wool

Bendigo 2025!

| Sonia Knits

It’s only 360-ish days until Bendigo 2026 as my husband cruelly tells me! What a weekend, and it was over much too fast.

As usual, we headed up early on the Wednesday. We had brunch at our favourite cafe, the one that serves tiny chocolate teddies with your coffee! I visited the Bendigo Woollen Mills, and bought a jumpers worth of yarn; Cumulo which is a limited edition NZ Perendale, non-superwash. I also bought their beautiful publication which was released last year about the history of the mill.

I thought that would be my one and only trip to the mill for the weekend, but I was very wrong. I also visited on Friday after the show, as they had just released a limited-edition Corriedale wool. I was very tempted, but walked away empty-handed. I also visited on Saturday after the show, to assist our friend Charlotte (it was manic, I’ve never been there whilst it’s that busy). Charlotte has never been to the mill, she bought a few balls and left very happy. Now I know why it’s smart to go early in the week before the hoards of crafters arrive in town.

Pictured above are the Penny gloves (mitts) by Petite Knit, that I finished knitting on Thursday afternoon. For the show, I also knitted a colour sample of a beanie for my friend Danni aka HalfBaked hand-dyed. And because this was a sample for the show, I knit another version of the Bendigo Beanie by Sanna & Co. for me. The weekend, turned out to not be too cold with lots of sunshine, which was wonderful. Which meant, I didn’t need to wear my mitts for much of the time; and when my friend Sharon (a second Sharon) turned up on Saturday wearing a store bought beanie, I immediately gifted her my Bendigo Beanie. It looked great on her!

On Friday the show began! In the morning, my knitting group took some group photos of us wearing our Wool & Honey knits and hexagon/bee hive inspired accessories. 10 of us then attended the Women of Wool luncheon, which was fabulous this year.

My excited face on Friday morning!

A little bit of shopping happened before and post lunch.

On Saturday, I did a spot of shopping and ate my first Bendigo Hot Jam Donut. Our non-crafty friends arrived (except for Charlotte, she’s a mad crocheter) plus Damian’s mum, and I spent the day looking at the sheep, shearing and sheep dog trials.

The Richmond Knitters also had a second photo shoot of Wool & Honey knits for the Saturday crew.

Saturday night was the knitting group’s Bendigo Dinner. We had some extra guests, designers & hand dyers which made for a fun and lively night.

Sunday I arrived home with quite a haul. It was an amazing weekend, with souvenirs to match.

I kind of diverted from my shopping list, purchasing sock yarn that wasn’t on the list! I’ve come home with enough for 11 pairs, gasp! And 3 sweaters worth of yarn for planned projects which were on the list, hooray for me. If you’d like to take a look at the details, check them out on Ravelry, I’m just ‘Sonia’ there.

I’ve got lots of knitting to do.

A colourful weekend

| Sonia Knits

I’m still going on my Stripes! sweater by Andrea Mowry. For some reason I thought I would be done by now, but a week for a sleeve is probably fair. Thank you for your kind suggestions, about knitting the sleeves 2 at a time. I just really detest knitting anything 2 at a time! I also got fed up with having to grab the next colour. So, I wound all of the yarn (in the correct order) into a gobstopper ball for fun.

The long weekend has been a good time to get a few things done. I’ve been dyeing, or rather over-dyeing some yarn and a sweater! I’ve wanted to correct some dye jobs (that I did) for a while now. Every time I looked at my yarn set aside for sweaters in my stash. I haven’t wanted to use the ones I dyed… so it was either fix it, or donate it.

These are the ‘Before’ skeins. I no longer like variegated yarn for sweaters, my tastes have changed…

This is the ‘After’

I’m much happier with these… but some of the skeins are still not quite right. The tarragon skeins look pretty good (phew!), but the ‘night’ ones have a few light patches in them. The bloodwood skeins were all good, except for one with a shocking flash of red. This was due to it being missed in the dye pot.

And here’s the Dragonfly sweater I knit, originally dyed in dusk.

Whilst I love the sweater, I never really liked all the white bits. So I attempted to over dyed in fuchsia. I kind of messed up the dyeing on this one too. I put in 50gms of dye for the 500gms of the sweater into the dye pot. Ten minutes in, I began thinking the colour was not deep enough to cover up the dusk colour. So what did I do? I dissolved the rest of the dye in my glass jar and threw it into the dye pot. Amateur! The result is uneven dyeing, there’s some really dark bits, and some not as dark bits. Dyeing is hard work! I have so much more appreciation for hand-dyers after this weekends escapades. The sweater may have gotten smaller as well…

Not to worry, I’ve ordered more dye, and the touch-ups will continue next weekend. Then I may never dye again.

Here’s my cast-on for March, I’ve casted on today. I’m knitting Wool and Honey by Andrea Mowry for my knitting group’s Bendigo sweater. If you’re not from here, The Australian Sheep and Wool show is in Bendigo, a large regional town in Victoria. It takes place every July. This is the 5 or 6th year my knitting group has made this tradition. I absolutely love this colour. This will be the second time I’ve made this, it was super fun the first time 6 years ago.

I think I may lengthen the sleeves on both versions. It’s been a week of improvements.

Alpaca Road Trip, Crafty Weekend & Sock Knitting

| Sonia Knits

A couple of weeks ago, I took a Tuesday off from work and joined a ‘Road Trip’ organised by my local yarn store Sunspun to go to my favourite Alpaca Farm and Woollen Mill, Great Ocean Road Woollen Mill! Do not be fooled by the name, they are now known as GORWM since relocating inland to Burrumbeet (near Ballarat).

It was a lovely way to spend a day. Virginia, the owner of Sunspun had it all very well organised, and chatting to Nick and Isabel (from GORWM) is always a fun time, they’re so cool.

The highlight for me was meeting some of the Alpacas, they had just been shorn not too long ago. They are so cute. I bought some yarn, of course I bought some yarn! For a summer knit, hopefully once my Calm Down cardigan is finished.

Then last weekend, I headed to Rye for a crafty retreat with girlfriends, it was such a lovely relaxing time. None of us quite know how long we’ve been going away together for, but we might work it out one day!

I’ve just finished these ‘Canberra’ socks, in Halfbaked Hand-dyed’s DK sock. These are my favourite socks yet.

Now back to knitting my Calm Down cardigan before my weekend is over.