What I made, by Sharon

I just finished a jumper for Australian's Knitting for War Affected Kids (AKWAK) when Susanna of Sanna and Co  put out a call for test knitters for a basketweave sock , I initially decided not to participate, because we have enough socks  (and also I'm currently obsessed with slipped stitch cable patterns). But then i realised that the socks went down to small sizes, so i signed up for the six-year-old size, to match the jumper. Are they not the cutest things? Now i'm going to do a hat and a cowl, and call it a set. AKWAK's includes gloves in their sets, and I'm not sure why I'm so resistant to knitting them. That I can think about after I've finished the next two pieces of this set.

I've pretty much finished the child's jumper I was knitting out of left over mini-skeins for charity, I just have to block it. I'm pretty happy with it, the Go Get 'Em Tiger pattern is such a simple, effective top down round yoke, and I used 250 grams of yarn that had no destiny.  Now onward to a child's sock test knit. I've read most of N.K. Jemisin's  The City We Became   and I have mixed feelings about it .  It's well written, but the characters are just running around doing tasks and collecting things and having fights. It feels like an excellent computer game, rather than a cohesive book. Maybe part of the problem is I've never been to New York and this book seems quite dependent on knowing (and caring) about the personalities of the different boroughs. I'm listening to a NetGalley review copy of Joanna Stingray's The Red Wave .  I was very excited to see this - I've wanted to read it since I heard about Joanna in the  podcast The ...

In January 2021 I bought 300 grams of mini-skeins from Dani (H alf-Baked Handdyed ). Why? I don't know. I have so much left over sock yarn, and I'm making more all the time. It was a very pretty bouquet of yarn. I made a couple of things from it, but mainly it sat in my stash for over two years. Now I've decided to use it all up. I'm going to hold it double with this self striping yarn It's machine dyed and it didn't knit up like I was expecting. I have about 200 grams / 800 meters of each, so my plan is to knit up a set for AKWAK holding pale minis with the main yarn. usually my sets consist of a jumper, cowl and hat, but , Sussana  just accepted me for a sock test knit, so for once my donated set will also include socks!

I finished the Old romance Cardigan, except the button band, on Wednesday. I soaked it, spun in out in the washing machine and on Thursday I picked up and knit the button band. In between these two events our the door on our frequently repaired 15 year old washing machine broke. While I know it's possible to block without spinning out the water, it never ends up nearly as drained. When I spin a light cardigan like this will dry overnight, which is useful, because I have limited space to block. I fixed the machine well enough to spin out the water, and we ordered a new machine which is coming on Monday. Very exciting.  Meanwhile, I'm wearing the cardigan. It's very light and warm. I wanted a plainish cardigan to wear over the leaf and plant print dresses that are my current favourite, and i think this fulfills that purpose nicely. There is some weirdness with the sizing. Despite me shortening the arms by  10 centimetres, they were the perfect length without cuffs, so I sew...

It's been a good week for progress on my Old Romance cardigan.  I left it last night at what might be the final row of the bottom ribbing - the pattern says 6 rows, but I think I'll extend it to 12, since I'm also going to make a 12 row button band. So it's just the bottom band, button band and cuffs to go! I'm calling it 80 percent done.  I'm so very pleased with the colours. I'm reading The Rise and Fall of Ava Arcania . It was a Kindle Early Reads book, so I think it's only just been released. It's a fairly compelling read, covering me-too, women's friendships and the price of success. it is more of a "who-dun-it" than I was expecting, and I'm 80 percent through it and am very much looking forward to finding out what happened. I can see how this could get very twisty, but also how it could be resolved with the facts we already have. I'm also 80 percent through my current listen - The Portable Door by Tom Holt. I'm reall...

 I've written before about trying to find the perfect knitting bag, and how challenging that is, because I get around by bike, walking and public transport, so I am always either carrying my knitting (in which case I want it in a hand-bag like bag that I can easily sling over my shoulder) or riding (in which case I want to be able to squish my knitting into a pannier. well, recently I went into the Crumpler shop. They have a retail outlet quite near my work. I saw some really cute mini-messengers, but I have a crumpler messenger (since 2001 - vintage baby!) and it's got zips and velcro closures, so it's knitting. But they currently have a range that is all magnetic closures, and it comes in my favourite shade of blue.  I spent a while trying to decide between the small and the medium. the medium is sensible - large enough for a 2 to 3 skein project, a small water bottle, phone and wallet.  The small is so cute though. So I bought both! I've actually found the small v...

I was reading Half of a Yellow Sun   and then the timeline stopped being linear and I cracked it and quit. Full review here , but I just don't seem to have much patience at the moment. Also, after reading about the history I realised it was about to get very, very grim (millions of starving children type grim) and I just couldn't proceed. I did read about the history of Nigeria and Biafra, so I learnt something. Now I'm leaning in to just relaxing and having a good time with a NetGalley review copy of Arabella , by Georgette Heyer. Like most of these books it's very sweet, and rather lovely and I'm enjoying it. I'm not learning much about racism or the impact of colonialism, but that's fine with me. Actually, I just realised that the wealth and ease depicted in the Heyer romances are financed and backed by racism and colonialism. Oh well, I'm going to enjoy the dances and pretty dresses. The audio-book I'm listening to with Leon also focuses on colon...

Years ago, I tried to prop open my work's sandwich press with a candy cane that happened to be nearby. Surprising me, but no-one else, it melted. I then stumbled across a blog where they made and reviewed silly toasties. I went looking for it and it is still up (not active since 2015) and I fell down a rabbit hole reading all the posts! She toasts all sort of silly things - coco-pops and fairy floss and sushi. Every workplace I've been in, including my current one has had a sandwich press, and I find it useful. We have the sort that goes for 20$ at K-Mart , but it does the job nicely. When the pandemic hit Leon and I discussed buying a sandwich press, but decided not to, because we like to keep our single use appliances to a minimum. We also knew that if we bought one, we would get a fancy one. Later in the lock-downs we were operating under a weird sunk cost fallacy - "we've come this far,  why would we buy one now." All this history leads to me request a book o...

It's important to me to have the right project for holiday knitting. Something simple enough to knit at a bush campsite, entertaining enough to keep me happy when travelling and most importantly enough knitting to get me through - in the case of our recent trip, 11 days. Because we were hiking I wanted to keep it as light as possible. I left deciding what to knit quite late this trip. A couple of days before, I decided on Joji's Old Romance  cardigan. It starts with contrast colour shoulder panels, and I had a beautiful colour picked out for the lace. I was a little concerned about the lace, but it's relatively simple. While winding the yarn, I thought that all the colour was at one end. I started knitting from both ends of the ball and it looks like this: That wasn't going to work! (I will use the yarn for a faded Love Note  later) I grabbed two skeins of self striping rainbow sock yarn basically as we were walking out the door. For the first part of our trip I kn...

I don't normally experience reading slumps, but I keep picking up books and reading a quarter of them and then realising that I just don't care. This is so unlike me! I want to be reading, I'm still on holiday so I've got the time to read, but I don't seem to care for most of the books I pick up. Yesterday I started Half of a Yellow Sun , which is holding my interest. Maybe I needed something epic? In knitting I have just started Joji's Old Romance cardigan, in this very romantic pink. The structure of the cardigan is these two strips of lace form the top of the shoulder and arm, and then stitches are picked up for the sleeves and the rest of the cardigan is stocking stitch. I'm trying to get the lace done while on leave, because, while it's not complicated it is also not public transport / bar / comedy festival knitting. I should probably try to block the F.O.s I'm going to finally tell you about on Friday, and unpack my pack and all of that, but p...

Two Fridays ago we went to Pomonal, near Halls gap, for Carly's 40th birthday party. They have 500 acres out  there, and we camped on their block, and just generally hung about, had a bon-fire and enjoyed the company of friends old and new.  On brand, the only photo I got was of their sheep, which they let wander around, and one of them came and sniffed my hand! Then, on Sunday around lunch time Skip and Bee dropped us on the third last day of the Grampian Peaks Trail, exactly where my parents picked us up this time last year .  Off we trotted, through the wonderful bushlands to camp - where we were the only people in the campsite. We knew it was going rain that night, so we ensured all our gear was under cover, and enjoyed the sound of the rain in the night. We didn't expect it to keep raining all the next day! Apparently that day has amazing views, but we got a lot of mist.  We didn't know for sure whether there was a shelter at the next and final camp site and was...