Today is My Birthday!!

And I've had a lovely day! My presents all came by post so I've been extra good and saved opening them for today...and that was hard since I knew what two of them were! I've been mooning over this box for over a week!

So, after trying to sleep in and failing thanks to sore shoulders and leg I gave up and started opening my pressies!

The first one - from my Mum!

She loves me and understands my addictions so she got me an Australian Galah cross stitch kit, two balls of novelty yarn from Spotlight that feel and look wonderful, a memory and charms necklace and a memo book with a pen. Really looking forward to making something nice with the yarn!

The second one is from Me, really. I have this pattern in one of my magazines, The Knitter with a wonderful pattern for a fair isle vest in lovely colours. So I ordered the yarn kit from Jamieson and Smith - Shetland Wool Brokers Ltd.

I'm kind of nervous now. The pattern has all the traditional attributes of fair isle, the stranded colour-work, corrugated rib and steeks and everything! But I'm going to put it aside until I've finished everything else I've got going. Even the cross stitching might have to take a back seat! But I'm really excited to actually do a honest-to-goodness Shetland Island item with the proper wool!

And lastly, another present to myself.

I've always loved the Anne of Green Gables collection but I've never had a chance to read all through the series in the proper order. I only had the first book and I've read the others at different times I think through library loans but I really wanted the whole set so I could go through the journey properly...and now I can! They look so cute and their in their own box and everything!

Everyone I loved rang and wished me happy birthday, and Hubbie bought me chips for lunch (in a little town like this, you're grateful for any take away food you can get and I love chips!) and all in all it was a lovely pleasant day. I am so blessed and days like today remind me that I have so much to thank God and those he's placed around me for. Sigh...

Oh well, another year passes by and time marches on. See you all later :)

Blackwork, Redwork...whatever you call it!

I love the impact of fine lines on fabric and blackwork has that sort of impact in spades! Especially when it's centred on a single small motif. So, like the pin cushions I just finished, I have about 5 designs that are either entirely blackwork or use it principally and I'm going to make a collection of scissor fobs using them. And so here is the first offering! It's kind of off-putting calling it blackwork when it's red but I can handle that, even if my kind of aspergers-y brain keeps saying you can't call it that! Dammit! I will tough it out. Shut up Brain! That's what it's called!!...
...Anyway, here's the latest.

See? Isn't it pretty?

One done, onto the next side.

When I started assembling this I used beads again around the edge since it looked so good on the last pin cushion and I used crochet cotton for the tassel and the loop at the top.

And here it is, as it would be used on a pair of scissors (I only had my shear scissors on hand). 

All stuffed nice and tight so I can put needles securely in there and the beads look so nice. Sigh. I am very happy with this if you hadn't noticed. And what ever takes my mind off possibly having ruptured my Achilles tendon is a good thing. Damn body falling apart!

See you all next time. Off to start the next one!

Big Finale! Last Pin Cushion!

I have completed the last (for the time being anyway) pin cushion of my small set! So I decided to go all out with it's decorative bits!

This is the front piece design I copied from the blurred photocopy I had. I used the organic cotton for all the colours except for the white on the wings...and now I look at it I realize I forgot the one black spot for the birds eyes. Bother!! Oh well, too late now :)

So here is the finished product! I even found some ribbon to do the tie at the top instead of the ring. And I added beads around the edges when I was closing it up. I am ridiculously impressed with myself! It's so pretty! And a suitable finale for my collection of pin cushions.

See? Lovely red beads all hand stitched on, even around the ribbon join. And now...I think I'll give it a rest for a while. No more pin cushions...
...but I do have some adorable black-work motif patterns that would make absolutely gorgeous scissor fobs...mmm...maybe keep the threads out a little longer!
See you next time :)

Cross Stitch - the Other Obsession!

I've been on a mission to complete as many cute pin cushions as I can while giving my hands a bit of a rest from frenetic knitting...not that I'm not still knitting, just not so much like a machine!
I've been tooling around on Pinterest and there are so many beautiful patterns and projects! I love small motifs, both in cross stitch and black-work because they are so simple, are relatively quick to complete and have huge impact visually because they are so small and cute!
Also I wanted to use an organic cotton thread called Scanfil which has a large selection of lovely colours. Since it's a bit heavier than regular cotton I find it quite suitable to do fine cross stitch and black-work with.
Anyway...I have finished all but one of the designs I downloaded. Here they are in order of completion!

Roses and Bees

This one taught me a few things. That sewing together the two sides SOUNDS easy...but not necessarily in practice! Fortunately I'd followed the pattern and it had this backstitch square sewn around the design and you thread through that so you get a neat edge on the completed item. Very clever :) The brass ring is so you can attach it to your sewing basket or something. A ribbon might have been better but I didn't have any and the rings were just sitting there, so...

Birds and Flowers

These are on even weave fabric and it never occurred to me how tiny the gauge would be until I was pretty much past the point of no return and my eyes were hanging out of my head!  When I downloaded the picture of the design it was hopelessly fuzzy so I drew it all out myself and as close to the original design colours as I could. When I didn't have a colour I needed in the Cotton thread I just used DMC instead. All at 1 strand thickness.

 

Ladybirds and Flowers

...And straight after tiny gauge, back onto usual gauge! Don't ask me what gauge that is, all I know is the previous pin cushion is 6cms square and this one is 8cms square. So, a bit of a difference. I think both designs cover a 50 x 50 graph square. 

Ladybirds and Bees

Back to sort-of tiny gauge. Not quite as bad as the Birds and Flowers one but still pretty small. All Scanfil cotton. I was pretty pleased with this one too. But because of the large piece of base fabric I used that I didn't trim down, folding the edges in was a bit of an irritation!

Ladybirds and Lily Bells
 And my nemesis! The design had lovely white flowers on a pale khaki background. I didn't have any base fabric darker than the cream stuff I'd used on the 8cm pin cushion so I though, "I know, I'll just sew the background the colour I need so the white flowers don't disappear into the cloth. Brilliant!"
Most. Frustratingly. Slow. Design. EVER!!
You don't realize you've  become used to finishing a piece in a specific period of time until you hit something that defies every attempt to hurry it up! It does look very attractive, as a finished project...But I would NEVER do it again!!

Florals and Swirls
And this is my latest finished one. Pretty, cute, little (About 6-7cms square) and finished! I have one more design that I had to redraw out because I couldn't see all the squares to do and it is under way as we speak. But I'm pretty proud of my collection. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do with them all but I have a similar problem with the vast amount of finished knitting projects I have so why should this obsession be any different? Hope you enjoyed my little brag show. See you next time :)
Dx

Too hot!

It's too hot around here to knit at the moment. It was 43 today and probably the same tomorrow! So I've been cross-stitching instead. 
I bought some plastic coaster kits from the newsagents/convenience store. I hated the motif they wanted me to sew so I found my own. I only had three so I decided to do a monogram for my parents-in-laws and our daughter. So a B, a J and a M.
The design I found was lovely but the finished product doesn't adequately illustrate just how fiddly it was! But it was worth it for the end result.
I orientated the B a little different just for variety.  But I'm very pleased.
Cross stitch is nearly as fun as knitting :-)

Two Jumpers for Two Brothers!

Ha ha!! I have prevailed!
A bit dramatic but there you go.
I have made my two sons...each!...a jumper!

Ben wearing his jumper in Holden racing colours

And Jordan's Jacket in Arty-versus-Incognito colours

And don't they look dapper in them?
To be honest I had difficulties of different sorts with each of the jumpers, the big difference being Jordan's I fixed and gave to him and it fit great. Ben's, I fixed and gave it to him and found I'd actually made the sleeves that I thought were too long, too short. Spewing!!!
When I picked up the stitches for around the hood and the jacket edging for Jordan's I picked up like twice the number of stitches and desperately tried to convince myself that I hadn't. When it became patently obvious that I was never going to find a zip long enough to sew beside this amazing frill of an edge I finally admitted the bleedingly obvious and regretfully unravelled the whole edge and redid it properly. Which of course turned out excellent!
Ben's sleeves on the other hand were not such a success. So those I'm going to have to remedy for him when he comes to visit soon. I'm sure I have the yarn I took out of the sleeves when I originally thought they were too long...sigh!
The pattern was excellent...until I got to the hood. Neither jumper's hood is anything like functional. Jordan's is closest because I'd already done Ben's and been worried about the slight dimensions of it but even so it could be a lot deeper and as for Ben's it's like a skullcap attached to a flap attached to a jumper! They both look their best when pushed back like an elongated collar!
But fortunately, despite the vagaries of things gone wrong they both like them a lot. Which is sweet of them :)
I'll just be happier when I get to fix Ben's sleeves!
Not that I'm obsessed or anything...
...Keep Knitting!

Brain Wave!! Why not knit something for my Family??

It's kind of sad how long it's taken me to think of this but I had to recently re-order my wool room (it had begun to infest my sewing room! Gah!!) and realize that I had quite a bit of yarn...
...yeah, I know! Shocker, huh?
Anyway I figured since I had two practically adult sons I could ask them if they'd like me to knit them a jumper and If. They. Would. Wear. It! It really doesn't count if I go to all that effort and they don't wear the article I've made!
After much assurance that Yes, they'd love that and Yes, they would wear it I went ahead and began looking for a nice men's jumper with hoodie pattern.
Do You Have Any Idea How Hard That Is To Find Such A Thing!!!
I could not believe how difficult it was to find just what I was looking for! I wanted a jumper with multiple sizes, My eldest son is average height and of extremely slender build while his little brother is nearly 6 feet (and at 19, still likely to grow more!) and is built much more solidly that his bantam-weight brother!  Also I wanted a jumper with pockets. Both boys carry their phones everywhere and it was a special request from the oldest that the pockets be big enough to put a phone and a wallet in.
Ookay...
It had to be a hoodie because both boys think a knitted jumper would look too much like an article from grandpa if it didn't have a little cool added to it and I had to be able to convert the one for the youngest into a zip front because he "doesn't DO jumpers".
Great, I mean, how hard could that be to find??
I absolutely CRAWLED through everything I could find on Ravelry on men's patterns, both free and buy-able. Every time I found something it was never quite right and I soon began to get desperate! Then I found it! On the Knitty site there was a jumper called the Donut Hoodie

. While it didn't have instructions for a zip front other knitters had been able to convert the pattern to accommodate a zip. That's all I needed! It had a kangaroo pouch pocket at the front and looked just the ticket.
At first I kind of tried to wing it. I had a heap of beige acrylic and lovely charcoal acrylic that was beautifully soft so I just followed the instructions without doing any test swatch or anything on the needle sizes suggested. About a week later when I'd finished the bottom up and past the kangaroo pockets (another bonus, the pattern is knit in the round! No seams!!) I had an opportunity to visit my boys so I took the pattern and what I'd knit so far and decided I should take some measurements of them both just to make sure that what I knit actually fits them.
I'd already begun to have some doubts about the gauge I was knitting at but they were soon confirmed as soon as I showed eldest son the process so far. The gauge made it look like thick mesh bagging all over him and I could tell he wasn't hugely happy about the subdued colour tone. Afterwards I had a good hard look at all my work, swallowed hard and pulled it all out. EVERY LAST STITCH!!
Then I started going through the measurements I'd taken and looked at the range of acrylic yarns I had.
It had to be acrylic because I'm not knitting anything that can't take the cavalier treatment of bachelor wash days in their stride. I couldn't bear to get a phone call telling me that the jumper I spent ages on now fits their dashboard's bobble-head figure!
Anyway, that said, eldest son is a mad Holden fan so using the same grey I'd used before for the stripes I now used for the body of the whole jumper. I also chose a grey and a red for the stripes. Okay...here we go!
I knit a small swatch (I'm an absolute baby when it comes to swatching. I just want to start my project!) But it showed that the fabric looked better on 4.5mm needles which meant I'd be knitting the medium size even though measurement wise on the original pattern he's actually the small. But no matter! Tally-ho!!!

Body finished. Kangaroo Pocket at front.

I was very happy with the colours I chose, it was much easier to imagine my eldest actually wearing this and the knitting of the pocket was easy and the stripes lined up nicely. Once the body was done I progressed to the sleeves. I did not like them nearly as much! Knitting them in the round was a pain and I probably made it worse by doing them both on the same circular needle. Actually they broke that needle as I neared the end and I had to swap them over to another one to finish them. Because my stripe pattern relied on a colour pattern between the the two colours I ended up having to knit the sleeves longer than I intended but by then I was past caring and figured I could fix them at the end. Next part!
It was really cool when I got to knit the sleeves onto the body stitches and even more exciting when I had to graft the live stitches from the armholes of the sleeves and body together. That actually worked out much easier than I'd thought it would which was nice. As I neared the yoke decreases I began to realize that I was about to run out of the charcoal body colour. Damn!Since there was going to be no other option I had to find another colour to work in. There was no way I was doing a grey neck since the grey was so pale it would look like dirty white and the red would just be like a beacon screaming "Look at me! Look at me!!" so I used black in the same brand as the charcoal and worked it in by alternating a row of charcoal and a row of black until the charcoal ran out. It worked a treat!
So this is a pic of the newly completed jumper, nothing's sewn in yet but you can see the black going up the neck and the hood being done entirely in it (with stripes, of course!).
What you can't see is how long the sleeves are!

And there we have it!

 In the end I couldn't convince myself that it wouldn't matter since I'd measured Eldest sons arms from his shoulder to his wrist and it came to 21 inches. The sleeves were about 26 inches. Clearly that was going to be a problem. In the end I chopped off three stripes and the cuffs and re-knit the cuffs at the new length. 23 inches. That should be more manageable!
And now for the final reveal!!

Front

Back

Too cool for words!

I am so chuffed with how this has turned out! It looks...wearable!! I swear when I give it to him I am SO getting photos!
Sigh...
Oh, yeah...now onto Youngest Sons Zip-Fronted one. Oooo. This could be interesting!
Let the Adventure continue!!