What I made, by Sharon

For the moment. Probably.   This stunner is the December club yarn from Stranded in Oz. I've been a member of her club for the last two years and pretty much loved everything she has sent. This pair is designed for a bub baby jumper, and I am looking forward to knitting it. I think I won't resubscribe, even thought I love being a member of the club, because I currently have 12 single skeins of sock yarn, 8 of which came from various clubs over the last two years. Is this so bad? No, but my entire stash is only about 12000 meters, so it's a fair percentage. it's also about 2.5 kilmometers of yarn, and I've been pushing, and failing to get under the 10 km mark for about 5 years. Additionally, I've become obsessed with self striping yarn (again. I bought this book ). And thirdly, I really want to buy lots of stuff at Bendigo (presuming Bendigo happens). So, no yarn club for me. although i said that last year, and signed up at the last minute. Lets see how this actu...

 I finished the  long socks I have been working on since sOcktober and they are magnificent. They fit perfectly, and nothing, and I mean NOTHING will make them fall down.  It's a great pattern, using the principle of start with a tight cuff, and then put in a calf gusset, and then reduce back to where you started.  So, I'm very happy with these. The problem is these autumn colours are not my most favourite. They are Stranded in oz club yarns, and they are gorgeous, particularity the gold glitter main colour, but I really prefer teal, or pastels. In fact I used my perfect colour pallet is in the teal socks that I knit in May this year.  The problem with those socks is that they start with the maximum number of stitches, and reduce from there. And they DO NOT stay up. you can see the problem in these photos. i guess if they were knit quite stiff they might stay up, but the Half-baked Hand-dyed self stripping is beautiful and soft.  I know I should rip ...

I finished the Caitlin Hunter shawl Teroldego, named after a grape variety. I used Stranded in Oz club yarns, and the Catharsis I bought from Purl Box. It's a much more subtle colour combination than I usually use in my three colour shawls but I love it. I was on a video call with Elise the day after I finished it and she said" I'm sure I've seen that shawl before, but I need to tell you again how I love the colours". Compliments! My complaints are that the shawl is knit in stocking stitch. This means that it had a right side and a wrong side. It also has a little bit of colourwork - again creating a right side / wrong side issue. The pattern was written with a ONE STITCH garter edge. I increased it to 2, but it still curls. The designer knew it would curl - she describes this as "fashionable". I like my knits to stay flat.    All in all I enjoyed the knitting of it, and it is a wearable, pretty scarf / shawl. I'm all ready planning my...

I cast off the body of my Lettuce on the plane home from New Zealand. It’s top down and I tried it on for length, but I was really worried it was just a smidge too short. Then I knit the first sleeve. I was confident that it was the right length, because I tried it on and it was fine. On Sunday we went to the pub and drank beer and I finished the second sleeve and knit the collar. After five hours at the pub. I went home and cast off the collar. I tried it on and it was just wrong. The sleeves were three quarter length, which I can live with but don’t love and the body was a tiny bit shorter than before. I guess knitting the collar had pulled everything up a bit. I said to Leon that I would have to pull out the bottom and knit it down, but he suggested I block it first and see how it comes out. So I did. And it is PERFECT. The length is absolutely spot on. I love the v neck, which is not what the pattern called for, and I knit the ribbing until I decided to cast off, which was...

So, Leon and I are flying out to New Zealand with our bikes. Our plan is to ride, buy yarn and drink beer. An endeavour like that requires only one other thing: a good simple knitting project.   Because we are riding, and carrying all our own gear I need to keep it light. Socks might have been okay, but we are away for a week and a day, and I might run out. So, instead I'm having a second attempt at Lettuce, the lace weight jumper than I had so many problems with a couple of years ago  . This time I'm using a bright blue yarn (seems to me a bit of theme) which is very similar to the yarn base I knit it in last time. This one was dyed by the inimitable Stranded in Oz. It's in 100 gram hanks, so I may be able to knit the whole body without changing skeins. Meaning I won't have to stripe the yarn, which might increase the challenge level. I want to keep this so simple, so I can enjoy the views, and the beer.   So there we are. I've wound...

This package showed up yesterday. It's Terra from Southwest Trading Company, via Stranded in Oz. I know I said I wasn't going to buy any more yarn. I actually ordered this before I said that, when we were in Adelaide last month. Its for a Grant Park Pullover jumper for Leon, and it's a wonderful bamboo / cotton blend in a really lovely colour. I knew I could squeeze a kilogramme of sport weight yarn into the stash box. What I wasn't expecting was for the balls to be wound around a cardboard core, making the whole lot quite bulky.   I thought about rewinding every ball, and then I deci ded to just cram it in the stash box as it. Leon suggested that I store it somewhere else, but I'm having no n of it. As long as the top of the box feels flat, that counts as closed in my book. I guess I'll be knitting this jumper very, very soon.

A quick hello, as I'm back from Adelaide and back to everyday life. I planned to blog yesterday but we were exhausted. Leon and I do tend to take the kind of holidays that mean we need to catch up on sleep afterwards! We saw loads of great shows, stayed out late and generally had an all around good time. But I know you don't want to know about that, you want to know what I knit and what I bought. I've only got a minute, so today I'll tell you about my shopping.   As I planned, I went to see Mel from Stranded in Oz . She is just such a wonderful dyer and she has a stall at a funny little market in Port Adelaide, where we also bought a whole lot of very bad ties.   I bought a couple of skeins of a very Jen colour to try to make Lettuce again.  Like the original Malabrigo I knit this in, it's a laceweight singles yarn, but such a stunning, strong colour.     I bought some black Tofutsies for Leon   Some dark green sock yarn...