Work in Progress

A Modern Coogi jumper

| Sonia Knits

When I began the ‘fun’ colour work part of my Painting Bricks sweater last week, I suddenly got ‘Coogi’ jumper vibes, and not in a good way. If you’re not familiar with Coogi take a look here.

Believe it or not, Coogi is still around but I don’t think they have any retail stores, at least not in Melbourne anyway. When I was young, I recall my mum taking me to Collins Place to kill some time before my orthodontist appointment in Spring St. There used to be a Coogi store in there, and I always wondered who would wear these crazily coloured and textured jumpers. My next experience of ‘Coogi’ was when I was at Uni. One of my friends was telling me how they had met someone who said they worked at ‘Gucci’, but as they began fawning over how great a job that would be; the person clarified they in fact worked at Coogi… quite amusing I thought.

The jokes on me though, because a) someone must still buying their clothes b) they still exist and command high prices c) I think the pink crop jumper and skirt (on their website) are quite cute!

We’ve been staying in Kyneton for a few days, and I was rather amazed by how my Painting Bricks sweater co-ordinated with the homewares of the house we were staying in (these rows were knit prior to our arrival), then I pulled out my Christmas socks, and they were also a perfect match; weird much?

We were celebrating our 21st Wedding Anniversary, and ate amazing food everyday of our holiday.

In between eating all of this fabulous food, I put a fair dent into my January Sweater, which now has just one sleeve to go.

Luckily it is now a short week, and it won’t be long before I get back to my knitting.

Pinch Punch 1st of the month

| Sonia Knits

I’m a little tardy in beginning my February Sweater, it’s so hard to squeeze in such exciting things during the work week. But I have now indeed cast on for my February Sweater which is to be Stephen West’s Painting Bricks Sweater.

I’m using the 8ply minis from my My Creative Garage advent calendar for the contrast colours, with the main colour dyed by my friend Danni of Halfbaked Hand-dyed. Since this cast-on photo, which shows the folded neckband, I have completed the short rows for the neck shaping and I’m now about the commence the exciting colour work part!

I’m still working on January’s sweater (The Paul Klee Sweater), finishing up the hem on the body (it is 8.5 inches long!) and with just the sleeves to go, I’m hoping to finish this up very soon, eek.

If I followed my own (regular) rules, I wouldn’t have dreamed of casting on for a new sweater project with one not finished. So with the new rules (!) I’ve set for myself this year, casting on a jumper a month (for at least 6 months, wouldn’t it be great if I did 12!), is so freeing and fun. February being a short month, perhaps a vest would have been a better choice!

I’ve also done a little spinning this month. This beautiful fibre by IxChel was purchased at the Coburb market last year. I only bought 100gms in total, so rather than plying each colour by itself, I’ve done a barber pole ply to make the most of the little yardage I have. It still might be a little cosy cowl.

In reading, I’ve finished listening to Lola in the Mirror by Trent Dalton. It was enjoyable to listen to, a great story with believable characters… gritty characters, scary characters. I liked how the book was based in Brisbane CBD, as I’ve been there a few times in the last couple of years, and I’ve wandered around some of the places mentioned, I haven’t come across Moon St though, does it even exist? I must open my eyes next time. I’m not sure I liked the ending, but I mostly don’t like how endings happen, all neat and tidy; so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Back to knitting…

Back to Reality

| Sonia Knits

Last weekend, right before I returned to work for the new year, I did a Summer School class at the Handweavers and Spinners Guild of Vic. I haven’t been back to the guild since I completed my Spinning certificate early in 2023, so undertaking Janet Day’s Sensational Singles class was a super nice way to visit.

Now I’m normally not a fan of singles yarn, but Janet has made me a bit of a convert… or at least I’m prepared to include spinning singles as an option for making yarn in the future. The class was over 2 days, which was a luxurious amount of time to take in all the knowledge that Janet so generously shares with her students. If you ever have an opportunity to take a class with Janet, I would highly recommend it. I’ve left the class feeling inspired and also with a new spinning project on the wheel.

As predicted, with my return to work this week, my knitting and crafting has slowed somewhat. But I have now completed the colourwork part of my yoke on my Paul Klee sweater. I’ve got a few more increase rows to go and then I’m almost at the part to divide for my sleeves/body. I’m looking forward to the plain part of the project, as it will make for easy TV knitting, whilst I still get to enjoy looking at the colours dancing around the yoke. I think I’m on track to finish this jumper in January, yippee!

Potato Chip Knitting

| Sonia Knits

I’ve begun my Paul Klee sweater by Midori Hirose this week, and the yoke is flying along, I’m obsessed. Just one more colour, just one more chip. (I don’t even like potato chips all that much)

Whilst I am working from the limitations of the 24 colour palette of Kate Davies, Milarrochy Tweed (compared to the hundreds of colours in the Jamieson & Smith range) I think I’m still achieving a lovely rainbow of colour, and there’s still 2–3 rows of colour to go.

Alas, my holiday is almost at it’s end. I am not able to work so intensely on the yoke over the next 2 days, as I’m off doing something fun, but hopefully I’ll be able to squeeze in the final 2.5 colour rows before I return to work on Tuesday.

My year of sweaters is off to a great start.

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.

A weekend well spent

| Sonia Knits

The weekend before last, I went away once again with some of my crafty friends, formerly known as my quilting friends. Some of these old friends have turned their hands to knitting since we gathered last (about 6 months ago), and some have become obsessed with sock knitting. Of course, as you can imagine, I was pretty excited by this predicament! Whilst there still was quite a lot of patchworking going on, there was also equal amounts of knitting, and I got to talk a lot about how I knit my socks! So much fun.

Wouldn’t you know it, I only took one project to knit and it was not a pair of socks…

This is the back all wrapped up before heading home (bobbins ready for travel!)

I managed to knit 2 full repeats of the design, by my calculations (of looking at other people’s finished sweaters), I’m going to need 6 repeats of the pattern. I’m a third of the way there. Now I just need to work out how to carve out 3 day weekends which don’t involve me doing too much to get this front finished, that’s do-able right.

What is my life?

| Sonia Knits

That’s what I’m thinking when I look down at this! What a sight! Progress on my Amina sweater has been slow, on the front at least, the back piece is nearly done. I have been unwell this past week or so, making working on the intarsia front difficult. But I’m feeling positive and excited, I’m up to row 9 on the chart!

In the mean time, I’ve also done a bit more research and found some invaluable Intarsia tips from Rox on YouTube:

This video is just what I needed. I learned that bobbins aren’t the only way to go! I decided to make ‘butterflies’ for the small sections that have only a few stitches. Just that change, has helped a lot. I might make more sections into ‘butterflies’, but I’ll do a few more rows before deciding. Rox has a lot of technique videos on her channel and they’re well produced, so I’ve subscribed.

Despite my little progress, I’m having fun. It feels like I’m painting with my stitches, I love using colour in my knitting, even though these are the exact colours assigned in the pattern. I’m starting to think about my next projects… better press on then.

Colour Blast Socks and a New WIP

| Sonia Knits

My Color/colour Blast Socks are complete and aren’t they cool. I don’t put this down to my knitting of course, but Stephen West’s super fun design. The high contrast sections, I think are really clever and remind me of optical illusions, which I also love. Whilst I’ll never do another mystery shawl (they take too long! and you don’t get a sweater at the end of it!), I’m so glad I participated in this first Surprise Sock-along, and it won’t be my last.

I have cast on for my long awaited Amina Sweater. This is from La Bien Aimee’s first book Worsted. I cast on for the back piece first, which is non-patterned, and it’s a ‘piece’. I haven’t knitted a sweater in pieces for, I don’t know how long, so this is weird. But I’m doing it, all in the name of Intarsia! I was probably half-way through the back before my thoughts turned to the front. The back was getting super boring to knit!

I realised I was going to need some bobbins, and a lot of them… 33 or so, no kidding. I put a ‘little’ order in to Sunspun and my friend Karen who works there, brought them to knit night. They’re by Clover and I can highly recommend them.

It took me about 2 nights to wind them all up… I also wound up quite a few of the main colour on the paper bobbins you get for embroidery threads. That’s because there’s small sections of this colour that are only 1 or 2 stitches wide, and I thought it would be wise to reduce the weight of the bobbins where I could. I considered doing parts of this as stranded colour work, but I thought that would end up messy and just a big mess… compared to now, ha ha.

I’m taking it slow, I’m up to row 5, and have about 22 bobbins attached. This is what real patience is about. I wish some of the people who have knit this, wrote more notes on their Ravelry page about it. I just wanted to share the 33 bobbins note for size 4 rant with someone! Perhaps I’ll need to start writing notes on my own Ravelry projects pages.

I hope to be back soon with more progress on the front, it is definitely a stay-at-home-knit.

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.