What I made, by Sharon

I've had a tough winter - reoccurring colds, skin fissures, a torn triceps, currently infected finger. I'm tired! I'm cold! So, we're going on a relaxing jaunt to Queensland, first to the Gold Coast for a beer festival and visit with Leon's family, and then to Brisbane for the Brisbane Festival and just to relax, get warm, visit some breweries and maybe a yarn shop. I've got my travel project cast on (it's the  Hoodie Shawl Cardigan by Susanne Sommer ) I've got a bunch of books on my Kobo to choose from and I'm ready for some relaxing time. I'll be back with a Queensland report in ten days. I'm pretty excited though, because I'm not back at work for another three weeks. After Queensland I've got a week at home, just doing some more relaxing, and then I'm going to a craft retreat for a week. 

Last Wednesday night I tore a left tricep at Pole. then on Saturday my right forefinger got horribly infected for no apparent reason.  I'm pretty grumpy about it. On Thursday I cast on a crotchet project in some left over handspun. It's been quite a fun project, because I speak crotchet as a second language, so it's taken attention and care. Alos, I can joke about being crotchety.  It's not perfect, but it is recognisable as a garment. The reading has been up and down this week.  I finished  Worry Box by Chris Panatier *, which did not live up to its early promise. You know when a book has a plot hole that you cannot forgive? This has that, and also characters whose emotions flip-flopped in a way I found unbelievable. The sentient house was believable though. Now I'm reading  Best Fake Fiancé  by Roxie Noir , the second in the Loveless Brothers series. Charming low stakes romance, just what I needed. Up next could be anything. Maybe Taylor Jenkin's Reid's...

  The last couple of weeks I've been working on two things - the Field Day Jacket  in bulky handspun and, when that got too big to carry around with me a Musselburgh   to match my new blanket jacket. They look so good together! There are no photos. I managed to wear the hat and out on Friday and Saturday without getting a photo, the first time to go to my parents for dinner and second for my in-house pole competition. Today we went to the St Kilda pride centre for Leon's end of term choir extravaganza and I wore the cardigan and the hat.   I love this cardigan so much. I was trying to spin 8ply (doubleknit) yarn, and failed abysmally. the bulky yarn sat in my stash until a couple of weeks ago, when I went on a mission to find a pattern that would work with it. I did not know I needed a bulky oversized cardigan with toggle buttons, but now that I have one, I can tell you: perfection. I knit it pretty much to pattern, although I did add the pockets - perfect ...

 Last weekend I finished spinning the fibre I've been working on for a while: 480 grams and 983 meters of around an 8ply. I'm pretty happy with it. It was very fun to spin, and to produce what I had been aiming for. I then decided I want to make  the Argyle cardigan Links  so I needed a contrast colour. I decided to dye some fibre pink and orange as the contrast: I mean, I love it, but I would call it scarlet, mauve and pink. I'm pretty pleased with how fluffy the fibre is, even after dying. Meanwhile and unrelated I found out that avocado can be used as a natural dye. I asked Anna, my most avocado eating friend if she could keep her pits for me. On Tuesday she gave me a week's worth of avocado pits. I extracted the colour, let them cool, strained it and threw in a skein of of sock yarn, just to see what might happen.   I really like it. i also really like the Nundle "high twist" sock yarn, it's very plump and pleasing, while still being a true sock-we...

Because I don't have all that many review books (15, but that's from here until January) I've been reading randomly and loving it. First I read  Woodworking by Emily St. James , which Katie mentioned her book club was doing.  She did then invite me to book club, but I'm not a bookclub person, even though I love it when people talk about books. My other group of friends who are in a bookclub are doing  Yesteryear , and I'm not going to that either, although I do want to know what they all think. After that I read   Only for Tonight by Kendall Ryan , a romance that I enjoyed. I don't know why sometimes I love a romance and sometimes they fall flat for me - maybe this time it's because I loved the main couple from the get go. Now I'm reading  Worry Box by Chris Panatier *. It's horror and sets up the tension early. Now it's letting me relax and I really don't think that's going to last long. Really well written.   Next up is  But for Fortune...

 I solved the 'problems' in this post  by ordering a custom Thread and Maple page. Now my extra quads can sit above my cables. And I do have extra Quads, because Morris and Sons now sell them, and I can run up there when I'm getting coffee at work. The other day I was outside the shop before it opened, begging them to open the door, crying for a needle. Just a little taste to get me through the morning.  Katrina from Lola and Louie had to special order this in and while I waited, every couple of days I sent her an email asking for something else to be added to the order. Since the whole thing took 6 weeks to come, I didn't even remember everything I'd ordered, but I'm a happy camper right now. A page of my Quads, one for my crotchet hooks, and a magnetic ruler. now I jsut need to do some crotchet!   I did also cave and get the Addi Unicorn Trio. These were hard to source in Australia and in the end I went with the evil empire. I haven't knit with them yet,...