I don’t knit a lot for others, so when I do, you can bet it means a lot to me.

This winter I knit my brother a beanie, I can’t believe it’s his first one from me. He absolutely loves it, and I’m stoked.

I saw a friend who I felt definitely needed one of my beanies; she was cooking in the kitchen whilst wearing a store-bought beanie. Knitters don’t let friends wear store-bought beanies! I twisted her arm to ‘allow’ me to knit her one.

Then over the Sheep Show weekend, another friend saw me knitting my brother’s beanie and wanted one too. He was pretty envious and pretty upfront about asking for one. Of course I said yes, … but there’s a queue.

After the Bendigo weekend the woolliest weekend of the year, I found I needed to buy new yarn for this beanie queue! Both Thi and Tim wanted a charcoal coloured hat, and believe it or not, I didn’t have spare ‘beanie’ yarn in my stash for that. Sure I had a jumpers worth of charcoal yarn, but I wasn’t going to sacrifice a large project for a couple of hats.

I placed an order with Bendigo Woollen Mills, for a selection of yarns that I thought could work.

I bought two balls of their Classic 8 ply in Charcoal, which is great, because that’s the colour both Thi and Tim selected. Bendigo ‘Classic’ is a crepe-plied yarn. I’ve never been a fan of crepe yarns, but my opinion changed once I cast-on for Thi’s beanie.

The texture of the crepe is really ‘nice’ to knit. It’s a well-structured yarn, but still soft and not scratchy. And Bendigo Woollen Mills has an extensive colour range in ‘Classic’ much more so than their Luxury range. Why have I not noticed this before? I’m now looking at their colour card in a completely new way. Deep Rose I’m looking at you.

Whilst I had cast-on for Thi’s beanie… I got an invite to an older colleague’s retirement lunch. I knew this colleague was retiring, but I wasn’t aware of exactly when. So the order of the queue has changed once again. Damian at this rate may get a new beanie in time for next winter.

With the short deadline, it turns out I can knit Petite Knit’s Oslo hat in 2 weekend days.

This is Richard’s beanie in Luxury 8 ply in Blue Denim, it has been cast off and is currently blocking. I hope he likes it and thinks of me and my Bendigo adventures when he wears it. In the time that I’ve worked with him (12.5 years), he indulged me, by listening to my stories from the sheep show weekends with great interest, what a guy.