Sunday smiles

On a rainy Sunday, when you've been feeling a bit so-so, you need things to make you smile. Well, I do, anyway. Maybe you've been smiling at stuff all day.

I present the final installment in Sean's birthday stuff. These delightful wormy cupcakes were made by the lovely Kuka and presented to Sean along with a worm farm from Kuka, her partner and George and her family.


Cute huh? 

The afternoon of the worm farm (from which I will save you all from photos!) was a long time coming because George had asked me some time earlier this year if a worm farm would be a good gift for Sean's 40th. I said of course it was, because he's been wanting to get one forever.

Something we didn't factor in was how to prevent him going out to buy one. This required some incredibly creative excuse making on my part. One day, in front of Kuka, he even said, when we were discussing compost and worms, 'You are so mean. I don't know why you have such a problem with getting a worm farm.'

Sigh.

There's only so long you can keep putting someone off by saying 'I need to do some research before we buy one.' I think that wore thin and in the end, he was just convinced I really didn't want one.

He has one now and we love checking them, to see how they're munching through the scraps which are mushed up because, as George said, 'worms have no eyes and small mouths' (spot the mum of a small person!). 

When the hundreds of worms arrived, it was declared by George that my job was to knit them all little matching beanies. Needless to say I have not done that, but George is welcome to help me out any time!!!

Many, many thanks to Kuka, George et al. The worm farm was generous and thoughtful and deeply appreciated.

And here's another smiley thing. We drove out to Young yesterday - home of Sean's family. I sat in the back with our 8 year old niece who, while I knitted, fed me pretzels and 'nutrient water' (what the hell is that? The label sure didn't sound like there was a lot of nutrient in it). When I was knitting this, a Fetching mitt remodelled to suit a man's hand, she asked me what it was.



I explained it was a fingerless mitten for a man. She looked thoughtful for a moment and said, 'Is he a poor guy?'

I laughed and laughed. No, the intended recipient isn't a poor guy, and neither is he homeless. I can't imagine where she got such a notion from but it's amused me today when I've been knitting #2 and imagining them on the recipient's hands.

Finally, I leave you with this. We harvested the remainder of our crop of broad beans today. It's been lovely having them but those plants are definitely outstaying their welcome. We need the space! So we watched an episode of Northern Exposure, shelled them all (amounting to 1.8kg of shelled beans!) and blanched and froze all but a few. The few we kept aside were turned into a Moroccan broad bean dip, which we are snacking on now. Yum.

And so the weekend ends. Bring on the roast lamb and red wine, I say.

Bells

Stealth knitting

Tomorrow, Friday the 14th, Sean turns 40.

Tomorrow, we disappear from town on a morning flight for the weekend to do our own thing in Melbourne. No commitments other than a booking at a posh restaurant tomorrow night.

I'll finally be able to give him the two pairs of socks I've been surreptitiously working on for the last 2-3 months. Do you know how long socks for men take when you only knit them on the bus?

A long time. There were moments I was sure I wouldn't make it, but I did and I know he will love them because he whinges ALL THE TIME about how I never knit for him anymore. he he

It got to the point where I began devising afternoons with friends in order to have more knitting time. Here's a glimpse of one of them at Kuka's house. When Kuka posted about our afternoon together, she even fibbed for me and said I worked on my pi shawl. I did that, but only once Sean arrived to collect me. The rest of the afternoon, it was all about the socks.



I'm certain he knows he's getting some socks tomorrow. I'll save the amusing story for how he found out for the finished object post next week.

But they're done now, and wrapped, hidden away for tomorrow morning. I think 1968 was a very fine year. Several very good people turned 40 this year, including Kylie, Julie and RoseRed's husby. Fine people from a very fine year.

I'm posting this now because I doubt he'll look here tonight and I'm giving them to him first thing. I'm the sort of person who wakes up early excited about someone else's birthday.

Now, to decide what knitting to take. All those cafes and pubs require simple knitting, no doubt.

See you in a few days!

Bells

Time away

I am very happy to report that as far as retreats from the world go, Berry is among the best.

We just spent four days hiding out at Coolaroo Lodge, a spacious, peaceful B&B which just so happens to be run by the in-laws of a friend of mine. The garden, which we spent much time admiring, is beautiful.

Our hosts, Robyn and Peter, were friendly, welcoming and also nearly invisible. We really felt like we were quite alone for much of the time, which in our experience of B&Bs can be a hard balance to strike. 

We really couldn't ask for anything more, except perhaps for more time. You know how you just start to unwind on a holiday? And it's time to come  home again? That's how we felt, a bit.

Berry is the perfect town for us. It's nestled comfortably in dairy country, with mountains surrounding it, beautiful bushland nearby and just a short walk down the road you hit Seven Mile Beach.



 
1. Tinselworm Kite2, 2. The waves of Seven Mile Beach, 3. crab, 4. scrub, 5. flowers, 6. daisy, 7. lantana,

We ate, drank, walked, slept, knitted and watched DVDs and most days that started early because we both woke around 6am, loving the knowledge that the days stretched out before us.

Do we feel better? Sort of. 

I can really only speak for myself and I have to say that going away did not make me happy. It gave me the space to be sad without the pressure of work or things that needed to be done at home. I think we both needed that. No doctors appointments, no injections, no grim reminders. 

For the most part, I lost myself entirely in knitting my Hemlock Ring Blanket which, in a day or so I'll be able to post as a completed project. I honestly think that without the focus of an engrossing project, I would not have been able to switch off as much as I did. I find it hard to get out of my head sometimes and I think I did manage it sometimes in Berry. 

One of my favourite moments was the morning we spent on the beach flying a kite. I think we both found a new way to unwind. 

And for the observant among you, yes, the face you see there on the kite is that of British comedian, Bill Bailey. The kite was for sale recently at his show and Sean thought it was too novel to pass up. It was tremendous fun watching Bill Bailey sail above the waves.

I've not yet touched on the fact that RoseRed came to visit and that we got to hang out in a fabulous wool shop. I'll save that for the next post.

Bells

What I plan to knit on my holiday

Yesterday, in a case of absolutely perfect timing, my order came from Bendigo Woollen Mills. Late last week, I chose some of their Rustic yarn in 12ply so I could make a Hemlock Ring blanket. I was inspired by a couple of friends and knew the time had come to make my own. It'll be my second BrooklynTweed designed blanket. Love that guy's work.

The timing  of its arrival was so perfect that I had just sat down after a morning of baking and tidying up when the nice delivery man pulled up in my driveway with the lovely big bag of wool.

About an hour and a half later, this is what i had done.



It's good fun. It grows fast and so far isn't too hard to keep track of.

It's a special blanket. During my brief pregnancy, I was planning all sorts of baby knitting, but most especially a blanket. Not this one, per se, but some others. This blanket is my way of not letting myself feel robbed of that experience. It will be a way to remember and I'm thankful to the new friend I've made who, in an email about her experience, told me she had made a blanket in memory of her loss, too.

It'll be the perfect project to work on during our time away. Just a few days. We'll be back next week.

Bells

Snuggly and warm

A couple of days at home, warm when it's cold outside, has really been very nice, even with a bad cold. Who needs to breathe properly in order to watch movies, knit and get in some napping? Not me, although I must say I am enjoying regaining full functionality in my nasal passages!

I've sat in the lounge room, gazing out at the grey world, and focussing on getting better. I rarely get colds and now I've had two in several months. Odd.

The tedious vest from the previous post has benefited from my illness. I completed the full 20cm rib band and promptly tossed it in a bag to stay untouched until we drive to Sydney on Saturday. 

I spent the full five hours of the HBO movie Angels in America getting the banding of the vest done. It was a great way to take in the incredibly complex and astounding feast of this movie without getting caught up in how bored I was by the ribbing.

I then went to work on some socks I've had going for a while and have hardly touched. My Embossed Leaves Socks II. It's my second pair. The first ones I made are amongst my favourites.



Made from Socks that Rock Raven in Valkyrie. It's my first time knitting with STR and it's so nice. Strong, a reasonable weight and not pooling, at least as far as I can see. Nice.

I'm knitting them on my birthday present, which I never got around to mentioning. Sean, being the good, obedient husband he is, contacted Donni who sells Knitpicks locally and ordered a set of Knitpicks Harmony DPNs. 

I love them. They feel strong. I used to break wooden DPNs from time to time. So far, these have proven just fine in my tight-knitting hands!

Bells

Tedium. A definition.

I've been working on this Jo Sharp vest for a while, kinda between other things. And my God is it tedious but at the moment I'm home with a sore throat and a bad head cold so it's really the only knitting I'm up to.

The thing is, I want this vest. It's everything I want in such a garment. Everything. Light, not too clingy, not too traditional. So I must stick with the tedium for now.

This is what it'll look like. 

Mine is made from some baby alpaca, in 5ply/sport weight, which RoseRed found in an alpaca shop in Berrima, outside of Sydney. It's delightfully soft, but quite fine, and will go well as casual or office wear. Kuka tells me that Princess Mary was spotted recently at a playground in Tasmania wearing a vest so vests must be good casual wear, if a Princess can get away with it.

I'd just better get it done. I'm not quite at 20cm of rib yet but it can't be far away, if I would just knuckle down and do it. It's not as much fun as whipping through a shawl in a fortnight, that's for sure. Soon, the weather will be warmer and there'll not be much need for alpaca vests.

Speaking the warmer weather, we just welcomed our first baby basils of the season yesterday. The seeds on my window sill stretched out of the soil into the sunlight! Hooray!

Aren't they cute?

Bells

Stuffed up

A sciencey sort of guy I once worked for said he had a theory that the human race can be divided into roughly two camps. Those who get mainly abdominal illnesses and those who get mainly respiratory issues. I'm not a scientist so I don't know if that's altogether true (someone out there is bound to know something) but it seems to hold for me. I'm the person most likely to vomit, get cramps or some something bowel related. For a long time (and now reformed) smoker, I never seemed to get respiratory problems, like colds, coughs etc, except for maybe once every few years.

The time has come for that once in a while infection. I've got a doozy of a head cold and it's travelling south as we speak, with my ex-smoker lungs feeling more and more congested by the hour.

And what's the one benefit of all this? Not going to work. I did try yesterday. I went in thinking maybe I'd perk up as the day warmed up but somehow, my wheezing and sniffling weren't appreciated by the inhabitants of that germ breeding ground called The Office and I packed myself off home by 10am. 

Do sensible people go to bed when they feel like this? I think they must. Sean says they do but he knows me and knows that going to bed to sleep in the middle of day is anathema to me.  Isn't sitting on the couch knitting and watching Anne of Green Gables just as restful? (Oh Gilbert...sigh) Or it would be if tearing up at scenes such as when Matthew died didn't clog up my sinuses even more than they were to start with.

And surely, completing a cute little mitten in just a few hours is a way to make sure a cold is nothing if not productive. 

I think it looks quite big considering it's for a little boy - but then mittens are supposed to be quite roomy, aren't they?

It's made from Cleckheaton Country 8ply and it's for Will. Who else?

I'm seeing him on Saturday when Adele and I head out for our annual Sisters Day Out, to the Good Food and Wine show in Sydney. We've done it every year since he was born. That first year, Will was only a couple of months old and it was Adele's first day out without him. Now, he does fun stuff like going to the zoo with his dad. Meanwhile we go crazy at the show. 

Now, to cast on that second mitten and watch Part Two of Anne of Green Gables while coughing up a lung. I'm determined to be better by Saturday. 

Bells

Yarn spaghetti and my clapotis

Want to see how I spent my Queen's Birthday long weekend Monday?

Like this.

This is some Fleece Artist yarn I bought a long time ago in a sale in the US that RoseRed and I took advantage of. I held onto it for ages and you know how skeins that sit around for a while can come undone a bit? Well, this one did. Our neice, who is eight, came over on Sunday and I employed her to help me wind many skeins.

We did all of this.

But when it came to the Fleece Artist, things went terribly awry and we gave it up for a joke. The next day, I started early trying to untangle it and soon, Sean joined in. I was so grateful for his help because my God it was slow. For a while we found it quite nice, sitting together, doing it bit by bit but after a few hours, well it just became painful.

The top photo is how it looks even now. I'll do it in stages but if anyone has suggestions for how it can be done faster, I'd like to know. I've had to cut it several times. I wouldn't bother ordinarily but i love this yarn and adore the colours so damn it, I'm not giving up!

In the meantime, my clapotis is coming along nicely although I'm trying to finish another cardigan so it's only getting intermittent attention.

I'm just loving it. It's quite huge though so it'll definitely be more of a wrap than a scarf. I really didn't have a sense, when I was starting it, how large it could be and just followed the pattern as written, knowing I had plenty of yarn. I've just joined up the last skein so am on the homeward stretch now.

June is definitely my month for finishing off stuff and yesterday, I added mittens for Will to my list. I'm seeing him weekend after next and I'm excited to have something warm for his little hands.

Bells

Publicly displaying my lunacy

Sometimes when you put your thoughts out into the world, you look back on them and realise, in a scarily short amount of time, that you just had a dumb thought, or even several of them, in public.

Yesterday's post where I wrote about my gauge issues was one such post. More than a few readers made note of the fact that if my gauge showed I was getting more stitches per inch than I needed, why the hell was I going down to smaller needles?

Well might you ask. The answer is, I don't know. I was getting myself into quite a state over it and I really think I was just so bent on doing a project that had a moderately fine gauge that I was going to do that, no matter what. Talk about wasting a week. I blame the fertility drugs. That's my excuse for the absolute lunacy that has been my attempt at knitting this week.

It was Happy Spider who very kindly pointed out that the problem was that the pattern called for Aran weight and I am working in 8ply. I had kind of twigged to that but was still hoping to get some joy but Happy Spider knows I am a tight knitter and knows that to get gauge I'd have to go up to much bigger needles than I could ever really be happy working with. She also made the valid point that you have to sell a kidney to get aran weight cotton in this fine land.

So this is where Sitcom Chic and I part ways. She has been supplanted by something for which I achieved perfect gauge last night.

Same designer (Bonne Marie Burns). Different pattern. In beautifully soft Zara, which I bought at a recent $2 sale at our beloved Cassidy's. That's going to be a $20 cardigan. Cant beat that. It's going to be simple and elegant and if I like it, I can see myself making several in different colours.

Now I am happy.

Bells

Stupid gauge

I give up. The first big knit post steeked jacket was supposed to be simple. It's not.

I've spent the last week wrestling with the gauge for Sitcom Chic - a delightful cotton cardigan for which I'm using some 8ply cotton from Bendigo Woollen Mills. It looks like this.


Nice huh? It was a gift from Shazmina Bendi and I love it. It seemed like the perfect project to cast on at the start of autumn.

Do you think I can get gauge? The swatch was ok. It appeared to achieve the gauge of 18 stitches across 4 inches, but it was done on 5mm (size 8) needles and I'm not one for large gauge. After the tiny gauge of the jacket, you might be forgiven for thinking I'd race headlong into an affair with some big, open, easy gauge but no, I'm not much of a fan. I like my stitches small and tight.

I got about 5 inches into the back of the cardigan and was telling myself that really, this 5mm needle deal with a good change and I should just keep going. Out of curiosity, I checked the gauge of the work. I was getting around 22 stitches to 4 inches. No matter how I looked at it. I sat the work as naturally as I could get it, considering it was on needles. Tried to make it relaxed and natural looking.

But it was no good.

Two subsequent attempts have failed to make the situation any better. I'm down to 4mm (size 6) needles now, which is the territory I'm happier with, and it's just rubbish. I can't get it. So I'm giving up. What precious spare time I had this week has been wasted on this project that's just pissed me off. I've been fighting headaches for days and really, being pissed off does not help that feeling at all.

The cotton will need to find something else to be when it grows up. I've been looking around at other projects that have a more sensible gauge. More like the 22 stitches I seem to so easily be able to get.

Life's too short.

Speaking of which, I've been so busy I've barely read a blog in days. Just a few. I have a lot of catching up to do. And the photos of me in the steeked jacket are still not taken. Today, I hope. Or tomorrow. It's a long weekend.

Bells