Stash

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.

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.

Bendigo 2024!

| Sonia Knits

I’m home, exhausted and I’m wondering how my time in Bendigo went so fast. It must mean I had a really great time.

I won a prize in the Woolcraft competition! It was for my Paul Klee Sweater pictured above. Competition was really tough this year and I feel very fortunate to have been awarded a third in the Sweater category for 4ply.

The displays of work were beautiful, and I think the best ever in terms of how items were presented.

This year, the Richmond Knitters made garments and accessories from the Pressed Flowers patterns by Amy Christophers. Wearing them altogether, certainly got a lot of attention. It made the weekend super fun too.

We saw the Woolcraft Fashion parade on Saturday morning, it was amazing. We visited the sheep, and even saw a baby lamb on it’s birthday! This is my older sis in the 3rd photo above.

Here are my Bendigo purchases for 2024… the shopping list was thrown out for day 2 at the show. I found it too limiting, by the things I needed, rather than the things that sang to me. So I had a very joyous time, by the looks of things. Now to dream of all the things I can make with these. If you would like to check out all the specifics, I’ve added them to my Ravelry page. And that’s it for another year of the Sheep Show.

A cast-on pause in May

| Sonia Knits

Last week I made the decision to not cast on a new sweater in May. The excitement of casting on with reckless abandon, has taken a pause… but only for May! I currently have 3 sweater/cardigan WIPs, and I feel as though that is the most I can cope with at one time.

I’ve been working solidly on my March Sweater, the Pressed Flowers pullover, and I hope to finish it up this month as well as make some good progress on my other 2 WIPs.

I’m now on the rib of the body of my sweater and I’ve divvied up the gradient yarn in 2 for my sleeves; I really hope I have enough, eek…

I’ve also cast-on for some Stephen West socks, Painting Honeycombs, which I’ve been wanting to knit since they were released last year. Using some stash yarn in Patons Patonyle fluro orange, and some mini skeins from advent calendars and left-overs. My friend Jade gifted me this gorgeous honey bee stitch marker, how perfect.

Whilst I was away in Daylesford, a sneaky purchase was made from my favourite self-striping hand dyer Danni of Half-baked hand dyed.

Isn’t it gorgeous… it was sitting by my Painting Bricks sweater WIP when it arrived, and I think it’s a perfect match.

I’m looking forward to getting lots done this month, so the excitement of a new cast-on returns for June.

New Year, fresh slate

| Sonia Knits

Happy New Year! I love a fresh new year, planning and goal setting are my favourite things to do as a maker; and it makes perfect sense to do that on the first day of the year.

But before I go ahead, I wanted to share the completed hedgehog ornament with CA and you all. It’s even cuter with a face!

I also completed a small spinning project this week, embarrassingly it’s the first one since I completed my Certificate of Spinning early in 2023.

I am thrilled with it. The fibre is from a Southern Cross Fibre Club, it’s organic merino and the colour name is Tokyo. It is worsted spun, in a fractal spin, it’s come out to a light fingering weight yarn. Perhaps I’ll make a hat with it.

This sudden burst of crafting before the end of the year is due to time off from work. And with just one more week to go before I return to work, I am loving this productivity during staycation, when can I give up work?

In 2024, I hope to read more, be healthier, and to make more in general, but also more specifically I hope to knit more jumpers/sweaters this year. In 2023, my Amina sweater was the only jumper I completed; my wardrobe is crying out for new knits and I intend to fulfil my knitting dreams this year. I have a rough goal of casting on for a new sweater every month, want to join me for the ride?

Starting with the Paul Klee sweater by Midori Hirose. Whilst I thought had my colour sequence sorted, yesterday when I started colouring-in my planning sheet, I discovered I needed 11 rows / 22 colours for my size. I originally had mistakenly thought I only needed 9 rows / 18 colours, because I had just referred to the pattern photograph. Luckily, I was able to come up with the additional colours and sequence from the 24 ball Kate Davies advent calendar. Although I discovered, blue might be her favourite colour, and she is missing a light purple to complete the colour spectrum.

In 2024, I also hope to spin a lot more for pleasure, and to practise the craft, because let’s face it, I don’t want to forget everything I’ve just learned. Becoming a better spinner is not just about the education, I need to do it more often. So with that, I’d love to spin for a jumper, perhaps Andrea Mowry’s Weekender? I do have a lot of beautiful fibre in my stash, so purchasing some fibre for it is not necessary. I’m interested in doing a combo spin perhaps for it, Andrea’s been talking about this on her podcast. I have lots of 100gm lots of different coloured hand-dyed top, which would be fun to combine, or if I can hack it (the boredom), I also have beautifully prepared natural coloured Polwarth top from Tarndie in a jumpers worth of fibre, purchased eons ago.

That’s about all for now, I NEED to pick back up my Nimue crochet blanket, and swatch for Paul Klee. I also have a pile of socks to darn… the list goes on.

A Race to the Finish

| Sonia Knits

With just two days to the New Year, my Amina sweater is FINALLY finished. This would have to be the longest time it’s taken me to knit a single jumper, having cast on for it in June. So for someone who likes completing things on a regular basis, this was torture. Am I happy with it? Why yes, yes I am. Did I learn a lot? Yes, yes I did, would I knit it again? Definitely not!

Every single end has been woven in

Earlier this week, we celebrated Christmas in our usual way; both families on the one day, lots of fun with the kids and lots of food. On Christmas eve, we had a pre-Christmas celebration with some friends, and we had a Kit-Kat constructing competition (not my idea of fun!). Whilst I am a designer, I’ve never been great at constructing things, and one of the competing adult kids is studying architecture! Somehow, the train, Tim and I had built scored first place.

The yarn advents are over and I can’t wait to cast-on some new colour work projects in the new year. First of all I’ll be casting-on for the Paul Klee sweater with Kate Davies’ advent yarns. I spent a delightful morning on Boxing day arrranging and re-arranging colours for this. If all goes to plan, I’ll be casting on for another sweater in February with the My Creative Garage advent, but more on that another time.

My little/big hedgehog decoration is almost complete, I’m just waiting on a delivery of 6mm black beads for it’s eyes, then just a few facial embroidery details and it’s done. I’m pretty novice when it comes to Amigurumi, the arms and feet are different sizes, so don’t look too closely. It will have just a few days on the tree, before it all gets boxed up again for next year. Christmas is over too quickly.

Japan!

| Sonia Knits

It’s almost a week since we arrived home from Japan, and I’m taking my time to get back to everything. It’s been six years since we visited Japan, and this was our fourth visit.

We were chaperoning Damian’s mum in our first week in Tokyo. We did a couple of arts & crafts classes, Laquer-Makie painting and making Hanako stamps. Carol also undertook a master class with a Sumie master painter.

We wined and dined and had amazing food in Tokyo, we even took Carol to Karaoke! Carol has been once before to Japan many years ago, she said she saw a different side to Japan through our lens 🙂

I also visited Walnut, the Amirisu yarn store on our ‘shopping day’. I had a lovely time whilst Damian and Carol had a cool drink at a cafe around the corner.

After the week, we farewelled Carol and boarded a Shinkansen to Hokkaido. Our first stop was Sapporo for 4 days, and then we backtracked Hakodate for a further 4 days.

We visited the morning (5:50am) fish market with our hotel’s chef in Hakodate, and ate a delicious breakfast from the fish we purchased (cooked and sashimi-ed by the chef of course!). We made friends with the locals and ate delicious food. The hospitality in Hakodate was outstanding.

The thing that has stayed with me from this trip though, is the incredible kindness and helpfulness we received from complete strangers. On a rainy day in Sapporo, we alighted from our streetcar and took shelter at the tram stop, just for a moment so we could work out which direction we were meant to be going in. An older woman who had been on the streetcar with us had got off at the same stop. She had begun to go on her way, but then came back, and offered us her umbrella, the one that she was holding open over herself. Shocked, we of course couldn’t and didn’t accept her offer, she would get wet! and it was too nice an umbrella to give to complete strangers from Australia! I’ll never forget her, she wore a beautiful green hand-knitted beret with a sparkly brooch. I might have been admiring it on the tram. I profusely thanked her as she went on her way again. I don’t think I’ve said ‘thank you’ so often as I have while visiting Japan, everyone is so polite…

For the final five days of our trip we returned to Tokyo. We ate more amazing food, found our favourite Yakitori place in Shimbashi, we tried our hand at Glass-etching and Leather sandal making!

On the day before flying home, we went to the WB Harry Potter Studio Tour. I enjoyed myself thoroughly. It was my first taste of Butterbeer, and I much prefer it to real beer.

Now to start dreaming of our next overseas travel and rest.

Bendigo 2023

| Sonia Knits

I’m just back from a wonderful break in Bendigo. The Australian Sheep and Wool Show in Bendigo was this weekend, but we headed up earlier on Wednesday to take make it more of a mini break.

We visited the Bendigo Art Gallery, which had a retrospective of 90 years of the Women’s Weekly Magazine. It was a great exhibition, which had a lot of nostalgia, especially for people whose mums made birthday cakes from the Birthday Cake book. My mum made the train for one of my older siblings, and perhaps one or 2 other cakes, perhaps the witch for my older sister? I remember looking through the book, and dreaming about my next birthday cake. I’m not sure I got one? The recorded interview with the cake maker/author of the book was interesting and priceless… just glue the pages of the tip truck cake together… hahaha. There was also a fashion display (it was impressive), and a bit of a crochet and knitting display, not to mention some great historical displays about women.

Friday, show day arrived, and I attended the Women of Wool luncheon once again. I think this year, the organisers did a great job of selecting the speakers. It was great to listen to inspiring, smart women.

I went back to the show on Saturday and I had a great time hanging out with Damian, his mum, friends, and sheep; as well as purchasing some lovely souvenirs of my time in Bendigo. I’m already planning for next year.