I've been busy!

I have! Well, Hubbie had holidays in the last weeks of August and we decided we'd visit home (in Albany!) and then go back to Kellerberrin, pick up our little caravan and head off to Kalbarri where Hubbie's parents were staying with their caravan. Being a bit Asperger's like youngest son the idea of leaving home where all my things are makes me fairly anxious and apprehensive but, ah well....off we go!

See? Don't I look eager to go??

Anyway, I enjoyed the first part, mainly because I got to spend as much time as I liked with my Mum and Dad and I like that since Dad is a bit like me and Jordan, fairly daubed with the Aspergers brush! and my Mum's the friendliest, most outgoing person I know of except my eldest son! Genetics is such a tricky bugger!

While I was there though I'd started knitting these simple beanies for a knit4charity group in W.A. asking for teenage boys beanies and mitts. They're just a reverse garter stitch brim and simple stocking stitch body with a basic 4-corner decrease.  Really easy, mindless knitting and a great way to use up small amounts of stash yarn. Gives a great edge to the beanie. Anyway, I started knitting a few of these. I could complete 1 a day and was pretty stoked with that.

Anyway, returned home, hitched up caravan, packed up a bag of stash and two dog's and headed off to Kalbarri. Considering we didn't head off till 12 in the afternoon, we knew there was next to no chance of us making it the Kalbarri that day. So we didn't try and stayed in Carnamah! Which was really nice. I never thought I'd miss the place when I first moved there but it was really nice to return, even for just one night!

Always loved the mural on the only supermarket in town!

Hubbie and Dogs play in Carnamah Sports Oval

So next morning, up and off to Kalbarri! It really is a pretty place and the caravan park we stayed at was really nice but being the social cripple I am, I stayed in the caravan mostly. Not of course when the dogs were all there but fortunately they stayed mostly with Hubbie's parents in their much larger van and annex!

Not much room in the van!

Kalbarri Sunset!

So we had a lovely holiday. Hubbie thoroughly enjoyed his time with his parents and I didn't make a complete tit of myself by being overly reluctant to be in company because I didn't know what the social situation was supposed to be or have a huge hypo (because being slightly aspergers isn't enough, throw in Insulin-dependent Diabetic since 14 too!)  so I was pretty happy and I had knit so many of these cute beanies! While I was in Albany I'd bought a heap of DMC tapestry wool skein's Spotlight seemed to be getting rid of cheap and they were so many great different colours so I'd been doing some of the brims in them...and they were really great! Once we got home I was looking forward to finding out how many I'd managed to knit and give them a wash and final tidying up.

I had 12 beanies! I'd meant to knit 10 but clearly got ahead of myself. A couple of them had unavoidable knots and one had heaps because I used all the off-cuts of the tapestry wool knotted together to knit up the final beanie. I wanted to cover these up but first I washed them all, just to prove that none of them were delicate little flowers since I figured they'd need to stand up to fairly indifferent handling if they were going to teenage boys! They all passed!

Okay, I have...8 beanies?

No! I have...11?

Well, 11 not including scrap beanie :)

So once they were all dried I decided to sew little scraps of felt over the knots. I have HEAPS of different coloured felt so it made it really easy. Just little 1cm squares were fine for the one or two knots on some of the beanies but I went to town with the Stash Scrap beanie!

Front Side...

Join Side

Isn't it cute?? Hubbie calls it my Hippy Dippy Hat!. I reckon it works really well. There were lots of knots so this really was the only solution. I couldn't sew them all in without it showing really badly. But this way it's a great design feature!

I'm so pleased with this beanies and their many different colours and shades. But I wont be happy till I've knitted the same amount of mitts! 

This is why I say I knit compulsively! 

See you all later :)

Dx

The Blanket of Knitting Growth

Finished at last!
This has been the longest project I can remember! I cast on the first time (yes, the first time, I'll explain in a minute.) on April 2012 and I finally finished just the other day, 10 August 2014. Wow. Over two years!

I'd already collected a huge amount of op shop yarn by 2012 and was beginning to wonder what to do with the various odd balls I was accumulating and I found the lovely blanket pattern Ten-Stitch Blanket by Frankie Brown which answered my desire to use lots of different yarns but no seaming together endless squares. I pooled together all the candidates for the project and began!

So far, so good but then I discovered the neat join from Smoking Hot Needles and instead of unravelling what I'd knitted so far and starting again with the nice join, I thought I'd get away with just starting the different join method and continue knitting. I worked doggedly on and this is what I got...

The whole thing had started to twist in a weird way and...I hated it! So with great reluctance (and a certain amount of kicking myself for not doing this when I first found the new join method) I unravelled the whole thing. All of it!

Then I balled up all the yarn again, graded it into colour blocks (sort of) and added more yarn that I'd missed before. It made up quite a nice palette.

So I started again! And it was already nicer, knitting up flatter and straighter than the first attempt.

I used up a lot of different weights of yarn. The thinner stuff I doubled (and sometimes tripled), the novelty yarns I used with a strand of solid yarn and just kept going round and round. It became that project that I had on the side when I wanted something mindless to knit between more structured knitting.

It continued as we moved from Walpole in the middle of the forest to Carnamah in the northern wheat belt.

There were long periods where I didn't touch this, where it sat in my wool room while I was occupied with other projects, usually smaller ones since as I continued knitting the blanket it became difficult holding it all on my lap. It was a great project to do during the winter though!

But since our latest move to Kellerberrin it had been living in a bag in a cupboard in my wool room and I finally took pity on it. I'd managed to go through all the balls of stash I'd assigned to this project and was up to the creams and white yarns. I had always planned to do the final round in black so I dragged the whole thing out and buckled down to finally finish it.

It actually didn't take that long which just shows how lazy I've been putting it off for so long. But the blanket was really heavy and cumbersome to work on now it's so big. But here it is, totally covering the floor of my wool room between the bed and the shelves. FINISHED!!

I used a huge number of yarns and some of them interpreted the ten-stitch pattern really differently to others. I wanted a better picture of the whole thing but the best I could do was once I'd washed it and hung it out to dry...the only way it was going to be blocked at all! I did toy with the idea of a tarp pegged out in the backyard, yarn threaded through the outer edge of the blanket and heaps of tent pegs but I gave that up as far more work than I was prepared to invest in!

 I am really, REALLY pleased with the final blanket. It is heavy, I'll confess but it feels so wonderful when you run your hands over it. So many textures! It's warm and cosy too! All I have to do now is tidy up the yarn ends at the back and then it is totally done. Now I'm finished I feel a bit flat. It's a bit of a let down when such a long time project is finally completed. But also pretty good too :)

Well, I must stop gazing obsessively at the thing and get on with my life....

....and start another project...Of course! :)

See ya later!

Dx

Test Knitting...

Seems the best idea to try and do something useful with the enormous amount of stuff I seem to churn out. On Ravelry there is a group called Free Pattern Testers. On their forum you can chose a pattern that's kind of advertised on their board and you can get (potentially) a new pattern for free which you knit up and then provide concise feedback and good photos. Seems like a good deal to me. So far I've signed up for a baby poncho for a 3 mth old and an adult beanie. I have till May 3rd.
So far I've done one practise poncho because it's the only way I can figure out how much yardage I use.

It is a very unusual shape but rather appealing.. The pattern is very well written. The one I'm doing proper is a much nicer colour, I swear!

Haven't got any pics of the hat yet. I've only just started that. Another excellent and interesting pattern :)

Another Stash Busting Project...done!

I actually quite enjoyed this. The pattern was very well written and easy to follow. I had the yarn on hand to give it a try and that also would use up some of my massive stash instead of buying more!! And more importantly, once knit up it actually fits and looks really nice. And so simple! What's not to like?

See? About the only thing negative I have to say about it at all is how extremely fluffy the yarn is I used. I'm hoping it will settle down after I've washed it because at the moment it sheds like a golden retriever at the onset of summer!

Sigh...I wish it was winter already :)

Knitting, knitting!

I've been busy knitting up some of my odd balls of yarn in an effort to use up more of my stash. I'm managing to do that but I admit I keep buying more yarn when I get near a yarn shop (which isn't often!) I wanted to do some small projects and this collar pattern and that bandana cowl were just what I needed!
These collars use up a tiny amount of yarn and are perfect for instant gratification. About the only thing I wish is that I could figure out how to knit them in a finer gauge.

 These cowls are excellent largely because of the number of ways they can be worn. I used about two balls of yarn for each cowl and they were ridiculously easy!

 This I am especially pleased with. I reclaimed this yarn from an unattractive op shop jumper a while ago and I thought I'd try this pattern with it thinking that if it didn't turn out then I hadn't wasted good yarn on it. But it has turned out really nice and so soft too for an acrylic yarn. I call it my saw tooth edged shawl. Bring on winter!

Okay, and the list of completed works...

This is what happens when you don't keep up with this stuff. I've got a heap of projects I've completed since moving to Carnamah. But should I put them all on the one post? It's not like I don't have enough wip to keep me busy!

Ah well, let's see...

I finished the Shetland Shorty almost as soon as I'd finished unpacking my wool room...

Then I started to go through some of my stash, trying to use up those bits that were too much  not to use but not enough to make anything substantial.

So I made a waterfall scarf...

And a ripple scarf out of the same cotton-ribbon yarn.

 I used up a small ball of really pretty blue-teal flecked acrylic I'd been promising to make a pair of mitts with since there wasn't enough to do anything else with it. 

Turned out really nicely :)

I used some ice green yarn I had, from Bendigo Mills, beautifully soft and made up a very simple shawl.

Tess of the D'urbervilles Shawl

 Using some nice earthy coloured acrylic yarn I'd bought at Spotlight in Geraldton and marked another project off my Ravelry Queue with this simple scarflette with flower. Took only a couple of days to knock up!

Used an old penny turned into a button for the flower's centre!

Oh yes! My proudest project though was the Hex Mesh Socks that I finally finished after what seemed like forever! I used up all the yarn I'd reserved for them and was forced to use some white baby yarn that I had on hand to finish them. But it looks really good, almost like I meant to do it that way! So proud!

They look so PRETTY!!

So there we are. I've been in Carnamah, what, two maybe three months? I reckon that's a pretty good haul! And that doesn't even include the 4 or 5 projects I have on the go at the moment! I have all this stash and so many ideas!! I love it!!!!!

Okay, I'll calm down now. 

Happy Knitting :)