What I made, by Sharon

We're back, and what a weekend it was! These sheep show weekends are all different, but they all have the same structure and rituals that the Richmond Knitters have built up over the years. This year we stopped as Castlemaine Mill on the way up and lunch and bought wine, cheese and chocolate. Then Nat, Katie and I made our way to the super cute cottage where we stayed this year: (Photo is from the Sunday morning, where we were exhausted and about to make our ways home!) On Thursday night we had our traditional Thai dinner, to fuel us for the excitement that is Friday at the show. Amanda was there too - I'm not great at getting everyone in the photo.  On Friday the weather was perfect - blue sky and no wind. As usual we went to the Women of Wool lunch, had excellent food and interesting speakers. In yarn I only bought the mini's for the upcoming Stephen West mystery sockalong. In 'lifestyle' I bought all the things: The stick  in the middle is a nostepinde, although ...

 This weekend started, as many of them do, with a run on the beach. For full disclosure, that was actually Friday morning before work, but I work from home on Fridays so it sort of feels like the weekend. Not the best photo, but it was the best winter sunshine! Friday night my parents came over for dinner, and as is also usual I forgot to take any photos! Saturday we went to Pinopoloza X Mould - a wine festival and a cheese festival, both of which we have been to before, but this time combined. So good. We tasted so many wines and cheeses, and bought a fair amount of cheese home with us.   Here's Leon on the tram home. looking very happy! Sunday morning we got to do house stuff, and then I had some time for spinning. It was warm enough to sit on the balcony and spin, which is basically my favourite thing to do and felt like such a treat in the middle of winter.  We went to Skip and Bee's in the afternoon to celebrate Bee's birthday.   I also finished and blocked...

The annual Handknitter's Guild Market, which we all call the Coburg Craft Market renamed themselves Melbourne Fibre Fest a couple of weeks out from the event. This did not change the wonderful market, which has all my favourites and  particularly Ixchel, who no longer vends at Bendigo. Becasue the market is only a month out from Bendigo, I went with the intention of not buying any yarn, and I succeeded! I bought two beautiful braids of yarn from Ixchel: And 500 grams (a jumpers worth) of this amazing blue and green Australian fibre from Ethereal Medusa who are a collaboration between Melbourne City Dyeworks and Cat and Sparrow. I also bought some more Chiaogoo  needles - even as a monogamous knitter it is sometimes good to have two sets of needles in the same size. Kerryn who is a core trivia member came along, as did about 10 of the Richmond Knitters. we went out to lunch afterwards, admired each other's purchases and did some knitting. By co-incidence, it was World Wide Knit...

When I woke up on Friday morning I had a message from Elise saying 'call me'. that's never good, and unfortunately what she had to say was that Rachey had died overnight. I took the day off, and spent some time with Elise, who had been up since 3 am, helping to deal with the police, funeral home etc.  Then I went to dinner with my whole family, which was loud and lovely as usual, (and as usual, I didn't take photos) On Saturday we celebrated Katie's birthday, which was a lovely chance to get together and celebrate. Saturday night was the Richmond Knitters Christmas party, with it's joy, and traditions. Dani outdid herself with this year's yarn - designed by Suzanne.  Sunday I did the cleaning (boring but required) and then went to visit Raph, who is doing about as well as expected. Leon and I went to the Classic Cinema and saw A Chorus Line. They play musicals on Sunday afternoons and it has been such a treat seeing a bunch of musicals at the movies. A Choru...

As everyone knows, I try to keep as small a stash as possible. It's not that small, it fluctuates between 15 and 25 kilometres. The other day at knit night I announced that I had decided I needed orange socks, but I didn't have any orange sock yarn. Kris piped up "I've got orange sock yarn". Sonia announced that she had orange sock yarn - Collinette Jitterbug, a discontinued yarn I adore and Kate said she had some that she had ordered one day when she was not feeling well. I pointed out that it was very nice that they all had orange sock yarn, but that was their orange sock yarn, and I am a big girl who can buy her own yarn. Sonia then decided to give me her orange yarn - not one but two skeins of Jitterbug, which was once my favourite sock yarn, but has been discontinued. It's the perfect shade of orange, and knit up beautifully into Cookie A's Sake Socks. I had put off making these socks, because every knit stitch is twisted and there are cables on ever...

This year's Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show is over and done and it was a fabulous year. Kris, Katie and I stayed in a really cute cottage and had a marvelous time. we've been doing this for quite a quite now, and have refined all the things we like: Thai dinner of the Thursday night, Women of wool lunch on Friday Friday night pizza at Suzane's - and my traditional terrible photo of it. Saturday shopping and looking at sheep, followed by a group dinner at the pub. This year we all knit variations of the Pressed flower pattern, and took photos on Friday and Saturday, because different people were available on different days. This was such a fun project to knit, and to wear as a group. By the end of the weekend people were asking if I was a Richmond knitter, purely based on my clothing! As you can see it was cold, windy and occasionally rainy. I visited Susannah, to show her the jumper I test knit for her: Kerryn, from my trivia team came up for her first Bendigo, and it was a lo...

It was a busy one, full of so much love and celebration. On Friday night we went to my brother's place for shabbat dinner to celebrate Ezra (my nephew's) 15th birthday. I failed to take any photos, but the whole family was the, the food was delicious and it was a lovely night all around. On Saturday we caught the train up to Ballarat to celebrate Leon's mother's 85th birthday. It was a rather larger affair - with 7 siblings, grandkids, neiphlings,  when they all get together it's a lot of fun.I only took one photo, while everyone was looking the other way. Ooops. It's impressive that they all made it - there is a tendency for Hanrahan offspring to move to the Gold Coast, something I am tempted to do during this unusually cold winter. It was a lot of travel for a day, but so nice to catch up with the family. I also started my next major knitting project, the Pressed Flowers Shawl which I will be taking on holidays to Tassie at the end of the week.  Then on Sunda...

The other day some asked on Threads whether they should get interchangeable needles, and everyone said "yes" and many, many people said Chiaogoo, which is my interchangeable needle of choice , but one person said that someone had given her Denise interchangeables, and she loves them. I picked up a set of Denise needles on my 30th birthday. (The whole story is here ). Anyway, I realised that was 18 years ago . I've been a "serious" knitter for more than 18 years. I'm a bit shocked about that. The pictures are some yarn I got from a destash Suzanne did this week - 8 balls of lace weight Zealana and some very pretty sock yarn. I have been knitting for a long time, and I have found such an amazing community, people to have good times with, people who support each other through thick and thin, and people who occasionally, randomly, give away very nice yarn!

  This week is an event called Pint of Origin (PoO), Good Beer Week, GABS (a beer festival) and the Handknitters Guild Market in Coburg. The last two years I've kicked off the festivities by going to Coburg, buying yarn and then we've started the pub crawl Northside. This year, both GABS and the Handknitters Market have been moved to June, and Good Beer Week was cancelled. PoO is happening, and we are trying to get to all (21) pubs in the ten days of festivities. This weekend we made it to 11 pubs. We drank good beer, and ate good food.  We hung out with old friends: Their friends And new friends This week we will go to the remaining pubs. It's a very fun time!

This weekend was the third She's Crafty event. The previous two were yarn markets in Melbourne, while this was in Castlemaine (about an hour an a half from Melbourne). There was a market and some classes. we skipped the classes this year as it wasn't that clear what was going on and they all sold out. The market itself was pretty good - I bought yarn for Electric Village  and a linen blend for a summer top.  Afterward we went to an art place called Lot 19 and hang out in an old W class tram! It was surprisingly comfortable, and really fun just being in the country, spending time with friends and breathing some fresh air. I got to fake drive the tram and that was excellent fun. If it runs again next year will look at staying up there, and doing some classes.   Thanks Kris for driving, and for the (as always) good time.