That’s me, according to my 11 year old, Emily. Quite flattering, I feel 🙂
I finished Mum’s hat!

I’m not always so quick a knitter – it’s still school holidays here, so the days are lazier than normal and I can sit up late at night and knit. Pity I can’t do it all the time! The hat is a really simple one. 2 strands of worsted weight, moss stitch all the way. I’m pleased with the way it turned out, and I may even have to make one for myself 🙂
I started Em’s bucket hat, and it’s whizzing off the needles. I also managed to ge tto the craft store today, and picked up some more Zhivago to make DH another hat. Just a simple slip stitch beanie in 3 colours.

Poor guy had cancer last year, and I didn’t knit him a single hat then, but this is the second one I’ve made this year. I’m using the same colours as the picture, but with a rollback brim.
I also put enough Angora Supreme to make Rogue on pay-as-you-knit. I chose a nice bright blue.

And I got some black Angora Supreme to make a scarf.
I think I better learn to knit quicker 😉

Finished DH’s gloves! Nice quick easy knit 🙂

Unintentionally artyfarty image – My digital camera takes a while on night setting and I don’t hold it still enough 🙂
My thoughts – better knit in the round.

The colour is much closer in the first picture. Way too many ends for weaving and seams for seaming! Side seams, and every finger has a seam too.
So I finished those, and started a little hat for my Mum from my stash. Am I avoiding my sweater? Probably 😉
Here are some pictures of all the yarn that jumped into my basket yesterday.

Various cotton yarns for bucket hats. The lime is for me, the variegated Sugar ‘n Cream is for Em. The white Sugar ‘n Cream is for dyeing if the gauge works for bucket hats. I love variegated yarns, and just couldn’t find anything in remotely the right gauge, so I’ll make my own!! Oddly, Sugar ‘n Cream was put out here by Cleckheaton, not Lily, and is a different gauge. Ours is 18sts/4″, not 20sts/4″, so it may be a lost cause for hats anyway 🙁 It is no longer available in Australia. I wanted to try Sugar Babies after seeing Becky’s beautiful hat, but it has never been available in Australia, according to my LYS. Bummer.

The pink and lavender for Em’s Bucket. The colours are fairly similar, but I hope it’ll come up okay in stripes.

And finally – the yarn for Gigi!! If I ever do anything about the Cleckheaton sweater, that is 😉
I also fed my eBay addiction this morning by buying some Bernat Cottontots for bucket hats, and some other cotton yarns too. There’s no way I’ll ever make this many hats.
So I went to pick up my car this morning, where the kindly mechanic informed me that my battery also happened to be flat and needed replacing. Oh yeah, and the tyres are all worn, and I need a wheel alignment. And no, he’s not trying to get a buck out of me. I know this, because he sold me the battery at wholesale price (I think it was the look on my face that did it), and he can’t do the tyres or wheel alignment at his shop. Sigh. And tomorrow the craft store is having a sale on the yarn I want for Rogue. At least I can get there now!!

I finished the first of DH’s gloves. He’s happy with it, but I’m uncertain if I am. The pattern is knit flat, then seamed. I think I would have preferred to knit it in the round. I could have rewritten the pattern fairly easily, but I’m inherently lazy 😉
Zhivago is unusual to knit with. The finished result is nice – soft, with a satiny feel, but it’s a bit odd to knit with. Maybe it’s just a getting-used-to-it thing. It does have a fuzzy tendency. I noticed it particularly in the ribbing. I was definitely defuzzing as I knit. But, as I said, he is happy, so who am I to complain? I’ve done the ribbing for the second glove, and will hopefully finish that tomorrow.
I also managed to get about 2 inches done on my Cleckheaton sweater. I’m trying to make myself finish this before I start Gigi. Motivation, I hope 🙂
I also put my car in for a service today. It never quite works like that though, does it? She needs new brakes, and won’t be ready until tomorrow. So now I am without car, $100 worse off than I expected, and I am minding my niece tomorrow, so I get to convince 2 children that we need to walk to the mechanics. Hmmm, less yarn money, and less knitting time. Hmph!!
Who needs brakes anyway?? 😉

Have you seen Gigi? Go to Bonne Marie’s and have a look, she’s gorgeous!
I got the pattern first thing this morning, which was excellent, because I knew the yardages and stuff before I headed off on my yarn hunt 🙂
Gigi has the same gauge as the Bottoms Up Bucket Hat, coincidentally. So off we went this morning, and I was quite pleasantly surprised when we reached Lincraft.
What a selection! Well, compared to Spotlight, anyway. Unfortunately there was no cotton to be seen at all. However, I did find a nice 100% superwash wool which was the perfect weight. Seeing as we’re heading into winter here, and the wool was only $1.50 a ball (!!!), how could I say no??? So I got a pretty mint green colour, and a grey for the trim. It looks better than it sounds. Unfortunately the colour choices were limited, but how could I complain? They had just one ball of lavender and one of pink, so Em is getting a striped Bucket Hat.
We then went to the Original Bear Factory. I think it’s called something else in the USA, but it was great fun. You pick out the bear you want (Em picked out a white bunny), you decide how firmly you want it stuffed, you pick a voice, pop in a heart (along with a kiss and a wish!), they sew it up, you pick out an outfit, and as you pay up and leave, you’re handed a lovely little Birth Certificate. Emily is now the proud owner of a white bunny named Flopsy in a purple and white spotty dress.
Then it was off in the other direction to the LYS. I got a lime green ball of aran weight cotton, and 6 balls of Sugar ‘n cream for bucket hats. Considering the climate we live in, I’m really disappointed about the lack of cotton yarns available here. There was nothing at all suitable for Gigi, all the cottons in the right weight were stiff, and the vast majority of the cottons were in the Australian 8 ply weight. (22sts/28rows – 10cm).
Everything else was novelty yarns. Over it. Big time.

Well, at least someone around here finished something!

Presenting Emily’s first ever finished project made from a pattern with finishing and all. She has previously made a scarf for her doll, but this is her “real” knitting. 😉
A teapot cosy for her Nana for Mother’s Day. Originally, it was intended for her birthday (January 8) but time became somewhat of an issue. It was finished 15 minutes ago!
Myself? Well, I’m getting startitis. Perhaps I’m just avoiding my sweater 🙂
We went to the local craft store today and I bought some new projects. DH wanted gloves. So a month or so ago, I knitted him some. Now he’d like fingerless ones. So at the craft store, I found this great pattern book, with lots of scarves and hats and gloves for men.

Alot of the stuff is quite upbeat and trendy, and DH says “NO!”. I was quite surprised even that he picked a blue-grey colour yarn for his gloves.

I haven’t used this yarn before. It’s a relatively new one from Patons Australia called Zhivago. It’s 50% tencel, 50% acrylic, knits up at 20sts and 28rows to 10 cm and feels really nice and soft. (Perfect gauge for a bucket hat!) Great range of colours too. I also bought the supplies for a secret project. Sssh.
I did cast on the back of my sweater again, and knit all of 2 rows before I set it aside.
Tomorrow we’re off to Lincraft and then further afield to the not-so-LYS in the search for bucket hat possibilities.