Knitting Box

For those wondering about the drapey stuff that I wrote about (ah, such a long time ago!) you'll be glad to know that both had become FOs. The first one is Coraline cardigan for my mum, which I finished sometime in July, and sent to her in August just before her birthday.

Mum and I are about the same size, so I'm modeling it here just before I sent it to her.

It's a beautiful pattern, and a joy to knit. Even the stocking stitch sections are strangely soothing — probably just what I needed — and the lovely little details make it even better.

The smocking pattern around the yoke was new to me. It's very interesting, though. It does require you to pay attention, but it rewards you with that 'ahh so that's how it's done' feeling.

The button loops were added after all the knitting was finished, using sewn button loops technique, which was new to me as well (tutorial here). I really like how it looks, and will be using this technique again in the future I think.

The only modification that I did was on the sleeves. I usually like my sleeves full length, but my mum likes 3/4 lengths, so I've shortened the sleeves here. It's not bad, I have to say. I might even try making 3/4 length cardis for me in the future.

The yarn, Bendigo Woollen Mills Cotton, is great, and I've mentioned how much I love this yarn (drapey!). It really makes a nice fabric for garments, and shows stitch definitions so well, which is great for this pattern.

So, a great knit overall!

Pattern: Coraline by Ysolda Teague
Yarn: Bendigo Woollen Mills Cotton 8ply in 'Latte', 2 balls
Needles: 3mm and 3.5mm

Annette and I watched Ponyo this morning, thanks to some free tickets from Energy Australia that we got a while ago. We both loved it! It's a very endearing story I thought. Annette is still finding cinema-going a novel experience (this is only her second time), so she had lots of fun.

The story has similarities to The Little Mermaid, it's about a goldfish (Ponyo) who wants to be a human girl so she can be with Sosuke, a five-year-old boy who rescued her when she was stuck in a cast-off jar. There's an environmental message in there too. Such a charming movie, I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it.

After the movie we pottered around at the EQ Markets and had some yummy lunch. The flowers were looking stunning too, such a feast of colours!

… on a dreary day.

One of the WIPs, an Aestlight scarf using a new favourite of mine, Knitabulous merino sock yarn. I don't usually go for yellows, but this one is fabulous, just like sunshine.

Thanks everyone, for the well wishes for my dad, and for the lovely comments in the last post. You sure warmed my heart, and I'm chuffed that you still drop by my little blog after all this time. I am excited to be back, I miss coming here and talking knitting.

So here we go! This is my latest finished knit.

I made this to go with Annette's flower girl dress for the wedding two weeks ago. The bride had chosen pink as the theme colour (Annette did not mind one bit), and Annette's dress was sleeveless. The wedding being in September, where we still get cold spells or windy days every now and then, I thought I'd make her a shrug to put on just in case it gets chilly. Well the weather turned out to be glorious, but Annette wore it anyway (after her official flower girl duty).

I didn't use a pattern for this, although I didn't start out wanting to design something myself. I did look around for shrug/bolero patterns out there, but nothing that fits my requirements, that I could find. I do like this one and this one (Ravelry link) but I was a bit concerned about whether I would have enough yarn to make Annette's size. I had a skein of pink Lush Yarn Bamboo/Silk/Wool blend yarn that I thought would be perfect for a shrug. A skein is 300m (328yd) and I'd like to use just the one skein, so I thought the shrug should be lacy, to make the most of the yardage. So, some number crunching later, together with an arrow lace pattern from a stitch dictionary, this shrug was born. I added picot edging too for that extra girly frills. Hehe.

I'm very happy with it, and I think Annette likes it too. :)

Hello! And it's only been… oh, four months?? Hehe… it does look like my blog has been hibernating over winter… Sorry to disappear like that. There had been… well, some stressful things that kept me away from blogging (got myself a freelance job, and then my dad had a severe stroke), so things had been up and down here.

But it's not all bad…

Last Saturday was our friends' wedding, where Annette got her first flower girl gig.

And there had been some stash enhancements…

These are my loot from Stitches & Craft show back in August, consisting of Lush Yarn and One Fat Slug yumminess.

And this lovely sock yarn sampler from Knitabulous.

So yeah, not all bad. And there had been lots of knitting too, so will be posting about those a bit later. In the meantime, I hope you're having a nice weekend!

This is one of my current WIPs, a Coraline cardi for my mum, using Bendigo Woollen Mills Cotton in 'Latte'. My mum lives in Indonesia, where it's hot and humid (which is why I'm using cotton), but occasionally there are those over-airconditioned buildings where an extra layer of clothing wouldn't go astray.

This is the first time I've used Bendigo's cotton, and I'm really enjoying knitting with it. It knits up so nicely into this drape-y fabric, doesn't split easily, and just the right weight for summer knits (I'd say it's a little thinner than 8ply / DK weight). The resulting fabric is so smooth and drape-y, it feels like a nice blanket on my lap while I'm working on it!

And this is another WIP, the Flit 'n Float scarf from Knitty, a birthday present for a friend. I just love the ruffles! The yarn, Grignasco Champagne, is another winner. I've used it for a gossamer stars scarf. At 75% fine merino and 25% silk, it makes a seriously lush yarn. And with 166 metres to a 50g ball, 2 balls can make a decent sized scarf! Love it.

I came across several very useful book-related sites recently (and some not-so-recently), so I thought I'd share them here.

Booko — Aussies, this site finds the best deals on buying books in Australia. You can do a search on a book that you're after, and it will do a price comparison across most online booksellers (including Amazon US, Amazon UK, Book Depository, FishPond, Dymocks, and lots of other local booksellers as well), shipping costs included. For the overseas booksellers, the site even does the currency conversion for you and take that into account in the price comparison. Book Depository almost always come out the cheapest. But it's still great to have an online tool that does the researching for me :)

Library Elf — This site had practically saved me hundreds of dollars in library fines. It's a personal library reminder service by email! It's available internationally, as long as your library is on their list. It links up to your library account, and sends you a reminder email a few days before your books are due, which is great for me as I never remember the due dates! I used to turn up to the library worrying whether I have some late fees waiting for me, but no more!

I'm also excited about Randwick library's downloadables — As someone who knits a lot, I love listening to something while I knit. Usually I listen to podcasts, or just music, but recently I found out that my local library now offers downloadable audio books (as well as e-books). Well they've always had audio books (in the form of CDs and even those ancient cassettes), but now I don't even have to make the trek to the local branch to get them. You do have to be a member to use this service, so I guess this one is just for those in the local area, but perhaps other libraries have something similar?

Speaking of books, and since this post needs a picture :) these are some of the books that I found at a book fair last weekend. These are books that I used to enjoy as a child, except that back then what I was reading were the Indonesian translations of these books. I loved Enid Blyton's books the best, especially the girls boarding school ones of St. Clare's (which has a girl called Claudine!) and Malory Towers — which eventually inspired me to go away as an international student, all the way here in Australia. How funny is that! So now I'm on the hunt for these old books whenever I go to op shops or book fairs (I know they have new reprints of these books, but no, I don't like the new 'revamped, modernised and politically-corrected' reprints, I thought the new bookcovers just look dreadful), so I can re-read them and pass them on to Annette to enjoy.

What books did you love as a child? Or, if you have any Enid Blyton books that you don't want, let me know, I might want them :)

Loving… the new Bendigo Woollen Mills shade card that I received just recently. In particular, their new yarn, Luxury. I haven't been a big fan of Bendigo's wool yarns (I do love their cotton yarn — more on that next post), but this one feels very soft! And the colours are gorgeous. I've been walking around carrying the shade card in my hand, for the past week or so, just brushing my fingers across the sample yarns and dreaming of what to make with them. I've placed an order and now just have to wait!

Playing… with fabrics again, first time in a long while. These are just fabrics from stash, most of them from Spotlight. Going to be a bookshelf curtain for Annette's room.

Planning… a new knitting project, a coat for me, with some Cascade 220.

Doodling… making a pattern for a top for Annette. If it works out I might share the pattern here :)