What I made, by Sharon

Just like t his time last year , we went down to the Great Ocean Road for the Surf Coast Trail marathon. This year I wasn't running, I'm a little bit injured and haven't been running at all. I volunteered. Leon, on the other hand did the full marathon. He's been very consistent in his training, and did very well. Skip and Bee drove is, both down there and around during the race, which was very companionable. We rented a house for the weekend, and got to bring their dog, Digby. I can never predict whether a weekend like that will be fantastic for knitting, or if too many other things will happen. This time, I got quite a bit done: It's the Gidday Baby cardigan by Georgie Nicholson. Very quick little knit, started it Thursday and finished on Saturday. Obviously I need to block it and get buttons on. I wanted to blog it now, because things are getting a bit crazy around here - I'm out every night next week except Thursday, and away next weekend as well...

Recently Katie put a question on Instagram about growing her own ginger, because she was spending a house deposit on fresh ginger, for fresh ginger tea. I got inspired, and used some of the ginger I had received in my weekly grocery box for ginger tea. Delicious. So I ordered a kilo of fresh ginger. I gave half of the kilogram to Katie, and put a third of the remaining lot in whisky, to preserve it - also so at the end I'll have ginger that tastes like whisky, and whisky that tastes like ginger. The ginger was making our tea pot taste like ginger, and it was almost impossible to clean out between uses. I love ginger, but probably don't need everything to taste of it all the time.. I also realised that our cafietiere would be better, because it has a filter, and our tea pot doesn't. BUT the cafetiere didn't have a cosy, and this tea needs to steep. So I crocheted one! I haven't picked up the hook since July last year, and it's always fun to get bac...

It been really strange, since I finished The Dress two weeks ago I've knit (and crocheted) bits and pieces, but nothing that has taken more than a couple of days. Also, somewhat to my surprise, I have been picking up The Blanket between each project and have made some serious progress. tonight I am finishing off a pair of Tough and Toasty mitts for my brother-In-Law. full disclosure I finished them on Monday at knit night, but when I looked at them properly I realised I'd put the thumb on the wrong side on the second one. I love knit night, but it's not the most productive for getting actual knitting done. Since I had to rip the second one back, I'm also making them a bit bigger. Fixed mitt on the left, smaller mitt on the right: I'm reading A Prince on Paper which is the third in the "Reluctant Royals" romance series. It's typical romance, so I know what's going to happen, but I'm enjoying it. It's well written and the characters f...

Leon had a birthday on Sunday. I bought him some stuff but decided to make him a dragon as well. I decided this months ago, and really struggled to work on him. It's a well written pattern, but there are a lot of bit and pieces, and I'd knit a part - like a leg and then wander off. When time was short, I took him to Monday night knitting and when the other knitters saw him, they were all "awww" and "he's so cute" and I started to feel the love. I finished him up last week, sewing his spines on at the waiting room of my myotherapist, and gave it to Leon on Sunday. I think Leon was quite taken with him - one of the first things he said was "he looks thirsty" so here's the dragon with some ginger tea. The photos Leon put on Instagram starred a stronger drink, since I also gave him a bottle of Octomore whisky.   We don't know his name yet - as everyone knows, dragons often withhold their true names, but I'm super happy to have hi...

I finished the Still Light dress in exactly three weeks, which I thought was bizarrely quick, even for me. Then I had my customary stress attack about whether it would fit, blocked it and wore it to Leon's mother's 80th birthday celebration in Ballarat on Saturday. For those of you not from around here, Ballarat is significantly colder than Melbourne, which is why I'm wearing all of the woolens in some of these photos.  I knit the pattern pretty much as written, the mods were: I did a tubular cast on and cast on 8 stitches less than the pattern specified, and then added and extra increase in the raglan section. I like the slightly higher neckline. The pattern has pockets, which thrills me, and I decided to knit them in a contrasting colour, just for fun. I love the pockets, they are at exactly the right height to slide my hands in. This dress is so comfortable and easy to wear, I jut love it. I'm tempted to knit four more, in different colours, and t...

I imagine you are wondering "but where is all the yarn for this sock yarn blanket coming from". Let me take you on a trip down blanket memory lane. When I started knitting this someone on Ravelry organised a thing where they bought every colour of Bendigo Luxury and then sent each of us a sample of each colour. It was when Luxury was new - I've been working on it for that long! Early on I dyed some mini-skeins. And then I knit with a lot of four ply. I recently did a sock yarn swap on Ravelry - really fun, but the postage was ridiculous. Last week Jane from Richmond knitters organised a Regia swap and I got mine just the other night - look how pretty: Then I was looking at the new part of the blanket, and I panicked because it looks a lot darker than the original, so I asked Kris and Katie if maybe they have some light coloured left overs. Now, I know my friends always come through for me, but Kris took it to the next level: She gave me a ziplock of left over sm...

It's Wednesday, and that means I'm talking books and knitting with Kat and the rest over at As Kat Knits . This week I'm knitting NOTHING. OK, that's not quite true. I finished the Still Light dress yesterday, and it's having it's bath. Once I pull it out and it dries, I'll be able to see if I need to reknit the hem. Tonight I'm going to knit on my extended sock yarn blanket . I have it in my head that if I knit on it for one day between every finished project, I could get the second half caught up to the first half in a year. I don't want to commit to that though, since I'm not in a hurry on this project. Tonight I'm also going to skein up some yarn for my next project - which is going to be crotchet. Always exciting to pick up the hook.  I'm reading When Will There Be good News by Kate Atkinson. This is the third in the jackson Brodie series. For reasonan's I cannot explain NetGalley gave me books 1, 3 and 4. But not 2 and ...