What I made, by Sharon

 After we got back from camping (on Tuesday) I had a very relaxing time, with lots of friends and fibre. On Wednesday (New Years Eve) we had our traditional, quiet friend get together at Skip and Bees. I was home and asleep before midnight. I dyed yarn for the secret test knit I'm about to embark on for Sanna and Co I did quite a bit of spinning and am only a couple of sessions away from being finished with the singles on this project. We hosted my parents for Friday night dinner, and I watched Heated Rivalry with friends. Leaon and I ran 20kms yesterday, and it felt surprisingly good. I didn't do some of the things I planned to do, like sorting and refolding all my woollens, but it was such a relaxing and indulgent time that I forgive myself. This week normal programming resumes, back to work and knit night on Monday and the Pole studio reopens on Tuesday. 

Happy 2026! In 2025 I joined a reading challenge  for the first time. Partway through the year I wandered off from it. I didn't enjoy structuring my reading that way. I went back to my usual method - read all the NetGalley review books, and then grab something that somehow found it's way onto my Kobo. According to my (not entirely reliable) records I reviewed 84 books for NetGalley this year, of a total of 121 books. That seems high, but I did listen and well as eye read on NetGalley. I discovered some new to me authors, including Lily King and  Taylor Gray, and read lots of delicious fantasy, sci-fi, romance and plain ordinary fiction. We had some fun holidays, including Sri Lanka, Queensland , hiking twice once by the mountains and once by the sea, Bendigo twice (once for knitting and once for beer) two running weekends (Marysville and Warburton)  Sydney and Adelaide  in one trip,   I knit 19,490 meters of yarn over 40 projects. Only 9 were for charity, w...

  The weekend kicked off with us hosting shabbat dinner for may parents. I feel like its important to take photos, because we won't be doing this forever, but i generally forget! Saturday we slept in, I went to a dance class and then it was time to get ready for the annual Richmond Knitters Christmas Party (f or previous years see  2024 ,   2023 ,  2022 ,  2021 ,   2020 ,  2019 ,  2018 ,  2017 . Longstanding traditions where upheld, including me taking terrible photos! there were 28 of us this year, which is a new high! Ornaments were exchanged, and the quality of them is so high! This is a talented group of people and each year we seem to level up. Dani dyed us a Christmas yarn, this one with speckles! I can't wait to knit it up. I did come home with rather a lot of goodies. Sunday morning we went for a run, and then relaxed for a bit. I finished plying the yarn for Leon's winter set. Then we headed to the Windsor Castle hotel for a dri...

 I knit with hand-dyed yarn regularly. Sometimes I even dye my own. Earlier this year I was knitting with some natural plant dyed yarn, and it was rubbing off on my hands as I knit.  Eventually when I finished it I washed the finished object. And then i washed it. And washed it again. By the time I got the water to run clear the yarn was a significantly more muted colour. Now I'm knitting a purple shawl for Elise, and I noticed that the same thing is happening. Since I had two skeins of the yarn, and I'll probably only use one for the shawl, I decided to wash the second skein. And that was not the first rinse. it;s currently soaking in hot water and vinegar after three rinses. I really want to get this set enough to use in a colourwork yoke. I'm not feeling too hopeful about that. I know if I dye it myself I make sure the dye is set and any excess removed. I wish professional dyers would do the same.  

 The day after we got back from the hike was Yom Kippur, so I took the rest of the week off. Unpacking and cleaning hiking gar can be a lot! On Thursday Elise and I did our traditional, non-religious Yom Kippur hang, then Leon and I went to the theatre in the evening. Friday was for relaxing, and then we hosted my parents for dinner. On Saturday we planned a little trip Northside - it's funny, because it's one suburban bus and about 20 minutes away, but I just tend to stay in the city or south of the river. We went to a hot sauce shop and tried (and bought) hot sauce. We then went to Aunty Peg's, a fancy coffee shop that won't put milk in coffee. i got a nitro coffee, which was delicious, and funny, since generally i don't like nitro beer. Then we went to Molly Rose, to collect our beanies from going to every Pint of Origin  venue with year. Now I have two commercial beanies to celebrate drinking. On our way through we stopped at the Lululemon outlet. we haven't...

With the sickness in our house and being away every second weekend, we had a relatively quiet weekend in and around home. On Friday night we went to my parents for dinner and I got my loom back. I did some weaving, including a course in 2014, and was fine not weaving since, but Sri Lanka gave me some ideas, and now I want to make handspun cushions. Warping the loom scares me, but I'll watch some tutorials and I'm sure I'll work it out. Leon and Elise's choir had it's 20-year birthday celebration, so all four of the connected choirs had a performance.   And we started to pack for our next adventure - a six day hike with no opportunities for resupply. Willow wants to come too. 

 My stash is all on Ravely, and the current volume is 19,756 over 26 entries. That's high, considering I'm making more yarn by spinning, and I'm planning to buy a little more yarn when I go back to Bendigo at the end of August (they just released a Corriedale, and they have a good slow colour changing yarn). Also, I'm about to knit Kris a Swancho out of yarn she has provided. On the other hand, it's not too high - the total is less than I knit last year, it all fits in the stashbox  (pictured below, it's also out coffee table) and I'm excited about all my future projects. As promised I have experimented with my nostepinde, or stick, as I prefer to call it. I made two mini-balls. The first ended up quite egg shaped, and the second a little flatter. They took forever to do. They look a little messy in these photos, but they are actually quite nice, neat balls. That said, because I don't centerpull, I'm not sure there is any advantage of this over th...

 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...

As mentioned, prior to our hiking trip I suddenly, and rather randomly, decided to knit  Andrea Morwy's Traveler Shell . It's basically an open fronted rectangle in a knit purl pattern. The pattern is FOURTEEN pages long. Why is the pattern 14 pages long? Because, instead of explaining the ten row repeat and then putting the shaping on top of that (e.g. decrease while continuing to knit in pattern), she writes out the entire ten row knit purl sequence every time something changes. Additionally, most of the time she starts with even number being the right side and wrong numbers being the right side,which is just plain odd. It's confusing and it's like she wants to keep you looking at the pattern for every row, rathe than following the very intuitive stitch pattern, which I had memorised after one repeat.  The instructions for the band just say 'pick up x number of stitches'. No ratios, no acjnowledgement that different bits of the band have different ratios. Afte...

On this first day of 2025 I am feeling quite contemplative. 2024 was a pretty good year, although it ended with some sadness .  Even within that pain, I look around and my friends and am very grateful and full of love. This was our New years eve / chanuka celebration: There were no really major life changes in 2024. Same job, same house, same love (hi Leon) same fitness hobby. I did get back into running regularly, which is very good for my mood. We had some good holidays, including two hiking trips, a trip to Tasmania, two weekends in Bendigo, some time at the Adelaide Fringe, Marysville, bush camping and our first (and quite possibly last) cruise . A good year. I knit 50 things, using 21, 374 metres of yarn.  I found a new group to charity knit for, and made 18 things for them.  Despite my oft stated intention to knit less socks, I knit ten pairs of socks, eight of which are for me and Leon. My challenge of knitting less socks is one I will doubtless keep failing! I ca...

I had a personal day on Friday, partly because my father needed picking up from hospital (he had a standard procedure) and partly because I'm very tired and a bit wrecked, with everything that has happened. We started the day with a run, and went and got Katie's car, which we are borrowing while she is in America. We hosted my parents on Friday night.  Since it was my birthday dinner I made my favourite things - chicken soup. I didn't even serve a main course, I just made chicken soup, challah and salad. For dessert I made chocolate pudding, which didn't set, so we used it as sauce for the kugelhopf cake my parents made for my birthday. Lots of strong family traditions there! Saturday we caught the train to Ballarat for Hanrahan family Christmas. It was lovely - some of Leon's family lives in the Gold Coast, and it's always so good to see them. Sunday we didn't get out of bed until ten o'clock. I'm just very tired right now! I skipped Sun day's r...

We started the weekend with a run around the Lake, trying to shake out our heavy legs from last week's run in the mountains (also I psychologically start my weekends on Friday because I work from home but after this glorious run I did have to do work all day). Look at the cygnets. Fluffy. Saturday I didn't leave the house. it was the first really warm day, and I spun and knitting on the endless sock. I also organised my polymer clay findings. they were all in ziplocks in a big bag, and I put them in these cases, and now they feel much more under control. I also made some more gnomes. Leon put one on the desk of Sam, one of his colleague's. then he added a second one. She doesn't know who is putting gnomes on her desk, and doesn't yet suspect Leon. So he's going to keep adding to the collection! Sunday I went to a dance class, and then met Elise for coffee before seeing Bednobs and Broomsticks with this crew. We followed up with dinner, and then home to water th...

We had a long weekend because Friday was the day before a football game and we  borrowed my parent's car to go for a trail run in Werribee Gorge.  The weather was perfect, the running was great - although it was hard hilly trails, so there was a lot of walking mixed in  there. We saw a pair of Wedge Tailed Eagles - I think one of them might be in this picture, otherwise enjoy the beautiful sunny sky!  It was just perfect. We also saw a giant rabbit and a kangaroo nonchalantly hopped past. It was only 13 kms, so we followed it up with brunch in Bacchus Marsh, and then an afternoon of relaxing (hello reading and spinning!). We had dinner at my parents and I once again failed to take photos. Saturday morning we did the necessary household tasks and then did even more relaxing. In the evening we went to the city and had ramen at a new and very delicious ramen place.  Followed by Six, the musical. It's such a fun show, full of bangers. Recommend. On Sunday the weathe...