Julie's Stuff

Yes, I know, it's been a long time.  It seems once you get out of the habit of blogging it's hard to get back into the habit...  I was reminded how long it was by a friend, who happens to be the recipient of some gift knitting I've been doing (well, not her exactly, her daughter).  So, In order to keep an expectant mother and her three-year-old happy, I'm blogging a cute little "lello" cardi:

And you can probably guess from the buttons that I may have knit for this particular three-year-old before:

The other gift knitting is for my mother.  I gave my mother a gift certificate for her birthday, but not just any gift certificate.  I promised to make her a jumper.  A fine-gauge cashmere jumper.  After some consultation she selected a nice dark grey 4-ply cashmere from Colourmart and gave me a "stunt-double" jumper for me to replicate.  I took a lot of measurements, plugged them into a trial version of Knitware and got knitting.  A day and a half later I have jumper bits:

(The loose green thread is for the neckline stitches that are on hold waiting for a neckband.  No, I haven't snuck in some green to relieve the complete grey-ness, although I was sorely tempted...)

You can probably guess that I didn't do all of this by hand!  The machine has been getting a workout over the past few months and I'm getting very comfortable with it.  I'm recognising it's strengths and weaknesses and I'm adjusting my expectations accordingly.  Simple stocking stitch jumpers and cardigans are very fast to knit (unfortunately sewing them up is not quite so fast!) and so that's what I'm focussing on.  I've made the Boy a cashere jumper and myself a wool cardigan that fits really nicely.  I promise more photos to come.

There has been plenty of knitting over the past few months that has gone unblogged.  some of it I've even photographed with every intention of blogging.  But, I know how boring excuses are to read, so I'll stop now and just say that I promise to at least try to make more time to keep my two loyal readers up to date....

Long time no blogie.  And it's not like it's been quiet here either, which is probably partly why the blog silence - too busy doing stuff to blog about it!  Since this is ostensibly a knitting blog, let's start with the finished objects that have appeared over the past month and a half.  First up, a little something I finished on Christmas Day:

It's the Gathered Pullover (Rav link) from Interweave Knits Winter '07.  I finished it in the heat of summer so the photo shoot had to wait.  Fortunately it was freezing last weekend (OK, not really freezing, but cool enough to mean I wouldn't fry in a jumper), so on it went.  The neckline is a little low, but with a camisole underneath it I quite like it.  I used the Cascade Venezia I bought in Hawaii in April and love the yarn.  It's soft, warm and has a really nice sheen from the silk.  I'd use it again.

Next up, a small baby cardigan for a friend I did over the Christmas holidays:

It's the first time I've ever done a top-down anything (except socks obviously!), and I really liked it.  The pattern is the Garter Yoke Baby Cardi available as a free Ravelry download, and I highly recommend it as a ver quick and easy baby knit.

Next, some socks. 

The Kool Aid dyed Patonyle didn't last for long in ball form!  I borrowed the Child's Sock in Miranda Pattern from Nancy Bush's Knitting Vintage Socks and inserted it into my stardard sock recipe.  I love them.  The colour came out really nicely and the pattern was a very quick knit.

Next, a summer knit:

 

Lotus Blossom Tank from IK Summer '06 out of the Linen Drape that has been mouldering around here for years.  According to Rav I started this on Jan 5th and finished on Feb 2nd.  Not bad going I think.  I enjoyed the knit on this thoroughly, and I think I'm going to enjoy wearing it.  It's the first summer knit I've ever made.  More tank tops are required.

And finally, socks for the Boy (the Scrolls pattern from More Sensational Knitted Socks in Tofutsies - the Boy's new favourite summer-weight yarn - named Kermit because it's not easy being green...), seen here in action:

Because he's too busy playing with his latest finished object to have a proper photo taken of them:

Yep, he's built himself a workbench.   Which means I get my craft room back - it had become storage for a wide range of woodworking tools.  Happy days all round.

Phew.  I think I'm done.  Ah, and I have finished the lace seen in the last post too, but it's not blocked yet so you'll just have to wait for that!

Summer holidays around here mean lots of sitting around, eating leftovers, watching cricket and generally trying to escape from the heat.  Over the past few years I've added in lots of knitting to the standard list.  Last year and the year before I seemed to had a penchent for Fair Isle (OK, last year there was a bit of lace too).  This year I seemed to learn my lesson, and I chose lace.  Big lace.  I actually cast on for this on my birthday (30th Nov) as a little treat, and made a bit of progress:

before Christmas got in the way.  I just didn't have the brain power during the week to make a lot of progress, and the Boy's socks and a gift for his mother (still to be blogged) got in the way.

Before I show you the current photos (which, of course, you can go peek at in Ravelry if you don't want to read this), I'll tell you the story of how I came to buy the yarn.  It's 100% hand dyed laceweight silk made by a woman who lives about 3 suburbs away.  One day, mid November, the Boy and I were driving up to Galston to visit Swane's nursery and get some fresh strawberries.  As we drove along I spotted out of the corner of my eye something that looked like large skeins of wool draped over a white picket fence outside a small community hall.  "Wool!"  I exclaimed.  The Boy said "where?" and I said "Back there!".  It was too late to turn around, but we agreed that we could stop off on the way back and investigate. 

We did our shopping and made our way back to the serendipitous wool.  Which turned out to be silk and beautiful.  There was a craft show on (that name always conjures up images of crocheted doilies and nasty acrylic toilet roll covers) and it was stunning.  There were jewellers and felters and weavers and all sorts of other things.  No acrylic to be seen.  I eventually found the yarn up the back in a corner.  She had many 100g skeins, but very few duplicates in colours that I liked.  When I saw it I'd decided that I wanted to do something big with it.  Possibly for the Easter Show (maybe.  If I like it enough).  So I wanted two skeins and had to do a fair bit of rummaging to find two that I liked.  I did, and walked away very happy with my score (no, they weren't really cheap - $65 for the two skeins).  And so, the hunt for a shawl began.  Many hours hunting through Ravelry ensued, and I finally selected Summer into Fall as my pattern.  I've never done a square shawl before, and it looked relatively easy - no border to attach, no grafting.  So, off I went.

And where did I get up to over the holidays?

The blob stage!  Twice actually - I swapped from 60cm to 120cm needles at about the 35% mark.  I'm now about 70% done and I think I'll finish it by the end of January.  I've got 28 rows to go, but they're huge now!  Oh, you want a closeup?

You can sort of see the slight variagation in the colours here - there's a slight pinkish tinge and a slight yellowish tinge to parts of it.  It shimmers beautifully.  I'm sure it will block out beautifully ... if I can find somewhere large enough to block it!  It's huge - it should end up about 60" square! 

I'm not sure if knitting will increase or decrease over the next few weeks.  Our TV died on Monday (it was an 9-year-old plasma and the heat finally got to it) and the new one (a nice, big, cool LCD) will either show up this weekend (if we manage to score one from this shipment), or in 2-3 weeks time (if we're unlucky).  Given that TV watching seems to increase my knitting time, I'm a bit concerned.

It's about time for a vegie garden post don't you think?  There's a reason things are a little delayed this year.  We came back from our honeymoon to discover that the garden that was formerly our vegie patch looked like this:

Yeah.  There was a small problem in going away during spring!  After many hours of mowing, brush-cutting, weeding, digging and mulching, the plot was revealed and we were ready to plant.  This year we were determined to be as self-sufficient at possible for as long as possible.  That meant staggering our plantings and planting more a lot closer together than we had been.  It seems to be working:

That large bushy stuff that looks like weeds at the end is oregano.

After three months, we're firmly in harvest mode.  We haven't bought lettuce in weeks, and we're hoping that the tomatos, corn and snowpeas start coming on strongly over the next few weeks.  Last night part of our dinner salad looked like this:

That's four different varieties of tomatos and enough snowpeas for more than a snack.  There are other plants showing promise too:

  

No, Jackson, there aren't enough tomatos for a decent harvest yet - give it another fortnight!

Oh really, how could I resist that title?

Many months (possibly even years) ago I swapped a pattern book for some yarn.  This was back when Patonyle had been discontinued with no thoughts of coming back ever.  Patonyle is my all-time favourite sock yarn, so when I saw my swap paterner had some in her stash, I requested it as part of the swap with no real though to the colour.  I had vague thoughts of overdyeing it, but never really did anything with it.  Back in April when we were in Hawaii I had bought some Kool Aid with thoughts of playing around with Kool Aid dyeing.  Can you see where this is going?

It was all brought to a head last week when the sock yarn stash was draged out to settle an arguement (whose turn it was for the next pair of socks (me), and how much stash I actually had (enough for 12 pairs - 7 for the Boy, 5 for me)).  I spotted this poor Patonyle and thought ah ha!  I know what to do with this!

And so an easy Saturday morning project was born.  Here it is in pictures:

The colour is somewhere between the two shots above.  I rather like it.  It's not something I would have chosen off the shelf perhaps, but I like it better than the original colour, and the process was incredibly simple.  I still have some Kool Aid left in a variety of colours, so I can see some more experimenting in my future.  What fun!

You may have noticed that it's almost Christmas.  Hard not to notice really - the knitting blogs are full of people frantically knitting gifts, the shops are full of decorations and "gift ideas" (mostly the stuff that they can't sell during the rest of the year), and it's getting hotter.  That means for us that the tree(s) has gone up,





another year bauble has been purchased



(OK, so that was fairly obviously purchased at least a month ago!)

 and the Boy has a new pair of socks:







(Lorna's Laces in Country Christmas, pattern is Christmas Candy Canes from Knit Picks).  Yes, I know you can barely see the pattern, but it staved off the mind-numbing boredom of knitting plain stocking stitch socks.

There is other knitting happening for Christmas and I'm about to go cast on!

It's been so long since I've done a "traditional" post that I've almost forgotten how!  Let's start with the finished objects shall we?

First up, Oblique:



This was done a week or so before we got married, and it's been worn a bit too.

Details:

Pattern:  Oblique from Knitty
Yarn:  Sheffield from Webs in Oatmeal
Mods:  I made it significantly shorter than the pattern and didn't do the roll-back sleeves.  It's a good length as it stands I think.
Overall:  The yarn is very fluffy and a bit pilly, but I think I can cope with that.  It's a nice spring/autumn cardigan and I think I'll get a lot of wear out of it.

There are some things in progress, but they can wait for next time. 

I'd like to finish this post with the ultimate FO:




For several years (about 4, maybe more), the Boy has been working on building an arcade machine from scratch.  It started with him winning a motherboard (or some bit of hardware) and wondering what to do with it.  Suffice it to say, that bit of hardware is long gone....  But, he's been of work for a couple of weeks (actually his contract ended early and he's looking for a new one, but the market is a little quiet), so this is what he's been spending time on.  Many, many, many hours of work have gone into this, and some blood.... 

Finally last night I got an SMS saying blip *blip *blip*, and I knew the time had come - he'd got it working!   We celebrated by playing an inaugural game of Frogger, drinking some champagne (we'd brought back a magnum of Taittinger especially for this occasion), and eating the Australian version of Froggyburgers (the bread was ordinary, but we have managed to locate HP sauce, and the onions and beef were good).  Note to my mother - games of PacMan (and any other arcade game you care to name) are 20c each.  Bring your change - we have to recoup the costs somehow.  No, it's not quite finished - there will be some glass and a proper bezel where you can see the hole in the top, but it's good enough for now!

No, I'm not budget planning.  But, when doing a search for budget planners for work, the second page of results showed up a Wool Budget Planner.  No, it wasn't what I was expecting it to be....

Oh, yes, we're back.  Yes, there's a little bit of knitting.  I will drag out the camera this weekend and do a proper post, promise!

I figured the majority of the Honeymoon blog readers wouldn't be interested in the knitting, so I've resorted to using my knitting blog for, well, knitting.  Shock!  In London we bought a teapot from a shop across the road from Buckingham Palace.  It's very cute and was impossible to resist:



But, of course, it needed a cosy.  We went to Liberty a few days later and I picked up a ball of Rowan's Pure Life British Sheep Breeds wool in Blue Faced Leicster.  It's a nice, soft wool and quite chunky, making it perfect for emergency cosy knitting.  We've taken to sitting around in the afternoon having tea, so the time for cosy was nigh.  I had been contemplating how I was going to make cosy to fit that teapot for a while, but figured that the easiest thing to do was to just start knitting and see what happened.  I started with two rectangles of 2x2 rib that I seemed together to make the body.  I left the top stitches live to allow me to pick up stitches easier for the top.  Then I knit the top in garter stitch (it seemed easier somehow) across the top to alow for the orientation of the handle, increased a bit as I went to make the knitting fit the curve of the top and et voila:



Teacosy!  I'm very pleased with it - about 2 hours work all up, and it fits really nicely.  I haven't washed it yet, so the stitches are a bit uneven, but I'm sure it'll perform it's job admirably.

The honeymoon blog is up and running!  Check out http://honeymoon.stuffworld.info for the latest news on our travels.  So far I'm updating daily, but that might change as we get more relaxed, or have more trouble finding the internet in the French countryside.  The London hotel has free wifi, so we're making use of it!

I finally finished the Hanging Garden stole for my Bridesmaid, so I figured it was time to get married.



Saturday dawned cold, grey, rainy and miserable.  I had resigned myself to bad weather earlier in the week when the forecast started swapping between "occasional showers", "a shower or two" and "showers easing".  I was fairly sure that meant that at some point it was going to rain.  Luckily we had an excellent indoor option, so I wasn't too worried.

I had spent the last few days running around (one of my tasks was to go find welding rods to block the shawl - I had success and can highly recommend stainless steel TIG welding rods available from your local welding supply shop), and was pleased that my wedding day consisted mostly of me being at home.  My mother and bridesmaid came over and we spent 5 hours getting our hair and makeup done.  Who knew it took so long!  Everyone was mostly calm (with the possible exception of me), and we all operated according to schedule.  My bridesmaid's husband (OK, she really should be called a "Matron of Honour", but she prefers bridesmaid) arrived with the car to transport us to the venue right on time and we carefully made our way to the car.  There were many umbrellas and a change of shoes for me involved, but we all made it without too much drama.

We had arrived at the venue right on time and I was met by the photographer for a few "entry" shots and the celebrant who had everything under tight control.  I was very grateful at that point to be dealing with a professional celebrant who had done this many times before!  We made our way towards the ceremony location (up stairs on the balcony rather than in the gardens) and I heard the strains of my harpist playing (she's a student from the Conservatorium - highly recommended).  And then before I knew it we were on.  I really did try to stay calm and pay attention to the ceremony but nerves had definitely taken hold.  I did try to make sure I spoke loud enough to be heard and I'm pretty sure we said all the right things (well, I flubbed one line but quickly recovered).  And then we were all legal:



Because of the rain, drinks in the garden and photography hour were somewhat curtailed and we ran about an hour ahead of schedule, but I was unconcerned.  There was some fussing around with the iPod at the beginning of the reception too so we were without music for the first 30 minutes or so of dinner, but that was quickly rectified.  The food was excellent, the speeches were short and simple and everyone seemed to have a good time.  One big advantage of a small wedding (we had 15 people in total including us) is that we got to spend a lot of time together rather than having to spend our time talking to people we hardly know.  There was no official dancing, but the boy and I had a little dance to Van Morrison's "Someone Like You" which has probably now become "our song"

We asked to have the "getaway car" arrive early as things seemed to be winding down.  So, at about 9:30 we were ready to leave.  We said our goodbyes and made our way downstairs to the entrance.  I was looking around for a standard limo, but it turned out that the vintage Rolls Royce sitting at the front door was there for us.  That was somewhat unexpected!  Unfortunately there wasn't anyone with a camera around, so you'll just have to believe me.  We got to our hotel (the Siebel Pier One) all dressed up and they gave us late checkout without us having to ask (tip for next time - show up in your wedding dress to get free late checkout!).  We relaxed in our room over a bottle of champagne, the Boy took out all my pins, I washed my har to remove the ton of hairspray and we slept.

And now, we have one and a half days until we fly out on our honeymoon.  We are relaxing and enjoying the perfect weather that arrived yesterday. 

The ceremony photo was lifted shamelessly from my mother's Picassa album where you can see more photos.  The professional photos won't be ready until after we get back from our honeymoon, so you'll all have to wait until the end of October.  We had a perfect day despite the weather and we are looking forward to almost 2 months away.  We do have a honeymoon blog set up and almost ready to go - I'll post the link here when it's ready to go public!

It's been cosy time again.  Both the Boy and I recently got iPhones (woo hoo!), which, of course, necessitated more cosy action.  The Boy also managed to get an iTouch, so more cosys needed.  So, perhaps it's time for a cosy line-up.  I corralled all the iThings in the house together:



And then they all wanted to come out and say hi:



Clockwise from top left:  The Boy's original white iPod, the Boy's new black iPod, my iPhone (yes, I'm the odd one out - that's the DNA cable pattern), the Boy's iTouch and the Boy's iPhone.

There's a bit of "spot the difference" action in those two photos - note the cosy for the Boy's iPhone.  Yes, it's double sided.  He wanted the rainbow Apple, but thinks that the grey adds a bit of the sleek and modern (it also helps him tell the difference between the two!).  I used the same chart for all of them, and the same colours for the stripes on the iTouch cosy as I used for the iPhone.  Do I have a cosy problem?  I don't think so.  I think we might have a small addiction to iThings though....

My mother and I (and 300 other people) are currently rehearsing for our next choir concert (Beethoven's Mass in C and Ode to Joy - come along, we're sounding fabulous!).  For the past few weeks we've been rehearsing in a large, very cold church in Darlinghurst and shivering.  Last week my mother said "now I understand why people wear fingerless gloves", or words to that effect.  How on earth could I resist?  I had received a ball of Patons Soft Touch Haze in a Ravelry swap that looked perfect for the job.  But what pattern to chose?  Well, of course if you're going to knit fingerless gloves out of 10ish ply, there is only one choice:



Yep, Fetching.  Sigh.  I was the 6771^st pair of Fetchings in Ravelry.  So unoriginal.  But, I can understand why they're so popular.  Each glove took me about 2 hours to knit and they're really easy but very effective.  They fit well too, and the yarn is remarkably soft (it's a brushed Acrylic/Wool/Bamboo blend) and nice to knit with.

My mother is going to be jealous tomorrow night

When my bridesmaid asked last week if she should buy a shawl to wear for the wedding "just in case", I knew it was time for a progress update on the lace.



And because a closeup is impossible to resist:



That's 8 repeats done, 4 to go in four weeks.  Yes, I'm sure it'll be done in time!

And the other piece of wedding knitting?  Done and done:

 

The hearts look a little odd - I tried to convert the written instructions into a chart (I'm not good with written instructions for lace), and I think I might have messed up a little.  But, they are recognisable as hearts, the cables are nice and the yarn is gorgeous.  I highly recommend Dream in Colo(u)r Smooshy if you can get your hands on it!  But I hate toe-up socks with a passion.  The heel took me two goes to get right and more than double the amount of time it takes me to knit a regular top-down heel flap.  Never again.  And no, short row heels won't work - they just don't fit either of us properly.  I'll just stick with top-down unless the absolutely perfect pattern has to be knit toe-up.

Wedding talk is now banned for the next 28 days.  I am becoming a little ... er ... obsessed with the whole thing and I think it's best to minimise the discussion of it!  Everything bar the final selection of the music and flower varieties is done.  Rings are picked up, suits are organised and menu is finalised.  I see the florist in two weeks to select the flowers and the music theme has been decided, so we're basically organised.  I'm telling myself to breathe - in exactly 28 days time I will be Mrs Boy!