Thursday, August 29, 2013

Spring's almost here and a late WIP Wednesday

The last few days have been lovely and warm and, for the first time in months, Lucy and I were finally able to have some quality time hanging out in the backyard (as opposed to the quality time we spend on my couch or in bed or on and/or around my desk in the daily power struggle over who gets to sit in the desk chair (usually Lucy, of course)). I took the opportunity to take photos of the stuff I am working on at the moment:


My stripy blanket square is coming along really nicely. It is super warm and fluffy and I am very very tempted to keep it and use it as a lap blanket to keep on hand for those times when I get cold at my desk. The two markers are an equivalent distance from the centre 'spine' of the blanket. Each time I finish a repeat I move them. It allows me to tell how many repeats I have left but also is a really fascinating marker of how much faster the repeats go the shorter the rows get (I know duh, but still!). I love this stage of a project like this, when the rows just keep getting shorter and quicker all the time.

I really hate working with 5-ply crepe yet I somehow ended up with piles of it in my stash. This year I was desperate to finally use it all up so I finally finished the Moderne Baby Blanket I started five years ago. I used the leftovers to make a Blue Baby Surprise Jacket (which has adorable buttons!). In an effort to use every last metre I made a Scraptastic Spiralling Baby Hat, leaving me with less than 5g crepe in total.

Or, so I thought, until I was updating my stash details on Ravelry and found I had 80g of black 5-ply crepe listed. WHY IS THIS YARN EVERYWHERE AND WHY WON'T IT JUST GO AWAY! I found it and cast on straightaway...about four months ago.


I really really hate working with this wool! The pattern is cute, though (Soleus from Elinor Brown - rav link), and the socks will be good once I've finished them so I'll continue to carry this pair around with me, working on a row here and there until they are eventually done.

Lucy took the opportunity to make it loud and clear that, after being left on a bench throughout a long wet winter, her outside blanket is not up to scratch and must be cleaned.


I'm on to it, Lucy. I see a weekend full of weeding and outside-cleaning ahead...

I love spring :)

Sunday, August 25, 2013

First stash acquisition of the year

Happy Monday, everyone. I hope you all had lovely weekends :)

I broke the screen of my beautiful Macbook Air a few weeks ago and finally put it in for repairs on Friday. I know it's stupid but I really miss it! I'm working my old very heavy, very slow laptop that doesn't have any of my bookmarks, favourites or Word shortcuts stored in it and it's just not the same. I know, I know, first world problems, but still! Also, and this is even more heartbreaking, the cost of the repairs is the exact same cost of the iPad I wanted. Grrr!!

Fortunately a package arrived from Bendigo Woollen Mills that cheered me right up:


This is the first lot of yarn I have bought all year. I had no idea I'd been so restrained! There is two balls of 8ply cotton in Daffodil to make a Serenity baby blanket, one ball each of Luxury 8ply in Sunflower and Purple Storm to make an Op Art baby blanket and a ball of unlabelled burgundy sock wool because (honestly) it was $8 for 100g of superwash sock wool and I cannot resist sock wool that cheap.

And, because it doesn't count as stash if you cast on straightaway:


I may have to wait a bit longer to buy an iPad but at least I'll have a lot of knitting to do in the meantime!

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Yum yum in my tum tum

This is what I had for lunch today.


The hot dog is vegetarian and I added a blueberry smoothie to up the nutrition content and lower the overall GI of the meal but I can't deny that for lunch today I had highly processed (lean, though!) protein wrapped in highly processed carbs covered with highly processed sugar and salt-filled tomato sauce. Terrible! But sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do and today, I needed to eat some junk. 

It was delicious.

In other news

Two of my friends are pregnant at the moment, which means *drum roll* baby blankets! I had some Soft Haze that I'd stashed just for this purpose so I very excitedly cast last week.


The fabric is really lovely but I just don't think the colours are really right for either of the parents. I'll finish it but it might be going on the charity pile...


Only if Lucy approves, of course. Lucy is the boss of all decisions in this house :)

Friday, August 9, 2013

I heart Saturdays (2013 FO #13 and #14)

I love Saturday morning. I love that there's one day a week that I don't have to set an alarm and that I can choose to do whatever I want all day long. Admittedly I'm self-employed and I work from home so I set my own activities daily but the activities I have the option of are limited to a fairly specific set: work, read for work, study, write, read for study, cook dinner and play with Lucy. On the weekend, I can choose from all the activities!

Today's choice was to go out for a long, lazy breakfast and then take some of my finished knitting out into the almost-spring sunshine and take some long overdue photographs.


The hat is the Grantham hat which is easy, cute and free. The yarn is some Schoeller and Stahl Geisha that I bought at least eight years ago (!!!). If you are going to knit the hat, pick up more stitches for the earflaps than the patter recommends - you can see that the flaps don't sit quite flat in the photograph because they are slightly pouchy.


The mittens were a pattern I made up. It turns out that mittens are basically just the same as socks but with thumbs instead of heels!  (How weird does my big toe look in this shot? Freaky.) I'm sure everyone already knew this except but it is new information to me and I am ridiculously pleased with these handwarmers.

This set is super warm and comfy and will be heading off to KOGO tomorrow. I only wish I'd finished it earlier in the winter but, as my mother says, better late than never. I am very happy to be done with old stash yarn and happy to be doing good at the same time.

I love Saturdays!


Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Stick 'em up, pardna.

Hello, blog! It's nice to be back again. I had to take a bit of an enforced break from blogging because my WiFi got hacked somehow and someone used up my whole monthly data allowance in four hours while I was asleep in bed :( My service provider was very nice about it but there's not much they can do other than tell you how to change your password and remind you to turn off the WiFi modem when you aren't using it. That said, in the two weeks that I've been unable to use my Internet at home I have finished *four* knitted items and completely refocused and clarified my thesis topic, so maybe it's something I need to consider doing more of in the future? Sometimes I wonder if I would have finished my undergraduate degree if the Internet like it is now had been around then...

I will be sharing the finished stuff with you soon but the most exciting news I have is that *dum dum DUM* I have finally started seaming my Central Park Hoodie!


The bits that are looking like arms in a hold-up are actually the fronts of the cardy. I don't know if it's my inexperience or if seaming takes a long time but it took me a full movie (Dark Victory starring Bette Davis, an excellent drama in which Humphrey Bogart YOLOs) to do just the sleeve caps. Hopefully I'll get faster as I go, but anyway I'm pretty excited - six years work is finally drawing to a close. I don't care if it fits or that the colour is ridiculously unfashionable - I just want the damn thing done! And done it will be, very very soon.