Knitting Box – Page 12 – I knit, I sew, I blog

WIP

I had been feeling rather blah about my current projects lately. I still like them and want to finish them at some stage, but I just don’t feel so motivated to pick them up right now. The more I pushed myself to work on them, the less fun they seemed. I thought a change was in order, before I grow resentful towards perfectly good projects. So what did I do? Start new projects of course 🙂 Eventually I’ll go back to my long suffering, languishing WIPs, but for now these new WIPs are keeping me happy.

I started the So Called Scarf a few weeks ago, with some Moda Vera Harmony yarn I picked up from Spotlight on sale ($1 a ball!). I loved the colours in the ball (mix of red, pink, purple, and brown), and this stitch pattern seems to show them off very well.

This pile here is going to be a toddler cardigan for a swap I’m working on with Jade. The pattern is from Debbie Bliss’s Special Knits book.

And this little swatch tells me that I’ve got the right gauge for Tangled Yoke cardigan, yippeee! In the past year I think I’ve only worked on small things (socks, hats, things for Annette), and I’ve been hankering for something BIG now (because clearly I don’t have enough things to do…). And one of my resolutions this year was to knit a cardigan for myself, and after many patterns consideration, I think this cardigan is it (and hopefully there will be others after this one). Simple enough to be worn day to day, but interesting enough with those cables at the yoke. I’m using the recommended yarn, Rowan Felted Tweed, in ‘whisper’. Let’s hope it will turn out as good as in my imagination. Oh, and in my imagination, I will also finish this cardigan before winter comes along.

27 March 2008

Easter weekend

On Saturday we went to the Royal Easter Show. We saw some animals…

Saw some knitting…

Annette likes this one 🙂

Watched some woodchopping…

and stunt action…

It was fun!

PS. Most of the photos above are taken by hubby. More photos in my flickr set. And this flickr set for my photos of the Arts exhibition — displays of knitting and some very interesting cake decorations.

PPS. And thank you very much for the lovely birthday wishes on the last post! 🙂

25 March 2008

Made my day

It was my birthday on the 6th. I had a lovely day, despite Annette having a flu at the time and us not being able to go anywhere. I did have a cake. No photos of that I’m afraid, we pretty much tucked into it as soon as it came out of the box. We didn’t even bother with candles. Teehee.

And yesterday the loveliest package turned up. When I saw this on Belinda‘s blog last week, little greedy me was secretly hoping it would be for me…. And still I couldn’t believe my eyes when I got it. Just look at it! The wrapping paper and notecard were totally inspired gocco work.

And inside, a handmade soap with the most divine scent, handknitted washcloth made of organic cotton (sooo soft!), and a stack of personalised notecards (gocco’ed) with my name on them!

Such a thoughtful gift, I can’t tell you how much I love these. Thank you so much Belinda! You made my day!

Speaking of making my day, I must thank Sue, Terri, and Donyale for giving me a “You made my day” award. I’m still chuffed! And right back at you three for making my day too! And not just because you gave me an award 🙂

I’m supposed to list blogs that inspired me now, so here goes…

– Mochimochi land with her stackable cats and multitude of other cute toys to knit.
– Rose Red with her SHOESdays and this brilliant post on International Women’s Day.
– Bells knits and her breathtaking steeked jacket.
– Random Knits and all that gorgeous lace. Plus she’s like Australia’s Yarn Harlot in my opinion 🙂 (Hope she takes that as a compliment 🙂 )
– Speaking of which, Yarn Harlot, who makes me laugh, in books and blog.
– Ysolda with her gorgeous designs, like this and this.
– what’s new, pussycat and The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl — not craft-related, but good reads and she cracks me up.

… just to name a few. If you’ve ever commented on my blog here, you’ve made my day too!

I’ve got quite a lot of knitting done too. Sadly still no FOs, but quite a few new projects. Will have to do a WIP parade or something next post.

BTW as an aside, just before I hit ‘Publish’ on this post, I did a preview first, you know, just to see how the whole thing would look like on the actual blog. And when I opened the preview page, I had to do a double take, thinking, “Whose blog is this??” Ha! That’s how long I had been away from my poor neglected blog, I didn’t even recognise it anymore. LOL!

20 March 2008

Feeling crafty

Sewing has returned, and urge to blog returning as well. About time, isn’t it! 🙂

Early this month Annette started preschool, and to mark the occasion I made her a new outfit to wear on her first day. But as it turned out, it was raining so much that week, that the outfit had to be abandoned for warmer clothing. But no matter, she got to wear them last week.

Here’s the first one that I made. Both the top and shorts are from this japanese craft book, isbn 4579110544. I forgot, though, that these japanese sewing patterns do not include seam allowance, so these are a bit smaller than intended. Lesson learned! They still fit Annette, though, so that’s ok.

For the next outfit (same patterns, from the book mentioned above) I remembered to put in the seam allowance, so these turned out very well.

I’m pleased as punch! The patterns are not difficult either. I think as tops go, this style is very easy to make (no buttonholes or zippers required! two things I still haven’t mastered). I’m chuffed that it looks so cute on Annette. And as someone said to me, making clothes for kids can be very addictive. I ~~am still debating~~ had to resist the urge to make a set of these outfits out of every single fabric that I’ve got in the stash. I like it that much.

18 February 2008

Two sided

The front

… and the back.

A while back Terri mentioned on her blog that a friend of hers is going to China to work in an orphanage for a month. Terri had the idea of knitting some socks for the kids, and I put my hand up. However it turned out that what the orphanage needed was knitted soakers/pilchers for the disabled kids to keep them dry at night. I didn’t mind making soakers, so here’s mine that I sent off to Terri. Hope you get it in time, Terri!

I used my leftover yarns for these, mostly Elle Pure New Wool DK (lovely, lovely yarn I bought from Lincraft a few years ago when I just started knitting, but they don’t stock it anymore now), except for the yellow one which is Paton’s Fireside 8ply. As you can see, the front and the back are very different 🙂 This was not planned from the beginning, but rather a result of me underestimating how much yarn would be required. But as they say, it’s not a mistake, it’s a feature. (Something I adopted back in my computer programming days… 🙂 ) I started off the front side with just a ball of the blue yarn and half a ball of the yellow from stash, thinking that would be enough to make the whole thing. But no no, I ran out of the blue and yellow not long after I finished the front side. And as these are scrap yarn, I didn’t have any more of those colours and so had to improvise and pick different colours. But I actually think they look quite cute in the end, I hope the kids will like them anyway!

Pattern info: Terri sent me a pattern (from the orphanage?), but I diverged from it quite a bit. I added a casing at the waist (the 2×2 ribbing) so that I could insert an elastic band. I thought about adding elastics for the leg openings as well, but was worried about making them too tight, so I only added some twill tape ties. And I added stripes to amuse myself.

29 January 2008