Author: Sonia Knits

Sabela

| Sonia Knits

My Sabela sweater by Isabel Kraemer was off the needles last weekend and blocking. I’m super happy with how it turned out, there never was a doubt when it comes to an Isabel Kraemer pattern, they always fit really well.

The yarn is by Great Ocean Road Woollen Mills, Summer Fiesta in their 3/4ply. It was a pleasure to knit with this yarn which is a merino and linen blend. Whilst it is a light yarn, it has enough warmth to it, that I probably won’t wear it in the warmer months. Alas, it’s 18 degrees in Melbourne today, which is quite a change from the high 30 degree temperatures we’ve had this week. So maybe I’ll be wearing it sooner than I think.

Meanwhile I have cast on my ‘February’ sweater, Stripes! by Andrea Mowry. I’m using my advent calendar yarn from My Creative Garage.

I’m hoping to have finished the yoke and divided for the body and sleeves this weekend. It’s raining outside so this works with my plans. There’s less than 2 weeks left to February, so I’m hoping to get as much of this sweater knit as possible before the start of March.

I’ve also cast on for my Marlene socks, thanks so much for your comments on this project!

The yarn is beautiful, it has a lovely structure to it. I hope to pay more attention to this after I’ve done ‘enough’ knitting on my Stripes! sweater.

Happy weekend 🙂

Sentimental

| Sonia Knits

19 years ago I lived in San Francisco. It’s when I went from being a knitter, into being a Knitter with a capital K, which just means I became more obsessed. My husband was posted there on secondment, and I joined him obviously! I was unable to work for the first 6 months, which was great, depending on your point of view. We lived in the Marina district (right near Fishermans Wharf), with my local yarn store ‘Greenwich Yarn’, just a ten minute walk away. The whole experience is now dreamlike.

Laurie, who was the owner of Greenwich Yarn, was wonderful and so welcoming, offering help to her loyal customers. It was a small store, but it was very well curated. There was a lovely wooden table in the middle of this narrow store, that you were welcome to come and knit around during the day, even eat lunch there, which is forbidden by yarn stores these days! It almost felt like home. I spent hours there, which I had a lot of. When I made a friend at a Knit Night, separate to the yarn store, we would both hang out here together. What a time!

The oldest yarn in my stash comes from Greenwich Yarn. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, and now I think it’s time to cast on.

It’s Crystal Palace Panda Wool, it’s a sock yarn. Laurie recommended I get an extra ball, because of the bamboo content, the yardage is less than usual. Isn’t the colour dreamy.

I’ve decided to pair this with also one of the oldest patterns I own. It’s from a magazine, and it’s by my favourite sock designer Cookie A. She no longer designs patterns, but she also lived in the Bay Area at the time. I met Cookie at my very first Stitches West yarn show whilst living in SF. I bought a bundle of her patterns, that were print-outs in plastic sleeves; I still have them.

But for this yarn, I wanted to knit socks that were almost Mermaid like. This is how I selected to knit Cookie’s Marlene socks.

I haven’t cast-on yet, but I will in February. So this is a super sentimental knit for me after all these years.

I’d like to get through more of the oldest parts of my stash (as well as the new), so that I don’t have things that are 20 years old! And maybe they won’t be as precious as this project, but it’s time.

I hope to catch you up on my other projects soon, maybe this weekend.

Tennis and the slog

| Sonia Knits

I love watching the Tennis, and the Australian Open is providing the perfect distraction to knitting miles and miles of stocking stitch in the round.

I still have a fair way to go on the body, and I’m almost certain I’m going to knit the sleeves full length. I’m aiming to have this finished in time for my February cast-on!

All but one of my Advent calendars, have been packed away in the lovely box I received for my Louie & Lola advent. Just temporarily, so that I don’t feel the overwhelm, and so that D gets some of the living room back.

My Creative Garage advent is going to be my February sweater cast-on! I’m going to knit Andrea Mowry’s Stripes! yoke sweater. I think this will fly off the needles and I’m excited to start.

I’ve been arranging and rearranging the colours in different orders. I didn’t want a fade for this sweater, as it is meant to have the look of Stripes. I still might switch a few more colours around, but I think I’m close.

Last day of Craftcation

| Sonia Knits

As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end…

I’ve had a good break, and I’ve done lots of things in between crocheting, knitting and (a little) spinning. It’s been great!

The tree is packed away
Japanese BBQ
Sock knitting whilst BBQing
More sock knitting whilst BBQing
Kid sitting
Niece’s temperature blanket
Glamping
Tips for roughing it
Finished Socks
Rearranging advent yarn
Birthday pool party
Ice cream birthday cake
Sabela progress

I am so pleased with the progress I’ve made on my Sabela top. I’m past the sleeve divide, and I’ve tried it on, and I think it’s looking great. I’ve decided it’s going to have long sleeves, it’s going to be an in-between seasons garment. Whilst it’s light, 4 ply weight (closer to 3ply), the merino/linen blend is quite warm, so short sleeves (my original intention), doesn’t make sense. The yarn is Summer Fiesta by GORWM in case you want some for yourself.

I’ve also cast on a pair of Vanilla socks on January 1 (see above). So now, I’m thinking of attempting to knit a pair of socks and a garment per month again, how fun is that? I’ve made such great progress on this holiday of mine! I’m now contemplating my February cast-ons, whilst knitting my last stitches before work tomorrow. Do you have any knitting plans for the year?

Thanks Maureen for your comment on my last post about my mum and me looking alike 🙂 I’ll write more soon about my intentions for my Advent yarn… I think I’m changing my mind about one of the calendars!

2024 knit & crochet recap

| Sonia Knits

I love a good crafty round-up, don’t you?

This year, I knit approximately 2,000 more metres than I did last year, for a grand total of 7,158 metres. I cast-on and completed 4 garments for myself, 2 pairs of socks for me, 1 pair of socks for Damian, 4 hats for other people and a few Christmas decorations to top it all off.

Had I completed my Nimue blanket this year, my project yardage would have blown out of the water! Something to look forward to 2025, I make the rules 🙂

Apart from my blanket, I’m only left with one other UFO, my Painting Honeycomb socks by Stephen West. I’ve begun the second sock, and have made the double thick cuff, so now onto the fun parts. For keen observers, I’ve put my flower socks by Summer Lee into Hibernation Zzz (a Ravelry term). I’m going to restart these in a larger size sometime in the future, so that they can get over my heels more comfortably.

I have not done a stash count of yarn for a few years. Since March of 2019 to be exact. This is where you use Ravelry to total up your stash entries. I don’t think mine is going to be 100 per cent accurate, but doing a stocktake of odd balls and left-over yarns is not my idea of a fun time.

In 2019 it was:

Today it is:

397,809 Metres

Give or take a few thousand metres. Where do I put it all?! A number is just a number, and I’m totally not freaked out by it. Wondering how long I can keep my advent yarns displayed in my living room is where my mind is at right now. I think, I’ve settled on 3 projects for the 3 advents, and that’s a relief!

My Creative Garage
Louie & Lola
Fibresmith

2024 has been an interesting year, mostly a good year for which I’m grateful. I look forward to beginning a new year with hope and exciting new (self-imposed) challenges, none of the bad ones please.

Here’s a photo of my mum and my Melbourne siblings celebrating Christmas together

Happy New Year!

Holidays!

| Sonia Knits

The wait for the holidays is finally over! Gosh, how I’ve been looking forward to this Craftcation. 3 weeks of making, yay! Mixed in with family, friends and great food.

Last weekend was the Richmond Knitters end-of-year party!

It was super fun and it just keeps getting bigger every year.

I made another mouse for this year’s ornament exchange. Alan Dart’s Furry Fairies are just so cute.

Catherine was the recipient of ‘Angelina’ and I think she is smitten.

Danni of Halfbaked Hand dyed made an exclusive self-striping colourway for us once again (selected by Susanne!). So gorgeous, I had to get it in both 4 and 8ply.

This past week, I’ve been making more fairies, one for our tree and one for my niece Maz (it’s a surprise).

With just a few days left of advent… things are getting to the pointy end of the calendars, and I’m not quite settled on what projects to make with each. Ideally I’m thinking sweaters, because I love knitting colourful sweaters!

I have a few pattern contenders in mind, but I’m still thinking on it.

These are my unfinished projects at the moment. I think it will be too ambitious to think I’ll be able to finish any one of these unless I’m working solidly on a pair of socks. It’s probably not going to happen. My goal for the end of the holidays is to have my Nimue Blanket on track for finishing (I’m probably half-way through, maybe?) I also want to cast-on Sabela (haven’t done that yet). But in all honesty, seeing some progress in my projects will be really satisfying.

A FO and Advent

| Sonia Knits

My Calm Down Cardigan is finally finished! It has been complete with buttons and all since last week, but the weather has been extremely hot or extremely humid and wet to take some photos until today. I’m very happy with the result, although I don’t feel as though it’s perfect. It’s a nice casual cardigan, but not fancy enough to wear to work, if you know what I mean.

Good buttons are now hard to find, especially since my work has relocated out of the CBD. Upon a recommendation, I went to visit the Brighton Button Shop (in Bentleigh), which I would rate as a really good experience. I was assisted by the owner of the store, and she provided me with no fewer than 4 options. These buttons stood out as the clear winner though. I’m looking forward to casting on something new very soon, I deserve it 🙂

Advent is well and truly underway. This year I am a bit spoiled with 3 yarn calendars by hand-dyers in Australia; Louie & Lola 8ply, Fibresmith 4ply and My Creative Garage 5ply. I’m so happy with how each of these are turning out, I’m going to have to start thinking about patterns to use for these in the new year.

The tree is up, for some reason it took a really long time to place all of the ornaments up this year. The sheep that my niece made for my birthday has been hanging out in my living room, decided to join hedgehog and become a festive ornament for the season.

And some of this is going on as well, fiddly Christmas ornament making. I can do it in small bursts, but I can totally see why I’m not a toy maker!

I’m looking forward to finishing a couple more projects before the end of the year, but I might be a bit too ambitious about the Nimue crochet blanket! We’ll see.

Alpaca Road Trip, Crafty Weekend & Sock Knitting

| Sonia Knits

A couple of weeks ago, I took a Tuesday off from work and joined a ‘Road Trip’ organised by my local yarn store Sunspun to go to my favourite Alpaca Farm and Woollen Mill, Great Ocean Road Woollen Mill! Do not be fooled by the name, they are now known as GORWM since relocating inland to Burrumbeet (near Ballarat).

It was a lovely way to spend a day. Virginia, the owner of Sunspun had it all very well organised, and chatting to Nick and Isabel (from GORWM) is always a fun time, they’re so cool.

The highlight for me was meeting some of the Alpacas, they had just been shorn not too long ago. They are so cute. I bought some yarn, of course I bought some yarn! For a summer knit, hopefully once my Calm Down cardigan is finished.

Then last weekend, I headed to Rye for a crafty retreat with girlfriends, it was such a lovely relaxing time. None of us quite know how long we’ve been going away together for, but we might work it out one day!

I’ve just finished these ‘Canberra’ socks, in Halfbaked Hand-dyed’s DK sock. These are my favourite socks yet.

Now back to knitting my Calm Down cardigan before my weekend is over.

So maybe I was a little Hasty

| Sonia Knits

I’ve had a bit more time for contemplation. I’ve had a week to sulk, and a week to consider what to cast-on next. Then this morning, I measured the gauge on my yet to be frogged Calm Down Sweater. Are you all giggling?

My row gauge is in fact correct and it matches the specified gauge of 30 rows. My stitch gauge is on the tighter side of 24 sts rather than 22 (but that part doesn’t matter). I’ve gone back to the pattern page on Ravelry and checked out more of the finished projects, and it appears… my cardigan is on track.

The sleeves are deep. I’ve read a few more people’s project pages, and they say the same.

See how Lily Kate the designer (and also model in real life) has her hands up above her head. The sleeve depth is a bit deceiving, not intentionally I’m sure.

Thanks to ‘Knitting is so fun’, (sorry I don’t know your real name), for your comment about altering the sleeve depth. I have found that, whenever I try to alter a pattern, it never works out for me. And maybe I’m not prepared to rip things out a million times to make it perfect, I’m not that kind of knitter. For me knitting is supposed to be somewhat relaxing, I want it to be right to start with, if not the first, then definitely the second time.

So maybe… I’m thinking about continuing. I’ll probably decrease the sleeves at a faster rate, so that I don’t get total batwings, but they’re still going to be huge, and I have to be okay with that. The body will be better fitted, so it shouldn’t end up being a sack on me, hopefully.

You see, in this week of contemplation, I wasn’t so upset about putting the cardigan aside. I was bummed because I still really wanted this cardigan. I’ve been looking at what to knit next and I can’t move past this, I really want some plain wardrobe staples. So let’s see.