What I made, by Sharon

 As mentioned last week , I replaced my Kindle Oasis with a Kobo Libra. It has been a very pleasant experience. It's pretty device, the buttons work well, the stand case is fantastic. I always struggled with cases for the Oasis, this one feels nice, is light, and is perfect for reading on my side in bed. There I also a landscape setting which is really comfy to read hands free, on the couch. The Libra is colour, which is neither here nor there, but it's pretty for the book covers. And I've been reading on it for a week and it has not touched the battery life, so that's a very good thing.   It was easy to get my NetGalley books onto it (through Overdrive), my Amazon books (through Calibre) and my first library book: Peacekeeping by Mischa Berlinski .It was the oldest book on my GoodReads TBR and I've quite enjoyed it. It's about Haiti and politics and aid going wrong. I'm 80 percent through and things are starting to get dramatic! Up next is  Second Best by ...

  After last weekend's fantastic but exhausting sheenanigans, this weekend I stayed home, and had a very crafty weekend. On Friday I dyed 600 grams of Polwarth fibre, for Andrea Mowery's  Traveller  hoodie. I was not confident about dying this much fibre in one go, but I decided to give it a go and see. At the end of the oven time, I was convinced that the top was a pale muddy mess and that the bottom would be super-saturated, because it looked like this: But it actually came out beautifully.  The fibre is a bit compressed, but not at all felted, and it puffs up with just a little bit of predrafting. While I was waiting for that to dry, I plied the rainbow yarn I've been working on over the last few weeks.  I didn't have a particular goal when I spun it, I just wanted it fluffy and delicious, which I achieved.  The only problem is that it is only 130 meters for 96 grams. I want the traveller yarn to be about 250 meters (or at least more than 200) so I did ...

The batteries on my Kindle Oasis were getting even worse, so I decided to replace it. I love the buttons and the 7 inch screen, and since Kindle doesn't have a version with buttons anymore I started looking at the Kobo Libra. It has buttons and is in colour. In Australia it is not possible to read library books on a Kindle, but it is on a Kobo. So, after reading on a Kindle since at least 2013, I've now liberated myself from the house of Bezos. To celebrate the ability to use my local library I'm going to go through my Goodreads "to be read" shelf and see how many of the 98 books on the list can be borrowed. The first book  Peacekeeping by Mischa Berlinski  has been on the list since 2017, and the library has it, so I'll be reading that next.  As soon as I finish my current read  More Work for the Undertaker by Margery Allingham .  This is the 6th one of these books I've read, and I'm only reading them because they are part of a book / knitting club I...

This year's Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show is over and done and it was a fabulous year. Kris, Katie and I stayed in a really cute cottage and had a marvelous time. we've been doing this for quite a quite now, and have refined all the things we like: Thai dinner of the Thursday night, Women of wool lunch on Friday Friday night pizza at Suzane's - and my traditional terrible photo of it. Saturday shopping and looking at sheep, followed by a group dinner at the pub. This year we all knit variations of the Pressed flower pattern, and took photos on Friday and Saturday, because different people were available on different days. This was such a fun project to knit, and to wear as a group. By the end of the weekend people were asking if I was a Richmond knitter, purely based on my clothing! As you can see it was cold, windy and occasionally rainy. I visited Susannah, to show her the jumper I test knit for her: Kerryn, from my trivia team came up for her first Bendigo, and it was a lo...

I'm posting this on Thursday, just as we leave for the annual festival that is the Australian Sheep and Wool Show (or Bendigo, as we like to call it). Every year I like to take stock of what I have, what I "need" and what I want, just so I don't loose my mind and by a thousand single skeins of sock yarn.  (Planning Posts  from  2012 ,  2013 ,  2014 ,  2016 ,  2018 ,  2019 ,  2021 ,  2022  and  2023 )     The first thing I like to do is check out what I currently have 16,970 meters across 27 entries, which is about 700 meters more than last year. Although considering I somehow managed to knit 27 kilometres of yarn last year 700 meters seems neither here nor there.  So what am I planning to buy this year? Pretty much all the yarn I have now is 4-ply, so I'm going to buy yarn for an 8-ply cardigan for Elise ( Alma Cardigan ), a 5-ply cardigan for Leon (  Rockland Crewneck ) and a 8-ply jumper for me, ...

This weekend is the Australian Sheep and Wool Show (colloquially known as "Bendigo"). It's what I was knitting all those Pressed Flowers items for, and I'm very excited about the whole weekend. I wanted something simple to knit, so I cast on the Clam tunic (which I'm making as a dress. I've separated for the sleeves, so now it's lots of striped stocking stitch in the round. So restful.  In reading, I diverted from my plan and read the cyber-punk  36 Streets by T.R. Napper . It's violent, thoughtful book, featuring a plausible feeling future, lots of fighting, with subplots about nationalism, colonialism, memory and belonging - to name just a few! I'm very nearly finished and then I will read my last review book for July    Linh Ly is Doing Just Fine  by Thao V otang , followed by the next Albert Campion mystery. 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  Shar...

I sometimes swatch, but not that much recently. I have many of my old swatches, which I was keeping for no particular reason. I have taken to keeping little baggies of yarn in case I have to do repairs, I am still patching things from  last year's moth  problem. I was considering doing a swatch for my next project (I'm knitting the Clam tunic Clam tunic as a dress). The gauge seemed like something I was not going to match, so I figured either cast on and risk ripping, or swatch. And then I realised that a swatch is the perfect place to store yarn for later use. it won't get accidentally used on a charity knit, its not unknit yarn hanging about and getting tangled.  While I had all my old swatches out to take this photo I noticed that one of them is for a jumper of Leon's that I patched last week with the closest yarn I could find, rather than the exact yarn that was sitting there all the time! As for my swatch: It gave me 26 stitches for 10 cm before washing and 24 st...