Tales from the Paperback Fortress

Jumping ship!

2010-09-15T19:06:00.003+10:00

Greetings to any fair readers who have found themselves here.

The bad news: I got restless and started a new blog.

The good news: my new abode is only a click away, so you should come and visit me!
(pretty please?)

This blog has seen good times and bad alike, and I remain fond of it, but for quite a few reasons I felt like it was time for a change of scenery.

And fear not, Blogger buddies - you'll still see me around in your comments box!

Mitts, handspun and cupcakes!

2010-09-01T17:16:00.006+10:00

Whew - you can't half tell that it's semester time again! Between my lack of regular posting and my comparative lack of knitting progress, it probably goes without saying that life is busy. I'm keeping on top of it rather well though - I've even stopped leaving my assignments until the last minute. Wonders will never cease.

But let's forget about the I'm-so-busy whinge and cut straight to the knitting I have been doing. Behold! I finally finished my long-suffering New Orleans Mitts:

(it only occurred to me after uploading this picture to Ravelry that I'm doing the stereotypical pregnant woman pose with my hands - I assure you all that I am most definitely not pregnant!)

The basic info: Used Classic Elite Inca Alpaca (100% alpaca) yarn knitted on 4mm dpns. Didn't really use a pattern. Cast on 30 stitches and basically just worked a tube, adding a hole for the thumb (I used the thumb hole method from this pattern, since it works a treat). There's ribbing at the start, end and on the thumb, and there's a few increases here and there to improve the fit (I have narrow wrists but comparatively wide hands), but there really wasn't much to these. The stripes are 2 rows long, and I made them jogless by slipping the first stitch of each round on the second row of each colour.

Commentary: These aren't really anything exciting, but I'm happy with them. I love the way that the subdued colours look when striped. I love stripey things, but sometimes they can be a little bit loud - these are much more low key. They're also beautifully warm thanks to the alpaca.

Still, the thing that I like the best about these mitts is the fact that I had to restart them, odd though that sounds. Originally I cast on too many stitches, and was about three inches in by the time I realised that the mitts I was knitting were going to be much looser than I was after. However, the reason why I restarted is inconsequential. The main point is that I was willing to do a little bit of work and restart rather than just push on and ultimately end up with a project I wasn't entirely happy with. I honestly think that I would have taken the latter route a year or so ago, and it makes me pleased that I'm now willing to do what it takes to get something right. Makes me feel as if I've matured as a crafter, as incredibly pretentious as such a sentiment sounds.

In other news, I plied some of the handspun from last post.

If we're being honest, I really have no idea what I'm going to do with this yarn. It's not really my thing. That said, I love it fiercely, so I suppose I'll have to think of something!

And alas, there hasn't been all that much else going on as far as craft goes. I've been working away in fits and starts on my tweedy cardigan, and although it's not coming out exactly how I'd planned, I'm still happy enough with it. Only one sleeve to go, so hopefully you'll be seeing it soon. I've been doing a fair bit of cooking; lots of delicious winter soups, and one day when I was feeling inventive I tried my hand at making chai-flavoured cupcakes. They were lovely!

I'd like to say that I've been doing more knitting than just mentioned, but the truth is that I haven't. Don't get me wrong, I still love the craft - life has just been getting in the way. Partly it's been due to me falling down into the Designer's Void, where I drag my feet because I have to actually - gasp - think to finish my half-completed projects, instead of just looking at someone else's pattern notes. I've also been on a massive creative writing kick the last week or so, and while this is awesome, it does take away from my knitting time. Still, I suspect that once I finally get this cardigan off of the needles I'll be back into knitting with a vengeance! In the mean time, kindly admire my handspun yarn and homemade cupcake:

(Not to be confused with handspun cupcakes. That would be odd.)

Procrastination in all its forms

2010-08-21T13:44:00.007+10:00

Apologies for the blog silence. Uni has been busy, my internship has started, and to top it all off, I spent a lot of last week being sick with a rather rotten head-cold. Being sick is never a lot of fun, but at least I got some of my assignments done. For some reason though, I never feel like knitting when I'm ill. I've done a little bit of work on my cardigan, but I've been terribly lazy when it comes to finishing my hand warmers. This is especially deplorable because I know very well that all they really need is an hour or so of work, and then they'll be done. Bad Anna.

On the up side, I have been doing some more spinning!

I bought this a while back, but wanted to go through all of my dodgier 'learning' fibre before I tackled it. And I actually kept this resolution - the last of the plain fibre was dyed with avocado pits and spun up during the week, so I've started on the nicer stuff!

(I know the photo is slightly weird - I am having Camera Issues at the moment). I'm really enjoying learning how to spin. I find it very relaxing, and kind of addictive. And I can do it when my eyes are too tired to knit, which is a plus. And as you can see, I'm gradually improving - the above skein is bordering on respectable! That said, I tried my hand at plying last night and the result is, erm, not quite as impressive. But still, that's what learning is all about, I suppose.

Next post, actual knitting content - I promise! In the mean time, I leave you with a picture of the home brewed beer we bottled a few weeks ago. Still needs a little bit of time to improve, but it's pretty good - the first brew I've been involved in from start to finish. Exciting! (well, I think so)

Learning by Doing is a Grand Thing

2010-08-06T12:29:00.003+10:00

Okay, fine, no completed set of hand-warmers just yet, but one thing that I neglected to mention last post is that I have been renewing my assault on the pile of fibre that lives in my craft pile. I did make a few attempts at learning how to spin last year (or was it the year before... jeez, I don't even know), but I then, cleverly, managed to lose my drop spindle. And it was the most frustrating variety of losing something though; the kind where you know that it has to be in your house somewhere, so you refrain from buying a new one because you are quite convinced that the moment that you do, the old one will reappear. So my pretty fibre languished. But then the drop spindle did, in fact, reappear (it had fallen down behind some books on one of my shelves... because this makes perfect sense, right), and recently I finally found the time to use it.

These are the first three results of the renewed attempt to learn how to hand-spin. Three guesses which is the first try. What's that, you say? They're all sad looking skeins of noob yarn? Okay, fine, the blue was the first attempt, the green the second, and the variegated was the third.

Perhaps you can't really see in the photo, but the improvement from the first to the most recent is amazing. This is one of the things that I love the most about knitting, and crafty things in general - you can actually see yourself improve in quite a short time if you only take the time to practice. The above were spun over a period of about a week, and every day that I picked up the spindle, I was better at it. Don't get me wrong, I'm still very much a clumsy, beginner. But seeing yourself make progress is fantastic. I really do think that it's the little things in life that make you happy, and this is definitely one of the little things in my arsenal.

Next time, hand-warmers! Now it's back to what I was doing: drinking tea, eating freshly baked lavender, honey and lemon shortbread, watching the Arcade Fire concert being streamed on You Tube, and knitting with my divinely imperfect hand-spun. It is good to be Anna this afternoon.

Time Travel

2010-08-04T10:55:00.006+10:00

Okay, so I can't actually time travel. But the start of another semester of university always makes me feel like I can. Weeks can pass in the blink of an eye - weeks in which I tragically neglect my poor little blog. But here I am, back again.

University started last week, and it looks like it's going to be a good semester, as I've lucked out with teachers and subjects. Very soon I get to start my internship, and that should be a really good experience as well. And I've been catching up with all of the university friends that I missed when I was travelling. One of them gave me some lovely beeswax candles that she had acquired on her own travels - aren't they pretty!

Now, I have actually been managing to fit a surprising amount of knitting into all of this. However, I don't have photos. Partially because I am too lazy and/or busy to take them, but mostly because pictures of half completed projects are just never really that impressive. Or not when I take them anyway. I've seen some lovely shots of works-in-progress on other people's blogs and Ravelry pages, but if there's a knack to taking them, I don't have it, and I don't feel like subjecting people to a blurry shot of my single completed hand-warmer today.

Rest assured, however, that the handwarmers are coming along swimmingly. I've finished one bar the thumb, and the other should follow very quickly since I can just brainlessly copy the first one without having to turn my mind to questions of length, width and ribbing. Hurrah for mindless knitting.

I've also been working on a top down wrap-style cardigan out of some dark blue tweedy yarn that I've had kicking around for a while. The top down style is of course very familiar to me. The wrap style however is not, so it will be interesting to see how that one pans out. It's probably near to half finished, at any rate, so we won't be waiting that much longer.

So while there is indeed knitting progress, unfortunately it doesn't lend itself well to photos. Thankfully, however, other things do! The Boy and I celebrated our anniversary last week; we made celebratory pizzas and had Floor Picnic in front of the television because the weather in Melbourne in July is nothing to write home about. But the pizza was lovely (if a little poorly lit in this photo!).

The cold weather has also brought some of the local wildlife into the house. A recurring guest in my abode is a tiny little gecko, who made his first appearance a few weeks ago in the laundry/toilet area of all places. So it was only logical to christen him Mr Toilet Gecko. Ridiculous name aside, he's a cute wee thing:

Well, I think he's cute anyway - look at that little beady eye!

Next post: finished handwarmers!

Holiday Finished Objects

2010-07-22T14:55:00.007+10:00

As previously mention, I did plenty of knitting while I was away. Between the hotels and hostels, cafes, buses, trains, planes, picnics and knit-nights, I managed to squeeze out three different projects in the time I was away.

First off: Annis by Susanna IC, knitted in Wired for Fibre Elizabeth (in the 'Fate' colourway) on a 5mm circular needle.

Climb aboard the ramble-mobile: This is definitely the project I'm the most proud of. For a start, it's pretty: the lace pattern is lovely and the yarn is simply gorgeous. I just wish I had a picture that did the beautiful colour justice - it's a much deeper, richer green than the pictures show. Also, this was the most challenging knit. It's not so much that it was difficult - the pattern is well written, and although the nupps were something new to me, they weren't too tricky - it was more than I had a bit of lapse in sense and brought the single bluntest needle I owned along to knit it with. P7tog is all well and good when you have the right needle, but the one I was using was probably blunt enough that I could have jammed it repeatedly into my eyeball and not sustained any damage. So working the nupps was slow and painstaking. Still, I got there in the end.

I won't lie - I made quite a few mistakes. I had to redo the first few rows, and I worked a portion of the lace pattern while I was feverish and headachey, and it kind of, erm, shows. But thankfully it's not very noticeable in the finished product - the errors are mostly at the ends, which tend to be tied and dangling. And all in all I'm definitely happy with how it came out - I can't wait to wear it out and about. The design is wonderful too - it was fun to watch how the short rows created the shape of the shawl, and I think it would lend itself very well to all kinds of variation. I definitely look forward to finding out!

Project number two was just a basic, stash-busting hat made out of some random scraps of black dk weight wool and some Panda Purla that I've been wanting to use up/get rid of but wasn't sure what to do with. I didn't use a pattern, and I won't bore everyone with talking about it in detail, because it's just the most basic of basic hats (worked in the round, two row stripes, rolled brim), but I'm rather happy with how it turned out. As previously mentioned, I've really been feeling the love for stripes lately, so I'm quite keen on this, even though I look like the grotty student bum that I am when I wear it.

Number Three: Wisp by Cheryl Niamath, knitted from Noro Silk Garden Sock yarn on 5.5mm needles.

Blatherings: This pattern was pleasantly easy, and I'd made it before already, so this was a great travelling knit that I didn't have to think too hard about. I'm quite pleased with how the finish product worked out. I would have appreciated a slightly longer scarf, so in retrospect I probably should have made it narrower in order to accomplish this, but I'm still happy with it. The Silk Garden Sock is very pretty, though I found it a little frustrating to work with at times as it had a tendency to break in the loosely spun sections.

So, there you have it - one month's worth of travel knitting. They were all fun projects, but now I'm home I'm really craving a bigger project. It wasn't really feasible to lug pullover quantities of yarn around the US with me, but now I'm home again, I'm looking forward to getting stuck into garments again. I have so many ideas in my head to play with! If only I had more than three days before uni starts again...

Yarny Acquisitions

2010-07-19T21:51:00.006+10:00

...and now to the part where Anna drools over her new yarn. As alluded to in the last post, I picked up quite a bit of new stuff while I was gone. Not a completely over-the-top amount - after all, I did have to worry about how I was going to get it home. But definitely a goodly amount, especially considering that I haven't bought much this year. Actually, that has a lot to do with it - the self-imposed yarn diet of last year let me kick my impulse buying habit, so I've purchased comparatively little by way of yarn lately. As a result, I felt a little more justified in lashing out a bit while I was travelling. And besides, when it comes to yarn the range of what you can get in the US is just so vast compared to what is available here in Australia; I was happy to let myself indulge a bit.

This is not quite all of what I bought - I left out some of the doubles, there's some Malabrigo Twist to the right that you can only see a hint of, and I think there was one ball hiding in parts unknown that didn't make it into the shot. Still, not a bad haul, right? I visited so many lovely yarn shops (including WEBS, thanks to some awesome LSG Ravellers), and I ended up picking up a little something from most of them. Highlights included some discounted Noro and some lovely Misti Chunky Alpaca from WEBS, some gorgeous alpaca from The Quarter Stitch in New Orleans, and some Koigu and Malabrigo Lace from Rebecca's work.

Pretty right? Also, besides showing off my holiday indulgences, these photos are a good idea of where I'm at right now when it comes to colour. I've always loved black and green, and I definitely still do, but over the last year I've found myself thinking more and more of grays, purples and reds as well, and sometimes even blues when the shades were just right. And just look at all of the lovely colours I have to work with now!

Anyway, back to the yarn. Not all of them have been allocated to projects yet, but I'm working on it. I didn't really want any of these to languish in the stash for too long, and I'm off to a cracking start on that front: the Misti Alpaca Chunky (the large skein in that gorgeous shade of dark reddish purple on the right hand side of the picture) has already become a scarf. None too shabby, right? And there were a couple of skeins that I had plans for before I'd even left the store in which I bought them.

The moment I saw these skeins in New Orleans, I knew that I had to stripe them together, and I knew that they were destined to adorn my hands. I have every intention of casting on tonight, so stay tuned for news on that in the near future. However, the next post = holiday projects!

But not tonight. I have knitting to do, tea to drink, and an episode of Skins to watch... Have a nice evening, everyone!

Home again!

2010-07-14T11:37:00.006+10:00

Well, it was fun while it lasted, but lo and behold, here I am once again in my dear hometown of Melbourne. Hmm, that sounds more dismal than it should. Actually, I'm very happy to be home - I love Melbourne dearly, and though I (obviously) adore travel and do it as prolifically as I can afford to, the places that I've been where I would be happy to live can probably be counted on one hand, and I don't honestly think that any of them can compare to my current place of residence. I wouldn't rule out longer trips, or even extended stays elsewhere, but I can't help but suspect that Melbourne will always be my home. I do love it so - it's a wonderful place to live.

Anyway, enough of that waffle - I'm now going to subject you all to a different kind of waffle: what I did in the latter third of my trip!

On July 5th we shoe-horned ourselves out of bed painfully early and made our way to the airport, and by mid-morning found ourselves in New Orleans. I honestly think that of all of the places that I visited on this trip, New Orleans was my favourite - it's beautiful, has so much character, and a really great vibe to it. Also, when I compared to some of the other places I'd already visited, it really drove home to me again just how diverse a nation the US is - New Orleans and Boston are very different places!

Unfortunately we only had a few days to stay, but we packed as much into our days as was humanly possible. Of course, we started by wandering around the French Quarter and seeing the sights there. We also met up with the very lovely Cadence, who was awesome enough to meet up with us and show us around to a few places (thanks again!). One of the places we went was The Quarter Stitch, a yarn shop in the French Quarter. I bought some lovely yarn there, which is not particularly surprising, but what was surprising was how beautifully our purchases were wrapped up for us. Alas, I don't have a photo that entirely does it justice, as by the time this shot was taken the poor package had been squished into my pack for over a week, but to give you a rough idea:

Why yes, those are ribbons, and those pink things on the left are cut-out tissue paper hearts inside the bag. I saved the tag, and it now has its own little place on the wall next to my desk. Yarn shopping aside, over the next few days we wandered far and wide through a couple of other areas of the city, ate gumbo and beignets, and did a tour of some nearby swamps (alligators!).

On Thursday it was off the airport again, and by mid morning we were in Houston. We had a poke around the Space Centre, and then went out for delicious tex-mex and margaritas in the evening. The next day it was off to San Antonio. We saw the Alamo, so now I can remember it (sorry, lame joke I know...)!

The next day we looked at some of the missions in the San Antonio area, and then went tubing on the Guadalupe River. Tubing was tremendous fun (how can you really go wrong with floating down a river, drinking beer and nibbling on fruit and snacks), though things did take a turn for the somewhat dangerous near the end - I collided with a girl stuck against a tree, was thrown from my tube, and got my foot stuck in some underwater tree roots, which had the unfortunate effect of making it rather difficult to come up to the surface for air. Thankfully I got free quickly - once again, I'm so thankful for being a strong swimmer. So that was some excitement at least!

The next day we packed up and headed back to Houston, where I was equipped with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and turned loose at the airport. I sat through four (yes, four) flights, and then, some enormous number of hours later, found myself back in a rather wintry Melbourne.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip. I got to meet some wonderful people and see some amazing places - I know this is getting repetitive, and I'm beginning to run out of positive adjectives, but long story short, I count myself extraordinarily lucky that I was able to have some of these experiences, and I definitely left a lot of places thinking 'Wow, I have to come back here...' The wanderlust, it is strong in this one.

As for the yarn I acquired along the way, and the knitting I did on the road; I'm allocating them separate blog posts, because I don't want to weigh too heavily on everybody's attention spans, but hopefully they'll be up soon enough. So now all that's left to do is go and finish unpacking, and to say thanks again to everyone who I got to catch up with (especially Rebecca, who drove me countless places and never strangled me, despite my irritating tendency to talk to inanimate objects). Thanks again everyone - should you ever find yourselves in Melbourne and need a couch, a tour-guide, or a personal baker, you know who to call on!

Posting from the US: North Carolina edition!

2010-07-05T03:10:00.009+10:00

Greetings all! I am officially still alive, and haven't been swallowed up into the pit of travel oblivion. Right now I am in the abode of the lovely Rebecca, resting after a spot of baking. Oh, and it's the 4th of July, which is a complete novelty to someone not from America, so I'm looking forward to seeing what the day holds. But first, a (brief!) outline of what I've been up to.

Alas, my experiences in New York City were not what they could have been. I believe I mentioned in the last post that I was experiencing blisters? Well, they only got worse, until it finally got to the point where one got kind of infected, and I actually couldn't walk more than a block or so. If that wasn't fun enough, I also managed to come down with a very lovely case of strep throat (which eventually meant a trip to the doctor, something I had very much been hoping to avoid, as I am a spoiled - and obviously not insured in this country - Aussie who is used to free health care). Still, what are you going to do? Not much, really. I did my best to enjoy what I could of NYC. On the day I couldn't walk, I took the subway down to the Staten Island ferry and rode that around for a little bit. On my last day I went out to see the Chelsea Market and the Highline Park (pictured above), as these were two things I'd had my heart set on, and they were a short train ride from my hostel. Alas, I didn't get to do museums, or even see as much of Central Park as I wanted to, but these things happen I suppose. Guess I'll just have to come back!

After NYC, I made my (feverish) way to Washington DC, where Rebecca finally carted me off to the doctor and supplied with antibiotics (and man, was I grateful). The next few days were spent convalescing and staggering my way feebly around the Smithsonian museums and the Botantical Garden, but by the weekend I was well enough to take in some of the sights properly. We were there during the Smithsonian International Folklife Festival, which was fun, and we got to see some traditional dancing, cooking, and even spinning (which was exciting to two fibre nerds like us). We also checked out the American History Museum and the Holocaust Museum. The thing is however that I don't tend to take many pictures in museums - I've never really seen the point. You can find a much better picture of a triceratops skeleton by Googling it, after all. So above is a picture of the DC subway system, which I thought was super cool and vaguely reminiscent of the sets of 1970s/80s British science fiction shows.

Oh, and we went kayaking on the Potomac, which was as awesome as you'd expect.

After DC it was off to North Carolina and then to the Smoky Mountains National Park, which was just as awesome as I'd hoped. We camped and hiked our arses off - we did over 20 miles in the three days we were there, which is none too shabby considering I'd been feverish and virtually unable to walk only a little over a week earlier.

I took a whole pile of photos, but all you really need to know is that the mountains are completely gorgeous. Go see if you don't believe me. We even hiked a small part of the Appalachian Trail, which was completely awesome. And, as you can see, I did not get eaten by bears. I didn't even see one, and I'm still not sure if I'm relieved or disappointed about this.

Anyway, so now we're back in North Carolina. We went to the baseball last night. Baseball! Can officially say it's more interesting than cricket! And then tomorrow it's off to New Orleans for a few days, and then to Texas for the last leg of the trip. Can't wait!

Oh, yeah, and I've knitted stuff too. I promise! I'm still going on my shawl, but I've finished two other pieces - I'm just too lazy to take their picture, or rather, I've been saving my camera battery for things like the Smoky Mountains!

And apologies to all of you whose blogs I haven't commented on in a while - there's just too many other things to do here, but I'll catch up when I get home, I promise!

Holiday: Part One

2010-06-21T05:28:00.008+10:00

Well, the wireless gods are kind, so I get to update my blog! Greetings from NYC, faithful readers!

Disclaimer: This is probably not how New York City looks all of the time. This was the Coney Island Mermaid Parade...

The trip has awesome so far! It was a very long 24 hours getting to the States, but get there I did. Boston was lovely - a really nice place. It was a good way to start off the trip, I think, as the temperature wasn't too crazy-warm, and it's a similar size to Melbourne. So I got to adjust at a nice rate. I saw lots of things in the time that I was there - probably too many, as I seem to have crippled my feet something awful, which is not enhancing my NYC experience so far. Still, it's hard to feel too regretful about it.

Boston Common is so pretty. I also did the Freedom Trail walk, climbed the Bunker Hill monument, had a quick stint on the USS Constitution, wandered around the Fens, went to the Museum of Fine Art, sauntered around North End, ate chowder and sweets from Modern Pastry (as instructed!), squizzed at Harvard, and went to the Natural History Museum. I also met up with some lovely knitter type people and got taken to a gorgeous little local yarn shop. Not bad for only three days, right? The weather was gorgeous the entire time I was there too - sunny, with a nice breeze. And I loved the Boston subway system - so much clearer and better than Melbourne's trains (not that that is particularly difficult most of the time *grumble*)

On Friday it was time to head south. I was sad to leave, but the upside was that thanks to the assistance of a few generous knitting friends, I was escorted to WEBS on the way down. WEBS! I was a little overwhelmed at first, given it's probably at least five times the size of any yarn shop we have in Australia... but I got over it fairly quickly and got stuck in. It was great - and Northampton was a really lovely town as well.

After getting a generous ride down to New Haven, I plonked myself on the commuter train to NYC. I was really tired by the time I got there, so it was a little overwhelming at first, but once I'd found my hostel, dumped my bags and foraged for some food, I felt a lot better.

I had a very pleasant sleep in on my first day and then travelled down to Brooklyn to attend the aforementioned Mermaid Parade, though not before being fed bagels (real New York bagels - squee!) and mimosa by a friend. The parade itself was good fun - lots of outlandish costumes and floats, with a lot of commentary on the BP oil spill (somewhat unsurprisingly, I suppose).

I think this is my favourite picture, even though it isn't of a mermaid:

Today was a bit more low key, as my feet were sore and it was rather hot. But I got to walk around the Midtown area a bit (including around The Strand Bookstore, which was as awesome as you'd expect), and in the late afternoon I checked out part of Central Park, which was absolutely lovely.

Two more days in New York, and then it's down to DC! Whew!

Knitting has been slow, because I've been doing so much walking, but I am doing some (and not just hoarding yarn from WEBS). I cast on for an Annis shawl, and then promptly made a mess of the fifth row and had to begin again. But the second version is coming along. I also cast on for a second Wisp, as I wanted to have a mindless project that I could work on while chatting.

And that's about all I've got for the moment. I'm having a great time - if only my feet would heal up, it would be hard for this trip to have been any better so far!

A Shrug and an Adventure

2010-06-13T16:35:00.005+10:00

Whew! Essays are now officially finished! It nearly annihilated my brain - just the sheer stress of having them all due on consecutive days - but they're done now, so can turn my attention to more enjoyable things! Like long neglected shrugs!

You are looking at: The Kypria Shrug Without a Name, designed by yours truly. It's knitted from Sanguine Gryphon Kypria in 'The Deep Bosomed Earth' and Sundara Sock in 'Brambleberry' on 4.5mm needles.

Anna says: I am mostly happy with how this one came out. The yarns are really lovely, and I'm pretty keen on the way that the colours work together.

For all those playing along at home, this is just a basic top-down raglan, except without the front part. I wanted to make something really light, loose and drapey that I could just throw over my shoulders when it was slightly too cool for just a singlet. Kypria has a lovely drape at this gauge, so that part definitely worked out well. Honestly, it's a little bit too large for me, but thankfully this is the kind of garment where that doesn't matter a whole lot. It slips off of my shoulders occasionally, but that's okay.

One other thing: I'm not sure it was the best idea to try and do a picot cast off on the sleeves. The loose gauge makes it look kind of weird. Still, you live and learn, don't you? I like that I still make mistakes to learn from.

The other, more obvious thing that I'm turning my mind to now that essays are done is travelling! I'm off tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow. Bright and early. It's going to be a hatefully long day: I get on the plane in Melbourne at 11am, and then it's a 15 hour flight to get to LA, at which point it's morning again. And then I hop on another plane to Boston and get there late in the evening. Urgh. But I'm still completely psyched! I have so many awesome plans, and hopefully plenty of awesome spur-of-the-moment things to look forward to as well. I just wish I had time to do more, and see more people while I'm there.

On the note of travelling, there might be blog silence for a while. I'm going to try and update while I'm away, but that will obviously depend on the internet gods smiling on me at the right time, and I am a big believer in Murphy's Law. But I'll try. Until then, take care all, and wish me a happy trip!

Open Minded Knitting

2010-06-05T15:10:00.004+10:00

Yes, I'm still alive. Essays haven't destroyed me yet. And unsurprisingly, the forces of procrastination have seen me get a surprising amount of knitting done. I even tackled a mini scarf - a species of knitwear that I've always been profoundly skeptical about. I always thought cowls and neckwarmers and scarflettes to be something that I'd never really wear, for all that they looked seductively quick and easy to make when compared with normal length scarves. But then I saw the Bainbridge Scarf and it was just too cute to resist. I made it, and found that it definitely pays to be open-minded about what patterns you think you are "into", because I am very happy with the result.

Pattern: Bainbridge Scarf, by MintyFresh, made from Louisa Harding Grace (50/50 wool and silk blend), on 3.75mm needles.

The extended rambling: This is a really cute pattern! I modified (as some other Ravellers have done) it to have i-cord ties with leaves on the end, but the original pattern is just as lovely, and a little less precious looking. It was a fast knit too - I think I took about a week and a half to finish it, but you could do it in two days if you were pressed for time (and this would make a dreadfully cute gift). I have every intention of making more of these. I'm thinking perhaps with a couple of different variations on the ties, perhaps in red or gray... *muses*

I loved the yarn as well. I bought it last year, was gobsmacked by its gorgeousness, and then foolishly tried to turn it into a beret, a beret that ended up looking far too much like a showercap for me to be happy with it. So I frogged the misbegotten hat, and the poor yarn languished in a drawer until I picked it up for this. It's lovely though - the softness and sheen are amazing, and I would love to work with it again.

This pleasant little diversion having concluded, I am now back to working on that raglan shrug I've had going for the last while. It's nearing completion though - with a bit of luck, I might even knock it on the head this evening. I'm quite happy with how it's coming along, although if I make it again, I'll definitely make some alterations (note to self: picot bind offs and loose gauge are not good bedfellows).

When I'm not knitting, I'm fish gazing (I have guppies now, and they are cute as hell), essay writing, or travel planning. Particularly the latter: I'm off in a little over a week! This is terrifying and exciting all at the same time. I'm looking forward to it, obviously, but I've also never travelled overseas on my own before, so I'm a little nervous. Still, I am firmly of the opinion that it's does you good to push out of your comfort zone from time to time. Plus, my younger brother visited New York on his own last year, and if he can do it and not manage to drown or get eaten by squirrels, then surely I can too!

My rough itinerary is as follows: I'm spending some time in Boston, and then heading south to New York for a few days. Then it's down to Washington DC, where I'm meeting up with Rebecca (as made famous by last year's trip to Tasmania). Then we're heading back to her neck of the woods for some national park adventures (ignorant Australian that I am, I'm firmly convinced that I will be eaten by bears). I'll get to be in the US for the 4th of July - this will definitely be an experience, as nobody here really gets too excited about Australia Day (our closest equivalent).

After we're done letting off fireworks, drinking beer, or whatever else it is that you do on July 4th (hey, I'm sure I'll be educated), we're heading down to New Orleans for a bit (to hell with oil spills!), and then on to Texas. Then a very tired Anna will clamber back aboard a plane and head back to Melbourne, having effectively dodged nearly a month of vile winter weather. Win!

Hopefully I'll squeeze in at least another blog post before I leave though. After all, I have essays to write, so procrastination will definitely occur - I just have to channel it into blog form!

Tea Leaves: Not Just for Teapots!

2010-05-29T16:01:00.006+10:00

Happy weekend everyone! I'm pretty tired - I spent last night baking 60 blue and yellow iced cupcakes for a fundraiser at work. However, bearing in mind the promise that I made last post regarding more knitting and less food, I did not take pictures. Perhaps I'll take a few shots of the second batch. And following up on the other half of that promise, I give you the (finally completed) Tea Leaves Cardigan!

What, this old thing? This is: The Tea Leaves Cardigan, by Melissa LaBarre, in Dream in Color Classy (November Muse), knitted on 4.5mm needles.

Anna says: Wow, this felt like it took forever, especially since I normally burn through patterns with this much stocking stitch! But I'm rather happy with how it came out. I had a few reservations about the pattern and yarn choice: I don't wear a lot of brown, I'm not convinced about these buttoned-at-the-top, loose-at-the-bottom cardigans that are so in at the moment, and so on. But all that aside, I quite like the finished product, and I've already worn it out and about!

The pattern was very well put together. I made a few modifications, but not many: I shortened the body a little bit (hip length things don't tend to be particularly flattering on me), and made the garter stitch band at the bottom a little narrower. I had heard people saying that the upper arms were a little snug, so I picked up two extra stitches at the arm hole, and did not do any decreases while working the sleeves. I made them 3/4 length, and once again, I made the garter stitch bands a little narrower.

The yarn is just lovely - but we we all know I have a bit of a thing for Dream in Color (jeez, I'm never sure whether to write 'colour' with the 'u' as we normally would down here, or without because it's a brand name... *gripe*). There wasn't that much variation between the skeins, thankfully. One was a little darker, so when I was working the sleeves I alternated it with one of the lighter balls, and there's no pooling to speak of in the end product. For some reason, one of the other skeins decided to break a lot, which was a little disappointing (and made for a lot of ends to weave in), but I've never had this problem with DiC before, so hopefully it was a one off.

See that? That's the yoke that felt like it took forever! Worth it though - I really like how the gathered pattern looks in the semi solid yarn. I even managed to work a semi decent button band - I'm gradually conquering my phobia of picking up stitches!

Okay, now that I've discharged my knitting-update duties, I can talk about other things! This morning I staggered out of cupcake servitude and made my way to the Handknitters' Guild Wool Show in Brunswick. I saw lots of lovely Ravelry people, and had a good chat with many of them. I went home earlier than I was expecting to in the end, as I wasn't feeling very well, but not before picking up a few lovely, lovely bits and pieces from lovely local spinners/dyers like Ixchel (angora! Whee!), Ms Gusset, and a couple of others.

It was a crafty week in general actually. On Tuesday it was a good friend's birthday, so she came around and we tried our hand at making candles! We started small - just little beeswax tea lights - and they came out beautifully. They have a lovely subtle honey smell when you burn them. I've also been sewing lots of rice packs (as in the kind that you heat and then apply to aches and pains). They're quick and easy, but rather satisfying. I made one for a friend with lavender in it, and another for myself with chamomile flowers.

So, the above depicts my week in craft! Rice pack and candles in the middle, some lovely acquisitions from today at the sides. Okay, fine, there were a couple more acquisitions at the wool show, but they're a secret for the next few weeks *is mysterious*.

And now I'd probably better try and be a good student and get some of my essay done before I renew my assault on Mt Cupcake. Wish me luck!

Food and Hats: Both Good Things!

2010-05-24T11:13:00.006+10:00

Life is going on, and alas, I am no less busy. But it's a good kind of busy - the kind where you feel like you're getting somewhere, where none of the tasks are loathsome, and where at least you have time to stop and pause once in a while, even if it's not for very long (just long enough to read a few chapters or eat some cake or knit a few rows).

Anyway, to business! First off, here's the hat I knitted for my brother:

Specifics: Pattern is Turn a Square, by Jared Flood. Yarn used was Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 12ply in 'Redcurrant' and Cleckheaton Merino Supreme (black). I used 5.5mm double pointed needles.

Comments? This is a great pattern. Followed unaltered it makes a rather nifty, very wearable hat, and it also provides a useful template to work from when you want to do something a little bit different. This is the second time I've made it, and both times I actually ended up using a different weight of yarn, but it's a great starting point, and very easy to adapt. This time around I decided to do some colourwork instead of stripes (my brother already has a stripey hat), so I just made up a very, very basic red/black chequered pattern (didn't bother drawing up a chart or anything - it's not like you really need to with something this basic!).

I managed to make the entire thing in a day without having to stress about it too much - the heavier yarn makes it a very fast knit, and the colour stranding doesn't slow you down too much since you don't have to be forever consulting a chart. Brother seemed quite happy with it, so I'm calling it a successful project!

My other knitting is coming along well. I have high hopes of finally finishing the Tea Leaves cardigan today, so stay tuned for that one in the next few days. I also started a cute little mini-neckwarmer in the lovely Louisa Harding yarn that I found squirreled away in a bedside table drawer.

Still, the last few days have really belonged to essays, work, and kitchen!

On Saturday night I made baked felafel, and then proceeded to eat nearly the entire batch, dipping them in Greek yoghurt and hummus as I shovelled them down. Even though the ingredients are pretty humble, they are really, really good, and I foresee many more batches in my future! Possibly starting tonight... And for all those omnivores out there who never know what to cook when they have to entertain vegetarian/vegan friends, I strong suggest these - they're very easy.

I also made the cupcakes to end all cupcakes. It was a coworker's last shift on Sunday, and she had requested something chocolatey. So, I complied... and then some.

The base was Nigella Lawson's chocolate cupcake recipe from How to Be a Domestic Goddess (amazing book - I have made so many wonderful things from her recipes). Some are iced with basic chocolate butter-cream and topped with a Malteaser, and the others have a cookies and cream icing (made by folding roughly chopped Oreos into vanilla butter-cream) and are decorated with an Oreo quarter. They were actually very easy to make, despite the fact that they look pleasingly fancy. I got out my piping bag. I love my piping bag.

More knitting and less food next post, I promise!

Birthday! May Also Contain Traces of Zoo.

2010-05-19T14:48:00.007+10:00

So, it was my birthday two days ago! Alas, I had a lot of study to do on Monday, and several hours of classes to not only attend, but also lead discussion in, so there was not a lot of birthday-ing on my actual birthday. However, last Saturday we celebrated with (another) trip to Melbourne Zoo. Yes, I know that there was a zoo trip only a few months ago. But the zoo is fun! We all brought cakes and biscuits and savouries and picnicked on the grass near the seal enclosure. This was the first time in over 10 years that I'd dared to plan an outdoors event for my birthday - Melbourne has enjoyed torrential rain on May 17th for the last two years running, so I was a little wary. But I am happy to report that the sun shone on both my plans and all of the intrepid (cake-bearing) adventurers who came along for the fun.

I had never seen the bottom of a bear's foot before. It looks entertainingly like a slipper (these slippers in particular). And just to make sure our good old Aussie wildlife is represented:

After the zoo, there was a knitting at the pub, and I ate a cupcake with a criminal amount of icing (I got some assistance from The Boy, and even so I was barely able to finish!). On Sunday, my family presented me with some new cupcake and muffin tins, a new teapot, and a couple of nice leather notebooks (I plan on lugging at least one of them along with me on my travels). And yesterday The Boy and two good friends organised a surprise dinner at Kamel, which was lovely. We ate the vegetarian banquet, and walked out very full afterward. Oh, and they gave me the Wuthering Heights mug that I have been coveting for months now.

In knitting news, I made an impromptu hat for my brother's birthday. Amusingly enough, it's from the same pattern as his Christmas hat, but instead of stripes I made up a chequered pattern in red and black. I think he liked it. Pictures next post, if I can coerce him into modelling for them.

I've also been knitting away on my Tea Leaves cardigan, but it's been a little while in finishing because I just can't make up my mind about the sleeves. More specifically, I can't decide whether to make them 3/4 length or full length. I am pretty sure I have enough yarn for full length, but not 100% positive. So then I started considering 3/4, and now I just can't decide. I've reached the stage on one where if I wanted to go 3/4 I would have to start the garter edging, so I'm thinking that I'll just slip the stitches onto waste yarn for the moment, knit the other sleeve, and then see how I'm going for yarn when they're at matching lengths. I've already knitted the button bands, so I don't have to factor those in. Urgh, I hate indecision - it's the single biggest enemy of creativity, in my experience. Even more so than procrastination.

On other fronts, I've just been busy busy busy. I'm trying to get final assignments going, trying to organise my internship for next semester, and just dealing with all of those other random things that crop up (like, oh, I don't know - planning an overseas holiday that starts in LESS THAN A MONTH!). Still, busy is good. Makes you remember that you're alive! Or something.

Episode Eighty-Four: In Which Anna Emerges from her Book Pile

2010-05-10T23:23:00.006+10:00

Whew! (Comparatively) Long time, no post! The strange thing is, I'm not really sure what's been holding it up. I would like to pin it on assignments, but I haven't really been grappling with any more of those than usual. I'm not working a larger number of shifts than usual. My social calendar has not been filled to bursting point with glamorous social events, leaving me too time-short to post. Nope, this is the scary kind of 'life going fast' - the kind where you don't even know where all of the time has gotten to!

All of that said, life is going well enough. I got the results from my first round of assignments, and for the most part they were all very pleasant surprises. I have been busily planning my holiday - a good thing too, seeing as I'm off in a little over a month. I acquired a brand new fish tank. I will be retiring my old, too-small one (because I really don't need three tanks to maintain) and hopefully making a valiant attempt to turn it into a terrarium (for some reason the urge to make one has been circling in my head like for the last few months). My fish seem very happy in their new home, and this pleases me to an extent that is probably quite silly. And finally, people on Ravelry have been making my pattern, and this fills me with excitement.

As for the knitting, I have been working feverishly away on my Tea Leaves cardigan, and it's not too far off of being finished. The body, including the Yoke That Just Wouldn't End, is all done, and I am about halfway through the first sleeve and progressing at a good speed.

Despite at least one friend concluding that the yarn is 'poo-coloured', I've decided that I quite like the colour. I can't say that there's a lot of brown in my wardrobe, and I wouldn't have the first clue as to what kinds of colours go well with brown, but I look forward to finding out! Besides, jeans go with everything, right? Even poo-brown.

Besides, Dream in Colour yarn is gorgeous. Just plain gorgeous.

Now, because I'm sure you're all sick of looking at the poo brown (see, now I'm saying it), I have been working on other things too. The sock yarn shrug that I was playing around with a month ago is coming along, though it's been on hold the last week or so, just because magic-looping the sleeve was grating a little. I've finished one sleeve though, so now there's just the other and a bit more of the back to go. I edged the sleeve with a picot bind-off in a contrasting colour and I quite like the way it looks, though I'm not sure how well the bind-off worked with the loose gauge. Oh well, you live and learn.

In other news, I finally caught up with The Boy and was able to apply my lovingly knitted scarf to his Melbourne-autumn chilled neck. See!

(note: he does not actually have a Man-Bob. It just looks that way because the rest of his hair is covered by the scarf, I swear. And yes, my desk is apparently covered in fish food and limes. Want to make something of it?)

And that's about all I have for the moment. Stay tuned for the conclusion of the Tea Leaf cardigan saga (okay, perhaps saga is a strong word), and also for cupcakes. I've been conscripted by my work to bake a huge batch for a cancer fundraiser in a couple of weeks, and I'll be sure to take pictures...

Survival, a scarf, and yet more garlic.

2010-04-26T19:18:00.007+10:00

Good evening internet! I am pleased to announce that I have officially survived my Week-of-Assignment-Hell. I even have my sanity intact (more or less).

Okay, perhaps I'm blowing it all ever-so-slightly out of proportion, but it has been a long and gruelling couple of weeks. Once I had handed the last essay in, I was so wrecked that it was all I could do just to stagger onto the tram and let it carry me a few blocks to my comfort food joint of choice. Half an hour, a dozen steamed veggie dumplings, and a thermos of tea later, I felt more or less ready to face the world again. That was late last week, and while I've had work and uni since, I spent the last two days making the most of my long weekend, and sleeping as much as possible. Which is not actually all that much, as I tend to wake early and get hungry, but hey, I'm trying!

I've not been idle either, despite all of the aforementioned sleep. I finished the Boy Thing's scarf, and it is just as cosy warm as I'd hoped it would be. Just in time too, as cold weather has hit Melbourne in a big way the last day or so - on my walk last night I experienced the first 'visible breath' of the year. Yes, I know that to all those readers who regularly have snow, this is a little pathetic, but in my neck of the woods, below 10 degrees Celsius is cold, all right!

Mmmm... so warm. I only tried it on for a moment, I swear!

I also got a lot done on my current major project - I'm making a Tea Leaves cardigan from some Dream in Colour 'Classy' that I've had kicking around, sad and purposeless, for quite a while now.

I've just finished the textured part of the yoke, so now it's straight sailing in stockinette until I divide for the sleeves. While I am definitely no stranger to top-down construction, this is the first time in ages that I haven't used the raglan style, so the round yoke is providing quite a novel experience. It feels like it's taking f-o-r-e-v-e-r, but they always seem to. And I'm really pleased with how the semi solid yarn is working here. The variegation is quite subtle, and looks quite lovely.

In other news, I have been doing what I always do when I have some free time - cooking! I spent the worst of the Week of Doom living mainly off of tinned soup and breakfast cereal, so the first thing I did once finished (okay, the first thing after dumplings and sleep) was make up a huge vat of vegetable and barley soup. Of course, the wonderful thing about doing this is that you have meals for days afterwards without having to do anything more taxing than turning the microwave on for a minute or two. And, if you feel so inclined, this gives you more time to get creative with your accompaniments. I've done garlic bread before, obviously, and toasted Turkish bread is something I am rarely without, but this was something else entirely:

Isn't it glorious? Cheesy garlic Turkish bread. I grilled some chopped garlic and olive oil on a square of foil until the garlic was cooked, then spread it on the bumpy side of the bread. I then sprinkled some mozzarella cheese over it and microwaved it just a tiny bit to soften the cheese. And then the whole thing got a good grilling - just long enough to melt the cheese. I always used to just spread raw garlic on the bread, but this usually entails toasting the bread to within an inch of its life in order to cook the garlic through. This was the garlic is properly cooked, but the bread is still ultra soft.

I will be making this A Lot over the coming autumn and winter... I know, I know, I have a bit of a tragic addiction to garlic, but how many foods are there that manage to be this delicious, healthy and inexpensive all at the same time? Ours is a love affair that will continue for a long time to come!

Busy, busy, busy...

2010-04-21T12:55:00.004+10:00

Alas, aside from this brief post, the blog silence will be continuing on for a little while yet. I am having one-of-those-weeks as far as university goes: three assignments due over the course of four days. I am a very busy girl.

But it's okay, because I have stress-free knitting, in the form of the previously mentioned tasty-warm Malabrigo scarf for The Boy:

I'm also back home, and have my beloved fish to stare at. And a capsicum - I try and make sure that I have some sort of vegie plant growing at times of academic stress, because they're fun to take five minutes to go look at when things are getting hectic. Hah, I'm turning into such a hippie...

Hopefully I'll post sometime late this week, possibly with a completed scarf and news of other projects. In the mean time, enjoy my paltry attempts at home-grown foodstuffs!

Northing ventured, nothing gained...

2010-04-13T16:28:00.005+10:00

...especially when it comes to hats, apparently!

Pattern: Druidess Beret, by Anna Bright. Knitted out of half a ball of Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 8ply (Midnight Tweed), on 4.5mm circular/dpns.

Colour commentary: Hurrah, I knitted a beret that doesn't look look stupid on me! As previously mentioned, I had reservations about starting this one. It was obviously a gorgeous pattern, but I don't have a history of looking good in berets. Really, this looks to me more like a tam than a beret, and perhaps this is why it doesn't suffer from beret-on-Anna's-head syndrome. Either way, I'm happy with it! And I finished it just in time for the cold snap that has suddenly hit Melbourne.

This is a really well written pattern, and given how beautiful the end result is, I'm amazed that more people on Ravelry haven't made it. That said, it was rather time consuming for a hat, though it would probably go more quickly if the cabling was worked without a cable needle (I have, ahem, not mastered that technique yet - or rather I am yet to find a way that I am comfortable with). At first I wasn't entirely convinced that the finished product was worth the time that it took me, but I think I'm convinced now.

The only changes I made was to omit the bobble from the top of the centre (for no real reason other than laziness, to be honest), and to work the bobbles in the pattern a little differently than prescribed - the method I used made them bigger, and a little more defined.

I also loved the yarn - BWM yarn is awesome, and every time I use it I can't help but feel that I should use it more often. It's so great for the price (and yes, observant readers, you are correct - this is the same yarn I used for my sleevesless pullover last post).

In other news, thanks to everyone who said nice things about the pattern in the last post - I've been thrilled with all of the positive feedback! In other project news, my Kypria raglan shrug is coming along well, if a little idiosyncratically. And now that this hat is off the needles, I can finally start putting some more work into The Boy's (now much needed - see previous comment about the cold snap) scarf. He gets a scarf. I have something new to knit on the train. Everyone wins.

And now I need to go and feed the cats. Five more days of house-sitting to go - I'm not sure if I'll miss them or just be relieved that they're no longer wrecking havoc on my possessions. These guys are constantly treading the line between cute and infuritating, and sometimes I really can't tell what side they're walking on.

(looks cute, but is pure mischief and evil, I swear. Then again, he is a cat....)

Pattern: Practical Procrastination Pullover

2010-04-08T20:06:00.007+10:00

Well, it took a while, but here it is: the pattern for the short sleeved pullover I designed last year and reknit this January, newly christened the Practical Procrastination Pullover. The alliteration is a little painful, I know, but I just couldn't resist. Besides, it's quite true actually. I designed and knit this in a fit of procrastination come exam period (I actually did the majority of the knitting while listening to endless recordings of Restitutions Law lectures).

But despite these mildly deplorable origins, it's actually a very practical thing to knit. It's good to throw on over a tank top for a little bit of extra warmth when it's not quite warm enough to go without - I've been wearing it quite a lot like this in the current autumn weather, throwing a scarf into the mix on colder mornings. Come winter, I imagine it'll be great for layering. And if one wants to extend the 'practical' theme to finding a use for some of those past impulsive yarn purchases, this pattern lends itself very well. It uses about 420 yards of DK weight yarn, so if you've got anything squirrelled away in an amount that isn't quite enough for a full size pullover, this hits the spot quite nicely. Or if you're feeling all frugal and virtuous, you can do what I did for the purple version - using only one 200g ball of yarn, it cost me a whole $11 to make!

I ummed and ahhed a little about how and when to post this one, if at all. Originally I'd toyed with the idea of braving some maths and then writing up instructions for other sizes, but then I realised that given how hectic my life is, it might take a while for me to get around to doing this. I'll update it when I do, but in the mean time, here's the original version - it probably wouldn't take too much work to up/downsize it. Raglans are pretty flexible that way, which is why we love them.

Also, a brief disclaimer: the following pattern has, as of right now, been test knit only by yours truly (though people are working on this!), and even though I am yet to find any, there may very well be mistakes lurking in the depths. If you find any, please do let me know!

Practical Procrastination Pullover:

This is a raglan style short sleeved pullover, constructed from the bottom hem upwards. Stitches are cast on for the body and worked in the round until being divided for the neckline opening, after which point it is worked back and forth flat. Sleeves are created by provisionally casting on stitches, which are later picked up and worked from the shoulder down once the body knitting has been completed.

Size: Fits a 36 inch bust with a small amount of ease.

Yarn: Variegated version used Sanguine Gryphon Free Range in 'Green Junglefowl' (2 skeins). I worked from both skeins at once, switching every two rows to avoid pooling, but you don't need to do that if you're not as neurotic as I am! Purple version used Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 8ply in 'Midnight Tweed' (1 ball). This is equivalent to approximately 420 yards of DK knit weight yarn.

Needles: 5.5mm circular needle for body, and 5.5mm double pointed needles as well if you're not keen on using the magic loop technique for the sleeves. Optional: 7mm needles for sleeves if working the flared sleeve variation seen in the variegated version.

Gauge: 15 sts / 24 rows = 4 inches on 5.5mm needles. Note: using this size needle with a dk yarn creates quite a light fabric, so upsize the yarn if you want something more substantial.

Abbreviations:
K: knit
P: purl
PM: place stitch marker
SM: slip stitch marker
K2tog: Knit next two stitches together (1 stitch decreased - right slanting decrease)
SSK: Slip next two stitches, one at a time, then knit together through the front (1 stitch decreased - left slanting decrease)
RS: right side
WS: wrong side
M1: Increase one stitch

Body:
Cast on 132 stitches. PM to mark beginning and join to begin working in the round.
In first round, PM after 66 stitches to mark halfway point of round (used for waist shaping).
Work next 6 rows in garter stitch in the round (i.e. alternating knit and purl rounds).
Change to stocking stitch (knit all rounds), and work 4 more rounds.

Waist Decreases:
Decrease round: K1, ssk, knit to 3 stitches before side marker, k2tog, K1, SM, K1, ssk, knit to 3 stitches before end of round, k2tog, K1. (total of 4 stitches decreased)

Work 5 rows even.

Repeat last 6 rows 3 more times (4 decrease rows worked, total of 16 stitches decreased, 116 stitches remaining).

Work even until piece measures 8 inches from cast on edge, or length desired before neck opening (note that I am Tall and probably have a longer torso than most, so this length may vary on someone else!)

Neckline set-up:
K 25, PM, P 8, PM, knit to end of round (these 8 purled stitches will form the garter stitch border for the neckline, so if you desire a wider/narrower border, alter your garter stitch count accordingly here. The important thing to remember is that these stitches are centred on the front half of the pullover).

Knit 1 round even.
Knit to first neckline marker, SM, P 8, SM, knit to end of round.
Knit to first neckline marker, K 4, turn work and (now knitting on the WS, working flat) knit to end, maintaining garter borders (i.e. knitting purl stitches and purling knit stitches).

Begin neckline decreases:
RS: Starting at right side of neckline, knit garter stitch border to marker, SM, ssk, knit around to 2 stitches before the other neckline marker, k2tog, SM, knit garter stitch to end (2 stitches decreased).
WS: Maintaining garter stitch borders, work even.

Repeat last 2 rows until 23 stitches remain on each front side (i.e. in between the neckline and the side marker, including the garter stitch border).

Note: maintain garter borders throughout rest of the body.

Waist Increases:
Continue working neckline decreases as described above, and at the same time:

RS: Work to 1 stitch before side marker, M1, K1, SM, K1, M1, work to 1 stitch before next marker, M1, K1, SM, K1, M1, then work to end, maintaining neck decreases and garter borders (4 stitches increased).
Work 5 rows even.

Repeat last 6 rows 1 more time (total of 8 stitches increased). Stitch total should now be as follows: 4 stitches (neckline), 15 stitches (front), 62 stitches (back), 15 stitches (front), 4 stitches (neckline). 100 stitches total.

Sleeves:
Knit to 3 stitches before side marker. Slip next 6 stitches onto two separate pieces of waste yarn - 3 stitches per piece (removing first side marker), PM, provisionally cast on 42 stitches for the first sleeve, PM, work to 3 stitches before second side marker, slip next 6 stitches on waste yarn as previously described, PM, provisionally cast on 42 stitches for second sleeve, PM, work to end.

Note: neckline decreases cease from this point onwards.

Purl next round.

Raglan decreases:
Row 1 (RS): Knit to first sleeve marker, SM, k2tog, work to 2 stitches before next marker, ssk, SM, k2tog, work to 2 stitches before next marker, ssk, SM, k2tog, work to 2 stitches before last sleeve marker, ssk, SM, work to end. (6 stitches decreased)
Row 2 (WS): Purl
Row 3: Work as for Row 1
Row 4: Purl
Row 5: Knit to 2 stitches before first sleeve marker, ssk, SM, k2tog, work to 2 stitches before next marker, ssk, SM, k2tog, work to 2 stitches before next marker, ssk, SM, k2tog, work to 2 stitches before last sleeve marker, ssk, SM, k2tog, work to end. (8 stitches decreased).
Row 6: Purl.

Repeat the last 6 rows 2 more times.

Work as for Row 5 on all RS rows, purling WS rows, for 18 rows more. Stop decreasing when 48 stitches remain (you should have 5 stitches remaining on each front - including garter border, 8 stitches on each sleeve, and 22 stitches on the back).
Work 4 rows garter stitch.
Bind of all stitches

(Optional: On the purple version, I decreased 1 stitch on each neckline edge in the last 2 rows before the bind-off, just to make the corners a little less pointy).

Sleeves:
Starting middle of armpit, knit 3 held stitches onto needle (circular or dpn, depending on how you choose to work the sleeves). Pick up 1 stitch between these stitches and the sleeve stitches, then carefully undo the provisional cast on and knit these stitches. Pick up 1 stitch in gap between sleeve and held stitches. Knit remaining 3 held stitches.
Place marker to mark start, then work in the round for 3 rounds.

Work 4 rows garter stitch in the round (optional: if you want a slightly flared sleeve, switch to 7mm needles at this point).

Loosely bind off all stitches.

Weave in ends, block, and you're done!

If anything in this doesn't make sense, or you have questions, drop me an email!

Pattern and photos © 2010. Permission is given for personal use only. Please don't copy this pattern or sell items made from it without talking to me about it first.

A Peaceful Interlude

2010-04-04T12:42:00.005+10:00

Well, as you all might have guessed from the lack of new blog posts, the last week and a bit has been absolutely insane in my neck of the woods. I worked quite a lot, had the first major assignment due in my editing subject, and last but not least, one of my dearest friends got married. I am proud to say that during the ceremony, I got through my reading with only a few small, virtually imperceptible mistakes, and that's really no mean feat, considering the fact that I was reading from Dr Zeuss! Erm, bride's choice, not mine!

Anyway, the wedding went off wonderfully, the bride and groom had a lovely time, and now that they've departed on their honeymoon, I am house-sitting for them and tending to their two lovely cats.

The above kitty is Loki, and there's also a sweet ginger and white boy called Puck roaming around, trying to eat my yarn whenever I attempt knitting. Thankfully I worked yesterday and used the mighty power of my staff discount to purchase a dangly toy to distract them.

With cats distracted, I've been free to keep working on this hat! It's a Druidess Beret, and I'm a bit over halfway through it. I was a little hesitant to start work on a beret, because they tend to look absolutely terrible on me, but then I decided to throw caution to the wind. If it looks awful, I'll just give it away, but I'm hoping it won't come to that - this pattern looks like it can be worn as a beanie too if you just pull it down a little, and I have a better track record wearing beanies. At first I didn't think that the yarn had enough stitch definition to really make the cables pop properly, but it's looking a bit more promising as it grows. The problem was particularly pronounced in the bobbles, so I ditched the method specified in the pattern and adapted a tried and true technique instead, and they're looking much better now.

I also did a bit of yarn dyeing over the last week (I fitted it in somehow, though it did involve frantically rinsing the yellow hank out when I should have been prettying myself up for the wedding ceremony... oh well). As usual, I just used supermarket gathered food dyes, and my lazy take on these instructions for cold-pour technique dyeing. The blue had a few irksome white patches after its first encounter with the dye, so I tossed it back into my trusty dyeing saucepan and heated it in a weak dye solution for a while.

I'm really, really happy with how they came out. Every time I dye my own semi-solid yarn, I always wonder why I don't do it more often. And why everyone doesn't do it - it's so easy!

The above yarn is destined for a pair of warm, stripey socks to get me through winter. I deliberately dyed it as brightly as possible, as I think that come June I'll need the extra colour. Until June 14th that is, because that's the day I will be getting on a plane... On that note, I'm off to drink more tea, eat another English muffin, and do some travel plotting!

A Cardigan, Graduation, and Plans...

2010-03-25T13:40:00.007+11:00

Wow, did March go quickly! Guess that happens when you're busy. Study is still munching away steadily at my daylight hours (and the evening hours too), but thankfully work eased off a little bit over the last week. As a result, I finally had time to finish my stash-bust cardigan!

This is: Self designed top-down raglan cardigan, knitted from Cleckheaton Tempo (wool, acrylic and mohair blend) on 7mm bamboo circular needle.

What Anna has to say: Okay, for a start, I promise that the bottoms are not as lop-sided as they look in the picture. They are actually perfectly symmetrical - I just can't take photos, is all. When I get around to buying some, I'll be closing the front with a couple of buttons instead of just pinning it as I did above - this should remedy the problem.

As mentioned above, I designed this one myself. Lately I've been keen on cardigans with really low fronts, so I went in that direction again. I did some waist shaping in an attempt to dodge the almost inevitable unflattering tendencies that come with yarn this huge. The edgings and cuffs are garter stitch. So it didn't end up being too generic, I worked the fronts and back separately from the hips down, working to cute little points on the fronts. I worked the sleeves in the round, using magic loop.

I don't actually have all that much to say about this one. I suppose I'm happy with how it came out, mainly just because I never had any great ambitions for it. It was always intended to be a basic, unfancy, around-the-house piece - in fact it was basically conceived as a way of getting the Tempo out of my stash, because I wasn't too keen on it, and being super-bulky yarn and all, it was taking up a lot of space. Unfortunately I still have quite a bit of the stuff - but this made a good sized hole at least.

Also, now that the cardigan is done, I have officially declared it time for the winter knitting to commence. Just so that I can be prepared when the weather starts to get colder. I really need to make myself some more warm socks - most of my existing handknit socks are getting quite threadbare. I am also in desperate need of a basic black jacket. And I always need scarves. Always. A new hat wouldn't go astray either. Ahhh, plans. I love planning. The best part is that from mid next-week onwards I will be house/cat-sitting for some honeymooning friends, so I'll have plenty of peace and quite in which to curl up with tea, a DVD and some knitting. Okay fine, and homework too...

In other news... I graduated!

There I am, on the steps of the Old Law quad, looking every inch the proper student. Why yes, that is two degrees, thank you for asking! That said, the university managed to screw up my testamur - they left the "with Honours" off of my Arts certificate, which was a bit irritating. And they managed to stumble over my surname during the ceremony (jeez guys, it's only the seventh most common surname in the country). It was still a fun day though, after I escaped the boredom of the ceremony and got to the part where my family and I made silly mischief during refreshments afterwards...

Knitting related goals aren't the only plans in the works either... But more on that later!

A Tale of Two Raglans

2010-03-14T10:10:00.005+11:00

Does having two different raglan tops on the needles at the same time mean that I have some sort of problem?

I like to think otherwise. I love top down raglans - they are the ultimate in brainless comfort knitting, and I've never once had to frog one due to fit issues.

The black project in the above picture is nearing completion now - it's a cardigan in the super-bulky Cleckheaton Tempo that I rashly bought way back when I just started knitting. It's not the nicest yarn in the world, but it takes up a lot of room in my stash (you know, the whole super-bulky thing) and I want to use it up. At least the project is going quickly - if I really sink the effort in today, I might even be able to finish it by this evening.

The green project is a raglan style shrug that I'm making out of my Sanguine Gryphon Kypria yarn. I'm not using a pattern, but I've seen other garments constructed in much the same way. It's basically a top down raglan knitted without any front. I started it because, having finished the shawl I was working on, I need another portable project to take to uni. And I am always, always looking for non-sock uses for my sock yarns (that said, autumn is making itself known, so I really should knit some warm socks as well).

In other news, I've been eating a lot of museli (note also the gratuitous fish-bowl shot). I've started making my own, and I really don't know why it took me so long to get around to it. I've always loved museli, but the varieties that you can buy in the shops tend to be either hideously expensive or full of ingredients I don't particularly like (dried apple - urgh, it's like sour rubber!). And making your own is so ridiculously easy.

I used a mixture of oats, sunflower seeds, chopped pecans, flaked almonds, and sesame seeds for my base (that's more or less in descending order of quantities). Then I made a mixture of honey (warmed a little so it mixes easier), vegetable oil, and a wee bit of vanilla essence and cinnamon, and stirred it through the dry mixture. Then I tossed it all onto some trays and put them in a moderate oven until the mixture was toasted and crunchy. When it was cool I added some chopped dried dates and some sultanas. Gorgeous. I encourage everyone else to try it too. I haven't given quantities here because I didn't even use a recipe for this - I just did my usual trick of reading a bunch of them online to glean the basic rules, and then winging it. Anyway, for me to give a recipe would be against the point of the exercise - it's all about making up your own version, with ingredients that suit you! Go and try it!

And finally, I got tagged by the lovely Cadence to produce seven random facts about myself, so here we go:

Seven weird things about Anna:

I don't drink coffee, and have only tried it about three times in my entire life. I'm not really sold on the taste (though I'll concede that the smell is heavenly), and I am weirdly impervious to caffeine, so I don't drink it for pick-me-up purposes either.
I have been bitten by a member of an endangered species (an orangutan in Malaysia, when I was about 13)
I can't whistle, and have only succeeded in clicking my fingers once in my whole life.
I am hopelessly hooked on sweets, but could probably give up chocolate without too much angst (pop culture would have you believe that I fail at womanhood for this reason).
I was born without wisdom teeth.
I love science fiction/fantasy. I was indoctrinated quite young by my parents - they made me watch a delightful British series from the late 1970s called Blake's 7 (which hardly any Australians these days have even heard of), and I've been hooked ever since.
I am a huge bird nerd, and can identify a great many Australian species from just a quick glance (and even by their calls in some cases).

I always feel weird tagging people - if anyone else wants to do this, they can feel free (just say I tagged you - nobody will ever know, it'll be our little secret!).

A Cure for the Rut

2010-03-07T12:34:00.007+11:00

So, a few posts ago I made reference to a shawl that I had started in an attempt to get out of the knitting rut that I found myself mired in. Amusingly enough, knitting the shawl wasn't really as enjoyable as I had hoped it would be. I kept angsting about whether or not I liked the way that the stripes looked, and when you're unsure about whether a project is working, it takes away some of the joy of making it. The fact that the last few rows of triangle shawls last forever didn't really aid matters. Still, I'm happy to say that I'm actually really pleased with how it turned out:

And this is: A basic triangle shawl with stripes of 'Sundara Sock' (100% wool) in 'Brambleberry' and some black Patonyle (wool/nylon blend), knitted on a 3.75mm circular needle.

Anna says: As previously mentioned, this project basically revolved around my desire to finally use the Sundara yarn, and use it in a project that wasn't socks - the colour was far too beautiful to be subjected to the ravages of my feet. There wasn't really enough of it for a garment, or to make a decent length scarf, so a shawl it was.

For all those interested, my process went roughly as follows (this is a basic triangle shawl, and about as basic as you can get, but writing this out makes me feel important and knowledgeable!):

Cast on 7 stitches.
Row 1 (RS): k1, m1, k2, m1, k1, m1, k2, m1, k1 (4 stitches increased, 11 stitches total)
Row 2: Knit all stitches
Row 3: k3, place marker, m1, k2, m1, place marker, k1, place marker, m1, k2, m1, place marker, k3
Row 4: Knit all stitches

From this point, work as follows: On every RS row, knit first 3 stitches, slip marker, m1, knit to next marker, m1, slip marker, k1 (this is the centre stitch), slip marker, m1, knit to last marker, m1, slip marker, k3. On every wrong side row, k3, purl to last 3 stitches, k3. Basically you are increasing 4 stitches per right side row - once on each edge, next to the garter stitch edge, and once on either side of the centre stitch. Continue on until your shawl reaches the desired size.

My stripe pattern went as follows (MC being Sundara, CC being the Patonyle):
4 rows CC, 4 rows MC (72 rows, 18 stripes, ending with MC)
2 rows CC, 4 rows MC (30 rows, 10 stripes, ending with MC)
2 rows CC, 6 rows MC (18 rows, 5 stripes - end with an extra 2 row stripe of CC)
16 rows MC
4 rows MC in garter stitch (maintaining increases).
Bind off all stitches.

As previously mentioned, I really wasn't wild about the striping while I was knitting the shawl. But now I've decided that I quite like the way that it turned out. And while it's smaller than most of the other shawls that I own, it's still just large enough to wear in a couple of different ways (as a scarf, knotted around the shoulders, as a shrug with the ends tied behind the back, etc). And I finally managed to get that Sundara knitted up and out of my stash! This was a classic case of a yarn that just felt 'too nice to use'. Which is arguably a state that no crafting material should ever reach. At least I've found this skein a good home.

In other news, I am making good progress on my cabled Cybele vest. I've survived my first week of the new course, and I am actually really liking it so far! This week I ate my body weight in delicious home-made museli. Oh, and I forgot to mention this earlier: last week I went and saw Amanda Palmer play at The Forum, and it was awesome! I even survived the crazy rain/hail that Melbourne weathered yesterday. The flooding was pretty nuts though - the underpass next door to my work flooded so deeply that the cars that got stuck under there were fully submerged, to the point that they weren't even visible. This situation wasn't made better by the fact that people kept trying to drive through... *rolls eyes*

So yes, I have officially survived the first week of uni, flash flooding, and death by museli. Let's see what next week brings...

March at Last!

2010-03-03T10:50:00.004+11:00

So, it's finally March. February felt oddly long for me, but March is bringing a lot 0f change. New season, new course at uni, new plans, and so on. Oh, and now having to pay full price on public transport because apparently postgraduate students aren't real students *gripe*

Now while I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about this year and the coming month both, seemingly everyone else I know has taken it upon themselves to get sick (probably has something to do with that lovely alternation between searingly hot and cold and rainy that my beloved city tends to do so very well). As of right now, I do not have this dubious honour, and am attempting to continue on in this way by employing my three proven ways of staying well: resting, staying warm, and good food.

Homemade lasagne (vegetarian of course). Looks awesome, does it not? And it tasted even better...

I was particularly pleased with this one because it was the first time I'd tried my hand at lasagne, and I didn't use a recipe. I've noticed that more and more these days I tend to rely less on recipes. What I do instead (and this is made So Much Easier with the internet, and the wealth of information that it provides upon the simple entering of a few choice words into Google) is find a handful of different recipes for a dish, read through them, take note of the key points, and then make my own version. I did the same thing day before yesterday with homemade toasted museli (which may warrant a blog post of its own in the near future, so awesome was the result). While this method might not be for everyone, I'm finding it works really well for me. I'm very much of the opinion that one of the best things about cooking yourself is being able to tailor recipes to suit your individual likes and dislikes, and this method lets you do this while hopefully making a minimum of fatal errors (and while I dearly love doing my own thing, I'll be the first to acknowledge that cooking does contain a great many non-negotiable rules).

At any rate, for all those playing along at home, I filled my lasagna with instant dried pasta sheets, basic tomato sauce (made from onion, garlic, passata, bay leaves, olive oil and a slurp of some gifted red wine that was, ahem, not really a desirable drinking option, with some baby spinach tossed in at the end), thinly sliced zucchini and pumpkin, and a small amount of grated mozzarella cheese. I topped it with more sauce, poured some extra passata around the edges (because I was clever and didn't make enough sauce), and then topped it with some more cheese and some dried basil and oregano. Once it came out of the oven, I put some fresh basil on top, because I am a fiend for basil. And I lived off the leftovers for three days. Happy Anna.

In knitting news, the boy has been walking around wearing several shop bought scarves. As you can all probably imagine, this simply will not do. It's been a while now - I think I can tempt fate and knit him one. After all, they call it the "sweater curse", not the scarf curse. I am planning on knitting this scarf in the worsted Malabrigo pictured above, just like this version.

Yes, I think I might be in the middle of a bit of a cable binge. Oh well - at least there will be pretty things by the end of it.

New Starts

2010-02-26T10:49:00.005+11:00

First thing is first: as promised, my new project:

This is a (really lacklustre) photo of the new project that I merrily started while revelling in the sense of freedom that resulted from sending my half finished summer top to the naughty corner. It's going to be Cybele (Ravelry link only I'm afraid) from the French Girl Knits book by Kristeen Griffen-Grimes, and I'm using the forest green Cascade 220 that I originally had earmarked for my Snow White jumper. I was a bit hesitant in starting this, because while I think that the pattern is absolutely gorgeous, it's one of those garments. You know, the kind that look amazing in the book on a model, but might not look quite so wonderful when worn in real life. Still, I decided that I'll take the chance - it will address the cable craving that I've been experiencing the last little while.

Looking at this pattern’s projects on Ravelry, I arrived at the conclusion that negative ease would really be the key to making this work like I wanted it to. I think I'm going to opt for the smallest size, which is a 31 inch bust - despite the fact that mine is more like 36 inches. This terrified me a little at first, but I looked at the sizing and realised that the above recommendations are based on the two front pieces being able to meet in the middle, whereas the look I'm really aiming for is how it's illustrated in the book, with the two pieces stretched and not quite meeting. I am really hoping that this decision doesn't come back to bit me in the behind, but I suppose that if it does, at least it'll be amusing and I will hopefully have provided some entertainment.

This project isn't the only slightly-uncertain new start I'm making at the moment. University goes back again next week, and I have, perhaps foolishly, decided to go in for one more year of educational servitude before leaving to make my way in the big scary world of Full Time Work. Not in my law student guise however, since thankfully for my sanity, those days are now behind me - in fact my graduation ceremony is in a few weeks time, so I'll be sure to post pictures of that. Rather this year I thought that I would make an attempt to tie together my love of writing, my knack for words, my English Literature degree and my abilities in Media Law - in a few days time I'll be starting a one year postgraduate diploma of editing/communications. I am looking forward to it, but I'm also mildly terrified by it, as indeed I am terrified by most change that happens in my life. Still, change is good, for all that it's scary, so hopefully this will be a good thing. Wish me luck.

And because I never feel right having just one picture per post:

This is one of the few Nice Dresses that I own, since I've never really been one for formal occasions, and generally have to be forcibly wrestled (or the social equivalent thereof) into nice clothing. I'm very keen on it - I bought it in Tasmania when I went there with with Rebecca last year, and have since worn it to much acclaim. The problem is that it's strapless, and sometimes you just don't want to be prancing around in a strapless dress alone. So it occurred to me that I should knit some sort of cover up that I could wear with it. I can't decide whether to make something black, or use my the Dream in Colour yarn pictured above (in real life it's a darker shade that matches the dress a bit closer). Hmmm... Black would probably be a safer bet, but if the Dream in Colour worked it would be just gorgeous. Food for thought, anyway...

Project Banishment and a Trip to the Zoo

2010-02-24T21:08:00.007+11:00

A few posts ago anyone reading even slightly attentively would have seen a project I was working on - a summery top made from my long hoarded Sanguine Gryphon 'Dance' yarn. Looked a little like this (and yes, I am blatantly reusing the picture, because I am a Slovenly Blogger).

Last post I believe that I made mention of the fact that I was having trouble figuring out how I was going to finish it. Well, alas, progress was not made - or very little of it anyway. It got to the stage where I just didn't really feel like knitting any more because I knew I should be working on this, and it was niggling at me whenever I worked on something else. Obviously, one does not indulge in hobbies with the goal of feeling unpleasant about it, so I decided that something had to be done. So, from this point onwards, this project is banished to the naughty corner. Life is too short to knit things that you are just not that enthused about. I have knitted things that I have enjoyed making but have worn very little - that is not the ideal, but it's still far from a waste of time. I have knitted things that were completely tedious, but that I adore and wear to death once they're done - again, a worthwhile endeavour. And of course, there are those wonderful projects that you love every moment of, both the knitting and the wearing. But I'm not willing to spend time on knitting something that I am so underwhelmed by.

I would like to salvage this one if I possible, as that much stockinette in such a small gauge has taken forever and a half - all the more so because the bottom was deliberately designed with A Lot of negative ease. But this is gorgeous yarn and I don't want it to languish forever on something that I don't really wear, so if I have to rip it out and start over, I will. At least now I'll have a better idea of how the yarn behaves, and can design with that in mind. The amusing part is that I feel so much better now that this decision has been reached - it never ceases to amaze me how liberating a decision can be, even when it's a decision to abandon something.

In other news, life has been busy around here (all the more reason I do not need to be spending my precious leisure time on knitting projects that I'm not really feeling the love for). I got a new fishbowl (a lovely big 12 litre number) and three lovely (but tiny) white cloud minnows. This is not a good picture, I know - I found the bowl quite difficult to photograph, but at least this one shows off the beautiful plant. It looks quite lovely against the black gravel, and I've had a lot of compliments about how the whole set up looks.

I've also been working a lot, which eats a lot of my energy, especially when it's this hot (we have no air conditioning inside the shop, which means working in temperatures going all the way up to the high 30s and beyond - not fun). And I've been doing a lot of writing and sewing, and also hunting for a new job. It's been fun, but I am beginning to realise that I probably need to cut down on hobbies if I want to keep my sanity once uni starts again - I had to go home sick from work last week simply because I was so tired that I was dizzy and disoriented, and classes aren't even running at the moment! So unfortunately I think that the future holds more rest and fewer fun things for Anna - perhaps I need to learn to knit while I sleep.

And as alluded to by the title of this post, last week there was a trip to Melbourne Zoo! I went with the boyfriend and a couple of friends, and a very good time was had. It was the first time I'd been to the zoo in years, and definitely the first time I'd been since I'd gotten my mitts on a digital camera. Behold, the incredibly cuteness that is the red panda. Though the highlight for me was some leopard rays that were in a small tank near the seals. They were amazing - like big friendly curious frisbees with funny little faces and oddly human looking eyes. I fell a little bit in love with them, proving I think that deep down I will always be that little kid who collects bugs and creepy crawlies in jars.

I was going to blog a little about my newest project, but I recently came to the conclusion that this blog would probably be a lot better if I posted shorter posts more frequently, rather than the (comparatively) huge but sporadic posts I make at the moment. So in the spirit of this resolution, you'll just have to wait until next time!

In a knitting rut...

2010-02-11T18:04:00.006+11:00

It is currently raining here in Melbourne - the heat wave of the last few days has finally broken, which is very good because now I can go into the city and get things done without running the risk of roasting to death in public transport hell. Doing things will be good, if I can make it happen, because once again, I have fallen into the void between semesters: that glorious place where I have free time, but have so much that I want/have to do with it that I end up not getting much done at all. Such is life I suppose. I have been doing things - I've been working a fair bit, getting some writing done, sewing, cooking, and organising university things - but doing a little bit of many things never makes you feel quite so satisfied as doing a lot of one thing. I suppose I shouldn't feel too bad - my brother has just been playing computer games for about 12 hours per day. So, stuff I've been up to:

As I mentioned, I've done a lot of cooking. I've been making huge vats of tabbouleh, or my version of it (a slightly higher ratio of grains to herbs so that it's filling enough to take to work and have as a complete meal). Yesterday I also made a version of these, and yes, they are as terrifying in real life as they look/sound on that site. I made a half batch, and made a basic butter cake base instead of the brownie base they suggested (because I was quite convinced that a brownie base would probably catapult this slice into the realm of too-rich-to-actually-be-enjoyable), and they're still deadly. Nice, but deadly.

I went to a wedding on the weekend (very enjoyable!) and managed to make the bride and groom a card that involved love hearts but didn't make me want to vomit. I was proud of that... It's a little abstract, but I was happy with it.

And I've been knitting. Though not as much as I usually like to. I've sort of snagged on the two projects I've been working on - one of them (the summer top I mentioned in the last entry) is having issues with drape, and it's knit at such a small gauge that it takes a long time to make any progress, so the idea of proceeding only to have to rip back is not appealing. And the other is knit in bulky weight wool that is not particularly suited to summer knitting. The fact that they are both my own designs doesn't really help things either - when proceeding with a project means having to sit down and make calculations, or thread things on and off of waste yarn so that you can try them on, it just makes it a little harder to motivate yourself to keep going. I know that this is a problem that most people face, so I really have no right to whinge, but yeah, there you go.

At any rate, I was still wanting to knit, even though I wasn't too keen on my works-in-progress, so I started the above piece. A basic, top down, triangular shawl - a nice and easy project that I didn't have to think about, and can knit while chilling out and chatting, or listening to music. I am using my long-hoarded Sundara Sock yarn (in 'Brambleberry'), and to make it go further I'm striping it with some basic black fingering weight yarn (I really liked the Sundara, but didn't think I had enough of it to make a decent size shawl using it alone). So hopefully this will be the nice gentle project I need to get my knitting momentum back. I'm sure the lull won't last for long...

Late night musings on the knitting year ahead...

2010-02-04T00:04:00.004+11:00

Because who doesn't need a gratuitous cupcake picture? For the record, this is what my work-mates get when they behave themselves...

Perhaps it's just a beginning-of-the-year thing, but over the last few days, I've found myself thinking more about the things I'd like to knit this year (why yes, I am a little obsessed, thank you for asking, and help yourself to tea and biscuits on the way out). Obviously we knitter-type-people do this a lot in terms of seeing patterns online, or garments worn by people on the street, which then cause us to get inspired and start trying to knit or replicate the design. But this time I've found myself thinking less of specific patterns and more about themes/basic elements.

So for the record, in the year ahead I'd really like to try and knit:

More cables.
Or more to the point, more traditional cables. While I did dabble in cablework over the course of last year (my Gathered Pullover being the most recent example, and who can forget the never-ending saga that was my Sylvi), it was not exactly conventional cablework. I adore both of these designs, but I think that I'd really like to try something a little more basic. I have an entire book of aran and cable patterns on my knitting shelf - it's really about time I cracked it open and got stuck in.

Stripes.
I worked a bit with stripes last year, but it was generally in a minor way, an uninteresting way, or with a self-striping yarn which to me isn't really entirely the same thing. None of these really scratched my itch at any rate, so I see more stripes in my future. *sigh* Better start perfecting that whole jogless stripes in the round thing, Anna...

Shawls.
As I mentioned during the write up for my Wandering the Moor, shawls and I didn't see eye to eye for a very long time. I had knitted a couple of shawls before, and although I'd put quite a lot of work into them (*cough* my Luna Moth Shawl *cough*), I never really wore them all that much. Mostly because I couldn't figure out how to wear them, or because I didn't have anything that went with them, and so on. But over the last few months I have actually found myself wearing both of the above mentioned shawls, so a part of me is itching to explore this area a little further, now that I know that the fruits of my hard work aren't just going to languish in my cupboard.

More Basics:
Wonderfully coloured knitwear is all well and good, but sometimes you just don't feel like cranking out something as vivid as a lot of my garments seem to be. Sometimes it's just a little too early in the morning. Given my bleedingly obvious penchant for making clothes, it's kind of galling to end up resorting to some dodgy black jacket that I bought from Target, just because I want something neutral and un-attention-grabbing. So, in order to alleviate this, I would very much like to knit some nice, wearable pieces in greys, blacks, subdued blues and greens, maroons, and so on. With an emphasis on the wearable: I'm not going to start a new paragraph for this because I am seriously thinking about devoting an entire post to it in the near future, but I want to knit more wearable things. Most of the things that I knitted last year I have worn, and worn a lot, and I would like to continue that way. I enjoy the knitting process, really I do, but I equally, I want to knit things that I will love wearing, and not look at guility every time I open my drawers, only to pass over it for the fiftieth time.

There are other priorities - more handknitted socks because my existing pairs are falling apart, more hats, more gifts for other people (because really I'm not sure I actually need as many knitted garments as I am ending up with as a result of this hobby!), and so on. But those are the big four. Let's see how I go!

In conclusion, here is a project that I finished before I went away but forgot to blog about earlier. It's a mildly ridiculous hat that I made from the wool/alpaca blend yarns that I acquired at the Bendigo Sheep Show last July (purple and brown stripes, but the picture completely and utterly fails to convey this fact). I'm quite happy with how it turned out - originally I was going to do something original, but in the end I got complacent and basically just turned it into a Felicity style hat. I don't regret this. And please excuse the sunglasses - I don't know why I'm wearing them indoors (and for that matter, I don't know why I decided to take a picture in the bathroom either). Go ahead, mock away...

Another year...

2010-01-30T17:09:00.007+11:00

Behold, faithful readers, I have returned from my aforementioned holiday. Actually, I've been back for nearly a week now, but have been (unsurprisingly) too swamped by Real Life to have had time to update the blog. There has been a potential new uni course to consider (a mere year long, before anyone starts making jokes about professional students), a boyfriend to wrangle, and bags to unpack, as well as all of those other random things that spring up and bite you when you come home from holidays intending to hold onto the relaxed state of mind that you've managed to cultivate while you've been away. Oh well, such is life.

The trip itself, for the record, was wonderful (as usual). I went with my brother, and in the second half of the holiday we were joined by some of his friends. We just went to the same place that we always do - a tiny seaside town on the northern coast of New South Wales - but I will never, ever get sick of it. There was lots of relaxing, beach-going, walking, and some truly awesome wildlife-related moments (seeing thousands of baby soldier crabs scuttling across creek banks at low tide, walking through the bush in a rainstorm only to be surprised by hundreds of tiny green tree frogs crossing our path, and many more). I finally got a chance to try out my new, less-dodgy camera on some scenery worth shooting!

And of course, I did some knitting (surprise, surprise - it takes more than tropical sun and the lure of beach to make me put down the yarn completely). Actually, truth be told, I'm one of those really tiresome people who spends their holidays doing all of the things that they haven't had time to do during the year - I also did some writing, lots of reading, drawing, and worked on my Japanese vocab (still dreadful, for what it's worth). But I digress - back to the knitting! Firstly, I worked on another version of the pattern I wrote up a while back, mainly just to test it for errors and tweak it slightly:

I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. I like the way that it looks in a solid yarn - and although Bendigo Woollen Mills is my go-to for budget yarn, I really loved the Rustic 8ply I used for this one - Midnight Tweed is a beautiful colour (purple with a hint of green, as improbable as that sounds). I made slight changes to the neckline to stop the corners being quite so angular, and I didn't change needle sizes for the sleeves this time (and I'm thinking that it's better that way). I'm quite proud of this pattern, and have every intention of posting it up here in the near future. Now it's just a matter of deciding whether to just post the one size, or to brave the maths (not my strong suit!) involved in giving instructions for other sizes. Stay tuned!

Once I finished the short sleeved pullover (which went pleasingly fast too, for the record), I cast on some of my beloved Sanguine Gryphon yarn with the intention of making a summery top.

Kindly note that the yarn is actually a much darker green than this (kindly disregard the fact that I was too lazy to move to a place with better lighting). The yarn is Sanguine Gryphon 'Dance' in the Stomp colourway. The original plan was to make a halter style top, but I'm now most of the way through the body, and am considering changing to a tank. I love halters, and they're quite flattering on my body type, but I'm concerned that this piece might end up being a bit loose fitting around the bust, and I definitely want to avoid the gaping back that seems to plague so many halter tops. So we shall see. The yarn is gorgeous anyway, as is the fabric that it is making - the silk noil drapes beautifully.

That's where I'm currently at, as far as knitting goes. I have more to say (and a tale to tell about a wonderful octopus), but I'll save that for the next post. I'll conclude with this: as I've mentioned previously, I never really feel like my new year is beginning until I return from my summer holiday - it's my demarcation point between one year and next, even if I actually end up taking the holiday in January. Given this, it seems that this is the appropriate time to say that I'm really looking forward to this year. 2008 was so difficult for me, what with my personal life basically going to hell in a handbasket and all. 2009 was wonderful - it was hard work at times, and I was incredibly busy, but I really felt like I got back on the proverbial horse, as far as life was concerned. I'm really hoping that 2010 will be the year when I start to get on with things. Fingers crossed.

Erm, whoops.

2010-01-20T13:32:00.004+11:00

It occurs to me that I probably forgot to mention the fact that I was going on holiday in January. Holiday to a place with very little by way of internet access. Hence, please excuse my conspicuous lack of posting/commenting for the next while. Rest assured that I have indeed been getting some knitting done, not to mention all of the other things that you conventionally do when you're having a beach holiday (swimming, eating too much, chasing octopus around rockpools, going through far too much sunscreen, etc).

Come late January, I shall return, with finished objects in tow, and all going to plan, my first pattern. In the meantime, I hope 2010 is treating everyone kindly thus far!

Christmas and the Usual December Mayhem

2009-12-26T12:21:00.008+11:00

Whew! Long time, no post. Bad Anna - I've been trying to do the blogging-type-thing more regularly, but the last few weeks have been chaotic. I've been working A Lot over the last few weeks, and when your work day is nine and a half hours long, and you only get to sit down for half an hour the whole time, you tend to come home too tired to even think straight, let alone write blog posts. Especially when you're having to deal with Christmas shoppers....

My own Christmas shopping was fairly limited. I don't tend to go into a mad gift frenzy this time of year. I tend to make things for most people, and only buy a few things for immediate family and sometimes close friends, which really doesn't take that long because I actually think about what I'm going to get them beforehand, rather than just aimlessly trawling the shops and getting depressed by the rampant consumerism and the stress all around. That sounds bitter, but it isn't really. I really like this time of year because I enjoy making people things and giving gifts - I really enjoy it. What makes me sad is the fact that so many people don't seem to enjoy it; they seem to get so bummed out by the feeling of obligation to get gifts for everyone that it sucks the joy out of the whole thing. That's one of the reasons that I like making things for people - I would much rather stay at home, relax, make up a few batches of biscuits to give to friends and enjoy the process of doing something for them than traipse sadly around department stores.

So, long story short, most friends and coworkers got baked goods this year. Though there was a little spot of Christmas knitting. I acquired a present or two for my brother, but by Christmas Eve there weren't that many presents for him under the (hastily erected) tree, and I thought I should rectify the situation. So I spent a rather delightful Christmas Eve night watching Watchmen, eating grilled cheese on toast and knitting a hat for the brother:

(I did have a picture of him wearing it, but he'd just gotten off of an international flight and I thought it would be uncharitable to post pictures of his jet-lagged self on the internet. Maybe later)

The info: Turn a Square by Jared Flood, knitted on 5.5mm double-pointed needles, out of a bit over half a ball of Rowan Pure Wool Aran, and scraps of Cleckheaton Merino Supreme and Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 12ply.

The commentary: This was a really great, simply pattern, and was wonderfully quick as well (I hurried it along a little by using heavier weight yarn than called for and casting on fewer stitches). Given my love of raglan style pullovers, I'm actually quite amazed that it took me this long to try the decrease style out in a hat, especially given the fact that I've in the past had quite a bit of trouble with crown shaping. At any rate, I'm definitely glad I did try it - I think I see more of these hats in my future...

The hat aside, the rest of Christmas was a good bit of fun. The aforementioned brother arrived back from Canada on Christmas morning, and bestowed some gifts that he'd acquired over there. My father was particularly enamoured with these slippers:

Not long after, we all sat down to a lovely lunch. Nowadays we don't really tend to do the Christmas roast - too often the Australian weather doesn't really lend itself to such a thing, and when there are only two carnivores in the family, there's not that much call for excessive amounts of meat anyway. So instead we were traditional in the Australian sense and had a barbeque! Behold, our fine spread:

Lamb skewers, roast potatoes, salad, and some lovely cheese and cornbread kebabs with grilled vegetables... Yum. For dessert, we had almond biscuits and ice-cream with this sauce. I have been eating the sauce leftovers today, scooped into my mouth with whole pecans. Yes, I know this will clog my arteries faster than you can say 'saturated fats' - don't care! So a good time was definitely had by all.

In other news, despite work grinding me into the ground, I have been doing some knitting. I have a nearly completed hat and a half completed cardigan on the needles - both my own designs. So stay tuned for those in the near future.

Lastly, on a sadder note, we unfortunately ended up celebrating Christmas with one less family member present than on the previous year. While he had battled on for quite some time, determined to keep sleeping all over my knitting and getting under my feet while I baked for as long as he possibly could, a little under two weeks ago Alex my poor old man cat was just not doing well, so I took him off for his final trip to the vet. We had hoped that he'd last long enough to see my brother at Christmas, but alas it was not to be, and in some ways it's probably better that way - it would possibly have been ever sadder for my brother to see him as he was by the end. I was a bit of a soggy mess at the time - the cat and I had been a duo ever since I was six years old - but really, it was a happy ending. He was nearly 20 years old - he'd had a long life, and a happy one, and he had a merciful end when it was time, with someone who loved him by his side: we should all be so lucky. I, umm, have something in my eyes.... so I'll just leave it at this: Goodbye old man cat - I'll never ever forget you.

So as not to end on such a maudlin note: I generally find the phrase 'Seasons Greetings' to be somewhat irritating, so I don't really want to employ it here, but to everyone who's celebrating at this time of year - for whatever occasion or reason - I hope you have a really wonderful time!

The aforementioned shawl!

2009-12-11T20:40:00.005+11:00

A quick post, because today was atrociously long and as a result, my attention has been rendered atrociously short. Recall how last post I made mention of a recently finished shawl? Probably not - I sure as hell don't read blogs that attentively. But here it is anyway!

This fine creation is...: Wandering the Moor, by Celeste Glassel. Knitted on a 3.75mm circular needle, out of a single 150g ball of Kauni 8/2 Effektgarn (EM colourway).

What Anna has to say: I really enjoyed working on this. I started it in the final arm-flailing throes of exam revision, when I needed something that I could just knit without thinking, and this pattern fitted the bill rather nicely. I finished the stockinette portion in a wee bit over a week (and gathered several appreciative comments from both friends and strangers who saw me knitting away in the pub while sipping on my Guinness), and knocked the lace portion off over the course of a few days. Admittedly I was a bit tired of it by the time I was working the final few long lace rows, but that's pretty much standard for shawls - for the most part this was a pleasure to knit.

I'm pretty keen on the yarn as well. The colours are just as vivid in real life as in the above picture - this shawl is very, very red. The yarn is quite scratchy, but I have to admit, I kind of like it that way. I do like the ultra soft yarns (*cough* Malabrigo *cough*), but I will admit to having a soft spot for the scratchy wools with a bit more texture, in case my obvious devotion to the Noro yarns hasn't already made this predilection abundantly clear. I really loved using this yarn, and definitely look forward to doing so again - actually, I already have a ball of rainbow coloured Kauni that's earmarked for a gift project next year.

In conclusion, I always thought that shawls were something that other people wore. For all that I do enjoy a spot of lace knitting here and there (Exhibit A: Luna Moth shawl), I was always reluctant to give into the triangle shawl craze because I doubted that I'd ever find ways to wear such an item. It wasn't until the last few months, when I actually started wearing my Luna Moth, that I began to reconsider. I'm glad I did - happy to report that I have already worn this one, and have every intention of doing so again. Repeatedly!

Out the other side...

2009-12-09T19:20:00.006+11:00

Well, I officially survived exams! Actually, they finished nearly two weeks ago, but unfortunately even once they were done my schedule didn't really include a lot of free time. I spent a lot of time working, and a lot of time catching up with all of the poor people I neglected while I was sitting exams and writing essays. So unfortunately I'm still tired, but at least the things that have been eating my brain have been more enjoyable than exam revision (and involved a lot more beer).

At any rate, I've at least found time for various new creative projects - though don't I always? Especially when I should be doing more constructive things...

I taught myself to needle-felt - it really wasn't very difficult. Basically you stab things with a barbed needle until they stick to the surface (felt/felted wool) that you've placed them on. I probably don't need to explain how this can be a useful stress relieving activity... I used the technique to decorate the felted bag that I'd made ages and ages ago. I liked the finished product well enough - it's not really structurally suited to daily out-and-about use, but I'm currently using it as a very pleasing and colourful laundry bag, a purpose which suits it very well as it holds a lot.

I also taught myself the bare bones of beading/wire jewellery, and made some basic earrings and stitch markers - I had gotten tired of all of the cool knitting kids having nice stitch markers while I continued using the dodgy plastic ones from Spotlight. I already had the bits and pieces for this lying around the house, as I'd been meaning to get into it for a while, so the gratification that comes with learning something new was pleasingly quick to arrive. I suspect that this might turn into yet another addictive hobby, so watch this space for more beading adventures.

I also started knitting another shawl as part of the continuing stash-bust - a red, lace-edged triangular number. Started and finished, to be more precise - I knitted the last few rows and bound it off this morning, and it's blocking as I write this. I'm very much looking forward to tomorrow when it's dry - it already looks rather lovely, if I do say so myself, so expect an enthusiastic post about that in the next few days.

Other than that, it's been business as usual around here. My mind is boggling at the amount that I've baked over the last week. I took some things into work on the weekend, and it was my father's 60th birthday yesterday, so in under a week I have produced three batches of brownies, a batch of cupcakes, a fruitcake, and as of tonight, a batch of almond biscuits. Not bad for a girl whose oven is on the brink of collapse.

I've also been dutifully cat watching. The poor old man is still around, but probably not for much longer. He's persisted for much longer than the vet was expecting, but now he's getting a bit dazed looking, and when you pick him up he hardly weighs a thing. So we're keeping a close eye on him, and when he doesn't seem happy any more, it's off to the vet for the last time. I will miss him horribly when he's gone.

Oh, and I've been playing around with the idea of a zombie-themed colourwork hat. Because that is what mature adults do, right?

A Brief Interlude.

2009-11-25T18:02:00.007+11:00

This afternoon I sat my second last exam. The final one, for my Environmental Law subject, is on Friday, so I'm tantalizingly close to being able to fall down and sleep for a week, but I'm not quite there yet. So I need to plod onwards, and give myself small rewards along the way to encourage my poor brain not to curl up and die quite yet. Rewards like a new cardigan...

What you're looking at: Easy Top Down Raglan, by Laura Chau. Knitted on a couple of 6mm circular needles (long one for the body, little one for the sleeves), out of six skeins of Noro Kureyon (100% wool), colour 213.

The endless prattle: Well, I had some Kureyon that I'd gotten my filth paws on the last time that the Aussie dollar was doing well, and I needed some stress-free exam knitting, so it's not particularly surprising that a cardigan happened. This is a great basic pattern, though I didn't follow it exactly, as my gauge was different. I used it to get a rough idea of how many stitches to cast on, and then went from there, adding a very small amount of waist shaping along the way (placed quite low on the body). I opted for 3/4 sleeves because I thought that I didn't have enough yarn for full length - though the body turned out being somewhat larger than I thought it would be, so I really could have just knitted it smaller, and then I likely would have had enough yarn for long sleeves. Oh well - I'm still happy with it.

As I mentioned before, everyone who has seen me knitting this in real life has admitted to finding it ugly. Yes, I'll admit, it's a little garish - Noro has a tendeny to be that way sometimes. But I like it anyway - it cheers me up to look at it. And I'm very enamoured with the blue buttons. I'm not normally one of those people who pays a lot of attention to such finer details, but these please me quite a lot.

See that smile? Totally forced - less than two hours before this was taken I was writing frantically in an exam, and really, what I dearly want to do is collapse (possibly after ingesting a glass of wine and something unhealthy). That said, I still quite like the cardigan.

Up next: Anna's adventures in needle-felting, a.k.a: Anna discovers a craft that basically involves stabbing something repeatedly with a barbed needle - and realises that this is actually quite a soothing hobby to pursue during exam period!

The last time...

2009-11-20T23:54:00.005+11:00

Well, it's exam period again, which of course means that my life is now devoted to pouring over endless 30 cent notebooks filled with the usual scrawl - the above-pictured page, I believe, contains commentary on the Geneva Convention, though this time last week it was privacy law. It's rather hard to keep up - I know my brain always struggles. At least it'll all be over by this time next week. Not to mention, as alluded to by the post title, this will (notwithstanding me having some kind of epic freak-out and failing my remaining exams) be my final semester of law, my final batch of exams. So theoretically, I should be relishing it. So much for theory.

And of course with exam period comes the stress-relieving exam knitting. The above pictured cardigan is coming along quite nicely - I've only got a sleeve and a half to go now, so I'm very nearly there. Due to yarn limitations (some people would tell you that six skeins of Noro Kureyon is not enough to make a cardigan, but those people are quitters!) it's a little shorter than I might otherwise have made it, but I'm actually rather liking it this way. It's jaunty. I think I'll go with 3/4 sleeves and some bright blue buttons. Everyone I've shown it to so far thinks that it's ugly as sin, and I suppose they're probably right, but I don't care - it makes me happy, and stops me from feeling like all I've done with my day is write something bleedingly obvious about Additional Protocol II.

In other news, it's been far too hot to do anything particularly constructive, so I've resorted to my usual fallbacks for the small smattering of recreation time I do have - reading, playing woefully outdated computer games, and cooking. And buying things on the internet - have to make the most of the strong Aussie dollar. It would be simply irresponsible not to... On that note, I bought more yarn (curse you, Sanguine Gryphon, I just can't resist your charms), but that's perfectly all right, because in keeping with the Not-A-Yarn-Diet, I used up 300g of Berroco yarn and 200g of Noro before doing so. Hurray for me. And I bought less than that, so I'm still making progress. Of sorts.

Also, as I mentioned, I've been cooking, and I have pictures to back it up. This here is the makings of a very fine pumpkin, spinach and goat's cheese risotto, because I took it upon myself to buck the trend of living on breakfast cereal during exams. It never ceases to amaze me how spinach wilts down. I mean seriously, from the above, to this...

...in about thirty seconds. Crazy stuff. Crazy but delicious. I also made this cake, because I couldn't resist the pull any longer. For some reason, it's taken me a very long time to get into looking at recipes on line - up until now, I have been strictly old-school, preferring my cookbooks. But I think I'm finally beginning to get with the times. How astounding. Then again, cake tends to be very persuasive...

This time of year...

2009-11-15T20:01:00.008+11:00

Ahh, November - the time of year when my brain and all of my time both fly merrily out of the window. The Essay of Doom got submitted with a blessed lack trouble, but I am now languishing slap bang in the middle of exam period, with more revision to do than I can shake a decent sized stick at. I suppose I should be making the most of it - as long as there are no catastrophic academic disasters, this will be my last semester of law, after all...

Thankfully, as always, there is still time to knit. Or rather, I manage to do it anyway. It stalled for a while, but I managed to finish my Gathered Pullover:

(please excuse the fact that I look knackered - I had just gotten off a very long shift at work)

The Business End of Things: Pattern is the Gathered Pullover, from the Winter 2007 issue of Interweave Knits (in a custom size somewhere between S and M), knitted on a 4.5mm circular needle, and 4.5mm dpns. Yarn used was six skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light (50% alpaca, 50% wool).

The Blathering On: For a start - man, but that cable is much simpler than it looks! I was almost disappointed by how easy it was - there weren't nearly as many crosses as I had initially assumed. I nearly blinked and missed it all!

This is a really great pattern, as is somewhat obvious due to the fact that it has, at time of writing, 984 projects on Ravelry. It's easy but interesting looking, and had it not been for my huge workload and the comparatively lightweight yarn, I probably would have finished it sooner. The only modifications I made were to omit the decorative decreases/increases from the bust, add waist shaping (because these days I just don't do jumpers without - such an improvement from so little effort!) and lengthen the body and sleeves slightly. I probably could have done without the latter as the sleeves grew quite a lot with blocking, but thankfully I am quite partial to longer sleeves, so I'm still happy with the result.

Amusingly enough, despite the fact that I've definitely knitted my fair share of jumpers over the last few years, I'd never worked one in the round, from the bottom up, with set in sleeves. I quite liked the method, but somehow I think that I might remain devoted to raglans for the time being - for all that my seam sewing has improved immeasurably over the last year or so, I still prefer to work seamlessly where possible. All said and done, I'm quite happy with this one. I'm not thrilled with how the rolled neckline quirks up a little, and it's warm enough that I won't be able to wear it for a good few months yet, but these are pretty small quibbles really.

In other news, I've been thinking that I need to blog more often. I think that my main problem with updating a knitting blog regularly is this: I don't work fast enough to only post when I finish a project, but I have a chronic inability to take decent in-progress shots. Oh well, I shall attempt to find some way to fill the gaps. Watch out, blogopshere...

In the meantime, here is a picture of the very delightful afternoon tea I had with a friend on Friday:

Why yes, it was delicious. What you see there is almond croissant and sticky date pudding from the local bakery, washed down with a couple of pots of jasmine green tea. Om nom nom.

In other news, I am working away diligently on the Noro cardigan I started as an exam-time, no-though-required, relaxing, therapy knit. It somewhat failed on the relaxing front when my circular needle broke and spilled my stitches everywhere, but thankfully the knitting gods were smiling on me and I managed to restore order with no lasting harm.

The Not-Yarn-Diet is going well too - I haven't bought any unauthorised yarn (and for this I thank this blog, just for keeping me accountable), despite being occasionally tempted. Soon I shall indulge though - the Gathered Pullover took up around 300g of yarn, and I've used 150g on my Noro cardigan so far. This means I am a single paltry ball away from being able to buy more yarn, though I must say that the urge has, for the moment, passed. Oh well, I'm sure that it will be back soon enough...

Procratination, pullovers, and cupcakes.

2009-10-29T15:15:00.006+11:00

So, I should probably be writing my essay, but that's all right. All work and no play makes Anna a gibbering idiot, so it's really in everybody's best interests that I take a blog break, right? Besides, this is my reward for reaching 3500 words. When I get to 3750, I get to knit some more of my sleeve. It would be nice if I could work without lame forms of bribery, but oh well - the main thing, after all, is that the essay gets written.

Anyway, so what to write about in this delicious guilty pleasure of a blog post? Well, the wedding last week went off without a hitch (there's some kind of moronic pun there, I'm sure, but I'm choosing to ignore it). The weather was lovely, and everyone had a wonderful time. And I managed to brave two forms of public transport on a Spring Racing Carnival weekend and arrive with the cupcakes and shortbread still intact!

Since it was a wedding and all, I was well behaved and went in for nice pastel colours. Such restraint! I was very pleased with how they came out though, for all that I did have a momentary freak out when it occurred to me that I'd presented them to my friend without having eaten one for quality control first! What if they'd tasted like rancid baboon or something? Though I'm happy to report that they didn't... Also, my friend made some delicious spinach and feta muffins that I could have happily eaten all day. I have every intention of trying them in the immediate future - and the recipe is here, for all who are interested.

In other news, I've been very much enjoying my freedom from Sylvi knitting! I am still coming to terms with the fact that I Don't Have To Knit The Coat Anymore. Unfortunately, as much as I'd like to take advantage of this new found freedom with a million new projects, each more seasonally inappropriate than the last (it was 29 degrees today... ho hum), uni is not permissive on this front. I am hanging out for Monday. After that the essay will be in and I can knit merrily away to my heart's content. While, um, revising for my exams. Yay law school! Oh well.

I have been working on my Gathered Pullover though - you always need a bribery project (see above) when essay writing.

This one is now perfect for brain-exploded-essay-diversion because the only part that requires actual thought (i.e. those shiny nice cables that you see above) has been completed. Now it's just knitting sleeves in the round - hurrah! And I still really love the colour.

Anyway, I think that's all the time I can justify spending on a blog break. Back to the essay. I leave you all with tomatoes. I put them on my jumper to stop them getting bruised in my bag on my way back from the shops, and they just looked too cute to ignore.

Please let my odd obsession with foodstuffs slide. I think it's a product of the essay...
(that's a blatant lie, but it's a good excuse for the moment, and I'm sticking to it)

About time, I know...

2009-10-24T08:53:00.006+11:00

Well, this one's taken a while, so without further ado: Sylvi!

The specifics: Sylvi, by Mari Muinonen. I used 12 skeins of Cascade 128 Chunky Solid, with a 6mm circular needle.

The rambling: I am not normally one for abusing the poor defenseless Caps Lock button, but there are certain select situations where I think that it's called for. I FINISHED MY COAT! FINALLY, I FINISHED MY COAT!

Ahem.

I've been working on this one since July, so having it finally finished is a huge weight off my mind (and also my fingers - knitting the hood with the entire weight of the body hanging from it was difficult!). I'm glad to say that I love it. Or perhaps I should say, relieved, as I honestly don't know what I would have done if I'd finished it and been anything less than delighted with it, after all of the time that it took. The only problem I can see with it so far is that people don't fall down and worship me in the street when I wear it, which really you're half expecting when you spend this long on a project (okay, not really, but you know what I mean), but I suppose I should give the poor unenlightened fools some time to come to their senses before I start getting irked... Oh, and also the fact that it is only a month and bit off of summer. But then again, this is Melbourne we're talking about here, so I'm sure there will be the odd opportunity to wear it out and about.

As far as actual commentary on the knitting goes - the pattern was awesome, of course, and very clear and easy to follow. I did make a few modifications though. I changed the cuffs because it was the only part of the original design that I wasn't too keen on - I made very slightly belled folded up cuffs. On the hood, I worked another leaf motif instead of a flower, partly because I didn't like the look of a flower randomly sprouting from my head, and also, I'll admit, because I was just so sick of marking petal stitches and working the leaves had gotten pretty intuitive by that point in proceedings. I also lengthened the body by a few rows, and there are a couple of places in which I deviate from the chart a little, just because I was up a stitch or two, or couldn't get the moss stitch to line up as instructed (disclaimer: I'm definitely attributing this to it being my first time following a chart, and definitely not to any errors in the pattern!).

Why yes, I am going to spam you all with excessive amounts of pictures. If you had just finished a coat that took four months to complete, you would be spamming too!

Oh, and the last modification: as you can see above, I didn't add button holes, as I'm going to opt for some kind of clasp closure instead. I haven't added them yet because I'm still deciding if I like the ones that I have.

I was very pleased with the length in the end too. It seemed woefully short while I was knitting it, but I put my faith in gravity and the tales of those who had gone before me, and it did indeed grow a mile with blocking. I know it's still a little shy of full length, but bear in mind the fact that I am nearly six feet tall - this is not a short coat!

And now I'm going to stop rambling about the coat. Nearly. It feels great to be finished with this one. This is definitely the biggest project I've ever undertaken, and judging by the incursions that it made into my sanity, I think it will be the last. I may later embark on projects as big. I may also start projects that are just as elaborate. But never again will I ever try anything that it both this huge and this intricate! It's been fun though, in a masochistic way, and I learned a lot. I am now a lot better at following charts, and have a much better understanding of the ins and outs of cables. I realised that seaming a slipped stitch edging is actually the opposite of scary, and that bobbles aren't nearly as difficult as I thought they'd be!

At any rate, now I am free to dive into all my new projects with complete abandon! Or as much abandon as I can scrounge up, given the fact that I have a massive essay due in a little over a week. Doh. But still, it feels awesome and really very liberating to be finished.

Anyway, farewell all - I have a wedding to attend, and baked goods to muster!

Food related diversions

2009-10-22T13:58:00.010+11:00

See, this is the part where I feel torn. On the one hand, last post I (foolishly) promised that I'd be showing off my newly completed Sylvi coat in the next update. But on the other, it's been quite a while since I updated!

Behold, my compromise! I shall indeed post, but it will be food related! I've been languishing, sad and baked-goods-less, for quite a while now due to oven related technical difficulties. But then my delightful engineer father returned from overseas and managed to convince the cranky old contraption to work again, so I have been making the most of it.

As shown above, I made Spinach and Feta Pie (under the guise of being Very Sensible, as I froze a goodly portion of it for my upcoming exam period and all those nights when I want to eat breakfast cereal for dinner because I'm just too burnt out to cook).

I made an absolutely delicious Honey Chocolate Cake as dessert for some visiting friends (see, this is why I need a functional oven - baked goods are my social currency and without them I feel woefully inadequate!).

And in a fit of silliness, myself and a gentleman caller (haha, yes indeed...) made Triceratops Pie. Kindly note the delightful dinosaur shaped pastry decoration. I should probably note at this point that the pie did not contain any actual triceratops - and my most sincere apologies to anyone who is disappointed on that front. The pie did however contain pumpkin, leeks, onion, ricotta, garlic, parsley and other such tasty things, so none of the parties involved felt shortchanged by the lack of actual dinosaur product.

These culinary achievements aside, there is no reprieve in sight for the poor hardworking oven. A good friend of mine is getting married on the weekend, and I have been conscripted to provide some delightful nibbly baked goods for us to graze upon while we prepare and make merry. I shall do my very best not to suffer from any kind of performance anxiety at the prospect of cooking for such an auspicious occasion!

In other, less pleasant news: it was confirmed week before last that my poor old man cat does indeed have cancer. This was obviously not good what we were hoping for, and I'm sad that my family are all away and are therefore unable to spend more time with the poor old fellow while he's still around. However, the fact that he's had such a good run of it is somewhat of a comfort - if only all cats were lucky enough to live to his age, after all. The good news is that despite all of this, he's perfectly chipper and is acting his usual nuisance self (i.e. stealing my computer chair every time I get up to get more tea). He's not thrilled about the various pills I have to wrestle into him twice a day, but you can't have everything, can you?

Oh, and many thanks to all those who sent good wishes his way via the blog, Ravelry etc - much love and gratitude to you all! The senile old man says thank-you too!

(well, actually in this photo I think he's just irked because I'm bothering him, but I'm sure he would have put on an obligingly grateful face if he knew the purpose of the photo!)

In closing, back to the details of the compromise. The next knitting related post shall remain reserved for my Sylvi (which is anyway so close to being finished that I could knock it off this afternoon if I put my mind to it, so hopefully the wait won't be long!). So I'm not waffling! Not even a little! Most definitely not!

Self Restraint and a Cat

2009-10-08T16:56:00.007+11:00

So. It occurs to me that I probably have enough yarn (see above for pretty green things!). More than enough yarn even. Realistically speaking, I could probably continue knitting at my usual rate for an entire year without needing to buy more yarn. This is arguably a rather delightful problem to have, if indeed you could call it a problem, but I have decided that seeing as I don't really need more yarn, but will have a need to conserve money (exams are not too far off, so I won't be working nearly as much as usual), some self restraint might be in order over the next little while.

I'm not going to use the word "diet" because I'm not keen on it. It's not something I do when it comes to food (frankly, I'm young and healthy, so what on earth is wrong with just eating well and exercising?), and I'd really like to keep my life "diet" free. So I'm not going to stop buying yarn all together. However, there shall be creative and productivity-encouraging restrictions put in place: the rule of this Not Yarn Diet is that I am now supposed to knit 500g (so ten 50g balls, or whatever) from my stash for every yarn purchase I make. Blog will keep me accountable. Hopefully this will curb the unwarranted impulse buys.

I considered putting a meterage requirement instead of weight, but decided against it: I'm too lazy to add up lengths, and I don't really care about yarn weight as long as it gets used up. Yes, I know that I'll burn through 200g of bulky yarn in the same time it'll take me to knit up 50g of fingering. I don't much care - it's not a competition. I just want to reduce the space being eaten by my terrifying stash of knitting fodder. To play fair though, I'm not counting any part of Sylvi, as it's been going for so long (shame, because I believe that there's over a kilo of yarn in that monster). To not play fairly, I'm counting all yarn knitted from the point that I received my last purchase in the mail. Which puts me at nearly 100g, all from the Gathered Pullover (which is coming along nicely, thank you very much).

That's the plan. Now let's see if I stick to it.

In other news, well, life is crazy. Beyond crazy. Between uni, work, and social commitments, I have so much to do that it isn't even funny. For the first time in my life, I'm being afflicted by semi-regular insomnia, because I lie in bed unable to sleep because all of the pressing demands on my time are dancing around in my head humming circus music loudly. Thank heavens that knitting is a hobby that you can sort of slot into the gaps formed between everything else - one of the many reasons that I love it.

In knitting news, I have started seaming my Sylvi and have commenced the hood. I am so close to finishing that I can almost taste it - and I'm hoping that that will help me finally knock it on the head. Even the fickle Melbourne weather wants me to finish - the weather at the moment is bitingly cold for October, and it's just begging for a slightly unseasonal woollen coat. The Gathered Pullover is coming along nicely as well - I am still in love with the colour.

Unfortunately all is not well in other areas of life - the furred and finned areas, more specifically. More diligent readers might recall me gabbling happily about Titus, my fighting fish. Well, alas, poor Titus succumbed to a fungal infection yesterday, despite putting up a brave fight while we treated him with scarily green medicine. Poor wee fishy - he was a lot of fun, had a lot of character as far as fish go, and I will miss his hungry little face in the mornings.

If that wasn't enough, my poor old geriatric cat Alex has a large nasty swelling in his neck. The vet is not sure whether it's cancer or just a gland that's swollen up as a result of an inflamed tooth - he's going in tomorrow for blood tests and possibly dental surgery if he's stable enough. Anything involving anaesthetic is risky for a 19 year old cat with heart issues, so I'm trying to be prepared for the worst, just in case it happens. He's content enough at the moment though - asleep on my dressing gown, which I suspect is now officially His dressing gown. At any rate, please send cat mojo for my poor old man!

And that's about it. Hopefully the next post will involve a finished Sylvi - let's just hope that procrastination doesn't strike (again) in the meantime...

Where Anna is a Bad Melbournian

2009-09-26T22:41:00.005+10:00

I am now merrily halfway through the mid-semester break, and am happy to report that I have not gotten all that much done. Oh well - what are you going to do? I'm catching up on sleep, eating lots of vegetables, and doing lots of knitting, and that's what's important, right?

Today was a good example of all of this. Today, for those not in the know, was AFL Grand Final Day. For non-antipodean readers, the AFL Grand Final is arguably the biggest sporting event of the year in this country. It's definitely a huge deal in Melbourne, at any rate. And delightfully, this year I had no idea who was even playing until work yesterday. And it's currently 10:46pm, and I still have no idea who won. I'm wondering how long I'll be able to stave off finding out. I have to work tomorrow, which I think will be the downfall of this particular plan, but that will still be a pretty good effort, given the saturation level of coverage that this event always receives.

Anyway, while everyone else was watching the football, I was spending my day as follows:

I did some knitting on my latest project. It's a Gathered Pullover in Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light in 'Blue Glasnys'. I've been wanting to make this one for ages and ages, and now I'm finally getting around to it. Like most everyone else who has made this one, I'm adding waist shaping, but that's the only mod I have in mind thus far. I'm happy with how it's going - the fabric that the yarn is making on the 4.5mm needles is really nice, and just look at that colour! I was a little unsure about this yarn for this project originally, as I was worried that it might not have the best stitch definition for the cabled section, but after examining some other people's projects on Ravelry, I'm cautiously optimistic.

On non craft related fronts, I also hit up Bunnings Warehouse and got a shiny new bucket, and some more tomato plants for the garden (they were stupidly cheap, and the solitary plant I have at the moment needs company!). I know that I look like some kind of deranged elf wannabe in the photo, but in my defense, it was raining. However, this excuse then begs the question of why I was trying to wash towels on such a day... I just can't win...

It also occurred to me that despite the fact that I not infrequently mention food around here, I had never before made reference to this particular love of mine. See that substance up there in the picture? The one that looks like oddly anaemic butter? That, my friends, is goat butter. And I could happily eat it all day long. You use it just like normal butter - I spread it all over crusty bread - but it has a subtle but distinct goats cheesey flavour to it. Mild, but definitely there. I love it, so very much. Hurrah for Queen Victoria Market for keeping me supplied with such wonders. It's not even prohibitively expensive.

And thus concludes the tale of how Anna was a Bad Melbournian. However, I would also like to make mention of the fact that I also finished the back of my Sylvi today. Yes, I will make this coat if it kills me. I considered doing more today, but after grinding my way through the rest of the back cabling, negotiating raglan seaming for the first time didn't sound too appealing. Tomorrow perhaps. But I am progressing!

Productivity. And a Cat

2009-09-18T11:11:00.007+10:00

Well, life has been a bit crazy here. But that's just normal really - I've noticed that I tend to say that every week. On the bright side, I'm on mid semester break from today, so hopefully the crazy will subside as I catch up on some sleep and get on top of my exam revision (and by get on top of my revision, I mean ignore it and play outdated computer games... as usual).

Sylvi is getting there slowly. I've finished both sides, and now I just have a couple more inches of the top part of the back. Then I can seam it and get stuck into the hood, and after that all of the substantive knitting is done and it's just the endless finishing to go. So I'm nearly done. Umm, sort of...

How about I shut up and present you with more tangible evidence that I've been constructive on the knitting front? Yes, let's do that!

The specific yet unhelpful part: This is, well, um, Anna's short sleeved pullover, by, um, me! I'll give it a proper name if/when I write the pattern up. Yarn is Sanguine Gryphon Free Range - about 1.7 skeins of the Green JungleFowl colourway (100% wool). Knitted on a 5.5mm circular needle.

The part where I ramble for even longer than usual: Yay - I tackled bottom-up raglan designing and actually produced something that fits! Yep - I did all of the maths and everything. I am inordinately proud of myself for this. I took detailed pattern notes too for a change, so I'm thinking that I'll try knitting it again some time in order to iron out the kinks, and then post the pattern up if anyone is still interested.

I am mostly happy with how it turned out. I would have preferred slightly less ease - it grew a little on blocking because of my loose gauge - but that's just personal preference. It really does fit just fine as it is. I'm not entirely happy with the sleeves, though. I ended up doing basic stockingette cap sleeves with a garter edging in needles several sizes up to make them flare out slightly, but I'm not sure that the experiment was a wholly successful one. It requires some fine tuning. So fine tune I shall, at a later date.

This yarn. Nom. I love Sanguine Gryphon so, so much. Admittedly I am yet to lay eyes (or hands and needles) on the fabled Bugga yarn that everyone else is foaming at the mouth over, but I just can't bring myself to feel too disappointed about that, given that all of her other stuff is just so lovely too. Knitting with yarns like this one is hardly a consolation prize! Seriously - it's beautiful. Just look at those colours! Click the photo and actually look at them!

Seriously - it's beautiful. I never thought that I'd feel compelled to knit a garment from variegated yarn, but these colours made me do it anyway! I had no choice in the matter! Great yardage too - I made this with less than two skeins! I mean, I don't normally use that much yarn for projects since I often opt for looser gauges, but less than two skeins! I still have one and a bit to do other things with!

Anyway, so now that this happy diversion has been concluded, it's high time that Sylvi got finished. If I ever get the cat out from under my feet long enough to actually work on it. Family are away, so he has gotten mega-clingy over the last week. Do you know how hard it is to do your tai chi practice when there is a cat determined to sit 15cm from your feet at all times? And if I leave anything that I've been wearing unattended for more than ten seconds, I come back to find him sitting on it. Not just jackets and t-shirts either. Yesterday it was my university bag, and then I found him trying to balance on top of one of my hats. Idiot.

He's *my* idiot though... Poor sweet old man - we've found a compromise where I accidentally-on-purpose leave my tracksuit pants unattended on the floor next to my bed. So hopefully that will keep him happy for a while.

Silliness

2009-09-12T22:02:00.004+10:00

Well, it's assignment time again. So, as usual, procrastination is calling...

On this particular occasion, procrastination came in two forms, as is made obvious by this very fine and not even slightly ridiculous illustration. Firstly, it came in the form of a renewed assault on Mount Sylvi (left front is now finished). Secondly, in the form of... well, let's just say that it is a mistake to keep charcoal on your desk when you have a coat to knit and an assignment on the Geneva convention to write. That and a cracked sense of humour (I didn't look scary enough at first, so I gave myself fangs, eyebrows from hell, and an evil genius goatee).

Anyway, back to the, erm, assignment. Yes, definitely the assignment, and nothing else. In other news, this is apparently my 100th post. Haha, I sure wasted that opportunity to say something auspicious, didn't I?

Look - regularity!

2009-09-08T19:02:00.005+10:00

Wow, look at me go on this whole posting thing! I've always found that things ebb and flow a little bit with hobbies - sometimes you're big into something, other times you let it go for weeks or even months. Perhaps this is sign that making stuff is moving back to the forefront of my brain, after it's little sojourn into (comparative) obscurity. Let's hope so.

I took a sickie from uni today - my back was acting up, and when this happens, it's usually a good idea to play it very, very safe. So instead of scraping myself out of bed stupidly early and going to my lecture, I scraped myself out of bed stupidly early (hey, I didn't know that my back was dodgy until I actually got up!) and spent the day studying, playing Age of Empires II and finishing the body of the garment I'm designing at the moment.

Please excuse the bright pink waste yarn holding the sleeve stitches.

I had to do a bit of soul searching about this one today. The body has come out exactly as I was hoping it would, which is rather good. Yes, the neckline is supposed to be low - that wasn't a mathematical lapse on my part. So all was well, but once confronted with the prospect of sleeves, I realised that I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. Originally the plan had been to do longer sleeves - probably around the 3/4 mark. The only thing keeping this up in the air had been whether or not I'd have enough yarn left. Well, I had yarn galore remaining after the body, but once I tried the body on, I realised that I actually kind of liked it sleeveless. So, I had a good squiz at it for a while, interrogated various Ravelry peoples, and then proceeded to 'ummm 'and 'ahhh' a great deal.

The story isn't finished yet, because the sleeves haven't been knitted. But I think that I've definitely decided to go short. With the variegation already makings its presence felt (Does it still reek of camouflage gear? Or am I going to be able to pull off 'woodsy'? I'm not sure yet...), I'm worried that with sleeves thrown into the mix, there might be just too much going on. Also, since we're hurtling headlong into spring, I'll likely get more immediate wear out of a short sleeved thing. So short sleeves it shall be. But what kind? Hmm...

And that is more than enough rambling about something that isn't even finished yet. Here, have a picture of something else:

I've been wanting to take a picture of these for ages. They're Russian chocolates given to me by a good friend - I'm not sure whether she got them when she was over there most recently, or if someone else in her family acquired them, but aren't they so cute! Look at the squirrel one! I almost don't want to eat them, because that would mean disturbing the wrappers (I say almost - why do you think that I took this picture..). My friend's mother told me that when she was young (in Russia), they used to save and collect the wrappers, then fold them into a shape like you see on the bottom right, making sure that the design showed on top. Then they would swap them and play games with them. I was far, far too enchanted by this story. I love hearing about childhood games that were different from mine.

Anyway, it's dinner time now, and I have a cooking adventure planned, so that's it for this installment. However, I shall like as not be tackling those sleeves this evening, so stay tuned for the next thrilling episode!

Reasons for Neglect, Part Two

2009-09-03T13:24:00.007+10:00

As alluded to last entry, I did actually do a little bit of knitting during my absence from the blog. Not as much as I would have liked though - there are more demands on my time this semester than there have been in a very long time, so I really haven't had the opportunity to do as many things on the craft front as I would have liked.

Exhibit A: my Sylvi is still not finished. I think I've pretty much abandoned the hope of getting a lot of wear out of it before it gets retired for spring/summer weather - I'll have to be satisfied with one or two. Oh well - I'll live. Actually, I'm just looking forward to finishing it. While it's coming along nicely enough, and behaving itself perfectly well, I'm just not used to undertaking such large scale projects. It will feel really, really good to have it finished so I can move onto all of the other things that I want to do - right now it feels like they're all standing restless in a queue behind this bloody coat! Sigh. Little by little, I shall get it done.

At any rate, there have been side projects slotting in around the Sylvi - one can't work elaborate cables and moss stitch all day long without going insane, after all. Here is one such diversion:

First thing's first: Pattern: Cinnamon Grace, by Katie Harris. Yarn: Eki Riva Natal (alpaca/silk/nylon blend). 4mm circular stainless steel needles.

The stuff what I thought: This was the pattern that kept me sane while I waited endless hours in Hobart Airport (or some of it anyway, as I had to stow it away in my checked luggage - stupid Australian air travel with its stupid knitting ban). I originally started it as an antidote to Sylvi, as it's a very simple knit. This is a great pattern - it was undemanding without being too repetitive (until you got to the bind off anyway). Since I used to have a bit of a phobia of picking up stitches, I can't say that I really enjoyed picking up a few hundred (I didn't actually count - I figured that I'd get too depressed) for the ruffle. At least I had the Tassie SnB ladies to keep me company while I did it... Also, this project has the longest cast-off ever. Or it definitely felt like it anyway. Stupid picot bind off - we are talking hours here.

My juvenile whinging aside, this is a great pattern. The only mod I made to it was to use a slightly thicker yarn (DK - pattern called for a sport weight) and to make the ruffle slightly shorter as I was running out of yarn. I was worried that the pattern might be lost in the slightly thick/thin yarn I was using, but it ended up coming out just fine.

As it's sort of a shawl/scarf hybrid, you can wear it in a couple of different ways too, which is always good. I suspect that this pattern will turn out to be quite popular - I'm actually surprised that more people haven't made it, since it's been around for a few months now. Anyway, I'm very happy with how it came out, for all that I had a few moments of doubt while I was actually knitting it. I'd definitely recommend it, at any rate (note: pattern also seems to be blissfully error free - hurrah!).

Anyway, and that's about all I have to show for the last month, knitting wise. I've also started a hat for Richard, which will unfortunately have to be mailed to him, as he departed for Canada last weekend, before I had a chance to finish. And I've been swatching for a self-designed hat project using some of the yarn I acquired at the Bendigo show a while back. I don't normally do a lot of stripey things, so it's fun to experiement. I was amazed at how much difference a change in stitch can make to stripes - look it:

I was worried that the stripes wouldn't be obvious enough in stocking stitch, so I tried adding garter ridges as well - definitely the way to go, I think! Gives it a different look, anyway...

And now it's time for Anna to be off - she needs to get in a couple more rows on her Sylvi before heading off for uni and tai chi. Wish her luck... *sigh*...

Reasons for Neglect, Part One

2009-09-02T18:02:00.008+10:00

Poor little blog - how you've been languishing! Alas, I have not been running long on time over the last couple of weeks, as is evident by the way in which things have basically ground to a halt on the craft front. Well, perhaps not a complete halt, but I haven't had nearly as much time to do things as I might have liked, and even less time to blog about what I have been doing.

Anyway, there are two things that I am overdue to blog about. Firstly, the knitting that I've been doing, and secondly, the trip to Tasmania that I've probably been blathering about. Rather than do an enormous Post of Doom that covers both, I decided that it would be more sensible to tackle them one at a time.

So. Tassie.

Months and months ago, Rebecca and I hatched a cunning plan to pay a visit to Tasmania. More specifically, she was coming down to visit from the US and had plans to adventure around down there, and since I had never been before, it was decided that it should be a joint endeavour. Anyway, weekend before last, our evil plan came to fruition!

I packed sensibly. Warm things because it would be cold, and readables because I have a healthy respect for Murphy's Law whenever I fly domestic in this country, and a good book on hand usually serves you rather well. I got into Hobart early in the evening, and met up with Rebecca - definitely a surreal experience after corresponding online for so long. We drove into the city and found our hotel, and then went in search of sustenance. What was found was rather delicious Indian food, including some garlic naan that put me in a good mood for the rest of the evening, just by being as hot and tasty and garlicky as it was.

Saturday morning was spent roaming around Salamanca Market.

I often find markets a little anti-climactic when I've heard as much about them as I had about this one, but thankfully I was far from disappointed. There were lots of fun things to look at, and plenty of tasty things to sample (given the fact that I am a total garbage guts and all, this second point was a rather substantial bonus - I am never bored when there's food involved). I bought some lovely tea from these people - I bought a rather obscene amount of it, actually, because I'd been given orders to fill from friends in Melbourne! Oh, and somewhere along the way I also acquired a cosy new jacket, a pretty coloured dress, and two rather delightful donuts. There was also yarn from The Spindle Tree, though I only bought a tiny amount - more to mark the trip than anything else, as I'm really trying to cut down on buying more until I've used the copious amount that I have. Also my bag was too full of tea.

The afternoon was spent sipping hot apple tea and knitting with all of the lovely ladies from the Hobart SnB group - it was lovely and cosy and fun, and I'm very grateful to them for organising an extra meet so that we could gatecrash, as we both had a lovely time.

On Sunday we stocked up on provisions (i.e. cheese, biscuits, fruit, and the all important beer) and ventured out to Freycinet National Park so that we could do the Wineglass Bay walk that everyone kept recommending to us. We picnicked with the wallabies before venturing out, and then we spent a good couple of hours tramping around the truly lovely landscape - if only my bastard of a camera hadn't run out of battery in Salamanca the day before! In lieu of photographic evidence, you'll all have to either google around for a bit, or just take my word on the fact that it was gorgeous. So there!

Monday was the day that we had to leave, but we crammed plenty into it anyway. We had the breakfast to end all breakfasts at the Jackman & McRoss Bakery - seriously, I was happy for hours just from eating it. Thus fortified, we drove to the top of Mt Wellington, and subsequently froze our arses off - man, but that wind was FREEZING! I couldn't feel my hands after about fifteen seconds of standing in it - really made you remember that Antarctica was the next country over! After we'd gotten back down and defrosted, we lunched and looked around the shops for a while (we found the spice shop to end all spice shops!). And then it was off to the airport to return our car and head back to Melbourne. My plane was delayed by over two hours, so I ended up being very glad that I had my knitting with me - I got home tired, wet, cold, and cranky.

Despite the end, a thoroughly awesome weekend was had! I ate a lot of food, saw a lot of awesome stuff, and did it in great company - what more do you want really? And Rebecca gets special bonus points for spending four days in my company without throttling me - the girl definitely has a strong constitution! Oh, and she gave me yarn, which is always a bonus! Pictures when there's natural light to be had. In the meantime, here is us back in Salamanca - the very last photo before my camera battery gave out:

Hurrah for Tassie adventures! Oh, and kindly note all of the fine knitwear visible in this shot...

In our next (not so) thrilling installment, I shall blather about the knitting I've been doing. Stay tuned, loyal blog readers...

A Scarf, and Unimportant Decisions...

2009-08-12T16:36:00.006+10:00

Well, I am now happily mired in the third week of semester, and lo and behold, my head has not yet exploded. Though that said, I have been suffering from an unusual amount of headaches this week, so perhaps it's only a matter of time before said explosion occurs. Note to self: remove all easily stained items from desk before starting homework.

Whinging aside, I finally finished the scarf I was making:

Details: Pattern is Wisp, by Cheryl Niamath (Knitty, Summer 2007). Yarn used was Moda Vera Boutique (a wool/mohair/soy blend), and the needles I employed for this merry undertaking were a pair of 6mm plastic straights.

The blathering commences: For some reason known only to the gods of retail therapy, I keep buying mohair yarn. This makes no sense at all, because I really don't like mohair. Fluffy is just not my thing - never has been. Yet for some reason I bought two balls of the aforementioned yarn. I think that the colours might have had something to do with it, and true enough, I do like the colours of this project. Just not the fibre content. At any rate, I started this project specifically to use up the yarn, and thankfully, a friend of mine saw me knitting away in that slavish way that I have, and exclaimed over the developing scarf. I believe my reaction "Awesome. Do you want it? Please take it! Really, please! Oh won't you please say that you'll take it?" Thankfully she acquiesed.

That rant aside, this is a very nice pattern. It's straightforward, and would be a great project for someone who wanted to learn the basics of lace, as well as getting the hang of thinner yarn on larger needles. And the finished product is nice enough, for all that it's not my thing. I can see why this one is so popular. Oh, and the only modification I made was to work a couple more repeats of the pattern, since the whole purpose of this project was to Use Up The Hateful Mohair - I didn't want any leftover!

So now everyone lives happily ever after. I got rid of the troublesome yarn that was clogging up my collection and sewing the seeds of dissent amongst my lovely wools, silks and cottons. My friend Zia gets a scarf. Everyone wins. See this picture? This is me winning!

In other crafty news, my Sylvi coat is gradually getting there. Look, see (and please excuse the scary pink tufts of waste yarn - they will be gone soon enough!):

I can probably finish the back in a night or two if I really put in the effort. And after that the sides should go pretty quickly - after all, they're just moss stitch, so I can do them on the bus/train/tram/hovercraft, etc. Good thing too - I really need to get on with this one if I want to get any wear out of it this year. I have issued Rebecca with strict orders to kick my arse if I haven't finished it by the time she gets to Melbourne in a couple of week's time... So there's my deadline! Wish me luck!

As for the decision alluded to in the title? Well, I can't decide whether I want cupcakes, pancakes, or gingerbread. The upside of cupcakes is that they'll be quickest. But I just bought some new (real) maple syrup, so pancakes are calling too. Gingerbread will take the longest, but it will also last longer than the other two. Hmmmm.... Or perhaps I should just do my homework like the good little non-disgraceful law student that I am...

Help - My Life is Being Devoured! Oh, and I Made Stuff Too...

2009-08-03T14:54:00.006+10:00

Wow - I have no idea where the last few weeks have gone. Devoured by the great twin time-sinkholes of university and the internet, I suppose. Such is life.

So what have I been up to? Ummm, lots of things! I have been playing nicely with the other children. I have been blazing trails, picking battles wisely, and doing my best to eat enough vegetables. I have been working away busily on my Sylvi. I have been cultivating a dreadful addiction to Etsy. All the usual things, really.

On the craft front: I finished Richard's Canada scarf. No brother of mine shall have a cold neck, if I have anything to say about it! He's already worn in, and given it the thumbs up:

Vital statistics: Pattern: Noro Striped Scarf by Jared Flood. Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool Aran, one skein each of 'Charcoal' and 'Noir'. Needles: 4.5mm bamboo straights.

That stuff wot I thought about it: This pattern is awesome. I mean, obviously it would have been awesome-er if I'd actually used Noro yarn, but this was for Richard and I couldn't really see him being willing to wear a rainbow striped scarf, so sombre shades it was. That said, this pattern is still great even in comparatively boring and tasteful colours - the way that the slipped stitches hide the yarn being carried up the side for the colour changes makes me very happy indeed. I may make another one of these at some stage - the small stripes are surprisingly addictive.

And now I just need to furnish the brother-thing with a hat and gloves before he leaves. In three weeks time. Hmmm, better get cracking on that...

In other crafty news, I did some more natural dyeing. I made a second attempt with eucalyptus, trying a few different things this time (using rain water, soaking the leaves first, cooking the yarn for longer, etc), and subsequently got a gratifyingly different shade from last time. This batch still came out brown, but it was a yellow tinged brown (on the left in the photo below) that was a distinctively warm colour, as opposed to the cool purplish brown I got with the last lot (centre front below). I'm quite happy with it - it's a lovely colour in a subtle way.

I also tried dyeing with rhododendron leaves, since I'd read that they could be used for such things, and I had some readily available in the garden. I wasn't expecting too much from them, since I didn't have any proper mordants to use and had to make do with vinegar. I am pleased to report that rhododendron leaves smell thoroughly revolting when they're being simmered. But I did get some colour. Not much - just the faintest tinge of light green (you can see below - it's the small ball in the middle), but it was still colour, so I was pleased.

Also, I baked the best garlic bread ever. Seriously, it is all downhill from here. The recipe was from Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess, and it contains four heads (yes, that's heads, not cloves) of garlic. Indeed. Before anyone keels over and dies at the prospect, it's not actually that scary. The garlic is roasted for nearly an hour, so that it gets nice and mellow. Then you puree it with parsley and olive oil and merrily slather it all over a basic focaccia dough. It was ridiculously tasty. I will admit that you suffer from pretty killer garlic breath for a good three hours after eating it, but hey, there have to be up-sides to tragic singlehood, right? This is definitely one of them! I love Nigella Lawson so much - she rarely steers you wrong...

Yumbo. And now I'm wondering if it's feasible to make this again this evening. Preferably with a big vat of fresh vegetable soup. Hmmm... If anyone wants me, I will be rummaging frantically through my cupboard, or possibly raiding the supermarket with rabid enthusiasm...

Bendigo!

2009-07-24T19:09:00.008+10:00

Well, as previously mentioned, last weekend was the Bendigo Sheep Show. Hurrah!

I got up ridiculously early on Saturday morning in order to make my train. Okay, perhaps 5:30am is not ridiculously early, but it was definitely earlier than I would have liked. Getting to the train station was a bit of debacle, because I got to the path I usually take, and subsequently found that there was no more path - only a construction site where the path had previously been. Whoops. There was a lot of blundering around in the dark and a little bit of fence hopping, but I got there eventually, and with my biscuits still intact, no less. That, my friends, is what we call hardcore!

Thankfully, once we (we being myself and Rowena, the day's partner in knitting crime) got on the train, everything ran smoothly. The trip up was uneventful - there was a lot of fog, so the view from the train was pretty uninteresting, although I did see kangaroos at one stage (which might have been interesting if I hadn't grown up in this country and spent enough time outside the city that a kangaroo has long since ceased being novel, but I'll stop being snarky now, shall I?). Knitting was done, and biscuits were ingested!

The actual show was good fun. There was lots to see and touch, and lots of shiny nice yarny things to buy. We got to see a lot of Ravelry people, which was awesome, if a little surreal at times (it's a little unnerving when a random stranger identifies the pattern you used to make your cardigan when there is a grand total of three square inches of said cardigan peeking out from under your coat). I, for what it's worth, got to see a couple of completed Sylvi coats!

Now, for your viewing pleasure, and proof that it all happened, here is me being an idiot with a cardboard alpaca cutout. Because, let's face it, I am an idiot some of the time.

And look! It hardly rained at all!

Anyway, an awesome time was had. I got to play with sheep and alpaca, find out more about natural dyeing (which ties in nicely with a lot of my recent and upcoming experiments), chat with a bunch of lovely people about handspinning and dyeing, and lots of other stuff. Oh, and we also watched the wool fashion parade, which was very amusing, though more for the pained expressions on the male models' faces than anything else (roped in, anyone?).

And then we got on the bus and made our way back to the station. Good day was had!
Look - bus cam! Two degenerate fibre fixated young ladies, full of biscuits, and quite thoroughly worn out!

And of course, I bought stuff. Because it was shiny and nice and that's one of the reasons that you go! I acquired both roving and yarn, which has come back to bite me because my spindle has magically disappeared, and I Can't Find It Anywhere. Seriously, I have spent hours looking for it. Meh. I'm sure it will appear the very moment I purchase a new one. At any rate, here is the haul from the show, frustrated, spindle-lacking fibre and all the rest:

On the left, there's some beautiful spinnables from Stranded in Oz and Ms Gusset (yay Kylie!). I also got bitten by the hand-dyed yarn bug again (sigh, I can't resist it, even though I never know quite what to do with it either), as you can see in the centre - some merino 2ply, also from Stranded in Oz. The purple and brown skeins on the top right are a wool/alpaca blend from one of the stallholders whose name I didn't catch. It's lovely yarn, and looks much nicer in the sun when the subtleties in the colour really come out. And the tiny wee packet on the end (which refused to photograph) is 10g of dyed silk from the Handweavers & Spinners Guild (for me to get my filthy mitts on once I find that bloody spindle...). Definitely enough to keep me busy for a while!

I've been up other things on the crafty front since I got back, but this is such a long post already that I think it might have to wait for another time. Or not at all perhaps - there is another dyeing experiment in the works and I am unsure about how well it will turn out, so if you don't hear about it again, it means that the exercise was a dismal failure and I am trying to block it from my mind! And on that glorious note, I'm off to go for my run.

Busy, busy, busy...

2009-07-17T16:46:00.005+10:00

Well, things have been weird around here - a strange blend of busy, yet not busy. More specifically, there has been lots of me making valiant attempts to be constructive, but getting thwarted at every turn. Curse you, foolish reality! Why won't you work the way I want you to?

Anyway, one thing that I have found time to do in between running-around-like-a-crazy-person-to-no-avail is work on my Sylvi. I will make this coat if it kills me. Which it probably will, for the record, provided it is indeed possible to die of convoluted chart poisoning. Anyway, I realised that it was about time to get my arse into gear if I actually wanted to have a chance to wear it this year. I know that it's only mid July, which gives me a good month and a half of winter left, but it takes time to knit a full length coat, you know? And the fickle Melbourne weather does love to thwart me... So I started last weekend and went about it rather vigourously all week. As a result, I am now in possession of two sleeves, and the start of the back:

Doesn't look like much now, but hopefully it will be cool. Or rather, the pattern is definitely rather awesome - I just need to deploy higher/equal levels of awesomeness in order to live up to it. Hopefully this shall occur!

And this is all that has really taken place on the knitting front. There has also been a lot of reading, and a lot of baking - more birthdays and other cake-requiring-occasions than I've been able to shake the proverbial stick at. There was also lemon meringue pie, because I was having a sorry-for-myself day. And whenever I'm down and really don't know what to do with myself, I make lemon meringue pie. You can generally tell how good a year has been by the number of pies I make. For the record, it's now mid July and I've only clocked in at two - this is good!

Mmmm... medicinal pie. I cheated and used a bought base, which is normally the very antithesis of how I go about these things, but on Monday I needed to busy myself with therapy pie more than I needed to buggerise around making pastry. So there. Surely my otherwise exemplary levels of baked-goods production compensate for this little hiccup, yes?

And these little blighters are biscuits for Bendigo (oooh, what delightful aliteration!). Tomorrow, complete with Ravelry buddy and train munchies, I am heading off to the Bendigo Sheep Show like the fibre nerd that I am. It sounds like it's going to be far, far too much fun. I am embarrassingly excited... Full report and hopefully some photos next time.

(disclaimer: photos may or may not contain graphic footage of my biscuit riddled corpse, depending on how hungry I get on the train on the way up there...)

Natural dyeing, and more restlessness

2009-07-10T17:47:00.008+10:00

Okay, so as previously mentioned, I did some dyeing with eucalyptus. I rashly promised to document the exercise, so here we go.

I'd read a little bit in books and on Ravelry about the uses of eucalyptus, and had been itching to get into some more dyeing, as previous experiments had been good fun. Also, I just generally wanted to try a few new things while I had the time, so I figured I'd take a bash at it.

I used dried leaves, for the very scientific reason of: that was what I could acquire. Then I simmered the leaves for a while (and for the record, they made my kitchen smell delightfully of rainy forest), then removed them, cooled the mixture slightly, and then added the yarn - probably "cooked" it for about 40 minutes all up:

I also did some dyeing with turmeric while I was at it, and man is that stuff vivid! I've heard that the light-fastness is not great, and I had to rinse it for ages before it stopped bleeding, but at the moment the colour is still very intense. The eucalyptus is much paler than I expected (I'd seen some people get some very vibrant colours), but the result was still very intriguing - a pale grey-brown with faint purplish streaks in parts (which of course fail to show up in the photo).

Not bad for a first attempt, all in all - especially considering I didn't bother checking the exact variety of tree involved. I'm thinking I'm going to use the yarn to make some lavender bags or something, as neither are really my colour. Still, it was definitely a fun experiment, and I definitely plan to play more with natural dyes in future.

In knitting news, I started yet another project. Bad Anna. I'm very good at starting and not finishing at the moment, but such is the ebb and flow of creativity I suppose. At any rate, my younger brother is heading off to Canada on exchange come August, and he's going to freeze his arse off if I don't furnish him with an appropriate level of woollens. So, a scarf:

Admittedly, it's not a very interesting scarf, but my priorities with this one are to make something that he'll actually wear, rather than something with gorgeous yarn or an elaborate stitch pattern. Last thing I checked, twenty-one year old guys weren't renowned for their love of lacework. So yes, at the moment there is a lot of scarf. Perhaps given time and enough cups of tea, I might actually get around to finishing one of the other projects I've been putting off. Perhaps.

That familiar odd freedom

2009-07-04T10:09:00.009+10:00

Well, as previously mentioned (to a tedious extent really), I have now finished exams for the semester, leaving much of my free time blissfully unencumbered by the demands of the law degree (needy little bastard that it is). So it really does make perfect sense that I'm now suffering from the same problem that always afflicts me when I make my biannual descent into the void between semesters. It's not boredom. One thing that I've always liked about myself is that I do not get bored, or at least not when I'm left to my own devices. I don't understand how anyone can ever be bored - there is a lot of stuff out there to do! Not boredom, no, but rather a kind of restlessness. There is so much I want to do that I subsequently find myself unable to focus on anything for long.

As usual, I've attempted to remedy this with endless 'to-do' lists (oh, how I love writing those things). But still, despite having more knitting time now, I have actually done very little by way of knitting. I got some work done on my pullover at pub night on Monday (beer and knitting actually mix rather nicely when it's just round after round of stocking stitch and nothing I actually have to devote conscious thought to), but other than that, it's been a whole lot of bugger all really.

I haven't been idle. I've been tending to my poor languishing social life. I made truly delicious lemon and almond cake. I tried my hand at natural dyeing with some eucalyptus and turmeric (pictures to follow). I made valiant, moderately successful attempts to get back into some of my current writing projects. But not much, yet, by way of knitting. With one exception:

I made this hat for the Bendigo Woollen Mills Ravelry Group 100g swap - it's the Sunflower Tam from Norah Gaughan's Knitting Nature (one of my favourites), made from Rustic 12ply in the "Green Tweed" colourway. I'd be wanting to make this pattern for ages, because it's pretty cute and construction is ingenious, but I can't really pull off tams or berets. But thankfully my recipient could, so away we went. Hope she liked it! This one was really fun to knit, and I may have to make another one, said inability to wear it be damned!

And this was what I received for the swap:

Look it! Look it! Tasty fudge, tasty soap, cute notebook and some awesome knitted stuff! All the way from Tassie (okay, it's not actually that far, but that's not the point). I'm totally spoiled rotten. The knits are from the Cairn pattern by Ysolda Teague, made from Bendigo Woollen Mills (of course) Luxury 8ply. I like them very, very much, and they fit perfectly. Here is proof (not to mention Anna doing that weird invisible-beard stroking thing that she always does when she's trying to model gloves)!

Other than this swap though, not much has been going on on the knitting front. Oh, except for me pretending that I'm famous on Ravelry, through the lovely article that the lovely Rebecca wrote, detailing our evil plot to take Tasmania by storm come August. We are concocting wicked plans, yes we are!

And that's all I've got! More posts soon, I swear. If you're lucky, I'll tell the tale of my eucalyptus dyeing exploits...

Survival!

2009-06-26T17:50:00.007+10:00

Just here to announce that as of 12:30pm, I have officially survived exam period. Whew! It was touch and go there for a while though - I had my last two exams (both worth 100% of my semester's mark - eeep!) one day after the other, so it has been a VERY long 48 hours. I honestly don't know if I've ever studied that hard before in my life: there were multiple days when I'd listen to well north of five hours worth of lecture recordings, and that didn't even include all of the other reading and note taking. The law degree - she is indeed a harsh mistress.

Yep, exam period is hard. It's been all right though - there are worse things than incessant studying, and since I'm one of those people who's always doodling and writing sarcastic commentary on their class notes, it's at least entertaining looking back over the work I've done during semester (even if sometimes I wish that I'd drawing critters less and taken notes more):

Look! It's an International Law notebook in its natural habitat (i.e. the desk!). Don't make any sudden movements or you'll scare it away!

At least listening to all of those recordings meant that my hands were free to knit at top speed. You would not believe how much knitting I did last night. It was about the only thing stopping me from falling asleep at my desk, actually - for reasons known only to it, my body is impervious to the effects of caffeine, so I've always needed something else to keep me awake and moving.

The above work-in-progress was single-handedly responsible for keeping me conscious during all of those hours of Restitution lectures yesterday. It's going to be a pullover, made from that lovely Sanguine Gryphon yarn that I posted about a few entries back. I'm sort of making it up as I go along, so the actual style will vary depending on my mood and how much yarn I have left, but I have vague plans for a very low front, maybe with a garter stitch neckline, and interesting sleeves of some kind. The yarn is lovely. Normally knitting a jumper with variegated yarn is something I'd pull a face over, but this is just so pretty that I'm having a go anyway (alternating skeins every couple of rows to try and minimise pooling). Granted it does have a little bit of an army camoflague vibe to it, but I'm going to staunchly ignore that and call it 'woodsy' or 'elven' instead in that pretentious way that I have!

Exam time also means exam soup. Seriously, I live off this in exams - I just make a huge vat of it and then eat it for the rest of the week, usually accompanied by toast, or cheese on toast and a glass of wine if my statute-tortured soul needs soothing. I figure I could do worse, right? Vegetables and barley and tomato and fresh herbs... Mmmm...

Potentially nonsensical...

2009-06-18T23:35:00.006+10:00

Okay - there is a very real chance that this post will not make a great deal of sense, because approximately five minutes ago, I was asleep. Ahh, the wonder that is exam period. Mind you, why I'm bothering to nap at 11:42pm instead of just going to bed is anybody's guess...

At any rate, I'm still busy, but definitely alive and kicking. Without the kicking part though. And I am posting for a reason - it isn't procrastination alone that's fuelling me. Because behold, I finished my second Terra:

And this would be: Terra, by Jacqueline Landry. Size XS (32"), knitted with several inches of negative ease, on 6mm needles. Used 3 balls of Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 12ply (in colour "Red Currant"). No significant mods to speak of.

The part where I blather: I love this pattern, and I honestly don't know why more people haven't made it. It's easy, ridiculously fast, and the end product is awesome. The pattern suggests you pick a size with several inches of positive ease, and for my first Terra, that was what I did. The fit was good (and indeed I still love this jumper dearly and wear it several times a week), but because of the loose gauge, it stretched a little over time. It got me wondering about what the next size down would look like, so I figured that I'd find out.

It's always a little bit nerve racking knitting garments with negative ease, because they always look far too small before they're seamed and blocked. But this, as you can see, came out just fine in the end. It's rather close fitting at the moment, but I'm counting on it stretching a little like the last one did, so it should ease up a bit. I'm not complaining either way.

I'm very enamoured with the colour. Admittedly it does have a bit of a Little Red Riding Hood vibe to it, but red is really nice to wear in winter, and I can't quite bring myself to feel that the hood is anything less than awesome. It's lovely and warm too - I wore it out and about yesterday, and was perfectly toasty despite winter having well and truly set in. If we're being nit picky, some of seaming really could have been better - especially around the sleeves. And the armholes are a fraction too tight in this size. But I'm really having to scrape the bottom of the barrel, complaint wise. I'm really happy with how this turned out, and I plan to wear it quite thoroughly to death over the next while. Now I just need to convince myself not to order the yarn to make another. Given the fact that this is so quick to make, costs under $30AUS to make, and yields such a good result, I'm probably in severe danger on this front...

I have things to keep me occupied though. The yarn for my Sylvi finally arrived, so I'm swatching away busily on that:

That's rather a lot of yarn - I'll be busy indeed. And, you know, with exams. Those as well...

Feeling the procrastinatory pinch...

2009-06-03T11:35:00.005+10:00

Well, more of the same around here. It's exam time again, so that of course means that I'm now feeling the wonderful burst of creative energy that I always get when I don't actually have time to capitalize on it... Figures. Not to mention the other things that have been leeching my time and mental/emotional energy. Just for the record - I really, really hate having to go to the police station. And paranoia and anxiety are really not conducive to study. But anyway, on to more pleasant topics...

Knitting front has been slow, since I haven't had as much time as I would have liked. I've started making another Terra - figured that it was a good investment since it's a fairly quick and mindless knit, and I wear the one that I have just as much as I possibly can. I'm using the same yarn (hurrah for Bendigo Woollen Mills), except this time I'm using red, and making a smaller size, as my existing Terra has actually grown quite a bit as I've worn it. So far I've knitted the front and part of the back, and it's all coming along swimmingly.

And, well, aside from my new Terra and a lot of baking, there isn't a great deal going on around here. Spending a lot of time with friends, trying to restrain myself from buying every single last piece of yarn on the Sanguine Gryphon website (and Aussie dollar, you are not helping my resolve by doing so well!), and pretty much just trying to get through exam period with my sanity intact - that about sums it up. I guess I could insert some pseudo-humorous remark about not having swine flu, but it's getting old already...

Miscellany!

2009-05-25T20:11:00.010+10:00

Behold: lots of miscellaneous things that don't really justify a blog post on their own. And also lots of me showing off my new camera:

This was my birthday present to myself! Three tasty skeins of Sanguine Gryphon yarn. Three skeins of 'Free Range' (100% organic wool, DK weight) in the 'Green Jungle-fowl' colourway, to be exact. I love it. It's absolutely gorgeous, and it makes me happy. This was the first time I'd ever handled organic yarn, so I don't really have much basis for comparison, but I can say that this stuff feels absolutely beautiful...

My favourite dip in all the world - spicy hummus from Queen Victoria Market (please don't ask me what stall, because I can never remember the number). It comes with fresh parsley and dried chilli sprinkled on top, and is nothing short of the best hummus in the universe. The fact that I actually buy it is testimony to the awesomeness of this dip. As cluey readers might have begun to suspect, I am usually the type of person who likes to make their own stuff where possible, and my home-made hummus is perfectly fine. Problem is that it's not as nice as this stuff. Not even close. Magic dip!

I tried my hand at felting for the first time. Or rather, it was the first time that I actually tried to go about it scientifically - I am guilty of once maliciously throwing a particularly hated handknit jumper into the washing machine just to see what would happen...

Anyway, this has turned out quite well. It didn't shrink as much as I was expecting, and the strap is a little too long, but that's easily fixable. It's not too far off being finished - now I just want to add a couple of buttons to make it closable, and put some kind of decoration on the front (the jury is still out on what kind). So basically, we're up to the fun part, having progressed from both the drudgy endless part and the soapy soggy part.

Also, in the background of the above shot is a Wisp that I'm working on, with the goal being simply to keep my hands busy during lecture recordings while getting rid of some hateful mohair that I bought in a fit of madness a few months back. I'm actually pleased with how it's coming along, though I'll likely end up trying to fob it off onto somebody else, because mohair is really not my thing...

And here is a birthday card that I made on the weekend for my aunt's 50th. Because I'm one of those people who can never quite bring themselves to fork out $5 for a shop bought card. I do of course like making cards of course, but, um, yeah, tight-arsery weighs in here too. It would be a filthy lie to suggest otherwise...

Anyway, I'm off to the iron. My poor Terra had a very unfortunate run in with some hot wax today, so I'm using all the tricks in my arsenal to try and salvage the poor sleeve in question. I'll be rather sad if I can't get the wax out - I love this one to pieces, and wear it all the time... Wish us both luck!

Cold-ridden but constructive...

2009-05-18T18:58:00.007+10:00

Well, I've been silent again for a little while, but life has been busy around here. The kind of ridiculously busy that only May brings. Come May the exam timetable is handed out (mine is officially irksome, of course), the weather gets colder so you begin to lose your energy, and virtually everyone has a birthday (well, it feels like virtually everyone). So I've been running around like a headless chicken the last few weeks. Probably why I came down with a cold... At least it's mostly cleared now.

Anyway, behold: proof that I have not been idle in my absence:

Here is my younger brother's birthday cake. Epic, right? It was his 21st, so I told him he could pick any cake he wanted from our not-insubstantial library of cookbooks, and dutiful sister that I am, I would make it for him. So he picked a black forest cake. And not just any black forest cake, but one with crazy elaborate construction. It's made by making two flat rectangular cakes, cutting them into strips and then rolling them up so that you get a tree-trunk rings effect when you cut into it. See:

I am so proud of this cake that it isn't even funny. Amusingly though, I haven't actually tried any of it - I'm not a fan of black forest cake. I've been assured that it tastes good though. Brother had a good birthday too, for the record.

And then four days later it was my birthday as well. Yesterday I celebrated a quarter of a century on this earth, so now I'm officially no longer able to use "I'm young and stupid" as an excuse for doing moronic things. Or that's the plan anyway... I didn't get up to much during the day, as I had to work, but in the evening the family and I went out for Thai food, and they plied me with a substantial amount of champagne and rum (substantial enough that I was somewhat remorseful when I had to scrape myself out of bed for lectures this morning...). Oh, and the blog will benefit from this birthday too, as my present was a new digital camera - one that is markedly better than the thing that I've been using for the last year or so. So better photos from this post onwards, hopefully!

I've been knitting busily too. Because of my cold I missed some classes this week, so I had a lot of lecture recordings to listen to, and therefore a lot of time with my ears occupied and my hands free. So I finished up the things that I was knitting for my coworker's new baby.

The red one is a Presto Chango in a nylon/acrylic blend, and the eye searing one below it is just a basic top down raglan in an 8ply wool. Cute eh? The red one especially - it's such a gorgeous pattern that I now want all of my friends to procreate so that I can make more of them. Quick, and required a very modest amount of yarn as well (two paltry balls!). A very pleasant diversion all in all, and definitely a change from knitting things for my not-so-baby-sized self. That said, I am looking forward to getting back into some new projects. I only wish that I had enough time to get even half of my ideas going...

Hmmm... Sore throat has regrouped and returned to wreak havoc - time for another cup of tea, I think. More frequent posting from now on, I swear! Just don't expect me to always have elaborate cake to show off...

What can I say - I'm slack!

2009-05-08T23:23:00.008+10:00

Well, here I am again. It's been a while for the old blog, but life has been crazy busy, as is wont to happen during semester time. Especially after the mid-semester break when everybody realises that it's only a bit over a month until exams start...

I have been knitting though. Most definitely. If anything, I'm over-committed on the knitting front. I keep saying that I'll knit things for people, and keep getting new ideas for projects, when really I don't have the time for even a third of what I'd like to do. Oh well - I'll get there.

One of the more pressing obligations has already been partially filled in the last few days - I started making a cardigan for a co-worker's new baby girl - figured I should get cracking on that one while the wee one was still small enough to actually fit into the size I was planning to make... It's coming along nicely - just a basic top down raglan with ties instead of buttons, in a cute variegated yarn that I'd always liked the look of, even though it's far too bright for anyone over the age of six to pull off actually wearing. Picture next entry, I promise - it's too dark to take one now.

I also finished one of the things mentioned in my last post. Snow White is still in progress, having been put in the naughty corner for a while due to gauge issues (which thankfully don't look like they're going to be too dire), but I did finish my Kaleidoscope cardigan:

The gory details: Pattern is Kaleidoscope, by Sarah Sutherland. Yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy in 'Happy Forest' colourway (about 1.6 skeins total). I used a 5mm circular needle.

The part where I blather on: This was a quick, fun knit, and I very much appreciate non-sock patterns that call for sock yarn, because like most everyone else on the planet, I like sock yarn, despite not being hugely committed to knitting socks. That said, I wasn't entirely happy with how it turned out. This is not a reflection on the pattern, which was very clear and well put together. Rather it's a reflection on my lying bastard of a gauge swatch - I probably should have either made the next size down, or knitted the neckline higher than the pattern called for, because it's a little on the loose side around the back.

The other main beef: if I were to knit this again (which, knowing my inclinations towards sock yarn, I probably will), I'd probably go down a needle size or two in the ribbing, and do yarn over buttonholes instead of proper cast off/cast on in next row buttonholes. I think I would have been much happier with it that way. Otherwise though, I enjoyed this project well enough. The yarn is lovely (why yes, I do have a bit of an addiction to Dream in Color yarn...), and the pattern is great - only modification I made was to add a row or two to the ribbing at the base of the body, and to lengthen the sleeves a little because at the suggested length they stopped right at my elbows, which would have irked me greatly. There's a good chance I'll make this one again.

Other than that, life has been pretty uneventful. I made some blanket squares for the Knit One, Give One charity project. I finished the April component of the LSG Mistress of Knitting Challenge. I gave in and ordered a gargantuan amount of yarn with which to make a Sylvi, because I've come to the conclusion that I need this coat. I read a lot, studied the requisite amount, and started doing a tai chi class with a friend. Same old thing really. Oh, and I had a really lousy day on Thursday, during which I had to employ medicinal Fimo in order to feel better about the word again:

I made crazy, impractical button things, and I think that I'm going to put them on a hat. Because I can!
It's bed time now - take care people!

Not so much with the knitting content...

2009-04-13T22:18:00.009+10:00

Well, it's been crazy in Anna-land the last week. Assignments struck, rendering me insanely busy up until Thursday, and then comatose for a few days afterwards. So not that much knitting has taken place. I know - tsk, tsk...

However, I did bake hot cross buns! On Good Friday specifically, because even though I'm not a particularly religious person, the cultural history student in me loves the idea of this kind of tradition - making something on a particular day of the year. It's like Nigella Lawson points out in Feast - there are so few examples of this kind of thing (i.e. truly seasonal/occasional cooking) left, and I think that that's a shame. I find it more than a little weird and off-putting that you can buy hot cross buns in the shops for months before and after Easter, so I suppose that this is my small way of rebelling against that kind of thing, especially since I'm making them myself and all.

(on a less pretentious note, I worked in a bakery for years and am now officially sick of bought hot cross buns...)

There's the dough, looking all... erm... doughy!

Cute little buns, pre-crossing, on the tray. I hadn't realised how experienced I'd gotten with handling dough (what with having spent the better part of the last five years working in either a bakery or a pizza shop) until I started kneading and shaping these little guys - it just came back all of a sudden, and I could do it on auto pilot!

Piping the crosses on is definitely my favourite part. Even though I always make a chronic mess of the kitchen/my clothing in the process...

This isn't a great photo - for some reason I neglected to take a decent picture of the finished product (I was probably in too much of a hurry to insert them into my mouth - I'd polished three of them off within ten minutes of them coming out of the oven), but they definitely came out well. I was particularly pleased with the texture - much lighter and fluffier than any homemade bread I'd made before. I used proper bread flour this time, which probably explains it.

So there you have it: hot cross buns from start to finish. Nom nom nom... I think everyone should make their own actually - it's fun, easy, and really not as time consuming as you'd think, since you can do other things with yourself while the dough is proving/rising.

In knitting news, I acquired more yarn on Thursday. Or rather, my yarn from the States got here on Thursday. Tsk - I am definitely not allowed to buy more until I've used up some of what I have... Ah well, at least I never feel too much guilt over the yarn habit - I rarely eat/go anywhere expensive with friends, the clothes I own that aren't home-made usually come from either the op-shop or Target, and even my books mostly come from the library, so yarn is basically my only extravagance. Well, yarn and tea, but it takes so long to go through tea that it hardly feels like it counts...

I've started knitting not one but two new things: a Snow White in dark green, and a Kaleidoscope in, um, green (yes yes, I have a problem, I know - but it is a totally different shade!).

I've been wanting to make the former for a very long time, but never quite got around to it. And even though I bought the pattern a few months back, it's taken me a while to get around to finding some suitable yarn. And then for a while I was scared of the required cast-on. I am not well versed in cast-ons, not by any stretch of the imagination. And this pattern called for a long-tailed-tubular cast-on. Gulp.

It took me all afternoon (and several cramps in my fingers) to get it right, but get it right I did. I'm rather proud actually - definitely glad I persevered. And it counts towards my LSG Mistress of Knitting challenge (where learning new things and challenging yourself is kind of, um, the whole point of the exercise) for April, so there was some added incentive there too.

As for the Kaleidoscope cardigan... What can I say, other than that I think I've officially become one of those masochists who makes garments in fingering weight yarn... Let's see just how much of my sanity it consumes before it's finished. On the up-side, I finally got my mitts on some 'Happy Forest' Dream in Colour Smooshy (a shade that I'd been trying to get a hold of for a while) with which to make said sanity-devouring piece of knitwear. It's a very beautiful mid-green - a little lighter than I was hoping, given some of the pictures I'd seen online, but I'm still happy with it. Dad said that he thinks that it's ugly, but he isn't the one who has to knit a whole bloody cardigan out of it, so somehow I just don't think that his evaluation is the one that matters here...

Guilty update...

2009-04-04T14:54:00.010+11:00

Well, I'm quite thoroughly repulsive for posting now, because I really should be doing my Admin Law assignment before I go out making merry. But instead I'm indulging in the blog. For shame.

Anyway, in case you all hadn't noticed, I'm still alive. The crazy kind of busy, but definitely still breathing. Uni is running me down, but in a week I get a brief reprieve from it due to the Easter break, so hopefully there'll be some breathing space soon on that front. Japanese is still heaps of fun - I got embarrassingly excited yesterday because I could read some of the hiragana on the back of my packet of soba noodles. I was happy all afternoon because of that. I'm keeping up with my '52 Books' challenge and various creative writing pursuits too, as wordy blog will testify.

Anyway, here are the developments on the craft front:

1. I made reference to a silly knitted thing at the end of the last post. Well, ladies and gentlement, without further ado I give you... the engagement lobster!

The nitty gritty: Knit Lobster (Ravelry link) by Molly Lincoln. Knitted with a small amount of double stranded Lincraft DK acrylic yarn, on a set of 3.25mm dpns

The colour commentary: I was quite happy with how this little guy came out, even if the double stranded yarn on small needles was rather painful on the hands. I don't make toys often, but I enjoyed this one, or as much as one can enjoy knitting to a strict deadline (does tend to suck the joy out of the whole affair). Dodgy photo I know, but I finished this one with only a couple of minutes to spare, so there wasn't much time for meticulous photography. I didn't even have time to give the little guy his lobster whiskers! Oh well, the couple in question thoroughly approved of their lobster, at any rate. And don't worry - I do plan to give them a slightly less ridiculous wedding present...

2. Scarf!

The boring stuff: Basic mistake rib scarf in Dream in Color Classy (100% wool, about 1.6 skeins), 'November Muse' colourway, on 5.5mm straight needles.

The colour commentary: Not very interesting, I know, but it had come to my attention that most all of the scarves that I owned were kind of, erm, bright! Retina searingly bright. So this was my attempt at something a little more understated. I'm very pleased with how it came out. It's huge too! Over eight feet long, I'd say, as I just can't abide a stingy scarf :) If I did this one over I probably would have made it a little wider, but at least the fact that it's a little on the skinny side means that I can wear it in milder weather.

Oh, I've said so before, but I love Dream in Color yarn. So much. I've never come across any that was anything less than gorgeous... The fact that there is some more winging its way to me from the States as we speak makes me a very happy Anna indeed... Hey, what can I say? The planets aligned, the pathetic Aussie dollar rallied, and I got given an extra shift at work. Coincidence? I think not. If the universe wants to buy yarn, who am I to argue?

3. Hat!

The details: Vortex by Lee Meredith. Knitted with Noro Silk Garden (Colour 86, about half a ball) and Dream in Color Classy (leftovers from above project!) on 5.5 mm straight needles.

The colour commentary: I love this hat so much that it's embarrassing. This photo is testament to how much I love it. I am all of thirty-five seconds out of bed in this photo. Literally. I wanted a non-wet-hair photo of the hat, so I rolled out of bed, pulled on my dressing gown (see that suspiciously satiny looking black thing I'm wearing? Yep, that's a dressing gown), ran a hand through my hair (comb, what's that?), walked out into the hallway and took this photo (oh, and a couple more that don't bear speaking of). And I'm willing to post my eyes-glazed over looking, pre-shower self on the internet. Just because I love this hat, and couldn't wait any longer to put up a photo of it.

This design is constructed quite unconventionally - it's knitted side to side on straight needles, shaped using short rows, and then grafted together at the end. The pattern is genius - this is by far the funnest hat I've ever knitted. The moment I finished it I informed my brother that he would be receiving one of his own in the near future, because I wanted an excuse to make another. Fun and easy and quick - what's not to love?

The fact that I used two of my favourite yarns to make it probably doesn't hurt either, but the pattern really is great. The only mod I made to it was to wrap my short rows, because with my loose gauge it looked weird and gappy when I didn't. It's a forgiving pattern too - I think I messed up the grafting in a couple of places (hey, it was really late at night), and it hardly shows. Also, doing stripes by carrying the not-in-use yarn up the side of the knitting works so well that I can't believe that I've never done it before...

Now I just need to make one for Richard so that he can wear his own, instead of just filling in as a head model for me...

Now: off to go and do my Admin work like a good little law student (you know, one who doesn't have a terminal crafting fixation...)

Liesl and such...

2009-03-20T16:29:00.007+11:00

Well, I'm still alive! Uni is kicking my arse several times a week, but I'm definitely still alive and kicking. Or alive enough to be quite chronically bored by the Acts Interpretation Act anyway (erm, hooray for statutory interpretation, or something...). And my Japanese classes started this week, just in case law school wasn't enough. Japanese looks like it's going to be a lot of fun, though learning how to write hiragana is a challenge - I've done so much Western style calligraphy in my life that the different stroke order (horizontal stroke before vertical) is driving me spare. In a good way though!

Thankfully for my sanity, there have been plenty of developments on the crafty front as well.

For a start, I finally finished my Liesl cardigan:

The nitty gritty: Liesl by Ysolda Teague. Knitted with about 2.3 skeins of Malabrigo Worsted on an 8mm needle.

The colour commentary: I'm mostly happy with how it came out, though I think that I really could have made it a size smaller - you can't see it in this shot, but it's actually a little bit large for me, and therefore not as flattering as it could have been. Also, I'm not entirely sure that this style suits me. Oh well - I'm still mostly happy with it, and I've already worn it, so obviously I don't dislike it that much!

Ha - this project was really me wanting to see what all of the fuss was about. Liesl is such a popular pattern on Ravelry, and people never seem to shut up about Malabrigo either, so this was a good opportunity to suss both of them out. Liesl is a great pattern, for all that I'm not particularly sure that it's quite my style. I wasn't particularly surprised by that though - Ysolda is such a talented designer, and I'm never anything less than enthralled when I knit her patterns. They always come together so nicely - it's very satisfying the way that everything just works! Working with the Malabrigo was very nice too, as I believe I've already said. It's beautifully soft, though I'm not sure that I'd want to use it for everything. Perhaps I'm a little old fashioned, but I kind of like my wool with a little more substance. Still, I'll definitely use it again!

In other crafty news, I broke out the fabric paint - something I'd been meaning to do for a very long time:

I love painting random designs on things - it's so therapeutic. I was very pleased with how this one came out too - don't worry, it's a lot less patchy now (the above shot was taken just after the first coat). It was the test run, since I hadn't used this brand of fabric paint before, and the directions for setting it were infuriatingly vague. But it's been washed since, and all seems to be well. Now it's all I can do to restrain myself from running out to buy more plain tops to paint. And I have plans for skirts as well. Because I don't have enough hobbies already, or anything...

I've also started a scarf (already halfway through thanks to all the lecture recordings I've sat through this week - my iPod is a lot more forgiving of me knitting through lectures than I imagine the actual lecturers would be if I tried doing it in class!), and a shawl. I have particularly high hopes for the shawl. It's a Laminaria, and I'm using some Wired for Fibre yarn in the most beautiful shade of dark green ever (in case you haven't noticed, I have a bit of a tragic addiction to green). I'm scared to death of it, because it's my first attempt at charted lace, but the thought of how beautiful it would be is enough to spur me on. But first, I need to knit something ridiculous for a friend's engagement party tomorrow. More on that at a later date...

Back to reality

2009-03-10T11:12:00.006+11:00

I have officially been reminded of the reason why I'm always so tired during semester. Urrkkk. Of course, I can't really complain too much, because I doubt that the situation is really improved by staying up until 4:30am watching bad sci-fi with a friend when you need to get up again at 7am. Um, whoops... Ha, at least this shows how I'm still emphatically not one of the cool kids, even with the fashionable Monday morning sleep deprivation. Blake's 7 has not been cool since the 70s, and even then I suspect it wasn't as cool as my dad makes out...

I've been knitting away on my Liesl, but it's coming along slower than I had expected. This is mainly due to the general business of life and my younger brother corrupting me with computer games far more often than I'd like to admit, though can also be attributed to the fact that writing is currently trying to wrest it's title of "Anna's Procrastinatory Craft of Choice" back from knitting. I've written a colossal amount over the last few days. I'm nearly finished on the piece that I'm writing (I am hesitant to say book - it's not a book unless someone publishes it...), so now I've got some adrenalin going and it's hard to put down. Sigh. Poor neglected Liesl...

There's my dodgy work-in-progress snap to prove that I am still persevering. The body is done, and now all that's left are the sleeves. But I'm just having trouble biting the sleeve bullet for some reason. I think it's just a little bit of "I-can't-be-bothered-to-pick-up-stitches", because I'm generally quite happy with how it's coming along. Hopefully the laziness will pass - once it does I should finish fairly quickly.

I also did a little bit of dyeing on the weekend. On the rare occasions that I dye yarn, I tend to go mainly for blues and greens, so I decided to deliberately do something different for a change.

The goal was to try and dye yarn in fiery colours, and I'm quite happy with how it came out. The last time I tried for red, it came out orange, so this is a definite improvement on that front. I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing to do with it (though with my nerdish/mythologically inclined leanings, attempting to knit a phoenix isn't out of the question...), but I'm glad that it worked out.

In other news, uni is making me lax on my recreational reading, and I really need to update my reading/writing blog. Perhaps I'll wait until I finish the piece I'm writing, and then do some kind of fist-pumping victory post...

I'm pleased to report that the resident critters are all doing well. Titus is still happy and full of beans in his tank. He's a greedy pig by betta standards - every morning I wake up and he's bobbing up and down in the front of the tank wanting to be fed. He's very cute though. And Alex, my dear senile old man cat, has discovered my bed. Because it's not the room I used to sleep in before I moved out, and because he's 19 and really not quick on the uptake any more, it's taken him a while to figure out the whereabouts of my bedroom. But a few days ago, he made a discovery...

Hats and Fish

2009-03-03T10:02:00.008+11:00

Well, uni went back yesterday, so I am now officially Busy again. I picked up my Restitution handbook only to find that I'd been assigned four chapters of the textbook as reading for the Wednesday class. Erm, yay for starting off slowly. And this is for just one subject! It's going to be a long semester. Not surprising though - I'm doing mostly electives, which inevitably means a gargantuan amount of reading (it's the trade-off for fewer contact hours and more specialised subjects).

On the upside, I have yarn and a hat! The yarn, retrieved from the post office this morning, was from The Loopy Ewe (again! I think I have a problem...), and here's the hat:

Ha - the downside of hat shots is that you can't crop out your face like you can when you're taking photos of jumpers, scarves, etc. It might be a shot of the hat, but it is also undeniably a picture of yourself. A mug shot. Not for the faint hearted when you're a little sleep deprived, a lot overheated, not really one for makeup at the best of times, and you know the thing is going on the internet... Oh well...

I designed the hat myself, mainly because I wanted to use this yarn (it's from Wired for Fibre, in the 'Tidal' colourway, and believe me when I say that it was far, far too beautiful to leave languishing in my stash), and I'd found some buttons that went with it rather nicely. I'm mostly happy with it - the problem is the one that comes up whenever I design my own hats, being that I mess up the crown decreases. I am improving - this one came out much better than the last, because at least the decreases are even. But I started too late, and then did them too close together to compensate. Oh well, I'm learning, and that really is the main thing. Unfortunately, I've always been better at learning from my own mistakes than by those of others. At least the yarn and buttons are cute enough to distract me from my inadequacies:

I'm not done with this idea though - the buttons-and-varigated-yarn-hat-thing, I mean. I'm going to take another few bashes until I get it right... I can be very stubborn sometimes...

Also, as promised by the post title, I have a fish! Working at a pet store was beginning to be a bit of a problem for me, because I kept getting distracted by the aquariums. I'd be trying to go and make the most of my meagre lunch break, and then find myself snagged in front of the fish tanks, staring with a glazed expression. Eventually the fishy temptation became too much...

Now, I basically fail at taking photos of fish - or at least I do at the moment - but here is the critter in question. He's a betta (aka Siamese fighting fish - to go with my ancient Siamese cat!) and his name is Titus! The above photo, for all that it isn't very good, actually shows his colour quite nicely - he's a lovely shade of cool blue with red on his fins. He's got his own little tank, all to himself (spoiled brat), and he seems quite happy in there so far. He's spent plenty of time exploring, and he's eating very well for a betta. I am quite enamoured with him, if you can't tell...

And now it's time to go to uni and plough relentlessly through textbooks. And staunchly ignore the new yarn - I'm not allowed to so much as ball it up until I've finished my Liesl cardigan...

Progress and plans

2009-02-25T10:09:00.005+11:00

Yes, yes, I'm a lazy bum and haven't been blogging here as much. Life has been a bit crazy lately. And it's only going to get crazier - I go back to uni next week. I'm taking a full load of law subjects for a change, hopefully wrangling some volunteer legal work with the Student Union, probably taking a Japanese language class on the side, and working part-time. Um, what was I saying about crazy? I won't have time to breathe. But I'm sure I'll still find time to knit and procrastinate, and everything else will flow from there...

I'm doing some smaller projects at the moment. Okay fine, one of them is a cardigan, which I suppose doesn't really count as 'small', but it's lace on big needles and apparently doesn't take very long at all, so I am optimistic.

The lighter green item on the left is a hat I'm making from some very lovely Wired for Fibre yarn. It's my own design, so it may or may not actually work out. But in the meantime, the colour is absolutely beautiful - it's varigated, but without any of that nasty obvious pooling that sometimes makes me twitch a little.

The darker green is the aforementioned Liesl cardigan. I was curious about all of the fuss being made over Malabrigo yarn, and then when I found an Australian vendor who sold it, I decided to check it out. I can now see why people go on about it so much - it is lovely and soft, and the colours are beautiful. I don't think that I'd want to use it for everything, but it is very pretty. It was originally earmarked for a Sand Dollar Pullover (Ravelry link, because I couldn't find a decent picture elsewhere), but then after taking a long and hard look at this jumper, I realised that it was probably not likely to work very well with my body shape. As we know, I'm rather tall, and most of my height is in my torso. I don't want to end up with a midriff jumper - it's not a good look. So the yarn is going to be a Liesl instead. Hopefully it'll work out well (though I've already arsed the pattern up a little bit - oops).

(The orangey-gold yarn is a skein of Sundara that I have no idea what to do with. I love the colour, but I'm really not sure that it will suit me in a garment. It's in the photo because, well, it looks really nice with the other yarns, and it might as well earn its keep by posing for me until I figure out what to do with it!)

And there are other things that I'm in a perpetual state of working on. What can I say - I have somewhat of an impulse control problem when it comes to casting on for new things. The above is a kind of armwarmer-esque creature, born from a perverse whim to attempt some colourwork with the Dream in Colour yarn I had left from my Corona jumper. It's languishing at the moment because I can't be bothered to make the thumb hole (that requires, you know, thought and concentration). There's also those long-neglected colourwork socks I started late last year, and also a soon-to-be-felted bag. And who knows what else. Like I said, impulse control problems.

I also promised my Dad that I'd make a jumper for him too - he saw the moss stitch on my Terra jumper (see last entry) and liked the way that it looked in the yarn I was using, so now he wants a jumper. Laugh at me if you want, but this is quite exciting. Normally my family view the knitting as somewhat odd. I mean, I've made things for them, but unless we're actually in sub-zero temperatures (and living in Australia, that doesn't exactly happen often), they don't tend to get worn. On this note: Abby - you asked if I knitted much for others. The answer is no, not really, but it's more because of lack of demand for said knitting than any overt knitter's selfishness on my part. So a family member actually requesting a garment is unprecedented! I'm having fun fossicking through potential patterns...

Anyway, that's enough rambling. I have overdue items to return to the uni library - whoops...

Proof that I'm still here!

2009-02-17T20:06:00.008+11:00

Wow - that was a comparatively long break! I have been doing things, I swear. It's just that things have been taking a bit longer than usual. There have been a few social woes (who doesn't love an ex-husband spamming their phone 14 times a day? And at 2am no less, but this isn't the time and place to complain about that), and I'm working nearly full-time at my job at the moment, and that has meant cutting back on knitting/blogging time. And I wasn't always in the mood either. While I wasn't directly affected by the bush-fires that have been doing their best to demolish my state over the last week, I know people who lost homes, friends, and family members, and it's hard to sit still and knit when you're worrying/reading the headlines in disbelief...

But, all that said, I have been knitting away. Behold, I have two finished objects to prove it!

Number One: Terra by Jacquelyn Landry, in Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 12ply (Green Tweed), knitted on 6mm needles.

There aren't really any halfway decent photos of this one, due to a number of factors (specially a 5am bedtime, followed by a 9am call summoning me unexpectedly into work, followed by a work day that lasted until 9pm). So you'll have to live with this one! At least you get a taste of why my blog is titled as it is - and that's only half of one wall!

This was a fantastically quick jumper, and I was happy with how it turned out. If I did it over again I'd probably make the body just a little less baggy, and the sleeves quite a bit less baggy, but that's not to say that I'm unhappy with how it turned out. It'll be fantastic for when winter rolls around. I love the colour - it's somewhere in between dark green and teal, and the yarn was lovely and quite inexpensive. The pattern was good too - there were a few ambiguities around the hood/shoulder grafting, but applying common sense I managed to puzzle my way through and I'm sure that most others could too. I love the moss stitch and the large, pointy hood.

I'm almost tempted to make another one of these, actually.
(my, my Blogger - why are you being so cranky tonight when I try to post pictures!?!)

Number Two: The Cream of Spinach Scarf (Ravelry link here), in Noro Silk Garden (Colour 244), knitted on 5.5mm needles.

Not that much to say about this one really. I love it of course, but things knitted in Noro tend to look good because they're knitted in Noro, not because of anything that you did! That said, the pattern was great - it's a two row repeat, and one of those rows is just purling, so I didn't need to concentrate on it at all (indeed, I managed to watch a great many episodes of Skins while knitting it), but it looks lovely when blocked out. I think a version in a plain yarn would look beautiful too.

This yarn had been kicking around my room for ages. I bought it because I simply couldn't walk past the colours, but I wasn't really sure what to do with it, because I idealised it so much that no project seemed good enough. Then I had a reality check and decided to make a scarf, since at least that way I'd get to actually see the colours, and it's something that I'll get plenty of wear out of.

I was a little worried about the length - I hate stingily short scarves and I only had three balls of yarn. But I knitted at a fairly loose gauge, so this came out plenty long enough. I didn't measure it (my sewing tape measure wasn't even long enough), but if I hold one end in my upstretched arm, the other end still pools on the floor, and I'm not too far shy of six feet tall. So not a stingy scarf at all ;)

And now it's back to project limbo. I hate limbo. I'm currently swatching for some potential projects I have in mind, but I think I really need to raid my Ravelry queue as well. What a horrible problem to have...

Raspberries, Cupcakes and Terra

2009-02-04T16:53:00.007+11:00

I really would have preferred it if I were able to title this post "Cupcakes and Terror", but that wouldn't be entirely accurate. Oh well, perhaps next time...

So, I started something new to cure this neither here nor there feeling I've been having on the constructive front the last few days. I'm making Terra from some lovely Bendigo Woollen Mills 12ply wool (highly appropriate for the middle of summer, I'm quite sure).

And also reading a lot - sticking to the whole 52 Books challenge thing (for all those playing along at home, reviews/results from January are here). And as for the third item in the photo... Well, you might not realise it, but this week is a somewhat of a special occasion. Every year in late January/early February, there comes a week when I can buy raspberries from the market for less than $3 a punnet (tight-arse Anna says "Yay!"). And this special week gets celebrated by gratuitous raspberry ingestion. How gratuitous you ask?

Answer: gratuitous enough to involve cupcakes (why yes, I am one of those irritating smug people who bake a lot and feel the need to tell people about it)!

Mmm.... passionfruit and raspberry iced cupcakes... In the sun, with tea and book...

Hate my guts - you know you want to...

A hot and restless entry...

2009-01-29T11:45:00.006+11:00

Man, but it is hot here... Not just warm, but roastingly, sweat-drippingly, skin searingly hot. 36 degrees on Tuesday. 43 degrees yesterday (that's 109.4 F for all of you northern hemisphere types playing at home). And it's apparently getting to 43 today, and staying nearly that hot for the rest of the week... This is why I'm not a fan of Melbourne summers. It was so hot yesterday that the tracks on one of the train lines buckled in the heat (that's probably more a reflection on the disgrace that is our public transport system than it is evidence of the heat, but it really isn't a good idea to get me started on Melbourne's trains... grrrr).

Anyway, I haven't been knitting much the last few days. This is partially because of the heat, but I've knitted in hotter (yes, really). In all honesty, it's more to do with the fact that nothing is really exciting me at the moment. I go through phases like this all of the time, so it doesn't bother me too much, but I wish it would hurry up and pass. The main problem is that nearly everything that I have going at the moment is a self-designed project. I find that it's generally harder to get on with those, since pressing forward means that you actually have to think (as opposed to just losing yourself in hours of relaxingly repetitive knitting) and do calculations and try things on constantly.

The last point especially is a killer in this weather. Example: I'm currently making a pair of elbow length armwarmers that fit quite tightly at the moment because they have colourwork and haven't been blocked out yet. I've nearly finished one - there's probably maybe 15 minutes worth of knitting left on it. But I'm snagged because in 43 degree heat, I just don't feel like wrestling something woollen and tight-fitting onto my poor overheated self. If it was loose, maybe, but I don't want to have to wrestle with wool today. Just no.

I'm also in between projects when it comes to other people's patterns. There are two that I even have the yarn for, but my swatches (yes, I'm bothering to swatch for a change) are a bit off, and even though I own the more appropriately sized needles, they have current works-in-progress on them... All self-designed experiments - see above... Sigh. I know it probably won't be too long before I get my mojo back, but I hate knitting limbo.

One good thing though: I cleaned my room up. I'm aware that this makes me sound like a seven year old, but well, I'm a slob. Or more to the point, I am a person who has over the last six months had to figure out a way to cram a two bedroom unit's worth of crap into a small bedroom with no cupboard/wardrobe. Fun.

Mmm... yarn (excuse the dippy photo - the light is odd in my room). That's only part of it actually - there are some more boring plain yarns in bags too. These are the fun/pretty yarns. Combine all of the above yarn, plus more, with a book collection the size of mine and you can probably understand why I have storage issues. Still, I got there: the yarn is now organised, and my floor is now visible. Very good things.

Also, I like the way that my jumpers look in their drawer. It makes me happy...

At least the last week has been very productive from a writing standpoint - I've gotten a lot done, and rebuilt the momentum that I'd lost over the months before I went away. On that note, I'm off to go and play with words now. I'll try not to roast in the process.