The Little Knitter Who Could....

Moving day

2012-02-03T17:19:00.001+11:00

Bye... I'm moving

I'm moving the blog to a different address.

I haven't added posts prior to Jan 2012, I'm not sure if I will, or just add my finished items links at the side, that links to ravelry, that is the most important info anyway, people come here to look at knitting, the rest of the stuff really isn't important.

So the new blog can be found here:

the little knitter who could

Having a few design issues at the moment, but they should be sorted soon. See you there! Don't forget to update your subscriptions too!

Catch up of finished objects

2012-02-03T14:40:00.000+11:00

Projects from L-R

Top Row:

1. Rabbit for Audrey

2. Scarf for Emma

3. Garter Stitch Mitts for me

Bottom Row:

4. Pixie Hat for Jayda

5. Elephant for Amalia

6. Booties for Audrey

These are some of the projects that I've finished and haven't blogged about over the past year or so. Maybe two years.

The rabbit and booties were finished in the past month. The rest were all finished between 12-24 months ago.

And the elephant... well, the elephant isn't actually finished yet.... He is still waiting on ears. I was considering just sewing on ears, because I snapped the double pointed needles I was using in them when I moved most recently. But I found a new set in the size needed, so I'll knit some ears on. About time. I started this in May 2010......

I just realised that I ended up giving away the garter stitch mitts. So all of the items here are gifts. And all small items. I like knitting small items.

I hate seaming.

I think my aim this year is to avoid seaming at all costs.

And finish that elephant.....

Feb photo a day {two}

2012-02-02T14:48:00.000+11:00

Day 2 {words}

Feb photo a day {day 1}

2012-02-02T00:33:00.002+11:00

Day 1 {my view}

It was raining, so I saw the day from underneath the umbrella

This was another view of mine today. Miss J had a fake day at school. It was a fake day because it was just for the best start assessment. So only an hour and she met her teacher, answered some questions and 'I read the word dog Mum - D - O - G, dog.' I thought it was a good idea to trial the uniform. Good idea, she chucked a fit because the socks I bought didn't stay up. Who knew? I figured she'd want fold-down socks. So emergency trip to the shops to buy new socks that 'stay up'. New shoes too, sturdy one's that she was fitted properly for.

She starts tomorrow, Thursday, which I thought was late, but I've spoken to Mums with kids at two different schools around the area and their kids don't start till Monday.

Good news is that all the big kids are back, so the museums etc have been empty this week. We took advantage of this. Went to Australian Museum yesterday (to see dinosaurs) and we got a nice man who works there who got out a whole heap of preserved bird feet, mummified birds, penguins, owls, owl beaks and skulls, and a bird wing bone and gave Miss J a little talk about each, and she got to touch them and ask questions. It actually sounds creepy as I type, but it was very interesting.

I think she spent more time playing with this fountain though than in the actual museum. Then we walked past St Mary's and she asked all sorts of questions about the statue of the Virgin Mary & baby Jesus. Like who's that? Hmmmm my child is a heathen.

I finished off a little toy and sewed the buttons on the booties for my cousins little baby girl (is that my 2nd cousin? 3rd cousin? Or am I the great aunt? Confusing)

Poor thing all in pieces

I have been doing a lot of sewing up. When I'm not painting walls that is. Sewing on buttons. Sewing together pieces of toys. Sewing up booties. Sewing in ends. Sewing sewing sewing. And swatching. Bleargh. But it means I've finished a few things, so will post some posts showing finished knitted projects soon.

All stitched up. That's better.

I like this little toy. I wish I'd put in a squeaker or bell. And stuffed it a little more, the head is floppy. But it's cute. Hope the recipient like it!

Some catch up

2012-02-01T23:46:00.001+11:00

January Photo of the Day..... catch up.

Day 25 {something I made}

toy knitted from the 'Stuffies' pattern from Ysolda

Day 26 {colour}

sewing threads

Day 27 {lunch}

an apple, not much of a lunch, but I've been painting for two weeks straight, I just wanted to keep going to get it done!

Day 28 {light}

new bedside light for Miss J, the old one broke at the same time as her nightlight, so this one is a replacement of both

Day 29 {inside my fridge}

close up

Day 30 {nature}

bit of a cheat, cos I took this shot ages ago

Day 31 {me, again}

Miss J took this one. Thanks sweety!

This is why I love Vinnie's

2012-01-24T00:57:00.003+11:00

There are many reasons of course - but this is yet another Vinne's bargain I picked up today - a children's sized Ikea Poang chair. Why pay almost $70 for one when you can find one at your local Vinnie's store for $10.

Here it is, next to my big 'adult sized' Poang. Which is so old that when I bought a new cover for it recently I realised it wouldn't actually velcro on and I had to make some adjustments. It's over 10 years old, it's been chewed on by a dog, left out on a balcony for 18 months, has paint stains on the arms in places from Miss J, who also jumped all over it when she was a crazy toddler, (what am I talking about, she's still jumping on the thing!) and it's still going strong. I just had to buy a new cushion, as the old one was actually mouldy from being outside in the elements for so long.

This little one is in perfect condition. I couldn't see a scratch anywhere. Unusual for a piece of children's furniture. But I checked the entire thing over, and it's pretty much perfect. Apart from the ugly blue cover! Which I know Miss J which will object too, and I don't blame her, even I think that colour is ugly.

But that's easily fixed by just sewing up a new cover.

So I'm trying to decide whether to use one of these:

Or order some of this gorgeous 'Olive Grand Hearts' Umbrella Prints material from evoke designer yarn and fabric:

Image courtesy of evoke

I am undecided, but I'm leaning towards the olive green hearts. The back room will be repainted in a pale green colour, so it will work in with that, and I feel the other two just aren't quite right. The polka dots is far too bright, and I'm thinking I will use it for outdoor cushion covers. The infinity/flower print is gorgeous, but too dark, and just too....well.... too.... busy for a whole chair. It's already been earmarked for new cushion covers for the lounge anyway.

At the moment I just have an old piece of pastel-multicoloured spots material laying over this new find, so she won't protest the colour when she see's it, and will instead just be excited that she has her own version of 'Mummy's chair', that she can sit in to read, knit, whatever.

Something Old

2012-01-24T00:49:00.001+11:00

January Photo a Day

Day 23 {something old}

This was my Nan's. You can't see very well, but it's a necklace that's actually a watch. The face is upside down so that you can read it when you are wearing it. It's awesome, and I love it.

Incidentally, the background surface is the top of an old desk I bought from Vinnie's for $10, which is also old, and which I also love. I need to sand it back and re-stain it, so will put up pictures when I am done.

Which won't be 'till after I've finished scraping back the awful paint job that was previously done to Miss J's chest of drawers, which was done without proper preparation, using the stupidest paint possible for an item of wooden furniture, and which has consequently irritated me every time I look at since she was born (almost 5 years ago now - a long time to be irritated by a set of drawers). Incidentally those drawers were also a bargain Vinnie's buy, $5 way back when I was 20 and couldn't afford proper furniture, I quite like that they have been passed down to her now, they are quite pretty, they just need a proper paint-job, and some nicer handles.

I was going to show some vintage sewing patterns that I have here but I didn't get around to photographing them before the sun went down because I was preparing the walls to paint in the front spare room by applying that blue painters tape to all the skirting boards and cornices, and around the window and electrical sockets.

I love painting.

But I HATE the preparation. It will be worth it though. I keep telling myself that. Even though it's taken over two days of preparation alone just for one tiny little room.

And I'm supposed to be painting almost the entire house......

Hmmmmm........

Here's a tip - don't bother giving yourself a manicure, and perfectly paint your nails right before you sugar soap walls. Just.... don't bother.

A pic of Miss J learning to knit. Just because she's gorgeous, and it makes me smile.

January Photo a Day

2012-01-23T10:01:00.001+11:00

Weekend catch up.

Day 21 {reflection}

Reflecting back on the past. That's me in my Mum's arms. We were dressed in period costume for a vintage & veteran car rally. I must have been about 18 mths old. Look at how young my parents are. Look at how grumpy my brother is. Look at my chubby thighs.

Day 22 {your shoes}

I love these shoes. I bought them over 2 years ago on etsy from la collectionneuse for the grand total of $33 inc postage from the US. It's odd for me, as I have a bit of a foot thing (I hate feet, they are ugly, stinky, weird things) and somebody elses feet have been in these before mine, but they were in excellent condition, and I just love them so much it doesn't matter in this case!

I always get comments on them when I wear them. I wear them a lot also. They are my favourite flat shoes. In fact, my favourite shoes, period. I will cry when they give out on me. But they are well made, so it may be a while yet.

Sew happy.... and also not sew happy

2012-01-22T22:10:00.000+11:00

Today I - had a girly morning, and productive afternoon. Home manicure and pedicure for me and Miss J, then I let her put make-up on me in the morning. Then in the afternoon she got creative with her pencils and paper, doing some drawings while I cleaned all the windows and started cleaning the outside of the house in preparation to paint.

Tonight I am: Knitting swatches for baby gifts, trying to choose fabrics to sew up another one of these for Miss J, with a few modifications...

and watching Romeo & Juliet on telly, I love this movie! Who can go past the fish-tank scene.....

Meanwhile, Romeo is quite fickle isn't he? First he's sick with love for Rosaline, then he spies Juliet, and it's all Rosaline? Rosaline who?

* * *

Miss J had a party to attend on Saturday. I mis-read the invite, and we ended up being an hour late, instead of just half an hour. We were always going to be late..... It's kind of my thing.

It was to celebrate the birthday of one of the girls in Jayda's old class, who turned 4 on Christmas Day (what a day for your birthday!) and her baby brother who is turning 1 in Feb. The parents had a combined party, and Miss J got to play with some of the kids from her old class, and I got to catch up with some of the Mum's too - bonus!

The parent community at her old school was just so wonderful, I am going to miss that. I am hopeful that her new school is an opportunity to meet more lovely Mum's, but really, Akasha set the standard so high, it will be hard to find another group of parents so generous, welcoming and friendly!

I had already made my mind up to sew up some gifts for both the birthday girl and boy. Something small for the boy, and something a bit more involved for Miss J's friend. I whipped up a girly apron, as well as an oilcloth lunchbag, using the same oilcloth that I used for Jayda's new lunchbag for the girl. The boy got a ribbon tag caterpillar.

The apron made me very happy.

I used the pattern out of Cath Kidston's sew! for the boy's apron, but just used girl-prints, and added a fabric flower. I also made the pocket bigger. The original pocket size was the same width but about half the height. Which not only looked too small for the apron, but also seemed totally impractical. And I top stitched the entire apron. The pattern doesn't include this but I couldn't be bothered slip-stitching the top closed, and I thought the top stitching just made it look neater also.

Isn't the pattern in the main material just divine? It is quite intricate, with little birds and bunny rabbits repeating. I actually cut a bird out from an offcut, and was going to embroider this onto the lining, along with a speech bubble above it, onto which I started embroidering 'handmade with <3 for Audrey' but it was getting late (yes I left this to the last minute) and I had to go to bed! The pic in the top left shows my intentions..... I will use it on something else at some stage....

The lunch bag also makes me happy.

The caterpillar...... well. The caterpillar made me not so happy. Quite unhappy in fact.

The lunch bag was made up using a combination of a tutorial from here and here. I had already made one up for Jayda for school this year, using those tutorials and taking measurements from a canvas lunchbag she already had. So that was quick and easy to make up. Just have to put masking tape on the bottom of the foot on my machine, otherwise it slips on the oilcloth.

The caterpillar...... well..... like I said, this made me unhappy. I had such high hopes for it, I saw it in a tutorial over at Luv In The Mommyhood and it looks so cute! Right? Doesn't it?

And ribbon tags, well, all babies love ribbon tags to play with! Such a great idea. And in the hands of someone more skilled than me, a gorgeous gift for any child, look at that pink & brown striped one in the tutorial isn't it precious?

I have so much fleece here left-over from when Miss J was in cloth nappies and I had high-hopes of sewing up piles of nappies (which never happened) that I had visions of me blissfully sewing up one of these for every new baby I know and am yet to meet.

However, I am loathe to attempt this again. Trying to sew around those curves, with 4 layers of batting in between, and so close to the edge, drove me crazy. The sewing is so messy (although, I took a closer look at the green one in the tutorial, and it made me feel a bit better) I almost was too embarrassed to give it as a gift!

And I had to fold the ribbon that I had into thirds and zigzag it closed to make it narrow enough to use as legs.

But..... it was handmade, and it was made with love. That makes up for the dodgy seams doesn't it?

It passed the Jayda snuggle test at least.

I leave you with a collage of photo's showing the gorgeous Miss J having fun on a ferry trip to Cockatoo Island when they had the Outpost street-art project happening in December, the organisation of my knitting and sewing area, and a couple of projects I finished over the christmas break, and are just waiting for buttons to be sewn on. Can you tell I just worked out how to create collages in Picasa?

Someone I love

2012-01-20T15:45:00.002+11:00

#JANphotoaday; Day 19: Someone you love

I'm jumping on the January photo-a-day bandwagon a bit late, I know, but better late than never. The challenge was set by Chantelle over at fat mum slim.

Here's someone I love very much. Rocking out her new glasses. She will need them for the next few years for reading, work on the computer etc, anything up close where her eyes are moving (she's got a problem with her eyes tracking).

But no problems, she loves them cos her Mummy wears glasses. And she's such a cutie she can pull off pretty much anything.

Well..... That was quite a hiatus

2012-01-19T23:48:00.013+11:00

A hiatus? An hiatus?? I have no idea which one. My normally impeccable grammar is letting me down!

I'm back though, knitting, crafting and blogging. Also soon to be crocheting..... I've bought myself some gorgeous crochet hooks, because I keep seeing the most amazing crochet patterns, for pillows, or toys. So this is the year to crochet.

It's also the year to quilt. I want to sew my first quilt. It's quite daunting, but I told Miss J I'd make her one and she got so excited, I can't let her down now.

So.... seeing as I've been absent for so long, I'm going to start off with a post updating on an old project....

Liesl

Hi! I'm Liesl. I have quite a story to me.

This was a loooong knit. I started knitting it for a friends birthday. The conversation I had with her on her birthday that year went like this:

Me: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

Long-suffering friend: Thanks! (note - you are about to find out why she is 'long-suffering friend' and not 'friend who gets gifts on time, on date of actual birthday')

Me: So..... I haven't finished your gift....um....... how do I put this....?

In fact.... I haven't even started it..... but here's a gift bag with some balls of yarn in it, some loose buttons, and the pattern I'm knitting you, which has the picture so look.... you can see what it will look like......

...awkward silence...

Long-suffering friend: Uh..... thanks...... I'm sure that will all look..... really nice..... once it's all together, and not just a big ugly lump of yarn and some random buttons floating around....

(So she didn't actually say that last part, but I'm pretty sure she must have been thinking it!)

Me: Cool. Now give me back the giftbag, cos I have to take it home and get started on it.

In all fairness to myself, I did start it..... twice...... but I didn't like it, and frogged it twice, and then decided it needed to be in different yarn.

So, 2 & 1/2 years pass, during which time, I slowly work on THE CARDIGAN.

Hi, me Liesl again, before I was finished, looking like a big pile of MESS. I looked like this for quite a while, until my maker got off her arse and finally finished me.

Sometimes, THE CARDIGAN gets brought up in conversation. On occasion LSF (long-suffering friend) would ask me how it was going, and I would give her an update - 'Oh it's shit, I pulled it out again and have started it in gray now..... so you're not even getting the teal cardigan you thought you were..... but I think gray is much nicer anyway, don't you? Yep, you totally do don't you, even if you don't you have to now, it's taken me this long I'm not pulling it out again!' (Finish sentence with desperate laugh)

Finally, it's finished!! There is much excitement. All the ends are woven in. I ring up LSF to announce the good news. Much excitement prevails at her end also.

There is a gathering organised for a formal presentation of THE CARDIGAN. This is a VERY important occasion. THE CARDIGAN has taken 2 & 1/2 years for me to finally finish it.

Please note: This was the only birthday present that she actually was 'given' from me that year, so she's just gone 1 1/2 years without a present from her arsehole friend who can't get her act together to FINISH THE GODDAM CARDIGAN ALREADY!!!!

Meanwhile, in that 2 & 1/2 years I occasionally bought and gifted to her a few little random things on times when it wasn't her birthday, due to the crushing guilt I was feeling over my complete arsehole-ness because I can't manage to give a present on time.

LSF always assured me during this whole time that she was happy to wait, that it would be worth it, that 'it's so much more special anyway because you made it yourself, I love presents that have been made with love'

So.... I drive around to her place with some trepidation. The cardigan has been lovingly washed and blocked. Buttons have been somewhat un-lovingly left off. I didn't do button holes as I didn't like what they were doing to the button band, so was going to sew on snaps on the inside and 'fake' buttons on the outside, however considering it took me 2 & 1/2 years just to finish

knitting the thing, I just couldn't even face this proposition, and so decided that 'it's MEANT to be worn open, so it's MEANT to not have any buttons'

On the way I nervously wonder.... Will she like it? Will she wear it? Will it fit..... Oh shit.... I hadn't even thought of that, what if it doesn't fit. I start a very mild panic. What if it doesn't fit? I was so worried about the length of it, as LSF always complains about having 'the longest torso in the world, so tops are always to short'. But, what if it wasn't big enough altogether?? I was expecting the yarn to bloom on blocking, but it really hadn't grown at all.

Shit..... Shitty Shit.

Hi there, still me. Well, I stayed as a pile of mess for so long, let me enjoy some pictures, please?

I get there, her husband is there also. There's a lot of excitement in the room, we crowd around the dining table, as I get out...... THE CARDIGAN!!!! This is the moment. The moment we've all been waiting for. Well, not her husband, he really didn't care. But the moment that LSF had been waiting for, the moment I'd been waiting for. There is much oohing and aahing and patting of THE CARDIGAN. She comments on the prettiness of the stitch, compliments me on my knitting.

I lap it up. I'm not going to lie, I love it when people compliment my knitting. Especially because no one else I know can knit except for my mum, so everyone always acts as if I've performed some amazing magic trick and I have magical powers and somehow conjure the yarn to transform into a finished object.

So first hurdle passed, she loves the cardigan, loves the colour and feel of the yarn (glad I changed yarn after all)

LSF (jokingly): Oh god I hope it fits.

Me: If it doesn't fit I'm going to cry.

LSF: Same!

Me: No seriously, I will cry. Seriously.

LSF: Hmmm... ok.

LSF tries THE CARDIGAN on..................

It. Doesn't. Fit.

Too narrow across her shoulders. She blames herself (LSF: I have bloody broad shoulders, sorry!) she's way too nice, I should have knitted the next size up, it was my own stupid fault.

So.

THE CARDIGAN. The one she had waited 2 & 1/2 years for. The one that was her only birthday present that year. That she had been asking about all that time, that was going to be special because not only was it handknit for her, it was the first large item I had knit, so it was special to me also. The first cardigan I had knit. First adult sized item of clothing. First thing other than babies and childrens clothes or accessories.

Yes, THAT CARDIGAN. Didn't fit.

She gave it back. It fits me. I wear it. I feel guilty when I do, but I wear it. I never sewed the snaps on, most of the time I just wear it open (Because it's MEANT to be an open cardigan, remember? Not because I am too lazy to sew on snaps and fake buttons, oh no.... not that.... nope, it's MEANT to be open). When I want it secured, I just stick a badge on it up the top to close it up. Usually one of the badges I bought from Starashan.

The present that LSF waited 2 1/2 years for, didn't fit, and she gave it back, and ended up with nothing. 'Knit me something small... like fingerless gloves, or mittens' she said. Yes, LSF is indeed LSF for a reason.

Oh.... Hi. Okay, yep, still me. And yep, I feel guilty. I mean, it's nice to be worn, though. And not a messy pile of yarn. So I can kind of enjoy this... right?

to add insult to injury I actually took the photo's of it in their bathroom, while I was dog-sitting for them, sleeping in their super comfy awesome memory-foam bed, eating their food, gorging on their chocolate, and indulging in watching their TiVo. Can you see the guilt in my face? No? A little bit? Probably not enough.

I'm an awesome friend aren't I?

But... this birthday she will be getting her gift on time. I've already finished. Well... almost. Just have to do some very, very, super-quick finishing off. And her birthday isn't for another 6 weeks. Which means I can sit back and chuck my feet up! Here's a sneak peak.

Hi!!! I'm the mystery gift. I promise to make up for all the disappointment caused by Liesl. I never liked her anyway....

Pumpkin soup for the soul??

2010-09-23T21:25:00.003+11:00

I get a fruit & veg box delivered each week, and I usually have a few requests of things I need and things I definitely don't want (tomato's yuck!) and the rest he just fills up with whatever.

This week I got a pumpkin in my box. So I made pumpkin soup - I have a good recipe already but a little while ago I stumbled across this recipe over at taste.com.au.

And well.... it calls itself the perfect pumpkin soup recipe, so how could I not try it out?

And I must say, I'm VERY impressed. I even made the pumpkin seed pesto that you can see in the bottom right corner of that pic as a garnish. Not overly impressed with that part of it (it's just normal basil pesto with roasted pumpkin seeds substituted for pine nuts), I prefer the taste of pine nuts over the pumpkin seeds in pesto, however I DO like the fact that I'm using every single edible part of the pumpkin. Nothing is going to waste!

Next time I make it though, I think I'll just add normal pesto, and save the pumpkin seeds to just roast and keep as a snack.

I also didn't add the creme fraiche. Mainly because I didn't have any in my fridge, and I wanted to just use what I had here on hand and just pick up whatever I didn't have from my corner store (like basil leaves, ginger & a block of parmesan) and my corner store doesn't have creme fraiche!

But I don't think it needs it. I could have sub'd normal cream or possibly sour cream, but I honestly don't think it needs it, and besides, dairy is not good in this house, so I stear clear as much as possible!

Really need to stop raving on about this soup recipe, but it really is a winner!

And, the best part is, the recipe uses carrots, and that's something Miss J can help with, so we can make this together! She can peel the carrots while I do the more dangerous things!

Speaking of which, I need to go make up some hummus for tomorrow to use as a dip with the 4 extra carrots she lovingly peeled for me this afternoon!

Hey..... when I find something that keeps her amused and she feels like she's helping out I just roll with it!!

Soundtrack to soup making: 'Love is All I Had' - Phyllis Dillon

All we are saying...

2010-09-22T23:25:00.004+11:00

..... is give peace a chance.

Yesterday (21st September) was International Day of Peace.

So did you make peace not war? I actually did make peace with someone.

You may notice I have a new button in my sidebar, it's from the blog where the photo above came from, and where I also learned that 21st September was International Day of Peace.

It's called Operation Nice. It's a blog encouraging people to be pro-actively nice. I am just totally in love with this blog and the idea of being PRO-actively nice.

To quote from the blog:

"Don't you love it when people go out of their way to be nice? Like when someone waits to hold the door for you. Or when a stranger waves you into a line a traffic. Or even when a coworker shoots you a friendly smile along with a "have a nice day." If everyone was a little bit nicer to the folks they encountered each day, perhaps the world would be a more pleasant place. Operation NICE was initiated to remind you that a little NICE goes a long way."

Words that are so true.

I generally go through my day being nice to the people I encounter. Sometimes I even play a game, seeing how many smiles I can get back from people. It's amazing the reaction a little niceness can have. Most of the time it's positive.

Sometimes though, people just stare at you. You smile at them, and they just stare at you, like you're an alien.

I think to myself, wow, how sad..... it's so unusual for them to encounter someone nice and friendly. Really? Is the world so like that?

Lucky that's not the common reaction, mostly, people are friendly in return.

I think we all crave connection with the people around us.

When you hit the bottom

2010-09-21T21:05:00.007+11:00

you can't go anywhere but up.....

well, actually, I guess you could go sideways.

but once you've gone sideways a bit, it's up from there.... isn't it?

Life is a journey full of peaks and troughs. It's what make life interesting. Nothing is forever. Everything will pass, the bad, as well (unfortunately) as the good.

We can't change that.

But we can change our attitude to it and our reaction to it. By that I don't mean we have to find the good in absolutely everything. I think needing to always find the good in things is sometimes a bit unrealistic. And think about when you've gone through something really hard in your life. I'm not talking just a bit upsetting, I mean something that made your chest ache from pain and sorrow, that made your brain numb, that maybe made you wonder what the point in getting out of bed was. When you talked to friends/loved ones/strangers/whoever about it, when people said to you: 'Well, the good thing is that (.........)' did it kind of frustrate you? Sometimes you just want someone to validate the way you are feeling. Sometimes you just want someone to say hey yeah that really sucks, I know. Sometimes we need to do that for ourselves. Give ourselves a break, stop needing to be so perfect, and putting on our 'happy face for the world to see' and let ourselves just feel the pain/frustration/anger whatever it is, because once we do that, we can start to move on. And heal.

Sometimes we need to just acknowledge that..... yeah, wow things are a bit crap right now. Okay, that sucks.

But it will pass.

And that's the key.

It will pass.

At the moment things for me are good but busy. Because I'm so busy I've been on 4-5 hours sleep a night for the past month (I can't honestly remember the last time I had 8 hours sleep anyway, normally it's 6-7) so I'm starting to run on adrenalin, which is exhausting and not very productive.

And also not very good for my zest for life. I got told yesterday by someone they could tell I was rundown, because my usual 'spark' was missing.

So because I don't want to quite go all the way down to the bottom this time (I've run myself into the ground lot's of times in the past & I've learned from the last time that happened, which was pretty debilitating) I'm starting to look after myself more.

Even though I always say I don't have the time - I'm making the time to do the things I need to keep myself healthy.

Going for a run along the beach. I took the photo above last week. I haven't jogged or even walked along the beach for months, last week was the first time in that long and it was beautiful.

Taking the time to make proper meals.

Blending my green drink of a morning to drink.

Getting up early to do yoga before the rest of the day starts.

And going to bed at a reasonable hour.

Speaking of which.....

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

ps -I finally took some shots of my finished Liesl, which you can find in my flickr photostream. I'm going to post about it very soon.

Point and shoot: Literally...

2010-09-20T23:56:00.007+11:00

Telle over at fat mum slim does a little thing called in point and shoot, and has inspired me to start doing the same each weekend.

My first point and shoot is quite a literal interpretation of the concept.

I downloaded the hipstamatic app on my iPhone and was playing around with it and I just pointed and shot this snap to test out the film and lens I had loaded.

The artwork is from one of my favourite sellers on etsy. I've bought quite a few of her pieces, I could quite happily buy all them and line my walls. This one is probably my favourite. Buying prints that I wanted on my walls without having to convince someone else to let me put it up was one of the things that made me happiest after I separated. It was one of my ways of finding the good in the situation..... well, I thought, at least now I can decorate how I want the place to look, and have art on the walls that reflects ME and not have to put up with someone saying 'but.... it's weird/ugly/strange/I just don't get why you want that on the wall?'

Because I like it. That is all.

One of these days.........

2010-09-20T23:08:00.007+11:00

Yes.... one of these days...... I'll get back to blogging regularly about knitting.

When I manage to knit regularly.

When I get time to knit regularly.

Which is unlikely for a while.

So due to work, study, mum-ness, life in general, knitting time is extremely limited. I'm currently struggling to finish off the newborn knits for my beautiful friend Lucy's even more beautiful baby Amalia, who arrived in the world 3 weeks before expected. Lucy told everyone when she was pregnant she'd go early, and she was right! I should learn to always listen to my friends, I have somehow managed to surround myself with a bunch of very wonderful, very smart people who know themselves and just generally have their shit together. (I would say I'm lucky, but it's not luck, I have culled the people out of my life that I don't want, these are the people I want in my life!) So when she said she was going to have her baby early, I should have listened, but of course I didn't, so poor Amalia is having to wait for her knitted gifts.

There's literally only 5 rows to go on her dress (which I actually completely finished, then ripped out and started all over again, so it's the second time I've knitted it), and an ear left on Elijah the elephant. So should be done soon. But who knows, with my pitiful efforts at knitting lately.

In the meantime though, I'm dogsitting for friends of mine this week. Miss J is loving it, both because she loves dogs, and she's getting to share a bed with Mummy, so the whole thing is making her happy every which way which is nice! And I'm getting to stay in a very nice house and god it was nice carrying shopping out of the car into the kitchen without having to do 3 trips up and down 3 flights of stairs!!

And what a gorgeous dog.... that's him in the pic - that's what I woke up to on Saturday morning, my friends had me over for dinner before they left to show me what to do with him, how to prepare his food (he's their baby, and he has hip problems so it's more involved than just food in a bowl) etc. My girlfriend and I ended up drinking a bottle of wine each and I stayed at their place like the sensible, non-drink driver that I am (Miss J was at her Dad's this weekend). I woke up to their gorgeous black Lab licking my face....... hmmmmm I like dogs but not that much! But how can you get angry at a face like this? So cute!

A Long Sojourn...

2010-06-01T23:21:00.005+11:00

Well, it's been over a year..... in fact, almost 18 months since I last blogged. Look at how sad Jayda's been that I've been missing from the blogging world....

During that time my life has ben crazy and I have had to put to sticks down for most of the time, but now that my life has settled down a bit, my darling daughter is older and will let me knit without jumping on me and pulling everything out of my hands I'm picking them back up with a vengeance!

I will be updating about lot's of finished objects soon, and hopefully working on the layout of the blog into something much nicer!

Cheesy grins

What Do You Do All Day?

2008-12-17T15:10:00.002+11:00

A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pyjamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard.

The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and there was no sign of the dog.

Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing.

In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door.

He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened.

He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door. As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls.

As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pyjamas, reading a novel.

She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went.

He looked at her bewildered and asked, 'What happened here today?'

She again smiled and answered, 'You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me sarcastically what in the world I do all day?'

'Yes,' was his incredulous reply.

She answered, 'Well, today, I didn't do it.'

My.... what a large zuchini you have

2008-12-17T09:36:00.003+11:00

The zuchini bush in my garden is going mental!

With all the rain/sun/rain/sun/rain/sun we've been having, it's kind of gone bonkers.

I picked all the zuchini's that were growing last weekend, 7th December.

This morning, 10 days later, I picked this sucker........

Crazy.

I've never grown vegetables before, so I don't know if zuchini's normally behave in this manner, but it's surprised the crap out of everyone I've shown it too!

I'm off to find a good recipe for zuchini slice....... and fritters...... and anything else I can make with this beauty.

New top for Jayda

2008-11-28T07:41:00.004+11:00

Pattern: Rainbow Dress by George Hallam

Size: 18 months (The pattern has sizes 12 months and 2 years, & from memory I cast on a couple more stitches than the 12 months size as my daughter still isn't in 2 yr old clothing but is getting a bit big for 12 month old)

Yarn: Aphrodite WA Merino from Jolly Jumbuck, in the Twilight Gradual Gradient

Needles: 4mm knitpicks circulars, moved from 40cm fixed to 60cm options.

Notions: I need to find a ribbon to thread through those eyelets! Can't find the right colour yet.

Notes: I added eyelets to thread a ribbon through, and obviously I shortened this to make it into a top, and added the lace pattern on the bottom which is the feather and fan pattern (I love that stitch pattern).

I also added an extra row between the increases on the skirt part. I felt that the grapeberry dress I knitted flared out too much, and when I ended up making this a top I was happy I'd added that extra row otherwise it would have been too wide down the bottom.

I love love love this pattern from Tikki! I'm knitting another one at the moment for a gift, undecided whether it will be a top or dress.

I turned this one into a top as a realised Jayda had a million dresses and lots of shorts but only about 2 tops that fit her for summer! I really like it as a top. And most importantly Jayda wore it all day yesterday (it finished blocking the night before) and she was playing like a lunatic like usual and it seemed very comfortable. She didn't try taking it off which is a very good sign! Getting a good pic of it on her was very difficult being at that age where she won't stand or sit still. There are more pics on ravelry and flickr

Grapeberry Dress

2008-10-03T11:16:00.005+11:00

This dress has been warmly received so I can post full details & pictures now!

Pattern: Rainbow Dress by Georgie Hallam (non-ravelry)

Size: 3 months

Main Body Yarn: Dyelicious Hand Dyed Yarns DK

Colourway: Purity

Contrast Yarn: Jo Sharp Classic DK

Colourway: I think it's Fleur

Needles: 4mm - 40cm Knitpicks fixed circulars & 60cm Knitpicks Options circulars

Mods/Notes: No mods, this is a great pattern as is, I love it! I want to knit a whole bunch of these things! I've already started one for Jayda.

The buttons are a mixture of vintage and new buttons that I had in my stash, I thought this dress needed something extra, and Kel is such a button person I knew she'd love a little button motif!

The big one is actually curved, you can see it better in the pic below. All up I'm really happy with this project, a great pattern, no seaming, minimal purling, so a great project for when you're out and about.

Random

2008-09-27T21:19:00.004+11:00

Bec has tagged me so here are 7 random things about me -

1. I crack almost every bone in my body. It started when I was dancing I used to crack my hips all the time, then my toes, then my neck, now even my shoulders crack. I'm not keen on it, and I've always been convinced I'll end up in a wheelchair by the time I'm 30, but I'm only 2 1/2 years off and looking good still. It freaks people out when my hips crack still now though, cos it's quite a loud 'thunk'.

2. I have a really deep belly button. Even back when I was dancing full time & didn't have the layer of 'padding' I do now (oh to have that hard flat stomach again.....), I could still fit my finger up top my first knuckle in. Belly button fluff is the bane of my existence. Sigh.

3. I really love ska music, still. Started listening as a teenager, and have been listening a lot more again recently (one good thing, I can listen to whatever music I want to!). Quite partial to 90's punk too, been listening to a lot of my old stuff. But I also have a huge collection of Dean Martin & Frank Sinatra albums.

4. I often find myself counting things without realising. Like steps I'm taking, telegraph poles when I'm driving etc. I think that's a factor in why I like knitting so much, it's an excuse to count without feeling like I have OCD.

5. I'm a big texture person when it comes to food. Even though I might like the taste of something, if it's got a texture I don't like I can't eat it. Like mangos. Love mango flavour, would probably have a mango smoothie as my last meal, but I can't just eat a mango. In fact, I don't like things that burst flavour into my mouth when you bite them, like grapes, berries, mandarins, peas, corn etc. Strange huh?

6. I'm a gun at spelling. Wish spelling bees were around when I was a kid. I could have been one of those overachieving kids who know how to spell words no-one in reality ever needs to spell as no-one in reality needs to use them.

7. I'm really clumsy and walk into things all the time. Pretty embarssing considering I used to be a dancer, but I used to walk into things and trip over things all the time when I was dancing too, so I think clumsiness is not a coordination thing, I think it's a distraction thing.

Now to tag other people -

I tag:

April
Peta
Lis
Rebecca
Tania
Fi
Kel

I think it was 7 people I had to tag, sorry if I've tagged anyone already tagged I haven't checked!

No poo update

2008-09-27T21:00:00.002+11:00

Quite simply, I love the no-poo! I realised today while I was cleaning my hair it's almost been 3 months that I've been no-poo & I don't think I'll ever go back to shampoo & conditioner now.

I am still using the same routine as below, although occasionally, I don't use the ACV, I just do bicarb then a leave-in rinse of cold water with 1 drop rosemary oil.

My hair is loving it, it feels so healthy, and natural! Sounds funny, but I can really feel that it's just hair, nothing else!

Even when I went to the hairdresser and got my hair tinted and they used their shampoo & conditioner in my hair to wash out the dye, I went straight back to my routine & it was fine straight away! I was worried I'd have to de-tox my hair again, but maybe because it was only once it didn't affect it so much?

So to anyone considering it I shout out to you as much encouragement as I can! It takes some getting used to, but once you do it's so quick and easy & it feels great knowing I'll never have to buy shampoo & conditioner ever again!

There has been productivity

2008-09-27T20:57:00.004+11:00

There has been productivity around here, just not much that I can show in photo's yet as the main thing I've been working on is a surprise gift........

It's finished and wrapped all ready to go, so when they receive it I can post pics, but till then I can give a sneak peak!

Long Overdue!

2008-09-27T20:19:00.004+11:00

I received this parcel in the mail a couple of weeks or so ago. It was such a lovely suprise getting the parcel as I wasn't expecting anything, and it was one of 'those' days, you know, one of those days where you come home from work and just want to go sit on the lounge and stare into space and not move for a couple of hours, because everything just seems too much to process? (Been having a lot of those with the whole marriage breaking up & custody disputes and what not)

So I get this surprise parcel, I'm thinking, what's this I forgot about ordering?

But it was the pay it forward parcel from the lovely Bec.

Yep, 100g of a beautiful hand painted sock yarn, and a set of knitpicks DPN's! Metal DPN's too, just the way I like my needles! It turned my day around quicksmart, & the yarn has been sitting on my table here at home while I admire it till I finally got around to taking photo's today.

So thank you Bec! I feel totally spoiled! Now I'll have to get cracking on my Pay It Forward goodies!

Sunshine and the favourite shoes

2008-08-22T16:34:00.004+11:00

The weather here today is awful, freezing cold and pouring with rain. I connected my phone to the computer this morning and some photo's from a couple of weeks ago automatically uploaded and even though the quality is shocking (something wrong with the camera in my phone already!) I thought I'd share as the sky in these is so blue it makes me smile!

Oh, and the child in those pictures makes me smile too........

Sometimes.......

She's been very cranky and throwing lots of tantrum's lately, but to be fair to her she's been sick for the last four weeks straight!

But she's happy in these photo's cos she was running around playing with the dog and screeching like a maniac on a beautiful day and could squeel and screech and scream to her hearts content out in the open air!

She's also wearing her favourite shoes, the gumboots I bought for her on sale the other week. I thought through getting her these for a while, (like almost the whole of winter) and she really does need a pair, she's in the backyard with me so often and I'm sick of cleaning her shoes becuase she's piled dirt and mud all over them!

(Oh, and she's also wearing one of my favourite dresses - I got it from Lottielulu and I've been waiting for about 6 months for her to catch up to a 12 month size so she could wear it! I love the dresses she makes, and she has a really smart daughter too - I wish my daughter was smart enough to need glasses............)

Amaretto Cheescake Longies

2008-08-21T14:02:00.003+11:00

Pattern: Perfection Pants by Pamela Grossman

Size: Made to measure - Jayda at 18 mths over a night nappy:
Waist - 17.5 inches
Hips - 20.5 inches
Rise - 17 inches (extra long for ngiht nappy)
Length - 14 inches (waist to ankle)

Yarn: Zen String Nirvana Bulky - just under two skeins

Colourway: Amaretto Cheesecake

Needles: 6mm - 40sm Addi's for waistband, 60cm Knitpicks Options for body, 80sm Knitpicks Options for legs (2 circulars)

Mods/Notes: Did an enclosed elastic waistband with adustable buttonhole elastic. Garter stitch cuffs.

These have a super long rise due to the fact that they're designed purely as longies to go over a big bulky night nappy (look at the booty she's packing below!) When they were blocking they looked so odd due to the super long body which resulted in short little legs!

I like this colourway, I used two skeins and changed every second row, and both of the skeins pooled in the same way, a lot lighter (more yellow & cream) in the beginning and darker (more brown and pink) at the ends, and the change happened right where the legs start which worked out quite nicely in the end. Almost like a dip-dyed effect. Not that you can see in these pics, it was impossible to get J to stand still and model for me. I couldn't wait to use them on her to get photo's either, I finished sewing the button on the elastic and threaded it through while watching J in the bath before bedtime!

More only negative with these is that I actually bought a mini-skein of matching semi-solid in the Amaretto colourway, supposed to be the same pink that's in this colourway. When I got it it was so candy-pink in comparison to the pink in the Amaretto Cheesecake, I thought hmmm...that will look funny, but thought perhaps it will look okay knitted up.

Uh-uh! I actually knitted a whole waistband in the Amaretto and joined in the Amaretto Cheesecake and it looked ridiculous! So now I have 50gms of bulky wool in a candy pink colour I need to frog back and re-skein and try and work out what I'm going to use it for. But I think they still look okay without contrasting waist and cuffs.

And they sure hold the pee in - which is the most important thing!

Sublime Neckwarmer

2008-08-20T22:11:00.004+11:00

Pattern: Cashmere Neckwarmer by Kim K.

Yarn: Sublime Yarns Cashmere Merino Silk DK (held double) - 1 & 1/4 skeins

Colourway: 0013 - Black

Needles: 8mm

Notions: Vintage button from Buttons Buttons Buttons in The Rocks, Sydney.

Excuse the terrible photo's, the weather has been awful, terrible lighting, and I had to use my phone as the flash on my camera is broken, and it was overcast I needed a flash! The button is more of a dark grey/black colour, I just couldn't capture the colour properly.

I love this yarn, although hated the combination of such a soft yarn and big needles, my hands hurt a lot while knitting this. This was a gift to my ex-sister in law who has just gone over to UK/Europe for an undetermined amount of time, I figured she could do with a neckwarmer over there once the weather starts getting cooler.

I want to knit one for myself now, just need to find the right yarn, I already have the perfect button for mine!

Poo-free update

2008-08-19T14:25:00.004+11:00

Thanks for the comments and advice!

It's been up and down, in the 4th week my hair started feeling really good, really soft and healthy, and I started thinking, oh good news, detox over, healthy, shiny, soft, beautiful chemical free hair here we come!

Then by the end of week 4 and into week 5, my hair became really dry and feeling like straw. I started thinking, oh no, whats going on.

Then, when I read Eileen's post it got me thinking, and my diet has taken a massive downhill turn in the last month or so, which I think has had a big influence on my hair too. That was one thing I remember from reading about going shampoo free, that when left natural your hair is a good reflection of your health.

I've been eating a LOT of sugar, which I have a real problem with, too much sugar and I really start noticing it in how I'm feeling, start getting heaaches and feel really tired and my skin dries right out and I feel really dehydrated and awful.

In fact, if I eat something really sweet and sugary right before bed I usually wake up feeling sick. Almost like I'm hungover, pounding headache, dehydrated, super tired, just really drained.

So I'd say that had a lot to do with it too. Also, not gettign any sleep because my daughter has been sick wouldn't help I'm sure!

This is my routine at the moment, and it's working quite well for my hair, my hair is actually super soft and has a lot of body now that there's nothing weighing it down. (It actually freaked me out the first few weeks just how much body my hair had in the mornings, I'm not used to it at all!)

* 1 1/2 Tbsn's (approx, I'm not exact in measurements) of bi-carb in 250ml's of water. I dissolve the bi-carb in hot water in a measuring jug, then pour it into an old shampoo bottle I cleaned out. I like that it has a small hole to squeeze it out of, so I can spread it over my whole head slowly, and scrub as I go. I use basically this whole amount each time I wash.

* 1 Tbsn Apple Cider Vinegar in 250 ml's water, again this is poured into an old conditioner bottle I've cleaned out. I don't use nearly this amount each time, maybe a quarter? I do this everytime I wash my hair too, I found if I left it till every second time my hair was dry. But this could change as I go along.

* 1 drop Rosemary essential oil in 100ml's cold water. I use an old Jojoba oil glass bottle that I cleaned out. Once I'm finished with my shower, I then pour this over my scalp and hair and DON'T rinse out. This is something I've done on and off over the years, even when I was using 'normal' shampoo & conditioners, changing the oil every now and then depending on how my hair is. This covers the smell of the ACV, and the cold water rinse is good for closing the cuticles of your hair. Plus the essential oil absorbs into your scalp. I find it much easier in the middle of winter to do a cold rinse by pouring cold water out of a small bottle onto my hair than standing under a cold shower-head, it doesn't get the rest of my body that way!

* When my hair was really dry I massaged a little jojoba oil into the tips. I actually massage my body with some sort of oil, either jojoba, almond, peach kernel, avocado etc, depending on how dehydrated my skin is, which usually depends on the season! So I just used the leftover oil on my hands from moisturising to massage into my tips, so I didn't overload with oil!

* I also massage some oil into my scalp one of the times before washing my hair, and left it in for about 10 minutes, just because my scalp was quite dry.

So that's how it's been going with the no-poo.

I'm quite happy with it now, it didn't take me as long to de-tox as I thought, although I had been using an all-natural shampoo and conditioner before starting, so I think that helped, but there was a big adjustment period with working out how much to use, etc.

PS - I have been knitting, quite a lot, just no photo's yet, I'll be back to update finished items shortly though!

No poo......

2008-07-23T13:31:00.002+11:00

So I'm doing the no shampoo thing, currently just using Bi-carb and water to clean and then apple cider vinegar (which I already had a big bottle of) in water for a rinse.

I've been going off the info from here.

So far I'm feeling mixed about the results. I know there's a detox period but for the last two weeks I've had to wear my hair up every day, as it just is either greasy looking, dirty looking, or just plain crazy looking. Like I've gone to bed with a whole head full of product and not washed any of it out for a week. Like helmet hair almost, just doing it's own thing.

I generally have really soft hair, and I never actually use any product on my hair, so it can't be that!

I think one problem is most mornings I get up and do some sort of physical activity - lift weights, yoga, jog/walk (getting back into jogging, using the Couch to 5km plan from Cool Running as a guide, I'm up to week 5, slowly getting there, so hopefully that will be straight jog and no walk soon!) or else walk the dog along the beach with Jayda on my back (becoming a very decent workout seeing as she'd have to way about 11-12 kgs now!).

The result being I get very sweaty hair. I rinse my hair each day in the shower, even when not washing it with bi-carb and kind of scrub at it with my hands to try and get rid of as much of the sweat as possible.

She does say not to overwash the hair or it will dry out, but I used to wash my hair every day or second day at most to clean out the sweat!

When I do wash my hair with bicarb, it doesn't feel 'clean' afterwards, it still feels like it's got stuff in it. It's not soft and flowing, it feels gunky.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong anyone?

Does anyone have any idea on how long it takes for my hair to adjust to no shampoo and start feeling normal again? And any tips on combatting sweaty hair between cleans?

Slouchy Beret

2008-07-08T12:10:00.008+11:00

I whipped up this slouchy beret for a friend of mine, as a thank you gift for her amazing organisation skills! I knew she had been lusting after the chunky knit berets and hats that are out in the shops at the moment here, so I thought I'd knit her one. I love this pattern, after trying on the hat this morning for these dodgy photo's (sorry, these are on my new phone, so not the best quality, but I want to give her the hat tonight) I now want one of my own!

Pattern: Trinity Stitch Hat by BreadnBadger on Craftster (Ravelry)

Yarn: Jo Sharp DK Silkroad Tweed held double. Colourway 400 - Ambrosia. Been in stash for a while, earmarked originally for Le Slouch. I'm slowly working through the stash!

Needles: Knitpicks Options 7.0mm magic looped with (I think) 120cm cable.

Modifications: I really wanted to use this yarn as I loved the colour and tweediness for a beret. But obviously, this pattern calls for bulky yarn, so I held it double. It then was too bulky and my gauge was off, so I just cast on fewer stitches, and when I came to the increase row after the ribbing I just made sure I increased to a multiple of 4.
When I got towards the end, I started the K2tog's one repeat earlier then the pattern called for (which she does actually mention in the pattern anyway), and did them on row 4. Then did one more whole pattern repeat with the decrease from 5 stitches to 1 on row 2, then K2tog's again on row 4, and ended up from 16 stitches to 8. Pulled yarn through, wove in ends and voila!

Comments: This yarn really blooms and relaxes with blocking. I was aware of this and counting on it when knitting it, as the resulting fabric was a bit too stiff while still on the needles. Not overly, but a bit too much for a slouchy beret...... as in there wasn't much slouch, it was more stiff-weird-shaped beret! But after blocking it's turned out great.

I really enjoyed this pattern, quick, easy and turned out great. I really enjoy trinity stitch, interesting enough but still easy that I can knit while mindlessly watching telly, or put it down quickly and pick it up and know where I am. There was a lot of that going on with this project, my knitting time is pretty limited at the moment, I usually manage to snatch 10 minutes at a time here or there, usually only adding up to about half an hour each week. So it's taken me forever to finish this in between the other items I'm knitting at the moment too.

Ravelry link

The Sweater Curse..........

2008-06-11T17:36:00.004+11:00

Is with me, instead, the Beanie Curse.

I really should post this Finished Object.

I knitted the below beanie for my husband, Dan for his birthday earlier in the year. I had to pull it back three times to get it to fit his head (he has a large head) and in the end he would have still preferred a tiny bit more length.

Anyway, this is the first item I knit for my husband. Started in January, missed his birthday and finished in March, about 6 weeks after his birthday.

We separated (officially) almost a month ago.

So that kind of explains why I've been so quiet on the blog and knitting front, had my hands full with other things, no room for needles.

Anyway, things have been up and down. I am just repeating to myself what a good friend of mine told me - 'Just keep going'

Just keep going and things will get better. Just keep going, time will heal wounds, make current hurts seem insignificant, and in time things will look much better.

This is a pic I took when I finished it the first time before I gave it to him. As you can see it fits my head (just - even I would have preferred a little extra length) so I don't know why I thought it would fit him, I think I was just so excited that I'd finished it I wanted to give it to him!

I would say it's the only picture I'm going to have of it, so it will have to do.

Specs:

Pattern - A Hat Fit for a Boyfriend by Stephanie Nicole (Ravelry Link)

Yarn - Zen String Serendipity Sport held double. Pacyderm colourway. This was a one-off sale colourway that I bought from Zen String and it took forever to arrive. It was always intended to be a beanie, and originally I'd ordered it back in early Winter 2007, telling my husband I'd knit him a beanie for winter with it. The order didn't arrive until after Winter was basically over it took so long! So it became a present for his birthday at the end of January 2008 instead! I did really like the yarn though.

Needles - Tulip Bamboo 5.5mm DPN's

Surprise Surprise

2008-05-21T22:23:00.008+11:00

Baby Surprise that is!

I knitted up an assymetrical

Baby Surprise Jacket using Ysolda's modifications. I love this pattern, and when I saw her version I thought it was so funky I had to knit it up the same!

It was hard to capture the actual colour of this jacket because the flash on my camera is broken, and there was no sunlight left when I got home from work tonight and the top was given away as a present tonight just after I took the pics! This pic is most like the true colour of the yarn.

Details -

Size: Was supposed to be for a newborn, but didn't have the right yarn, and I love cotton fleece for babies, so I just knit it up and thought I'd see how it turned out. I think it's about 6-12 months in size. The sleeves are probably 3/4 length, which combined with the cotton will be perfect for Autumn, which is right about when this should fit it's recipient, so it's worked out well!

Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in the colour Rue & edging was done with some Jo Sharp Classic DK wool

Needles: 4.5mm Knitpicks circular's on I think the 120cm cable?

Notions: Buttons from Buttons Buttons Buttons in The Rocks, Sydney. I actually found this place while walking past on Saturday just gone, on our belated Mothers Day, I wa sso excited to find a button place in Sydney I almost made us miss our ferry

Mods & details: I followed the mods Ysolda describes on her blog pretty much to the letter. I had both the original EZ pattern and Ysolda's post printed out with me and was consulting both as I went. I didn't increase at either places EZ tells you to, for the sleeves or for width across the back. Subsequently, the sleeves ended up slightly flared, which I actually prefer with the assymetrical front, it's looks very kimono-y. I wish I'd bound off a lot more loosely across the bottom of this, I had to block it pretty severely to try and give it a bit more width along the bottom, due to high tightly I bound off.

I wasn't originally planning on edging it at all, then the neck looked really untidy, so I thought I'd trim it in crab stitch, which was really frustrating me as my crocheting skills leave a lot to be desired! So I ended up just going with single crochet instead. I had to pull back the front of the neck and redo it three times because I just wasn't happy with it, I'm still not, but it was the best I could get, so it had to do!

The arm's I seamed doing a backstitch as I really wanted to have that ridge along the top of the sleeve as an extra decorative feature.

For the buttons I did single row buttonhole over 5 stitches.

I'm very pleased with how it turned out, I always worry giving a hand-knitted gift, as I worry will think it looks home-made as opposed to hand-made. But I'm really proud of this one!

Love the buttons!

Tag You're It!

2008-05-21T21:59:00.003+11:00

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.

Each player answers the questions about themselves.

At the end of the post, the player then tags 6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

What was I doing 10 years ago?

10 years ago saw me in my final year of high school. So I was studying half-heartedly for my HSC, dancing a lot, actually around this time 10 years ago I had an operation on my ankle so I was actually recovering, and going through rehab trying to get back my dance fitness for auditions at the end of the year. I was learning to drive so I could get my license, and lamenting the fact that my friends were all turning 18 before I was and could go out and I couldn't. Well I could, but it was a lot more difficult! If you had of asked me where I'd be in 10 years back then married with a 1 year old would be the last thing I'd predict!

What are 5 things on my to-do list for today:

Well, it's nighttime here, but for tomorrow, which happens to be my day off work -

Get up early and take the dog for a walk!
Take Jayda to swimming lesson in the morning
Make a casserole for my friend who's just had her first baby, and ended up having c-section. One thing I appreciated more than anything when I had Jayda was people giving us meals we could heat up!
Fill out the massive pile of forms I have from Centrelink
Finish off Jay's birthday sweater (well, do a bit more knitting on it)

Snacks I enjoy:

Oh anything and everything!! Mixed nuts are a favourite at the moment, especially with pumpkin seeds and goji berries mixed in.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Hmm... I'm the same as Eilleen the thought of being an actual BILLIONaire scares me! But I do have a wishlist of things I'd love to buy if I didn't have to worry about money (some of which I am saving up for)

Rainwater tank
Solar Panels
The materials to redo the garden - add a vegetable garden, pull out the mess that's there now and plant native plants and do a garden out the front. I'm currently saving for sleepers and the bits and bobs to do the vege garden.

I'm sitting here trying to work out what else and I'm sure there are other things but nothing is springing to mind. Actually, if I really did win a billion dollars I'd probably give most of it away, but I'd keep enough to invest to earn a small income off, and I would love love love to have a chef! I really don't enjoy cooking!

Places I have lived:

Sydney (multiple locations), Perth, Darwin. I've moved a lot, but mainly around Sydney. I've moved 13 times. I worked out that most of that was in a 5 year period too!

I'm not going to tag anyone, mainly because most of the people I would have tagged have already been tagged themselves!! But if you want to play along, feel free!

Absent

2008-04-02T14:35:00.002+11:00

Is what I've been from this blog.

I have been extremely busy of late, finding very little time to even knit, and blogging has been a big victim of this lack of time.

But life has been good!

The no car challenge didn't last the whole week unfortunately, I ended up driving my car once during the week. But, as luck would have it we were down to one car for the next two weeks, meaning my husband had to take my car to work and so I was carless for the next two weeks anyway!!

So a failed one week challenge became a forced two week way of life!!

It proved to me though that I don't really need to use the car as much as I think!

Lot's of changes have been happening at home.

The big one being that J is walking! She started walking the week before her first birthday, and now there's no stopping her. She is not just walking now but climbing up stairs, running, getting down off the lounge by herself (but can't get up on her own, leading to occasional tantrums) and refuses to sit still for two seconds. She is constantly amazing me how quickly she learns new things.

So that has accounted for a lot of the extra work!

Add studying and working lots of overtime at work lately into the mix and my life has been hectic to say the least.

I've got a few FO's to post about though when I upload pictures, and am still doing my own consumption challenge.

My challenge for this month is more about peaceful living - to start attending the drop-in mindfulness meditation classes on Tuesday night's at the Vajrayana Institute, and also book myself in for the A Taste of Buddhism course run at the institute in May-June. I've been interested in buddhism for years, have read lots of different books on the subject, and have been wanting to start learning more for a while now, so I'm really excited about this. I feel like I am finally starting on a journey I have been yearning to go on for quite some time.

Mini challenge for this week is to get back into menu-planning and reduce the food waste of our household. I've really fallen off the wagon with food!

Chinese Waves Face Cloth

2008-02-01T10:01:00.001+11:00

Specs

Pattern - Chinese Waves Dishcloth

Yarn - Jo Sharp Desert Garden Aran Cotton in Sandstone. I used less than half a ball.

Needles - 5.5mm Addi Turbos used as straights

Mods - CO 25 stitches only to make this smaller, and did crochet loop to hang from hook in the shower. I think it's chain stitch? I don't know, my skills with a crochet hook are limited to chain stitch (if that's indeed what it is) and picking up stitches!!

Notes - I knit this to remove my cleanser in the shower instead of cotton balls or dispoasable cotton face pads. You might ask why I can't just use water on it's own to remove my cleanser? Because I use oil to remove my make-up and clean my face.

Years ago I started just using plain old Jojoba oil, then I found myutopia. She makes beautiful skin and hair products out of 100% natural, vegan friendly ingredients. Her products are certified by Choose Cruelty Free as being made with ingredients that do not harm animals in any way (meaning no animal testing, aswell as no animal derived ingredients), she also donates a portion of her profits each year to Choose Cruelty Free. All her products are also free of synthetic fragrances, artificial preservatives or colourings, petro-chemicals, propylene glycol, sodium laurel sulphate, parabens, formaldehyde, silicone, and synthetic vitamin e.

She also uses minimal packaging, all of which is recyclable - most products are in glass bottles or jars, with minimal plastic packaging.

And, she's super lovely to deal with too!! : )

I use the rejuvenating cleansing oil on my face, and the eye cleanser to take off my eye make-up (when I actually wear any!) and these will last me for 6 months or more! In fact the eye cleanser usually lasts me almost a year. That's less than $67 for a whole year of cleanser! I've been using this cleanser since ooh.. about 2 1/2 years ago, and my skin has never been better, hence why I keep buying it!

She makes a sulphate free shampoo and conditioner that I'm dieing to try out as well.

So, enough raving on. As I use the oil on my face, this doesn't just wash off with water, and requires something else to wipe it off with. I used to use the disposable cotton face pads or cotton balls. Now I have my face washer that I can rinse and re-use, and I pop it in the wash once a week.

This stitch pattern is great, it's airy so it dries between uses, meaning I don't need to worry about anything funky growing on it before it gets washed. Also, while the reverse side isn't nearly as pretty as the front, it's a great texture for scrubbing my face with. Not too hard, but firmly enough to make sure all dirt and cleanser is gone!

I used less than half the ball on this, so I'm knitting myself another one to alternate them, I'm trying to decide whether to stick with the same stitch pattern or try something new out.

In other news, I discovered yesterday that the organic farmers market that used to be in the local high school every second sunday is no longer running.

Bugger.

What a disappointment. I tried emailing them to see whether it would start again, but my email bounced back. Even more motivation to start growing my own veg I guess, but it would have been nice to have that within walking distance, the nearest one to me now is a 40 minute train ride away.

Oh, and I finished D's beanie that I knit him for his birthday and it's too small!! I'll have to pull it back and add a few rows. Damn husband and his big head!

The year of living modestly

2008-01-31T14:04:00.000+11:00

I've been reading Eileen's blog for a while now, and the whole idea of a consumption challenge really speaks to me, so I've decided to join in on the action.

I've already been doing bits and pices, but I really think it's time I set it down in writing, that way it's something tangible.

So, 2008 is going to be my year of living modestly/frugally/peacefully/simply/however you'd like to put it!

I have a few rules that I've already been following, but I've added to these, and I might even be adding more as time goes on

All gifts this year must be handmade (inc cards) - the only exception is that I'm planning on buying one of these for my Mum for her birthday, she saw the one I gave a friend for christmas last year and thought it was so great I decided back then to get her one for all her handbags. Also, the girl who runs that webshop is a client and it's just her running it on her own and she's so lovely so I don't feel so bad buying from her rather than a large company.
I'm not allowed to buy anymore yarn - I must knit from my stash only. I also have to try and source notions such as buttons, fabric, handles etc from either items we already have at home or items from op-shops or second hand stores.
I'm going to do mini-challenges - each month and every now and then for a week at a time. I stole this fabulous idea from coldcloth
Reduce food wastage - I have to write out menu's each week for our dinners and only buy groceries we need.
Reduce my car use - Instead of driving to the supermarket, I'm going to walk to do as much as my shopping as I can, I've given myself 'shopping days' of Monday & Friday, and I'll be walking around the corner to the butcher, down to the main shopping area for fruit & veg and groceries. I'll also be going to the local organic fruit & veg markets held in the local high school here once a month. I'm hoping one positive side effect of this is I'll get fitter and it will force J and I outdoors for fresh air and to enjoy the beautiful weather more often.
Not allowed to purchase new clothing - all clothing must be second-hand, reconstructed, made from scratch etc. This should force me to improve my sewing skills, and I really don't need any more new clothes, I have plenty! I can buy new underwear if needed though.
Reduce household waste - currently everything that possibly can be composted or added to the worm farm is, and everything that can be recycled is, but I'm wanting to reduce the amount of packaged, processed foods I buy, so hopefully this will reduce the waste.
No needless consumption - anything bought new has to be something we need (rather than something we want) that can't be borrowed, bought second hand, swapped, made out of items already on hand or found second-hand etc.
Reduce water usage - I already recycle a lot of our greywater onto the garden, but I want to reduce the amount of first-hand water used, this means not washing unless I have a full load (this could be tricky with the cloth nappies) trying to recycle even more greywater so as to not use as much fresh water on the garden. I will be using fresh water on anything we'll be eating, but I figure at least we're growing our own food.
Grow our own food - I've already been growing our own lettuce and herbs, and we're currently clearing a space in the garden for a vegie patch. My husband is going to build the beds for my birthday present, and my Dad did me a deal that he'll give us the wood if we give him some fresh produce! Sweet!
Reduce energy consumption - turn things off at power point, lights off when not in rooms, we already have dimmer switches in most rooms, putting on dishwasher and washing machine at night only (though this is a money-saving measure). Also I'm switching over to green energy with our provider.

Most of these things I already do all the time, some of them I've been doing every now and then, and some I will be starting from now on.

I'm really looking forward to this. The buddhist philosophy of leading a simple, peaceful life is something I feel a real connection with, and kind of aspire to I guess, so doing this challenge just feels so right to me!

First mini-challenge - I'm not allowed to drive my car for a week.

So from this morning 31/1/08 till night time 6/2/08 I am not allowed to drive my car anywhere. Should be a fun first challenge. I rarely use my car currently anyway, but I am starting a yoga class tonight, so this means I'll have to walk down and back, not drive. I used to walk down years and years ago when I used to do yoga, so it's no problem. I'll just need to plan things for the rest of this week so I leave myself time to catch public transport or walk. I should try and dig out my old bike!

You've met Elijah, now meet Amelie

2008-01-31T13:39:00.000+11:00

This is Amelie, she's a sweet little dress that I thought needed stripes. I happened to have two colours of Jo Sharp's Alpaca Silk Georgette in my stash that were bought individually for other projects, but I liked the look of them together. And as I am the ruler of the yarn in this household, I decided they were going to be made into a stripey dress.

That's a project bag I picked up from Kel over at Dyelicious you can see in the pic. I so want to join her Entice Yarn Club, but as I'm on a stash busting crusade this year I'll have to wait till next year, and keep telling myself it's not too far away!

(Yes, I know Amelie is sideways, and she's messy and rolling up even though I did a garter stitch hem.)

I have now frogged Amelie and will be reknitting her in a size larger needles and changing colours every three rows rather than four to make the stripes narrower. The fabric is too tight as my gauge changed quite a bit between swatching and knitting, as I've converted this to knit in the round, and I really should have swatched with this in mind, and done the 'carry the strand across the back and knit the entire swatch' thing. I also prefer narrower stripes.

Yes, it took me this long to realise both of these matters, actually, I lie, I realised both of them by about the second brown stripe, I just had to knit another 9 stripes to get myself out of knitterly denial.

What can I say?

This is my daughters opinion on the whole matter.......

Elijah

2008-01-29T14:52:00.000+11:00

My good friend loves elephants. She has a gorgeous son who was born exactly one month before my daughter, so his birthday is rapidly approaching.

I saw Elijah over at Ysolda's blog, and thought he was just precious. So he is being knitted for said friends son's birthday.

I know she doesn't read this blog, so it should remain a surprise! He'll be getting this and a Pebble knit in a size big enough for a one year old.

His head is finished, and I'm currently picking up stitches for the body.

I'm hoping the trunk won't look so phallic once the rest of the body is knit and the ears are on. Have I stuffed it too much, should it have less stuffing in there so it's a bit more floppy?

These photo's are terrible, the light was dieing as I was taking them, and our flash is broken on the camera! Must get it fixed!

The I'm so proud of myself post.....

2008-01-29T13:54:00.000+11:00

Okay, I found my USB cable, it was in the fruit bowl........ don't ask.

Pattern - Counterpane Carpet Bag from Handknit Holidays

Yarn - Noro Kureyon colourway 95

Needles - Knitpicks Options 5mm tips and various cable lengths, as these were straight knitting I just used whatever cable length I didn't need for any other project I was doing.

Notions - Bamboo handles from Vintage Inspirations; Black and white polka dot fabric from my small fabric stash; and pink thread, because I didn't mind the thread colour not matching the lining, but didn't want to see black thread on the outside of the bag.

Mods - I knitted in the handles, using the same method as knitting in an enclosed elastic waistband, and also modified the entire handle part, from the end of the last scallop up. I wanted a wider flap for the handle, so just fiddled around till I was happy. I wrote them down luckily after I did the first one, as I did this over the christmas holidays, and when I went to do the second side I'd completely forgotten what I'd done!

Notes - I first saw this bag over at Rachel's blog and fell in love with it. I bought Handknit Holidays just for that pattern, and have ended up finding quite a few things in there I really like!

I loved this lace pattern, very easy to memorise, and my first finished lace object. In fact the first lace I ever knit was on my still unfinished O-Wool Counterpane Carpet Bag.

I chose the fabric for the lining as the colours in this colourway are so vibrant, and the scallop pattern so gorgeous, I wanted a lining that wouldn't take anything away from it. Also I like the way the black makes the colours pop.

*Please ignore my terrible handsewing skills, and the little tail from where I've woven in the yarn ends!*

This was also the first time I've ever had to seam anything. I cheated as much as possible, by knitting in the handles but couldn't not seam up the sides. I did a terrible job, but figured it was supposed to have that sort of rustic look to it, so just left it. I really should have chosen a simpler project as my first seaming project, for example a solid colour-all stockinette project!

I also hand-made this card. So this was my first all handmade birthday gift for this year! My plan this year is to handmake all gifts, so this will be the first of many.

I got such a great reaction from this bag, it was such a wonderfully received handknit gift, I hope all my gifts are received so well! And to top it off, the receiver of the bag came along to a bbq we had over the weekend for hubby and she was carrying the bag! So, of course I introduced her all day by telling everyone - "This is ........ I made her bag!" I got more positive reaction, and lot's of "you should make those bags and sell them at the markets" (to which I replied thanks, but not my pattern, yarn to exxy, too much time, etc, to make it worth it) Another friend asked me to make her one, so it's a good thing I ordered a second set of handles! It will be a belated birthday present, and as this is the year of knitting from the stash, it will be in a different colourway, but I happen to have some very similar coloured Noro in my stash, so I'm very happy to make it to use up that Noro!

And just some more photo's because I love this bag!

Gees, enough of the catch-up already

2008-01-25T15:01:00.001+11:00

Another swap I took part in recently was the Christmas swap on Woolaholics, which oh my gosh, writing this has reminded me I need to finish my knitting for charity! I started when we went away, and it's been misplaced somewhere! Must find it and finish!

Anyway, my recipient hasn't posted that they've received there's yet, so I'm totally giving it away, but I sent

Knitted Ornaments from Handknit Holidays, knit with Twilley's Freedom Spirit, a WIP Zippered Pouch from ZigZagStitches on etsy, and a great little book called Mama's Little Book of Tricks that I spied in the fabulous shop around the corner from us. It's filled with lot's of fun things for kids, games, science experiments etc, I thought it was such a great book I couldn't not buy it for my swappee!

I received from the lovely Courtney (don't you love her title picture? So sweet!)

The most gorgeous singlet for Jayda with a cupcake embellished on the front. It is beyond adorable, and she wore it soooooo much over christmas when we went away, in fact, she still wears it so much now we're back home! Two (yes, that's right, not one, but two!) skeins of striping sock yarn, which I'm planning on either knitting these, these, or these with, and a super-cute felted snowman christmas tree decoration, complete with tiny handknitted scarf!

I really enjoyed this swap aswell, I've decided I like swaps, as they are forcing me to learn new techniques on usually small items, so I don't get overwhelmed, but still get to learn new things.

For this swap, I taught myself how to knit in the round on DPN's, something which I'd not done before, and I don't know why I was so scared of it!

More Updating

2008-01-25T14:49:00.000+11:00

This is what I received from the gorgeous Kelli, I have again stolen the photo's she took, as I have taken pic's of this, but they're on a different computer and I haven't uploaded them to flickr yet.

I got a felted bowl (that matches the colours in our kitchen perfectly!) which sits on our kitchen bench, holding odds and ends, I've been after something for this purpose for a while!

A heat pad/pot holder which has been used A LOT as both heat pad and a pot holder!!

And a dishcloth, which has also been used a lot, and the colours in this are exactly the same as our teatowels!! It's amazing, it's like she snuck into our house while we weren't there and took photo's of the tea towels!

Thank you so much Kelli! Sorry it's taken me so long to post photo's and to thank you on here, but this was so appreciated when it arrived, a little bright spot in an otherwise fairly bleak time!

Change of name

2008-01-25T14:35:00.000+11:00

Decided it's time for a change of name for my blog.

So now, welcome to The Little Knitter Who Could....

And, seeing as I've been absent for so long, I've realised I have quite a few things to update on, and being unable to update new pic's of FO's, it means it's a great opportunity to catch up on these old pics.

So, without further ado................

Here's the items I sent off for my Kitchen Swap over at Woolaholics. I've stolen this pic from Julie who posted it on the swap thread, (hope you don't mind) I didn't take a pic before I sent it, and besides, yours is much better than what I would have taken!

I knit 6 of the It's so Mod: Coasters from Knitty gritty, a 4-Corners Dishcloth, a felted heat pad/potholder (just knit a square then felted it) along with some organic chocolate, and some tea towels to match her kitchen. She had been building a new house, and the kitchen was so sleek and modern, hence the muted brown tone's, to match the colours in her kitchen.

I enjoyed knitting the items in this swap, the modular knitting was a great skill to learn, and coasters was a good little first project to learn this on.

I didn't enjoy the yarn however, very splitty, it drove me crazy!!! Won't be using that again!

Pay It Forward......

2008-01-25T11:50:00.000+11:00

Being the 3rd to comment on the always beautiful Bec's blog, it's now my turn......

(let's just see if I actually have 3 readers to leave a comment lol!)

Pay It Forward

The first three people to comment on this post will receive a gift from me, sometime within the next 365 days.Who knows when it will turn up, or what it will be, but rest assured, it will arrive. All you have to do is promise to make the same declaration on your blog, and send out gifts to three of your lovely readers.

Easy Peasy.

Not quite sure about the beard...........

2008-01-25T11:36:00.001+11:00

However, everything else about the concert last night was fantastic!

Yes, Sting has a beard. Yes, he still oozes sex appeal, oodles of it in fact! If only he'd shave that beard off!! But, hey, he's lived long enough to be able to do as he damn well pleases I suppose!

I started on the beanie that I'm knitting for DH for his birthday (which is tomorrow - what can I say, I work better under pressure, or so I keep telling myself) last night, first time using DPN's for a large object - okay it's not that large, but previously I've only used DPN's for teeny tiny things!

Due to the fact that I have no USB cable still, I can't show you any photo's of the said beanie, however, here's the yarn I'm knitting it out of.

I'm knitting A Hat Fit for a Boyfriend for him. He chose that pattern out of a few different beanie patterns I showed him, and that yarn has always been intended for a beanie for him. I'm knitting it held double. I'm actually quite worried I'm not going to have enough, so he might be getting just an ear warmer in the end! Oh well, we'll see!

Damn USB cable and The Police woohoo!

2008-01-24T16:59:00.000+11:00

I've lost my USB cable, so even though I've got lot's of photo's on my camera to make up for not blogging for what seems like eternity I can't upload them!

I'll be going to my parents place probably tomorrow so I'll hopefully be able to put my card in their printer and upload them!

But tonight, I'll be dancing like a dork to The Police cos we're going to see them in concert.

Yes, I've already decided on what knitting I'm taking - even more daggy, but I'll only be knitting during interval and while waiting for the concert, can't knit and sing and dance like a dag all at the same time!

Kate's Dress

2007-12-11T21:18:00.001+11:00

This is a dress I knit up for friends of ours' baby girl Kate, who arrived just last week. I was so happy for them that they had a girl, and relieved, as I was knitting this dress without knowing whether they would be having a girl or boy! Silly, I know, but I figured if they had a boy they'd be waiting for a handknit gift for a while and I'd do an EZ Baby Surprise Jacket, but luckily they had a girl!

Pattern: Anouk from Knitty x knitted dress by Claire Montgomerie

Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in Provincial Rose and Prosperous Plum

Needles: Knitpicks Options 5mm

Notions: Buttons from Lincraft

Notes: As you can see, it's a bit of a mish-mash of patterns, it started out as Anouk from the Spring 2004 Knitty, but I modified it to knit in the round. Then I borrowed Easy Baby Knits: Clothes and Accessories for 0-3 Year Olds by Claire Montgomerie from the library, and flipping through, I saw the knitted dress on page 80, and decided to alter the top to match that.

Then, when I'd blocked it I decided it looked boring, and decided I'd add a flower to it. The day before my library had sms'd me that Natural Knits for Babies and Mums by Louisa Harding was in, and when I picked that up I saw the flowers on Amelie and decided they were perfect. So I knit two small ones, and one large one.

I also had to fumble through the decreases combined with seed stitch because I had the incorrect number of stitches because of the fact that I decided to do this top halfway through the project.

Also, as this took me a while and I was doing little bits at a time, my tension is all shot, but oh well, at least it's done and gifted, and I like to think it's the love that goes into it that matters!

Thank you!

2007-12-11T21:12:00.000+11:00

Thank you for all the comments of support after my last post, it made me feel so much better about writing it, I typed that post out and was so hesitant about posting it, but I'm so glad I did!

PND is so common, and plain ol' depression in general is so common too for that matter, but for some reason, we continue to live with this fear of people finding out, in fear of the fact that it's not 'normal'. It's probably more normal to experience an episode of depression in your life than not.

Anyway, things are looking really good, the knitting's happening again, thats a sure sign I'm feeling better, actually wanting to do things that I enjoy!

Post Natal Depression Awareness Week Nov 18 - 24

2007-11-23T09:13:00.000+11:00

I know it's almost over, but I thought it was an appropriate week to explain why I've been missing in action for a bit, from blogging, from forums, from the web, and from most social outlets in real life aswell. Also, the fact that 1 in 7 women will suffer from Post-Natal Depression (as opposed to the Baby Blues, which 4 out of 5 women will be affected by) means that it's a subject that needs to be talked about more, and not hidden away.

The last two months for me have been a gradual decline back down into depression. I've been suffering from post natal depression since J was born. Actually, since about 5 weeks after she was born.

We were quite aware of post natal depression before i gave birth to J, and we were actually pretty concerned that I would be affected, seeing as I've had several bouts of depression for the last 8 years. The risk factors for PND include -

a past history of depression
a stressful pregnancy
depression during the current pregnancy
family history of mental disorders
experiencing severe 'baby blues'
prolonged labour and/or delivery complications
problems with baby's health
breastfeeding difficulties
lack of practical, financial and/or emotional support
past history of abuse
difficulties in close relationships
being a single parent
having an unsettled baby (ie difficulties with feeding and sleeping)
moving house
making work adjustments

Seeing as I have a past history of depression, a relatively stressful pregnancy due to placenta praevia, breastfeeding difficulties, an unsettled baby (due to undiagnosed reflux) and past history of abuse (in fact, my bouts of depression started because of a sexual assault, but that's another uissue I am dealing with), we were surprised when we made it through the first month of J's life relatively okay, and with me actually feeling really good we sort of thought that all was going to be well.
Then at 5 weeks, J's (at that stage undiagnosed) reflux became worse, so feeding times got harder and harder, J started waking up every hour screaming, I started getting really down on myself, started losing patience with J, wondering why on earth we couldn't get this breastfeeding thing happening, what was wrong with me, and so the downward spiral started, and it just kept going down and down till it felt like there was no way out of the hole I was in.
I would sit in the shower and cry and cry and cry. I had no motivation, I found it extremely difficult to get out of bed in the morning, the only reason I did is because I had to. If I didn't have a baby calling out to me to I probably would have pulled the covers over my head and shut the world out for two months! I was scared to see or talk to anyone. I was scared to leave the house. I felt like my life was meaningless. I couldn't even feed my daughter, what good was I? I started thinking she would be better off without me, I was a terrible mother. I lost my appetite. Usually I love food, but I just couldn't be bothered to eat. I couldn't sleep. I was so tired because J wasn't sleeping, but when I did go to bed I would lay there awake, my mind going around in circles. I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't remember anything. My brain felt like a fog had settled over it. I had no confidence, I hated my useless body that couldn't feed my daughter. It was all my fault. I couldn't make my mind up, I would feel trapped in indecisiveness.

Thanks to a very supportive family, husband and close friend, I eventually got help for myself, and saw a doctor at the hospital who prescribed me anti-depressants. Normally I would have been very resistant to taking medication, but by that stage I just needed something which would help me get to a stage where I would want to help myself.

The anti-depressants, combined with attending a healthy thinking program run for mothers who are going through PND, and seeing a psychologist helped me to start feeling pretty 'normal' again when J turned about 3 months and I felt fantastic by 4 months, but the last two months have been a very gradual decline.

Don't ask me why, I have no idea, all I know is that I've noticed it creeping up on me. It's been so gradual I almost didn't notice it.

My main symptoms are that I withdraw from everyone, and I stop doing things I enjoy. I just lose interest. Seeing as I love knitting to the point where I take it with me everywhere just in case I get a chance to knit a few rows, not wanting to pick up the knitting was a big sign telling me things were going downhill. My husband also telling me he was worried about me as he'd noticed me withdrawing from him was another kick in the butt to get myself to the doctor.

Obviously, I'm not as bad as when I first got PND, but that's the point, I don't want to go there again, so I actively seek help to prevent that.

"what's happening is one part of the brain stops talking to another part of the brain. The neurotransmitters that allow a thought to go from one spot to another, we don't produce enough of them, so the brain actually stops functioning. And what happens is people then get very anxious. They can't tell the difference between what they like and dislike. They don't have a sense of who they are. And suddenly, what they're doing that used to give them pleasure stops rewarding them anymore. " - Dr James Oldham
I definitely had no sense of who I was, I felt like I wasn't myself, that is for sure.
I have had a history of depression, it's took me a long time to realise what was going on, and even longer to actually want and accept help. I'm still working on accepting that it's okay, this is who I am, it doesn't make me a failure, it's just a fact of life, I have to deal with it and manage it.
My husband is relatively supportive, it is very hard for him to deal with, he's not a mental health worker, but sometimes I expect him to be one, which is unfair really. He doesn't really understand depression, like a lot of people.
NSW Premier Bob Carr was one of those people, until he read William Styron's book, Darkness Visible. "Styron said depression was an experience unimaginable to those who have not suffered it," Carr says.
I find this to be fairly true.
Unless you've experienced it yourself it is impossible to imagine it. It's impossible to understand how it can twist and warp your thoughts and a normally happy, sane, sensible, compltely rational person can become irrational, moody, completely unable to motivate themselves, unable to see good in anything, overwhelmed by simple, everyday tasks.
You might empathise, and be understanding of someone who is depressed, but not to completely understand exactly what they are going through.
But, you know what? Empathising is good, telling someone they need to just get over it is bad.
There is a lot of that out there, the attitiude of - What's wrong with you, just get over it?
Former Supreme Court Justice Vince Bruce was diagnosed with severe clinical depression in 1997 after seeing a psychiatrist for help and he admitted he was shocked with this diagnosis "I think it would be fair to say that my view of depressed people had always been 'what's wrong with you! Just pick yourself up and go on and do it'."
Hopefully, with more people talking about depression, with initiatives such as Movember, to raise awareness for male depression, and PND Awareness week, attitudes will change and there won't be such a stigma attached to admitting you have depression.
After all, with 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men suffering from depression at some stage in their lives, it's something that is more common than people realise.
So...............
Seeing as this is (mostly) a knitting blog, there isn't actually much knitting to blog about.
I have finally managed to finish my kitchen swap for Woolaholics, and it's all blocking as I type. It's a month late. I'm so sorry to my swap-ee, I've been working on it for about 6 weeks, so you will see just how little knitting I've been doing when you see it!
I had to rip out Juliet (quite a while ago now) as it was way too big once I cast off the sleeves and joined the body. The yarn is now sitting there all balled up, I haven't brought myself to start again! I was knitting the medium, and I should have been knitting the small. Damn milk-producing boobs! My bust measurement is not an accurate reflection of the size of the rest of my body!
Actually, it will be now, as J has decided she's had enough of breastfeeding. It came out of nowhere, she just started refusing, and chucking a tantrum when I tried to feed her. This went on for a week, with me trying various things, but to no avail.
So no more breastfeeding for us, which is sad. It was a nice thing we shared together, and it took us so long to get it established, I was hoping it would last for longer!
I really should end this super-long post now, if you made it this far, thank you for reading. I hope I made a little bit of sense
These are two great blogs I read, which deal with mental health issues -

Marilyn's blog that she's resurrected, Swing Time,
Ginger_nut's Knit & Fight the Black Dog campaign,

Knitting on Stage

2007-10-13T12:26:00.001+11:00

Last night we went to see Sydney Dance Company performing Berlin, and my Mum was the knitter on stage. She sat in costume, complete with wig, knitting for the entire performance. Yep, knitting on stage! At one stage I looked at her and I thought, what is she doing? She looks like she's unpicking, and yep, she was! Afterwards she said she had to unpick five times because there went through the yarn too quickly!

Meanwhile, here is where I was at with Juliet the other day, since I took these I'm now up to casting off the sleeves, and am looking forward to the starting on the pattern, I'm getting bored with all the garter stitch.

I'll probably be putting this down again soon though, I really need to get cracking on all the baby knits I've got to do!

Ravelry is taking over my life at the moment! It is so easy to get caught up looking at what other knitters have done with patterns and yarns! It's forcing me to confront my stash and realise I really do need to either start doing some serious stash busting or else de-stash a bit. I'm yet to decide. I've also realised I have more UFO's than I realised! Oops, need to get on top of those too!!

New 'do........

2007-10-09T21:32:00.000+11:00

I got my hair all chopped off last week - and I love it! It's so easy to care for, I took this shot tonight after working all day, and this morning all I did was wash my hair and blasted it dry and then shaped my fringe a bit. It was quite long before, there was a massive pile of hair on the floor when she was done, but I am so happy with the result!

Excuse the terrible photo, I have to use my phone at the moment as the flash on my camera is broken, I really need to get it fixed!

Also, I don't usually post photo's of my stash, but when I opened this parcel, I immediately fell in love with this colourway. It's from Monster Knits, and it's their 'Mud Princess' colourway, it's hard to get the colours right in a photo, but I just love this colourway, I'm a sucker for soft colours, and I love pink and brown together, and in this there's also the most beautiful soft blue running through it too.

Yummy!

Oh.......My...........God

2007-10-09T14:55:00.000+11:00

I just got my Ravelry invite!!!

Woohoo!! I thought it would be this week!

Yay yay yay!

Okay, I'm exploring now, but promise I'll be back tonight with pics of my progress on Juliet!

Happy Hangup

2007-10-08T14:40:00.000+11:00

For Mrs MJW my daughters bed is a Happy Hangup.

She's been in this from about three months onwards, and we love it! She had really bad reflux, and so she always needed constant motion and bouncing to calm her. This has been a godsend! We have a hook in the ceiling of our bedroom, but we've also got a jolly jumper stand that we have used for it when we went away for the weekend, and that I've also used in her bedroom.

I bought the cushion insert too, and we have decided next baby we'll put them straight into this!

Counterpane Carpet Bag

2007-10-07T17:05:00.000+11:00

Here is my progress on the Counterpane Carpet Bag. Since taking that pic this morning I'm now halfway through the third pattern repeat.

This is a slow knit for me, simply because it lives beside my daughters bed, well, actually, the yarn hangs off it because when I first started knitting it I couldn't be bothered winding the yarn into a ball, and have since decided it is a suitable alternative (my husband disagrees), see -

and I only pick it up to knit when she goes down for a nap during the day, that's our daytime sleep routine at the moment, I tuck her in and then sit there knitting singing to her if she's grizzly, or I just knit in silence if she's calm. She watches me for a while, then sighs and falls asleep. It works well for us!

PS - If you don't look too closely at that picture you won't notice that I missed a yarn over just after the first scallop on the second pattern repeat. I didn't realise till I'd gotten to the purl 4 wrap, I noticed I was a stitch short at the end of that row. By that stage couldn't be bothered ripping it back, so unknitted (tinked??) that row, and fixed the placement of the purl 4 wrap and decided upon inspection that you couldn't really notice the error, so it's staying as is!!

And just cos she looks so cute when she's just woken up, and she woke up just as I finished taking the pictures above....

Feeling the EZ love

2007-10-06T19:14:00.000+11:00

I've discovered the genius of Elizabeth Zimmerman.

As I posted this morning, I've started the February Baby Sweater out of The Knitters Almanac.

I love this pattern, I love the simplicity of it, although as I said, I've already ripped back the lace pattern twice, but that's due to me getting distracted by How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days last night, and forgetting to omit an increase in the final row of increases! Subsequently I had a stitch too many when I started knitting the lace pattern, and because of the aforementioned distraction, I didn't realise what I'd done till I'd already frogged it twice!

But I've also now got the pattern for the Baby Surprise Jacket, and I am itching to get started knitting that too, I just want the delight of folding it all up and seeing it all come together!

Juliet......

2007-10-06T11:35:00.000+11:00

When we made love you used to cry, you said I'll love like the stars above, I'll love you till I die.

Since I've started on Juliet, I've had the Dire Straits song in my head constantly, specifically, the lines above, over and over and over again in my head!

Deary me, I do like that song, but it's starting to drive me crazy!

Speaking of going crazy, I had a dream last night that I checked my status on the ravelry queue, and I was 29 people away! It was very exciting! In the dream I thought I'd better start photographing my stash, and started getting it all out and taking pics!

There is actually 1411 people ahead of me, which is actually great news, as I should get my invite sometime next week I'm estimating, with the way they're powering through the invites now.

I've actually done a lot of knitting lately, but no pictures as the battery is flat in my camera, charging as I type!

But currently, I've finished the garter stitch yoke and one pattern repeat (which I ripped back twice already!) of the Elizabeth Zimmerman February Baby Sweater.

I'm halfway through the second pattern repeat of the Counterpane Carpet Bag from Handknit Holidays, this has been a project I've wanted to do for some time, especially after seeing this version of it. I'm doing a smaller version in O-Wool's Balance, which is 50% cotton, 50% wool in Turquoise, and am waiting on some Noro in these two colourways, and am yet to decide which one to use for a full size version for a christmas present:

.........Okay, for some reason I can't upload pics to Blogger today anyway, so if you go here I'm getting colours 175 & 188. 175 is quite similar to the colour used in the bag I linked to above, which was knit in colour 95.

At the moment I'm leaning towards 175 as it's quite bright and vibrant, but we'll see when it gets here!

Another exciting mail day!

2007-09-21T18:14:00.000+11:00

Look what was on the doorstep when I got home this afternoon. My Storchenwiege wrap!!

I'm so excited about this, I got it from Ali at Craft Alley who did a pre-order for them about 6 weeks ago, so I've been eagerly awaiting this parcel, and was super excited when she emailed the other day to let me know it was on it's way! Included was a little note from the man whom organised the actual ordering of these, and look at the header on the note paper!

Isn't that cute! I want a Sling Mum notepad!

In knitting news, I finished off a quick and simple garter stitch bib from the Maison-Dixon Knitting book. Nice simple knit, I'm making a heap for all the babies due soon! This one turned out a bit big, I was thinking of keeping this for J and decreasing the no of stitches I cast on for the next one, but then I thought, big bibs are GOOD! Especially when baby starts on solids, food manages to get everywhere, so I figured, it's probably good these are quite big, as the neck size is perfect for around little necks still. Need to find some cheap and cheerful bright buttons, I know there's heaps at the bargain store near me, I'll have to go on a mission over the weekend.

Neiman

2007-09-20T10:04:00.000+11:00

The new Knitty is out, and Neiman really struck me. It has made me want to learn to do colourwork. Look at that neckline detail, the off-kilter design and beautiful contrasting colours make me really want to knit this!

From this pattern on Knitty, I clicked on the link to the designers blog and as I browsed through her Flickr photo's, I saw this and fell in love!

This was a test-version she did for the designer Monica Brown.

Here is the version the designer herself made in brown.

I love it even more! So, I need to learn to crochet I've decided!

Meanwhile, I started doing gauge swatch's with the Cotton Fleece for Rusted Root and Juliet, and I have to say I really like this yarn already, can't wait to get stuck into those two.

I love the mailman!

2007-09-19T13:56:00.001+11:00

If I have our bedroom window open I can usually hear the sound of the Postie's bike as he delivers the mail, and yesterday was a very exciting mail day, as I received TWO parcels, that's right, not one but TWO parcels!

First of all were some books I've been waiting on. I borrowed The Knitters Handbook from the library a while back along with Vouge Knitting, and decided I preferred The Knitters Handbook, and that I needed my own copy! And of course, Knitting Without Tears by Elizabeth Zimmerman!
Also I received my Cotton Fleece that I bought from Oregon Trail Yarn on ebay. I got some New Age Teal for Juliet, it's not quite as blue as it looks in this pic.

And I got some Cavern, Prosperous Plum, Lime Light and Provincial Rose for various projects.

Yarn Shop Visit....

2007-09-18T12:57:00.000+11:00

We stayed a night in the city on the weekend, baby free! It was a much needed break, and it's amazing how much better you can feel after a whole nights sleep!

I managed to convince H we needed to make a stop at Tapestry Craft before we left, with just a little bit of grumbling!

I left without buying anything!! Can you believe it? The fact that he threatened divorce if I bought any more wool might have helped! Well, actually, I'm exagerating, he did say he wouldn't mind one or two balls, and I was really wanting to get a couple of skeins of the Noro Kureyon, but I resisted, and patted it instead, and admired the colours in real life.

A lovely knitter who was standing nearby overheard him grumbling about being bored, and came to my aid with the comment - 'This is her hardware store'

Love it!

(I'm making H out to be a bit of an ogre, but really he's a wonderful, sweet, thoughtful man, he just couldn't understand why I took so long looking at all the different yarn, and was even more confused by my need to pet it!)

Cockatoos.............

2007-09-12T20:35:00.000+11:00

We have lots of cockatoos in that hang out in the trees in our neighbourhood.

These two were on our fence today for a good deal of the afternoon, but the sad thing is, they were there because they were mourning a fellow cockatoo that had died in our backyard.

It was very sad, I couldn't go out into the backyard all afternoon because it was upseting me, and had to wait for H to get home to dispose of the body he's a softy like me when it comes to animals, so I felt bad making him do it. I know, circle of life and all that, but still.

But these cockatoos were fascinating, they were squawking, flapping their wings, and generally making a right fuss about the fact that their poor friend was on the ground in our yard. I left this afternoon for an hour or so, and H said a bunch more of them came down, and they were down on the ground inspecting the bird, he felt bad moving the body, like he was interupting their grieving.

To get away from that sad thought, here is a pic of J wearing her 'Monet' longies, terrible shot of the longies, but isn't she a cutie?

Why don't I live in Melbourne?

2007-09-12T00:14:00.000+11:00

Look at this store Buttonmania . Look at all those buttons! Amazing.

There are lots more yarn stores in Melbourne too, often when I go online looking for needles, yarns, patterns etc, the online stores have a shopfront in Melbourne (or Victoria).

Sigh....... My LYS is a 45 minute drive away in good traffic! Well, there's Lincraft and Spotlight, but even Spotlight is a 30 minute drive away. My mum got out her old bags of wool the other week, and I noticed that one of the bags was an old shopping bag from a yarn store that used to be just around the corner from us! The joy!

Anyway, enough rambling, time to go to bed for this tired duck.

I Have a Problem

2007-09-10T21:36:00.000+11:00

I realised when I went away this weekend I have a sort of ADD when it comes to knitting.....

I took away multiple projects with me, and still had to start two new ones........

In my defense I've decided I don't like the colour of the main body of Anouk, so I only knit two rows of that, and I'm undecided whether I'll find another colour or else stick it out.

My other UFO's I was planning on getting stuck into were a pair of shorties, and Ms Marigold.

The shorties I decided to wait till it's a bit warmer and bubs has grown a bit to make them more to measure, but I've knitted about half of them.

Ms Marigold I forgot to take the yarn for!

I cast on for a scarf, then decided I don't like the wool for this particular scarf (it's a garter stitch) and have decided I'm going to make a felted wine holder bag for christmas present instead.

And cast on for the Short Sleeve Cardigan with Ribbing in Stephanie Japels Fitted Knits, there is a knitalong for this piece here.

So, instead of finishing off any of my UFO's, I started more projects. I need to work on my attention span.....

Anouk on the needles finally

2007-09-06T18:22:00.000+11:00

I didn't get long on this yesterday, but I at least cast on and did a few rows.

I'm finished with the seed stitch now, and am planning on taking this away with me this weekend as it's lots of stockinette stitch from now on, perfect for the car trip!

I'm hoping to finish the front, but i might be being ambitious.....

I'll also be taking the Ms Marigold with me and finally starting on that, more good car trip knitting, lots of stockinette!!

Sophies Pants

2007-09-06T18:02:00.000+11:00

I finished these a while ago, but haven't posted pics cos even though I'm sure Sophies mum doesn't read this blog, I still didn't want to post them till they had been given to her.

These will be given to their owner tomorrow, finally! Even though the weather now is pretty much capri or shorts weather! But it's supposed to be freezing over the weekend, so I suppose she'll get a bit of wear out of them?

These were knit with Aran BFL from Monster Knits in their 'Plum Tree' colourway, isn't this colourway just gorgeous?

Sophie doesn't wear cloth nappies, so I didn't do as many short rows as I usually would. I hope she likes them, I've never knit longies for a bub other than Jayda!

Cloth Rocks!

2007-09-06T11:22:00.000+11:00

We use cloth nappies on J's bum, modern cloth nappies to be precise, mainly fitteds with woollen soakers/longies/shorties or else AIO's.

The sudden wet cold weather has made it impossible to dry nappies quickly, and for the night nappies, doubly so, as these are so absorbant they take a really long time to dry on a good day!

Only problem is, we only have three night nappies (yes, I need to get some more) and with a combination of only washing every second day because of fathers day and trying to clean our house afterwards, and terrible drying weather, last night, we had no dry night nappies to put on J.

Oh dear!

So last night I put a disposable on her....

And guess what I was greeted with this morning? J had wet through her nappy, through her wrap, all over the sheet and through to the mattress protector last night, while she was in a disposable!

She lasts all night in a cloth nappy (either a Baby Beehinds Bamboo, or a GNST from Bubblebubs) and in all this time of having her in cloth at night, I have never woken up to wee'd on sheets. But the disposable just didn't cut it!

So, this morning I had to wash her wrap, sheets and mattress protector, which is an entire load on it's own, as opposed to one little nappy!

Moral of this story?

Cloth Rocks!!!

oh, and buy some more night nappies.......

I love my Babyhawk!

2007-09-05T13:45:00.000+11:00

I got this Babyhawk about a month ago, and I'm so in love with it! I snapped this pic this morning on my way out the door to the post office. I am a baby-wearing mama! After I snapped this pic I realised I've got a lot of carriers! Currently I've got two slings, a Peanut Shell with a padded rail and a Lucky Baby unpadded. An Ergo, which my husband mainly uses, he's not into the whole unstructured carrier thing, but he does love carrying J, so we got an Ergo to keep him happy! The Babyhawk meitai, and a Hug-a-Bub. So that makes 6 plus I've got a Storchenwiege in the Ulli colour on the way from Craft Alley which I just got an email about from Ali letting me know it wouldn't be much longer (it was a pre-order, as they aren't stocked in Australia!)

What does babywearing have to do with knitting?? Nothing really! Apart from the fact that I'm very fond of both of them! I suppose I could draw a vague link from the fact that we're going away this weekend for the Apec long weekend and where we're going is I don't think all that pram friendly, but fear not, as we will be loaded up with carriers! When we went to the Blue Mountains recently for our anniversary we didn't bother taking the pram, we just took a couple of carriers. The knitting part of it comes in that I'm looking forward to doing a lot of knitting while I'm away!

I'm planning on really getting stuck into my UFO's, I have finally picked up Anouk today to knit up for my darling daughter, so thats a start!

I realised this would be a great pattern to knit up into gifts for all the girl babies that are going to arrive on the scene shortly too, so I might be making a few more of these soon!

Juliet.......

2007-09-03T23:09:00.000+11:00

Okay, I have decided I have to knit this, UFO's be damned!

But, I'm going to knit it up for someone else, so it can be a belated birthday present, or an early christmas present!

I'm tossing up between the cropped version.........

and the full length version.........
I have some Cotton Fleece on the way in New Age Teal, I'll see what the colours like in real life before I decide whether I'm going to use it or not for this, or whether I'll use it for baby items like I originally planned. The person I'm thinking of making it for is a very teal person, she's also pregnant, and I think this would be a perfect cardi she can wear while pregnant and also afterwards......

I love the colour of this one Kelly is making too, can't wait to see how it looks when she's done!

Squiggly wiggly wormy goodness!

2007-09-02T20:24:00.000+11:00

I went out on Friday and got some worms for my wormfarm. So it's all happening.

Here it is before worms

and here it is after adding in the worms in their castings

And a gratuitous close up of a few of the worms.

Not much knitting happening between worms lots more gardening and organising fathers day today, so tonight i'm putting my feet up and going to try and finish some stuff off.

And thanks to Kelly I've got another item I'm itching to knit, Juliet, and this is something I think will be a quick knit too, worsted weight held double stranded. I actually think it would be a really cute top to knit for a friend of mine, when I saw it I immediately thought of her, so I might have a hunt for some yarn to knit it up for christmas for her. I have a feeling though it will be something I will have to knit for myself too, I love the look of this cardi, so cute!

Happy Fathers Day everyone!

Not Much Knitting......

2007-08-29T19:54:00.000+11:00

going on here today. Because I've been getting my hands dirty and doing some planting.

Did my herb garden in the wheelbarrow, which is very exciting! Hubby came inside earlier tonight and commented that it smells really nice as you walk past.

I also planted some succulents in the pots we bought, but ran out of potting mix for the Agaves, so I'll have to go buy some more on Friday.

It was such a lovely day to be outside in the garden, Jayda was asleep when I did the herbs, but woke up just after I'd finished, so I brought her outside and we sat on a picnic blanket on the grass together while I did the succulents. She even had a bit of nappy free time while we were out there, so she was just in heaven, lot's of giggling going on!

Now I'm getting down to some serious knitting tonight, got to finish some things off! Which brings me to.......

UFO Month!!!

September is UFO month!

The girls at Woolaholics have named September a month to pick up those UFO and get them done! So I'm joining in, here are the things I need to get finished:

U-Neck Vest (although I might end up frogging this, as I've only done a couple rows)
Shorties or Soaker for Jayda with Pink Peaches BFL from Stitch Sista
Ms Marigold
Lot's of baby things for all the babies due to pop soon, I haven't actually decided on what I'm knitting yet for half of them, so I definitely need to get on top of this!

So there we go, I'm looking forward to getting some of these finished!

Can-O-Worms!!

2007-08-27T19:25:00.000+11:00

Thanks to reading this blog that's written by a mum from Nappycino, I've been thinking a lot lately about how much we consume, and how much rubbish we produce also.

We do our bit here and there, like using cloth nappies, and even though this means more washing, we actually use less water now than we did before she was born, thanks to the fact I save the water from our daughters bath and use a bucket in the bottom of the shower to collect the water while it's warming up, and use this water to rinse the nappies out, and also collect the water from the second rinse cycle of most loads and use this water first the first rinse cycle, to rinse nappies and also to water plants.

The blog I mentioned above has inspired me though to do more, and in light of this I went out today and bought a worm farm!!!

I'm very excited about this purchase, I've actually been wanting a worm farm for years, the amount of food scraps that we throw out has always bugged me, so today I went to the local council and bought a Can-O-Worms. Now I just need to get me some composting worms and we'll have some lovely worm-castings to use on the garden before you know it!

I also went to the garden shop and got some different varieties of succulents to play with, I have always loved succulents, and some herbs, and my husband got an old wheelbarrow out of the garage to plants the herbs in, it will be perfect, I can wheel them around to get the sun and shade as needed.

At the moment they're all sitting on the table outside, waiting to be planted, which I'll hopefully do tomorrow morning before I go to work, I'm very excited, I've always wanted a herb garden of my own, now I just need to get a vegie patch happening!!

I'm also going through my clothes and selling a whole heap of old clothes on ebay that I haven't worn for a while, and my old maternity clothes. I really should give them away, but in the end I decided to sell them instead, because the money I make I'm going to put towards a rainwater tank, another thing I've wanted for years, and now, thanks to the rebate, they're a lot more affordable than they used to be, and hopefully, I'll get enough money to cover the whole tank. I think I will, there's a LOT of clothes, plus books, some furniture and Mum is giving me some of her old clothes to sell, and said I can put the money from those towards the tank aswell.

Rainwater tank here we come!

A fellow MCN user!

2007-08-27T15:10:00.000+11:00

Last week I met up with a friend that I went to school with that I had lost contact with over the last few years and found again through Facebook. She went overseas over 5 years ago, and that was the last time I saw her, at the airport, saying goodbye! We kept in contact for a while through email and then we just seemed to stop one day, not for any particular reason, but you know how that happens with friends sometimes, especially when you're in different countries, and your lives are taking different directions, it can be hard to keep in contact with everyone.

Anyway, it was really great seeing her again, she was always a great friend, and is one of those people you like being around cos she's always happy and positive. We always used to message on each others birthdays, this year I forgot on hers even though I'd thought about it the day before, she even sent us a card when she heard through my brother that we were engaged!

Anyway, as the timing worked, I had to drag her into the parents room to feed and change Jayda, and when I started changing her nappy, my friend exclaimed that I use the same nappies as her friend who lives up in Queensland, she also uses modern cloth nappies!

I was super excited, as I've never actually known anyone else in real life who uses them!! Even though I don't actually know this person, my friend does, but that still excited me!

And I had Jayda in the Monet longies below, and she said that this friend of hers also has longies etc for her bub, and she knits too.......

Which made me think, I wonder who this friend is, I wonder if she's also on Nappycino. And, if she knits, I wonder if I've seen her posts on Nappycino or somewhere else like Woolaholics.......

The Cloth Nappy community is pretty small, so maybe we've crossed paths......

I wonder?

'Monet' Longies

2007-08-21T23:03:00.000+11:00

Specs
Yarn - BFL From Monster Knits in 'Misty Morning' with I think Cleakheaton Country 12 ply for waist and cuffs
Needles - Addi Turbos 5.5mm circular for body and two Addi 5.5mm circulars for legs. My first project using two circulars for legs, hence the slightly wonky stitches at inside and outside of legs!
Pattern - Perfection Pants from Wooly Wonder
Mods - did an enclosed elastic waistband using adjustable elastic.

These should last Jayda a while, and become capris for her. I actually finished these a while ago, and have only just got around to posting them! I called them 'Monet' longies cos the colourway reminds me of his Waterlilies paintings when knitted up.

Man I was glad to finish these, I think I must have frogged these about 4 or 5 times! They fit Jayda perfectly too, I love the Perfection Pants pattern!

Swatching Swatching and more Swatching

2007-08-21T13:22:00.000+11:00

I realised why it is that I haven't actually finished anything off, or even made good progress on something for a while........

It's because I seem to have been doing an extraordinary number of gauge swatches recently. These have all been done in the last month, and considering my knitting time currently is extremely limited, thats a lot of time spent on swatching!

I don't know why, I think it's to do with the fact that there are so many things I want to knit. I see something I want to knit, get all excited, find some yarn, knit up a swatch, then realise I've got too many UFO's still sitting there, so grudgingly pick one up to try and finish.

Lather, Rinse, Repeat.........

Ad nauseum it seems.........

Edited: Cos I wanted to add, looking at that pic, I think I know another reason I keep coming up with the things to knit is the wool itself, mostly the hand-dyed stuff. A certain skein or ball will catch my eye as I'm looking through my stuff, and I'll pet it, pick it up and sit there admiring it, and then I decide I HAVE to use it for something (usually longies/shorties/soaker), so I start swatching it. By the time I finish swatching, I'm already onto my next wool/project swatch!

O is for Organisation!!

2007-08-21T12:29:00.000+11:00

I finally organised all my wool, oops I mean yarn, (gotta get out of the habit of calling everything wool!) and this is the result! Lookat how neat that is! My husband is super-pleased that it's not all falling out onto the floor out of baskets and in random bags etc. I'm also utilising the space under the pool table quite nicely! Those three drawer cabinets were the best find, $30 at Bunnings, for the entire cabinet, drawers included, and with wheels on the bottom of the cabinet! Woohoo, I was very pleased with that considering the two bigger one's stacked on top of each other were $30 each, and I'd seen somewhere else a similar style cabinet and slide out drawer set-up, and you had to buy each component separately, with each drawer being $20, and I don't know how much for the cabinet itself!

Love the organisation!

Another no photo post

2007-08-14T20:57:00.000+11:00

Cos Photobucket is playing up, can't log-in!!

Anyway, so since I last posted lots and lots has been going on with knitting, I've........

- done about a million gauge swatches,
- fallen off the wool-ban(d) wagon and bought way too much for one person alone,
- organised that wool into these neat drawer thingies
- started my first knitted item that I was actually asked to knit for someone else's bub (quite happy about being asked!)
- finally signed up for Ravelry, should be invited anyday now, only 16,000 odd people before me!
- Cast on for my first thing for me (the back to school u-neck vest from Fitted Knits by Stepahnie Japel)
- bought more wool
- Bought a set of knitpicks
- been introduced to Facebook (not that that is knitting related, but I only joined today, so it's a new fad!

I do have photo's of a lot of these things, but of course can't share cos of crappy photobucket!!!

Will upload photos nexst time i'm on and photbucket isn't being crapola!!

Busy Busy Busy

2007-07-16T11:02:00.000+11:00

No posting for a while cos I've been super-busy! Back to work last week, which meant last week was a bit hectic, getting used to going to work and trying also to fit in working from home. I realised it's not as easy to work from home as I thought it was going to be!

I have now set times aside when hubby is home from work of an evening three days a week (the days I don't go into work during the day) that I can sit down for those times and work without disturbances. In fact last week I ended up going into work one evening to work there as I found it easier than working from home and luckily for me it's only around the corner, so my travel time is all of about 1 minute!

So what I'm going to try and do is do as much work as I can during the days, but still have those times set aside when hubby knows he'll (probably) be looking after her and preparing dinner just in case I don't get enough work done during the day.

So this has meant I haven't had much time for knitting. I've also discovered I need to limit my knitting to an evening after everything is done, that is now my knitting time. So last week all I really got done was a few gauge swatches, some short row practice swatches, and finished then frogged the cuffs of some longies (wasn't happy with the cuff, so am re-doing).

As it's been so long since I've posted, I actually have some FO's from previous weeks but they're in the middle of being washed and blocked, so will take pic's when that's all done!

Calirometry Finished!

2007-06-21T17:16:00.000+11:00

I cast off on Calirometry last night, after it had been sitting there for the last two days with only cast off left to do, and no time to do it in!

I haven't blocked it, and I'm not going to bother, I like it a bit messy, I think it suits the wool and the object....... or maybe I'm just lazy and want to start using it straight away!!!!

Don't have time for specs today, have to go feed DD, will do specs when I get back frmo weekend away on monday!

More Wooly Mail!

2007-06-20T11:49:00.000+11:00

Yes, I know I'm on a wool buying ban, but this is more wool I'd bought before the ban came about!

This beautiful firey wool is from the latest Dyelicious stocking, it was good timing, I'd been searching for some nice firey looking wool and then Dyelicious released the 'Elements' range, so I snapped up 4 balls of the Fire colourway, 2 in 'Delite' 8 ply wool and 2 in 'Dawn' 8 ply 100% organic wool. I've had it sitting out since it arrived yesterday, I like looking at it! I love the look of all the colours from that latest stocking, I especially keep going to her Ozebaby shop and admiring the 'Earth' colourway, I can't understand why nobody has snapped it up yet! If I wasn't on a stash diet I'd buy some, so it probably is a good thing for my wallet that I'm not allowed too! lol!

I also received 2 balls of 'Wizard' and as I'd hoped, the maroon in it matches perfectly with the mini-skein I got from Monster Knits! The colour doesn't really come up that well in that pic, I tried to get a good one, but there was no sun yesterday, and the camera battery is charging today, so that will have to do. But there's actually a lot more maroon and reds through it than it looks like there.

Anyway, so the only other wool I'm waiting on now is the stuff from Nundle Woollen Mills. Hopefully that doesn't come for a couple days, so i can stretch out the anticipation of waiting for mail a little longer!

Wooly Mail!

2007-06-18T14:08:00.000+11:00

These two mini skeins are the only wool I managed to snare from Monster Knits last stocking because my stupid internet was playing up so couldn't get on the night of the stocking, andf when I did there was not much at all left! But it was good anyway, as I don't really need much more wool, but I did need some solid colours for cuffs and waistbands, specificalyy in these two colours! The purple I have a few different wools I'm thinking of using it with, and the burgundy I have some wool on it's way from Dyelicious that I'm hoping it will go with!

I also bought this wool from MK aswell, it's in the Alice colourway, and it had been sitting there tempting me for ages, and in the end I caved and got it, and I'm really glad I did, as I know it's going to look great in longies!

But I was quite disappointed I missed their stocking, there was some gorgeous girly colourways I was loving, like Sienna and Spring Hippy, and now I'm on a wool ban so I can't even indulge in their next stocking! Oh well, they'll still be around after my ban is up!!

Reducing the stash.....

2007-06-15T18:18:00.000+11:00

But not my WIP pile!

I decided last night I need a knitted head-band type thing, I always wear my hair up and the short bits at the front irritate me! Plus it's winter and cold, plus a lot of the time I wish i had soemthing to cover my hair as I'm usually pressed for time so most days my hair is shocking!

So, I decided to start knitting Calorimetry for myself last night. My first thing I'm knitting for myself! How exciting, I feel this is opening up a whole new world of knitting to me!

And it's a good stash reducer, evenif it means I haven't touched the projects I've got sitting here that I'm supposed to be finishing! (and starting!).

I've used a wool that I liked the colour of and that didn't quite make the gauge, so I had to adjust the stitch count and subsequently have had to to frog it a couple times cos I've stuffed up lol! Yes, even something as easy as Calirometry I managed to make some mistakes!

I should finish it either tonight or tomorrow, so I'll take pics and post then!

Meanwhile, here's my WIP pile that I'm supposed to be working through but instead decided to start an entirely new project!

And here's the stash

2007-06-14T13:29:00.000+11:00

I took a pic of my stash so I can use this as motivation to reduce this down, looking at this I can see my different colour 'phases' that I've been through! There's the blues and greens stage. Then when we discovered we were having a girl I realised blue prob isn't the best colour to be buying, so moved onto my pink/orange/yellow/red stage, currently I'm into buying both purpley colourways, and firey (red/orange/black) colourways.

So there it is, as I said, I know it's probably not big in comparison to some, but seriously, if I were to knit from that till there was nothing left I probably wouldn't buy any more wool for another two years!

Jumping on the wool ban-dwagon

2007-06-14T12:54:00.000+11:00

I've noticed a few knitters going on stash diets or wool bans recently, and it's motivated me to look at my stash, look at my finances, think about how long it takes me to finish anything off and realise I have waaaaaaay more wool than I need at the moment!

I mean I know my stash prob isn't that big compared to some other knitters out there, but considering I only started knitting again under a year ago, and I'm not exactly a speed demon with the needles, combined with the fact that I'm not going back to work for another 4 weeks, and when I do it's only part time, so I'm supposed to be running a tight budget I really need to stop this wool buying madness!

Also, I tend to get half way or three quarters of the way through something, get bored, put it down and start something else. Sometimes I don't even get that far, for Anouk I got a grand total of four rows into a gauge swatch two weeks ago and got interrupted by DD for a feed, and it has since sat there, those four lonely rows, waiting for me to pick it up again. How sad is that, I can't even finish a gauge swatch!! And last night I started a gauge swatch fro some new longies, cos I've been longing to knit this wool up for ages to see it. What was I thinking, I need to finish the other longies I have there, or else it won't be winter anymore by the time I finish them!

So, from now on, I need to knit from my stash, with the exception that I need to buy wool for Ms Marigold when I find some I like, so I'm allowed to buy that wool.

*Disclaimer* I have some wool on it's way at the moment from Nundle Mills, Monster Knits and Dyelicious that was all bought before this wool ban started.

Thanks to Bec for the pic above too!

Mail Glorious Mail!

2007-06-13T17:37:00.000+11:00

The mailman brought parcels for the family today! Woohoo, always exciting!

Firstly, there was a NSW state of Origin shirt for DH, not exciting for me, but exciting for him, and just in time for the game tonight, Go Blues! Well, I was a tad excited when I reaslied he'd bought it on ebay for $2.24!! Gotta love ebay!

Secondly, there was a Tango Nappy that I bought off Ozebaby for bubs, which is in with the wash as I type this. I've been wanting to try these nappies since before I had Jayda, so very exciting getting this today!

Secondly there was this gorgeous bag from Snail Blazer at WAHMania which I've been very excited about since I bought it!

As soon as I saw it I thought 'Ooh that bag would be just right to carry around a current WIP!' and don't you just love the print!! The handles are the perfect length for me to carry the bag on my forearm, or just hold it by the handles, which is just what I need as usually I've got bubba in the sling and the nappy bag over my shoulder, and as you can see below..

It fits my current project in there perfectly, with a bit of extra room for spare needles or whatever! I've been wanting to get a little bag like this for ages, so many times I am sitting in waiting rooms with bubs, and I've thought if only I had my knitting with me, imagine how much work I could have gotten done while I've been waiting! I also take my knitting with me in the car when we go out to visit FIL or friends of ours who live an hours drive away, and this bag is perfect for that!

And even more exciting, she added some little surprises in there for me! Isn't that lovely, I'm always thrilled when i get a package and it's got a little surprise in there, it's just a special little personal touch that makes me glad I buy things from WAHM's! But I got spoiled with these treats, I got these cute little hair elastic thingies, aren't they cute! They'll be perfect for bubs when she gets older and finally has hair! Also got the cute fridge magnets below, which I stuck on the fridge immediately!

It's funny I was thinking about fridge magnets just yesterday, I was sticking something on the fridge and I used the magnet I got from Baby Beehinds when I bought some nappies, and it made me think about magnets, and the fact that I get excited about magnets! I was so excited when I got that package and there was a magnet in there! Same as when I bought some wool from Zen String and she included a fridge magnet. The fridge magnets I got with the bag today weren't advertising one's like the one's I was thinking about yesterday, oh no, these one's were cute retro one's, so these were even more exciting. Why am I excited by getting magnets? I don't know, but my DH would probably point out it's probably cos I am a dork.

Jungle Longies in Action - (an excuse to show my daughter off really!)

2007-06-10T16:37:00.000+11:00

Yes, I know, my daughter looks like a boy in this outfit! Maybe that's why she has that expression on her face, it's like she's saying 'Mum, why do you want people to think I'm a boy? What have I done to earn this terrible treatment?'

I showed them to my friends last night and they all commented that they looked like little camo pants, oh well, I don't care, I knitted them so she's wearing them! Why is camo print a boy thing anyway? Because it just is apparently, same as why pink is for girls and blue is for boys. Deary me, won't they all be impressed at the amount of blue wool I've got waiting to be knitted up for her! (insert evil laughter here)

Stitch Markers!!!!

2007-06-08T18:39:00.000+11:00

I discovered a new skill yesterday, how to make stitch markers! I realised i need more stitchmarkers and figured it couldn't be that different to making earrings, and so pulled out my box of old beads from broken necklaces and earrings, as well as some old earrings that I never wear anymore (and can't picture myself wearing again seeing as dangly earrings and baby just don't seem to mix!) and got crafty mixing and matching beads! The very bad photo above is the results, the colour is all off seeing as it's so overcast and miserable here I had to use the flash, but you get the idea!

As you can see I went a bit overboard and made way more than i needed to, but I was having fun and like using my creative side so just kept making them! Maybe I'll sell them or give them away as gifts. I plan on making more seeing as I have an overabundance of beads and quite enjoyed the exercise!

Froggin Fun!

2007-06-05T19:32:00.000+11:00

From this:

To this:

To this:

This is the life cycle so far of a pair of longies I'm knitting with some BFL from Monster Knits in the Misty Morning colourway. This is some of the first wool I bought and when I got it I marvelled at how spongy and squishy it was, and put it aside to pat occasionally till I'd finished my first few projects.
I then decided to knit a pair of longies with the curly purly wasitband, which I started a while ago, then put it aside as it just wasn't doing anything for me!

I picked it up on the weekend and decided it was time to turn this UFO into a FO, knit down to seperating for the legs, then realised the reason why I was so blah about this project was cos the wasitband wasn't making the most of the wool. So I decided to frog frog frog, and recast on with an elastic wasitband in a nice purple colour, I'm liking it much better now! As I said, I'm not a fan of ribbed wastbands on longies, love the curly purly waistband on the soakers I've knit, but I think it depends on the wool!

PS - there was a lot more wool than that little pile while frogging, I'd basically knit the entire body already aaarrrgh!

Recently Finished

2007-06-05T18:44:00.000+11:00

Just off the needles.....

(well, by just I mean this came off the needles a couple of days ago and has been washed, lanolised and blocked and is currently covering my sweet daughters nappied tush as I type!)

These are longies that I started knitting when I was pregnant with DD and then put aside to await her arrival so I could knit the rise to her measurements, so they've been sitting in my UFO pile for the last 4 or so months!! I'm quite happy with these, I loved knitting with this wool, which was 'Daintree' from Dyelicious. I think they look quite boyish though, I put DD in them today with a yellow top and she looked very much like a boy!! Oh well, they're small sized, so I can resue them when we (if we) eventually have a boy! The pattern used was the Perfection Pants pattern, but I added an elastic wasitband, I like elastic on pants much better than ribbing!

so whats this blogging stuff all about.......

2007-06-05T16:43:00.000+11:00

Okay, so I caved and got myself a blog.

I figure it's a good way to record my knitting progress, and show off my creations (including the special creation me and hubby made together a bit over 9 months ago!)

So here it is............ now onto some pretty pictures