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It was a busy weekend. I headed off to the Bendigo Sheep & Wool Show with Lou on Saturday morning. After a brief stop at the Beechworth Bakery for breakfast, we found the showgrounds and entered the show, and were immediately swept into the throng of farmers, crafters and people out for a cheery morning. The sun shone brightly in the cool winter air; it was a beautiful day and I wish I’d taken photos.

Highlights for me were finally meeting Sarah Durrant, and hearing her enthusiasm about knitting, and (as always) the visit to the alpacas. With their bright eyes and cute faces, they’re so appealing, even if their plaintive cries do sound a little like stoned sheep

After the Show, we headed off to the Bendigo Woollen Mills factory shop. and especially to the famous bargain room. I picked up a couple of cones of 3-ply Classic in ‘Claret’ and ‘Sweet Pea’ - they’ll make great socks, and I should manage to squeeze two pairs from each cone. I also picked up some scraps in bright red and pumpkin orange 12-ply to incorporate into my latest no-brainer project - a Babette Blanket. Yes, it’s crochet - eeek!

I’m making my Babette Blanket from the scraps left over from Ben’s Magic Blanket. This is Ben’s Magic Blanket:

This was my major knitting project of last year, a special gift for a dear friend. The yarn is all 12-ply, most of it from Bendigo Woollen Mills but some from Nundle Woollen Mill and there are even a few scraps of Noro Kureyon in there. Ben wanted bright colours, and some of this is natural yarn dyed with Kool-Aid to achieve the requisite brightness. Every square is different. However, I have a lot of yarn left over, some in quite small scraps, and plenty from previous projects as well. Hence, the Babette! I’m actually making two of them - one in the 12-ply, and one in all my scraps of 8-ply. I’m hoping the 12-ply one will end up big enough to use as a spare blanket. I was going to do a sock yarn one as well, but given that the size of the blanket would be tiny, I’m debating that. I think I might make wee mini socks from my sock leftovers, as Christmas decorations for all my friends and colleagues, and incorporate any leftovers after that into yet more socks.

I also picked up some 10-ply in blue, to make one of those worsted weight American patterns I’m always wanting to make From the Bendy Show I got ‘Socks, Socks, Socks’ book and a couple of skeins of Colinette Jitterbug to try. It was so pretty! So I was fairly restrained

On our way back from the show we picked up Harry Potter 7, which I spent much of Sunday reading. Nope, no spoilers here. I feel a wee bit flat now it’s over

I have begun my first Bust Out of the Box sock - it’s in the Milanese Lace pattern from ‘More Sensational Knitted Socks’ and I’m doing it in the Brombeere Sockenwolle from Wollmeise. Pictures to come, when I’ve got a bit further along.

chocolatetrudi over at Knitting and Chocolate had a wonderful idea; the Bust out of the Box Sock Challenge!

This is exactly what I need. I have loads of sock yarn and loads of sock patterns, but I often find myself floundering in a welter of indecision over what to make with all these wonderful yarns. It’s as if I’m waiting for the absolute perfect pattern for each yarn, which is silly. So this challenge is just perfect for me. My books, and therefore my rules, are a little different to chocolatetrudi’s. Let’s see…

Over the next six months, I will knit at least one pattern from each of the following sources:

• Knitting Vintage Socks
• Knitting on the Road
• More Sensational Knitted Socks
• An issue of Interweave Knits magazine
• An issue of Yarn magazine
• An issue of Magknits
• An issue of Knitty

And I plan to knit one pattern containing each of the following elements:

• Lace
• Cables
• Colourwork (fair isle or mosaic)
• Textured stitch pattern
• Toe-up construction
• Top-down construction

And to help me with the adventure, I have just taken delivery of some serious yarn porn.

That’s my order from Rohrspatz und Wollmeise. Yes, it’s German yarn porn. Let’s check out the close-ups:

That’s Brombeere. It’s a beautiful deep claret, with some variations in and out of other wine-dark shades. Gorgeous.

And this one is Krauterbeet.

This one is Suzanne. Isn’t she beautiful? She’s my favourite.

I also ordered some samples of other colours.

Left to right, they are:  Rhabarber, Turkis und Karneol, Dornroschen, Poison nr 5, Pfauegnauge and Gewitterhimmel.

The samples are worsted weight (10-ply) wool, and they are gorgeously soft and squishy. The sock yarn is also soft and lovely, dyed with unusual and gorgeous depth and saturation, and in lovely big hanks so I can knit big socks!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some winding to do

I’m also hoping to be at the Bendigo sheep show tomorrow, bar ice and snow

What a weekend! After getting various doctor’s tests done on Friday, I was so knackered I got virtually no knitting done. I did, however, score 16 balls of the now-discontinued Cleckheaton Angora Supreme from Clegs for $1.95 a ball. Bargain - and it’s aran weight, or close enough, so I’ll be able to make one of those lovely American patterns from it. I’m thinking Ariann from Chicknits. I’m also thinking that it’s about time I used up some of my garment-quantities of yarn and actually made some garments!

I also did some stash re-organising on Friday. You don’t want to know how much stash I have. Put it this way… I bought a unit from Ikea, which is six foot by six foot, just to house it… and it doesn’t all fit.

Yesterday was a winery trip for my dear friend Ben’s birthday - we were driven an hour and a half into the Yarra Valley and visited four wineries, beginning with Domaine Chandon. I did take some sock knitting, but needless to say not much got done! We rolled home yesterday evening, very merry and laden with bottles, and again I felt too tired to knit. Also… what do you do when knitting hurts? I have a tendency to occasionally “help” the retreating R-H needle back out of the loop with my left index finger; well, I’ve done this with sharp little sock needles a bit too often lately (especially when alcohol has been involved) and now I have a sore patch with split skin on my finger. I’ve got a band-aid on it, but that doesn’t help, and makes knitting awkward! I guess I must just learn to knit more carefully. And I’ve misplaced my 4.0 crochet hook so I can’t even work on my scrap Babette blanket! Bah humbug!

Next weekend I’m planning a trip to the Sheep and Wool Show in Bendigo with my dear friend Lou. We’re going to stop in at the Woollen Mills as well, of course; Lou hasn’t ever been there. I am looking forward to seeing her face when she gets in there We’ve done the show before, but it’s always good fun, and I love seeing the critters - especially the alpacas, and the baby sheepdog puppies rounding up ducks! They don’t just have fleece and wool - they have a variety of other stalls selling food and drink, spinning wheels and accessories, hand-turned woodcraft, etc. It should be a good day out!

A month or so back, I posted about my nasty cheap 2.25 mm circulars and my wishes that I could order some KnitPicks ones. Well, my wish was granted. Prestige Yarns carry KnitPicks 2.25mm circs. I ordered four. It astounds me how much knitting I can get done on the train with these. At the moment my train project is plain stockinette socks, and I get at least an inch of knitting done per trip. Two inches a day! That means I feel no guilt about leaving the using up of sock yarn to the train, and doing more work on other projects at home…

This is the beginnings of my Diamond Fantasy scarf in Colourmart cashmere/merino. It’s going beautifully; the pattern’s well-written and goes fairly quickly, and the colour is so lovely for winter. I always feel like knitting red things in winter.

This post is going to be somewhat opinionated, so I shall hide most of it behind a cut.

Read the rest of this entry »

This weekend I completed something very quick and pretty - the Victorian Shoulderette by Sivia Harding. No photos yet, because it’s not blocked. I cast on yesterday, using a couple of balls of the now-discontinued Cleckheaton Angora Supreme, and cast off today. It’s a very cute warm little garment, but what I really like about it is the shoulder shaping. This is the first thing I’ve ever made with Faroese shoulder shaping, and it’s wonderful. Although it’s small, this little shawlette sits on my shoulders, unfastened, as I walk about and it doesn’t come off; I even went out to take out the rubbish, and did some vaccuming, and it stayed on! It’s a little marvel and I love it.

After completing it,  I cast on for Sivia’s Diamond Fantasy shawl, which I’m making in Colourmart merino/cashmere in a lovely warm red. It seems to be going swimmingly; I think I like her lovely clear patterns, with both written and charted instructions.

Ginger Nut over at Pierre the Yarn Snob has started ‘Fight the Black Dog Friday‘ to talk about her experiences with depression, and I’m joining her.
I wasn’t actually going to post about this here; I have a personal journal on a social networking site, which is my fun-goofing-round, complaining-and-ranting, personal-angst place. My intention was originally to stick to my knitting here But I’ve been thinking about it more, and Ginger Nut is right; depression is an illness, not something to be ashamed of, and if knitting helps, why not talk about that?

I was diagnosed with clinical depression in 2000. In my case there is likely a genetic basis to it; there is a family history of depression on both sides of my family, which I didn’t realise until I began delving into my ancestry. I can pinpoint what triggered my depression, which lasted five years before I sought help, and I can now spot when I’m getting into a cycle of distorted thinking. I am one of the very lucky ones, because my depression is easily kept in check with a low dose of medication and occasionally a bit of therapy. I’ve had friends and family who’ve been uncomfortable with that, especially with the idea of medication; but there is (or should be) no more shame in being physically, genetically predisposed to depression than in being predisposed to cancer or diabetes, and in needing medication for those things.

Knitting, for me, is an expression of everything depression is not. It is positive and affirming. Knitting is a way to express myself; it’s a way to work with my hands and keep busy; it’s activity which has a definite point, and which results in the creation of something. It lets me express my love and affection for others; I love to make gifts for others, concentrating on the person I’ll be giving the item to and letting my intention and affection flow into what I do with my hands. It gives me something achievable, something worthwhile, something meaningful, and above all, something satisfying, to do with my time. I could ask no more from a pastime.

And on that note, here’s a cute little beret I knocked up on the weekend:

The pattern is the Last Minute Purled Beret from Knit and Tonic, but kept on the knit side. And I made myself a little neck warmer to go with it!

The yarn for both of these is 12-ply pure wool from Nundle Woollen Mills, in ‘Periwinkle’. The buttons on the neckwarmer are paua shell, picked up on one of my many NZ trips. The neck hug will be perfect for those times when I’m walking home from the station and don’t want a scarf getting in the way.