I’ve begun 2021 with many unfinished projects; the consequence of casting on with reckless abandon a sweater and a pair of socks every month of last year… until November. And I have no regrets!

I begin this year with 4 jumper WIPs and 3 sock WIPs and I love each of these projects. I’m going to try to finish up a couple of them in January to get the UFO count down. Then come February… well, we’ll see.

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The first project I’ve picked up is the Granny Raglan Pullover by Mari Lynn Patrick. This has been a dream knit of mine for some time. Kristy Glass Knits made a really lovely one, as did some other knitters on Ravelry. My version was cast on in June of last year.

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It looks like the beginnings of another blanket, sweet, sweet crochet. So comforting!

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The project is a great little stash buster. The main yarn (the charcoal) is repurposed yarn from a cardigan that didn’t suit me. It’s Zara Plus and it’s gorgeous. The other colours are odd balls and left-overs.

The jumper is knit in pieces combining both knit and crochet. I am little nervous that the sleeves won’t fit in with the crochet shaping when it comes to sewing this together. Perhaps I could pick up stitches at the armhole and knit down instead?

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I’ve already cast-on for the back twice. Because 17 inches of knitting across is just not going to make 19-20 inches no matter how hard you try. I’ve cast-on again with slightly larger needles and I’m on my way again.

Any advice on knitting Raglan sleeves from picked up stitches downwards will be greatly appreciated.

How do I begin?

I won’t be sorry to see the back of this year, and I consider myself to be one of the ‘lucky ones’. As a child, when I thought about the year 2020, 30 years into the future, I thought about how great a year it would be. By then, surely we’d be in contact with aliens and travel in spaceships; there’d be a cure for AIDs and we’d have World Peace. Early this year, all I hoped for was a return to Tokyo in September, where anything and everything seems possible. 2020 you were a massive let down.

But unlike so many others, I was lucky this year. Despite my everyday life being turned on it’s head, I’ve survived it relatively unscathed, and maybe I’ve learnt some things. Here’s hoping 2021 is a better year for everyone.

I did want to come here today, because damn it, for the last 2 years I’ve blogged from January to May, and then I’ve stopped. Clearly, I have every excuse for this years disappearance. So I’m going to make a miserable attempt at recalling this year from May until now, at least through my knitting, with some added tidbits.

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Since March, I’ve been WFH full-time. Rediscovering my local takeaway coffee shop was a blessing for the few weeks whilst weening myself off coffee (not that there’s anything bad about coffee!). Winter came on and with it, so many jigsaw puzzles. I’ve completed several on my own, D is not the jigsaw type. I also have many more jigsaws waiting in the wings for dare I say it… the next lockdown or a holiday at a beach house? I know which I’d prefer.

I made our own masks, but I found them impossible to breathe in, my 1 hour of ‘allowable’ exercise was reduced to a panicked 30 mins. In the end I found the Uniqlo masks MUCH better to breathe with.

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The cancelled Bendigo Sheep Show weekend, came and went. A couple of awesome people, took it upon themselves to host their own show online and on You Tube. Some excellent enabling occurred, and for me, it might have been a turning point in confidently and ferociously purchasing yarn online for the remainder of this year. I began a new version of the Birkin sweater (which was to be my knitting group’s signature sweater for the show), well, it will be ready for next year’s show now.

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A few distractions occurred in my plans to cast-on and knit a sweater and a pair of socks each month this year. In my birthday month, I also decided to begin a crochet blanket that I long, longed for. And that ‘Stephen West’! inspired me to knit this brilliantly colourful shawl in the later part of this year, don’t ask me which month, sense of time is lost on this year.

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This year, I knit, and knit and knitted. All in all, I completed 5 sweaters for myself (a record!), made my mum some socks by urgent request, and Damian was also lucky enough to receive 2 pairs this year! … he still wants his Halloween socks though…

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I’m not sure what else happened this year.

I know this year has affected the productivity of a lot of crafters, but I found great comfort in my knitting. It is the year that I’ve knit the most in, and I’m sure if I did the numbers, it’s also the year that I’ve bought the most yarn in. Ah… pandemic, what is one to do?

Happily, it is the end of the year and I welcomed it with great enthusiasm. The Advent calendars by Danni of Half-baked Hand-dyed and also from Little Woollie, made the crawling of time to Christmas so much more joyful.

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Cheers to a new year

The first time I saw Chicken Liver Parfait on a menu in a restaurant was about five years ago, and I could not believe my eyes. For the record, that was at Union Dining (sadly now closed), and I still rate it as my favourite Chicken Liver Parfait.

Growing up in a Slovenian family, chicken liver paté was a staple sandwich filling in my home (and school, I don’t know how I never got food poisoning from it). Whilst I would gag at the thought of eating Chicken Livers in their actual meat form, paté on the other hand is delicious…

At home, my mum called it ‘Spa–tet–o’, but I can’t find the correct Slovenian spelling for this, so you’ll have to trust me on that one.

In my search for the correct spelling, I found that according to google, Chicken liverwurst  is a good source of Protein, Riboflavin and Iron, and a very good source of Vitamin A, Vitamin B12 and Selenium. And the bad: This food is high in Saturated Fat and Cholesterol. BOO!

So why am I telling you about this?

Because in the space of a couple of weeks (and quite randomly), I have eaten Chicken (or in the case of Kyneton, Duck) Liver Parfait at no less than 4 restaurants… It was on the menu, and I ordered it… how could I resist?

Collins Quarter, Melbourne

Our local pub had it as a special…

In Kyneton… Duck Liver Parfait, so good…

Saint Urban, Richmond

I’m really glad my husband will not eat paté, he despises ‘offal’ of any kind. I never have to share my ‘starter’ with him, and that’s how I like it.

My preferred condiments with the parfait are of the fruity, sweet variety. Each rendition of my favourite dish was wonderful, I scoffed them all… apart from the work lunch, I had to be a bit more contained in my enthusiasm.

 

 

The trouble with going away to New York for Christmas, is the catch-up required once back home. I’ve never shopped for Christmas in January, and I can honestly say it’s much harder than shopping pre-Christmas, it is hell! For the most part, the things that are left in stores are the things no one wanted to buy in December. If I ever go away at Christmas time again (never again), I’ll start shopping in May.

So my year hasn’t officially begun yet, because I’m not done with Christmas yet. But I’m getting there…

After shopping for the kids, I was a little stumped for what to get my mum this year (last year). I then remembered some yarn in my stash that would be the perfect colour for her, and maybe not so much for me. And rather than just giving her the yarn, I decided that an IOU sweater was in order.

So I wrapped the yarn as a gift and as I gave it to her, I explained that she wouldn’t be taking her gift home today. My mum looked confused at first, and then really happy when I told her I would make her a cardigan.

Now my mum is not normally gracious about receiving gifts, she would prefer we didn’t spend any money on her. A handmade gift on the other hand, is a completely different story.

I know she really liked the idea of this gift because she reminded me to take her measurements, whilst I was distracted by the festivities that were going on. I also received several text messages from her about it after she got home.

This is what she looked like after receiving a hand-spun, hand-knit shawl made by me several years ago:

I hope the cardigan lives up to her expectations.

 

 

The knitting of the body of my Ursula cardigan was finally complete last week.It then took days and days of reinforcing the steek stitches in order to prepare for cutting my knitting.Reinforcing the front and the armholes using crochet stitchesThen it was finally time to cut. I was slow and careful, only cutting one or two strands at a time. It was thrilling and satisfying. It was rather fun. So far it seems nothing is falling apart.

I’ll be in sleeve island if anyone is looking for me, I hope it’s a short stay.

It’s a whole new year! I do love to start things a fresh, so many possibilities. But before I can do that, as always I like to take stock of the past knitting/crochet year.

Overall I’m pretty happy with the things I made last year. And for once I finished the year with a clean slate!

I completed 25 projects in 2016, 24 if you don’t count the blanket square I made for Kate’s Farewell blanket.

Socks featured heavily last year (but I’m going to have to pull my socks up (!) if I want to participate in Voolenvine’s box’o sox KAL in 2017).

The projects:
6 pairs of socks
2 adult garments (both for me, me, me)
4 baby things
7 accessories (hats, mitts, scarf)
3 shawls
A set of crochet coasters
1 cowl
1 blanket square

There are still some proper FO photos to come. Whose idea was it to finish an 8ply cardigan in Summer anyway?It’s been a bit of a multi-craftual year, or at least it’s ended that way, because I’ve started sewing…

I’m looking forward to getting much better at this new craft. My husband enjoys watching me squirm at learning new things, a little too much.

Oh and I hope for loads more knitting in 2017.

 

 

 

I have finished things! I have finished knitting my Use It Or Lose It Dragonflies sweater by Joji Locatelli.

It was pretty smooth sailing apart from the beginning where I had to concentrate on the short row shaping and the lace at the neckline at the same time. The yarn (Shiloh dk with silk) was a pleasure to knit with. The combination of the lace, the yarn and the knit picks harmony circular needle, made for a thoroughly enjoyable knit.

I also completed my Stitches West 2015 Mystery knit-along Moon Shadows Shawl by Romi Hill! I’m pretty pleased that I got it finished before this years show in February, not that I’m going again this year…

Interestingly, I also found this enjoyable knit after a long hiatus.

The ends have been sewn in, I just need to block it. I hope it grows a bit as I like to wear shawls either as scarves or wraps, not semi-circles…

I love the colours, it’s a lovely souvenir from the most exciting yarn show ever!

The 2 FO’s have used 1,474 metres of yarn, which have come straight of ‘stash’.

Alas, sadly last week I made a discovery…

This beautiful skein of yarn is in fact, yarn I salvaged from a cardigan I knit, but I didn’t love. Mostly, I normally give away projects that I fall out of love with. But the Zara Plus was/is great yarn. So quite some time ago I painstakingly ripped it out, skeined it up, washed it, and then I popped it back in the stash. Last week I realised I hadn’t added it back into my stash totals… all 800 metres of it…

I’m trying to see the irony in this and I hope there aren’t too many other ‘surprises’ in my stash.

 

 

 

 

My Grace cardigan is finished, hurrah!

The design is by Jane Richmond and the yarn is Lisa Souza’s Organic Merino. It was a real pleasure to knit to the pattern and the wool, oh my, the wool was so nice to work with.

I have the perfect souvenir from Stitches West, my new favourite cardigan.

Gosh my hair looks short!

This by default, is now my ‘Bendigo’ cardigan… squee, just 2 more sleeps!

As a late addition, I thought I might also need a new cowl to go with my new cardigan.

It’s a(nother) Honey Cowl, in my hand spun. Coincidently it is also organic merino, but the fibre is from Southern Cross Fibre. There were 5 different colours and I tried to blend them through, somewhat. Here’s hoping it’s finished in time for Friday.

Meanwhile I’ve also begun ‘the’ baby blanket. I’m so excited by how this is turning out already, have I finally found the perfect baby blanket pattern?