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Kind of big news

I’m usually a relatively monogamous knitter. I never have more than three projects on the go at a time. It used to be a sock, some lace and a garment. Socks have sort of fallen out of knitting favour with me, and lace had been the same way. Of course, lace has made a resurgence with the purple shawl lately, but it too has fallen to the wayside the past few weeks.

After I finished my Watermelon Drift I decided to cast on another garment. I had a look through my Ravelry queue and decided upon Corfu. (A side note, I’m also kind of anal about my Ravelry queue. Most of it is matched up to yarn in my stash, and I’ve been making an effort to cull the stash lately, bring it into somewhat manageable proportions!)

I haven’t knit Intarsia in years. I made a baby suit for one of the dolls I made about 15 years ago, but haven’t done much at all since. I’d forgotten that it gets kind of addictive. I just want to keep going to see how it looks after every couple of rows. Of course, it’s also slow as molasses. I knit two rows, then weave in all the ends. It takes almost as long to weave in the ends as it does to knit the two rows. It’s also kind of frustrating, and I frequently look like this.

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It is however, coming along nicely.

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The beginnings of the cardi I showed you all in the last post hasn’t been completely abandoned. We had a weekend away in Canberra last weekend, and I realised I didn’t have any roadworthy knitting on the go, so I started the cardi. It got a good trip.

It came to dinner.

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And to tea.

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And was promptly ignored again once we got home and I could pick up the intarsia again.

However, this week we got some big news. A couple of weeks ago we met with our kitchen guy and selected colours for the new kitchen. For the record, we’ve gone with white cupboards and Ceasarstone Atlantic Salt benchtops.

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I was working on a timeline that we might see a slab in late March/early April. We had a meeting with the builders on Wednesday, where we signed off on everything, made a few last minute changes and finalised all our colour choices, then the lovely guy told us they expect to start by the end of next week, yay! We’re expected to be done and moving in sometime in mid-October.

So right now it looks like this.

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I told David I want him to install a buildercam so I can keep an eye on whats going on, but he nixed the idea. I’ll have to settle for a driveby every weekend!

Watermelon Drift

So I mentioned a few posts back that I’d got some Shibui Staccato from Suzyhausfrau and that it was already on the needles, but I didn’t say a whole lot more.  I didn’t intend to be all top secret about it, it just turned into this kind of stealth project that was happening in the background, then before I knew it, it was done!

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Drifting! The colour isn’t photographing at all well, it’s not as orange as it appears.

Last year at the Stitches and Craft show, I spotted this Staccato in Watermelon at Suzyhausfrau‘s stall I had no plans for it, no idea what I wanted to do with it, the colour just insisted on coming home with me. I picked up three skeins, and home they came. Every now and then I’d flip through patterns on Ravelry, and add a scarf or cowl pattern to my queue, but nothing was exactly right. Then I spotted Drifting. Alas, I needed four skeins and I only had three. I ordered an extra from Suzyhausfrau, figuring I’d have to blend the skeins, but that it would probably work.

My luck was in, it was the same dyelot! Hooray! It flew off the needles, and I think it was just meant to be.

Pattern: Drifting by Cecily Glowik MacDonald
Yarn: Shibui Staccato in Watermelon (Merino/Silk), 4 skeins
Needles: 3.5mm Dyakcraft Darn pretties
Mods: None.

I strongly recommend swatching and washing your swatch. I got gauge on the 4mm needles, but it grew substantially when I blocked it, so I went down to the 3.5mm.

As luck would have it, one night I put my knitting down next to a piece of Liberty Tana Lawn that I had, and inspiration struck. So I made a little flower brooch to wear with it.

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Perfect!

Thank you all for the Twinkie thoughts. We’re missing her way more than I thought possible. I’m still expecting to see her everywhere I look.

In Memoriam

Just before Christmas in 2003, there was an addition to our family.

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I had this stupid idea that this little bunny was going to live in a cage in the yard. She trained us up good. It’s been over ten years. I had no idea at the time.

Princess Twinky

Such a funny little thing. She liked to steal chocolate.

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And potatoes, even though they were bad for her, and we had to steal them back, and eventually hide them from her altogether.

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I didn’t know she’d become such an integral part of our family, that she’d come to mean so much to us.

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Twinkie left us today. She’d been unwell, and her age caught up to her. We knew she was declining, but it really became obvious in the past few days. She’s better off now.

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And while we’re better off for having loved her, it’ll never be the same without her.

The Lace is getting bigger

I’m sure this only applies to Aussies of a certain age, but I have a jingle stuck in my head. Remember Mental as Anything “The Nips are getting bigger”? It keeps running through my head.

“Woah-oh, the lace is getting bigger

Woah yeah, it’s getting bigger”

But yes, the lace is getting bigger.

P1110868Slowly, as lace is wont to do. I am already having issues about the border (which I should get to in approximately 10.5 years). The yarn (Yarn Place Graceful) has long, gradual colour transitions. This is fine for the lace, it’s not going to distract from the pattern in the way a heavily variegated yarn might, but at the end it has a knitted on border, so the direction of the knitting will change, and instead of continuing to grow outwards, I’ll be knitting around the edge.

I’m worried about the effect the colour changes will have. Right now I’m thinking I’ll use a plain yarn in a solid purple to match one of the purples in the yarn. I don’t want it to scream “Different border!”, but to look as if it’s a natural transition for the yarn. So I’m looking for a readily available cobweb weight (900yds/50g) non-superwach merino or wool yarn in a solid purple. Baruffa Cashwool is discontinued, Centolavaggi might be an option, but I can’t think of any other yarns that might work – mainly because I don’t think picking it off a screen is going to work. I could end up with a great deal of mismatched purple laceweight! Rosered has suggested colourmart, and theat I might be able to send them a sample to get them to match it, but the colour changes are so gradual, I think I’d have to send half a ball. (Which I might need, because Yarn Place isn’t available in Australia, and they’re ignoring my emails about how to order from outside the US). Ideas?