What I made, by Sharon

Last week or thereabouts I knit Opari , a brioche hat to match the brioche cow l I made for the charity Australian's Knitting for War Affected Kids (AKWAK). I had plenty of yarn left over, but I made the hat a little smaller than the smallest adult size, since I'm tryng to knit for kids! It just fits on my polystyrene head,  so I guess it will fit a child just fine. Meanwhile, over on Patreon , Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is running a KAL and class for thrummed mittens. Since mittens are in demand in refugee camps, I cast on. The class is only up the cuffs, but it should be a fun knit. 

My mother rang me a couple of weeks ago and said "You know your father has a birthday coming up" and I lied and said "Of course I do". I even know it's 11 March, and yet I forget every year. That Friday they came for dinner and he presented me with a pair of socks with giant holes - he wanted to explain that he would have returned them for darning, but there was no hole and then there was a giant hole. We've all been there. So i decided to make him a new pair, using rather lairy yarn from Ixchel . I didn't love the yarn in the skein, but I really didn't love the way it knit up! It didn't really pool or flash, it just splodged. Still I think he'll like it. Pattern is the Yarn Harlot's basic heel flap and gusset, 64 stitches with an 8 inch leg. 

The evenings are gradually getting shorter, and the mornings have a definite nip in the air. I started Leon's Winter Set (2022) last night, with the mitts . White gloves ... always a good idea, right?  The yarn I spun is delightful, soft and lofty, if a teeny bit lumpy in places. Despite washing before and after spinning it has a lovely, clean, sheepy smell/ I'm looking forward to spending a couple of weeks knitting it. This week I've struggled with my eye reading. After finishing the excellent The Family Upstairs I started Marcus Zusak's Bridge of Clay. It's so wordy and I just can't focus, especially since I'd rather listen to an audio book and crochet right now.  I'm listening to The Prettiest Horse In the Glue Factory, a rather compelling memoir by Cory White. And that cover is everything! Because of my struggles with Bridge of Clay  I've also started a NetGalley review copy of  How She Did It, which is basically a series of vignettes about s...

Ballarat Beer Festival is one of the few events that never got cancelled for Covid - in 2020 it was before it all kicked off and in 2021, despite coming out of a lockdown days before, it still went ahead. This year we didn't hear any talk of cancelling. We went up on the Friday to see Leon's parents, and then Beer Fesivalled on Saturday afternoon. It was a perfect day, 26 degrees and sunny, with a gentle breeze. It was also perfect in the sense of good beer, good friends and being out in the world. It's always a delightful event - as well as beer there is good food (that's Kris at the crepe van) A petting zoo with sheep and goats and other furry and feathered friends. Between the train up and back and the festival itself, I got quite a lot of knitting done - I finished  a sock I started on Thursday. It's quite ugly.  Drop by on Wednesday and I'll have photos of the finished sock. It's a treat!

  Finished.  I'm pretty happy with it. It was a pretty quick knit, (two and a half weeks, and i was also crocheting). It's funny how quick it finally was, after I spent years planning for it, buying yarn , spinning for it  ( three times to get the rainbow yarn just right) and finally spinning t he perfect yarn during the last lot of lock-downs.  I added an extra lace panel, because I had plenty of yarn. It's not small, but I thought it would be bigger. I really like giant shawls these days. It wraps around my shoulders, but would really need a shawl pin to stay put properly, although I'm writing this in an overly air conditioned meeting room and it's just sitting over my shoulders in a delightful way.    I did the lacy cast off. It took me two days, but I love it. The holes mirror the edge holes, and it's just adorable. I love the technique and am interested in  Sylvia McFadden's   other patterns. I can imagine a similar shawl, but in pale dream...

Everything is going very pleasantly this week in my reading, knitting and crafting world! I finished Birds of a Feather on Sunday. Here's a shot of it blocking. Full report and modelled shots to come on Friday. Now I'm knitting a charity hat from the left over handspun and some reused yarn that's been sitting around in the stash. Very satisfying. I'm also chipping away at my Granny Squares.  These are very addictive. Each one takes about half an hour to 45 minutes once I have the hang of it, so I can squeeze one in to a generous lunch break. I've done 11 of them so far, with 4 different designs. I'm still reading The Invisible Life of Addi LaRue . I cant stop listening to it. I'm three quarters of the way through and really want to know what happens, but also never want it to end. The best kind of book.   I'm eye reading The Family Upstairs  by Lisa Jewel. It's a slow burn thriller with lots of character development and I am loving it.  And that...

At some point every year I get the urge to crochet. It might be a baby garment, an amagurimi, or a scrappy baby blanket, but it seems to happen every year.  Late last year Louisa mentioned Granny Square Academy, a whole programme to teach 10 different granny squares, and all the tips and tricks you might need.  I bought 5 shades of Bendigo cotton in different shades of blue, an ergonomic crotchet hook, and the workbook. I started it last week, and have done the first two squares, 3 times each.  I struggled a little with the end of the rounds, so some of my early squares are a little ... not square, but I'm sure they will be fine when they are blocked. I've already learnt a lot, including some really basic things like which part of the stitch to crotchet into, and some not so basic things, like how to read a crochet chart.  Also how to spell crochet, since my instinct is always to spell it crotchet - like the musical note. I really am starting from basics!

The title says it all. The knitting, reading and listening are all going well, but I can't find anything to tie them together. Or anything else that is noteworthy about this week. Sometimes ordinary is good. The knitting has certainly been good: I've just finished the last lace panel on Waiting For Rain . It's hard to see it, all squished together like that but I think it might be quite large.It has been a pleasure to knit, so far. Soothing garter stitch rows interrupted by fun lace inserts. And the whole thing is only made more fun by being in my own handspun. While I knit I've been listening to the free audible  book for the month The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue  by V.E. Schwab. France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history...

I finished the spinning for Leon's Winter Set 2022 yesterday. it was quite a process, from buying fleece, washing it, carding it, sampling , spinning it and finally plying it. I twas very satisfying to get the yarn dried and finished: I spun it long drawn, and then plied it with an much air as possible. I thwacked it and fulled it and it has come out so puffy and fluffy and squishy. And clean. I had washed the fleece, but after I soaked the finished yarn it lost the yellow tinge and became this stunning bright white. It came to about 700 meters for 400 grams, so there should be the exact right amount for a hat, mitts and scarf. Hopefully. The knitting will happen later this months, until then I'm just going to squish this yarn.

When I knit Wordle last week I finished my Left Over Sock Yarn (LOSY). Here's the clip from ravelry: I counted my LOSY in February 2022, so by co-incidence this is the one year anniversary of the listing! I knit a lot of things with that 4 kilometres of yarn. 16 really fun projects, many for charity. So does this mean I don't have any LOSY? Haha, no. I've still got 850 grams (3230 meters give or take). LOSY arrives in many ways - donations from friends, left overs from other, full skeins that creep into the LOSY pile, unravelling other projects and possibly even some miscounting. So now I have LOSY IV to play with. What fun!

There is rain here in two senses - it has been raining rather a lot, intense summer storms, and I'm finally knitting Waiting for Rain . It's been a delightful knit so far ( except for the part where I couldn't read the directions and struggled to work out how short rows work. You'd think I was new at this!) There is something about knitting with my own handspun that is so delightful. I'm still reading the Bringer of Stars . It's a good book. I can tell it's a good book, but somehow I can't seem to connect with the characters or somewhat overblown plot.  It might be because I'm super-obsessed with crafting right now. While knitting and spinning I've been listening to the next Borderlines , the second in the  Joe Gunther series. It's not the world's best detective novels. but i find them soothing (and free through Audible plus, which is a bonus.) I'm up to the plying stage of Leon's Winter Set (2022) which is always a good time. I ...