Tokyo – Wow

November 22, 2015November 22, 2015 | Sonia Knits

Why hello there!

I’ve arrived home from Tokyo and I really don’t know where to begin about my mind-blowing experience there. Here are some of my insights…

Japanese people are SO nice. Not that I thought that they would not be nice. But they are above and beyond NICE, friendly and helpful. On one occasion when we were trying to navigate, we had not one, but 2 people approach us one after the other just to make sure we knew where we were going. And they spoke perfect English.

Fancy toilets… I didn’t take pictures because that’s just gross. All of their toilets were fancy, consisting of buttons which did different things, from making flushing or nature sounds for discreetness, to Bidet and shower settings, to seat heating and deodorising. One of the restrooms I walked into had the toilet lid open as I entered the cubicle and a blue light lit up the bowl, I nearly crapped my pants!

But enough about the toilets (but really they are amazing)…

This was the view from our hotel room, with my Watermelon sock/s in progress. Everything in Tokyo is so damn cute, so I though this would be the perfect project to take.

The crafting culture is huge, obviously, you all knew that. Knitting plays a part, but only a part. Sewing is HUGE. The craft stores also boasted needle-felting, crochet, loom beading, weaving, stitching, tatting, jewellery making, polymer model making, paper crafts… it goes on. We saw a few ‘handmade’ gift-type stores which carried beautiful simple items made from clever crafts which met design. And I was inspired to become a little ‘multi-craftual’. I used to do more crafts, but now it’s just knitting/crochet and spinning. But I can do more! I’m not about to go out and buy a sewing machine, but I did pick up a few little kits just to put my toes into the water.

I also bought a little bit of Washi tape, heaven knows what I’m going to use it for? But how cool?

And I bought some yarn, I tried to make sure it was all Japanese yarn. A lot of the stores import European yarns, which are beautiful, but not ‘special’ to me kind of souvenirs.

Here I am outside Avril!

I also hope to have a crack at knitting this Japanese pattern:

We did Karaoke. Twice. For 3 or 4 hours, each time.

How cute are the rooms? Just like singing at home in your bedroom!

We went to Disneyland! I totally had a moment whilst walking through the Entrance Hall otherwise known as the World Bazaar, it was just like watching Disney at 6:30pm on Saturday evenings as a youngster. I don’t know what overcame me. I didn’t know that I wanted to go to Disneyland that badly. Luckily Damian had not noticed the tears streaming down cheeks. How embarrassing. But what’s not embarrassing is wearing Minnie ears all day and all the way home back to the hotel through reception. It felt like the most natural thing ever.

I ate a lot of sushi, and some other interesting ummm things.
To finish, here’s just a small view from the very top of Tokyo Tower, all 250 metres above sea level. This town is huge.

There really is too much to say about this place, I hope you enjoyed my snippet.

Wednesday WIPs – with added projects

November 4, 2015November 3, 2015 | Sonia Knits

It’s been an interesting week, I’ve been casting on EVEN more things, so my ‘works in progress’ total is back to seven projects…

My first mitten is complete! I have the second one to go, but I’m getting distracted…

I did enjoy making this, and I learnt how to catch floats! I feel much more confident about doing fair-isle knitting now.

The next Seven Skeins club projects/s is/are a pair of fingerless mitts… which have not been cast-on despite my fearlessness last week. When it came to the crunch, I thought I might wait and see what the next project is and go from there.

This week I cast-on a much loved and anticipated project, my Watermelon socks. This yarn is hand-dyed by Abi Grosso and it’s just plain beautiful. It makes me so happy to knit with this yarn. This is also my only mindless project on the needles at the moment, so I’m savouring it a little. At the Richmond Knitters knit night this week, I got rather excited when I got around to my second repeat of ‘pips’ and the second round matched up with a couple of pips, oh the excitement! Abi is a genius!

And because there is so much love for this yarn, there is two photos of virtually the same thing.

I’ve decided to do the cuff, heel and toes in some left-over Wollmeise. Checking out the Rav projects with this yarn, I preferred the heel in particular being a solid colour rather than the pattern continuing through. By using an alternative yarn for the cuff, heel and toes this also means I could just about get 2 pairs out of this yummy yarn.

And then, because it’s just ticked over to November, I’ve joined the Brioche-along with Louisa from the Richmond Knitters. I’d decided to knit the Askews Me Hat by Stephen West, in my handspun yarn. Which sounded great in theory…

But then after I got something that looked like a cowl instead of a hat, I chose a more lighter weight yarn and went down a needle size.

As I was knitting it the second time, I was still getting odd stitches at the start and end of rows and around the decrease and increase sections. I couldn’t work out what I was doing wrong, and the pattern was not giving me any clues, it just recommends taking a Craftsy class with Nancy Marchant. When I’ve paid A$8.57 I kind of expect more from a stand alone hat pattern. I am a little disappointed and my project is now in the naughty corner. I don’t think I’ve ever had a project confined to this place before. Learning new things can be trying… I already have the Craftsy class mentioned, but I think it’s a little unfair to not provide clear instruction in the first place ~~or to provide a pattern that is free from errors (I’m not sure which it is yet)~~, or to expect people to purchase further resources to understand your instructions after they’ve purchased your pattern. There I said it.

Maybe it will make sense tomorrow.

Just a little housekeeping:

Thanks for all the comments lately, it’s nice to be reminded someone is out there reading my blog.

Also the Louisa Harding Shingle is on it’s way to Noemie who was the first commenter on the blog about the Shingle going to a good home. I can’t wait to see what it becomes!

Wednesday WIPS – Cast-on-aplooza

October 28, 2015 | Sonia Knits

Something strange happened last week, I got down to 3 WIPS on my Ravelry page!

At first I thought that was excellent, it’s been a long time since it’s only been 3. But then, it didn’t take long for an uncomfortableness to creep in. I had no mindless knitting on the needles, let alone any socks! The only way to rectify that was to cast on MANY things.

I properly cast-on my UIOLI Dragonflies sweater by Joji Locatelli.

And then I cast on my next pair of Cookie A club socks; using the August yarn on an October pattern. At which point I say BINGO!

There was some spinning (or plying) to cross another Bingo box off.

And finally I cast on my Kokkeluri mitts by Kate Davies as my week 2 project for the Seven skeins club.

I am smitten by them. Get it! They are a joy to knit, although I fear I won’t have these done in time for the week 3 pattern release. I have no qualms about casting on another project, the more the merrier.

I hope all your projects are making you happy, if not… you know what the answer is!

Wednesday WIPs – A FO or so

October 21, 2015October 18, 2015 | Sonia Knits

With the excitement and anticipation of the Seven Skeins Club beginning last week, I thought it was time to finish up a pair of socks that had been on my ‘brainless knitting project’ pile for too long a time now. So old that Debs enquired ‘I’ve seen those before Sonia?’ at knit night last week. Right, I thought!

Here they are:

They are Opal socks in the Rainforest colour way.

I used Susan B. Anderson’s How I Make My Socks pattern. It is essentially a basic cuff down sock pattern, my favourite way to knit socks.

I knit the leg using 2.25mm needles, then I switched to 2mm needles when turning the heel for the remainder of the foot. My socks have a snugger feel when I do this. Ah sock Utopia!

My Bingo card is looking a little better this week:

Although this is mainly due to my Kate Davies colour work socks. My Opal socks FO haven’t got a box to be crossed off!

p.s. If anyone wants to claim 5.5 balls of Louisa Harding Shingle, it’s yours, just leave a comment. That’s my ‘Lose it’ box sorted.

Seven Skeins Club Week 1: Baffies

October 18, 2015 | Sonia Knits

The first pattern of Kate Davies Seven Skeins Club was released on Friday evening here in Melbourne. They are called Baffies and they are the loveliest slippers. Sadly, I was unable to start until Saturday and only after I cleaned the house (I bargained with myself).

First thing was first, we were instructed by Kate to weigh our skeins before we began. She’s quite bossy about it, but it’s probably for our own good.

I decided I didn’t want to do the prescribed colours, I wanted to choose my own. Kate has given us a nifty little yarn calculator, in order to give us the autonomy to do that.

A lot of people in the ravelry group were getting cold feet (pardon the pun) about starting until seeing all the patterns. I think it’s quite sad that people can get paralysed by colour and choices. If anything I’m quite prepared to mix up my colour choices from week to week (even though I think I’ve mapped out the first 4 weeks on the aforementioned yarn calculator). If I get it wrong and I run out of colour, so what? I’ll just add in another colour.

Kate has done an amazing job of nutting out all of the details to the club. It’s the best organised club I’ve ever been apart of. Not since ‘Owls’ have I knitted a Kate Davies pattern, but I have a couple of her designs ready to cast-on… they just got bumped up the queue. I’m amazed at how easy she made the Turkish cast-on seem. I’m sure I’ve followed other peoples directions to this technique and it’s not worked out half as well.

As I write, I don’t know where Sharon is up to knitting her Baffies. She’s been absent from social media, or at least ‘not letting on’ where she’s up to. I suspect she’s knitting at her usual speed and posting a FO photo or a blog post any minute now. Or maybe she’s giving me a head-start, a handicap. This is a race, didn’t you know?! I expect I’ll have finished my Baffies by Tuesday or Wednesday… at the latest. I’m half-expecting Sharon to show up to knitting tomorrow night with her completed pair and a second pair in stash yarn cast-on, because how great is this project?

So comfy to wear, I’m even tempted to knit the alternative pattern (without the stranding) this week, a pair for Damian… yeah.

I’m looking forward to seeing week 2’s pattern, I have a strong suspicion it’s going to be a hat. It’s been hailed as a ‘signature’ Kate pattern. Thoughts?

Wednesday WIPs – Stuff and stuff

October 14, 2015October 13, 2015 | Sonia Knits

I took my knitting on a mini break over the weekend.

It wasn’t far, but the change of scenery and no house chores, made it an excellent escape.

I took three WIPs but as per usual, I only worked on one.

As well as that, it’s been a pretty amazing mail week for me.

I got a skein of Fab Funky Fibres, and a couple of mini skeins. (My excuse for buying yarn this time around, was that it was a tiny bonus from work, so it was FREE money).

I also received my second last Cookie A sock club, someone at knit night described it as Latté. I’m not sure I love the colour, but the skein itself feels amazing.

And Kate Davies Seven Skeins club arrived! It is tremendously exciting, I’m not sure whether to cake up my yarn yet, or wait for the release of the first pattern on Friday. I think I’ll just look at it for now. The race is definitely on to keep up with Sharon.

My UIOLI Shingle project is finished! It needs a good bath before wearing it. I’m pretty contented with it. The only downside is that about half the yarn still remains…

My bingo game is a lot harder than it first seemed. For instance, I’ve totally screwed up with the square that say’s ‘NO NEW YARN’. I might need to revise my Bingo card next month…

Wednesday WIPS – Bingo continues

October 7, 2015October 4, 2015 | Sonia Knits

Whilst I was binge knitting my ‘Shingle’ cropped cardigan on the weekend, I couldn’t help but want to work out what to do with ‘the wedding blanket’ project.

This one:

It is another Use It Or Lose It project. 10 balls of Bendigo Woollen Mills (discontinued) Harmony yarn. It was always meant to be our wedding blanket. It kind of feels like a bad omen to just toss it out. It’s good yarn, it’s just all white, impractical white. Besides we have a new wedding blanket now, you know the crochet hexagon one, the one that’s almost finished. Bright and colourful and big. How much use am I really going to get out of a big white blanket anyway? How much pain is it going to cause me to knit it?

So whilst I was binge knitting my blingy cardigan, I pondered. Then I thought about things like this:

The Rainbow Dress by my favourite kids designer, Georgie Hallam.

And I thought about this:

And how I could dye my own.

I got out my Addi Express machine and cranked out a blank out of a ball of the BWM Harmony, in fact I ripped out the blanket I had begun and used that.

Now I just need some dyes. What shall a do? An Elsa (from Frozen) dress, A watermelon gradient or just a good old fashioned rainbow?

If this is a success, I can dye and knit more fun garments for ALL of my nieces… if not, it’s back to square one.

Bingo/Binge Knitting

October 4, 2015 | Sonia Knits

As an avid listener to the Stash and Burn podcast. I thought it was about time I participated in another one of their initiatives, if not ‘cold sheeping’ (ahahahahaha) then why not some Bingo?!

I’m having fun already!

It has been a long weekend here in Melbourne, which has given me the opportunity to take stock of where all my projects are at. At the start of this week I had 7 WIPs. And I kind of wanted to change that or at least for the WIPs to be evolving/finishing/new wips.

Laying them all out in full view helped form a strategy, (not pictured is the hexagon crochet blanket or Cookie A’s June socks), or at least helped form my Bingo card. I included aspects of these 7 WIPs in my Bingo card for the month, and then I included other things, fun things and things not yet started. The idea is that if I cross off a row of goals, there’s a reward for getting Bingo. But just achieving a row of these things for me is a reward in itself… besides I have yarn, fibre and more yarn flying towards me this month, so really…

My Cookie A socks for June are finished, and I love them. I loved knitting them. My favourite kind of Cookie A socks, cuff down, charted, no cables.

When I got these done, my other WIPs were staring me in the face.

Particularly this one. The Louisa Harding ‘Shingle’ project. It’s been on my Use It Or Lose It list for well over a year. It was time to find out what it was going to be.

I decided on the Safire cardigan by Hilary Smith Callis. It was either going to be this or nothing, was my decision. A little cropped cardigan, that I can wear over little summer dresses.

Then I Binged Knit it…

And now I’m up to the ribbing of the body…

It looks like it might be a keeper, I’m going to have to keep knitting to find out.

Meanwhile, I’m terrified about the other plans that are forming in my head. I think I’m going to be left with at least 3 balls when this is over. I’m afraid I might be considering making a matching ‘niece’ ballerina cardigan. The never-ending yarn! But how cute would niece M look in that?

Wednesday WIPs – Niece cuddles

September 30, 2015September 29, 2015 | Sonia Knits

I’ve met my newest, latest, freshest niece!

And I’m already pretty in love with her.

I’m sure she’s going to love me too…

One day, but maybe not today.

I’m playing catch-up with my Cookie A sock club socks, if I can just get these ones finished tonight…

Then I’ll just have these to do before my next parcel arrives in about 2 weeks…
That’s do-able right?

I’ve been listening to How to Kill a Mocking Bird read by Sissy Spacek. I’m enjoying it very much, no spoilers please, I don’t know how it ends… I hope it’s happy.

Sonia Knits

The adventures of a Melbourne Knitter

Author: Sonia Knits