The funnest month of the year, went by pretty fast. I received some lovely gifts from Damian and my family, all of them sheepy and knitting related.
One of Damian’s gifts made me shed tears! He’s a bugger!!
I’m looking forward to this birthday present… especially since I just watched The Sheep Detectives in an advanced screening today. Baby lambs are just so cute.
Also today, this morning, very early, I went out to the Yarra Valley yarn market. It’s the first time I’ve been to this market, but it has already been running for a few years. The bad weather did not dampen my spirits, and in the 1 hour I had to browse, I got around to most stalls twice.
I pretty much just gave all my money to Danni from Halfbaked Hand dyed. I also bought a special birthday gift for our friend’s daughter who is a crocheter (not pictured, just in case).
A little knitting was done in April, but not enough, it’s never enough!
I’m almost at the end of the colour work portion of my Celeste Sweater for Bendigo. With two and a half months to go before the Sheep show, is it too much to be able to finish this and knit another garment?! And knit another 4 pairs of socks? yeah probably!
Yikes, it’s been a while. Things have been a little busy and distracting lately, but I’m here today to show off my recently finished Poisoned Apple Top by Lily Kate France. I managed to get some photos in yesterday before I lost the sunlight completely.
I think the top is ‘darling’ and I couldn’t be happier with how it’s turned out. I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of puff sleeves. The yarn was purchased with a gift voucher from my Melbourne siblings for last year’s birthday. It is La Bien Aimee’s DK and Kumo. The Kumo is an alpaca/silk blend. I thought the alpaca would make it less itchy than the usual mohair/silk blends going around, but I have my suspicions that it is not. It hasn’t had a proper wear test yet, I’m a little afraid.
Not a ton of knitting has been done lately, but I have started swatching for the Celeste jumper my knitting group is making for the Sheep Show this year. I wasn’t going to do a colour swatch, but my friend Nikhil inspired me.
And now I think I need to swap out one of the colours… I’ve placed another order for an alternative colour for one of the pinks. Hopefully I’ll receive the yarn by next weekend for more swatching.
This week, progress has been good on my Poisoned Apple top. I do feel I’m playing yarn chicken though, but it’s still too close to tell.
The yarn is La Bien Aimee Merino DK. Too expensive to buy an extra skein until I’m sure. So for now, I’m going to knit faster and trust the pattern designer. But what if I want my top to be longer? … then faster I will knit!
D and I celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary this weekend. We went to Kyneton yesterday and had dinner at Midnight Starling, one of our favourite restaurants. The food was delicious as always; we love coming here.
It’s been a very navy blue week, I’ve also been spinning the singles for a sock project and the fibre is a beautiful blend of navy blues. I’ll have a photo for you next week!
January has been busy and focussed. I had some extra time off over the holiday period and most of the time was spent at home knitting(!) and socialising.
My first FO for the year were these ribbed socks by Summer Lee. Super simple, and great for Japanese BBQ knitting, which happened quite frequently over the break, much to Damian’s delight. The yarn is by my favourite local self-striping yarn dyer Danni of Halfbaked hand dyed. It might have been a one-of-a-kind colourway and I think it’s super cool. These socks are for me, but I think the next few pairs might be for others. The sock drawer is pretty packed.
I also dabbled in spinning and working on ‘the Queen’ in my break. I would have done more, but the Queen’s hair is going to take a while I think, so I put it aside to knit through my EXP sweater.
I finished knitting my EXP sweater and have sewn in the last ends this evening. It’s currently having a bath, I think it’s going to dry pretty quickly because it got to (or close to) 45 degrees in Melbourne today. I’ll tell you all about the EXP this weekend when hopefully it will be cool enough to take some photos of me wearing it, at least for 5 minutes.
Hip hip hooray! My Vintage Flannel sweater by Anna Johanna is finally finished… and I love it 🙂 It turned out just how I wanted it to, but I must admit, it was touch and go when it came to the end. Like ALL of those ends, that I had to sew in
The number of ends is all my own fault of course. When purchasing the yarn for this project, I wanted my contrast colour to be varigated. I couldn’t find any yarn at the Sheep Show that would do this in 5ply. So… I used 3 different colours to create the varigation, which meant I needed to change colours every 3 rounds or so.
But before all of that, the other hurdle I faced was, as I cast off my second sleeve, I realised I had knit my second sleeve on needles that were .25mm larger than the rest of the sweater. True story.
The completed sweater before blockingCorrect needle used for the 1st sleeve, gridlines line up with the body2nd sleeve, gridlines are further apart with .25mm larger needle
Luckily upon wearing, I can honestly not tell the difference in the sleeve length. So this is our little secret.
With the end of the year approaching, I’m now eyeing off all of my unfinished projects to see what is going to make it into this years completed projects. Spoiler alert, I have cast on a new sweater. There’s also 2 pairs of socks and a blanket to complete. Seems unlikely doesn’t it?!
The TAFTA Geelong Fibre Forum has been running for around 30 years. A very long time ago, 2007 to be exact I attended my final Fibre Forum workshop until this year. Prior to this I attended the forum for 7 consecutive years. Whilst the order of worshops undertaken are sketchy, the classes themselves have always been wonderful and worthwhile. On top of that, the experience of being at the Fibre Forum has been incredible. Last week I was reminded of that again, being surrounded by so many women (over a hundered, 150? and just a couple of men), it was so enlightening (and weird at the same time).
I have been a subscriber to the TAFTA e-newsletter since the magazine ended (yes, there used to be a magazine!). So when Jo Hamilton’s Crochet Portraiture workshop was announced, I just knew I had to return.
The Fibre Forum is hosted at Geelong Grammar School, whilst the kids are on school holidays. The Dining Hall is just like being at Hogwarts. I lived-in for the whole week, and was served breakfast, lunch and dinner (and morning tea) each day. It was Heaven.
For my workshop, I decided to do a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. I brought along an Ikea bag of yarn in colours that I thought would work for the image I was going to crochet.
For a novice, the technique is very slow going (for the experienced it would also be slow!), with lots of trial and error (learning) along the way. Jo is a fantastic teacher, with great patience. I wish I had gotten more done, but I feel as though I can continue on and complete the portrait on my own. It’s only my first portrait, and it is a bit wonky, as to be expected. Jo has been using this technique for around 20 years and her work is spectacular.
Whilst recovering and coming down from the high that was the week, I’ve picked up my hook and filled in some more areas since Friday.
Whilst working on the portrait, a lot of the time is spent looking and checking to make sure the stitches you’ve put in are correct.
Here’s a photo of my class and some of their creations, click on the first image to make them larger.
Wednesday night was Party Night! The theme this year was: Black and White with a touch of … Now in my memory of the Forum, the dress-up theme was always wild; there have been some super wacky costumes, mostly worn by the former organiser Janet De Boer. So I came dressed as Wednesday… with a touch of severed Thing.
I might have been overdressed, ha ha. I hope to attend again in the future and I hope it’s sooner than 18 years. I’ll be back to my regular schedule of knitting soon. I almost got no knitting done this week!
Before I get into my happy diversion this week, I want to let you know what I’ve decided about my Fragmentation Cardigan. Thank you for your supportive comments!
I took the cardigan along to Knit Night last week, and tried it on in front of everyone. I had so many helpful suggestions. Including cinching in the neckline to stop it from ‘dragging’ so much, April even made some running stitches through the neckline to visualise this. What I found most helpful though was when I asked people to try the cardigan on. Out of the 5 people who tried it on, it looked absolutely perfect on about 3 of them. Despair! It was the right length on them and it looked great, much better than it currently looks on me. I was green with envy.
Instead of gifting my cardigan to one of these wonderful knitters, I’ve decided to go back and shorten the body to the right length, it might be a bit tricky, but it’s totally do-able. I may also shorten the sleeves, even though I like long sleeves (we’ll see). I’m going to re-knit the collar so that it is snugger. I might possibly make it a double (folded down and stitched) collar. I’m not sure if that would look weird with a single thickness buttonband? So that’s what I’m going to do. It might add 2 weeks to the making, but what is 2 more weeks or 3? Seeing it on my knitting mates, really made me want it more. Who knows, I might even consider going back and shortening my other oversized sweaters.
SPOILERS are coming!
On Monday night, I also got some opinions on my colour selection of minis for the sock along. I felt pretty happy with the choices I made on Monday night. Then came Thursday when I cast-on, and I changed my mind.
My original colour EAn old Knit Picks cord, literally snapped!
It’s a very graphic design, which I believe requires mostly solid colours. In Stephen West’s You Tube tutorial on the first clue, he suggests using your speckled or variagated yarn for colour E, which is the ‘droplet’ stitch section. I didn’t think that worked very well. I also didn’t like the contrast in my Latvian braid (and I knit it too tight). So I ripped back to the end of the cuff and switched some colour choices, and added in more colours. More is more afterall!
Here’s my Clue 1 finished. I had to scramble around to find another needle to start sock 2. I’m hoping to avoid second sock syndrome and have this done in time for Clue 2. It’s super fun so far.
I’ve finished knitting my Fragmentation Cardigan, I think. It’s been blocked, but I still need to purchase buttons, I think. I’ve tried it on now, and it has grown a bit. I wish I made a size smaller. It looks a little oversized on me, which is not my style. It’s also a tad long. Do I buy the buttons and attached them, then judge? Or do I remove the button bands and seam up the middle, making it a sweater? For now, I’m going to mope, it’s been a mopey day. I’ve unintentionally made a couple of oversized sweaters in the past year or so, and this will be the third one. It’s starting to get to me. The three sweaters have in common: superwash yarn, garter stitch or mosaic (stretchy) stitch. 2 of them are by Stephen West. I’m feeling some rage here. Maybe I’ll sew the buttons on (and sew the buttonband down for stability), and it will be fine. Maybe. I might ask my knitting group for their advice, I wouldn’t want to be rash.
I have cast-off my Hot Jam Donut socks (a Bendigo colourway by Halfbaked Hand dyed) in 8ply and they are super cosy. I added a bit of silk mohair to the red and white sections, as I had some random fluff in my stash. They feel amazing on my feet, and they fit hooray.
Apparently I’m participating in the Stephen West mystery sock along which is launching on Tuesday, Sharon told me I had to.
The socks require 5 mini skeins of yarn. I’ve wound up some minis from a My Creative Garage mini skein set that I bought at last year’s Bendigo Show (go me!), and I’ve also gathered some speckled minis from a Little Woollie advent calendar. I’ll only need 5 of these minis, but I’m keeping my options open for now.
When I posted my Bendigo haul online this year, my sister who came to the show last year, commented that she hadn’t used any of the yarn she purchased from last year yet. I then begain to wonder if I had?!
Last year’s Bendigo haul
Turns out, I hadn’t either! I’ve used the bags, sure! And now I’ve wound up the mini skein set for the mystery sock along. I’m also finally going to cast on for my long desired sweater Vintage Flannel by Anna Johanna from her book Strands of Joy II. It’s going to be in yarn purchased specifically for this from last year’s Bendigo. Vanessa from My Creative Garage, also dyed up some extra skeins for me especially for this. Today I wound them all up. The pattern is not going to be released as an individual pattern until next year (I thought it would be released this year, so I delayed casting on) but not anymore, as my sister bought the book for my birthday, thanks Suzy!
Just realised Vanessa named this colour after me!I hate winding yarn!
It’s only 360-ish days until Bendigo 2026 as my husband cruelly tells me! What a weekend, and it was over much too fast.
As usual, we headed up early on the Wednesday. We had brunch at our favourite cafe, the one that serves tiny chocolate teddies with your coffee! I visited the Bendigo Woollen Mills, and bought a jumpers worth of yarn; Cumulo which is a limited edition NZ Perendale, non-superwash. I also bought their beautiful publication which was released last year about the history of the mill.
I thought that would be my one and only trip to the mill for the weekend, but I was very wrong. I also visited on Friday after the show, as they had just released a limited-edition Corriedale wool. I was very tempted, but walked away empty-handed. I also visited on Saturday after the show, to assist our friend Charlotte (it was manic, I’ve never been there whilst it’s that busy). Charlotte has never been to the mill, she bought a few balls and left very happy. Now I know why it’s smart to go early in the week before the hoards of crafters arrive in town.
Pictured above are the Penny gloves (mitts) by Petite Knit, that I finished knitting on Thursday afternoon. For the show, I also knitted a colour sample of a beanie for my friend Danni aka HalfBaked hand-dyed. And because this was a sample for the show, I knit another version of the Bendigo Beanie by Sanna & Co. for me. The weekend, turned out to not be too cold with lots of sunshine, which was wonderful. Which meant, I didn’t need to wear my mitts for much of the time; and when my friend Sharon (a second Sharon) turned up on Saturday wearing a store bought beanie, I immediately gifted her my Bendigo Beanie. It looked great on her!
On Friday the show began! In the morning, my knitting group took some group photos of us wearing our Wool & Honey knits and hexagon/bee hive inspired accessories. 10 of us then attended the Women of Wool luncheon, which was fabulous this year.
My excited face on Friday morning!
A little bit of shopping happened before and post lunch.
On Saturday, I did a spot of shopping and ate my first Bendigo Hot Jam Donut. Our non-crafty friends arrived (except for Charlotte, she’s a mad crocheter) plus Damian’s mum, and I spent the day looking at the sheep, shearing and sheep dog trials.
The Richmond Knitters also had a second photo shoot of Wool & Honey knits for the Saturday crew.
Saturday night was the knitting group’s Bendigo Dinner. We had some extra guests, designers & hand dyers which made for a fun and lively night.
Sunday I arrived home with quite a haul. It was an amazing weekend, with souvenirs to match.
I kind of diverted from my shopping list, purchasing sock yarn that wasn’t on the list! I’ve come home with enough for 11 pairs, gasp! And 3 sweaters worth of yarn for planned projects which were on the list, hooray for me. If you’d like to take a look at the details, check them out on Ravelry, I’m just ‘Sonia’ there.
Sonia Knits 