Yarny Acquisitions

...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!

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!

Reasons for Neglect, Part One

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...

Self indulgent yarn love...

Well, I'm still hanging on to my well meaning intentions to not start any new projects before I finish the hat and jumper that I'm currently working on. But man, it just got a whole lot harder this morning when my package got here (well, by "when my package got here" I mean "when I strolled down to the postal warehouse to pick it up because they, for some reason, had issues with just sending it to my PO box like they normally do" - oh well).

I did an online yarn store raid a couple of weeks ago - thankfully just before the Aussie dollar dropped like a stone (don't get me started on that - I'm still irked about what it means for my growing internet retail therapy habit). One of the things that I ordered was some Dream in Colour Classy yarn from the Yarn and Fibre Company (who do free international shipping and can therefore be assured of patronage by my tight-arse self forevermore)...

I bought it because I'd heard so much about this yarn and was getting increasingly curious. Being the green freak that I am, what I really wanted was to get my mitts on some in the Happy Forest colourway, but because everyone in the universe seems to be making those February Lady cardigans in that colour, it was unfortunately not to be. So, I bought some in 'Cloud Jungle' instead - I wasn't entirely sure about my choice, but I figured that given the yarn had such a good rep and it at least sounded interesting if nothing else, I'd give it a shot.

Well, it got here today, and I can't stop looking at the stuff.




*quivers in delight*

It's... just... so... beautiful! It took forever and ever to get a photo that even slightly shows the variation in colour - and even this one leaves a lot to be desired. In a nutshell, it's a sort of grey with lots of other colours mixed in for good measure. A better way of describing it might be to get you to imagine what it would look like if someone decided to do a more subdued, more tasteful version of rainbow coloured. I love it. And now I have four skeins of it - mwa ha ha! I'm thinking I'm going to make a Corona pullover (why yes, I do refuse to say sweater, because I am an overly stubborn Australian dammit!). Now I just need to put off starting while I dutifully finish my other things. Or something. *grumble* Swatching doesn't count as knitting, does it?

Only problem is that next to the glory that is this yarn, my other jumper seems thoroughly unexciting (as much as I still have an unquenchable love for top down raglans), and my hat is currently looking irritatingly like a shower cap (I shall continue with it because I have a lot of faith in Ysolda Teague's pattern writing, and because even a shower cap would be gorgeous when knitted in the yarn I'm using - but I'm a little daunted).

Oh, and I also snaffled me some Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy yarn - mainly because I'd never knitted with a yarn with hemp content before, and it's about time I got stuck into some summer knitting (you know, before it's actually winter again).

Here it is, nestled happily atop my Butterworths Concise Australian Legal Dictionary... I like it, though it's a lighter green than I was expecting. Oh well, it'll make it more summery I suppose. It feels interesting - sort of soft and rough at the same time, though I've heard that it softens more after washing. I suppose I'm pleased with it - it's just that because I'm so much more enchanted with the Dream in Colour, I fear it might be languishing for a while. Oh well...

So yes, not a lot of knitting. I've been working like a crazy person over the last two weeks, and when I've gotten home I've actually been too tired to knit - I know, such a thing *does* exist. But lots of tasty yarn!

And more to come too - a couple of months ago I signed up to the Sundara Seasons yarn collection, figuring that since I'm at home again and have a little bit of extra spending money, now is the time to be indulging myself and buying stuff that in the past (and probably the future too, once I move out again) I would have dismissed as out of my price range. The first mailing went out late last week, so hopefully I won't be waiting too much longer.

People on Ravelry Just Won't Stop Talking about how great this yarn is, so I'm very curious to see if it lives up to expectation. I'm optimistic - I'm yet to hear a negative review of this stuff, and heaven knows the internet is normally choc-full of people willing to vent their spleens when things don't live up to their every expectation. Hey, I'm more than optimistic. I'm excited...

*looks back over entry*

Wow, I can't believe I wrote that much about yarn. I think I'm turning into a crazy person...

Slow going and retail therapy.

Still beavering away on the Mrs Darcy cardigan - all the knitting is done now, and I should finish seaming it tomorrow. Then I'll just need to procure some suitable buttons, and we'll be in business. So expect a finished cardigan soon...


Things have been a little slow on the knitting front - between working a lot and hurting my hand the other day, there hasn't been a lot going on. A bit of swatching, and a few false starts at experimental projects. I'll get back on the horse soon enough. Or at least I'd better, given the amount of yarn I've bought over the last week.


Still, there's been progress on the, erm, materialistic end of things. This was the result of my little jaunt over to Malvern. I should not be allowed to go to Wondoflex again for quite a while...




(clockwise from top: some Silk Garden in a colourway that I just couldn't resist, some Noro sock yarn, and some more of the Montage 8ply handpainted yarn that I'm so hopelessly addicted to)

Yes, yes, I have a serious Noro problem. I know. At least I can afford it now.

It was the first time I'd been to Wondoflex - the shop was great. I liked the fact that it was a bit more spacious than other places in Melbourne - sometimes I feel a little claustrophobic in the smaller shops. Definitely worth the train trip, anyway.

Anyway, while there hasn't been a great deal going on as far as knitting goes, I've been doing lots of cooking. Seems I've finally gotten my sourdough to work, so I am now officially one of those hippies who bakes their own bread. Behold:

This one was a white/rye mix, and I was very pleased with the way that it turned out. The crust was perfect, and it actually had the texture of bread (as opposed to the scone like/damper texture that some homemade breads often have). Last week I went around to visit some friends and we had a cook up - I instructed them in the ancient art of guacamole, and we all ate so much that we couldn't move afterwards. And tonight I made white chocolate, pecan and cranberry biscuits (from one of my beloved Nigella Lawson cookbooks). They turned out beautifully (the mixture tasted pretty bloody good uncooked as well!). Oh, and I've now tried goat's butter. As in, butter made out of goat's milk. It was really nice actually - snow white in colour and with a very slight savoury taste.

Anyway, that's enough about food... I'll conclude with photographic proof that not only is my venus fly trap still alive and well - it's thriving. Haven't given it a name yet though... must do so.

My knit blog has carnivorous plant life. Does yours?

The Great Purge!

Disclaimer: there is no Stalin in this post, and it's only WIPs being purged, not members of the Soviet Communist party. To the best of my knowledge anyway...

Still beavering away busily on the Luna Moth shawl (over halfway there now, yarn wise anyway, and it doesn't matter how many repeats the pattern says if I don't have the yarn to do them, so yarn wise works for me!), though I'm still feeling a bit 'meh' about all the other things I start. My short-at-the-best-of-times attention span is really playing up lately.

Anyway, I'm hoping the problem will be alleviated soon when my tasty yarn arrives. I ordered some shiny lovelies from The Yarn and Fibre Company (because of the exchange rate at the moment, it actually works out cheaper to buy a lot of brands online from US vendors, even taking shipping into consideration), and they should be here soonish... *salivates in anticipation*

So, I figured that since there's shortly going to be an influx of shiny new yarn, I should try and purge the WIPs a little to try and clear some mental space for the new projects I have in mind. There are too many things on my Ravelry projects that are 95% finished (i.e. just needs seams, zips, etc), too many things hibernating that deep down I know I'm never going to resume, and too many things that aren't even recorded on there that are lurking in my room, waiting for my whims to turn in their favour. Too many things, period. So a decision was reached - I'm going to try and either finish or banish/frog as many of them as possible before my nice new yarn gets here. This is possible an unwise resolution to make, given that I'm working buckets over the next while, and have an assignment to write for Monday week, but oh well. Sometimes it feels like I get more knitting done when my plate is full of other things anyway. So we'll see how we go...

And boo, I'm sick again. Stupid cough. I had to miss the newly running Coburg area Stitch & Bitch on Thursday, and was thoroughly unimpressed by this, since it was heaps of fun last time. Oh well, next time I guess...

Anyway, off to purge, and possible make a completely counter-productive yarn shop raid. Hey, leave me alone - it's my last day off for two weeks, so I can do what I want dammit!

A constructive day...

I'm having one of those glorious days when I feel constructive. Only problem is that now it's evening and I've just eaten, which means I'm feeling too full and sluggish to actually do things. So what do we do? We make lists, and plan things, and feel constructive that way, that's what!

There's lots of knitting things I've got lined up at the moment. I don't have a lot of money right now, so I'm trying to burn through the not-insubstantial stash instead of gallivanting around the yarn shops and making merry with my meagre funds. All of the things I've got lined up in my brain are things I can make with yarn I already have. Especially after Friday (Clegs sale + Anna being owed a belated birthday present by certain parties = yarn acquisition).

Behold the ill gotten gains:




I got a whole bunch of 100% wool (12 balls odd?), some lurvely green merino/silk yarn (6 balls), and a single merry ball of grey Patonyle. Very nice indeed. And I know what I'm going to do with it all!

(eeew, but now I'm dissatisfied, because the above picture gives the heinously false impression that I might have bought pink yarn... the very idea... It's actually more of a pinky purple. I definitely do not do the colour pink)

Oh, and on the note of yarn sales, I'm finally using some poor languishing yarn that I've had kicking around since the Cleg's Boxing Day sale... It's been hanging around for so long because it's... mohair. And I don't do mohair. I honestly have no idea why I keep buying it. It just really isn't my thing. I don't like fluffy (or not in my yarn, anyway... it's forgivable in small animals). It's not something that features in my wardrobe with any great frequency. But, for some reason I bought it, so now I'm using it, and it's actually pleasing me for some inexplicable reason. I'm making a Simple Yet Effective shawl using it and some black fake mohair that somehow found its way into my possession as well. And, well, it's pleasing me! It's fun to pat, it's rainbow and black, and very relaxing to knit.

That said, I don't know if it will ever make it out of my front door. Fuzzy (and stripey rainbow fuzzy at that) isn't something I think I can pull off. Maybe it might work if I was small and cute and had pigtails. But the fact remains that I am nearly six feet tall, frown a lot, and generally can't pull off cute to save my life. I don't think that fuzzy is something that's going to happen. But you never know, do you?

Wow, that was a tangent. Anyway, the knitting list is as follows:

• Finish my poor languishing alpaca cardigan, while it's still winter and alpaca remains a valid wardrobe choice - all it needs is it's zip put in, and a little crochet (whimpers in fear) to fix up the neckline
• Finish my Woodland shawl (over 2/3 of the way through now)
• Finish the garter mitts I've been making for Richard's birthday (which, Anna you lazy bum, was on May 13th... get off your arse and knit, dammit! It will take you all of two measly hours to finish)
• Make the lining for that poor bag that's been kicking around my study for the last six months - it'll take all of five minutes once I finally get out the sewing machine and get down to it
• Either rip or finish that crazy, abnormally coloured cable jumper that's hiding half-finished in my bedroom... before it evolves into something living and tries to gnaw my leg off while I sleep

And once I've done these things (or at least enough of them to justify starting new stuff), there's other stuff on the agenda (because I am now organised enough to have plans for my stash yarn!):

• Make a Tempting with the awesome cables mod I saw on Ravelry out of my beautiful, shiny, lovely, verging on edible Naturally Me yarn
• Some Endpaper Mitts in my grey/black Patonyle
• A Luna Moth shawl in my Naturally Merino et Soie yarn
• A top down raglan with some self-designed colourwork with all of that 8ply wool
• Socks! I don't care what kind, but I want warm feet and have the yarn with which to attain this goal!
• A vest (something with a cable, I dunno, I'll make something up) out of that maroon acrylic/wool blend that lives near my bookshelf

There are other plans too, though most of them are either things that I need to buy more yarn for (I want a Noro shrug, but that will unfortunately need to wait until I have more money, as right now I have all of one skein of the yarn that I want to make it from), or uses for yarn that I have that haven't quite coagulated (hehe, yeah, that's definitely the correct word) into projects in my head yet.

Hmmm, I should probably conclude this post now. But at least it's here to motivate me. Now that the "Internet" has heard my plans, I need to follow through and do them.

(I have this weird mental thing where I think of the "Internet" as being like another person who will judge me if I procrastinate... well, whatever works, I suppose, though I think that all this really does is reflect just how technologically backwards I am)

And now I must go and write stuff. I've decided (in non-knitting related constructive thought) that I'm going to submit an entry to the Melbourne Uni creative writing anthology publication this year, and since it's full of people who can actually write, I'll need to lift my game and put in some effort if I even want the slightest piddling chance of making the cut... and even then I'm not getting my hopes up - I suspect that these things only publish people who have a much better command of the English language then me.

(Back to my original paragraph... at least I did constructive things earlier... I went into uni, studied diligently for a few hours, returned library books, made a hairdressers appointment, etc. And at least lunch was lovely and a half... my favourite spicy hommus from Queen Victoria market, turkish bread, some lovely fresh dates... man I love dates, washed down with a glass of rather nice Cabernet Merlot. If all lunches could be so good, I would be a happy Anna indeed).

Oh my, I am very brackety indeed today, am I not?

Still alive..

Yes, still alive, just haven't finished anything in, well, a while. What can I say? Law school and pizza servitude have a tendency to eat one's brain and time. This week was the first time that I'd had a day off in close to a month.

That said, things are still happening on the knitting front. I thought I had nearly finished my Basalt tank, but not it's appearing there are *tremble* gauge issues. Which is a nice way of saying that it's going to be far, far too big on me (the fact that I've lost weight since I started it doesn't help... stupid pizza shop). However, I'm still rather fond of it, and am going to avoid frogging it if possible. If it comes out stupidly big, I might try and add sleeves to it and make it a jumper-type thing. We shall see.

Bought yarn yesterday, like the filthy depraved person I am. Among purchases was some Noro Silk Garden, and some lovely Filatura di Crosa Centolavaggi - lace weight whatnot in a beautiful teal blue colour. I haven't decided what to do with the Noro yet; I've got a few ideas kicking around, but more than anything else, I just wanted to buy some because I was bothering to make the trek out to WoolBaa - the shops that are not out of my way don't carry it, so this way I'll have some if any appropriate patterns grabs my attention. The other I bought because I'm itching to knit some kind of big, lacey thing. I've only made small forays into the world of lace so far, but found it immensely enjoyable when I did, so I figured it was about time. Thinking of making a Kiri shawl, or something along those lines...

Writing is still happening, albeit at a slower rate since uni went back (not all that surprising really, I guess). I'm 27k into the follow on, and sometime this week I'm going to go back and start reworking the draft of the first one. I haven't touched it for around a month now, except for referring back to the final chapter now and then just for continuity stuff, but I've started making a mental list of stuff that I already know needs fixing. *happy sigh* I love writing, so much fun.