2015 Knitting review

January 3, 2016 | Sonia Knits

Happy New Year all!

Each year I like to do a wrap-up of all the things I’ve knit to see how I’ve fared over the year.

I’ve knit 22 things in 2015! That’s 3 projects up from last year!

I didn’t knit as much for little ones this year, niece M is now 3 and takes a lot longer to knit for!

22 projects, that’s almost like finishing something every other week, but not.

There were:

7 pairs of socks (including the Baffies)
1 Chook Vest
A group blanket project
A huge crochet blanket
A baby blanket
only 3 Kids/baby sweaters
3 scarves/cowls
3 tops for me (2 of which were use it or lose it)
Christmas ornaments
1 Winter set for Damian

Of these 22 things, 8 projects were for other people.

I’ve carried over 6 WIPs into the new year, but there was no way the Noro blanket was coming for the ride. I finished sewing in the ends on the last day of the year.

2016 is going to be a ‘Cold Sheep’ year. There will be no yarn purchasing except maybe for the Sheep and Wool Show in July. And … only if I travel overseas to a yarn haven. But there might be some de-stashing to accommodate that…

In 2015 I was lucky enough to visit Stitches West in California in February and then Tokyo in November. It’s been a fun year! There was ‘a bit’ of yarn tourism involved in visiting those places, and I hope to relive those fun memories as I knit with my souvenir yarn.

My stash count as of today is:

277,180 metres

It is a little less than the last count, but I suspect the last count was inaccurate (the wrong column was added together).

Here’s to 2016 the year of knitting more and stashing down!

Dragonflies

December 26, 2015December 26, 2015 | Sonia Knits

I’m chilling out (read:recovering) this Boxing Day after a full-on but lovely day with our 2 families yesterday. I’m knitting Dragonflies, a jumper by Joji Locateli. I cast on a little while ago, but I’ve finally gotten ‘into it’ and I’m enjoying knitting it so very much. The yarn/project is my last ‘Use It Or Lose It’ project on my Ravelry projects page.

It’s been interesting, the UIOLI project. At this stage I don’t have any desire to classify any more yarn as ‘UIOLI’, because the project has shown to me that every yarn can find a purpose, even less loved yarn (mostly, there were a couple of casualties). For now, I want to knit with what I love at the top of my pile. I might revisit this idea again some time.

The yarn is Shiloh Wool with Silk, hand-dyed by me a long time ago. It took a while to find the perfect pattern for this yarn, I’m glad I persevered because I have to say I’m loving knitting Joji’s Dragonflies pattern. The lace is fun and easy.

Coincidently, I’m listening to Outlander book 2 Dragonflies in Amber. That was not intentional!

Leslie, from the Knitgirllls my favourite video cast show is also listening to it right now, but she is ahead of me. So whilst Leslie does her book review once a week, I have to mute the sound whilst she is talking about it! Her arms wave around, and I can kind of understand why, after about 10 minutes the hand actions settle down and I can begin listening to the video cast again. I hope to go back to these tid-bits later on after I’ve completed my 38 hours of listening…

Sunshine and stash less

December 5, 2015December 5, 2015 | Sonia Knits

Yellow is a ‘new to me’ colour in knitting. I’ve gradually been building up to knitting with yellow and casting on some on Cookie sock club socks was just the introduction I needed. Looking at them makes me feel happy.

I wanted to talk to you about something else today, something else that has recently plagued me. It kind of snowballed after I got home from Tokyo and I needed to pack away my new stash… literally a snowball that has just gotten bigger and bigger…

Felicia Semple of the Craft Sessions has explored this recently. The theory of ‘Stash less’. Not to be ‘stash less’ (like who would want that?!), but ‘to stash less’. That’s how I’m reading it anyway. She is quite an inspiration in what she has done in a short amount of time. Anyway, you should go read her blog.

I started thinking about this more recently after arriving home from Tokyo, and knowing I hadn’t gone overboard on the purchasing… and yet I was still struggling to squeeze my new yarn in to my yarn case.

Stash less; I couldn’t Stash more if I tried!!!

It’s beginning to feel a bit burdensome to be utterly honest. Don’t worry, in a couple of jumpers and socks time I’ll feel much better…

So there you have it, I really mean it this time. No more yarn purchasing until the Bendigo (Sheep and Wool show)… then I’ll take stock. I say until Bendigo, because a. I’m going! and b. it’s just cruel to suggest I go to a fibre event and do not allow myself to buy anything, it doesn’t mean I have to, but I can.

The six month challenge is on.

p.s. can you all please continue to buy yarn and add an extra skein in there for me with your next yarn purchase, someone has to keep our LYS’ going.

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 – 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.

FOMO

September 19, 2015 | Sonia Knits

FEAR

OF

MISSING

OUT

Are you in or are you out?

I have massive FOMO as many of you are aware, I was on the fence about joining up, (because I’m not actively buying yarn at the moment haha), then Sharon said she was in and then I had to. I hope Sharon doesn’t decide to jump off a roof or anything…