Flaunt it!

It's a long weekend in Australia this weekend, so I'm feeling rather relaxed!
*stretches languidly in chair, takes sip of yummy fruity tea*
Skoota and I were going to go away but ended up staying at home, which feels right, and is a good opportunity to get some things done we've been eyeing off for ages. One of the things ma sweetie's particularly excited about is making up his giant workbench for home. We've also deigned this weekend a 'Sash'n'Skoot' weekend, something we've been doing since we first met - putting aside a day or so to really spend it together doing lovely things, without seeing other people or letting hassles into our day.

So we're both here at the workshop - me tickertackering away on the computer, reading and knitting, while he's doing other sorts of louder, more sparky productive things!! When he's finished welding the frame together I'm going to paint it for him - it's nice being able to contribute to the cause!

So I thought I'd take this opportunity to post about the shirt I made last weekend! I can't find where I've put it now - pooh pooh! But I love it, it's turned out super cute, and perfect for summer as it's a little singlet... see!
This was taken in the evening, hence my nice snuggly cardi over the top! I was cruising around looking at knitting merchandise, saw this saying and loved it! I plan to make a shirt extolling Cast-On's virtues too, I've got a black shirt ready and finally picked up some new white paint. Gah! It's terrible! I've got about twelve pots of coloured permaset paint, the ONE pot I couldn't find was white! *shakes head* nevermind, I got a new big pot on Wednesday so nothing can stop me now!! *mad cackle* ..Well.. I'm sure something could if it tried hard enough... but I'm keen.. oh yes!

I've made shirts for myself for a few years, it's nice being able to have the flexibility and customisation - putting whatever you want on whatever kind of shirt! So of course I had to start making knitting shirts to FLAUNT THE KNIT! If I'm gonna knit in public, I'm certainly going to plug the craft on couture too whenever possible! I'm planning on making a couple of Rainbow Brite shirts, but with iron on transfers rather than painting the images on. *sigh* how I love Rainbow Brite and her bubbly world of joy!

Stephanie Pearl-McWHEEEE!!!!

I bought "Knitting Rules" by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee today, only 6 hours ago or so actually, I've gotten home, settled in and just now read the first page.

Already I love it. LOVE! IT!

It's astounding I've even been able to prise myself away to post this actually...

Re birth of a knitter!

It's definately time for me to get the blog up to date with my current Work In Progress!

Try as I might (and try I have! - brain bustingly hard!) to remember just exactly WHAT it was that has gotten me back into knitting, having had the craft lie dormant for so many years, I simply CANNOT figure it out!! I remember consulting a dear friend of mine at work, to help me decipher a poncho pattern I was looking at- but at that time I was already doing skoot's scarf! Gill demonstrated the pattern to me on the yarn I was knitting the shveetie scarf with!! So I have no idea, it's an absolute black hole of void-y numbness right there in my brain where the recollection should be kept!

Who knows, perhaps it's some kind of divine or extraterrestrial intervention and my mind suddenly went *ping* I WANT TO KNIT! I remember downloading the Lion Brand tutorial for how to knit, and got going from there. But the inspiration-source still eludes me. Never-the-less, inspired I was! And of course, being the unfathomable depth that my love for my shweetie is, I begun at once to knit a scarf for him. I had bought some random needles (chosen by colour rather than by any kind of knowledge of needle size or material! Pearly pink needles, as the others seemed to boring in biege or grey!)) and picked a ball of acrylic yarn in a reddy pink variegated colour.

I started by doing some practice knitting, learning by doing a swatch of sorts. I got garter stitch down, then learnt how to purl from the trusty tutorial, then after trying ribbing I felt confident enough to progress to an actual project! However, as the swatch had increased in size, I realised the colours just weren't quite skootish... The yarn was much more of a PINKY reddy than a reddy pinky and really not very masculine at all! It simply wouldn't do!

So I asked la shweetie what he would like to have knit for him - what colour scarf would he like? He replied he'd like a red one (his favourite colour) - no! Red and black checkers please :) Hehehe So out I trotted again and excitedly bought a Big ball each of red and black acrylic 4ply - no wussy pink shades this time! I thought for a bit as to how I could do it.. I was NOT up for Fair Isle/Intarsia, besides the lovely beginners knitting books I now have hadn't even been ordered at that time so I was bereft of any tutorial to even get started. So I decided on knitting tiny little individual squares, which I would then mattress stitch together to form the checkered scarf.

And boy were they tiny.

TEENY tiny.

See, shortly after buying the yarn at the local budget store skoot and I went to catch up with my Mum. We decided it was a lovely day to go out for a cuppa and visit the yarn store to have a little look around (as they were already aware of my newly piqued knitting interest!). After becoming engrossed in all the little knick-knit-knacks and squealing delightedly when I saw a book on knitted dog-coats I settled on purchasing a little knit kit for making a lovely cuffed cozy for your cuppa! Included in the kit along with a coffee glass, pattern and required yarns, was a set of size 4 Lisa G needles - very perdy! So I decided I would knit skoot's scarf on the lovely liddle Lisa G wooden/bamboo kneedles, I hadn't really gotten into the placky ones I'd bought before.


Teeny tiny needles... equals teeny tiny squares!

To further complicate matters I had the rough idea of how many rows each one would be, and kept them at 12 stitches wide, but in reality they were all slightly different shapes as I never actually counted the rows, just tried to make them look square. Slowly the realisation dawned on my that it was going to be a lot of work to stitch all the eensy squares together then weave in all the ends etc.. bleerrrghhhhh!

So I reassessed the situation on the needles!

I redesigned the chequered scarf to be two long scarves knitted together at the side seam to become one long scarf with a two-by-two checker pattern.

Phew!

But the rocky journey of the first project was not yet over! I continued to use the acrylic red and black I'd bought earlier, but was using newer size 8 bamboo needles, lovely lovely. But the yarn simply didn't feel right. It wasn't flowing and I couldn't get into it.

I'd bought some snuggly snuggly lovely 100% wool yarn to make a scarf for myself(still in the queue!), and wanted my shweetie to feel that same soft and delectable texture against his skin. So I cast aside my 8 inches or so of knitted acrylic and took up some pure wool, and I knit and knit and had a ball with it! It was my first experience of knitting with a pure natural fibre rather than acrylic. And in fact still today I've only ever knit that first acrylic, and pure wool since then - haven't yet tried any other fibres - so my knowledge isn't at all expansive yet!

Still, I adored knitting the wool SO MUCH it seemed to fly through my fingers smoothly and silkily, like a milk or syrup off the lovely smooth white-ish bamboo needles. I could even feel the lanoliney goodness from the yarn!

On our trip away (which I still haven't posted pictures from yet!) I finished the first part! Hoorah!!!! So now shweetie can wear at least half a scarf while it's still cool enough!! The other length of the scarf is still on my needles, and I'm looking forward to completing it :) Where-ever I knit it (I'm big on knitting in public) people comment "ooohhh which footy team do you support?!" I don't support any footy team, don't even know the rules of the game! So it's not super likely I was knitting an Essendon bombers (black'n'red) scarf! So I do want to finish the other half quickly, because I figure a checkered scarf isn't as sporty as a stripey one, that way Skoota won't have to keep explaining to everyone how he's not a footy fan, no no it's been knit in his fave colours by his shweetie!

So there it is! My first, and continuing project!
And on the scrumptious shweetie it lives! Skoot was so stoked to receive the (half)scarf it was very sweet :) He knew I was knitting it for him so no surpirse there, but he was delighted to be able to wrap up in it -He's never had a scarf before, let alone a hand-knit one!

I'm thinking it will be the first of many knitted goodies that will warmify this household with love :)

Yarn Wench Besotted

oh yes.
It's true.
I've discovered the Yarn Wench and her fabulous wares.

I've found a skein of absolutely GORGEOUS yarn that I simply couldn't leave to pine on Lynn's online store.. So I ordered it.. Then when I told my shweetie about the postage costs he said, "Well you might as well order that other one you saw on there too, to get your money's worth of the shipping"

!!!!

I HAVE A LICENCE TO BUY YARN!!!!!

ooooooh it's so dangerous.. I can feel it surging through my blood.... yarrnn.... yaaaaAAAAAAaaarnnn!!!!

*pant pant*

So I'll post pictures once I've (finally) decided which companion yarn to buy to go along with this STUNNING lovely skein I've already picked.

*delighted and content excited sigh*

Mr Potato Man

I would like to introduce you to a friend of mine...

Mr Grumpy Potato Man!!

Isn't he HILARIOUS?!?!

When I saw him in a little gift store i burst out laughing like a CRAZY PERSON in the middle of the store - I loved him SO much! And for $5 how could I leave him there?!
So i adopted him and took him in, threatening pea pod and all!
He sits here on my desk at work, wielding his pea pod and lifting that eyebrow menacingly at anyone who threatenes to besmirch my day with negativity!!
He poses so many questions!

What is he so cross about?

Is he holding the peas aloft in a heralding way?

Or is he about to peg them at someone?!

And that EYEBROW!! It's just delicious! I love him so :)

Frog and Toad!

We're hittin' the road!

I'm SO excited! I've been looking forward to this for ages, driving all my mates at work nutty with cries of "only half a day to gooo!!" etc.. And now the day is here and we're officially on holidays (short though they be) and we're just about to head down south!

Hurraaayyyy!!! :)

Dad, skoot and I are going to Dunsborough together, it's going to be a relaxing, delicious holiday, chilling out, reading, knitting to my hearts content! We can go to the caves, have dinner somewhere nice, breathe in all that lovely country air - I'm enjoying myself already!!

I've even sussed out a little yarn store to check out on the way through... *grin* Very very excited!

I'm halfway through a rather long post about my WIP, skoot's scarf, but have saved it as a draft, don't have time to do polish it off just yet, so that'll be up sometime Monday probably. We'll be coming home on Sunday, but I've taken Monday off work too to fully absorb the relaxation and delight of having a holiday! Hurrah!!

xoxo

Birds of a feather..

I've been meaning to post about this for a little while - my up'n'coming debut at my first stitch'n'bitch! But time has passed to the point that now it isn't up'n'coming anymore, now I can tell you how it went!

It was BRILLIANT!!

I did feel a little nervous beforehand, not knowing quite what to expect, but thoroughly enjoyed myself for the entire evening! I was thinking this earlier as I emailed Pixie (PIXIE! She commented, the first one Wheeee! hehe) Something about sitting in a room with other knitters and being able to chat about various aspects of the craft and what in particular you feel passionate about or not, is microscopicallly different to talking to non-knitters, but makes a noticeable difference. Non-knitters will be just as interested in your excitement and love the amount of joy you get from the craft, but they don't truly have that depth of understanding, they don't fully -get- the obsessive adoration of texture and colour, and the innate need to squirrel away skein after skein into a lovely, fondle-able stash. I think it comes down to one word, validation.

So the S'n'B was a group of about ten people, all women, in ages varying from about 18 to 60 - heaps of fun! They even had chocolate biscuits and nice warm drinks there! I'd brought along a slab of chocky as a peace offering, so added that to the treats table to the enjoyment of the others (hopefully no sticky chocky fingerprints on the kintting!). Magazines and the latest books were piled in the centre of the tables, with chairs all around, and stashes of yarn for sale/fondling to the side brought along by the super friendly Helen of Knitting Inspirations for people to look through and buy (at truly bargainly prices!) if they wished.

It really was a stellar evening and I can't wait for the next one! I was given a list (and a newsletter, and some handouts, and some cute little product brochures...!!) of all the other S'n'Bs in Perth, so I think I might have to toddle along to some of the others too having had so much fun at this one!


The beauty of this group too, is that it's held in a library. So along with the magazines and books on the tables, the newest additions to the knitting section of the library were there, so I was even able to take one home with me! Hurrah!! hehe so SO much fun :) I'd always wanted to go to a S'n'B and have been searching for a long time to find one in my area, and I can tell you I wasn't disappointed :)

p.s. Did you see!? Did you see?!?! I managed to make the link up there to Helen's site!! And how embarrassment.. it's SO EASY!!! I can't believe I didn't do it before! hehe nevermind!

bbrrrliiiiiiiiiiing!!!

That's the sound of a magical entrancing faery's wand sending a trinkling and sparkling frosting of fine precious magical knitting dust glittering down from the air!
IT really is! Imagine it in slow motion...

*bbrrrliiiiiiiiiiiiinng*

Like in those old storybooks that had a tape you played along with them, and when it was time to turn the page a sound just like that would let you know!

In anycase, whether you believe me or not about the trinkling wand dust part, the sound effect is to celebrate my recovery from the quagmire of indecision! Hurrah!! See, I realised from my new found delight in a fellow blogger's domain name/podcast title/blog title [The fabulous Pixie, of PixiePurls!] that I was leaving out from my blog title a large element of who I am - the faery part. I have always been delighted by faeries and the whole concept of a whimsical world of magical, lovely, playful and trickstery faes living in a realm most humans couldn't even comprehend, let alone experience! My amazing and enchanting Mum (xoxo) helped introduce me to the world of faeries when I was very little, by writing letters from them to me and hiding them in a crack of an old limestone wall in the backyard of my childhoos home. I have such precious memories of those letters, and the miniature parcel I received from the faeries for Christmas - a tiny washing basket and miniature silver cutlery for my dolls' house. I was convinced not only that it was a gift from the little people, but also that it was not toy cutlery, but real cutlery the faeries had given me from their very own supply!

My life continued to involve faeries with my first employment - working as a faery! I created involved and fantastical costumes, stories and games to delight children at birthday parties, in hospital wards and fetes - it really was a super fun job, even though the many people in my life would become exasperated by the ever present faery dust turning up on their clothing, furniture, in their cars, even in their food! [I didn't mind ;) ]

I feel that even though I no longer work as a faery, or receive their letters in my garden, I hold within myself a rather special faeriality - the childlike wonder, joy and easily amused nature. Finding fun and beauty in little things, keeping a positive outlook, and being more than a little quirky in some ways - all faery-ish qualities I love to be around, and find in myself too.

*little sigh*

So! I will be including more of my faeriness in my blog now too! After much deliberation I decided not to change the actual name of the blog, but to add more faery stuff in too :) And I have a FABULOUS idea for a knitting project!! A faery-ish knitting project! *mysterious look* Although it's a project that will porbably take a loong time at the moment, given how long it's taking me to finish the lovely's scarf!

*gasp*

His scarf!!

I haven't even written about my WIP fully yet!! Gah! All this TALKING about knitting and I haven't even blogged about it or let alone actually done much knitting ITSELF lately! GAH! I must finish it while it's still wintery enough for him to enjoy it!!

Okay, so with that I must now go! I must go and give my sweetie a back massage (oooer romannntic!) and knit knit knit some more!!

p.s And one day soon I'll figure out how to actually link to people I talk about... (sorry pixie!)

It's all very exciting...

ooooerrr...

Looks like there may be a change in the works!!

How can I do this just when all seemed so well?!

*dramatic faint*

Knit Nutt indecision!

Hiya,
I'm at work, it's 8:40am, so I have a mere 5 minutes to do this post before I'm officially clocked on to work time..
*big deep breathe to be able to speak really fast to squeeze into five minutes*
So I've been thinking about my nickname/blogname here. And I love it, I love being a knit nutt, because I really am a little out of the box in all aspects of life, and by the patterns and sorts of things I got for in knitting, I think I'm one of those slightly alternative, excited by new ideas and revolutionary concepts sort of knitters... But I keep thinking of other names that are awesome too!!

Last night we were having a few drinks, and I was doing a bit of knitting inbetween chatting with mates etc.. and I got up to go to the fridge and said 'Knit Ninja!!!' and struck a ninja agility pose! I imagined how funny that would look with knitting needles and those fancy ninja toes and laughed myself silly! So I thought what a great nick! KnitNinja! Or even KnitKninja! So i did a search, curious if anyone else is a knit ninja out there. AND THERE IS!! But I'm not envious - because she's brilliant! She's The Knitting Ninja, and has the CUTEST little ninja comic at the top of her blog, and looks like she knits the most gorgeous things! And good on her for being so awesome and creative - I'm excited, I've only briefly looked at her blog but plan to have a real perusal of it soon.

So, there goes that one shot down in flames! Then I thought, hey I wonder if there are other knitnutts! AND THERE ARE!!! Well there's at least one that I found anyway, but spelt the conventional way - Knit Nut - and SHE'S a fabulous knitter too!!

Okay, it's officially past work time - 8:46, I shall leave this with a suspenseful dot dot dot, get to work, and complete the post in my lunch or after work!! Why can't I be a lady of leisure and be able to knit and post all day??

...

I have a confession to make...

...

I've been spending a little while now since that first exultant discovery and set-up of Knit-NuttBlog trying to compose my first entry. I did a bit of writing in a notebook, finding it too hard to write when sitting at the computer in the main living area - with my partner's music/gaming/TV as distractions. I just couldn't figure out the best way to get the (lovely fluffy yarn) ball rolling. Then I happened upon a little realisation - this is NOT the way this is going to happen. This blog is not an involved scientific formula or great novel that needs constant and vigilant attention to detail. It's a blog! From the heart, whatever's on the noggin at the time. So without anymore concern of performance anxiety I decided the time was nigh for some bullet biting!

*crunch*

A few introductory words to start then, as a proper "how-do you-do":

My name is Sasha, though my partner has lately affectionately labelled me "knit nutt" due to my sudden development of a feverish and complete obsession with knitting! And hence the name of the blog :) The double t is an ececntricity I've had since my younger days, some words just look better with different letters added. I'm an excitable 'grown up' who refuses to fully accept the mantle of adult responsibility. I will not relinquish my right to frolic and prance like a faerie, and take joyous delight in simple and beautiful things. A look of child-like wonder is often upon my face, and I ADORE anything colourful and whimsical!

Significant others: My partner/ boyfriend/ man-I-love-&-live-with-but-not-married-what-is-his-pronoun?! I settle for 'partner' as boyfriend seems too trivial, in anycase, herein referred to as skoot, scrumptious bum etc.. My lovely family Mum, Dad & brother. And of course, to save the fluffiest til last.. The gorgeous and headstrong ruffian pup Chilli - our family dog who now lives with Dad, but visits and stays with us sometimes. HOW I LOVE HER!!
seee? See the irrefutable gorgeousness??

What's on my needles!! Well.. my first project actually *little shy but proud blush* It's a red& black checkered scarf for my honey, in simple simple garter stitch - a nice easy one to get me into the swing of things! I shall give more details of it later, and hopefully install one of those funky little WIP-Meters in the column of the blog here so we can all see how far along I am with it! So that's my current WIP (Work-In-Progress for those non-knitters who may be reading) for the moment, thought I've got some others waiting impatiently in my stash shouting whenever I open the lid "KNIT ME!!! KNIT MEEE!! I'M EXCITING AND LUSH!! LOOK AT MY COLOUR WAY!!!" But I must resist, or my sweetie won't have his scarf while the weather's still barely cool enough for him to wear it!

Okay, there are chores to do, and that lovely snuggly woollen scarf to finish so I can start on the other screaming masses! So I must be off! Out of the cyberworld and into the tidying world - hurrah!