in the Gnome MCAL. We have a hat, with decorations. Intriguing . I'm reading Empire of the Vampire   by Jay Kristoff. It's epic fantasy, and I love epic fantasy. When I was young I read a lot of it. not so much now, and this is a joy. I mean, the book is grim, but it's intriguing and great world building and characters. I can't put it down. The only problem is that I said I wasn't going to start trilogies that hadn't been finished, and this is the first of a trilog...

We had a long weekend - Friday was a public holiday so we could go to a parade for a football game, but there was no parade, because we are still in lockdown. I'm not complaining about a bonus day off, and I caught up with Lu for coffee and Elise for lunch and it is delightful to see my friends again.  On Friday I finally finished the body and sleeves of my mother's cardigan . Then I blocked it, and steeked it.  While it was drying I cast on a little baby cardigan, since I was hardly going to not knit for an evening! It's a simple top down raglan, knit with really fun sparkle yarn from 24 Mile Hollow.  It's a prettier shade of blue than it looks here. Meanwhile I've been getting, and knitting, regular clues for the Gnome KAL . He has a hat now. So it was a bit odd, because then I had to choose what I was going to knit when, which is not normally an issue for me.  On Saturday we saw Skip and Bee for a picnic, and it only rained on us a little bit. And Leon started a ...

  I've been thinking about embroidery a lot recently - because I need more hobbies, right? It's just felt a bit hard as to where to start. i know where I want to end - embroidering a pretty design on this kind of bag. I requested and received  the book Beautiful Botanical Embroidery  from NetGalley and I learnt a bit more and admired  the designs, but I still felt I was missing the basics. The someone (I don't know who!) blogged  about needing more whimsey in their lives, and wrote about DropCloth samplers . I looked them up and ordered some, and then nearly  a month later they arrived. They come with a class on Creativebug that talks you through each step in detail, so hopefully that will get me started properly. Now I'm just waiting for the delivery I ordered from Lincraft, since shops are closed here for another 5 weeks, and I'd like to get started soon. I'm pretty excited to try something new and different, and something that is a step away f...

We just had an earthquake! That's not something that happens a lot around here, so it was very strange a briefly terrifying. Additionally we've had riots (take a protest, add builders and alcohol) and we still have six weeks more of lockdown. So. The reading and crafting at least are going smoothly and enjoyably. I've just finished John Birmingham's audio book Sleeper Agent . I highly recommend for a fun, fast action book. Also, the Sharon Weiss who own s the beauty studio is named after me, so stumbling unexpectedly on that was very exciting. It's currently  free on Audible Plus, which is also nice.  I'm reading Liane Moriarty's The Last Anniversary . It's chick lit at it's finest, I know it's going to have a happy ending and it's just a gentle pleasure. I probably won't remember a lot of it 5 minutes after finishing, but sometimes that is the perfect book for the situation. Did I mention riots and earthquakes?  I'm still knitting th...

I've been dying in a pot I bought from an op-shop since I started dying  with Landscape Dye in 2011. I'm 99 percent sure it's not stainless steel. When we moved into this flat 4 years ago by Le Cruset roasting pan was too big for the oven so I converted it to dye speckles and multi-colours and found I got much better results. I've known for ages that I should replace my pot, but I also know that stainless steel in expensive. I'm married to a brewer, and we ended up getting his big brew-pot for a couple of hundred buck from China-town. Anyway, i was doing a Craftsy course on how to dye, and thought I would have a Google. I found this 19 litre pot at Big W. So good. It even has a glass lid so I can see what is going on. Yesterday I dyed the final colour for Stephen Wests Shawlography MKAL. I wanted a bright pink, and that's what I got! I'm really happy with my yarn for this one, all from stash: The MKAL starts in three weeks Saturday (my time) and all I need t...

It's been a week! I've still got hives, and apparently all the allergists are over-run, so now I'm just hoping they resolve by themselves. Tarragon has something weird going on with his eye and skin - we took him to the vet yesterday, but he freaked out and they couldn't actually do anything. Today we gave him gabopentin, but that wasn't enough. The vet had to sedate him and now he is back home, wobbling around the house, yowling and falling over. He's fine, just needs some ear drops and a good nap. Here he is on the tram, looking not pleased with the situation.  The knitting  and reading and spinning are all going well, if lacking in drama (which is probably the best way!)  I'm nearly up to the ribbing on my mother's cardigan - I'm going to steek it, which is why it looks like a jumper.  I'm up to the plying part of my spinning project, and I'm most pleased with how it is coming together. I've been listening to The Kennedy Curse , by Jam...

It was a bit of a nothing weekend, since I didn't organise any coffee walks or anything else much. it just feels like we are waiting - next announcements changes come on the 23rd, when Vitoria will be 70 percent first vaxxed. I'm hoping we will be able to have park drinks, that's always a good time. I don't feel like I knit a lot this weekend, but I knit enough that I sliced open my finger! Nothing a bit of Roc Tape (gymnastics tape) couldn't fix. I also finished spinning the singles for the main colour of Waiting for Rain . I'm going to ply it with the black mohair. While spinning I've been watching Craftsy classes on dying and on spinning colour. I have learnt a lot already. The platform itself is very odd, all the classes seem to be original - from about 2014 and none of the attached PDF documents actually work.  But I've already had more that my three dollars worth, and there are a fair few more classes I want to do. 

This time last year I wrote a post about how I was going to plan a good time , even though we were in lockdown etc. And it's true, I did all the things I said I was going to do and enjoyed the heck out of them! Now we're a year down the track we're in lockdown again and I am very tired. So when I saw imagined Landscapes was doing a Gnome MKAL I said "yes please". I've only knit one Gnome, and it was a lot of fun. I had yarn in stash, and I'm loving the whimsy of a mystery  gnome knit-a-long. And then of course September is prep month for the Stephen West  mkal - this year it's called Shawlography , and features 5 bold contrasting colours. just like last year I found 4 perfect colours in my stash, and I'm going to dye that white (which is a sparkle yarn) the colour of the pink sample I have there. I'm stoked about the Aussie dyers I'm using - Louie and Lola for the light and dark grey, Stranded in Oz for the purple and The Purl Box for t...

For no discernible reason I have come down with a case of the hives. They itch worse when I'm at home, so I reckon I'm allergic to lockdown! Anyway, Telfast is helping, and that was the most exciting thing to happen this week. Well, that and that spring is here and the sun is shining. It's light earlier and dark later, and I have the time to notice. I'm knitting a Yorlin by Kate Davies cardigan for my mother. At the last minute I decided to knit it in the round and steek it, because it's so much easier for me. It's quite fun so far, lots of stocking stitch, with a bit of simple lace. It's taking a while - it took me six days to get the yoke done, but I'm trying to be in less of a hurry. Also, i'm spending time I would have used for knitting spinning , because spinning is just very relaxing to me right now.  I'm reading The Garden of Hopes and Dream s by Barbara Hannay and it's the reading equivalent of a slice of cream cake. Just delicious. ...

I finished a spinning thing! That doesn't happen often, so it's worth celebrating. I made 400 meters of yarn from 85grams of yarn, so it's a teeny bit finer than I thought it would come out.  That might me in part because it was an amazing preparation from Charley of Ixchel , comprising of merino, cashmere, angora and sparkle.  I was thinking of it as my contrast colour for Waiting for Rain and and i t's stunning, although it might be a bit more autumnal and subtle than I want.  While I'm thinking about the neon rainbow I want to be spinning, I'm working on the main colour for  Waiting for Rain , which is a black with tweed bits, again from Ixchel. This pic from Charley's site, because I forgot to take a photo of the unspun fibre.  I'm going to ply it with some black mohair/silk  (commercially spun) so that it should be quite interesting. I'm trying to spin it so the neps don 't get too stretched out,and I'm ok with some texture in the spinn...

I finished the knitting on the two pairs of  Toes and Stripes  and chucked them in the front loader at 40 degrees. When they came out they were TINY. I panicked and ran into the kitchen, throwing the pair for my father at Leon, and cramming my mothers pair onto my feet. "Stretch them" I shrieked as Leon ripped off the socks he was wearing and forced the shrunken slippers on.  It may have worked - my mother's feet are shorter than mine, and I can get her's on. Leon's feet are just a teeny tiny bit shorter than my fathers. My original plan was just to drop these off and run, but because of these fit issues, I'll wait until I see them to give it to them.    

 It feels like spring has sprung today and it's delightful. Other things that are delightful are my reading this week. After DNFing Reason's for Avoiding Friends,   I read Neil Sharpson's When the Sparrow falls , a rather delightful piece of dystopian fiction. Now I'm reading a NetGalley review copy of He Gets that From Me by  Jacqueline Friedland . It's an interesting book that asks questions about family, blood, relationships and what holds us together. It's also well written, which is always an important factor in my enjoying a book. The knitting has also been going quite well. My parents have a "no shoes" rule in their holiday house, so I thought I would make them felted slippers to slip on when they are there. Did they ask for them? No. Will they felt down to the right size? No idea. Still, it's been fun. I'll try to get them finished and felted by the weekend. We're still not allowed to see other people, so it will be a while befor...