What I made, by Sharon

I'm linking up with Kat for Unravelled Wednesday, as I generally do on a Wednesday. This post is written in a bit of a hurry and (I shamefacedly admit) from work. This is one of those weeks when I am out every night, except Thursday, and on Thursday we have to pack and prepare because we are going away for the upcoming long weekend, including an overnight hike. I am stoked to be getting out into the bush - fire conditions allowing, of course. Tonight we are seeing Amanda Palmer, which I am also stoked about, although the show is 4 hours long. But I am relived because it is called "There will be no intermission, and apparently there is an intermission. I can't imagine sitting for 4 hours.

So, in knitting this week I finished a pair of sneaker liners. I used the Fork In the Road pattern and I love how it looks in self striping yarn. I also took the photos at the gym this morning, in the two minutes I had between taking off my bike shoes and putting on my gym shoes. Never let…

I bought the pattern for the Beeswax Hat during the Indie-designer-Gift-a-Along, and then didn't actually cast it on until two weeks after the GAL finished! I 

I cast on and knit the first repeat according to the pattern ... or at least  I thought according the the pattern as I didn't really read it. it's one by one cables, charted, no worries. When I got to the end of the first repeat I took a good look, and realised my right twists and left twists looked very different from each other, to the point where it was distorting the fabric.
Then I reviewed the pattern and it turns out that I was doing the left twists wrong. I mean, the designer has a tutorial explaining how to do it right. The reason I'm glad I made this mistake now, on this little hat is that I spent this morning "designing" Leon's winter set, which is based around an arrow stitch made of one by one cables. This way I learnt the right way to do them, and only had to rip back 12 rounds, instead…

I love a rant! I just finished Ysolda's wee Envelope. Very cute pattern and it's the third time I've knit it. Oddly, the first time was January 2015, and the second January 2018.

 Maybe it's my January baby jumper/ I remembered that the second time I had some trouble at the beginning of the yoke, but I was knitting on the way back from a beer festival, so I thought that might be the issue. it's not. there are two parts of the instruction that don't make a lot of sense. There is a tutorial on Ysolda's website, and when I looked at that both the start and end of the yoke made sense, but I can't understand why the pattern wasn't written to include all the information needed to successfully knit this sweet jumper. And look how sweet it is. 

Despite my earlier rant, this is such a cute little jumper, and I think, the only thing (other than the ubiquitous Baby Surprise) that I have knit this often. I'm sure I will be making it again. In fact, I have a…

I have today off as carers leave for my father (dropping him off and picking him up from a standard surgical procedure) and was going about my day when I realised it was Wednesday. That fact has surprised me three time already today. Strange.

And you would think that a bonus day off would be very productive - well, I would think so. And in some ways it has been. I rode to my parents place and picked up the car dropped my dad at the hospital and then went to the supermarket WITH A CAR. Very exciting. There are some things that are not all that convenient on a bicycle, like sacks of flour and large tins of olive oil. I met Elise for coffee.  I did get dinner made, and the ironing done, and a small amount of knitting. I'm knitting "in between" stuff, before I start the Elton Cardigan, so I'm knitting a hat, and then a pair of sneaker liners, and then I'm back to the big stuff.



I'm reading Aftershocks by Marco Kloos.  It's military space opera, which I am enjoy…

It's tough right now. The country is literally on fire, the oceans are full of plastic, our government doesn't seem to care and it's easy to despair. I know we all want to do something, but anything I can do feels so, so tiny. Still a million tiny actions add up, so I try to do what I can, because I can only do what I can. On Saturday I went to the monthly St Kilda beach Beach Patrol cleanup where as a group we picked up 69 kilograms of rubbish. 
So much rubbish. At least I took some of it out of circulation. 

 Then in the afternoon I went to Jen's place and learnt to use her knitting machine to make pouches for injured wildlife. I also took my sewing machine and sewed some pouches. I got my annual sewing incident out of the way early! 

 On Sunday and Monday I crotchetted a set of nests that can be used for orphaned wildlife, from tiny birds to larger creatures. I know, crocheting at the end of last year and at the beginning of this! And even though each action is small…

I finished Greis dress on Sunday ... well I say I finished it, but the ends took me hours on Tuesday night. Still, I'm really happy with it, and thrilled that it never had time to get boring. I highly recommend doing a big project like this while on holidays, and having lots of knitting time. I think I might do another dress in the Christmas / New year period next year.

I really love it. I only made two changes:

1) I lengthened it. I want to be able to wear it to work without tights underneath, and even at my (short) height, it would have been two short.

I blocked it when it was about 5 centimeters short of the 66 I wanted for the body. I grew the extra distance, and ended up the perfect length.The Buachialle yarn also softened and bloomed noticeably on blocking.

2) I knit the smallest size, but went one size up for the sleeves. I could have gone two sizes up. I've got CrossFitters arms!

And that was it! I know I've ranted about Kate Davies pattern's in the past, but this p…