New ideas

Old technology can be a wonderful thing, or so I am discovering. My friend Neak has a long-term loan of a knitting machine and she has been experimenting with it to make sock blanks.

Sock blanks?

Well, a sock blank is a knitted rectangle of undyed yarn, which is then dyed in a pattern or stripes. Why would you do this? A blank has two strands knitted together, so when it is knitted up – two socks at a time – the end result is a matching pair of socks. So, this idea is one for the matchy-matchy amongst us. 

One of the best bits about Neak’s experiments (well, two best bits) is that she knitted her blanks up out of lovely Vintage Purls sock yarn – and you’ve heard me rave about the quality of this yarn before… and, secondly, she knit up enough to sell some too

With all this gift knitting I am doing, these are going to stay undyed for the time being while I formulate some ideas.  But I am excited about the possibilities – these were an amazing buy.  If you crave some sock blank goodness, you can check out Neak’s blog here, with her contact details. Go the knitting machine!

And, while I am on the subject of cool new yarny ideas, it looks like NZ is going to soon have its own yarn sampler boxes available.   

Here’s what the organiser has to say:

Blendy’s NZ Yarn Sampler Boxes are like a mini craft fair – you get a little bit of everything that knitters would enjoy, such as yarn, fibre, stitch markers, buttons, embellishments, gift cards, delicious treats – all made by fantastic (mostly) NZ creatives. I want to share my love of supporting the amazing crafts New Zealanders make with the rest of the world. There will also be a few amazing international samples, because we love them too.

What’s in the Box?

Each box will have around 15 different amazing samples for you to try – including an exciting array of New Zealand yarn, and some international yarn (because we love specialty yarns from all over the world), and some beautiful knitting-related embellishments and treats from local NZ crafters. Not all boxes will be the same – it’s a surprise!

You can check out the blog here for more information.  These are apparently due for sale in January.  I’m not sure if Santa will have yarn in his sack for me or not – I might be replete for yarn by January!

Gift Knitting

The past few years, my sisters and I have exchanged handmade gifts for Christmas. It is a lovely compromise in terms of continuing to give each other gifts without the pressure of shopping attached. It has been a pleasure to give and recieve gifts made with love.  Of course this presents somewhat of a problem for me this year – I am busy knitting away, but all three of my sisters stop by my blog… so if I show the gifts, then their surprises are ruined. If I don’t, this becomes a very boring knitting blog for the next month or so.

So, for today, a compromise.

This is what I am working on

I do have a few plans to make little bits and pieces for my two girlies as well – and since they don’t read the blog, those will be safe to share.

I should have known better

And in fact I did know better. Yes, I knit something in totally the wrong yarn, with predictable effects.

I came across a brand new free pattern on Ravelry on the weekend – a gorgeous wee shrug for toddlers. Knit in a lacey pattern on big needles, it seemed a perfect fast knit that would be ideal for our current changable weather.

This is the pattern version

Gorgeous, eh!

And here’s mine…

Where did the lace go? Oh, its hidden in all those variegations. Which I *knew* would happen.

So, why did I knit this? Well, I made the mistake of letting Miss 3 chose the  yarn. Sigh.  She likes it.

But it is a wee bit tight – I had to upsize the pattern to fit her and it needs to be a bit wider, so I need to rip the edging out, undo the sleeves a bit, and redo the edging. It is less than an hour’s work, but it can wait for another day. Tonight I am working on Christmas knitting.

 

Creative Time?

With my exam over, you might be excused for imagining me taking things easy today while the girls were in daycare. No, instead I got busy in the kitchen with sandpaper and paint, scraping down windowsills and doorframes and then painting them back up again. I hardly had time to sit down all day! When I did, I managed to finish up a few more WIP bags.

These ones are all for rehoming so I can reallocate any funds earnt to my stash improvement fund Yes, these are up for grabs. I have listed them for sale on a forum I’m on and the yellow/blue one has gone, and one of the yellow paisley ones is gone too. But, the others are available. So, if you’ve got $15 burning a hole in your pocket, I’m a very worthy cause.

Heehee. 

But seriously, if you want one, if you leave a comment I can email you… don’t write your email in the message because I can email from the WordPress sign in thingy – it’s clever like that.

I am hoping to get a stack more painting done tomorrow, but I will try to sneak in some knitting time as well. And maybe a few minutes on the sewing machine too – yep, I’ve got more WIP bags cut out.

Oh, and if any sisters like these, please say so, because Christmas pressies are still in the formative stages…

In love with lace weight

Last week I cast on for another Whisper cardigan. You might recall I knit one earlier in the year, just in time for weather too cold to wear it. In the last few weeks it has been getting some use, and this reminded me that I had bought some yarn for a second attempt at the pattern. The deliciously smooshy Malabrigo Lace Yarn. 

I have to confess that I had no idea how this would knit up, or I would never had let this languish in my stash through the winter. Who would have imagined the beautiful cuddly depth of this yarn?  Not me anyway. Knit on 4.5mm needles, the fabric this produces is so incredibly soft I had to pass it around knitting group the other night to let everyone else have  a pat. I fear my developing yarn snobbery may rub off on them eventually.

But this has got me thinking several things.

a) Is all lace weight yarn as delicious? This is the only one I’ve tried. I may need to try more!

b) This is the recommended yarn for the pattern. I liked the version I did earlier in the year. But I *love* this sooo much more. So, am I missing out on this in-love experience for all the patterns I knit? The range of yarn available in New Zealand is increasing all the time, and thanks to the dollar’s recent rise overseas yarn isn’t too bad, but I do prefer to shop local and support LYS when I can too.   I might have to reconsider impluse buys though, especially on sales, if they aren’t going to do justice to a pattern.

I am taking this knitting on this cardigan slowly – I have masses of Christmas knitting and other projects to do, but when I need  a simple knit with delicious yarn, this will be my project of choice.

FO: Bloom

Miss 1 looks lovely in her new wee top. And so does Miss 3. (Yes, she was willing to try this on. Go figure.)

Oh and so does the newborn size dolly…

Amazing eh? I think I really confused my husband this afternoon taking these pictures of everyone in the same dress/top. But I just *had* to try out the amazing qualities of the “Bloom” that see it grow with your baby. This is the latest pattern from Aussie designer “Tikki”, and I was eagerly awaiting the pattern, having heard it came in multiple sizes and yarn weights – 4ply, 8ply and 10ply.  I had a ball of 4ply Wool Company yarn in Raspberry that I would be perfect. What I hadn’t realised was that each size has the same number of stitches exactly, it is just be changing needle size and gauge that the sizes varied. Clever, eh.  It  did leave me with a little problem though, as this size is meant to fit newborn to 12 months. But the pattern features Tikki’s daughter Lily who is nearly 4 wearing the 4 ply version, so I figured my petite nearly 17 month old would still get lots of wear out of this. And I think we now know just how much…

Yes, I think it might end up being first up best dressed around our place!

So what are the magic elements to this pattern? It is knit in the round top down, so no seaming The bodice is 1×1 rib which looks so teensy tiny – you can see it doesn’t stretch at all on the newborn dolls. Then there is a lovely increase which sits beautifully over Miss 1’s budda belly, and stretches out flat across Miss 3’s chest.  Clever.  Then the skirt is worked straight in a lace pattern, before heading to a more detailed border. I started to worry about running out of yarn – I had maybe 2-3 metres left when I cast off.

While I enjoyed knitting this, it isn’t an idle knit once the rib is done – I needed to have a good amount of concentration for counting out the lace pattern. Of course I am not a natural lace knitter, so people who love lace will find this a complete doddle. And I cannot recommend this pattern highly enough when you consider it covers age newborn through to approximately 8 years. It would be terrific if you wanted to knit a gift for a girl whose measurements you don’t know, and you are guaranteed that the wearer will get lots of use from it.

Even if they *do* run away from the photoshoot.

Stash additions

I’ve been having a little fun ordering some yarn lately, and I thought I should share some snaps of what landed here yesterday.

This was the reason for my order: I really wanted to buy something to knit the Alpaka Tunic from the latest Interweave Knits magazine. And I thought it would be fun to try alpaca. I’ve only ever knitted a soaker from alpaca before, and this pattern seemed the ideal one to try on. Nothing available at all here in NZ in this weight though, and not at a reasonable price. This is Berocco Ultra Alpaca, a 50% wool 50% alpaca blend. And at 197 metres per 100g ball, at only US $7 per ball plus post, this was cheaper than any other options available. I got it from the lovely WEBS and I am once again delighted with their service. I am surprised that it is as thin as it is – certainly comparable to the weight of some of our supposedly “DK” weight yarn here.  But I adore the colour (Lavender Mix) and am looking foward to knitting it up. Or, rather, stashing it away to knit up once the warm weather passes.

And of course since I was paying postage, I thought I might as well make it worthwhile and order a few more bits’n'pieces. This is Malabrigo Silky Merino in “Dill” which is for a knitted gift I’ve promised to make.

And these are for the stash: one beautiful skein of Dream in Colour Smooshy in “Pansy Golightly” colourway – what divine colours, and two skeins of Araucania Ranco Solid in ‘berry’ and ‘mint’.  I thought these solid colourways would suit some of my lovely Cookie A patterns that really invite a nice solid colourway to show off the cables. 

I am so excited to add (squish, squish) these to my stash – these are just the kind of things I was hoping I would be able to put in there while I was on a buying ban. Of course given the second order I’ve got arriving soon, I will soon not be buying again due to lack of funds. Ah well, it’s fun while the buying lasts, and then the knitting makes the fun last so much longer.

And in other news, my exam is over and it looks like I can still string a sentence together. 3 hours, 4 essays, 17 pages of writing.  Fun.

FO: Tiger Socks

I promised Miss 3 the rest of my orange Vintage Purls sock yarn would become socks for her.  She was a little disappointed that it had to be striped with black to have enough though.  She has said she wants a pair that are “just orange” so my wee excursion into orange socks might have to be repeated some time in the future!

These toddler socks are knit toe up on magic loop, with a gusset heel. I am trying to work up a pattern to share with you, but have a few kinks to work out first – like these are about a centimetre too long. So will keep on it and let you know when I have an ultimate pattern, as these are sooo simple!

One of the ladies at knitting night was asking about stripes last night, so I promised I would show the jogs where I change colour on these socks.

The top sock (right) is where the change over happens, the bottom (left) is the other side of the round. You can see a small jog but not a significant one, in fact it’s almost comparable with where I change needles I think.  I just wrapped the new yarn a couple of times around the old one, until it was fairly tight, and kept going with the new colour. There might be a technical name for this (complete fool’s method?) or not, I’m not sure. But my attempts at jogless jogs resulted in more of a jog so I stuck with this improvised method.

You can see the gusset heel here too – no heel flap, just gusset increases and then short rows. Very quick and satisfying and has resulted in a fairly good fit.

Now I am left contemplating the wee nugget of orange yarn and wondering if I have enough left to make a pair of tiger ears and a tail?

No longer Blogtober

Yay I made it.  Yep, I managed to post every day in October. It was fun, thanks so much for participating – I promise to stop clogging up your blog reader so much this month. I really appreciated all of the comments that you left, seeing some new commenters pop up, and I appreciated your participation in my giveaways.

Now, speaking of giveaways, I promised to draw the Kiwiana Giveaway this evening. So, drumroll, the winner of this package is…

Jo!

I’ll pop you an email

Speaking of winners, my IRL, knitting and blogging friend Hannah has nominated me for a new blogging award: the Gorgeous Blogger award.

Sweet, eh!  Now, in order to accept this wee award, I have to tell you some little known facts about me, and to pass the award onto some others.

So, here we go…

1. My DH is a vegetarian and the rest of us aren’t, so I am increasingly having to balance out the different needs/tastes/demands of him versus the rest of the family. Just call me the resident dietician.

2.  I am officially a SAHM now. Yep, I handed in my resignation from my job in September. Before that I was on maternity leave.  Eeek, you lot are stuck with me now!

3. I have a huge exam on Thursday, and when I am finished, my study will be over for the year – in fact I will have finished my (current) qualification – a Post Graduate Dipolma of Arts (English)

4. I am trying to decide whether I should start my Masters next year. Eep. 

5. Nearly nine years ago I moved to a city that I had only visited once (about 12 years before) where I knew not one single person, for a job. The same job I resigned from recently. Yep, it worked out fine.

6. Dh and I met at work

There, some not-so-widely known Shortly-trivia.

Now, to nominate some gorgeous friends

I’d love to pass this award on to Gemma, who has been on the Blogtoberquest too – she’s another crafty knitter, but I really want to nominate her for the spirit with which she has been blogging through her job hunt and all the emotions this has brought up.

To Virginia, who is one busy New Yorker: worker, mother, knitter, I love seeing the architecture that catches her eye as she goes about her days. (Yes, I am jealous, okay!)

To Mazzy, I always enjoy reading about her girls’ exploits – the good and the bad

My lovely friend Lisa, who blogs with such feeling and honesty about her life, her gorgeous girls and lovely hubby, and life over the ditch.

To Katrina who always seems to have a million projects on the go, despite the calls of job and family.

And finally to Kate, read about her adopted kitty and you’ll know what a huge heart she has.

Blogtober 31st: It’s all about the garden

My post today could hardly be about anything other than our vege garden, because today has mostly been spent in it.  So, here’s our wee piece of productivity.

I am one lucky gardening girl. Three years ago my father spent a couple of days teaching my DH how to make vege garden boxes and helping to make this fabulous vegetable garden for us.  This wee fenced enclosure was the original vegetable garden and it is a fabulous spot - it has its own wee microclimate and is sheltered from the winds, so when other friends complain of decimated crops, I am spared.  It is, however, completely unproductive in winter, so it is largely bare, as you can see. 

I had a planting session about 4 weeks ago, but the nearly three weeks of rain we had immediately afterwards has ensured nothing is thriving yet.  Many seeds did not germinate, and seedlings are on a go-slow. We will be self-sufficient in lettuce from now on, and spinach – well, we could eat that every day for a month and still have plenty growing I think!

So, this morning we went on an expedition to get more seeds, seedlings and some plant food.  While the girls napped I finished off the weeding and digging over the ground, and then Miss 3 joined me to do the planting.

Here she is planting some Roma Tomatoes. We have companion planted basil with them, I hope it likes this spot as we love basil! We also planted capsicum plants, cucumber, yellow and green zuchinni, more lettuce, red cabbage, green cabbage, celery, corn, three kinds of chinese cabbage,  broccoflower and one grafted tomato plant. I have discovered if I have too many tomatoes they end up getting blight, but if I grow one and stake it out well, it’s okay. I’m taking a risk on the Roma Tomatoes because I really like them – I’ve sown some cherry tomato seeds, but won’t worry if I have no success with them.  Miss 3 and I also planted some seeds, butter beans, eggplant, more cucumber, and some cape gooseberries.

All these join the lettuce, two kinds of beans, cauliflower, leeks, silverbeet, spinach, yams,  peas, parsley,  rhubarb and strawberries that are already in.  The other big change is that I have planted some berries this year too – a raspberry, loganberry and thornless blackberry.  I am hoping that they will be productive (I know they need time…) and have lots of babies so I can set up a separate berry garden. Or rather, I can impose on DH to make a new set of boxes for a berry garden.  A girl can but hope.

So there you have it. Today garden.  Tomorrow? Knitting I hope!