Waiting....

Nothing happening on the baby front so we are all just waiting. Some days patiently, other days not so :-) So to kill the time I've started something new. I'm bored of baby stuff, Euan's jumper is driving me crazy and so is Dan's, so I thought I'd make something for me. Chunky sweaters seem to be all the rage so I've been through the stash and through Ravelry and found a pattern that I can start with. It's called the Shalom cardi. I'm planning on making a heap of changes but it's a good starting point. You can find the pattern here and this is my progress shot:

Doesn't look like much but it's fast knitting (double worsted yarn on 6.5mm needles) so hopefully I can show you something that looks like a cardigan soon.

Now just a matter of who finishes first, me or the baby!

The big one!

This is the FO I've been wanting to show you for ages. It has only been finished a few days but it has been a lot of work and I'm really proud of it. This little labour of love is a present for my Nan's 90th birthday, which isn't until March but I didn't want to rush it. It took me a month to complete which is slightly quicker than I expected although I wanted to have time to resize it if need be.

Anyway, without further a do, may I present my Swallowtail shawl:

Isn't she pretty? Not a huge shawl but a good size for a little grandmother.

Here's the blocking shot:

This made me realise that I really need blocking wires so I'm saving up for a splurge at The Knittery asap, especially as I already have more lace on my needles.

Not sure what to say about the swallowtail. It is a fairly simple pattern to follow if you don't have a 2yo helping out. I used Knittery 2ply merino on 3.25mm addi lace needles.

Oh, and it has really whetted my appetite for lace. So I joined a Secret Stole thingy (for all my free time!). They send me a clue every week for 9 weeks and I knit them up and see what happens. Unfortunately I needed my only lace needles so I had to wait until the Swallowtail was finished, which meant I was 3 clues behind. Luckily it is fairly easy knitting so I got the first clue done in 2 days and have made good progress on clue 2. I'm really hoping to be up to date by the time clue 3 comes out on Friday night.

Here is a little progress shot of the stole:

Terrible pictures, but it looks pretty good in real life. I've done a fair bit more since this picture but I'm only going to take pictures at the end on each clue.

Unfortunately due to the lace bug that I've caught everything else has gone on the back burner. I hope I can get a few more things finished off in the coming weeks as I hate having lots of WIPs bugging me.

House report: who knows and not worth talking about. Hopefully we should start knowing a little more by next week but until then we're trying not to think about it.

Knitted baby FO

Here it is, my first knitted item for our little girl. It has been a nice knit and the yarn is just so scrummy. I just love it! Dan has reminded me, however, that it will probably fit her around her first birthday and not as a newborn, but who cares really. Knowing my luck and poor judgement it'll probably fit her around 9 months which will be the middle of summer, so not great sweater weather. Ah, who cares. Here it is:

Knitted in Knittery merino/cashmere sock yarn on 3.75mm needles. It's the February Sweater Pattern from Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitter's Almanac. Sorry, I'm sure I should add more details but my brain isn't working and I need to head out. If I can think of anything important I'll write it up later.

I managed to save my lace but haven't had the courage to do any more on it. Hopefully I'll get some child free time this weekend and I can get a few more repeats done. This one cannot be late!

DO NOT KNIT LACE WHEN TIRED

Long day + very tired + late at night + fine lace = disaster.

What else do I need to say except that I am very glad that I am a lifeline maniac. Sigh

A good day!

Things have been going a little better lately and not before time. I seem to have stopped feeling ill (touch wood) and have now made it to the 3rd trimester. Only 10-16 weeks to go and I sincerely hope it's closer to the 10. I'm so bored of being pregnant but at least I haven't got any of the major ills that I had last time. I won't list them, it's not pleasant reading. Suffice to say that everything is working fine thank you and I have normal sized feet. I'm sure the 39 degrees tomorrow will challenge my feet but that is why we have air con. The bub has been spending most of her time head down so at least she knows which way is out. This does mean that I constantly have a sore pelvis but it's better than a breach birth.

Even though I keep saying I won't start new projects until others are finished I guess I don't really mean it. The Swallowtail is coming along slowly as I can only work on it when Euan is asleep, which doesn't seem to be too often these days. The Cobblestone is easy and brainless but far too big to carry around all the time. So you see I just had to start something new. Something portable and requiring little though. I though this was just perfect. A little baby sweater. Straight out of my new Elizabeth Zimmerman book (actually I bought 2 books but they are knitting essentials...honest!). I have seen some gorgeous examples before and new I had to knit it. Anyhoo, here's a progress shot after about 4 days of on off knitting:

Sorry it's blurry. It was getting dark outside and I just couldn't get it right with the flash. But you get the idea.

It's a nice knit with a really simple lace pattern. Easy to memorise so I don't have to carry the pattern around. The sleeves will be a quick knit so it should be done before the weekend. I might even have enough yarn left over to make something equally useless for little babies like a beanie or booties :-)

Another positive this week is that our house plans are coming along nicely. We got the second version and they are much closer to what we wanted. We are still tweaking a couple of things but we are almost ready to go onto the next stage. Unfortunately the next stage is when they cost it all up and we faint at the price. We know what we can borrow and we know what we can afford and they are not quite the same thing. But it is a lovely house and we really need a new one. Maybe we should start seriously looking at the lottery!

Anyway, things are going well at the moment. Doesn't it make a nice change :-)

Wonderful knitting

Well I have to say that the year has started really well knitting wise. I have a couple of FOs already and a few lovely new WIP on the needles. Knitting Daily is proclaiming this the year of fearless knitting and that has made me think about what things I have always wanted to knit. once I'd got the hang of the basics these are the things that I always wanted to try:

1. Cables
2. Lace
3. Socks
4. Adult clothing
5. Entrelac

So far I have done all except entrelac, but only at a very basic level. So my first projects for the new year are:

Lace

This is the Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits.

As soon as I saw it I decided that it would make the perfect present for my Nan who is turning 90 in March, but I have been too terrified to start it. I have had the yarn and needles sitting here for months but kept putting it off. However, after the success of my Branching Out I felt brave enough to start. The yarn is 2ply merino from The Knittery and is like knitting with sewing thread. It is so thin that it makes me feel all thumbs. I hope it gets easier! This is a progress shot so far. not much done but it's only a day's worth of knitting with no mistakes so far.

Real Adult Clothing

The second project on my needles is the Cobblestone Sweater, also from Interweave Knits (the impossible to get Fall 2007 edition - yay for subscriptions!)

I've been wanting to make Dan something for ages and I thought this would look great on him. I decided to have a bit of a splurge and bought some really speccy organic wool from Beaverslide. I had a really hard time choosing a colour as Dan always wears blue and I didn't want him to have another blue jumper. I'm not 100% sure that I chose the right colour but I'm just going to knit it up and see how we go. The yarn has the strangest feel to it. It doesn't even feel like real wool. But I diligently knitted up a swatch (yes, that's right folks 2 swatches in as many weeks!!) and washed it and it feels just gorgeous. That was enough to convince Dan that it will be a comfortable jumper so here's the start:

And now for the things that I have finished. I've already shown you some pictures of the Branching Out but I think this one is slightly better, well at least the colour is slightly better.

It was sent off last week so I'm hoping it has arrived in France by now. Will let you know when I hear.

The other FO is the maternity shrug. The bamboo yarn was a little slippery but looked great knitted up and has made a fabulous top. I haven't actually got a photo of me wearing it. I tried in the mirror but it was so dirty that I looked like a smudge. I know I could clean the mirror but that could take weeks. But here is a pic of the finished item:

This is preblocking so there are a few ends hanging out, but post blocking it really does look great. I'll see if I can get Dan to take a decent picture of me in it, which could be rather hard considering the ginormous state of my tummy!

Wow, I can't believe I found time to write all of that! Off to watch Play School now. Bye!

First FO for 2008

Well I said I was going to try and make some headway on my Branching Out and yesterday was the day. While the boys were out playing I got 7 repeats done and then a few more in the afternoon. After 32 repeats Dan and I decided that it looked about right so I got it all ready to block overnight (it was going to be a minimum of 20 last night so I knew it would dry pretty quickly). It was all done this morning and I have to say that I'm pretty pleased with it. Here are some photos, though I warn you that I have trouble taking good pictures of scarves.

The whole thing blocking:

A close up of the repeats (the colour really isn't good in this one)

And Koshka doing a bit of modelling for me (this is probably the truest colour)

So now we just need to get it in the mail and on its way to France.

On a sad note I have decided to frog my Something Red. It just wasn't working out between us. The pattern is fine and easy to follow but I think my choce of yarn was a disaster. It was the most horrible to stuff to knit. It was Mission Falls 1824 Cotton and I really think my biggest problem with it was needle size, but I just don't feel like changing the pattern to suit a bigger gauge so it's gone. So sad.

But to fill the hole it left I have started another project. I know I said I wouldn't until my WIPs were finished but this replaces Something Red so I don't think it counts. All I really wanted was something I could wear while I was pregnant that would be wearable later. Oh, and something that may be useful during summer, which cancels out most knits. So I'm knitting a shrug. It is loosely based on the Shrug This from One Skein Wonders but I'm changing a few things around. I'm stash busting some Sidar Just Bamboo that I had laying around which should be perfect. I was a little worried about how it would drape (it's a bamboo tape and looks pretty heavy) so I actually decided to swatch, which is very unlike me. I'm so glad I did because it looks much better when it's washed and actually loses some of it's openness.

Before:

After:

I'm hoping this will be a quick project as it's on 6mm needles and just a top down raglan. Progress so far:

Another hot day here today and it'll be worse tomorrow so Euan and I will probably curl up in front of the cricket with the air con going and I can get some more knitting done.

Oh, and we have some plans from the builders. They were all wrong so I have redrawn them, given them a list of amendments and sent them back. Hopefully they hurry up and get it right so we can get it off to the council. I just hope to find out where we might be living when this little one arrives.

UFO Malaise

Well Happy New Year everyone! Dan and managed to see 2008 in (just) with a bottle of bubbles. We regretted it when Euan woke up really early in the morning though! So I have sent the boys off to the playground so I can straighten my head out. And it wasn't the champers. I had half a glass for the whole night although even that was enough to make me feel wobbly. Bed early again tonight methinks as tomorrow will be 39 or 40 degrees and that'll kill me on no sleep.

Anyway, I have woken up this morning just itching to start something new knitting wise. I'm sure this wasn't helped by reorganising my Ravelry project queue last night. It reminded me of all the wonderful projects that I want to start, most of which I even have yarn for. But I am trying to be good and finish a good chunk of my UFOs before casting on something new. I know my WIP list doesn't look like much but that's mainly because I haven't loaded them all onto Ravelry yet. I figure if I can finish the ones listed then I can start something new. So while the boys are out I'm going to get cracking (although I've already wasted half a hour having a shower and typing this).

Euan's ABC jumper is coming along well. I finished knitting the body yesterday and then had to deal with this:

Oh how I wish I'd learnt how to weave in the ends as I was knitting. Must head back to TechKnitter and read her instructions. So I spent all of yesterday weaving bloody ends in! Still, it looks much better after that hard work and I have finally started adding some letters:

I really should've blocked it before starting the duplicate stitch but I have to remind myself that this is a jumper for a 2.5yo and he will probably kill it or only wear it once, so close enough is good enough. I still have the second sleeve to knit but I want to finish the body so I can feel like it's almost done.

Now I'm going to make some more headway on the Branching Out scarf. It was supposed to be a Christmas present but obviously it wasn't done. I've done about 22 repeats and I'd like to make it to 30 today so I only have about another 10 to do. I really want to get it to France while it's still Winter! Wish me luck!

3 days 'til Christmas

Well it's nearly the big day and I think I'm less organised than I was 2 weeks ago! The little Christmas knitting I had going all had to stop because low and behold, I got sick again. I went from gastro to a nasty cold and then back to gastro. After spending too many hours in emergency I decided that the knitting had to go and I just had to get some energy back. I don't want to be sick on Christmas Day. So I haven't got anything else exciting to show you for either my Branching Out or Flirty Skirty. They have both come a bit further than my last pics but nothing too exciting.

When I got a bit of energy back I took myself off to the local library (which I have never joined) to look through their collection of knitting books. I was shocked to discover that they have a fabulous collection of books (it is a very small and slightly crappy library) but I limited myself to 4. 3 kids books and Knitting Nature. I thought I could start something for a little baby girl as baby clothes are so quick and easy to knit but Euan got to the books before me. We flicked through the books together and he instantly fell in love with one of the patterns. He stopped and looked at the page and proclaimed "I'll have one of those when I'm older", which is his way of saying I love it (he knows that there are some exciting things you have to wait for). So I asked him if he wanted me to knit it and his eyes lit up. We then headed straight for the car and drove to our brand spanking new Spotlight (which has the worst yarn section ever - I think I will write and complain). Euan chose his colours and we headed home so I could start.

Now I would like to say that he has chosen something quick or simple or even elegant. But the reality is that he has chosen this:

But he chose it all by himself so how can I resist!

The scary thing is that the pattern isn't even on Ravelry (well it is now) so I can't look at other example. Even a google search brought up almost nothing. The one thing I did quickly realise is that I am not knitting the whole thing as intarsia. It's hard enough for me to do the squares let alone the letters, so they will go on in duplicate stitch later. This way I can make sure I have the entire alphabet (which tha pattern doesn't) as I know Euan will check thoroughly!

This is my progress so far:

Dan's first suggestion was that I could knit all the little squares and then sew them all together. After the disparaging look I gave him he soon realised that, although I appreciated him taking an interest, he was better off leaving the knitting to a knitter.

Right, back to the sofa. I'm feeling tired again.

Just a few WIPs

Just a quick post while the boys are out playing to show you my currents WIPs. It is so nice to have refound my knitting mojo, now I just need to stay about past 8.30pm and I'll be unstoppable!

Last post I mentioned that a soaker skirt thingy, better known as a Flirty Skirty. I've made ok progress on it so here are a few shots.

This is the finished, though unblocked, skirt.

And this is the rather small progress made on the soaker. This bit is quick to knit though and can be done with Euan's help so I should be finished tomorrow.

Sorry, I'm just starting to play with Flickr a bit more so the pictures may not do exactly what I want.

I've also been spending far too much time on Ravelry and came across this beautiful scarf that Bec is knitting for her mum (sorry, it's a Ravelry link). I realised that this would be the perfect Christmas present for Dan's step mum so I've pulled out some yarn and am giving it a shot. The only problem is that it's not very Euan friendly, being lace, and it's got to get to France before Christmas. Anyhoo, it's great fun to knit and is looking great so far.

Only 6 repeats out of 30 odd so I've got a little way to go. Hopefully Euan has some nice long day sleeps this week so I can get a load more done.

Nothing much on the baby front. Still gestating happily and ignoring those people who are worth my effort :-)

Big huge thank you

Firstly I'd like to say a big, huge THANK YOU to my lovely Secret Swap Pal, Denise. She has been so wonderful at keeping in touch and sending little cards and presents over the last three months. It was especially great when I was pretty crook and felt very sorry for myself. She has fabulous taste in all things so make sure you pop over and check out her blog. She has really great taste in knits and seems to get so much done. I'm hanging out for my kids to be teenagers just so I can get some solid knitting time (I will pretend that all the difficult stuff won't happen and that the teenage years will be a breeze!). Her are all the pictures from her wonderful parcel that arrived this week:

Let's start with the yarn and knitting stuff. Some gorgeous Lantern Moon dpn in that always hard to get in Oz size US2, or 2.25mm. Perfect for almost every sock pattern ever written! Some gorgeous lace weight merino that I have no idea what to do with yet. I really want to knit lace but I am so scared of it. A great hand massager that is sorely needed (excuse the pun!). I tend to knit until my hands ache so this will be a great relief. And lastly so beautiful merino yarn that perfectly matches the silk yarn that arrived a few weeks ago.

See!
Just the perfect colours for me so I might have to hunt through Ravelry and find the perfect project.

Some yummy cookbooks that should encourage me (or Dan) to face up to the kicthen. It has been getting ignored lately so this might perk it up :-) Some great books on Canberra too. That would be Australia's capital city for anyone that doesn't know (no, it's not Sydney).

Some more lollies for me. This time I have been good and haven't eaten them all yet although if Euan is still asleep by the time I've posted this then that might change.

Now, look closely at these. They are the most amazing cards that you will ever see for a knitter. They are fabulous watercolour painting of knitting scenes, all done by Denise herself! See, I told you she was talented. She was even featured in the latest copy of Yarn magazine. If you have some knitting friends that just have to be spoilt with these you can buy them here. I think I'll have to keep mine. I might even frame them up for my craft room (when it is finally built).

And last but not least, she is so clever that she included a present for Euan. This is him doing his totally overexcited face, it isn't actually a grimace. He was so excited to get his own present that he has been showing everyone. He even has some cars etc that these fit into so he even more thrilled.

Once again, a really big thank you to Denise for all her kindness. It has been really appreciated over the other side of the continent.

And now for something completely different...

After my last post I decided to pick up my Something Red again. I gave it a few more hours but, to be honest, something is just not working for me. I think it's the yarn. It is very knobbly cotton and it is horrible to purl. It doesn't pull tight enough without a heap of effort so my ribbing looks holey and crap. Anyway here's a progress shot:

Not sure what to do. I might try and do a bit more and see if the ribbing works out. I don't want to frog it but it is creeping towards the pond.

Here is a project that is working out:

I just can't tell you what it is :-) It is supposed to be finished by this afternoon but it'll be touch and go. I guess If I hadn't spent the past 1.5 hours stuffing around on Blogger, Flickr and Ravelry I would've finished. If anyone can tell me how to get Flickr photos on here I'd really appreciate it. The help is crap on both sites and it's bugging me!

Oh, and we had our scan last Monday. The baby is all healthy and gorgeous. We found out what we are having and have told a few people but not sure if we're going to make it public knowledge. I'll sort out some pictures for my next post. This is long enough already!

I'm such a lucky girl!

Well, woman really, but there is something about getting presents that makes you feel like a kid. Firstly huge apologies to my Secret Pal again. I have been trying to blog about your wonderful parcel all week but every time I get near the pc something happens (as I write this I hear Euan waking up so there another delay). Ok, I'm back an hour later :-) Anyway, I wanted to say a huge big thank you for my fantastic gifts. Here a terrible pic, I'll take some better ones when I'm not so rushed.

The skein is the most amazing hand spun silk in my favourite colours. I'm not sure exactly what I'll make but I think it'll be perfect for some lace work. The stitch marker are gorgeous and badly needed (I keep losing mine) and I'll pretend that is a full packet of Mentos. There is no way anyone could demolish the whole packet the second it came out of the parcel wrapping, no even a pregnant woman!

Thank you so so so much Secret Pal. This was such an exciting parcel and everything was just perfect. I will try and find or make up a garment worthy of the beautiful yarn.

As it's now really late (I told you I keep getting delayed. It's about 6 hours after I started) I'll just give you a few shots of my latest projects. I add more tomorrow.



At least knitting doesn't make me vomit any more :-)

Tidying up

I decided that since I was having so much trouble coming up with project ideas, or had ideas that weren't that sensible considering my current state, I should sort out my stash. I did have everything in boxes (sort of) but there was no order and every time I looked in a box I would go "wow, I'd forgotten I had that yarn" or "you're kidding, that's actually worsted?". So I sent Dan down to Bunnings (the Aussie equivalent of Home Depot) for more boxes and got sorting. I had one great afternoon of organising and then of course I got distracted and lost interest. But here is a progress shot.


I wonder if I should add this to my side bar? Nah, it'll never get finished.

The boxes with labels are the wool and the ones on the floor are too. The other boxes are fabric. I think I have about 5 other fabric boxes in storage somewhere. I really must get back to sewing. I'm trying to convince myself that I will make nappies etc for this bub but I can't see how it'll happen. Anyway, look I'm trying :-)

Knitting wise, I have made fairly slow progress on my Something Red. I've been so tired lately that I've been going to sleep with Euan every night and so I have lost my normal knitting time. Today I picked up the needles again because I decided that I would really like to take this to Sydney with me. We go on Thursday so it's a bit of a pipe dream but at least it spurs me on. I've just taken the sleeves off the needles and I'm onto the body. See...


It would be going a little quicker if I wasn't purling like someone who had lost all their fingers in a terrible knitting accident. That's why I love circular knitting, no purling. My technique is terrible but at least the stitches look fairly even. It should go a little quicker now that I'm onto the body. I might even stay up tonight and work on it.

Morning sickness is still hanging around and it's been a pretty crap week. Still haven't heard anything from a midwife yet and would really like to. It would be nice to know who my care provider is likely to be. Another thing making life a little difficult is that we have decided to renovate our house. We had originally hoped to have it all finished by the time bub was due so I could birth in our own home, but we doubt that'll be done. I guess we'll have to start looking for a rental somewhere for a few months and bubs'll be born wherever I happen to be living. No point stressing about it. Having a bigger house is more important than where I give birth.

Here they are!

Yesterday was the big scan day. Dan and I had been really stressed leading up to the scan for various reasons; some sensible and understandable, while others were not. I can't begin to explain our huge relief to look at a screen and see our little bub, with all their bits, moving around, waving, kicking etc. I just felt relieved, Dan shed a tear and Euan couldn't quite work out what all the fuss was about. It's such an abstract concept to a 2yo. We talk about it a lot but I can't expect him to go "yeah mum, makes perfect sense". But he's happy with the baby in the tummy thing so we'll leave it at that until we get closer to the birth and then we'll start talking about that.

So here is our new little one:


Aren't they cute :-)

Funny thing is, since the scan I have been feeling a bit better. I haven't thrown up today which is exciting and I'm not feeling nauseas. I even been able to drink some water again. I'm not going to get my hopes up though, as morning sickness is very mean and likes to give you a few days off before flattening you again.

And because I'm feeling a little better I've actually started some knitting again! I know, what a shock. Talking about knitting on a knitting blog, it's just not the done thing any more. After the list of possible projects I wrote about a few days ago it was very easy for me to pick something. Of course what I picked was not on that list. I decided to knit this. And wouldn't you know it but I have the perfect yarn for it flying its merry way across the globe to me and it arrived yesterday. How's that for coincidence? I'm trying some Missions Falls 1824 cotton which seems a bit rough but as I've never knit with cotton before I have no idea what to expect. I think it'll wash and wear pretty well though (I guess I could've tested a swatch but, honestly, who does that?). I'll get a little more done and put up some pics.

Back to work while the boy sleeps.

Going slowly

Sorry for the lack of activity over the last week or two. I still have a fairly bad case of knitters block. I keep myself awake at night trying to decide what to start next and how to do something without buying more yarn. I have a big enough stash right now to complete all my summer knitting if only I could decide on a pattern or two. Thanks for the suggestions last time. They are the sorts of things I'm looking for but each time I decide to knit one I get confused by which yarn to use and it all goes wrong. TBH, what I really, really, really want to knit is this:


But when I factor in the ridiculous postage costs and the horrible exchange rate it ends up being at least $100 which is a bit much really. But it is exactly what I want. ~sigh~

So to kill time while I think about what to knit for me I have start another top for Euan. A cardigan this time using the leftovers from his last jumper. I am using this as an excuse to try steeking. Something that seems like the most sensible yet terrifying technique, especially as I love knitting in the round and hate seaming. I thought it would make more sense to start with a child's jumper instead of a full adult one as if I totally screw it up then I haven't lost much. This is progress so far.


The funny ridge down the middle is where I'm going to cut it. As it's only Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece and therefore mainly cotton, it's not ideal for steeking but I'm hoping with a lot of sewing-type reinforcement that it should be ok. I'm going to put a zip in which should also help keep it together. Now if only I'd knitted it on 4mm instead of 3.5mm I'd be finished by now.

On a positive note my friend Laura recently got back from South Africa and, although she would never knit to save her life, she brought me back some gorgeous hand spun wool. Ahhhh what I great friend! She couldn't remember what type of sheep it was from but it was something African. It has such a gorgeous shine to it and the colours are just perfect for me. I really don't know what to knit with it, but I've calculated it's at least 130m so I could get something fairly decent.


Isn't it just beautiful!

Now a little family aside. I haven't put any pics of my boys up lately so here are a few of them. They both love cooking so last weekend they got together and made a great chocolate cake. Euan is so good in the kitchen now. Not only does he keep all the ingredients in the mixing bowl (better than his mum) but he also lets me lick the bowl! What a boy!

Some very serious stirring going on there.

And this is the finished creation:


It was as yummy as it looks.

Oh my god!! I'm in stash heaven

After feeling a little down this week due to family illness and other more personal issues, that needn't fill the pages of a knitting blog, I decided that have a little retail therapy. There is a beautiful "yarn shop" (I'll explain the "" in a sec) near me whose website makes very pleasant reading. They are one of the few places here that stock the proper yarns like Rowan, Debbie Bliss, Artyarns etc the only problem being that their prices are usually a fair bit higher than other places online. Now, if I could actually walk in, handle the yarn, get advice from the staff etc I wouldn't mind paying a little premium, but no. They operate not far from me but they won't even let you go and pick up your order. It's online only, which I find very disappointing. So I generally boycott them. (On a side note, there is one other shop that sells really nice yarn, but who is going to pay $20USD for a single ball of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino?? Honestly). Somehow, on Wednesday, I was wandering around the web and I happened to drop into this website and had a browse through their Sale section. $350 later I came out with some lovely, lovely, did I say lovely, yarn. The therapy worked for me!

Would you like a peek? I thought so.

Here is Euan showing just how big the bag was that it all came in. He's a pretty tall 2yo, btw.

And here is Koshka, just dying to climb in a sleep on all that lovely yarn. If you've never seen a Maine Coon then you may not appreciate how big the stash is. She's a bloody big cat!

And here is the all important close up:


Now how do I justify the expense (oh, the green stuff was from a different store, but happened to arrive at the same time. I won't add it's cost into the total for now. I think Dan would cry). The Cashmerino I had to have because I am in love with it. I have 15 balls in a deep burgundy that I bought in the UK but I have been too scared to use it in case I make the wrong thing out of it and waster the yarn. I thought it I had 30 balls of Cashmerino then I wouldn't feel so afraid and could use it for multiple projects, so I bought 15 balls of blue (no idea what the name is).

The Blue Sky Organic Cotton was going to be used for the Ribs and Lace Tank from Interweave Knits Spring 07, but I'm a bit concerned that the top looks a little like a bulls eye and I'm not sure I want that effect. Either way, I will knit something similar-ish to this for summer. The yarn is so incredibly soft I can't wait to wear it.

The Rowan Cashsoft is for Dan. I've been wanting to make him something for ages and he finally decided that he liked the look of this, but as I refuse to knit him anything that big in a silk blend we had to look for other wool. It couldn't be itchy, it had to be fairly hard wearing and it had to be good quailty so we went with Rowan. Luckily this was on sale too at Angel Yarns, who are great and buy heaps from them. Though don't order if you're in a rush. I think this took about 6-8 weeks to be posted as they had run out of stock. They aren't very good at keeping you up to date but luckily I didn't care. I'm just hoping that the Boyfriend Sweater Curse doesn't apply to husbands too!

And last but definitely not least the silk. Debbie Bliss 100% Pure Silk. I have no idea what I'll use it for but it was so so so cheap and I've always wanted to try silk so I bought heaps of it. 15 skeins to be precise (or 750g). It is D-lux stuff and will take dye beautifully so I have a few projects in mind but will take my time with this one. God knows what a mum with a toddler does with silk yarn. I wonder if it gets badly stained by vegemite?

Oh, I am actually working on something right now. After putting the Tree Jacket on the backburner I started the little surprise and have got this far:

I'm sure loads of you (you know, all my readers Hahahaha!!) will know what this is as it is so popular right now, but I'm not going to tell the rest of you until it's done. The colour pooling is a bit annoying but I can't wait to see the finished item. Still don't know who it's for either. Any suggestions?

And one last look at the silk. Couldn't you just swim in it!

I really had nothing to say until...

I finally discovered what all this Secret Pal business was (should've googled it a few months ago, lazy me) and got myself signed up for SP11. Yay!! It'll be so much fun. I just hope my obvious lack of talent isn't too disappointing for my swapee. Can't wait to start planning.

Apart from that it has been a lousy knitting week. The Tree Jacket is just lagging. You'd think that straight garter stitch sleeves would be a breeze but I'm just finding them so boring that I'm avoiding it. In fact I've only done about 6 inches on one sleeve since my last post. I'm thinking of putting it aside this week and making a little surprise. For those who know knitting it's a little Elizabeth Zimmerman surprise, and for those who don't knit, you just have to wait and see. I have the perfect yarn and oodles of recipients so I think I'll use it for a distraction this week. My only issue is that I don't understand the stitch marker placements but I think I can wing it.

I think the other thing contributing to the knitting lull is the fact that Dan has been sick and off work all week. We have such a small cottage of a house that it's been like having two toddlers under my feet all week, and one of them complains an awful lot! He finally seems on the mend today so hopefully he'll be less whingey and he can help out with Euan a little bit. It's not fair that he eats into my knitting time (joke!!). To ease my pain I did a "little" bit of yarn shopping but it is all so lovely that'll you have to wait until it arrives for further details.

Well we finally have a sunny day after weeks of rain so I'm off to do loads of washing and then start my next little project. Hopefully I'll have some progress for you soon.

As there are no pictures here's a little yarn p0rn for you:


Old stuff of mine, but ever so pretty.