Month: August 2016

The Rockhopper Shawl

| Sonia Knits

Stash Dash is over and I managed to finish knitting the Rockhopper Shawl by Anna Maltz just in time (well I had about 12 hours to spare!). Yesterday, Damian took some FO pics for me.

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I’m very happy with the shawl; I love the look of it and I love the expanse of it, it’s so squishy. But most of all, I really enjoyed knitting it! The neat construction in the end made it a fairly mindless-kind-of-a-knit. But it doesn’t look that way. I feel super smart, so it’s a great pattern.

The yarn I used was from Stash! The yellow is Shilasdair Luxury DK with Camel (from Sunspun), The charcoal yarn is Madelinetosh Merino Light (from my trip to NY!), and the cream yarn is from deep-stash: Pear Tree 4ply Merino Alpaca. Whilst the yarn names would lead you to believe I’ve mixed weights of yarn, side-by-side, the yarn is about 4ply. Stash for the win!

I’m really digging yellow at the moment, stay tuned for more yellow things coming off the needles.

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So I finished it just in time for Stash Dash to count, but more importantly I finished it in time for Craft Sessions which is happening next weekend. Anna Maltz (a Londoner) will be here teaching a couple of classes, and I’m very excited to say I’ll be taking her Top-down Improvised Sweater knitting class. If you’re not going to Craft Sessions but you really want to take a class with Anna, Felicia of the Craft Sessions has organised some satellite workshops with her in the following weekends. I’m going to be taking her Marlisle Class in Brunswick the following weekend…

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Just call me an Anna Maltz junkie. I want to make Pinglewin Penguin next… but first, I have to finish the homework prep work.

If you want to keep up with the happenings of next weekend at Craft Sessions, I’ll be posting photos to the Richmond Knitters Instagram account. Speak soon.

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My favourite Knitting Video Podcasts

| Sonia Knits

I have been threatening to tell you all about my favourite knitting video podcasts for some time now. It’s my favourite thing to watch whilst knitting, particularly when there’s nothing on TV.

BEWARE! It’s addictive.

Once you have a few favourites, you can have many hours of viewing you’ve inadvertently committed yourself to watching each week. If you’re in charge of cooking meals for family members, you’re already in trouble.

In no particular order, here are the ones I’m currently keeping up with… just…

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The KnitGirllls! The first video podcast I began watching religiously. They are two friends living across two US states (but soon to be reunited behind the camera together!). Watching these guys is like catching up with old friends. They are overall hilarious.

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Inside Number 23: Katie is awesome. She sews as well, between her and Kristin from Voolenvine/Yarngasm podcast, they make me want to be a sewer of dresses.

IMG_2997Here’s Kristin from Yarngasm. She lives in Brooklyn, NY and I envy her yarny, crafty life. Damian can we move to NY?!

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This is Amy from the Stranded podcast. She dyes yarn under her label Stranded Dyeworks. She lives in the UK and I love her. She is a lot of fun, I think she makes me laugh the most. She’s a great knitter and I love her taste. I have some of her yarn on it’s way to me…

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These are The Grocery Girls. It took me a while to warm up to them (as Deb will account for), but I’m a big fan now, I even have a project bag made by one of them. My advice to anyone finding a new podcast to listen to; is to listen to the most recent podcast to see if you like them. If they pass, trail back to the original podcasts slowly, you may not like what you see in the originals… or maybe you’ve just gotten used to them over time? hmmm…

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This is Eric from Sticks plus Twine. He’s lovely and has great projects.

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This is my friend Penelope on her new podcast, Stash and Notions. I think she’s a pro and she’s only 2 episodes in. I love seeing my friends on the inter webs.

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This is Mina from the Knitting Expat podcast. She is on my weekly watch list, lots of yarny show and tell and great projects and some funny cats.

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And finally this is Andy from the AndreSue Knits podcast. Love her! She’s super creative and super down-to-earth and lovely to listen to and watch.

So there you go, that’s nearly 10 podcasts for you to check out and subscribe to on YouTube. Let me know if you have any other favourites! I’m only about 6 hours behind on my viewing schedule…

Stash Dash Update

| Sonia Knits

I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of watching knitting podcasts on YouTube. That’s partially why you haven’t heard from me in a while. The other reason is… Stash Dash…

Stash Dash, the knitting marathon hosted each year by my favourite podcasters The KnitGirllls, is drawing to a close and I’m nowhere near my goal of knitting/spinning 10k of yarn. But that was to be expected!

I am currently at 2,679 metres or 2.7km, a far cry from the 10k I had dreamed of. Surprisingly, Laura from the Knitgirllls admitted in the most recent podcast, it was the first time she was not going to meet her goal (of 15k), and I won’t lie, that made me feel just that little bit better about myself. I’m not competitive, no!

The final project I have on the needles for Stash Dash is my Rockhopper Shawl by Anna Maltz. I hoping to knit like the wind to have it finished by the close of Stash Dash which is about 3pm Melbourne time on Monday. It should deliver about 1k to my total!

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Here’s a snapshot of the other projects I completed during Stash Dash, (not including the small amount of spinning I also counted).

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Oh well, there’s always next year.