Three more off the list...

Three more of this month's knitted gifts were presented over the course of last week, so can now make their debut here.

First up:

Pattern: Turn a Square beanie by Jared Flood. Very easy pattern (and free!) and very effective!

Yarn: 1 x 50g ball Noro Silk Garden col 47 and 1 x 50g skein of Naturally Harmony 10ply in col 804. The Naturally Harmony is the perfect yarn to match with the Noro SG - the colour matched well (in fact, it's almost the exact same shade of grey used in the Noro) and the perfect texture. And it's lovely to knit with! The 2 balls of yarn were enough for both hats, if you swap the main colour and contrast colour for the second one.

(see, you can hardly even see the first two Noro stripes because of the matching greys!!)

Sticks: 4mm KP fixed circulars for the ribbing, 4.5mm KP fixed circs and then bamboo dpns for the body of the hat.

What I learned: Jogless stripes! Finally! I've tried the technique which has you pick up the stitch from the row below and knit with the new colour but it's never worked for me. But the summer IK had a nice tutorial article on jogless stripe methods - I used the slip stitch method (you slip the first stitch in the new colour on the next row). It does pull slightly, as you are slipping the same stitch all the way up (but not on every row) but it works out fine for this width of stripes.

Time: I did both hats in 4 days! 6 August 2009 - 9 August 2009. Love an easy, effective, stocking stitch pattern!

The mainly grey hat was given to a friend for his 40th birthday and the mainly Noro hat was for my brother's 50th birthday.

Next:

Pattern: No, not a weird octopussy thing, but Jonna by Norah Gaughan, from Norah Gaughan book 1. Any easy ribbed scarf with a modern twist - pointed rather than flat short ends, and balls (or bubbles as NG calls them!) instead of pompoms or fringing. I thought this would be a good option for a just turned 40yo friend (yes, the wife of the grey hat recipient!!)

Yarn: Lovely Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk dk, 4 x 50g balls in colour 0007. I actually meant to buy this yarn but in aran weight but somehow didn't...not that it really made a difference. It's such a lovely yarn to knit with, and (I hope) to wear. A real pleasure to knit. It did grow a lot on blocking (full wet block) - the scarf grew from about 190cm to about 225cm, so it ended up a little longer than I'd anticipated, but I think it works well - with the balls, I don't think you want the scarf to be too short.

(thanks to husby for his excellent modelling!)

Sticks: 4.5mm rosewood straights. I don't bring out the straight sticks very much, but when the yarn is this nice, and it's a narrowish scarf, it was the right time. Lovely sticks. I used 4.5mm bamboo dpns for the balls, which in the pattern are somewhat bizarrely are knit flat and seamed. Pah to that, I say. I knit them in the round. Yes, it was slightly fiddly doing the decreases down to i-cord, but worth it to avoid the seaming!

Time: 15 July - 21 August 2009. I gave myself plenty of time to knit this one!

Three more gift knits down, only a couple more to go, and then my big reward - I have a grand plan, which I'll tell you more about later!

Would you like to see my ... garden?

Something that has been quite exciting about our new house is seeing what appears in the garden as the seasons change. We haven't done too much in the garden yet as we want to wait and see what plants appear, where the sun goes and what other surprises might pop up!

I was very happy to discover we've got a small magnolia tree in the backyard - I love these flowers, even though all too soon they will be gone to be replaced by lots of leaves.

And these violets appeared out of nowhere after we weeded and mulched the side garden bed - the bed I'd destined for a vege patch, but I can't bear to dig up the pretty violets!!

I thought the leaves of this next plant, in the rose "garden" out the front of the house, were freesias!

So clearly I won't be getting a job on Gardening Australia! Snowdrops! Huge patches of them. Love these!

And I don't know what this little pretty is - some sort of small bromeliad I think (although the long strappy leaves probably mean it's something else...) (anyone? anyone?)

And to show off an Australian native for you overseasians, here is (I think - again - anyone please correct me if I'm wrong!) a Geraldton Wax. I'm really glad we've got a few natives, apart from anything else they don't need as much water, which is always a good thing.

And even though it's still officially winter here, the blossoms tell a different story.

Nice! Now if only I actually knew what I had growing here, I'd be better able to you know, look after the plants!!

It's getting hot in hee-yah!

Looky looky...

We finally had the chimbley cleaned today ... so tonight we had our first ever fire! It was tops!

Introducing Oscar Dog!

August is a big month of knitting for others - lots of birthdays to cater for!

First up, our nephew is turning 2 on Saturday. I recently bought The Knitted Odd-Bod Bunch by Donna Wilson - a great book full of quirky fun knitted toys - mostly animals - all with very cool back stories!

This is just the first of what I am sure will be many projects from this book - I'd like you meet Oscar Dog!

"Oscar is a rare, stripy, sausage dog. Because he has been blessed with unusually good hearing, he can hear a person coming up to ten miles away and can sometimes hear what people are saying in the next room" (from the book!)

Details
Pattern: Oscar Dog - knitted in the round, with only the ears made separately and sewn on afterwards. A very quick and easy knit!

Yarn: The pattern is originally done in worsted weight yarn. I chose 8ply cottons instead - because I had them in stash and for easy washing. 25g of Anchor Magicline (the variegated yarn) and 30g of generic 8ply cotton from Spotlight (the blue yarn). I did one row stripes (rather than two row stripes in the original pattern) as the variegated yarn is a bit "stronger" than I'd like when knit up, so the plain colour breaks it up.

Sticks: 3.5mm KP Harmony Options magic loop, plus a spare 3.5mm addi dpn for the bobble feet.

Time: Two days! 10-11 August 2009

Modifications: I made Oscar a little shorter than the pattern specified, and I made his nose in the round rather than flat - I do love to minimise seaming! I also crocheted around his ears for a neater edge.

A very nicely written pattern, although the bobble feet instructions are slightly misleading, as they suggest making 12 stitches for the bobble but only have you work six stitches. So I just made 6 stitches and worked those, and I think they turned out ok. The instructions for the tail shaping make such a cool shape!

He's a very well-trained littel fellow already - give him a tummy scritch, anyone?

G'day Ruby Tuesday (and a sigh of relief)

First up, Phew!

Only one day of knitting, as it turns out. And yes, I'm glad GoodRoseRed won out!

While you are waiting for this one to be seamed, here's a cardi I completed earlier (but somehow didn't get around to blogging, although it has been well worn already!)

Details

Pattern: The ubiquitous February Lady Sweater, or as I like to call her, Ruby Tuesday. Pattern by Pamela Wynne, upsizing the classic Elizabeth Zimmerman February Baby Sweater (shown here for scale - sorry it's a bit dark, the white baby cardigan sucked all the light up!!).

I wasn't sure that this pattern would suit me, given that it's got no shaping, but I decided that I didn't care, as it looked to be such a wearable cardigan. And I'm glad, because I love it, and as predicted, wear it all the time!

Yarn: Cascade 220 in colour 9404, 5 x 100g skeins (thanks, Kim!). The perfect yarn and the perfect amount, I had about 2m left! This is my first time using Cascade 220 and it won't be my last. A fabulous, inexpensive yarn in a huge range of colours. Now if only a yarn store in Sydney would stock it!

The buttons (from the Button Shop in The Rocks in Sydney) cost almost as much as the yarn!! But they are a perfect match, colourwise, and I don't regret buying them!

Sticks: KnitPicks Options 5mm.

Time: I started this last year and got the yoke done and then put it aside - I can't remember why, I suppose it turned into summer and a worsted weight cardi was less important. Picked up again in May and finished quite promptly, in a pseudo race with Bells (which she won...just!!). So 22 June 2008 - 10 June 2009.

What I learnt: I do love knitting a seamless garment!! It feels like it takes forever, but once the body is done and you get to the sleeves, it just flies by!

I love the three-quarter sleeves on this (the observant among you will notice this is the third time I've made a three-quarter or shorter sleeve cardigan this year, and Bruegel will make it four!). Your sleeves don't dip in the food. Or the washing up. Or get in the way of whatever you are knitting at the time! And since our winters are so mild anyway, full-length sleeves are rarely needed!

Thanks to my photographer and stylist, the fabulous Ms Margarita!

Love love love!

SHOESday: I'll get you my pretties!

Fortunately I didn't have to drop my house on the Wicked Witch of the East to do so!

I first saw these on a blog (I think) of someone in the US (I think...I really can't remember who!). Then I saw them again on Gidget's Socks, and she was kind enough to tell me where she bought them - and so of course I was there in a flash! A sparkly red glittery flash! Even my husband said "oh yes, you HAD to have those!" when I showed them to him!

And I've worn them every time I've gone out of the house since I got them! Ruby slippers for the 21st century woman!

Keeping Track - July 2009

I've been putting off this post as I'm hesitant to admit to myself even how much yarn I bought this month ... but I put myself up to keeping track every month, so here we go.

In addition to that I've already flashed from Bendi, there was a bit of this as well:

So for this month:

In: 58 x 50g balls

Out: 21 x 50g balls (thanks to a big knitting month and me being able to help out a couple of ISO-ers on the Australian Knitters board on Rav!)

YTD: 138.5 x 50g balls. Enough to keep me knitting for a whole 'nother year. And that's only 7 months' worth.

Oh well, at least I've knit up some of my Bendi yarn already! Just a little thing, but I felt the need to knit with this yummeh camelbunny from Ixchel last week, so I did!

Details

Yarn: Handspun camelbunny from Ixchel, two small skeins totalling about 50gm together. I got the wooden button from Tink's local fabric shop in Tassie. Nice!

Pattern: Stash, by Donyale Grant (weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!). I made mine narrower given I had a scant amount of yarn, and I striped the two yarns, reversing the order as I got closer to the end to ensure I made the most of the yarn.

Sticks: 5.5mm KnitPicks Harmony Options - tee hee, the sticks matched the yarn really nicely!

Time: A lovely quick knit, as you'd expect - 21-22 July 2009.

One of these things is not like the other one...

I was so proud of getting my Bruegel knitting done so quickly.

You know what they say, pride comes before a fall.

When I was blocking it on Tuesday, I discovered this:

Like a closer look?

Can you see? The right collar piece is narrower than the left. Four stitches narrower. This was my internal dialogue when I discovered this:

Bad RoseRed: "oh, it will be ok, it's hardly noticeable, when I've seamed the collar to the right front, no-one will be able to tell"

Good RoseRed: "um, but you will know about it"

BRR: "yes, but I don't care that much about little mistakes. I really wanted to wear this on Thursday"

GRR: "oh come on, you've done such a nice job on this, it'd be a shame to fudge it at the end"

BRR: "but you know how I HATE to frog. Fudging is what I do best!"

GRR: "oh, it's only a day or so to rework, it's worth it to have it looking as it should. And besides, when you kitchener the two collar pieces, they won't match. You can't fudge a 4 stitch difference"

BRR: "GAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Darn you for being right!"

Sigh. So it's a frogging I will go. When I can face it.

Tour de Bruegel

I know, I've been a pretty slack blogger the last few weeks (oh, ok, months!). I don't know why but I haven't really felt the blogging mojo much. Interesting, in a time when lots of people are going even more public in an online way with their day to day activities (facebook, twitter, I'm looking at you!) that I've retreated a little bit. I suppose it's party because since I've been off work I've been a much more social knitter in real life.

The point of this introduction is by way of providing an apology for not blogging at all about my Tour de France KAL project - until today - the last day of the three week race! I decided to race for the yellow jersey (ie complete a whole project during the tour) and my chosen project is Bruegel, a lovely (but of course!) aran weight cabled cardigan from Rowan 44, using Rowan Kid Classic.

And so we reach the last day and here is my progress:

I'm pretty darn pleased with it, if I do say so myself! I took this photo earlier today, and so I've now finished the right front - now all I have to do is knit the collar/band pieces (on the held stitches you can see on each front piece). And of course block and seam. But if I get the knitting done, I'll consider that a win!

The beauties of Bendigo

Along with about 200 other Ravellers (or "Revellers" if you believe the sign at the Shamrock Hotel on Friday night) and many many other knitters, spinners, weavers and crocheters, I headed off to the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show last weekend. Long jealous of the Americans with their Rhinebeck, their Stitches East, Stitches West and so on, we have adopted Bendi as our own version.

And it was great. Tara (FiestyWench on Rav) did a huge amount of work organising the "Revelry Baa" on Friday night at the beautiful Shamrock Hotel, and the Brekky on Saturday morning, and the Ravelry shed at the show itself. Here she is looking a bit blurry (sorry about that Tara) - I think it's probably an accurate reflection of how she felt at that time!!

It was great to see so many knitters all together at once, and the weather played along, being a bit chilly and allowing us all to bring out the knitwear en masse.

And since I know this is what you are all dying to see, here's the stash enhancement:

The big white packet is gorgeous Silk Dream 4ply silk/merino from Shiloh Wool - this stuff is just SO SOFT it is unbelieveable. Only comes in cream, which is perfect for dyeing - I've got some Kool Aid that I'm going to give a whirl with this. Now as for the rest, from bottom left clockwise around, we have two skeins of Ixchel handspun camelbunny - so soft!; (almost hidden from view) Wired4Fibre bamboo sock yarn - a prize from the Brekky; a huge skein of Tarndwarncoort polwarth/silk 4ply in a gorgeous dove grey (I have decided this project will be called "Tom's Eyes" - those of you who have purchased from Tarndwarncoort will know what I mean!); charcoal merino/cashmere laceweight also from Ixchel; red Alpacky/Silk laceweight from Glenora; red alpacky 4ply from MoggyandMe/Yarncakes; orangey red sock yarn from Ms Gusset; handspun merino in Heart of Gold from Mayhem & Chaos (another prize from the brekky!); emerald green sock yarn from Ewe Give Me The Knits, and navy blue sock yarn also from EGMTK.

I know this photo is a bit dark, but don't fear, individidual photos will be uploaded to my stash on Ravelry soon!!

And the books. And buttons! Oh my the buttons! I think I went a little crazy at the Button Lady stall!

And some pictures from the sheds - first up is Ms Gusset's sock yarn

Ewe Give Me The Knits yarn and fibre

Spinning wheels for a test drive (no, I did not buy one - I don't need another hobby thanks very much!!)

And all this was only one shed, there was plenty more - Lara Downs, Pear Tree, Waratah Fibres, Sarah Durrant, Glenora, Virginia Farm Woolworks and more. I know I've forgotten some. The best collection of Australian yarns anywhere. Well worth the visit!

Not just for the yarn of course, but particularly to meet other Ravellers and bloggers. It's always fascinating to meet people in person, to find the bonds you've formed over the internet have a basis in reality. That, for me, was one of the real beauties of Bendigo.

RoseRed is the word...

Yes, the answers to all the questions was Rose Red! (Hope it didn't sound like I was a bit full of myself - it really was a coincidence that I happened to be knitting the Rose Red beret and swatching with the Rosenrot/Rose Red wollmeise at the same time as my blogthday!!).

Thanks everyone who commented and had a crack at the questions! Sorry to keep you all in suspense all week about the winners (I bet you've all been SO EAGER to know!!) - I've been feeling pretty blah all week with the flu, and it's been hard enough keeping up with what everyone else has been blogging let alone thinking about blogging myself! Oh dear. Onto better things...

The lucky (well, I hope, anyway!) winner of the socks knitted by me is .................................

SARAH! (hope it makes up somewhat for the loss of the Ashes series. Heh!) (also, hope I didn't just put the kybosh on Australia by writing that!)

And the winner of the special prize is ...........................................

ANNA! (see, the Poms are winners somewhere, if not in the cricket!)

And because I expect you are all dying to the see what a finished Rose Red actually looks like, some actual knitting content:

Details

Pattern: Rose Red by Ysolda Teague. What can I say, the lady knows how to give great pattern! Well written, clear and easy to follow, a range of sizes provided, clever and a great end product. What's not to love! I knit the medium size, and it was perfect! Although blocking was the charm with this one. Before I blocked it, it fit on my head, but really didn't have the requisite slouch. A soak and a dinner plate later, perfect!

(this was taken pre-blocking!)

I also love how the pattern doesn't have a ribbed band, but rather ends with large cables - really really pleasing effect.

Yarn: Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino in colour 340700 (red), 2 x 50g balls, held together with Madil Kid Seta in shade 459 (red), 1 x 25g ball. I was really pleased with how these yarns worked together. The Kid Seta was not as true a red as the DB, but the mohair halo from it gives a gorgeous effect to the whole. I couldn't have asked for a better combination. And, even better, the DB was from stash!

Sticks: 4mm bamboo dpns, to start the pattern - which is done from the i-cord outwards - so clever! And then 4mm KP Options fixed circular once the increases were almost done.

Time: One week! It didn't feel like a quick knit, because there is a lot of k2togs, ssks and psso's, but I was pretty pleased to have this knitted so quickly, as I've worn it quite a bit already! 21 June - 28 June 2009.

(this was pre-blocking - a bit (too much) like a mushroom!!)

What I learnt: I've never started a beret from the crown before, so it was really cool to start with a couple of stitches and do the little i-cord thingy, then increased outwards to create the fullness of the beret. Very cool. Although I would have liked some guidance as to how to cast off. I figured from my experience with toe-up socks that my regular cast-off wouldn't be stretchy enough, so I thought either the sewn-bind off or the lace bind-off (I think that is what the k2tog, sl st back to L needle, repeat, method is called?) would be best. I checked Ravelry to see what other people had done but didn't find much guidance, so I decided I'd go with the lace bind-off, and I'm really happy with it.

I've save the story of the Rosenrot swatch for another day!

It's time to celebrate!

Lots of excitement today...it's Independence Day in the USA, it's the start of the Tour de France (and for those of you, like me, participating in the TdF KAL, the start of that!), it's MissyFee's birthday, and it's my blogthday too!

From (extremely) humble beginnings I'm so happy where my blog has taken me, and most especially for the connections it has helped me make.

And so to thank all my bloggy friends, there are two prizes on offer!

One commenter on this post will receive, from me, a pair of socks. Knitted by me, of course! Or if the winner doesn't happen to wear socks, something else, like a shawl or scarf, can be arranged!!

And to make it even more fun, a little competition - the other prize will be for the person who can answer all of these questions correctly (in the HIGHLY UNLIKELY event that more than one person answers all correctly, a winner will be drawn from all correct entries!!). Not sure what the prize for this will be, but hopefully you'll like it!!

Here are the questions (for those of you who wish to play - playing is not compulsory for the sock prize):

1. What is my blog name?

2. What is my name on Ravelry?

3. What is the name of this pattern?

4. What is the name of this colour (bonus points if you can identify the yarn as well...)?

Thanks for playing, and most of all thanks for reading! The connections I have made through knitting and blogging have enriched my life more than I ever could have imagined.

Keeping Track - June 2009

Can you believe it is July already? I'm pretty glad June is over actually, because my tally is not looking good. How nice to start with a clean slate this month. Except for the YTD tally ... oh well.

I'm going to get this over quickly - tear off the bandaid fast, so to speak. I've already flashed most of this month's acquisitions (here, and here), and to round things off, this arrived yesterday:

How could I resist? When I knit this into socks, they shall be called "And Buffy Staked Edward. The End". I'm excited!

In: 51 x 50g balls of yarn

Out: 17 x 50g balls of yarn

YTD: +1o1.5 x 50g balls of yarn...

And I'm going to Bendigo this month ... better leave my purse at home!!