Winding Things Back a Notch

The past week and a half have been a whirlwind, but finally, things have settled back into some sembalance of normalcy. It won't be totally normal until Chris goes back to work in a couple more weeks, but for now, this is as normal as it gets.

I'll just take up where I left off...the trip to Wool Bay. After spending Saturday night at work, I hurried home, getting here at about 8AM. After a quick shower, some last minute packing, and getting Chris' car loaded up, we headed out at about 9:30. It took almost 4 hours to get there, after frequent fag and toilet stops, and a takeaway lunch in Ardrossan.

My take along knitting for the ride were the sleeves for my Welt and Rib Raglan jumper (Interweave Winter 08). I was almost finished with the first sleeve when we left. I knit on it until I was sure I was close to the length required, but having no really flat surface to measure it on, I just left it on the cord I was knitting it on, removed the needles, attached them to another cord and cast on for the second sleeve. As I was knitting them using the magic loop method, cord length wasn't all that important, except, of course, that it was long enough. It was easy car knitting in relatively simple rib, and as small as a sock really, so it was just about perfect.

We arrived in early afternoon, chatted with Chris' friends, Roger and Leslie, for awhile. They all went for a walk down to the water, but I, being rather exhausted by this time, stayed at the cabin and enjoyed about an hour of peace and quiet. I spent the time knitting on the Alpine Knit Scarf from Victorian Lace Today. When they came back, we fired up the bar-b-que and had a nice dinner, shortly after which I crawled gratefully into the bed.

The next morning the boys were gone when I woke up. They had taken Rogers boat out on the sea for a bit of a fish, leaving Leslie and I to our own devices. I find Leslie to be very good company. She's the kind of person who you can enjoy "comfortable" silence with. She's happy to chat, but equally happy to sit quietly, and I like that in a person. We chatted, did a bit of tidying, I knit on the lace during quiet moments, and the jumper sleeve during chats. Leslie read or chatted, and time just flew by.

The Great White Hunters returned from the ocean with two fish shortly after noon, both caught by Roger, and plenty of stories of fishing woe to tell. After only a little while, my dearest husband, true to form, was ready to roam again, so off we went in search of a conservation park he was interested in seeing. He had told me it was about 20 minutes away, but I should have known better. About an hour later, after traveling over halfway across the "foot" of the peninsula, and getting slightly lost once, we arrived at Carribe Conservation Park.



It was midafternoon, and quite hot for walking, so Chris struck off alone for a short walk around. Meanwhile, me and about 3 million flies all hell bent on my destruction stayed with the car. I tried to knit on my lace while I had the peace and quiet, but it's hard to concentrate on lace, or even knit for that matter, when you are constantly batting away flies.

We drove back to the cabin, showered and got ready to go into Edithburg where we had reservations for dinner at one of the pubs. It was a nice meal, and we went out for a walk on the jetty afterwards.



Everyone seemed to think a cappacino was a good idea, so we walked down to "The Garage", a coffee house/takeaway joint styled like a 1950's American Diner. As usual, I took my knitting along of course, and Roger snapped a picture of me knitting by the jukebox:



The rest of the night passed uneventfully. While everyone else had an early bedtime, I stayed up until nearly midnight, partly out of habit, and partly because I wanted to finish off that first sleeve. I had almost finished the ball of yarn on the second sleeve, and wanted to use the well over half a ball that was still attached to the first sleeve and would certainly be enough to finish off the second. From the looks of things, I'm not going to have much excess yarn from this project, so breaking a new ball seemed unneccessary.

We left fairly early Tuesday morning on our return trip. I knit on the second sleeve this time, and had it nearly finished by the time we got back to the house. Then it was a whirlwind of unpacking, washing, hanging out, ironing and putting things away.

On the way home, we had stopped by the post office. The Christmas package from my cousin Terrie was late, and even though it arrived right after Christmas, what with all the New Years holidays and us being away, the post office hasn't been open on days when we were able to pick it up. So we picked up the package and then headed home.

I forced myself to unpack and put most things away first, and finally allowed myself to dig into the package. On top was a hat for Chris. Beneath that was the most exquisite Civil War style ballgown, complete with hooped petticoat, hat and muff. I immediately started stripping right there in the dining room and tried it on. It fit like it was made for me.

Here I am outside by the roses in the dress only:



And here in the living room with all the accessories on:



It will just be so perfect for Winter Roundup in May, our big annual Western Action Shooting get together. There's a fancy dress ball on the Saturday night during the event, and I'd already began to worry about getting something together to wear to it, as everything I have like that is way too big. I never really had anything this grand to begin with. Needless to say, I'm stoked.

The rest of Tuesday evening was spent sorting things out, including my knitting. I was almost finished with the second sleeve on the jumper. The way the jumper is constructed, after getting the proper length of sleeve, you then go back to the lower body, pick up your stitches from your original crochet cast on and start knitting upwards, attaching the sleeves to the body in raglan fashion. All this, in a nutshell, meant that it no longer qualified as "easy take along work knitting", being both too big and frought with fairly complicated bits at this stage.

Turning to the ever so lovely Alpine Lace Scarf, I didn't even speculate. Much as I love it, and love working on it, it will never, ever be "easy take along work knitting". While I might have cherish some faint hope of "remembering the pattern" and "developing muscle memory" when I first started it, I have long since gave up on this fantasy. Frankly, I can't even listen to my iPod when knitting on it, much less watch TV or deal with the distractions of work. I keep it on a TV tray next to my bed, with the Daylight lamp on the nightstand, and to work on it I go into my "bedcave", my DO NOT DISTURB zone. Even Chris just sort of clears his throat and waits if he needs my attention while I'm busy with it. No, not work knitting friendly at all.

The result of all this speculation was that I needed a new project, and quickly. I had been thinking of casting on just a plain pair of toe up socks from some of the plethora of self striping yarn I have, and in the end, that seemed the best idea. I drug out the blue/black/grey/white Heirloom Jigsaw that I bought from my LYS here in Murray Bridge about a year ago, some 2.5mm needles and cast on some toe up socks, which I'm calling "Jiggy With It" in honor of the yarn. For the longest I did all my socks two at a time, but for ease and portability, I decided to go with just one sock at a time this go round. I had them cast on, and a bit of the toe shaping done by the time I had to go in to work Tuesday night.

Having sorted my knitting out, I worked Tuesday and Wednesday night. I was off Thursday night, but can't brag about getting too much done. I did work on the lace awhile, and the jumper, but with Chris around, it wasn't terribly easy to get much done.

Then back to work Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights.

The monotony of work was only broken by the visit of one of my Ravelry friends who is visiting the area from her home in Canada. She's from South Australia originally, and her mother still lives here. She, her mother and husband, stopped by on Sunday morning on their way back from a visit to Mount Gambier. I wish now that I had taken photos while they were here, but it seems I never take pictures when I should. But the visit was delightful, and I was so happy to get to meet her in person. For my Ravelry friends, her name on Rav is Handmadam. For privacy purposes (because I forgot to ask her permission to publish her name, NOT that she refused to allow it) I won't mention her given name here.

She did bring me precious pretties which I have taken pictures of. Beautiful fibre from Fleece Artist in Canada. I think she actually only intended to give me two out of three of these, but I oooohhh'd and awwwww'd so much about the green one she gave me that one as well.



The green one on top is kid mohair, and the other two are seacell and merino. Truly they are all three magnificantly soft. I'm trying to figure out now which I want to spin first. I'm thinking the more pastelly one, mainly because it's already unbraided. No better reason really. I love them all, but of course the green kid mohair best. My tendency though is to spin last what I love the most.

Tuesday Chris decided to make a run back up to Port Pirie and (initially) spend a couple of nights there, coming home Thursday. I was, of course, over the moon to have a couple of "free days" for spinning, knitting and doing whatever I pleased. I was overly optomistic, however. He was gone all day Tuesday, which was nice, but as I had worked Monday night, I was really too tired to enjoy myself. Wednesday and Thursday were going to be the really productive days.

Tuesday I set myself to work on the Welt and Rib Raglan, mainly it was easy enough to do sleepy and it was getting near to completion, or so I thought. You know how sometimes you think you are "almost done" with something, then keep knitting and knitting and knitting...??? That's sort of what happened. I knit on that thing most of the day, and I'm still not finished even as I write this, although I have made it to the collar shaping:



I might knit on it later today, and then, I might not. Hopefully, I will have it done by the next post. I'm running very close to being out of yarn, and just hoping I make it to the end without having to buy another ball.

Wednesday morning, I ran a few errands, and shortly after I got home had a call from Chris to tell me that he was cutting his trip short and would be home "late tonight". This was, to say the least, a bit disappointing. I had pretty much blown the morning as far as knitting and spinning were concerned, and I did have a couple of things I wanted to do before he got home.

I wanted to attempt the Navaho plying of the SCF I had spun up for that purpose, and I wanted to get the heel turned on the sock I am currently using for work knitting so it would be good to go Thursday night, and for both of these things, I wanted the peace and quiet of an empty house.

So I got busy on those two things, and essentially put off the Welt and Rib Raglan until after he got home. I got out the Ashford, and got started on the Navaho plying, which went better initially than I expected it to. I used the single of the "Deep Thoughts" colourway from SCFC. I'm sure it would have two plied fine, seeings how David's fibres always do, but the colours were so dark and subtle, I thought it would lend well to keeping those colourways more or less intact.




So after getting the plying started, I turned my attention to the sock, got the heel turn done and had started to pick up the gusset stitches. I figured I could go from there without any problem, even with distractions. So I put that aside and went to do a bit of work on the Alpine Lace Scarf, which is always a "do in quiet" project, but particularly so when I was adding a new safety line, since I had to remove all the markers, then replace them.

This is where everything started to go tragically wrong. In my survey of the lace that I tend to do every time I put a new safety line in, I noticed a big ole boo boo about four 16 row repeats back. I wish now that I had taken a picture of all this, but honestly, I was just not in the sort of mood where you even think about photos. Suffice it to say that one of the rows had went terribly pear shaped, causing the whole pattern to skew and then right itself again on the following rows. After blocking, it would have looked tragic, and I can't for the life of me figure out why I hadn't noticed it before.

So I had to frog back to that point, something I really really wanted to finish before Chris got home. I frogged it back to just before the error, then tinked back a row to get all the yo's accounted for. Back on the needles, I knit a row to get a safety line in, and then another row to replace the stitch markers. Sadly, it's almost back to the point that it was at when we finished the boat trip:




All should be well now, although I must admit I haven't knit on it any more, since Chris came home just as I was finishing the stitch marker row.

Chris got home at about 7PM, not the "late tonight" he had originally said, but then, I should know him well enough by now to know he will always be earlier than he said. Still, wishful thinking can go a long way towards deluding oneself. Ah well, another tick on the "Well crap" wall.

I was sitting on the couch, watching TV and listen to him tell me about his trip during commercials, when I finished the gusset decreases. I was at the point where all I needed to do was knit round and round up the leg. Perfect for work. I tried the sock on. "Well crap!" It didn't fit. Not just by a little bit. No, it was tight enough to curl my toes up.

So once again, I put on my frog face and starting ripping. Again, no pictures, and for the same reasons. But I ripped it all the way back to where I had started the gusset increases. Now, I'll need to knit another quarter inch or so length onto the foot, then redo the gusset increases, heel and gusset decreases.



It's frankly a bit of a bother, but then, socks that don't fit are pointless, so there really wasn't much choice. I will admit though, I did run through my mind who amongst my friends and family had smaller feet than me. In the end, I need the socks, and that was that. A frogging I must go.

So obviously, the afternoon did not turn out well. I can't say I was terribly amused by it all at the time, but in hindsight, all's fair in love and knitting. It is the first time I had to substantially frog back two projects in one day, and I really will die happy if there isn't a second time. But you know, one of the things I love about knitting is that no matter what, you get a "do over". I haven't ran across a mistake yet that frogging and redoing couldn't fix. If only life were like that.

Today is Thursday, and I have to go back to work tonight. Chris, when he announced he was coming home "late" Wednesday night, reassured me that he had "lots" to do Thursday and would "hardly be home" anyway. Well, he did go out to his friends boat this morning (he's trying to sell it) and clean it up for some potential buyers who are coming by this weekend. He was gone about an hour and half. And now, he's gone for a walk at a nearby conservation park. So he is trying to stay out of my hair.

My son sent me this neat UT (University of Tennessee) bag kit for Christmas.



It's a pattern and some quilted fabric to make a bag with. I just love it to pieces and I reckon it will make a really cool knitting bag, so I pulled out the electric sewing scissors around noon, only to find that it had been so long since I'd used them they had lost all their charge. So they are charging up as I type, and hopefully by the next post, I'll have a cool bag to show you. Or some quilted scraps if things go badly. At any rate, there will be something to show.

That's all I have for today. Till next time...

Boatie Bits and Knits

I wanted to throw a post in here before we left for our boat trip, and indeed, had much of a post done before we left. It was started, but not completed. So now, I'm doing some creative editing on the "old" post, and adding the unfinished and new bits. At the moment, time is not on my side, so if some of the edits make no sense, and if I'm sketchy and a bit brief, then I can only apoligize in advance.

With Christmas obligations and Chris on school holidays, my schedule has been packed full. I came home from work last Monday morning, showered, loaded up everything and left for the boat. We were on the boat until Thursday afternoon, back to work Thursday night. I work Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights and then when I get home Sunday morning I'll shower, load up in the car and begin a three and a half hour car journey to Wool Bay. Wool Bay is a seaside resort community on the Eastern shore of the Yorke Peninsula. An old friend of Chris' has a cabin there, and we will be staying with him and his wife Sunday night and Monday night, returning home Tuesday in time for me to be at work Tuesday night. Such is my schedule at the moment. Consequently, this might look a bit hurried, and editing will be rough.

Now, to go way way back (or so it seems now) to the things going on before the boat trip. I'll get to the knitting bit eventually, but one thing I thought pretty exciting was that I actually had a raffle win. I was in the express line at the grocery store a couple of months ago, and the checkout girl asked me if I wanted to enter a raffle aiding in the support of the two new pandas they were getting (and have since got) at the Adelaide zoo.

I said "I'll donate two bucks. I'm a bit short on time".

She said, "Oh, the prizes are great, and I only need your name and phone number".

So I scribbled down my name and number, gave her a two buck coin and never thought another thing about it until I got a phone call from Woolworths. Even then, I didn't recall it immediately. The girl on the phone told me where she was calling from, and I really couldn't figure out why Woolworths would be calling me. Then she told me she needed my address because I had won $1000 worth of "gift cards" in the "Panda Raffle". Still, no bells are ringing, and my first instinct was it was one of those calls where they try to glean information and then rob your bank account or something. I figured there was no harm in giving her my address, as it's in the phone book anyway, but I was wary about giving her any more information. Thank goodness she never asked for anything more. She just started explaining to me what I had won. It was then that I finally remembered the Panda raffle, and started paying attention. At that moment I realized it wasn't a prank, since I hadn't thought anything about buying that ticket, much less told anyone about it.

After asking her to repeat what I had won, I started to get excited. Essentially, it was two $500 Wish gift cards that could be spent at any Woolworths or several associate stores. They arrived by registered mail a few days later:



Shortly after the phone call, I had called Chris to tell him the news. We had planned on buying a new digital LCD TV for Christmas, sort of one big thing for both of us, but we knew we'd have to put it on the credit card and pay it off. So he suggested we get the TV with the cards. We went shopping at one of the associate stores, Dick Smith Electronics, and got this lovely whopper of a TV (well, whopper compared to the 26in we had):



It's a 42in Sanyo LCD, the picture is beautiful, and we are enjoying watching all the new digital channels. Admittedly, with all our running around, and the utter crap that on TV this time of the year, I haven't had a chance to watch to much on it, but I'm sure I'll get my chance soon enough. The only problem is that I'm having a bit of trouble hooking it to the DVD/VCR player, but I really just haven't had time to figure it out. Something else for me to put my mind to when all the running is over with.

All in all, it was a nice little windfall, and helps us tremendously in planning and saving for our planned trip to Tennessee in late August. Chris has applied for the time off work. We still haven't gotten final approval back from the department, but it looks promising. We're planning as if it's a done deal.

Also, on one of my days off a few days before the trip, Chris and I went bushwalking in a nearby conservation area, and I managed to get a couple of shots I thought I would include here. It's a lovely spot. Chris goes there alot, and was anxious to show it to me, and I must say, I was impressed by the landscape, but not so impressed by the plethora of flies that abounded there. I was wearing my "fly hat" though, so all was well:



Notice too our handy new hiking poles. Chris, ever the ebay stalker, found them on there. Mine was originally supposed to be his, and came from China, but it was way to short for Chris, even fully extended, but perfect for me. He got himself another taller model:



I suppose I should mention Christmas in here too, although really, we didn't do much. I was off Christmas Eve night, and we went to Chris' parents for lunch the next day, then down to the beach for awhile, and then over to some friends of his for a few hours in the evening before I went to work. Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to take any pictures. I did, however, get one knitting related present that bears a mention and a picture here. My newest Christmas ornament, sent to me by my dearest mom. It's too cool for words, and I love it to pieces:



Sometime back before Christmas (honestly don't remember when) I got my latest installment from David at Southern Cross Fibre Club. It's quite lovely, and I plan on taking it with me to Wool Bay tomorrow, and hopefully get started on it there.



Now, for pics of my pre boat trip knitting. The only finished object to report on is the Honey Bee Socks in Lorna's Laces Shepherd Solids, which turned out to be very pretty. Sometimes pretty socks aren't terribly "wearable", but these certainly are, and I'm very happy with them:



Also, I took out some of my "early" homespun, a semi thick yarn made with some Border Leichestershire tops I got from Jane at Moseley Park eons ago and whipped up a quick little sock for my still very much loved iPod touch:



Here we have the Lacy camisole, which liked having the sleeves sewn on in this pic:



I did manage to get one sleeve sewn on, and the second sleeve started before we left for the boat, and even though I took it with us on the trip, it is still in exactly that same position. I never even took it out. I'm not even taking it with us to Wool Bay, as I'm traveling a bit lighter and know I'm not likely to get to it. I don't like sewing at the best of times, and I really don't like sewing away from home. It doesn't fit my "strategy" for getting seaming done. That is, I like to lay it out on the couch and just leave it there. That way, I feel obliged to stitch on it when I sit down.

Then there are those projects I did actually work on while away. I'll show a "before picture of them now, and save the "after" picktures for later on in the post. (I'm really trying hard for some cronological order here.)

The Welt and Rib Raglan done in Sublime merino silk and cashmere blend went with me as my . Here's a photo of it before we left:



Then there's my "pride and joy" WIP, the Alpine Lace Scarf from Victorian Knits Today book, made with Ixchel's merino cashmere laceweight 2ply in a lovely sky blue, or would that be ice blue?? Well, a very pretty blue anyway. It looked something like this before we left:





I took along Matilda, my Majacraft Little Gem spinning wheel. Before we left, I'd been spinning some of the roving I got from Southern Cross Fibre Club into one long single, and the plan is to Navaho Ply it.



The trip upstream on the Murray River was nice. We caught up with Chris' coworker Amanda and her husband Bob shortly after we left the marina in their little pontoon style boat, the "A'Salt":



We went up to the cliffs outside Mypolonga:



and moored in a shady area, but unfortunately the banks were a bit on the "weedy snaky" side, so we weren't able to get off the boat and walk around much. Amanda and Bob pulled the A'Salt in next to us:



We did a bit of swimming around when it got quite hot in the afternoon:



Unfortunately, my swim was cut short by this dang dead fish that was floating straight for us. I crawled back in the boat quick as a flash, but my hero tried to protect me from the beast by removing it from our swimming space:




We went a bit further up the river, to the other side of Mannum and moored there on the second day. Again, a nice spot. More swimming and such, but I must admit I spent the majority of my time on the boat knitting.

Amanda has an old spinning wheel, and likes to spin locks from her family sheep. I try to get her interested in prepared fibre, but she's more interested in the more rustic aspects of lock spinning. To each his own. But what she has been keen on is learning how to knit socks. She's a novice knitter, but she picked up the magic loop method in an instant, and with my help, set about knitting her first ever sock:



Matilda fit rather handily on the boat:



and at one time or another both Amanda and I took her for a spin. It was so nice to be sitting there spinning, rocking in the boat and watching the fish jump and listening to the birds sing.

On the third day, we headed back downstream, and stopped in the exact same place we had stopped at on the first day. It had gotten progressively hotter as the days went by, and this day was the worst. In the late afternoon, I actually had to stop knitting on the Welt and Rib Raglan for awhile, since my sweaty hands were felting the stitches.

Very early Thursday morning, more to beat the heat than anything, we were headed back to Murray Bridge. I found the best time for working on my Alpine Lace Scarf was while actually traveling, since Chris was busy at the wheel and Amanda and Bob were on their own boat. I took this picture of my progress on that final leg:



It is breathtaking and I love it immensely. I had alot of trouble getting started, having to completely frog it twice before successfully finishing even 20 rows, but eventually I got the hang of it. I'm also putting in lots of safety lines, which is easy to do with the KnitPicks Harmonys I'm using for the project. I'm using the method where I just pull the safety thread through the keyhole of the needle in my right hand. After all the running around and holidays, I'll do a bit of a mini tutorial on the method for those not familiar with it. At any rate, things are going much smoother now, and I've only had to use the safety line once so far.

After getting home, I took this picture of the Welt and Rib Raglan. I finished the lower body part. It had to be cast off using the sewn cast off method, and that took me literally hours to do all that many stitches. Then I cast on for the first sleeve and managed to get quite a bit of it done:



It's coming along quite nicely I think, and it is easy knitting, good to do while watching TV or chatting with others.

I didn't get as much spinning done as I thought I might, mainly because I was sharing Matilda with Amanda, but also because I was just feeling quite involved with my knitting. I did, however, manage to finish the bobbin I had started:



I still haven't plied it. I've decided to ply it on the Ashford, as I have the jumbo bobbin on there and (it seems) a bit more control while plying. That will have to wait till all this running is over with.

Well, that just about brings me up to speed. We leave out in the morning for two days on the coast. The Alpine Lace and the Welt and Rib Raglan are going with me. I'm also taking a ball of self striping sock yarn, and might (just might) start a pair of simple stockingnet stitch socks while we are away. The Raglan is getting a little big for carry along knitting this time of year, and will certainly be too big once I finish the second sleeve and start joining everything up. So I will soon need some simple carry along knitting to work on.

I'm now out of words and out of time. I'm only going to give this a quick once over, so pardon any imperfections. It's pretty much my bedtime, and if I don't want to be exhausted tomorrow, I'd better get my sleep today. I'll post again as soon as I can after we return. Till then....

A Mistake, Some Successes, and a New Love

It's cool, wet and dreary outside, probably the perfect day for sitting inside working on my blog, so here I am. As predicted, I haven't finished any of my knitting projects that I was starting in the last post, but that was to be expected.

I did get the package of Christmas knits and other goodies off to mom in the US, and low and behold, she wrote me yesterday to say it had already arrived. I was gobsmacked at how quickly such a big package got there at this time of year. I suppose all the extra Christmas staff they hire in the states sped things up for a change. I always worry about those big packages getting held up in customs too, but obviously that didn't happen.

Do I like to let things come down to the wire or what? On the day I needed to mail out the package, I was sewing the buttons on the Peace Fleece Central Park Hoodie for my sister. So finally, a picture of the completely finished project.



In spinning, I did actually finish something. I finally got the llama plied, washed, hung to dry and skeined. Here it is on the niddy noddy:



I just love the colour. Here is it hanging to dry on the veranda:



And here it is in the final skein:



The colour is excellent, but must admit the stuff isn't terribly soft. It's actually a bit string-like. For me at least, it's definately not wearable next to the skin, and probably not even wearable as an outer garment. I'm thinking a small rug, or a bag, but I haven't made my mind up yet.

Right now, I have the roving I got from Southern Cross Fibre on Matilda, and have about a half a bobbin completed. I'll show pics of that next time. On the Ashley, I have the second bobbin of the merino from Kathy's Fibres. In all honest, after finishing the llama, I've gotten very little in the way of spinning done.

Now, as to the knitting, well, we'll start that out with a bit of an amusing story, although I didn't think it quite so funny at the time. In my last blog update, I showed a picture of the Welt and Raglan jumper that I had started. I ranted on about the crochet cast on and how hard the old method I had used was when it came to trying to keep the cast on from twisting. I talked about the new method I was using that wasn't nearly as "twisty". And guess what. I twisted it. The evening of the day I wrote the blog post, I had gotten ready to go to work and was sitting having my pre-work snack and checking my email. There was a message notification from blogspot, saying a comment had been left. The Anonymous (I still haven't found out who my hero or heroine is) commenter pointed out that in the photo, it looked as though I had a mobius going there. (I've outlined the affected area here).



My heart sped up and I felt the sweat pop out on my forehead. Aside from being somewhat embarrassed, I really, really did NOT want to have to start this project all over again. I went to my knitting bag, already packed for work, pulled the project out, and low and behold, my dear Anonymous commenter was correct. I had indeed twisted the damn thing. I tucked it back into my knitting bag, not sure for the moment what I was going to do. I made a decision on the way to work, and while at work, managed to tear it back to just a round or two in, tink it back to the cast on from there and straighten it out. Thank goodness, I did NOT have to cast on again. I'm not a fan of the crochet cast on, even if I did find an "easier" way to do it.

Now, to my Anonymous friend, who I suspect is one of my Ravelry Twitter buddies, I would like to thank you sincerely for pointing out to me the error of my ways. Being far from as perfect as I sometimes think I am in less rational moments, I appreciate when people care enough to let me know when I do something wrong. If you would please identify yourself, I have a little gift for you. Heaven knows how long I would have knit on that infernal coil without your help, wasting much precious knitting time. As it was, it's now fixed, and even a bit further along than it was before the correcting began.



That being said, lets move right along to the projects I didn't totally screw up. My Blue Bird and Bees Socks (aka The Honey Bee Socks) are coming along nicely. I finished the first sock:



and I've even made a bit of headway on the second sock:



It is a nice pattern. The stitch pattern is the same as the one in my Saloongirl
Stocking (aka Bettie's Lace Stockings, Interweave, Spring 2009) except that in the latter project, the lace pattern went all the way around the stocking. So one would think I would know it by heart by now, but alas, I still have trouble with the faggoting part. At any rate, this pattern produces a far more "wearable" sock, something I can wear in the day to day world.

I've been vowing to do at least one pattern repeat on them a day, and I've been sticking to that more often than not, because my primary goal these days is to finish my "Natually Me Cami" (aka The Lacy Corset Cami), and without some structure, I'm afraid the socks would get totally neglected. Because of the lace, the socks and the cami aren't really mindless knitting, so that sort of limits the times when I can work on them. The cami is a bit easier than the socks, as the pattern is only a two row repeat and easily remembered, whereas the socks have a six row repeat, and aren't quite so easy.

The cami, however, is coming along swimmingly. I have finished the back, the front and both sleeve caps. All I have left is the lacy bit of edging around the neck. I have just finished that last sleeve cap today, and given all the housework I have to do, I don't see much chance in getting the stitches picked up for the neck today, or even tomorrow. Tonight is my first night back at work, so I'll be a zombie tomorrow. Perhaps I'll get it knit on Thursday morning. After that, there's nothing left to do but stitch it up. Hopefully, but my next post, it will be a finished object to display.



The bulk of the knitting on it being done, and only a few "at home" technical bits to finish up, that of course means that I'm thinking of what to cast on next. I bought some yarn that I "think" will be suitable for the Coachella pattern last week at Spotlight.



It was reasonably priced, and I'm very happy with the colour. It would be nice to get two summer tops knit up while it's still warm enough to wear them.

However, I have been absolutely scouring my lace stash and the Victorian Lace Today book, and I'm intent that very very soon, I'm going to cast on a lace shawl or scarf, most likely a shawl.

Here's my delimma though. I really need to start the Coachella pattern if I want to finish it in time to wear this season. I also need another pair of socks when these Honey Bee's are done. As for the Welt and Rib Raglan, well, there's no hurry on that, it's just served as easy mindless knitting when my life called for it and both my other projects weren't. Coachella will be easy, and so will my next pair of socks. So, if I were to cast on a lace shawl, I would have 4 WIPs, 3 that are fairly easy, and the shawl for concentration knitting. I really like to keep my WIP's at a maximum of 3, except when I'm in transition and maybe just need to stitch a project up or something like that. When I have 4 WIP's, invariably, something gets neglected. It seems I have three alternatives. I can either hibernate the Welt and Rib Raglan, or I can wait to start the shawl until Coachella is done, or I can break my own rule and have 4 WIPS. Right now, I'm leaning toward 4 WIPS. Well, I don't have to decide today. I might get Coachella started in the next couple of days, but wouldn't have time to cast on the shawl that soon anyway. I'll just have to make up my mind before all my lovely days off next week. This week will be full up with work and Christmas preparations anyway.

Last but certianly not least, I've gotten a new toy. I recieved a voucher from the weight loss site I used to lose weight, in return for letting them publish my "success story" on their website. With this, I got myself an iPod Touch. If it is possible to feel true love and devotion for an electronic object, then I do well and truly love it. With electronics though, it is a bit easier to accept that eventually, a younger, cheaper model will eventually come along that will steal my heart away. But for now, I'm ecstatically in love.


(sorry for the horrible photo, best I could do)

My iPod Touch has all these handy functions, and it's connected to wi-fi. So whenever I have a wi-fi connection (at home, or at free wi-fi hotspots), I can recieve my email, surf online (granted, the screen is small and this can be tedious), find out the weather, and just all sorts of things. It's like having a computer in my pocket. Instead of taking the laptop up with me, when I go knitting in my "bedcave", I can just take the iPod Touch, listen to my audiobooks, keep up with my Twittering and record my stitch or row counting, all in one amazingly small little package.

To accomplish all this, I have been introduce to the amazing world of apps (short for applications). I had no idea initially what an app was, but I had heard there was a really cool spinning app, and wanted to find out. I threw the question out there in the Over The Fence group on Ravelry, knowing there were many younger, more computer and gadget savvy people on there than I am.

Now I've been shopping for apps. Some cost (like the spinning one) and some are free. They are available on the itunes store, and I already have an account there. So far, the only one I've bought is the spinning one (called iSpin Toolkit) for $5.99, but I have a couple of knitting ones, the free "lite" versions, that I'm trying out to see which one I want to buy, and the app used to connect to Twitter called Tweetdeck (which is also what I have on the computers). The knitting apps have row counters, project lists, organizational tools and more. Quite frankly, it seems there is an app for everything under the sun, inside and outside of the knitting world, and I feel like a kid in a brand new candy store. By far the most prolific apps are games, and I'm not much of a gamer, but other than that, there are financial apps, apps with maps (even one of Adelaide), apps for boating, fishing, cooking, and well, for nearly everything. It is just so very cool. And none are terribly expensive. In fact, the spinning app is about as expensive as I've seen them get. Most are in the 1.19 to 3.99 range. If it sounds like I'm gushing, well, yep, I am. I could become addicted to this thing.

So, that's about all the news that is news in my world this week. This is Chris' last week of work before his long summer school holiday, which means I might not be as "on schedule" with my posts for the next 6 weeks or so. He has plans to go away a couple of times, and always plans outings and such with his friends as he goes along. Besides, he's taken to bush walking on a regular basis, and I'm hoping he'll use his break to find new and exciting places to walk. Essentially though, he will be more "underfoot" than usual for the next few weeks, and I will be obliged to accompany him from time to time, so my time will certainly not be as much "my own" as it is when he's working.

So, until next time...

Llama and Lace

So, here it is, time to catch up again. Today is going to be a busy day, and I'm rushed, but I will take my usual computer breaks, so I'll simply work on this post in fits and starts.

It's been hectic getting all the non-knitted Christmas presents bought, organized and wrapped to send to the US, but I'm almost...alllllmmmmoooosst there, knock wood and all that good stuff. Three little pressies left to buy for the package, then I plan on doing the rest of my shopping on Amazon, what with the brilliant exchange rate right now and the savings on shipping.

Speaking of shipping, I shudder to think what my shipping costs for all these packages is going to be. The three large knitwear items are going to be both bulky and heavy, and add that to a couple dozen smaller gifts, both knitwear and non-knitwear, and I have a feeling it's going to be a doozy of a shipping bill. I have three separate packages to go off as well, at least. There's a possibility that I will have to break the biggest package into two packages. We shall see.

First I'll talk about spinning, because there's really nothing much to tell. I did finish spinning the llama singles a few days ago, but have yet to even start plying them.



I spun the llama on Matilda, my Magacraft Little Gem, but I intend to ply it on the Ashley. I have a jumbo bobbin on the Ashley, and I think I'm going to need it. Actually, I know I'm going to need it. While the Magacraft bobbins are big, they are not big enough for 150g of this stuff plyed. Besides, it frees Matilda up for yet another project.

Before I could ply on Matilda, I decided to go ahead and finish the bobbin of the Red Flowing Gum colourway from Kathy's Fibres that I already had on the Ashford. I didn't like much, and finished that bobbin yesterday.



I still have another bobbin to spin, and then plying of course. I already have 3 finished skeins of this colourway, so I'm getting close to having enough to make a biggish sort of project with it. Nice.

I got my monthly shipment last week from David at Southern Cross Fibres. This month I'm in love with the colourway. It's an BFL top called "Deep Thought" and it's a very dark and intense array of browns and purples.



I'll probably start that one on Matilda at work Wednesday night. I have so many other rovings that I want to start, but David keeps sending me these gorgeous colourways, so I can hardly resist.

In knitting news, I did exercise self control and finished the plain stockingnet socks I had on the needles. I was planning on keeping them, but decided instead to swap them out with the present for Aunt Pat. They turned out just fine, and are more her style than the pair I had put aside for her, which were a bit on the wild side colourway wise. I tried them on just to check the fit and to take this photo:



It only took me a couple of days to finish them, and then I was casting on for the Honey Bee Socks from Austrlain Knitting magazine, Spring 09, using that gorgous blue Lorna's Laces sock yarn I bought. For the record, it is dear in price, but it is also quality yarn, and that is obvious from the first stitch.

Progress is slow but steady. The pattern isn't really difficult, but like any lace, it requires a bit of concentration and counting, so I'm limited as to when I can work on them. Still, I've made it past the heel turn on sock one and I'm almost finished with the gusset decreases.



The lacy camisole is moving right along. Just last night, I finished the back section. As with any lace, it desperately shouts for blocking, but here's a picture anyway:



The fitted waist shaping can be a chore to keep in pattern, but the charts are clear once you figure out how to read them. I got thru the whole back section with only one small error, but as noone I've shown can find it, I'm letting it ride. I hope to cast on for the front piece sometime this afternoon.

Having two lace patterns was turning into quite a chore, and made it really hard on me to try and knit at work or while watching TV. Consequently, I decided (surprise surprise) to cast on another project. Unfortunately, most of the stuff in my queue that I was planning to do soon was either lacy or in some other way complicated, so it wasn't easy picking out a pattern.

I essentially let the girl at my LYS decide. That is, I went down there in search of yarn. I wanted either some tape style nylon yarn similar to Berrocco Suede to do the Coachella pattern from Knitty.com with, or I wanted a silk and wool (preferably merino) blend to do the Welt and Rib Raglan from Interweave magazine, Winter 08. No tape yarn of any discription was in stock, but there was a sqeezably soft and lovely selection of Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk DK. In all honesty, she didn't have a very large colour collection. I immediately ruled out the hot pink and royal purple. There was a brown colour I liked, but she didn't quite have enough. In retrospect, now I'm glad I didn't get it. What I did wind up with was a hard to describe beige to bronzy sort of hue. Best just show you the picture, but even it doesn't do the almost metallic shade justice:



The Sublime wasn't cheap. The price was so dear in fact that I almost decided against it and considered going with the Cleckheaton Country Silk, which was half the price. It was also, however, only half as pretty, only half as soft, and not even half so shiny. So the Sublime won me over, and that's the end of that story. When you are going to spend countless hours knitting a lovely garment, then the "best yarn" rule must be applied: Buy the best yarn for the project that you can afford.

Right away, the "easy" pattern I had picked out decided to be difficult. It starts in the middle, essentially at the bustline, with a provisional crochet cast on, and you work your way down from there. If there is one thing I despise, it's the crochet cast on. I did, however, find an easier way to do it here, and that saved me tons of time. I was doing it by making the crochet change, and then picking up stitches thru the back loop, trying to keep it all straight. Ok if it's a pair of socks, but when you have 200ish stitches to cast on, it can drive you mad just trying to keep the chain from twisting. The "new" way at the link above is much easier, where you make your chain as you are drawing the stitches thru. If you do this cast on often, you should definately check it out.

So, I've gotten a bit of a start on it. The orangish coloured yarn you see is simply the waste yarn from the crochet cast on and will be unraveled and pulled out later, revealing live stitches so I can then put them on the needles and knit the top part of the bodice. (This process is a bit hard to explain to non-knitters, so I'm not going to try, but it's essentially a way to cast on in the middle, and knit the garment without any seams, and therefore, no stitching up at the end. Yay!)



I'm making the smallest size to give me some negative ease, as the second smallest size is exactly my measurements, and not the way it should be worn. It's knit in the round, starting out with 198 stitches in k2p1 rib, and while it's easy knitting, it doesn't exactly "build" quickly. Besides, I've been concentrating more on the lace lately, only knitting on this when I need some mindless knitting. I won't be able to wear it until fall or winter in any case, so there's no hurry at all. I am in love with the yarn though, and feeling that lovely fibre running thru my fingers is tempting to say the least.

I started this project, at least in part, because we had the Christmas shoot last weekend at the gun club, and I knew that I had absolutely nothing I could knit on there while I socialized. I took a very few pictures, but here's one of Chris leading the "balloon" shoot, where they blow up a bunch of balloons and the shooters burst them all.



I'm so early into these projects, and yet I already have my next projects in mind. I'm still on the lookout for yarn for the Coachella pattern mentioned earlier, and I'm also dead set on starting a major lace project. I'm thinking of doing the Alpine Lace Shawl from Victorian Lace Today. I have yet to knit a single thing out of that book, and yet hardly a day passes that I don't thumb through it and dream. I'm not precisely sure that's the pattern I will start with, but for sure, I'm knitting something from that book, and doing it soon. Next in the sock world will be a plain stockingnet pair knit with some of the self patterning sock yarn I bought from Spotlight last year. I need an easy servicable pair of socks, and that seems the perfect choice for work knitting.

Well folks, that's all I have for today. In all likelihood, I'll still be knitting on what I'm knitting on now when it's time to post again, but I'll post anyway with what progress I've made. Till then...