What I made, by Sharon

I often don't swatch. I cast on with a fair idea of my yarn and usual knitting style. If it doesn't work out, I stop and reassess. On Tuesday I cast on for   Alpine Bloom pattern by Caitlin Hunter  which I was intending to extend into a dress with a full skirt. It was apparent pretty early that, while I had gauge, my fabric was going to be too loose to make a dress that was decent. After googling slips and finding pout I could buy one at K-Mart, I stepped back and started swatching. I started with doubling the yarn on 3.5 mm needles, which made a nice fabric, but a bit thick. Then I went down to a 3mm needle, which makes a lovely, but slightly airy fabric. Back up to a 3.5 for comparison and that was immediately way too stretchy and flexible. I ripped what I had started and cast on again with smaller needles.  The second attempt has been much more satisfying. The colourwork is soothing, the contrast colour is slowly changing from pastel to pastel shade and the fabric...

even though I said it was Kobo + this month. As I said in my weekend report I had a joyous amount of reading time. I read Vicious by V.E. Schwab, which I really enjoyed - more man made superheros. Then I requested  A Song Only We Can Hear by Elliot Wake, mainly because the subtitle is A novel about cancer, music and love. I'm halfway through, and I would subtitle it a novel about abusive people and the cancer patient who love them.  After I finish this I'll go back to kobo +. I might read some Charlaine Harris - there are some of her novellas available, and she writes a good story. In audiobooks I returned to Netgalley, because I was really excited to request and receive Yann Martell's Son of Nobody.   It's a strangely structured book, comprising a made up history of the Trojan War from the point of view of a commoner, the notes on it by a modern scholar, and his personal life interjected in the middle. I'm very close the end and I kept thinking it would come tog...

I decided to make a fun pair of sneaker liners, as a simple project to work in public while I knit the bigger, more complicated Agave top. I thought it would be fun to knit them in conjunction - two at a time, but on separate needles. Finally I thought I would try the HiyaHiya needles and compare them with Chiaogoos for sock knitting. I actually bought the HiyaHiya circulars a little while ago. One was slightly bent when it arrived in the mail. I straightened it out and it seemed fine, but that should have told me everything i needed to know. I also seem to need to keep relearning the same lessons, because I made the same observations about the two brands' double pointed needles back in 2019. I cast the first sock on. the HihyaHiyas are very pointy, and split the splitty yarn quite a bit and bend if I lever too hard. After completing the cuff, heel and first set of stripes I cast the second sock on using a Chiaogoo circular. It is pointy, but not sharp. After completing the cuff, ...

We are about to head into the mountains for 5 days of hiking, so I won't be linking up with my normal link-ups - and I'm not sure that there will be much posting on Christmas Day. Anyway, we don't Christmas, but we do hike! One of the things I love about hiking is the amount of time there is, and how there is nothing to do. I'm very bad at doing nothing, so I always bring a fully loaded e-reader and a good knitting project. The knitting project is  The Traveler Shell by Andrea Mowry . It thought I knew what I was going to knit on this trip (  The Article  by Kate Davies )  and then out of the blue, less than a week before we left I decided I had to knit this.  I cast it on a couple of days ago, because I don't want to get caught on a mountain with knitting that isn't working out: In reading I'm going to clear a few NetGalley books, starting with Alarm Fatigue . I started it last night, and so far I'm enjoying it - the writing is a teeny bit clunky, but t...

It was another lovely weekend spent reasonably close to home. On Friday we went to my brother's place for dinner, which is always nice (for us). They were hosting because one of their Golden Retriever  had a knee operation and can't be left alone. Their dogs seems to spend a lot of time at the vet. Saturday was sunny and beautiful and I had brunch with Elise. I wanted to confirm her measurements for  the cardigan I was about to cast on for her. She is about to head overseas for a month, so there is no measuring while I'm knitting. Then in the afternoon I made buttons for said cardigan. While I was there making checks, I made a pair of earring for Katie. Sunday was very relaxing and indulgent, although there was also a lot of exercise in there! We went for a run in the morning. The runs are getting longer and faster and more tiring. I'll probably do the half marathon at the Marysville running festival in November. Then I finished the hat I've been working on.   I t...

This weekend I knit the body colourwork of the Alma test knit I am participating in.  It's a steeked cardigan with four buttons. I thought it would be fun to make my own buttons out of polymer clay. While I crafting that, I also made a couple of stitch markers, and some earrings.  There is something so satisfying about being matchy matchy. There was also something so brain calming about two handed colourwork. I read somewhere that it engages both sides of the brain. I don't know if that's true, but I do know that I really enjoyed it. Now I'm just going to finsih the sleeve colourwork and then it's plain knitting all the way.

After I abandoned the MKAL I was left in a bit of a conundrum: what to knit next? I had a plainish  sock on the needles, but that was just designed to be a filler between clues, and I wasn't feeling very excited about it. So mid-last week I cast on the Arrows Down jumper - which I'm going to make as a dress. The colourwork is so soothing and relaxing, which is a bit of a relief since my last  colour work was a bust. This just flows on the needle. Delightful. The yarn is squishy and wonderful, the pattern flows logically and its making me happy. I was around the house on Saturday, and really got a chance to make progress. Then on Sunday I met up with my old school friends for brunch, and I took the socks with me. I've finished the first and cast on the second, so that will be perfect for knitting at knit night tonight and the pub tomorrow, while I finish the last 10 rows of colourwork for this yoke. I didn't get a picture of my friends, or of the sock, so here's a...

Stephen West released the first MKAL clue on Thursday night. I started knitting it without looking at spoilers. When I got up on Friday he had sent through an "alternative" clue one. I then went and had a look at the spoiler thread to try to work out what was going on. Which was that some people thought the pattern looked like a "German hate symbol". I knit on anyway, since I was half-way through. Then he took down the original clue, replacing it with a mitred square in garter stitch. The Ravelry forums and Instagram are a complete shit-show, even though Rav is being moderated. It's been a bit disheartening, having something that is usually quite light and fun weighed down with all this. I admire Stephen's quick and sensitive response to this drama. I also feel that anything can look like anything if you squint. To me this looks like a Celtic knot. I think mine is pretty, and I'll knit on through all crises. 

It's NetGalley madness around here! I reviewed two NetGalley books about mixing drinks  and talked about drinking earlier in the week . Then I finished Shmutz , which I really enjoyed, even though it was confronting at times. I'm currently racing through The Circumference of the World by Lavie Tindar. It's a strange book in the best possible way, reminding me of the  tone and wierdness of Kurt Vonnegaught. The story is about a science fiction book and religion founded by it's author and people keep getting kidnapped and it's madness and I'm loving it. Next I have another review book - Everyone and Everything   by Nadine J. Cohen.  I was very excited to get approved for this one, I follow Nadine on the socials and she's another (relatively) local author, so hopefully that will go well. The knitting of Elise's Spectra has been calm, if not soothing. Endless short rows and stripes: I've got  8 grams of the main colour left, so maybe four wedges to go,...

I'm all packed up and ready to go. We're hiking 76kms over 4 days in the Little Desert. I'm a little worried about how cold it might get at night but I also know we have the right gear for it.  That's my hiking knitting hanging from the side of my pack in the red dry bag. I'm going to knit a modified version of Stephen West's Spectra Scarf for Elise while we are away. I'm using a self striping, rather than a gradient, so it will require a little bit of fiddling. Here's my trial / swatch: I often don't get a lot of knitting done when we're hiking in winter. It gets cold and dark early and we climb into our nice warm sleeping bags and read, but I do love having a project with me, and the hike is a four hour drive. I didn't want to take the jumper I've been working on. because it's bulky now, and would probably get finished during the drive up. I'll get it done on my return. So close. In reading,  I've been reading Nona the Nint...

 It's the third week of Stephen West's sock-a-long and I've finished the clue:  This is fun and chaos, so fairly typical for Stephen! Next clue is out Thursday, and I've got size six feet, so these will be done in a flash. I'm also knitting a jumper for an acquaintance . I started it last Wednesday and it's knitting up really fast - I guess 4.5mm needles and plain stocking stitch will do that. The yarn is Zealana Air, which is so, so beautiful - it's cashmere, possum and silk. So soft, so warm. I'm reading Salt and Skin , by Eliza Henry-Jones. It's a novel about an Australian family who have moved to a Scottish Island. There is lots of trauma hinted at, and I'm enjoying the slow unfurling.  I'm not sure if I've mentioned I'm listening to Anthony Mara's Mercury Pictures Presents . It's a World War Two book, focusing on "enemy aliens" in America and the film industry and family and so many other things. In Mara's...

I really despair  of my naming conventions! The Scotch Mist cabled jumper is going well I did the collar last night and weaved in all the ends - I don't know how a single coloured jumper had so many ends, and now I've just got the sleeves to go.  I'm reading The Lost Jewels by Kirsty Manning  and enjoying it. It's a duel timeline novel, featuring a protagonist form now and her great-grandmother. There is pain and I imagine there will be healing. I'm listening to Wild Apples , which was the free Audible book for June. It's a about a woman who gets divorced and is forced to move back to her home town and in with her difficult mother. There is drama and there is pain and I assume there will be healing. To read my all my book reviews, and to see everything I knit, you can find me on Ravelry as  Sharondoublekni t and on GoodReads as  Sharondblk .  I'm joining in with Kat from  As Kat Knits  for Unravelled Wednesday and Kat from the  Bookdate...

and then WASH IT. I did swatch for my Scotch Mist jumper - a teeny tiny swatch to get the hang of the cable pattern and then a stocking-stitch swatch to work out what size to make - I'm using 8 ply on an aran jumper (again!). When I finished the body, it came out at just shy of 36 inches, which is fine, I'd calculated it at 37 inches, but my notes say i was hoping for closer to 40.  After blocking tit's come out at just under 40 inches. Everything relaxed. This didn't surprise me, the pattern has a lot of knit one below, and they have opened up to this more lacey effect. I like this too, but I might have been a bit less surprised about how much it relaxed if I'd washed my teeny tiny swatch.  Now, dry quickly please, I'm aching to get the collar and sleeves on. 

I was sitting here, obsessing about what I was going to knit next, (and next, and next and next) and I started thinking about my Starnkeeker cardigan which has been resting since mid-may. I've decided I want to go full colourwork, including the sleeves (basically a Tirdaigh, also by Kate Davies, same stitch count, so I can change horses mid-stream).  I'll need to work out how much more yarn I need, but I know I can buy that from the Purl Box at the Bendigo sheep and wool show (in two weeks!). Now, as discussed, Starnkeeker  is not really suitable for public knitting. I just realised, looking at my queue, that after I finish my current jumper , the Stephen West Surprise Sock Knit-a-long and some squares I'm contributing to a communal project, the next three (possibly four) projects I have planned are fantastic for knitting in public. So, I'm going to buy the rest of the yarn at Bendigo, and make a concerted effort to knit this at home (or at work on my lunch breaks...

I was obsessed with knitting a cable jumper for quite a while. I started looking at patterns on the 4th of May, I bought the yarn for a cabled jumper on the 14th of May, and then I finished a jumper for Leon and started and finished a cardigan for myself. Two Sunday's ago I cast on the cabled jumpe r and I haven't been able to stop knitting it since. I've just divided for the sleeves, and it's such a pleasure to knit. I cannot put it down. I'm knitting at lunchtime, I'm knitting all the time! Of course, this has made my audio-book reading go fast, and my eye reading quite slow. I'm listening to the fifth Rivers of London book, Foxglove Summer .  like all the previous volumes, it's great. Perfect narrator, interesting plot, a story arc within each book, along with a larger arc. All 'round marvellous. I'm eye reading A Year Of Marvellous Ways by Sarah Winman, who wrote Still Life. I t has a similar tone, and themes, like community and belonging an...

Last week I mentioned that I started a review copy of Indomitable by Claudia Brooke and then set it aside. Since it was a review copy, I thought I should give it the respect of trying to read it, so I picked it back up. I was happy to read some urban fantasy about a dog that was bitten by a vampire. Sounds fun, right? Well, it wasn't. I hated the main female character Gracie. When a second first person voice appeared I thought the book might be salvageable. Then a third first person voice showed up. I guess Claudia Brooke doesn't know that books can be written in the third person? Anyway, I know we are not meant to quote directly from review copies, but let me give you a little sample of Gracie's thoughts after her boyfriend gets called in to work when she is at his apartment:  "He had picked me up, so if I wanted to go home, I'd have to call a relative. Scratch that. A relative ride would come with questions and lectures. Uber would be a better choice. But I was...

 The brioche cardigan I'm knitting calls for a tubular cast off on the body. So I did a tubular cast off. And it's too tight.. It pulls the whole thing in. I love a tubular cast off because  it's pretty, but this just doesn't work. So I ripped it out and did an ordinary stretchy cast off, and now the the whole cardigan looks like it's going to fit fine.  While I was involved in that ripping out I realised I had knit the sleeve on the wrong side. It meant that the brioche detailing wasn't as planned, but it also means that the brioche doesn't flow into the ribbing quite as nicely (I'm not sure why, it's just the way it looks). Normally I would  just rip it, bit it's taken me a week to not quite finish the first  sleeve of this cardigan, so no. I put it the right way out and it there was a visible seam where I picked up the extra stitches for the sleeve. Also, just no. I picked out the picked up stitches and sewed them shut, and now it looks fine. ...