Ravelympics 2010 - medals 1 & 2 - Teddy's Blurp Cloths

I'll start with the basic project and leave the big reveal for later this week. With this project, I qualified for two medals - Stash Compulsory Dance (for using stash yarn more than 1 year old) and Junior Olympics (knitting for baby/kids).

Not the most exciting knitting but very practical - and easy to do while sitting by the pool, or watching the Olympics themselves.

Details
Pattern: Baby Genius Burp Cloths by Ann Shayne and Kay Gardiner, from Mason-Dixon Knitting. According to Ann and Kay, "studies have proven that babies who spit up onto burp cloths that display interesting textures, patterns and colours, do better on their SATs than babies who spit up onto plain white diapers or bare shoulders". I believe them!!

Yarn: I don't know if it was a moment of weakness or inspiration that lead me to buy a cone of Peaches and Cream dishcloth cotton a few years ago when a friend did a big order, but buy it I did, and it sat in my knitting room waiting for me to make something of it. So now I have. Well, at least of some of it - each blurp cloth used just under 100g of the cone, so now I have about 250g left!!

It's nice to work with, for a dishcloth cotton, but I was a bit annoyed to find 2 knots in the course of knitting the second cloth. I know it's only dishcloth cotton but one of benefits of buying a cone is to avoid unnecessary joins. Oh well...more practice at sewing in ends!! (gah!!)

Sticks: 4.5mm KnitPicks Options.

Modifications: I made each one as per the pattern except for making them longer - about 40cm (16") rather than 25cm (10"). I figured a bit of extra length wouldn't go astray - babies can really project when they like to!! And because I used worsted yarn rather than DK/8ply, my cloths are wider too (about 25cm rather than 20cm).

Time: Cloth #1 (my Olympic project): 13 - 23 February 2010; Cloth #2: 23 February - 7 March 2010. And I'll probably make at least one or two more, maybe with stripes!

There's a bandicoot in my backyard!

Husby and I were sitting on the lounge this afternoon when he said "there's a bilby in the backyard!"

I've never seen a bilby in real life, and so we both got up (carefully and quietly, so as not to scare him) to have a look. And there he was, scratching and snuffling around in the garden right near our back door! I grabbed the camera (again carefully and quietly) and husby took some photos.

After checking on the internet, we decided it wasn't a bilby (they have much bigger ears and don't really live in our area!!) but rather more likely a bandicoot, and probably a bit of a baby one at that. Still very cool, considering we live in suburban sydney, where a possum* is common but not so much a bandicoot (as far as I know!)

(*not nasty opossums like you get in the US, much nicer, although still a bit of a pest!)

Aw shucks

Today I gave a tutorial on crochet cables at my crochet guild meeting - not that I'm an expert, but since I have been working on my Solas Caomh I guess I have the most recent (or only?) experience with them amongst the group.

I did up a couple of small samples, a left crossing cable:

and a right crossing cable:

and wrote up the pattern and some notes for everyone.

I think it went ok. I hope so anyway! And I received a lovely thank you gift:

Teddy's first knitted hat! (I am slightly embarrassed not to have made one for him myself ... but now he has one!). All the ladies at guild are very excited, as this is "their" first baby too! It's very sweet!

Keeping Track - February 2010

A day late, but here, and with good news too! (Finally!)

My in's this month - 1 x 50g ball of Regia Kaffe Fassett sock yarn - a spare for my Babette blanket, and 1 x 100g skein of lovely handspun from Donni - do check out her shop Moggy and Me for some lovely stuff (click on the "spun" link for the handspun). After knitting Teddy's Pebble vest from her handspun in January, I had to get me some more handspun, it is so nice to knit with!

Shame I couldn't quite get the colour right, it has more green and less grey/brown than the picture shows, but I think it will look gorgeous knitted up, if I can only decide what pattern to use...

And as for the good news, yes, for a change, my "outgoings" are bigger than my "incomings" this month! Hurrah!

In: 3 x 50g balls

Out: 7 x 50g balls

YTD: 27 x 50g balls. Making my monthly average a much more reasonable 13.5 x 50g balls! I like this monthly average business, thanks Lyn!

My, doesn't two weeks fly by!

Sorry for the blog silence over the last two weeks. I have an excuse for one week at least ... last week husby and I spent a lot of time lying around this:

And walking along this:

Plus a whole lot of eating out and watching the Olympics and knitting (well, I was knitting, husby clearly was not!)

And this picture tells a very happy story:

Yep, it's a bunch of stitch markers. What story do these tell? The story of an almost 3 year old wip, now FINISHED! FINISHED! FINISHED! Which means only one thing: GOLD, GOLD, GOLD FOR AUSTRALIA! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

(Don't worry, I'll reveal all shortly!)

We say Zed and not Zee, too

One of my favourite moments of the Winter Olympics opening ceremony - "we say zed and not zee". Heh, loved it! Also lovely kd lang, the breaking up of the ice and the whales swimming across the floor, the First Nations people dancing during the entry of the athletes (there's no way I could have danced for that long non-stop!!) and of course, spotting the knit (and crochet) wear on the athletes! Sadly not the Australians though.

So this is my day 1 progress on my Ravelympics project, the blurp cloth:

I figured I needed an easy project because I'd be distracted by the opening ceremony! Am about 1/3 done. At this rate, I might get 2 or even 3 of these done in the next 2 weeks! But today, I'm going to pull out the shawl, and work on that - it's my real challenge.

Ravelympics 2010

In a fit of joining-in-ness, I agreed a few months ago to join the Ravelympics for the upcoming winter Olympics, and also agreed to co-captain a team, from the Over The Fence group, TeamDoingABradbury.

(For those of you who don't know, Stephen Bradbury was the first Australian to win a gold medal at any winter Olympics, in the 2002 Games short track speed skating (1000m). He won after all of the competitors in the final crashed out on the last corner. Figuring he couldn't win, his strategy going into the final was basically to sit at the back and hope that maybe a couple of the others would fall. I don't think he expected they all would!! So now in Australia anyone who takes this approach is known as "doing a Bradbury"! Check out the video of the race here.)

So there are about 35 events, and I'm entering a couple:

WIP Dancing - in an aim to finally finish, in one fell swoop, my Alpine Lace Shawl. I reckon I've got 78% done now, so I think I can do it...

Stash Compulsory Dance and Junior Olympics - I'm going to use this 1lb (453g) CONE of Peaches n Cream to make some blurp cloths for Teddy from the first Mason Dixon book. I know blurp cloths are hardly challenging knitting, but since I'm going to be at the beach for the second week of the Olympics, I figure they'll be good beach/poolside knitting. I had only planned to do one, but I might even get 2 or 3 done, which would be pretty cool.

Cast-on time for us Aussies on Eastern Standard Time is 1pm tomorrow (Saturday 13th). Plenty of time to join in if you haven't already signed up!

I miss my Dad

It is four years today since my Dad died.

My Dad was mostly a quiet man, an introvert like me. I remember when I finished high school and got my HSC results (Higher School Certificate - exams held at the end of final year, which are used to determine university placements), my Dad showed his pride this way:

He asked me if I wanted the money or the box. I wasn't sure what to say, but Mum suggested I take the box option, so I followed her advice. Dad took me down to the local jewellers and asked them to bring out all their ruby earrings for me to choose from (not a huge range, being a small country town - but still the most expensive jewellery I'd had at that point!). And so I did, and I wear these today and remember my Dad.

I miss my Dad.

Ah, so much better now...

I feel so much better now that I have these monkeys off my back (or more correctly, my WIP list).

I don't know why, but I found these socks a real slog to get through, particularly the second one. I don't usually suffer from second sock syndrome, and this pattern is ridiculously easy, so I'm not sure why I found these a trial.

But they are done now, and I am glad!

Details

Pattern: No-purl monkeys, pattern adapted by CraftyPancakes from Cookie A's Monkey socks. The no-purl variation is so easy - it's an 11 row repeat, with only 4 pattern rows, with the rest being all knit. And I think it is nicer than the original and works equally well with variegated yarns (one of the great advantages of the Monkey pattern).

Yarn: ShiBui sock in Pebble (col 3001). This is a really nice yarn to knit with, similar to Koigu or Louet Gems, but it can suffer from pooling, depending on your gauge. I checked out the projects on Rav in this colour and there were some shockers (if pooling is not your thing). Fortunately, mine striped rather nicely, except for the gussets, which I can live with.

Sticks: KnitPicks Harmony dpns, 2.75 for one sock cuff (I forgot for the second one!!) and 2.5mm for the rest.

Time: October 4, 2009 - February 2, 2010. And these were my May 2009 Personal Sock Club socks!! And I'm not going to start another pair from the PSC until I finish at least another sock wip (more on that in time!)

Modifications: I did a tubular cast on for these, which is a bit more fiddly than my usual long-tail cast on, but does make a slightly nicer stretchier edge, always good for socks. I chose an easy version of the tubular cast on (the first method described in the link), I probably should try the even fiddlier version because I suspect that looks even better (eg this one).

Despite my lack of enthusiasm for knittign these socks, I really am pleased with the outcome! Apart from any other considerations, a finished pair of socks is another pair that can actually be worn!

Cook from a Book challenge #3

This week's offering is brought to you courtesy of my glucose tolerance test and Nigella Lawson.

Pasta with Ham, Peas and Cream! Yum!

I had to do another glucose tolerance test this week (testing for gestational diabetes), requiring me to have a high-carb diet for 3 days beforehand. I'm not entirely sure my usual diet isn't high carb anyway, but it was certainly no hardship to eat lots of pasta, potatoes and bread!

This is ridiculously easy to make. Boil up your pasta, add the peas half-way through, drain and set aside. Warm the cream, ham (mmmm, leftover Christmas ham that I'd frozen) and some parmesan, then mix pasta through. So easy! The recipe is from Nigella's Feast, another lovely Christmas gift (thanks Bells!). It's actually from the "Kiddiefeast" chapter. So there you go, good for kids and adults alike! Interestingly, the recipe says it serves 2-3 children. Well, we've already had 3 meals from the amount made by the recipe, and there's enough for another meal too.

I will definitely make this again, not least to use the rest of the fun bowtie pasta!

Keeping Track - January 2010

Yes, despite my abject failure in actually reducing the stash last year (not that that was my intention, but it would have been nice!), I will continue to keep track of my stash acquisitions and reductions this year. I think maybe this year will be my year!

Not that I've made a good start...

1 kilo of unidentified red 4ply/fingering yarn from the Australian Country Spinners mill at Wangaratta, courtesy of MissFee! (I think it's Cleckheaton Merino Bambino)

AND 350g of red and purple 4ply/fingering from the same source - this I think is Patonyle! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Plus of course the 500g of Regia Kaffe Fassett for my Babette, which I've told you about already.

And this little beauty from my Yarntini sock club:

Midnight Snow Stripe. Just lovely! If I can bear it, I think I'll make socks for husby in this one. Or maybe I'll just keep them for myself...

In discussing my prospective total for the month at SnB last week, Lyn suggested I could just do a monthly average as I progress through the year. I do like that idea. Although it doesn't help me much for the first month...heh!

In: 39 x 50g balls

Out: 8 x 50g balls

YTD: +31 x 50g balls. And that would also be my monthly average. Sigh...

Cooking challenge

So last week I didn't do my cooking challenge, for various reasons. Am making up for it this week by making two new recipes (although I must admit, one of them hardly counts as a recipe, or really for that matter, cooking). Both are from Nigella Lawson's How to Eat.

First up, Pea Risotto. I've never made risotto before. All that stirring really put me off, I suppose. But I liked the sound of this and since part of this challenge is to try new things, I thought I'd give it a whirl.

It was really very good! I think I could have cooked it a tad longer, but I was running out of time. And the constant stirring really wasn't that bad (listening to the Australian Open tennis in the background probably helped!). I would definitely make this again, especially as it basically uses ingredients that you would most likely already have in your pantry and fridge/freezer.

Next, a dessert. I do love a dessert! Roasted Sugar-sprinkled Peaches. Here's the before (I used white sugar on one and brown sugar on the other):

And the after:

Yum!! I think brown sugar works better, although they both tasted very similar. These are so easy, all you do is cut the peaches in half, remove the stone, put some dots of butter and a teaspoon or so of sugar in the hole and on the flesh of the peach, bake for 20 mins in the oven, and serve with icecream. SO EASY! I will definitely be making these again! Probably this weekend!

Babette-ing along...

I've been pretty much obsessively crocheting my Babette squares for most of this month. So far I've used 6 balls of yarn and have made almost 3/4 of the required squares.

I decided I'd lay them out today to give myself an approximate size for the finished blanket. I didn't try to organise by colour or anything, just used the layout guide in the pattern to set up the two longest external strips.

I'm pretty darn pleased with my colour choices, I have to say!! (I've used 3 different Regia Kaffe Fasset Design Line sock yarn colours, 4251, 4253 and 5261) (although they look a bit more blue-er and washed out than they actually are!)

I think I will add an extra strip to make it a tad bigger. As it is now, it will be about 87cm/34" along the shorter side, and about 95cm/37.5" along the longer side. An extra strip will add another 20cm/8", which I think will be better. Of course, these measurements are all pre-seaming and pre-blocking, but I'm not sure that will make a lot of difference given I'm using machine-wash sock yarn?

But I am loving making these squares. An extra strip just means more of them! Weeeeeeeeeeee! (shhhh, don't mention the extra seaming!)

Pebble

Lately I've been starting lots of new projects willy-nilly, without having finished anything already on the needles. Very undisciplined. Which is pretty much the way I like it, I have to admit. Not that that is necessarily a good thing. A bit of discipline comes in handy for whatever you are doing, knitting included. Especially if you actually want finished objects out it.



So I'm happy to present my first FO of 2010. I only procrastinated for a day before sewing on the buttons - all 9 of them! (Yes, Nine! Nine buttons on a baby item!!)

This is Pebble. It's a baby vest pattern based on Jared Flood's Cobblestone jumper. It was designed to use handspun yarn and it completely unbuttons down one side and on one shoulder, making it easier (I hope...) to put on the baby.

(this is the best colour representation - the rest of the pictures wash out the green a little)

And since I happen to have a gorgeous skein of handspun - made by Donni from Pigeonroof Studios fibre and gifted to me for Christmas - I thought "Perfect!". And it was. It's so lovely to knit with handspun yarn, seeing the way the yarn looks, the different feel of it in your hands, how the colours come out. It's a lovely experience.

And makes a lovely garment too, I think!

Details:

Pattern: Pebble by Nikol Lohr. This is a free pattern, and is one size only, but could easily be sized up by adding extra stitches when you cast on. It's knit all in one piece, so very easy. As my gauge was off, and on the advice of the mothers in my SnB group that all baby things ride up, I made it longer in the body by adding 2 extra buttonhole repeats (20 rows), and made the garter top part (armholes etc) slightly longer too. It does seem a bit skinny and long, but I think it will stretch outwards and fit nicely. I hope so anyway!

Sticks: 3.75mm Addi circular. Haven't use the Addi's for a while but all my KP tips were in use, so I pulled out the Addi. It was nice for this project! I didn't need really sharp tips.

Yarn: Donni's handspun, using Pigeonroof Studios fibre. I used approx 62g of a 100g skein, so I reckon I'll have enough for a little hat too. Nice!

Time: 8 January - 21 January 2010. It's a much quicker project than this timeline indicates, I have mostly been Babetting this month! You could easily do it in a couple of days, making it a good last-minute project for a new baby in your life!

I really like this little project. It's great for showing off the beauty of handspun yarn, is seamless, and it's unisex - you can easily pretty it up for a girl through yarn choice or by embellishment (if you so desired!). I'm looking forward to seeing Teddy in it in a couple of months.

what to cook, what to cook?

I have all these cookbooks:

And yet hardly use any of them...with the exception of Nigella's How to Be a Domestic Goddess, of course! (and Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion -what an essential for every kitchen!). And I got two more lovely ones for Christmas (thanks Bells and DrK!).

It was really the addition of the new books which made me decide I really must expand my evening meal repertoire - by using my books! So I plan on making a new dish (or side dish at least) every week, at least until May...who knows what will happen after that!

This of course requires some pre-planning for the grocery shopping, but that's hardly a bad thing, if it means less wastage in the end (which I'm hoping will be the case).

So this week I made something relatively easy, and quite good - husby is always happy to have a vegetarian meal from time to time: spinach and feta pies, from one of my new books - Donna Hay's Seasons. This is a lavishly styled book, with recipes organised by each of the four seasons, which is quite handy, I must say!

The recipe is quite straightforward, but I didn't really enjoy working with the filo pastry - it was my first time - and I found it a bit of a pain. I wouldn't be putting these on my weekly cooking roster, but I will make them again I think. Very nice with a bit of my mum's tomato relish on top and for husby's lunchbox the next day!

SHOESday: 1 in 12

Last Thursday started innocently enough ... DrK came up to Sydney for the day (and night), we met up in Kinokuniya (and did not buy any knitting books) and went to SnB. And it all went up from there!

Margarita arrived and was wearing the MOST DIVINE shoes! OMG! Red! Patent! Criss-cross straps! All things I cannot resist! And when we found out she bought them from the nearby Camper store, on sale, DrK and I looked at the shoes, looked at each other, and almost agreed telepathically that we were heading there when SnB finished (well, the first half of SnB, before we change locations to a nearby hotel bar).

With almost indecent haste, we packed up our knitting and almost ran to the Camper store. And when we spotted the Shoes, I think choirs of angels were heard in the background. They had the Shoes! In both our sizes!

And I knew immediately that they would be mine.

DrK, although she felt the same love, took a little more convincing. I discovered from the sales assistant that the two pairs of the Shoes (in our sizes!) were the last ones in Australia, and that Australia had only been sent 12 pairs of these Shoes in all. So whispers of "1 in 12", "practically unique", "red!" "patent" and the like, accompanied with much giggling like a schoolgirl, ensured that we both left the store accompanied by a bag each with the Shoes!

So good! So red! So patent! So comfortable! So cool! So goes with everything!

So excellent.

Oh no you didn't...

But first, a quick community service announcement:

The vegemite (or peanut butter, nutella, jam, mustard, whatever floats your boat) smiley MUST be performed with a knife and then spread on your toast or whatever! Using your finger (or other bodily part) and eating it is just disgusting and childish!! Heh!

****************************

Onto today's post...

It often surprises me when a pattern which I've seen around a lot, and not particularly liked at first glance, grows on me until I decide I like it so much I want to make it. It happened to me with the clapotis and the monkey socks - I've now made 1.5 of each of these patterns. And no doubt others too. I don't know what it is that makes me change my mind, whether it is just simply seeing everyone else make it and not wanting to feel left out - or thinking well, it must be good if so many others have made it, I should see what I'm missing out on - or whether it is seeing versions in colours or yarns which appeal to me, or what it is.

And so it is with another pattern - the Babette Blanket. I suppose I have always quite liked this crochet blanket, but was always scared of getting the colour combinations wrong. With 17 different colours (of Koigu no less!!) in the original pattern, and a relatively random organisation of different sized crochet squares, it has a lot of potential for looking great - if the right colour combinations are used - or pretty ugly - if you get the colours wrong. I never had enough confidence in my colour choosing ability to do it right, and so this pattern was admired but not enough to commit to as a project.

Unti one day in December...there I was, innocently reading blogs as I do every day, and I came to Make Do and Mend. Mooncalf had a simply INSPIRED idea to crochet a hexagon blanky using Regia Kaffe Fassett self-striping sock yarn - thus eliminating the need to change colours every row (AND weave in multiple ends) - AND with the added bonus that you know the colours will work together, because, hello - KF is a colour genius! Oh, and did I mention it's also machine washable yarn!

OMG! How had I not thought of this before?? Babette was now possible! I just had to pick which KF yarn colourway to use! I had two balls in the stash already! Perfect cot blanky for Teddy! Hurrah!

And I was off and crocheting. Before I knew it, I had a ball's worth of squares done:

The colours obviously don't necessarily change when the new row starts, but I can live with that!

But then slight disaster...I couldn't get more of this colour from a most excellent bargain yarn store in the UK (I almost don't want to give away this super special secret, but I will...) Kemps Wool Shop. They were selling the Regia KF yarn for GBP1.20!! That's around AUD$2.40 right now! (Compared to a price of somewhere between AUD$10-12 in yarn stores here!). I felt slightly guilty about buying it from o/s, but hey, when I can get 10 balls of the yarn for AUD$36 (including postage!!) as opposed to $100-120, can you really blame me!

So I checked each available colour on various websites, and I found two of them which I thought would tone in nicely with the colour I'd already used, as well as with each other (fingers crossed). And so I put in my order (I may have ordered for someone else too, for the same reason - but I'll let her share the story at the right time!) and was so pleased when it arrived, my gamble had paid off! Both new colours contain elements of the original colour, as well as of each other! Woo hoo!

So now I just have to make about 100 more squares, sew them all together, and crochet around the edge. In the next 3 months or so...can I do it?

I say: Yes I Can!

Please tell me...

Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this:

when faced with a brand new jar of vegemite!

Well, hello there 2010!

Didn't you sneak up on me so quietly and quickly! I hardly know where 2009 went. I'm not so great at making any groundbreaking reflections on where I've been or how I've changed but I thought it might be interesting to look back on what I've achieved knitting-wise over the past 12 months, because that at least is something I have an actual physical record of, thanks to my ever-faithful moleskine knitting diary.

And of course, the end of the year means the final stash honesty post for 2009 - which I think I'll get out of the way first!

This month, I was pretty good. Two ins, both sock yarn:

My Yarntini self-striping club yarn for the month - ginger ice stripe!

And a little present to myself, since I am weak and Sundara offered free shipping. More lovely orange yarn!

The outs weren't that huge, but for the first time in some time, I used more yarn than I bought! Hurrah! I knew I could do it! Stash negative for December! (let's just ignore the year end total shall we...)

In: 4 x 50g balls

Out: 5 x 50g balls!!! -1 for December! party time!

YTD: 217.5 x 50g balls added to the stash ... if I was the type to make resolutions, I might resolve to knit from the stash. What a shame I've decided I'm not that sort of person!!

As for the knitting year in review, well, I managed to finish 34 projects (let's also not mention the 43 projects I started during the same period!!). I'm crap at doing those fancy mosaics, so I grabbed all my 2009 FOs out and found I don't have anywhere near 34. Looking back over the year, I was a bit surprised to see I'd made more things for others (not counting husby) than I have for husby and me. I guess I wouldn't have thought that was the case, as I always seem to be starting stuff for myself! (I guess the secret is in the finishing...or lack thereof, when it comes to things for myself!).

So, remaining at my house:

5 pairs of socks (L-R: Bartholomew's Tantalising Socks, Husby's stripey socks, Embossed Leaves Socks, Buried Treasure Socks and Cauchy Socks - 4 of these from my personal sock club)

Accessories (L-R: RoseRed beret, Stash neckwarmer, Endpaper Mitts and Ishbel underneath)

And garments (L-R: Liesl, Pearl Buck Swing Jacket, February Lady Sweater, Loppem and Bruegel). I started the year with 2 handknitted garments, now I have 7! I'm pretty pleased with that effort!

Finally, one of the things I love about the new year is this:

Breaking out the new knitting diary! I never rip the plastic off until the new year starts...and now I have! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Happy New Year everyone! May you have enough storage space for your stash, and enough project bags for your WIPS!