What I made, by Sharon

I can sometimes be a bit cavalier about swatching; cast on a sleeve and see what happens. Because the Ursula cardigan is quite a particular pattern, this wasn't going to work. So, since Kate and I are doing this as a knit-a-long, we sat down and swatched together. This made a task i sometimes find tedious much more fun. I learnt many things from my swatch:  I love the colours for my cardigan.  I love the fabric on 3mm needles.  I'm getting pretty much exactly stitch gauge, possibly one stitch less per 10cm, which is exactly what I wanted.  My row gauge is way out, so I will probably have to do one repeat less of the pattern.  I knit much looser than Kate does.    That's Kate's tiny looking swatch at the top. Same number of stitches, same size needles. And no, I don't know why they both look blue. All in all I'm reasonably confident I may get a cardigan that fits me at the end of this, and that's really all anyone can ...

Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows how much I love a knitalong, and how often, when anyone says they are going to knit something I want to knit I say "ooo, lets have a knitalong".  The other day Kate  came over to my place to choose her contrast colour for a Fair Isle baby cardigan, from my ridiculously large box of sock yarn scraps. A couple of days later I realised that I had a baby girl to knit for too, and we could have a knitalong. Kate said yes, but also, she is very easy to project stalk, since she is living by the queue  this year. I, however am not, so I can live by everybody else's queue. These are the colours I've chosen - the main colour is the most amazing Little Dipper Yarn colour. I'm not 100 percent sure about the contrast colours - feedback or comments appreciated.  

As you know, I subscribed to Ysolda's Knitworthy pattern collection. While I like many of the pattern that arrived, none of them made it to the top of the queue. Until Cadeuutje . This project has something I've wanted to try since the Yarn Harlot talked about it: THRUMS. The sole, on the inside The sole, on the outside   The thing about thrums though is that they are designed to make something really, really warm, often mittens. I live in Melbourne and this winter I didn't even bother wearing my fingerless mitts. But thrumbed slippers? Yes please.  The finished first slipper. I don't know why the picture is upside down I'm making them for my mother and have just finished the first one. It might be a little while before I get to the second one, because the pattern takes a wee bit of concentration and thruming in public is not the best plan. I'm out for the next four nights, but come the weekend I'm looking forward making the second one. It...

Today, Ysolda announced that she is doing a knitalong / staggered pattern release thing called Knitworthy . It sounds a little like Romi Hill's Great Oddments Knitalong, which is big knitting fun. Now, you know how much I love a knitalong, and the first pattern, which is a slouchy hat , is adorable. So I've signed up. Hopefully some of the other Richmond Knitters will sign up too, and we can all knitalong together. I've queued the hat, but I am about to cast on for an epic project, so it might be a while until I get to it. Still, the excitement of pattern releases every second Monday will add a bit of spice to the start of my weeks. FUN.

As I've posted about previously , I'm obsessed with Little Dipper Yarns . This month the Richmond knitters are hosting a Little Dipper Yanrs Knitalong . Obviously I had to play along! Since most of the LDY I have are boy coloured sock yarn, I decided to make the next pair of Leon Sock Project socks. While I have lots of pairs queued, none of them really fit my mood. At the same time Nicola  told me that we were no longer neighbors on Ravelry.  So I picked out a stunning shade of dark green from my stash  and went through Nicolas knitted socks on Ravelry. I found Charade , which matched my mood perfectly,  since it's a top down sock with a two row repeat, which i had memorised after about four stitches. It's been a while since I knit socks that didn't have complicated charts and all that, so it's quite fun.  So I'm doing a double knitalong, one with the Richmond Knitters and one with Nicola, although she finished  in 2010 and n ow, really I'm ...