No apologies

Started my Clapotis on the weekend and it's knitting up a treat, I've always been a lil bit scared to start because it looks a bit complicated and beyond me....but pfft to that....it's easy peasy pants!! There's nothing scary about it at all, just a weeny bit of concentration needed....so I banish my husband from the room while I knit. I love knitting it so much it'll be finished within the next week or so, no doubt!! I'm doing it in the Handmaiden Seasilk and the drape and feel of the fabric that's being created is stunning!

Got me thinking though, about a knitting class I used to go to and how it used to be such a great social outlet for me, but ended up with me being embarrassed to take anything too interesting to class.

I've been able to knit for years, mum taught me when I was younger....but I didn't pick up the pointy sticks again in earnest till about 2004. I was a dab hand at knitting garter stitch scarves, but not much else, so I decided to do a knitting class through a local evening college. It was great, I learnt how to knit rib (I didn't actually know about yarn forward thing) and read a pattern, the girls in the class were a lot of fun, some returning term after term just for the social aspect. So I decided to join them and kept enrolling. Anything more advanced in terms of technique I taught myself or shuffled of to “shock horror” a class at Tapestry Craft, the evening college teacher had an open dislike of lace knitting or anything that involved more complex than moss stitch and often made comments about me knitted complicated things to show the others up.

Ok, I know most of the people in the class were beginners and that the perfect place for them was spotlight or big w, because of their cheap and cheerful yarn range, and when you have NO idea what you're doing, a $2 ball of acrylic is a great place to start, but as my confidence in my ability grew the more I began to appreciate better quality yarns and the results I’d get from them.

The first special project I knit myself was a feather and fan scarf in the softest cream baby alpaca....I was pretty chuffed with the result (even though there was a mistake or two), but when I took it to class to show them, it was all about how much the yarn cost...."you paid $11 a ball and it took 5 balls???????"....um, yeah, 5 balls, but it's really beautiful and soft and it was less than $60 and you couldn't buy the same thing for that and besides, I love wearing it....but some people couldn't get past the cost.

Then I had the audacity to turn up with a couple of balls of Noro Silk Garden, the uproar that caused because I'd spent $17 a ball!! After that I was labeled the DINK (double income no kids) and I never went back.

Anyway, I don't like that I was made to feel bad about having a bit of spare cash....hey, I work hard, so does hubby....we can spend what we like on whatever we like....and I chose to buy beautiful yarn that I can fall in love with before it even hits the needles and shoes....he buys rare whiskeys and things for his computers....we're grown ups, we're allowed!!

And speaking of beautiful yarn....I discovered The Knittery.

How to end a long weekend.

With a glass of Wine and some Raspberry and White Chocolate Muffins fresh out of the oven.

I baffled the doctor

In the early hours of Wednesday morning I woke up with the skin on my thighs on fire and not in a good way!!


The doctor didn't actually know what might have caused the big, red, burny, itchy welty rash that covered both my upper thighs and stomach but finally after sitting around trying not to scratch for 2 days things have finally starting to calm down. Not sure if my body has just weathered the storm or it's all the steroids I'm ingesting in the form of prednisone and aristocort, don't really care as long as it goes away soooooooon.


And for the brave here's a very sexy picture of one of the welts on my leg!

Back from holidays and back to reality

Just spent an amazing week driving around the South Island of New Zealand, it’s so incredibly stunning, so many snow capped mountains and rampaging rivers and the quiet, the blessed quiet.

Then back to inner city living, where there’s nothing but the constant hum of traffic and rev-heads who think it’s fully sick to do burn outs around the round about 7 floors beneath our living room.

Anyway, back to NZ….

We landed in Christchurch and drove to Hamner Springs, which was a gorgeous little town surrounded by huge rolling hills. Soaked in the hot springs, mmm rotten eggs….but man were they GOOD. It was like 20 years of dead dry skin just rubbed off me when I was getting changed, my elbows have NEVER been so soft! And oh, soaking in that hot stinky water was like melty, gooey heaven.

From there we headed down to Fox Glacier, where we were all set to go Heli-hiking, but the clouds rolled in and the helicopter was too scared to fly us to the top of the Glacier, so we just walked into the face of it and ooh and ahh’d at the sheer massive, magestic nature of it all.

Onto Wanaka and lakeside tranquility. Apparently this town is the less (s)wanky place to go skiing in NZ and it was so lovely. Even though there were people hustling and bustling about the place, it was so tranquil.

We flew over to Milford Sound, across the mountains, again stunning. Hubby poo’d his pant when the 10 seater plane we were in got jolted 200 feet straight up, when an updraft off a mountain caught us, which was kind of funny, but I was cucumber girl and it didn’t bother me that much. After cruising around the sound (I’m not even going to bang on about how gorgeous that place was) and flying back, we spent the rest of the afternoon pottering around a toy and transport museum, which had a wool shop attached.

Ah, yes, I’ve finally gotten to the yarny bit.

Got some lovely handspun things in Wanaka, nice dark brown stuff that was the natural sheepy colour and some very pretty lilac and pale blue 2 ply, both will make great scarves.

Apart from that the wool situation around Christchurch wasn’t that crash hot, I popped into Knit World and Knitters Warehouse and both had a FANTASTIC selection of Cleckheaton and Patons, but hey, that’s what Spotlight’s for. Knit World had Jo Sharp and Rowan, but there was nothing I couldn’t buy over here or source cheaper on the net. So it was a lil disappointing on that front, although I did pick up the Rowan 39 book for about $45, so YAY and some Twilleys Freedom Spirit (in the Fire colourway) for $5 a ball.

As for possum yarn, definitely not for me, it did feel lovely and soft and like it would be toasty warm, but the actual possum fibre is really short, so when it’s spun with Merino, you get lots of sticky outy fibres just falling about the place that would have just driven me mad with all the fluffing and getting all over everything, so it stayed in the shop.

Christchurch is a pretty little city too, strange mix though, the “cultural precinct” lasts about 2-3 blocks between the river and the Cathedral, but anything away from that is all second hand clothing stores or empty shops. We did find this gorgeous little art deco street called New Regent St, that was all divine little nick-nack shops and Hubby found a Cuban Cigar place, that also sold cuban coffee!! I won't even mention how I pawed pathetically at the windows of the Cashmere shop, the stuff in there was soooo grown up and stylish, so I didn't go in :p

Coffee is just divine over there too, lattes served in near bowl size cups, which you sip to wash down your freshly toasted bagel (like the French Toast Bagels we had for breakfast one morning at Yellow Rocket) YUM!!

Speaking of sourcing yarn cheaper on the net, just invested in 10 balls of Noro Silk Garden Colour 252, at $11 a ball for my Lady Eleanor Entrelac Stole.

Just have to get the Clapotis out of the way (GOD DAMN that Handmaiden Seasilk is like sex in yarn form), oh and the Montego Bay Scarf and the Blue Sky Cropped Cardi.

The brother-in-law just got engaged too, there was vague talk of a Christmas wedding, so I might have to whip up some of interesting lace stole-like creature for that, just so everyone can ooh and ahh at my pointy stick prowess, or not.

YUMMY....

Spiced hot chocolate....I made it myself!

When good knitters do naughty things

I was bad today!

No, I didn't spend too much in Tapestry Craft, in fact I didn't even hit the $70 mark! They didn't have the Ball Winders in yet and I was soooooo good and put back the Noro Silk Garden that I was pawing with the Lady Eleanor Entrelac Stole in mind. Even though I've ordered the yarn for the Clapotis, I've become obsessed with the idea of Entrelac, so much so I sat down last night with a tutorial to teach myself how to do it, but then Hubby came home a bit bleary-eyed and wanted to watch the Henry Rollins Show.

So where does the badness come in?

Um, I was in Borders today and copied the Chevron Scarf pattern out of the book Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I love the look of this Chevron because of the waves it creates, rather that zigzags....but I REALLY didn't want to fork out the $53 the thieving bastards wanted for it! I do intend to buy the book one day, I do, I really do, there's a very cute lil elephant pattern and some super cute lil people beanies.

Silly thing is I didn't really need to look at the pattern, because I'd worked out how to do it a couple of nights ago when I was trying to get my head around how it might be done....feather and fan without the yarn overs....just KFB's, although, I might try make 1's with a twisted stitch to avoid the ridge that the KFB's form.

The yarn pictured is what I want to use for the Chevron Scarf, another skien of sock yarn that won't be made into socks :p

Anyways....it's back to the Entrelac, me thinks....till I get bored with concentrating and cast on the Chevron.

*Sigh* I’m in love

There are 2 new loves in my life….my set of Knitpicks and Ravelry.

Both have been around for a few weeks now, there are already a couple of new projects on the knitpicks and I’ve only just had the chance to really sit down and play with on the ravelry site.

My new needles are a dream to knit with, all shiny and smooth, but not too slippy and that memory-less cord, pure ecstasy. They are making the knitting of the eyelet swirls scarf so easy! I finished my nephew's hoodie with them (they could not have been MORE perfect for picking up stitches!) and I’m now attempting the Blue Sky Alpaca Cropped Cardi....never fear fragile readers, I am making it longer because I look like a stumpy box in anything cropped.

Looking at all the profiles over on Ravelry, I’m feeling all inspired to now pull my entire stash to pieces and start photographing every last ball/ hank/ skein and every near done, half done and newly cast on project I can lay my hands on. I’ve been trawling through all the pictures of cardigans people are knitting, falling in love with the look of patterns that I’ve previous skimmed over, it’s funny how much more appealing things can look in a different colour.

There are scores of knitters out there creating things from Fitted Knits, a book I’ve owned since its release, looked through a few times, but always put aside in favour of other projects. Had to re-evaluate that somewhat, now I’ve seen what other people have done with the patterns. And there’s something about Interweave’s Nantucket Jacket that I’m really starting to like.

Just what I need, more things to add to the “Some Day” pile!! *Sigh*