Stashin'

Sock yarn, sock yarn, la la la la sock yarn!

Not that I'm knitting anywhere near the numbers of socks required to keep up with the amounts of yarn I'm stashing. *sigh*. But this stuff is different.These two are earmarked to be socks from Cookie A's 'Sock Innovation' book.They're Araucania Ranco Multi sock yarn, and I'm in love with the colourways. That's mostly the reason I bought them...

Pikapolonica!

Ladybird, Ladybug, Ladybeetle... many names for them ( I just looked it up on Wiki. Some of the lesser-used names for these insects include Ladyclock, Ladycow and Ladyfly - excuse me?) but I think that all round, they're considered to be good luck, either for cultural reasons (especially in Europe, I think) or for the fact that they eat aphids and so keep your roses healthy...


Wonder what the significance of them is when they take up residence on your sewing machine??I hope it means good luck for the current (gasp! Not knitted!) project!

Thursday Night Shuffle

Tonight's song is actually today's song... wasn't able to get to KnitNight tonight... and today's song surprisingly ended up holding some significance for me and for our little family, since today is the day that Lola-Frog was told that she didn't have to be a froggie anymore. The hip brace is off and our darling girl is off and away!Today's song is "Life, In A Nutshell" by one of my favourite bands, Barenaked Ladies. It originally featured on their 1994 album, "Maybe You Should Drive"... The lines that appealed to me, and to Lola's situation as I was driving home are

'... But I don't tend to worry 'bout the things that other people say
And I'm learning that I wouldn't want it any other way
Call me crazy but it really doesn't matter
All that matters to me is she...' '... I fell down with no one there to catch me from falling
Then she came 'round
And only her tenderness stopped me from bawling my eyes out
I'm OK, and that's why... '

I mean, you can read anything you like into almost any song you want, but that's what I saw in those lyrics today. Bless you, my darling daughter!

Finished Emergency Birthday Mitts, and Guerilla Knitting

No, not THAT sort of Gorilla!

hehe... couldn't resist such a stupid joke! That was taken a couple of weeks ago on a family day trip to Taronga Zoo, in Sydney. Here I am, with my monkey offspring...

At any rate, I meant to keep going with the Tale of the Emergency Fingerless Mitts. Gather round, chill'n, and hear my story! What was I up to? Oh, yeah. Crapping out on the Humanity Mitts on the Thursday, and casting on a new pair of Fetchings that night instead... I managed to get the pair finished by Sunday lunchtime, even with them being a little longer than your usual pair of Fetchings, and with my improvised new thumb, which would have taken up more yardage than usual. My sister seemed pretty happy with them:and so I hope that these will see plenty of use next year when the weather gets colder again! I used Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, which was just delightfully soft to knit with. It felt lovely to try the mitts on as I was going... maybe I'll knit me a pair one day!

And now, on to Guerilla Knitting. I happened upon an example of Guerilla Knitting in my home town of Bowral, a couple of weeks ago, in the main 'plaza'. I think this is reclaimed Sari silk, knit into a post warmer, featured here with Wonderboy.I do think it's pretty cool, but a big part of me is ticked off that I didn't get to do it first...

Well, wouldya look at that?

This was supposed to be a post from my iPod, a couple of nights ago before I went to bed (just cause I could, y'know?)... but I couldn't.

Dunno why, it just wouldn't work beyond allowing me the opportunity to add a heading and choose a font...

Thursday Night Shuffle

Tonight's first song on the list is The Beatles' "Hello, Goodbye" (the Anthology II version, as opposed to the official single).It's just such a catchy, upbeat, fun song - a great one to belt out in the car. It's been one of WonderBoy's favourites from a very early age. He used to wave back to The Beatles when they appeared on the screen waving at him.

I love all the different versions of the film clip, too - particularly the one with everyone dancing like lunatics at the end. It was recorded at the beginning of a time for the Beatles that was becoming very acrimonious, so I like to watch this clip and think "Well, it can't have been all that bad all the time".

Lavender and Lilacs

The light was bad, but I just had to get some photos of the Cabled Beaded Sock as it is right now, alongside the lavender and lilacs in my Mum's garden, cause that's just where I feel the colours are from!
It's a lovely pattern to knit, and very well written (Thanks, Lynette!) by LeTissier designs in British Columbia, Canada. It's my first attempt at knitting anything other than plain socks, and I LOVE how these are turning out!

Sadly, I've put them aside in the last Wednesday in a big hurry... My little sister, Lucy, was turning 24 on the Saturday, and we'd arranged to take her out for dinner on Sunday night. I figured, as I bought the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, that if I got stuck into the pattern right away (Humanity, by Denise Lotter - Rav. link), I should be able to get a couple of fingerless mitts done quite easily by Sunday. Especially during a trip to and from Sydney on Saturday, which gave me an additional two knitting hours.

So, it was decided. I cast on Wednesday afternoon and got all the way up to the start of the thumb gusset by Thursday afternoon (couldn't work on it Wednesday night - we were with Lucy for dinner!), and I resolved to have the gusset done during KnitNight Thursday evening. Maybe even right up to the cast-off point.

The bottom fell out of the plan right around now. I may have not been reading the instructions correctly, maybe I was distracted by chatting with everyone at KnitNight... but I cocked up the gusset, big time. The increases were messy and disorganised, and after I'd ploughed through the gusset (delusional, I know), I found I had way too many stitches. I tried ripping it back, but couldn't get the needles back in where they should be.

And, fighting back the urge to cut the whole damned thing up into tiny, tiny pieces and feed it to the cat, I frogged the whole bloody thing. Dianne noticed I was muttering to myself a lot that night! I fished around in my bag and pulled out an old faithful standby: Fetchings. I cast on (again) and set to work. *sigh*

Here's Lola-Frog, all dressed up and ready to go visiting friends in Sydney on Saturday. Recognise the top?
Yeah, it's her 'Rainbow Dress', shortened to be a top since she's not walking yet. The yarn is that cotton that I dyed months ago for her - it didn't quite knit up into the big stripes I'd envisioned, but I like it nonetheless, and it suits her little yellow daks. If I could change anything, I'd alter the shoulders a bit for her, this is knit in the two year-old size since she's such a Gigantor, so the shoulders are pretty wide for her.
I think she's laughing at me and those damned fingerless mittens.

More on those next post.

Thursday Night Shuffle

Another week has passed, and so we are at another Thursday!

This week, KnitNight met in a new location, a few suburbs away from our usual place, so that a bunch of us can make it (it's a bit far away otherwise)... we're alternating our meetings between the pub and the RSL club.

Tonight's song is 'Go It Alone' by Beck, from his 2005 album, 'Guero'. I first saw the film clip for this song on an ABC late night music program, called Rage. It was initially the film clip that intrigued me, as I think it was the one that was built up of scenes that folded apart, kinda like a MAD fold-in... I've just gone to check it now, and I could be entirely wrong - it was a good six years ago!!! Maybe it was his track 'Sun Eyed Girl'... Oops...

I've pretty well fallen down on this week's Shuffle. Maybe this is a sign telling me that I shouldn't have this song on my iPod...

Is my face red?!

Doin' the Thursday Night Shuffle

Heading out to KnitNight tonight, the first song on my iPod was "Listen to What the Man Said" by Paul McCartney and Wings. It's a song that reminds me greatly of my childhood, as it featured on a Paul McCartney compilation cassette called "All The Best". I think we gave to it Dad one Fathers' Day, and we listened to it over and over in the car. My sisters and I sang along and knew all the songs pretty well by heart. I think I was possibly the only kid in Year Four whose favourite singer was Paul McCartney!

"Listen to What the Man Said" originally featured on the 1975 album, "Venus and Mars", ... but I was listening to the digitally cleaned up version from the newer best of album, called "Wingspan: Hits and History".
More shuffling next week!

Quickie 'finished' post - now with added photos!

Wow – a whole month without a blog post! Instead of trying to explain, as always, why I haven’t added any posts through September, I thought I’d look at it positively. I enjoyed a month-long blogging holiday!!

On the up side, I have a heap of knitting that I have actually completed. Blocked and photographed!

‘Fetchings’ are done, knit in Jo Sharp Silk Road Tweed in Aran weight. I liked knitting with this stuff, it’s got a lovely cushy, rustic feel to it - sort of like knitting with something a little bit felted already. The yarn was still able to highlight the cabling in the Fetchings quite well. I gave them to my dear friend Ali last weekend, as a very very late birthday gift - she's moving to Adelaide very soon for a year. Does is get cold down there in winter??

Okay, so at this point the ends weren't woven in, so they weren't 'finished' in the legal sense, but WonderBoy looked so cute modelling them that I couldn't resist using these photos to showcase them!

I feel like I'm on top of Lola-Frog's blanket squares, with all of August and one of September done and blocked here. I've also done the last two for September and the first for October, but they're either not blocked or not 'finished' (ie ends woven in) and blocked. I'll get there.

August Square The First;

August Square The Second (the Apple is to signify both Lola-Frog's first solid food as well as to have a Beatles reference within the blanket without resorting to anything gauche and obvious);

August Square The Third, and

September Square The First.

Another finished object still yet to be blocked (and I must do it this week, Dianne was asking to see it last Thursday at KnitNight) is a lovely chunky cabled scarf for a friend who is definitely going somewhere cold - New York - in November. Photos to come soon.

One of the reasons I've not blogged lately (and I've just now realised this) is because of all the spinning I was doing! That, and we got our hands on 'The Beatles: Rockband' game...

You go, Ringo!

...and both these pursuits have taken up considerable portions of spare time. I've spun up 200g of lovely naturally fawn-coloured merino roving that my mum brought back from Tasmania for me a long time ago now.

I have to say, now having spun with both raw fleece and prepared roving, that I find spinning with the pre-prepared fibres much more satisfying - in a totally instant gratification kind of way. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee once said that to learn how to spin well, you should start with good quality fibres. I think that since I'm certainly no professional at cleaning and preparing raw fleece, I certainly wasn't learning with anything approaching 'good quality' fibre, and this was affecting my ability to focus on the spinning itself. Plus, I'm an impatient person at the best of times. Who can wait for fleece to be cleaned and prepared properly when there's spinning to be getting on with?!

Photos to come, as well as a new idea I've been tinkering with to reintroduce some fresh 'randomness' into the blog...