I still knit, I promise! It’s just the blogging that’s borked. And the bout of glorious weather we’ve had has led to an inordinate amount of sewing. Sundresses, skirts, tops, lots and lots of sewing! In fact, I should take pictures of all my sewing projects and blog those – alas, the weather today is uncooperative. It’s cold and it’s raining – much more conducive to knitwear!
If it keeps up, I may even get to wear my newest project that’s almost done.

The Plum Frost cardi is heading for the finish line! Such a boring, boring knit until you get to the colour work, I won’t lie. Sleeves first, gray stocking stitch. Then the body. More gray stocking stitch. But then you get to join it all up and start the prettiness!

That bit went so much faster than any of the rest of it! So now, only 9 rows of stocking stitch to go, then 12 rows of rib.
And then, The Steek.
Lets think about that later, okay?
My work knitting project is the adorable Lily from Rowan’s Summer Baby in Cotton Glace.

Such a cute, cute cardi for a little girl! An easy lace pattern, made effective by the stripes of colour, but those ends are something I’m not looking forward to!
But here’s a hint of the summer sewing – a dress in Liberty Tana Lawn that I finished today – looks better on me than the hanger, I think!

I’m so far behind on my finished projects that I’m giving up and posting them all here right now. I save them sometimes for blog fodder, but then I don’t blog, and the cycle gets bigger and bigger. Time to end it! (The cycle, that is)
First up, Edie.

Oh my, I love this knit!
Specs:
Pattern: Edie by Kim Hargreaves from Precious
Yarn: Rowan Kid Classic in Smoke, 8 balls from Calico & Ivy
Needles: 3.5 and 4mm Addi Turbos
Mods: None. Kim Hargreaves and Kid Classic, what’s not to love? Love the styling, love the smooshiness, love the comfort. I have worn this many times since I finished it a month ago. It’s warm, it’s attractive, love it. And it was quick! I took this as my car knitting when we went to Victoria in July. We were gone a week, and when I got home I had done the back and the front and was halfway up the sleeves. Quick!

Pics thanks to Knitabulous
Next up, a dreadful picture of a gift knit.

I finished it late at night, and it was given away the next day, so the only pic I have is this awful dark one.
Baby knit for a friend of David’s.
Specs:
Pattern: From an old Patons book that seems to be now discontinued.
Yarn: Bendigo 4ply, picked up at the mill whilst we were in Victoria.
Needles: 2.25 & 2.75mm
Mods: I changed the sleeves – the pattern had short sleeves and I wanted long, otherwise pretty much as written.
And finally, a cute one.

Sarah (the lovely Calico & Ivy Balmain manager) found this free pattern on the Rowan website, and asked me to knit one as a store sample. So cute!
It knitted up nice and quick, just a little cuddle toy for a baby.
The day I finished it, I went to the Rowan site to look up the pattern, and it’s gone.
So we now have a store sample and no pattern to offer people.

Specs:
Pattern: Mouse Comfort by Janice Anderson from the Rowan website
Yarn: Rowan Pure Wool DK in Cypress, Tudor Rose and Flour
Needles: 2.75mm and 3.25mm
Mods: None. The pattern also has a Flying Fox option, equally cute, but sadly also equally removed from the Rowan website.
And so now we are up to date. Lets see if I can keep it that way!

So a few months ago, I was at work and the new Rowan magazine had come in. (Issue 49)
Before I even opened the magazine, I knew what I wanted to make. Not the front cover garment, but the one on the back cover.
Fancy.
Love at first sight. I immediately picked out the yarn, Kidsilk Haze in “Heavenly”, and there it sat for a little while until I’d finished some of the projects already on the needles.
And while it was eventually cast on, it wasn’t a quick knit. For a variety of reasons – it wasn’t any good for knitting in company, so it didn’t come along to work, or to knitting groups. When we went away on holiday for a week, I didn’t take it along, it was a little too complex for car knitting. And I just don’t get as much time to knit as I used to!
But eventually, it was done.
And the love hasn’t diminished.

Specs:
Pattern: Fancy by Erika Knight, published in Rowan 49.
Yarn: Kidsilk Haze in Heavenly, 4 balls, purchased at Calico & Ivy, Balmain.
Size: Small
Needles: 3.5mm
Mods: None. I had to go down to a 3.5mm needle to get the correct tension, the pattern calls for 4.5mm. Everything else was done exactly to the pattern.

It’s not an easy pattern, but it wasn’t too bad. Having said that, I love lace, and I love complex knitting. Your mileage may vary! It’s a four row repeat, one of which is a plain knit row, but there are lots of K5 together, make 5 in one, that sort of thing. And you need to be able to keep track of your lace patterning while shaping.

Have I mentioned that I love it? And I love, love, love Kidsilk Haze. It’s like knitting with a cloud – and the jumper is surprisingly warm considering how light it is.
A pattern appropriately named Fancy, knit in a yarn shade called Heavenly. What’s not to love?!?

A super quick post, to bring you all up to date-ish. I’ve been busy, finishing. I’ve had so many projects on the go that it’s made me feel quite frazzled. I like the calm of project monogamy.
But I had Fancy on the needles for myself, and that was a little complex for carry around knitting. So I started Smoulder for Em. Then we went to Victoria for our holiday, and Fancy was too complex for holiday knitting and Smoulder was too close to complete to take along, so I started Edie. For the shop, I was working on Floyd.
Then it all came together, and all were finished in the same week! First off was Smoulder, for Em.

Specs:
Pattern: Smoulder by Kim Hargreaves from her “Whisper” book.
Yarn: Garnstudio DROPS Kid-silk, 4 skeins. A swap gift from BlueADT!
Needles: 3.75mm, 4mm, 6mm and 7mm.
Mods: None
Overall: I’m happy with it, but not ecstatic. Em is ecstatic though, so it’s all good. The sleeves are really narrow. In the book they’re really long, which Em liked. But when she puts it on, because the sleeves are so narrow, they draw right up.
It knit up really quickly – you hold the yarn double and use one small and one large needle. I used my Knitpro Harmony interchangables, one size on each end, and it worked a treat! (Yay for interchangeables!)

Would I knit it again? Maybe. It’s a great piece, and knits up quickly, but I’d either knit a size larger than I think,. or add length. I used up almost all four balls, so I’d need an extra ball to lengthen any part of it. And I crocheted around the neck – only a row of double crochet, but still! Crochet! Me!!
The other finished project was Floyd for the shop. Cute, cute, cute!

Specs:
Pattern: Floyd from Rowan Miniature Classics by Martin Storey
Yarn: Rowan Handknit Cotton 3 balls.
Needles: 3.25mm and 3.75mm Addi turbos
Mods: None
Overall: Cute! I love this book – it’s the one that also has the “Blossom” bolero that I finished recently. It’s full of supercute baby knits! Quick and easy to knit, too.

I don’t have pictures yet of the other finished knits – I’ll save them for next time. Blog fodder!

So the trip, compressed.
We had an awesome time! Em enjoyed her cruise immensely, too. But our trip, condensed, with pictures.
We spent out first night in Eden. (Yes, really!) We arrived late on the Saturday night, but when we awoke on Sunday, we saw this awesome view from our balcony.

Lovely! We spent the next day driving to Melbourne. On the advice of a few twitterers, we stopped at Lakes Entrance for lunch. I spent some time conversing with some Black Swans.

I offered them a chip, and was almost attacked by seagulls. We hid in the car to eat, but when we were done, we tossed the last of our chips to the seagulls.

Mayhem. I don’t think a single chip actually hit the water.
On Monday evening we drove out to Phillip Island to see the penguins. Awesome. Loved every minute of it, despite the fact that it was freezing. Freezing!
We went on the most expensive tour, the “Ultimate Tour” where they take you down to a private beach with night scopes in the dark, and you sit on the beach and watch the little penguins waddle in from the water and run off to their burrows. No photos, because it’s dark and you don’t want to upset the penguins, but it was wonderful, I highly recommend it!
We went off to the Melbourne Museum the next day to see the Tutankhamen exhibition, again highly recommended! No pictures again, but it’s so awe inspiring to be standing amongst these breathtaking relics.
We left Melbourne on the Wednesday, and drove up to Warnambool via The Great Ocean Road.The road starts in Torquay near Bells Beach.
Freezing, I tell you.

I don’t think that surfer is Bodhi, but I could be wrong. We stopped to see the Twelve Apostles.

It was cold. And windy. I had to hold my hat on so it didn’t blow away.

London Bridge – now apparently known as London Arch, as the bridge fell back in 1990.

And the Grotto.

There was a little rain, a whole lot of wind and a great deal of cold, but the scenery is stunningly beautiful.
The next day we headed up to Bendigo. Along the way we saw a sign for Creswick Woollen Mills, so we popped in for a visit. Not much yarn, but there were these!

Not much yarn was the theme of the trip, really. I was a little surprised at my restraint! We hit Bendigo Woollen Mill as soon as we arrived in Bendigo on Thursday, and the Sheep and Wool Show on Friday morning, where a few lovelies tempted me.

Two lots of a Wool/Cotton 4ply (fingering weight) blend, one pick and one white and some blue baby yarn from the Bendigo Woollen Mill. A kilogram of gorgeous alpaca from Pear Tree Yarns (the colour isn’t true – it’s natural, with the faintest bit of pink through it), a zauberball, and some gorgeous pink wool/silk blend from ms.gusset. That’s it!
We started for home that afternoon, spending Friday night in Albury and seeing Harry Potter before arriving home on Saturday.
Did I get any knitting done?

Apologies for such a dark picture, the knitting is dark grey and the sky is matching this week! But that’s a front, a back and almost two sleeves.
So yes, there was plenty of knitting!