Yesterday I got news that my friend Alex and his partner, Rebecca, had welcomed a little boy into their family. Now, I knew they were having a baby, knew when it was due, but still somehow had only imagined making a present.
It turns out I can make one of these in half a day. Hooray! It’s the Umbilical Cord Hat from the first Stitch ‘n Bitch book, with 8 extra stitches and as such, an extra lot of decreases to make up for the thinner yarn and smaller needles. Rav details here. I hope it’s still cold enough in China for a tiny new babby to wear a lovely wool hat.
It is getting colder here. And when I was choosing a yarn to knit the hat with, I found two bags of ‘Summer’ wool/silk roving from the Melbourne Handweavers and Spinners Guild in my stash. What better time to start spinning it than just after summer’s end, on the weekend of constant storming when we get hailstones the size of golfballs?
Sometime last year I paid the Melbourne Spinners and Weavers Guild a visit. I accidentally bought a four shaft table loom while I was there, and also made off with some 40% silk/60% merino roving blends, dyed in the most beautiful colours. I started spinning the one named Spring into singles before we moved. Then, well, we moved, and everything else stopped.
Since setting up my studio here, Spring has Sprung. I have two skeins that I plied with themselves, and one plied with a single of white merino. It’s just. So. Beautiful. I can’t wait to see how Summer spins up.
While house-hunting, moving, organising internet and finding camera cables, I managed to do some surprise knitting. At least, I managed to keep it mostly a surprise until I accidentally left my knitting bag on the bed one day and Paul saw it. And since he’d been nagging for a Handmade Jumper of His Very Own, he figured it out pretty quickly.
I altered the pattern slightly by picking up stitches in the round for the sleeves then knitting down to the cuff. Why sew six seams when you can get away with two?
I’d like to fall into the blog cliche here and apologise for not posting much of late. Been busy, la di dah di dah, all that stuff. The main reason though? We found out three weeks ago that, after 5 years and three months living here, our landlord is moving back in. Oh joy. Looking for a house during a heatwave at the end of the year is not fun. And rent is far more expensive these days than it was five years ago.
So far we’ve been rejected by one landlord because they apparently thought their fence wasn’t safe enough to keep the dogs in, we’ve rejected a landlord because we decided we didn’t want to settle on their crappy house after all, and we’ve been rejected by another landlord who seems to have some weird phobia of dogs. We really, really want the last house, and the real estate agent really, really wants us to have it. We should hear today if the landlord has changed his or her mind. I’m looking forward to the excessive amount of cupboards and having more than a 30×40cm patch of preparation space in the kitchen. Paul is looking forward to the air conditioner and the dishwasher/two sink combo (he will no longer have to do the dishes in what is essentially a doorless cupboard.)
On the knitting front, I’ve had to start a couple of things, but I’ve also continued my streak of finishing up old projects. The purple and gold sock in the photo above is a Sidewinder I started in July 2007 while in Darwin for my sister’s wedding. I finally sat down and grafted it together, and now just have to make the second one. Ravelry details are here. The grey, pink and green socks were started while gallery sitting our graduate show almost exactly a year ago using a basic sock recipe and ridiculously small needles. Ravelry details are here.
I also finished a pair of toe-up ankle socks made from Cascade Fixation… that I started in April 2007. 2007. I blame the fact that I hate the yarn for them taking so long. It only took me a day to finish the second sock once I started it, but I just hate the yarn so much. It’s a thickish blend of cotton and elastane and is a real chore to knit with. I’d also found that a previous pair of socks made with the same yarn really didn’t hold up well at all, but I was desperately in need of foot coverings, so I finished them anyway. Ravelry details here.
Anyway, be prepared for your next knitting pictures to feature 70s cream shag carpet instead of floorboards. Oh yeah.
Really, I must be some kind of saint. I’ve gone and knitted something for someone else again. And not only that, I did it so that playing WoW would be more comfortable for him…
A few weeks ago, when I’d just cast off the blanket, Mr C asked for a pair of fingerless gloves that he could wear at the computer to keep his hands warm while retaining dexterity. He wanted something with separated fingers, and chose some plain green yarn from a selection I offered. He mentioned that he liked red too. I agreed, went in search of a pattern, and ended up here.
I found the Hexagloves pattern on Ravelry and couldn’t resist. The mittens were gorgeous, used interesting construction and were loaded with wordplay potential (WoW, hex, casting and so on…) and I just happened to have some Noro Kureyon sock in my stash. In my defence, I did try making them with separated fingers but the number of stitches available just wasn’t enough to comfortably fit big man hands. The gloves themselves (I made the M/L size) are a perfect fit though and I’m really happy with how they turned out.
I believe this process is called “kicking arse and taking names.”
Another week, another finished project. This is the baby blanket I’ve been plugging away at since January (January 14, to be exact — damn you Ravelry and yr guilt tripping ‘date started’ and ‘date finished’ sections…)
The pattern is the Baby Starghan. The blue wool is Patonyle sock yarn from my stash and was an absolute dream to work with. The green and lavender yarns were left over from old projects. Nicholas is around six months old now, but I’m sure he’ll still get some good use from this, and I thought it especially apt to make it star-shaped as a celebration of the International Year of Astronomy. The next family baby is due in November. The project I have underway is officially called Not a Blanket.
