Knit the City

Three great 'Huzzah's of congratulations and exultations to the Knit the City crew for this fabulous "yarnstorming"

(Follow this link!)

Most magnificent :D

Would You Like To Try?

An avid listener of Stash & Burn, I was cruising through the podcast's Ravelry boards a little while ago and ended up looking at the 'Would You Like to Try' posts. My GOODNESS what a fantastic idea!!

The lovely Kathy (Curlyknits) agreed to post the samples I was interested in, despite my being overseas, and without delay they arrived!



The Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn was swiftly utlised for a Dream Swatch Headband which I have since finished but have yet to take a good FO photo of.

I very much enjoyed using the yarn with it's tight twist, lovely hand and amazing colours. No wonder it's so addictive to people who see it in person!

Similarly addictive and perhaps even more etched onto my desires for stash enhancement, is Manos del Uruguay...

Oh so heavenly delicious.. I managed to knit up a rectangular swatch that might just do as another stubby holder beer cosy - I would so very much like if it does as I'd then be able to have the gorgeous tones of this Manos around me every evening as I unwind from work!

I can feel a few purchases creeping up on me after this wonderful tasting experience...

If you've always wanted to try a particular yarn I highly recommend the Would You Like To Try board - I'll definitely be ferreting through my stash for oddbods to put up there on offer too!

Skoot and I have booked an extremely exciting trip... we're going to the snow!
We'll be heading over East to the snow ad are both SO excited! Those of you from snowy northern hemispehere climes might not fathom it, but Skoot has never been in snow. My snow experience comes from a winter spent in Switzerland, but I was 12 so my skiing and such was limited and, well.. rather clusy to be honest, but I don't think that changes with age!! So we can hardly contain ourselves - imagining all the adventures we'll have, the snowboarding, the snowman building, the crunching around through drifts of snow...

So in anticipation of the snowy weather I decided to knit up a cowl each for Shweetie and I. Quick smart I ordered some delicious Malabrgo from wonderful Yarn and Kisses and VOILA! Magic delivery of two fabulously soft and sumptuous skins in no time!!


Complete with a little note and goodie! Feel very spoilt :)

So we chose Pearl Ten for the Shweetie - a nice grey/brown kind of colour


and I could NOT go past the vibrant amazing Glazed Carrot - YUM!


I love LOVE this colour, I'm on such an orange binge at the moment!

In contrast to the weather they're intended for - the colours tone in very wil with this Pibara sunset I captured the other day, don't you think?

Thermis Wenchis!

I finished this cowl a little while ago back in May but had some reservations about it - basically it didn't turn out quite as I had hoped. It's still workable and lovely and I'm still posting it off to my lovely friend for whom it's intended - but it's that sort of uneasy mild disappointment you feel when you imagine how something will be and it doesn't turn out that way. There might not be anything wrong with what DOES result, but since it's different than you imagined, it's hard to accept it entirely.



Knit with yarn I bought a long while ago when I was a very new knitter - handspun from the Yarn Wench - I accidentally cast on with a twist when I had intended it to be Thermis (non ralvelry link), I stuck with the moebius style as it would add a different design interest. Unfortunately it turned out a little too large to work as a cowl exactly, more like a neckwarmer.

Luckily the good friend I'm sending it to is a dab hand at the sewing machine, so she might add some buttons or change it up somehow to better suit what she would like for it to be.



I'm posting this off with TumTum the hippo - I always seem to spoil the little ones more than their mums and dads - well, now there's finally something more than a dishcloth knit for Zo!

p.s. sorry for the terrible photos! So hard to get photos in good light at the moment with long hours and early sunsets!

It's Showering Baby Knits!

Well! Do I have a parade of baby knits for YOU! I certainly do, let me warn you..

This R&R past I as able to catch up with a gorgeous close friend of mine and her edible little man Tom (aka Tomatoe).

I had knit the presto Chango cardigan for him a while back, but hadn't until that day been able to find buttons for it - so it is now all trim and button-able and even has a wonderful little person inside!

I'm very happy with the buttons despite feeling very uninspired at the giant craft store - pacing up and down the button section desperately picking up buttons and holding them against the lace panel, putting them back, plucking another sheet of buttons, putting them back..

These are little plastic buttons - not the wonderful wood or (humanely made) antler I had envisioned, but I think they're fantastic :) They shimmer ever-so-slightly, like mother of pearl and have turned out to be just the right colour to match the Malabrigo Cotton.

What a sweet heart!

The little booties, well ok not-so-little booties (!!) I knit up a short while ago - Blue Steps - with some left over Bernat cotton (which I found lovely to work with) were also gifted to Lizza and her little man. They're MUCH too big for him now and we giggled over the size, but they'll fit him perhaps between 1-2 years and be nice little slippers - good to prepare for the future, eh? ;P


Finally, the showering of knitted goods finished with two wee beanies - one I knit up on the fly, an Elfin Sprout beanie which reminds me of growing beanstalks

And the square tea-cosy crown style baby hat I knit up from some random pure wool yarn I had about - this one spent much more time hibernating than on the needles!!


So all in all I'm very happy with all those little knits and how they have turned out. Sir Tomatoe and his mama were equally delighted which made we even more thrilled! Mama Lizza has since told me that Tomatoe has worn his cardi and beanies almost continuously since they were bestowed - Hurrah!! Music to a knitter's ears!!

Stranded Bolt Cosy!

Whooops! I knit this little number up months ago and forgot to post about it!

So without further delay - I present to you Stranded Bolt Cosy!

Skoot and I both have gun licences and rifles (a controversial issue guns, isn't it?!) which we adore, and part and parcel of owning firearms are the rigourous safety and security controls.

A gun safe, a lock box, a separate ammunition case and so on and so on.. It's not compulsory, but we store the bolts separately to the rifles themselves. If you're not familiar with how a rifle works - without the bolt the worst you can do with a rifle is whack someone over the head with it. Removing the bolt turns a fire stick into just.. a stick.

But it's important to keep the bolts nice and cosy, safe and unscratched - enter the bolt cosy!

I knit this one up as a strip of stranded knitting in Shweetie's favourite colours (this one is for his .22) with a funny elbow in it to create the flap. Then with trusty Edward Sir Sewing Machine I attached some polar fleece lining and sewed it up!

I must admit my sewing leaves a little to be desired.. but it was quite diffiuclt sewing such a thick wad of fabric with the regular foot (I must get more familiar with my sewing machine so I can swap between feet and use all the fabulous features).

The bolt cosy is a huge success and I definitely see some more in mu future :)

Glimpse of Rainbow

We flew in for R&R and have been enjoying stormy weather, sheets of rain and grey-white skies which has been DELICIOUS! Every now and then there has been a glimpse of rainbow here and there amongst the clouds, or tidied away in the corner of the sky somewhere.

The Lace Ribbon scarf just wasn't working for this yarn - it looked fantastic but was too fiddly a knit to do socially, but not complex enough to engage my attention on its own, so that pattern is put on the backburner for a thicker yarn at another time.

I'm so in love with the new incarnation of this yarn - into a lovely triangular scarf/shawlette - a style and amazingly wearable knit that I've come to adore. It's knitting up fabulously so far, and I'll be able to truly enjoy the wonderful handspun every moment it's snuggled up against my neck, draped over a shoulder and casting little glimpses of rainbow where ever I go.