Swirl Hat for Zeffy

I completed this hat a while ago in June for little second cousin Zef. It is knitted in Moda Vera Sombre which is a soft cotton yarn, perfect for sensitive baby skin. I knitted this one up quickly before I went on holiday since by the time I got back, winter would've been two thirds of the way through.

What a cutie!

I think it may be a bit big but all the better to grow into.

I'm Engaged!!!

Interrupting the knitting chatter to announce that I'm Engaged! Woohooo!

Here's the bling - Pink Argyle Diamond in the centre, uniquely Australian from the Argyle Pink Diamond mines located in the Kimberly Plateau in Western Australia:

For those who don't know, Tim and I have been a couple for a bit more than ten years now. We went on holiday and as Tim cannot keep secrets from me, I knew he was going to propose during the trip. At the end of the trip when we were in Vietnam (Nha Trang) he asked me to marry him although somewhat informally. Of course I said yes and when we got back to Sydney we went ring shopping. I also said he needed to take me to a nice restaurant to celebrate since we didn't do that on the proposal so we'll be doing that on Friday :)

Purple Handspun

So recently, I learnt how to spin and the lovely Adriana (Kaaktus on Ravelry) gave me her old spinning wheel. It is a vintage Ashford Traditional and isn't branded since supposedly it was made before Ashford started branding. The next related exciting thing is, I went to the Sutherland Spinners and Weavers Guild's Winter Wool Festival. That was quite impressive to say the least. The quality of items for sale and showcased works were fantastic. I visited Glenora Weaving's stand and bought some First Edition Fibre. I've always been meaning to try some of this. I got a purplish silk-merino blend. The colourway is actually made up of strips of purple-blue, dark pink-red and white. It spun up beautifully! I love it.

The picture is only of 70g. I had a total of 250g so I still have heaps to spin up. I spun this worsted as a 2ply. It's about 13-14wpi which makes it approximately a fingering-sport weight yarn (i.e. 4-5ply). I haven't yet washed it so it might bloom after washing.

The photo was also taken from my new camera which I absolutely LOVE. It's the Canon Powershot S100. I highly recommend this camera to anyone who wants decent photos. It's amazing the quality of the photos from a point and shoot compact camera.

Question for Knitters/Crocheters

So here's a list of questions I saw posted on the CanaryKnits group discussion board on Ravelry which I thought were interesting to see responses too. Feel free to contribute here with your answers to the questions.

1. Are you always happy with your FO’s?
Mostly yes. Sometimes I might be disappointed but when I wear the FO, I realise that it wasn’t so bad after all! Sometimes I realise that the style of the FO is not for me so I won’t be as happy and I don’t know what to do with them.

2. Are you sometimes so disappointed that you frog everything and start a new project?
I never frog FOs or ones close to completion.

3. Do you wear your knits or do they end up at the bottom of a cupboard? If so, why?
I wear the ones I like and I don’t wear the ones that didn’t turn out as I hoped. Most knits that I give away tend to be things I intended to give away right from the beginning (before I start the knit) so things which I am disappointed in just languish rather than get given away after they are completed.

4. Do you always make a swatch?
Depends what I am knitting and for who. If it is a shawl, I don’t bother so much, especially if it’s a garter tab start since, if I don’t like the fabric, I can just rip it out and restart and it would be about the same effort as a swatch. If it is for someone else, I tend to be a bit more fussy with the swatching and making sure the fabric is ok for the yarn. I tend to swatch for fitted garments but I don’t wash the swatch or cast off, I just rip it out and knit with it when I’m happy.

5. Would you rather work with some yarns you know well rather than others to avoid bad surprises?
No, I knit with all different yarn.

Hanami for Evelyn

I've been knitting a Hanami Stole for Evelynkl7. This one took me a while as it was done in two ply lace. I've dated it as taking two months from start to finish but in that time I wasn't working soley on this. The yarn was supplied by Evelyn and it is Misti Alpaca Hand Paint Lace. It is in the colourway "Sugar sand" which is an appropriate name as it does look like sand. At first the colour looks just like a yellowish beige colour, but when you look closely, it is actually a combination of very light blues, yellows, oranges, greys and creams. It is 100% baby alpaca - very soft but it sheds!

I thoroughly enjoyed making this shawl. It has been on my wishlist since forever. I added beads throughout the cherry blossom section as well as on the cast on edge. The beads are Mill Hill size 8 glass beads with a silver lining. I used two packs of these. The trouble with beads though is that they always seem to get knocked over so I'm pretty sure I lost quite a few. As "payment", I received the same yarn and beads (which I used for this shawl anyway!)

Purple Swap

So, yesterday I received some goodies from the lovely AmandavW in the Aussie Swappers Purple Swap. I received the packaged delivered to work and was going to open it at home but I was tempted and so I opened it! And what a wonderful package! I could barely wipe the smile off my face as I unveiled it all.

The goodies all wrapped up with purple ribbon

Package unwrapped and look at these goodies! Misti Alpaca 4ply yarn (this has alpaca, wool, silk and nylon in it), a purple sunset card, a bunch of Cadbury chocs in purple wrapping and a Stockholm Scarf which I've been wanting for a while! I'd knitted with Misti Alpaca lace for Evelyn's WWFY Hanami Stole which is in progress right now and I thought it was wonderful stuff. To get a purple 4ply version is great!

Here is the scarf in action. It's knitted with Bendigo Woollen Mills Moorland which is an alpaca and wool blend. I love how soft alpaca is. I was actually starting to think that I'd asked for too much by putting the scarf on my wish list but here it is now:

And then, just as I thought I'd covered everything, Amanda mentioned that there was also a yarn cutter in there somewhere. YARN CUTTER! I so needed something of the sort since I'm planning to go on a trip in July and I'd need something to cut yarn on the plane perhaps. I was thinking of bringing a dental floss pack but I won't need to since now I have this!

It was all very exciting and I'm thankful to Amanda for putting together such a lovely bunch of purple fun. I LURVE purple.

Snapdragon Flip-Tops

These flip-top mitts were knitted for irkutskaya (Hilary) in a WWFY job. The yarn is lovely, it is Madeline Tosh DK in the colourway "gilded" which is the same colour as the one featured in the pattern photos. Hilary picked these beautiful purple buttons which I think are BETTER than the ones in the pattern photos.

I submitted this in a Nerd Wars challenge as well for the Man-Made Overlords Nerd Culture category to demonstrate how flip-top mitts made it convenient to use high-technology like laptops and mobile phones.

Ball Sack

So I knitted a BALL SACK *snickers*

Looks like this without the yarn in it:

It's for my swap partner in my Aussie Swappers Purple swap. I sent it off today so hopefully she won't be nosey and start stalking me back to see what I've made! I've used leftover Moda Vera Noir self-striping sock yarn. It didn't take much yarn and only took me a day (i.e. a day knitting during my free time, not an entire day). Hope she finds it useful.

Sh*t Knitters Say

Love this video. I do the photo thing a lot!

Hearts and Ears!

Mini project update time. I completed two mini projects just before last weekend. One was an Ears baby hat for my new little second cousin Zeffy. It is knitted with Cleckheaton Bamboo so it's very soft and not at all scratchy. I made Tim a Henry scarf with this same yarn though he's yet to wear it :(

Poor little bugger is always hungry and wanted MOAR FOOD so he was a bit upset but here is Zeffy with it on and with my mum holding him:

The hat with the little Hippo toy we gave him as well

It's a tad big for him just yet but come winter he will likely grow into it. I had a bit of a drama where I washed it on the day of the "month" birthday where we'd see him for the first time, so I had to attempt to dry it quickly with my hair dryer. I don't have a dryer at home so hair dryer was next best option.

My other project is a crochet heart. My Aunty Alice liked the ones I made earlier so I made her one as well and sent her the pattern so she can make some herself:

The originals which she liked were part of an engagement present. The photos of the originals were nicer so here they are:

They're a quick and easy project but a little bit painful because you need to crochet really tightly so the fluff doesn't come out. Also, I'm not really a great crocheter. I just DO STUFF and it magically works. The yarn is Sullivans Coton-A (yes that's how they spelt it) which is an acrylic cotton blend. I submitted this project in Nerd Wars too. I need to work out what category and team tie in to submit the ears hat under.

Lace Ribbon Scarf

I finished off a lovely Wollmeise Lace Ribbon Scarf on the 29th of January in Grashüpfer (grasshopper) green which reminds me of St Patricks Day green. It was another Will Work for Yarn job but time for irkutskaya whom I haven't yet had the pleasure of knitting for yet. I received a caked Wollmeise Lavendel (lavender) and a skein of Wollmeise Twin Heavy Metal (dark grey) in exchange. We had no idea whether the Lavendel was Twin or 100% but I got a little tip to work out what it was. Snip off maybe 1cm of the yarn, unravel it and count the plies. If it has eight plies then it is 100%, otherwise it is twin. I counted eight plies so it's 100%!

2011 - Year in Review

So I was looking through all the projects I'd done in 2011. I am pretty amazed at my output. Keeping in mind I knit mainly on the trip to and from work and whenever else I have spare time like weekends, days off and bits before and after work. My Ravelry total was 33 projects for the year. Some are small projects, some were big projects. So on average it seems I completed about 2.75 projects a month, taking on average 1.6 weeks per project. Here is a little montage of my Ravelry projects:

Out of all these projects, only one was hibernated from the year before. That was Tim's Cricket Vest. For this project, all I needed to finish in 2011 was the arm and neck bands. The last project I completed was the Corona and this one I did a little on New Years Day before it was complete.

All in all, I'm pretty impressed by my progress! Joining Ravelry definitely spurned me on to do way more than I probably would have otherwise, in terms of trying new things, learning new techniques and completing so many projects. Can't wait to do more.

Haruni Lace Shawl

This is my new shawl which I finished on December 27th. This is my Nerd Wars dissertation project for this round. Despite being my second 2 ply project, I actually found it a bit on the easy side but I had quite a lot of knitting going on so I likely wouldn't have completed a more complex dissertation. The pattern is the Haruni. I would've preferred the shawl to be a bit bigger. It's about kerchief size right now. I think I could've fitted another repeat in with the yarn but I was worried that I'd run out.

This was my first project with Malabrigo Lace yarn. This yarn is AMAZING. So soft and squishy. It's like knitting with clouds or cotton wool. The only disadvantage about this yarn is that it's quite fluffy so frogging and tinking back is not recommended if you can avoid it. Also, when blocking, you have to be very very careful to make sure you don't accidentally felt it.

Clapotis

I've been doing heaps of knitting this week since I've taken three days off this week between Christmas and New Years. This is a scarf/stole I knitted for a Will-Work-For-Yarn job which I completed on December 30th. This lovely scarf is for cathg. The pattern is the Clapotis designed by Kate Gilbert. Yarn and pattern chosen and provided by cathg. Yarn is Wollmeise 100% Merino Superwash in the Mauerblümchen colourway.

I received this lovely skein as payment: Wollmeise 100% Merino Superwash in Magnolie Dark, the Perfect Colour!

Sexy Corona

Newly off the needles is the Corona hoodie by designer Canary Sanctuary. This is a really cute sexy top which I absolutely love. I started this in July for my Ravelry Nerd Wars dissertation project but I didn't manage to finish it before the due date. Instead, I finished it for Nerd Wars round three as a WIP. Perfect New Years Day project to complete.