What I made, by Sharon

 The brioche cardigan I'm knitting calls for a tubular cast off on the body. So I did a tubular cast off. And it's too tight.. It pulls the whole thing in. I love a tubular cast off because  it's pretty, but this just doesn't work. So I ripped it out and did an ordinary stretchy cast off, and now the the whole cardigan looks like it's going to fit fine.  While I was involved in that ripping out I realised I had knit the sleeve on the wrong side. It meant that the brioche detailing wasn't as planned, but it also means that the brioche doesn't flow into the ribbing quite as nicely (I'm not sure why, it's just the way it looks). Normally I would  just rip it, bit it's taken me a week to not quite finish the first  sleeve of this cardigan, so no. I put it the right way out and it there was a visible seam where I picked up the extra stitches for the sleeve. Also, just no. I picked out the picked up stitches and sewed them shut, and now it looks fine. ...

It took me a while to get on to my next book after finishing the excellent The Vanishing Half. I tried to read a Netgalley review copy of The Rabbit Hutch . I got far enough into it to think "this is weird, it might be good". Then I realised that every time I closed and re-opened my Kindle when reading this book it restarted the whole Kindle. So I deleted the book and haven't had any other issues with the Kindle. I read some fairly scrappy Debbie Macomber short stories. After all that I started another NetGalley Review book - Maror by Lavie Tidhar. It's a big book, set in Israel and centred around a corrupt police officer. Another reviewer described it as "a n epic historical noir" which is accurate. The main thing is that after all the false starts here's a big book that I cannot put down. Very satisfying.  The knitting goes on. I felt like I'd made barely any progress since last week, but actually I've finished the body and most of one sleeve...

This was supposed to be a post about a hat I finished and a crotchet square. Here the hat. I dyed the yarn and I knit the smallest size of Sockhead for width and the medium for length and I love it.  And that all I have to say about that. The crotchet on the other hand... I made the Asterales square by Shelly Husband. I thought it might be nice to have a fancy, larger central square for my crotchet blanket. When it was finished it seems a bit lumpy. So I steamed blocked it, and it was magic. Look how much better it looks. So then i thought I would steam block some of my other squares. I know about the magic of blocking, but this is next level. It can't save a "square" that isn't actually square, but it can fix wonky edge. I also got to use my fancy crotchet blocker thing I bought when I was bored a couple of months ago. While I was playing I put together all my squares. There are 64. Considering how much time I feel like I spend crocheting, I thought there would be ...

Leon has COVID. Under the current settings I'm allowed to go out, as long as I am masked indoors. So, for this week I'm basically going nowhere except for the gym and the supermarket. While masked gym isn't the most fun, it's fine because I only lift weights. No indoor cardio for me. This situation has given me lots of time at home to work on my Brioche cardigan  which is progressing nicely. I'm reading The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett. It tells the story of two light-skinned black twins who make very different decisions, and the consequences of those decisions. Compelling reading. I'm also reading a review copy of the next Object Lesson's book Trench Coat , by Jane Tyanan. The cover is marvelous. The book itself I'm a bit indifferent to. Some of the Object Lesson books are basically memoirs told through objects. this one is more straight history. And that's what I'm knitting and reading this week.  To read my all my book reviews, and to see e...

This year's show was perfect! Kris and I drove up after work in Thursday, staying in the same wonderful cottage as we have the last couple of times. We started with the traditional Thai dinner on Thursday night.  On Friday we went to the show early and did most of our shopping before the Women of Wool luncheon, which was more good friends, as well as a wonderful meal, some interesting speakers and rather a lot of wine. There were dyers that I know I love, like My Creative Garage, and others who were new to me - including new favourites HodgePodge and The Autralian Yarn Co.  We then did some more shopping, before heading to Suzanne's for the traditional Friday night pizza event.  I was not very good at getting everyone (or even most people) in photos this trip! On Saturday we watched the sheepdog trials, which I always find fascinating, ate lamb for lunch and went and looked at (and patted!) some sheep, as well as finishing off the shopping. We had dinner with the Ric...

As an inhabitant of the city with the longest lockdown in the world, I find myself reminiscing and ruminating about that time occasionally. And this post is a trigger for that - last year I did not write my preshow post , until I thought Bendigo (The Australian Sheep and Wool Show). I did not press publish until I was about to leave for the weekend. And we all know how that went. This year its looking good. Kris, my housemate for the weekend, lift up there and general partner in crime is good to go. Only 1 of the Richmond Knitters has cancelled due to COVID (so far). It's 9am and it's time for the annual stash count: 26 entries, 13705 meters. The oldest yarn in the stash is from October 2020, and there are four entries that are recent leftovers that I will tidy up with a charity baby surprise quite soon. So, what do I plan to buy this year? Some yarn for dyeing 2 x contrasting colours for a Swoop of other shawl Pastel slow change self stripping for a backlit or brioche dress (...

It's winter, it's cold, COVID cases are on the rise, and we are about to have the anniversary of lockdown 5 - a twelve day lockdown that started with the cancelling of the Australian Sheep and Wool show - my favourite weekend of the year (We got out of that for  8 days, and then went into a 77 day lockdown.) And I thought I had processed all that as well as I could. I must have, when I requested Delphi by Clare Pollard from NetGalley: It is 2020 and in a time more turbulent than any of us could have ever imagined, a woman is attempting to write a book about prophecy in the ancient world. Navigating the tightening grip of lockdown, a marriage in crisis, and a ten-year-old son who seems increasingly unreachable, she becomes fixated on our many forms of divination and prediction: on oracles, tarot cards and tea leaves and the questions we have always asked as we scroll and click and rage against our fates. But in doing so she fails to notice the future creeping into the heart of...

On Saturday I participated in my first power-lifting competition. I have been training since the beginning of the year,  and it was fun to get some official numbers (70, 45, 105 kgs, for those who care). It was a long day - each person only does 9 lifts, but there were a lot of competitors. I took my Sockhead hat , and got a reasonable amount knit on it - and no-one made stupid comments about it, which was nice. A couple of funny things. it was freezing in there and I was wearing a beanie. It wasn't until I got to deadlifts (at the end of the day) that my coach told me to take it off! It's against the rules! I'm not sure how Alex didn't notice, she was right there Here's a pic of her walking me only the platform for bench: Anyway, I didn't get disqualified and I looked super cute. In fact, I got a medal. A gold medal! please do not ask how many other people were in my weight and age class. a medal is a medal and I'll take it.  I'm fine with a participati...

  I'd call it a pair of sleeves. Shrugs. Now that I've finished making silly jokes, I made this odd little garment because  I'm wearing a lot of tunics, and I thought the sleeves would come in handy. It also matches the T I made at Easter , by the same designer, although this is how they actually look together - and I do not know what is going on with my face in any of these photos. It was a pleasure to knit - small and simple enough to knit while out and about on our recent trip , but fun enough to be engaging. Those stripes! I am very into pastels right now and this pastel rainbow (made from HalfBaked Handyed minis) was an absolute joy to knit. The only modification I made was to make the edging from 1 x 1 rib to match to sleeves - doing them in garter made no sense to me.  This is the third (stripy) pattern I have made from  Stephanie Lotven, and her patterns are very well knitting: clear and straightforward, while playing with some interesting ideas. Look ...

Getting back from holidays, going back to work and just everyday living is very busy this week. I've got my first powerlifting competition this weekend, which is taking up both time and my emotional energy. Still, I always have time to read and knit. I'm almost finished my Ballerina Shrug (picture from the aeroplane yesterday). I got most of the way through the cast off, and then had some yarn-barf that has taken literally hours to untangle. I think it's going to be a very cute garment. Hopefully i will get all those many ends sewn in, either on my lunch break or tomorrow evening, and be back to show you the finished, modelled garment on Friday.   I'm reading John Birmingham's The Shattered Stars, which is the second book in a trilogy. It keeps moving right along. I often find the middle volume of Birmingham's trilogies a little workman like, and at 432 pages I'm finding this a little bit of a slog, but also I want to know what happens next. it's not ...

We got back from Hobart a couple of hours ago, and it was a fantastic weekend. I don't know if I can actually call it a weekend, we left on Thursday and came back on Tuesday! Just like in 2017 we went with Leon's choir Glee Plus for the Festival of Voices.  Leon and I stayed with Kris and Elise in a lovely cottage (that seemed to be a converted garage or something). It's always so nice to have a place with shared space where you can hang out and drink tea.  Kris and I met up with Nat , and this is my attempt at a selfie! Elise went selfie mad  (and a little silly)  at Mona, and then was kind enough to share the photos.  We had a trivia night were everyone I knew was involved in singing the question, so it was just Kris and me on  a team. We do better when we have more of our team there! I went to my first Glee singalong night, and I couldn't sing and knit at the same time. it was ok, but not my thing - I'd definitly rather be listening and singing....