And the boxes come out again!

Yes! We are on the move again! I mean, hey! we've been in this town now for nearly 2 and a half years!! Crikey! Got to love the Police Service. But Hubbie and I are looking forward to a new place, a part of W.A. that we've never lived in (I've never even seen it!) and new experiences so we're fairly philosophical about things.
But!...That means I have to pack up my wool and sewing room!
Horrors!!
Actually I could just leave it to the removalist to do but the disbelieving looks on their faces when they're faced with three walls of shelving FILLED with yarn makes me uncomfortable so I do it for them.

...They should thank me!
There's a bit of wool still on the shelves in the top picture. I ran out of boxes. But that's okay. When I get another big box like all of the others I can pack up my variegated yarns, novelty yarns, feltable yarns and then probably open the basket box behind the packing boxes in the corning which are full of my cone yarns and pack them too. Do you think we're done?
Oh, how little you know me!
No, still in the cupboard is my small hoard of spinnable rovings and slivers as well as some unprocessed fleece, not to mention my embroidery frames, collection of small cross stitch patterns, boxes of small balls of yarn and just to top it all off, my huge box holding my wedding dress, hooped petticoat and veil.
There!
Now I'm done!
(Well, excluding the magazines and knitting needles but hey, you get the idea!)
So what is my point behind all this?
I don't like packing up my yarn...
...what if I need some of it?
Seriously! I get anxious packing up this vast plethora of yarns and fibres with the misguided thought that somehow a purpose will suddenly materialise for some miscellaneous ball of yarn the minute I tape down the top of the box despite the fact that the last time I looked at that yarn was when I unpacked last time!!
So to try and assuage this miasma of anxiety I have kept some projects out just so I have a couple of projects going that I can vacillate between and distract myself from the trauma of the packing process.
Unfortunately I have completed one already.
The Alpaca Warmers are a pattern I've had on my list to do for ages and since I thought they'd be complicated enough (they have a lace pattern on the back of the hand after all!) I thought I'd give them a go. I decided to use a lovely yarn I have by Moda Vera simply called Angora blend. And they aren't kidding! The angora content of this yarn caused me nothing but problems but not of a knitting nature. All the fine fibre filaments that come off the yarn as you knit make my nose feel itchy the whole time! But when you touch the gloves it makes it all worth while. They are SO SOFT!!!
I chose to knit these both at the same time. The only time this was a problem was the couple of times I had to unravel a couple of rows to fix a problem but it wasn't too difficult. I just decanted the mitt I needed onto DPN's and then knit them back onto the circular needle when I fixed them.

 These took longer than I thought they would but the lace wasn't actually that hard. I just kept losing my place on the pattern because I was trying to read but it really got complicated when I got to the lace pattern up near the fingers. You have to actually look at the mitts to realize where in the lace pattern to start each row. But well worth it!

All done, off the circular!...and now excuse me while I blow my nose again because I can feel the residual effect of tiny fibres!!!

Oh wait. Pointless vanity shots!

So there is one of my distraction projects done. Bother. I wonder what I'll do now....

...that's not going to be a problem, let me tell you! Later :)

Finally managed to make the Swallowtail Shawl

It's a project I've had in my queue for ages but I've never been quite brave enough to actually start it. Once I finished a few other projects from my queue I thought, what the heck, I'll give it a burl. I've been saving some reclaimed yarn for at least the last 7 years for a lace project so it's not like I've not had it in mind! So, despite having a deep fear that I might not be able to give it the concentration it needed, I cast on.

It was much easier than I imagined. The budding lace section was really very easy once I got into the swing on it and the yarn knit up lovely.

I had to stretch the lace out because left to itself it's really not that impressive!

I didn't really hit any problems of note until I started the lace with the nupps on it! 

It didn't take me too long to decide I didn't like nupps! They require REALLY pointy knitting needles (which I didn't have!) so I had to do each one with the finest crochet hook I had that I use doing fine filet crochet !

And it was almost impossible to see whether I was making progress!

But eventually I finished, aburdly pleased to leave the nupps behind and looked at my finished creation...

Didn't look like much...

...rather like a large crumple spinach leaf really.

So I carefully washed it, got out my blocking wires and pinned it out on our spare bed and went to bed. It was nearly midnight, after all!

In the morning I went and looked at this amazing creation. So worth every irritation and frustration to be able to just look at it!

So beautiful! It's not very big, really only fit to drape round your shoulders like a triangulr scarf but it is so light and SO beautiful! I can just stare at it!

Can you tell I'm a little proud of my little project?

Happy Knitting :)

New Stuff in Shop

I've just put up some new stock on my Etsy shop. I've heaps more pendants to put up but this'll do for the moment. I've just resined up a heap more pendants so hopefully they'll be as pretty. I hope I get better at this. I always make such a mess! 

Wish me luck.

Still Slogging On...

...With the Vintage Jumper of course! I've now finished the back...

and am almost finished with the sleeves! Yahhh!!!

This is going much quicker than I feared it would but I'm still sceptical that I'm not going to hit problems when it comes to seaming everything up. And I'm really not liking the cream colour. I think I might have to dye it something else when it's all sewn up...outside somewhere...so I don't get dye on our rental house!

Also I finally got my parcel from Annie Howe on Etsy! Not Annie's fault, I might add, that it took so long. I stupidly forgot to change the address from my old one to the new one and so it had to first go to the wrong town before being diverted back to the right town! But now I have more goodies to play with!

I've already played with the Art Gel, a pendant tray, a tatted motif and a glass disc and it's looking pretty good so far. I just have to be patient and leave the whole thing to dry properly, then I wont have gel all over the face of the pendant! See, here's one I prepared earlier!

So, there you have it! Now, I better get off, pretend to do some house work and see if I can't finish these sleeves tonight...or at least before 12.30am :)

Happy Knitting :)

Twinkle, twinkle, Little star...

..well, they do look kind of like that. I've finally got a group of pendant trays with a tatted motif embeded in resin all finished. Not 100% satisfied with it myself yet but I'm getting better!

The first group I did I didn't warm the resin first and there are tiny bubbles trapped in the resin not to mention I didn't coat the motifs in PVA glue to keep there colour from becoming washed out when the resin absorbed into it. And some of the background colours weren't the best choice for displaying the motifs either.

These ones are an excellent example of what not to do!

While this one, while beautifully clear...

...still has bubbles trapped in it. But at least I'm getting better at mixing the resin!

Now all I need to do is wait till I get the chains I've ordered off www.etsy.com (LOVE Etsy! I've gotten most of my supplies from there and have had excellent service so far!) and some more pendant trays. And then tat some more motifs, without getting bored doing the same ones over and over and over...

I have a relatively short attention span sometimes :)

Keep Happy!

Finally, some of my Handspun!

I've had all the fibre club fibres from EGMTK's spun up and waiting to be used for ages but since most of them were only about 100g worth it's been difficult thinking of what to turn them into. At least I've finally created something with the fibre "Canopy", 50% Polwarth and 50% Bamboo. A small scarflette called "Pimpelliese"

Probably one of the nicest shawl/scarf patterns I've knit to date! The lace edge is incorporated into the actual scarf so tyou don't have to sew it on after, making it a lovely single piece of fabric with no inhibiter to it's stretch by unnecessary seams.
I washed and blocked it, the points came out lovely and the colours are really pretty. Feels great on and looks great. Very happy :)




Happy Knitting :)

Op Shop Finds

Since I'm still slogging along on Brianna's top I haven't have much to say of late but I did score some great books at our local op shop.
Well...I think they're great anyway :)



















These are all around the 70's era but full of really helpful stuff, like dressmaking tips and even a section on beginning bobbin lace! I may defeat my nemisis yet!!




















Also got a few 70-80's loose patterns and a few notions and bits of material but I'm enjoying the books. There are 18 of them and I've flicked through them all so far and I hope to leaf through them a little more thoroughly and trully appreciate them in the days to come.
Ah, books.
I love them :)
Keep Knitting!