oooooerr!!

Look what we had arrive in a great big delivery truck today!!

Just in time for my birthday!! =D
(although it's not actually my gift, but something Skoot and I have been itching to get into!)

Can anyone guess what it is?

I might just have a little prize draw for the correct answer... *grin*

Lace Milestone!

The many hours of silky, slippery knitting have come to fruition with the completion of the Swallowtail Shawl!

It is officially cast off and tails woven in :)

I felt so happy and to be honest, proud too, when I finally bound off and had my finished shawl in my hands. It feels a very special sort of thrill of excitement and anticipation that I'll be gifting the shawl to my paternal Gran :)

Living with a scrumptious tradesman has numerous advantages, one of which is the amount of unusual and specific toolery present in the household and workshop! Including.. Stainless TIG filler wire or in a knitter's perspective - blocking rods!

I very careful threaded the top edge of the shawl onto two of the rods, slipping the rod through the little eyelets at the very top, then doused it in water to soak. The rods made this a little more tricky but there was no way I was going to be threading rods into lace when it was WET!

Then to the blocking - my first real attempt at blocking something other than a long straight scarf.

Aided by the scrumptious Skoot I braced those top rods and then began pinning out the lace on our spare mattress.

Slowly the lace opened up more and more, like slow-burning magic, or watching a flower bud in time-warps photography - awesome!

Gently drawing out the yarn, and meticulously pinning the shawl would have to be the most exciting knitterly moment so far, I have to say. As I crawled around on the mattress I was overflowing with then excited tension of the moment and thinking of nothing else! A very mindful moment, really :)

Overall I am completely smitten by lace work, and very pleased with how the swallowtail shawl came out. At this stage it feels just a little bit little, but that's ok.

So all that remains is to unpin the shawl this morning, now that it is completely dry. We're having dinner with my Gran this evening, so I shall unveil her secret knitted goodie to her :) I have to admit I'm a little hesitant about unpinning the shawl.. it feels as if when I let loose the pins the whole shawl will spring back to it's shrunken original size! But I will have faith in the Blocking Gods.. I will..

p.s. I've just realised looking over the post that I'm wearing my Ravelry shirt in the blocking photo! Completely unintentional, but very fitting I must say!!

Mr Cat Rogers

For those fans out there of LOLcats, and even those who aren't fans, but listen to Cast On and enjoy the intro music to Today's Sweater..

A be-jumpered kitty from icanhascheezburger.com

The Squidge Cloth

My first knitting design!! hehe but really a very simple one to start with!

THE SQUIDGE CLOTH!

A face cloth, dish cloth, gift cloth - use it as you will! The alternating rectangles of knit and purl give the ultimate squidge factor for a fabulously fondle-able cloth. Enjoy!!

YARN: Any cotton or cotton blend yarn, I often use Anchor Magicline
NEEDLES: Whichever required to obtain desired gauge, I use 3.5mm
GAUGE: A nice tight gauge gives a good squidginess, and a cloth that won't stretch out too much when wet. I get a gauge of 22sts & 44 rows : 10cm/4 inches
NOTIONS: Yarn needle, soapy sudsy water!

Cast on 40 stitches. (or any multiple of 8)

Row 1: *Knit 4, purl 4*, repeat between *s to end of row.
Row 2: Repeat row 1.
Row 3: *Purl 4, knit 4*, repeat between *s to end of row.
Row 4: Repeat row 3.

Repeat rows 1 - 4 until cloth is the desired size.

Bind off all stitches reasonably loosely to allow for stretch.
Sew in ends.
Immerse in soapy sudsy water and enjoy your new squidgy cloth!!

Hurrah! =D

First FO!

Turns out that my first Finished Object for 2008 is quite unexpected!

The Bunker Bay Scarf!

I haven't really touched this silky knit in what seems like ages! But I realised a good friend who lives in a far away state is having her birthday early this month (tomorrow in fact!) and I would love her to have this scarf :) She's a fellow knitter, but doesn't purl or do any shaping - garter stitch baby blankets are her project of choice and she produces some lovely big ones!!

So all that is left to do is block it out, let it dry, then pop it in the express post to get to her! =D

Life lessons

I have found that I tend to prioritise gift knitting, and items I'm working on for other people highly above knits I have on the go for me. This is why my first pair of socks, anklets for me, started in 2006 still consist of only one sock!

So.. if one doesn't have the ability, or in my case, can't seem to pin down the time, to knit socks for oneself... I have found the solution! Buy REALLY awesome manufactured socks!

Oh my goodness, these little puppies are DREAMY! Cotton blend so they're nice and cool, but thick and cushy too - I'm like a child padding around the house in them and zooooming down the hallway's polished boards as I slide along in my snazzy new socks!

The other life lesson is.. when it's a STINKING hot day and the power goes out for the whole suburb, with an estimated re-activation delay of 3 hours, so no fans let alone air-con to save you from the suffocating heat..? LEAVE the house, and go to somewhere like this..

Again, dreamy, huh?

Lacely lately

Over the holiday week I've been working rather exclusively on the Swallowtail Shawl. I've been thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to sit and knit a good deal of it in one go, seeing as I'm not working or studying as much at the moment. I seem to find it easier now that I'm able to get into a real rhythm of the knitting, rather than the stilted action of doing one row at a time.

Having finished main body chart of the shawl earlier in the year I was on to the NUPPS!

After some false starts and a brief hiatus, broken by some fabulous encouragement from the inspirational Rebekkah :) I was off and racing!

Here are the competed sections of nupps in their pretty little rows - like little beads!

The lace landscape is looking lovely - the puffy pretty nupps popping out from the stockinette areas. I'm SO keen to finish and block it out to see the lace in all its glory!

The yarn I'm using is Seasilk, so any hot tips on blocking lace would be greatly appreciated :) I'm going to do some researching before I block to make sure I don't hurt the fibre. I've heard some folk say silk doesn't need a complete dousing in water, only a misting before being blocked. But then others have done the whole dunk and it's been fine.. hmmm.. Anyway, I'll cross that blocking bridge when I get to it! Still another 9 rows to go, plus the 320+ stitch bind off at the end!!

Bright Shiny and New Year

Many your days in this new and shiny 2008 be bright and sparkley :)

Cracking Chrissie Korkies!

Well the festivities came and went with the blinking of an eye, and the cracking of a Korknisse!!

I wanted to knit many more of these little korkies than I had time for, but next year I plan to be very prepared!

These little fellows were knit up and packaged in pretty shiny colours in preparation for the gifting :)

Very well received!

It's a fabulous little pattern, originally sourced here, but Elliphantom's troops of 'nisse are VERY inspiring too! :) I altered the pattern somewhat - no ribbing and basically knit intuitively seeing as the design is rather simply (yet ingenious!!) and stopped/decreased when it seemed right!

I loved these little people so much it was very difficult to part with them! I think I'll have to knit up a few to keep our mantelpiece company *grin*

I hope everyone enjoyed the festivities with much laughter and love and remains safe and happy as we encounter the New Year!

Christmas times

A Christmas Meme for Christmas times :)

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper! But generally some sort of unusual wrappings, this year was newspaper with hand made gift tags and colour co-ordinating ribbons - hurrah!!
2. Real or artificial tree? Artificial - I LUFF the tree situation - decorating, having one inside etc.. lovely :)
3. When do you put up the tree? As soon as possible! This year I was behind the gun though and put it up late in the first week of December.
4. When do you take it down? Take it down?
5. Do you like eggnog? The only eggnog I've had comes in a carton - pre-made flavoured milk! I've never tried to REAL stuff!
6. Favorite gift received as a child? My incredibly blessed childhood and family, and the magical sparkle-fest of love and wonder instilled in me
7. Do you have a nativity scene? Nope
8. Hardest person to buy for? No one :)
9. Easiest person to buy for? Well I'm not really digging the "buy for" part here.. And everyone I know is fabulously fun to gift things too! Some require a little more thought and scheming, but that's all part of the fun
10. Worst Christmas present you ever got? Gah! It's not a about the presents people!!
11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Well, in theory mail them... but I don't think I've managed to successfully send out a batch of Festivuss cards yet!! This year I plan to send belated ones - they're GOING dammnit!! Late or not!
12. Favorite Christmas movie? Ooohh.. I don't really have one actually!
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? All through the year - see something perfect, snaffle it up. Have a great crafterly idea, get straight onto it!
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Not in the sens of re-gifting one. But I've certainly gone through a few edible items and recycled the packages.. and such..
15. Favorite thing to eat on Christmas? Oooh cherries! ADORE cherries and they come out around Christmas time here and I get stuck in!
16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Clear lights, but generally none on the tree
17. Favorite Christmas song? Hmmm... tricky as I have so many.. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire (The Christmas Song?), practically anything sung by Frank and Bing!
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
Always travel of some description, but all our family are within the same state and city area so that helps.
19. Can you name all of Santa’s Reindeer? I certainly can! And as a child it was my intention to have EIGHT German Shephards when I grew up, each named after one of the reindeer *grin*
20. Angel or star on top of tree? A star :)
21. Open presents Christmas Eve or morning? Sometime on Christmas day
22. Most annoying thing this time of year? The commercial nature of Christmas and how much people subscribe to that and get caught up in the pressure, stress, and performance anxiety of it all. It DOESN'T have to be about that, people!!!
23. Do you decorate your tree in any theme or color? No, the tree is home to a fabulous mix of ornaments and styles, each with its own memory and story :)
24. What do you leave for Santa? This year he went without, poor love,though gauging by his waistline the odd house or two with no goodies isn't a bad thing for his health.. but normally a carrot or so for the reindeer and a glass of milk for the old fellow - yes, he gets MILK, we can't have him careening all around in this sleigh, can we?

(Sorry to have put you through this Sagish Rabbit!)

Festivuss Love

My little friends here and I hope you've all enjoyed a safe and snuggly time over the festive period - whatever celebrations you get into.

May your days be filled with love and laughter, tasty treats and good company - and may your needles be ever-clicking!

xoxo

Gift Knitting

Oh, yes!! There has been much festive knitting!

But I cannot say more..

Oh, yes! I have pictures!!

But I cannot show more...

Such is the way with the sleuthing of Gift Knitting...

It must remain censored, until all knitted gifts have been gifted knittingly...

...

Happenings and not happenings?

I've been quite anxious lately, not about the fast-approaching festivities, but simply in life and from the happenings and not happenings of life! Cryptic I know, but basically I've been realising I this anxiety is something about myself that will not just go away on its own, that I need to work at it and constantly challenge myself.

Last night I was feeling extremely wound up and ended up, in very un-Sasha style, completely gutting, cleaning and sorting the entire freezer! Look at that puppy sparkle!!

I've set up a fabulous schedule of tasks I want to complete and items I want to do within a time frame so I can feel secure that everything will get done and all will be well - because the schedule has sorted that out :)

Part of that scheduling involved looking at how much of the Swallowtail Shawl I need to complete each day in order to have it ready by the 25th.... well... about 6.75% per day. Which equals about 4 or 5 rows - which is doable, even around my hectic scheduling of events!!

Unfortunately last night as I was determined to get a few rows in as a head start, I found that not only am I one stitch over my stitch count for the row I'm on (the second nupp row of the first Lily Valley section) but I've also managed to get the stitches sort of out of alignment too!!

?!??!?!?!

I know!! How did this happen!? So I stalled last night and put it down for the time being. I need quickness of mind and longevity of patience to have a look at it again - today after work hopefully. I'm wondering if I can just add one stitch on the part that is one stitch too few, then do a double decreased later in the row where the extra stitches are... See, what's happened is on top of the extra stitch that's in there, the mis-alignment is caused by one area having one less stitch that needed, and further on down the row another section having TWO extra stitches - the extra stitch plus the one that should have been earlier! And if I simply ignore the misalignment and knit away those lovely nupp and yarn over fans will start off not so fan-nish, they'll be right on top of each other for that first pair.. hmmm.. don't know.. requires more thought..

Any suggestions please do fire away!! :)

Lovely weekend has been spent with friends and loved ones :) I saw a lovely friend's new house and gifted her some housewarming goodies wrapped up in an appropriately coloured knit face-cloth

Dad and I spent the afternoon putting together his new outdoor setting, after which we of course had to test them out with cool drinks and whilst eating our dinner looking out at the view from his porch!

Chilli decided, to our hilarity, that she wanted a chair too (this was even before the pizza was produced) and first up put her paws and chest on the little table, resting there and eye us off - part of the team. Then she went the whole hog and popped her little back feet up there and clung to the mini-table determined that she'd stay up there as part of our crew, not just the dog sitting on the floor!! Look at how gorgeous she is!!

The Chrissie deckies are gradually making their migration from boxes in the cupboard and hallway to their rightful place on the tree, mantel piece and household surrounds

But I'm not rushing into it this year - I want it to be a family affair and enjoyed by all :)

Rightio, must dash, I'm behind on my schedule now seeing as the whimsy to post and not COMPLETELY neglect my blog seemed to grab me spontaneously so I ignored the " take bike out to the shed " schedule task in favour of sitting here to blog a little!

NUPPS!!

I figured out the NUPPS!!!

*crazy dancing*

If I do the nupp row stitches reaaally loosely then the purl 5 togethers are a piece of cake!! CAKE I TELL YOU!!!

*more crazy dancing and hysterical giggling*

Maybe I will have this shawl finished by Christimuss!!!

Can't tell more, am too tired, but will post pictures and more excited gabblings tomorrow *grin*

Raccooning Austen

icanhascheezburger always comes through with the goods, and last night was no exception. I was scrolling through their posts and found this one -

Which for a Jane Austen fan is doubley hilarious! hehehee!

p.s. no post for a while - I know. My wrist is playing havoc at the moment, though I'm not sure why, too much PDA backgammon? Too much writing/typing? Heaven forbid... Too much Knitting?!?! So I'm trying to go easy on it :)

Fruit Punch!!

Last week whilst meeting up with some knitterly buddies I was able to return Ann's yarn to her - now slightly more colourful than before!!

Behold!! I have named it - Fruit Punch! For obvious reasons..

So now I can share the details and photos I took whilst dyeing but had to keep aside lest I spoil the surprise!

I've finally got the knack down for preparing the bench in a safe and stain-resistant manner, so I was able to go at it!! Spreading out the skein and painting away..

This photo shows the yarn before I added the black, which was intended to be stark strong black and contrast brilliantly with the popping fruity colours. But alas, you saw the outcome of that - murky and not at all what I had in mind! And so I redyed later, the results of which I used as that green sneak peek a few posts ago :)

So after besmirching it with black, then it travelled into the big pot, with a cup of water to ensure the yarn didn't dry out , and into the oven for a toasty moasty time!

After rinsing and drying the skein out I pondered on my dilemma with the yellow/black section and decided, as you know, that re-dyeing was the best, only even, solution! And here is the final result, being re-skeined.

The dye skein was to wide for my swift! Ack! So I improvised a handy box of books on the couch to help me re-wind!

So there you have it, or Ann has it to be precise! And I hope she loves the colours and enjoys knitting them up into something tangy and FRUITY!

NaKniJuMo!

Well, I didn't complete my Hoodii within November, so I didn't do a very good job at NaKniJuMo!! Started late and didn't even finish - ha! Nevermind, maybe next year I'll be in a better place to get my teeth really sunk in to this fun knit along.

So how did I go? I finished the torso and after much measuring and re-measuring I completed the armhole shaping too!! Hurrah!

So by the end of November I had a nice complete body section all done and dusted =D

I also started on the first sleeve, but I don't think that was technically in November! It's looking good though and I'm still completely smitten with Magic Loop:)

I plan to make the ribbing at the cuff a bit longer than the pattern, to match the longer ribbing at the hips. Plus this'll make the cuffs ultra-juicy in winter when it's super cold and I want to have the ribbing down over my knuckles too - and when it's not so freezey I can fold them up into a double cuff - yay!

Yesterday I sat with some of my lovely knitting sisterhood and learned yet another skill! The 3-needle bind off!

Ann is such an excellent tutor and had me binding off with the three needles in no time! It really is a very handy, quick and easy technique - I don't know why it's not more well known or commonly used?

So now my Hoodii torso is actually WEARABLE as a sort of incomplete vest! haha!

I'm really pleased with how it's coming along and have to FORCE myself to leave it alone while I do my frantic Christimuss Festivuss knitting!

Learning New Things

Festivuss is drawing ever closer, which means I MUST prise myself away from my Hoodii and get stuck into the Christmas knitting I have planned! I'll give an update on the Hoodii and how far I got in NaKniSweMo next time, but today I'm learning new things!

First up is the infamous NUPP. Oh yes, I'm into the border of the Swallowtail Shawl but have stalled there. I'm finding the nupps quite tricky. I tried the suggestion of [sl2, p3tog, psso] and managed one, but then I found even the purl three together was too difficult to get my needles under! So after a bit of reading today I've discovered a secret! On the preparatory row with the [k1, yo, k1, yo, k1] all into the same stitch I've been doing them with a normal tension - oh no my friend! The recommendation is to do those stitches VERY loosely, that way you're able to slip your needle underneath for a p5tog easy peasey! Plus the resultant nupp is nice, juicy and plump! hehe so that will be the order of the day! I shall unknit the prep row and redo it with very loose stitches and see how I go from there =D It's very exciting! I'm hit with the lace fever again!

The other form of learning came in a natty website called Free Rice.

A non-profit site that challenges you to work on your vocabulary by answering multiple choice word definition questions - the prize being twenty grains of rice donated per correct answer! The rice is donated through the U.N. and the site is funded by advertisers whose ads appear at the bottom of the screen in a pleasantly unobtrusive way. So far I've donated 740 grains of rice (about one bowl?) and am at vocab level 41. So go play! Improve your vocabulary and be involved in creating food for the hungry folks out there! But be warned, it's VERY addictive!!

This post was brought to you by our sponsor, the ChilliFund : an imaginary organisation raising bowls of dog-biscuits for food-obsessed insatiable hounds all over the world.

Add a splash of colour

It's like Mary Poppins said : "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.." but in this case, it's a pageful of colour helps the study time go fast!

I needed post-it notes, and lo, behold what I found!!

Aren't they fabulous?

And just the ticket to brighten an otherwise dull and un-engaging desk full of black and white (and read all over?!) research!

Fantastic new runners

I have them!

And I'm EXCITED!!
*big grin*