Well hello there, I bet you didn’t think I would be back again for this week! I’m participating in Ginny’s Yarn Along with several others including Sharon.

As some of you would have seen, I finished my Colour Affection just in time to wear to the Bendigo Show at 10pm on Thursday evening to be precise. The only problem with casting-off, was that I no longer had a project to take with me on the train to Bendigo. This was rectified by casting on for the Honey Cowl in SHIBUI Baby Alpaca. I’ve been hankering for more winter accessories in some new colours other than my usual pinks. It seems this season it’s all about blue.

Whilst I cast on at home and knit a few rows that evening to ensure I hadn’t twisted the cast-on row, it wasn’t until the train journey that I attempted to establish the pattern. Let’s just say my first couple of slip stitch rows are not perfect, but after that I managed to correct the pattern to the staggered slip stitches it needed to be.

I’ve also been spinning more frequently this week, at one point I was using 2 wheels at once, it was fantastic!

I’m still reading “The 100 year old man…”, I’m still enjoying it, but now I just want to know how it ends! Each alternative chapter is written in the present, whilst the others are written in the past, it feels like it’s building to something, I’ll be really disappointed if it’s not! Either way, I’ll be ready to start a new book next week.

 

As part of the Little Dipper Yarns KAL for June, I cast-on for the much famed ‘Colour Affection’. It’s a great pattern!

I fear projects that are largish and have a bit of ‘plain’ knitting, and whilst Colour Affection appears to be miles of brainless knitting, I actually found it quite fun to knit. What does that say about me? ha ha ha.

There was a little bit of debate about the colours I did go with. Some felt the colours were too subtle against each other. Whilst others cautioned me about the style of increases. But I was not concerned, most people who have made a Colour Affection shawl have made more than one.

I’m so pleased with it! It got it’s first outing at the Bendigo Show. Yay for the annual parade of knits.

I’m still working out the styling for wrapping the shawl.

I weighed the remnants of my Little Dipper Yarns after casting off and it appears I have 150gms of LDY left to use on another project… sometime down the track.

I already have the yarn for my second Colour Affection project, but I think I’ll take a break from the pattern in the interim. I’m not sure that I would change the pattern method for the increases, I think Veera (the pattern designer) knows what she’s on about, she hasn’t let me down yet.

Many years after attending my first ‘Bendigo’, that is The Australian Sheep and Wool Show, it’s kind of nice that it is still exciting.

This year I opted for the train trip up and back for the Friday. After staying the weekend for the past few years, I felt it might be time to give Damian a break, even though we’ve enjoyed every year. Limiting myself to just the day, also means I can keep a lid on things.

So I caught the 7:09am train from Southern Cross Station to Bendigo and was joined by equally excited friends. We also had a surprise friend join us, which made it even more fun!

And… I actually stayed within budget, sort of. I had no shopping list, because we all know ‘I don’t need anything’. But I still managed to find things, special things, that just had to come home with me.

Birds-eye view of the yarn: From left: Dyed by Hand: White Gum DK x 2 green hanks. Kathy’s Fibres 4 ply yarn in ‘Jewel’. Stranded in Oz Jezebel in 4 colours. Moseley Park MCN in a Neon Rainbow colour way.

Side view of the yarn

Some IxChel Camel Bunny Silk (and a pinkish braid not pictured here)

2 braids of Kathy’s Fibres BFL/Silk in her fabulous ‘Jewel’ colour way.

My train buddies said I was quite restrained, I’m not so sure. I think I came home with more than last year in terms of yarn and fibre. I love everything I got, and I hope to use some of it sooner rather than later.

There were so many highlights to the day, but mostly it was spending time with great friends and all the laughs. Congratulations to Chris for winning 2 first prizes for 2 of her competition entries. Her fabulous gradient dress was also part of the Wool Craft fashion parade at 11am. It was a wonderful moment and I’m so happy for her.

Until next year!

Every Wednesday I tune in to Sharon’s blog, because I know she’s a ‘sure thing’. That is, she’ll have a new blog entry up for ‘Ginny’s Yarn-along Wednesday’. I love the idea and I love seeing what she’s up to!

I’ve been thinking this would also be a great way of bringing some regularity to my blog (perhaps, it’s not a guarantee!).

So here goes: This week I’m finishing my Colour Affection, in Little Dipper Yarns KAL. I love the subtlety of the colours I’ve chosen, it kind of makes it into a gradient. I am on the home stretch, knitting the last of the longest rows on the border. I hope to cast this off tonight so I can block it in time to wear to the Bendigo Sheep Show!

I’m still reading ‘The 100 year old man who climbed out a window and disappeared’, it’s been a few weeks now, and I’m keen to polish it off.

I’ve also started listening to ‘Game of Thrones: Book 1’ and I’m loving it! At this rate I can catch up to all the people who have read ALL of the books before season 5 on TV begins.

See you next week, maybe.

 

Don’t ask me how, but I had a Morris & Sons loyalty voucher land in my inbox last week. These are ‘earned’ by spending $500 over a period of time, you are then ‘rewarded’ with a $50 voucher. I tried to ignore the fact that I had this voucher, for about a week, until I could bear it no more…

I thought I would spend it on yarn that I ‘needed’ for a niece or nephew project that I didn’t possibly have the yarn for already. And then I thought screw it, it’s mine, I’ve earned it and I bought this:

I must say I am enjoying using Damian’s camera, it makes my photos look pretty without me not knowing what I’m doing. The colour is fairly true to this, it’s pretty and it’s bright, it is Manos Maxima in ‘Speeding Ticket’, good name huh?

It’s been a good fibrey week, I’ve just received my invitation to join David’s Southern Cross Fibre Club! I signed up to the waiting list more than 2 years ago. Since then I’ve tried to avert my eyes from the specially dyed fibre that the subscribers receive, to avoid the green-eyed monster. I’m now looking forward to being a part of the club and the deliciousness that’s going to arrive for me each month.

Oh and we have our new heater running and I have barely left the house all weekend. All is well.

Our heater at home is broken once again.

You may recall it was broken at the start of this winter season (it also broke down at the start of last season, but I digress). After a month of waiting for the repair man to come out, it was fixed, the repairs were not cheap. So you can understand our frustration when not 2 months later, it is broken again. But worse than that, now we are in the depths of the season. With customer service from the repairer being ‘rather poor’ on top of our ‘feed-up-ed-ness’ of laying out more money. We’re getting a new one!

I’m trying to think of the positives.

1. In the 2 evenings without heating, I have slept surprisingly well! No waking up at 2am and no tossing and turning to get back to sleep. Which leads us to believe we need to turn off the vents in our bedroom, so that we do sleep in a completely cold room. Simple.

2. Damian has worn his hand-knitted chunky hoody. He’s had to. And now he’s open to having a jumper knit for him by me, yay! Except he’d prefer a finer gauge, so that it would be worn more often… boo.

3. I need to update our blanket stash! Most of my hand knit blankies, don’t seem to be long enough.

See you again when things are a bit warmer.

 

Today was Marilyn’s 2nd birthday party. But more importantly, I got to hand over the stripy cardigan I knit for her. It was a great relief to me once my sister dressed her in it. I think it looks great on her and I’m so glad I persevered and ripped out all the ugly colours.

Is it really only 3 weeks to the Bendigo Show?

In my blog post about Tarndie last week, I failed to mention the stash enhancement that occurred over the duration of the weekend. It didn’t help that I went away with a bunch of ‘enablers’. On top of having the onsite wool store, Janet had also brought along lots of great sock yarns from a store that was/has closed down. All of these acquisitions have been added to my Ravelry page in the interests of full disclosure (to myself), my wool shelf is now more than ever, bursting at the seams. Oh what fun! Luckily the recent destashing of unloved yarn has provided me with some room under the bed. How convenient.

 

I stayed at Tarndwarncoort last weekend. It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! 

For a number of years when I’ve purchased yarn and fibre from Wendy Dennis (at the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show), I’ve often thought how wonderful it would be to stay in the big old homestead, the birthplace of Polwarth sheep; I recall seeing the flyers about staying in the homestead at Bendigo, but never followed up on it. My chance came when I was invited to attend with other knitters and one spinner from SnB Melbourne.

Here I am totally blessed out on our ‘farm walk’, there are sheep in the distance, they saw us coming!

The Homestead (not pictured here, because I didn’t take a photo before my camera ran out of battery), was directly opposite the on-site WoolShop. Handy huh?

Us wandering around with our tour guide Janet.

Sheeps, keeping their distance.

So many interesting things to see, an enjoyable walk around the Dennis sheep property.

The dining room is magnificent. It was the back drop to our Saturday evening dinner.

Photos of food, or it didn’t happen.

It was also Winter Solstice night.

And after dinner the table was cleared and some knitting began around the dining room table. I was spinning some Polwarth fibre dyed by Wendy on my Little Gem in the front windows of the dining room. An amazing evening in an amazing room filled with so much family history.

I would love to visit again, maybe the Richmond Knitters might be interested?

 

After what felt like a productive week last week, this week wasn’t so much.

I have almost completed Marilyn’s next cardigan, Tulip, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I was excited about this project in the beginning but now I’m not so. As someone who is working through her stash, or at least trying to keep her head above water, I try to use ‘stash yarn’ as much as possible; particularly when it comes to kids knits… let’s be honest they grow out of them much too quickly to outlay money for ‘nice’ yarn. But ‘nice’ yarn from stash is FREE ha ha.

So I cast-on Tulip in some Patons Merino Deluxe last weekend, and I thought I would use lots of different colours from the range in my stash, using small amounts of colour is not going to compromise quantities for future large projects (famous last words).

After a few days of knitting and then arriving home from Knit night on Monday night, I stood back and took stock of my project sitting on my knitting chair. A feeling of dread began to filter in. I think I’ve used too many dull colours, this is meant to be a fun, girly cardigan. It was starting to look seriously bad. I decided to leave out the project and come at it with fresh eyes on Tuesday morning… by Tuesday evening I hadn’t changed my mind on the direction of the colours. So I pulled out about 2 hours of knitting. Knowing how often I would be seeing Marilyn wearing this cardigan, I couldn’t stand the thought.

So I ripped it out, not all the way, I felt I had to remove the dirty green and gray colours; then maybe, maybe it would be ok.

I don’t think I’ve ever ripped out ‘perfectly good’ knitting before. But colour is SO important. Why make something you don’t love? I’m happier with it now, but the colours still don’t feel perfect to me. I’ve seen too many beautiful rainbow coloured Tulip cardigans, to be less critical of my own efforts.

I’m just finishing off the applied i-cord tie around the neckline, then I’m in sleeve-land, I’m hoping I’ll feel more than MEH for the cardigan once it’s completed.

I’m participating in the Little Dipper Yarns KAL so hopefully there will be a cast-on at knit nite tomorrow night, I’m so behind!