I’ve been working hard on DH’s sweater, and am already halfway up the back, yippee!!
No pictures, because it’s still boring, LOL! Look at the picture from the front a few days ago, and imagine it only half way up. 🙂
Em has been busy, too.

That’s her “Little Friend”. She is knitting it as a gift for a teacher for christmas. That’s the face that she’s up to now. She has followed the pattern to the letter, but I think I’ll have a look at it before she knits another, and eliminate that first ridge on the “neckband” where you can see where she changed colours.
After the face, she does a few rows of “hair” then casts off, sews it together into a tube, ad sews the top closed. Then we knit arms and legs with a french knitter.
Becky asked the other day if we have a French Knitter. The kit for the Little Friend came with a cute little one 🙂

Here in Australia we commonly call them French Knitters, Knitting Nancy’s or Knitting Nanna’s. At the end, the whole lot is felted, so it is very forgiving of little mistakes that may happen 🙂
She’s moving along on it alot faster than I expected her to, and she apparently has plans for a whole army of little Friends for Christmas Gifts.
Look out, World 🙂

Not a lot of knitting done in the past few days, but I got mail again!!
Bliss was selling off stash a while back, and I really liked the Lime and Pink cotton blend she had. These are Em’s favourite colours right now (this week 😉 and I have a pattern for a cute summer sweater in the same gauge. For a variety of reasons, I couldn’t buy the yarn from her. But she sent it to me anyway! How nice is this lady?

She also tossed in that lovely hank of variegated merino in the picture. Em is on school holidays right now, and we both squealed with excitement on opening the box. Thankyou Bliss!
My order from Bendigo Wool Mill also arrived, but it paled in comparison 🙂

This is the 2 ply laceweight in the colour “Rosebud” that I had intended for the Flower Basket shawl. But now I just want to finish DH’s sweater do I can start Emily’s Lime and Pink one!
DH’s sweater is coming along, I’ve done maybe 6 or 8 inches of the back, and am trying to convince myself that I really should finish it. Now. 😉

I finally took a usable picture of DH’s sweater today.

It is actually black, not the blue that the picture suggests on my monitor. I have since finished the other side of the front and cast on for the back.
I don’t know why this sweater gave me so much grief to start with, because I am quite enjoying knitting it now, even if it does get boring after a while. The Silkroad is lovely to knit with. My DH is not a small man, and the resulting sweater is rather large to knit!
Tomorrow is the first day of the local school holidays. Em has a dance competition tomorrow and Tuesday, so hopefully that will mean knitting time. I also only have 15 more costumes to make (in four weeks!)
Em has made a bit of progress on her “Little Friend”.

It’s knitted in Jo Sharp DK wool. The garter stitch bit will be the skirt, and the stockinette will be the top. She still has some work to do before felting! There is a neckband, face, hair, then the arms and legs need to be done on a French Knitting spool.
I’ll keep you all updated 😉

The Aussie and NZ webring is up and running, yay!!!
Run on over here to join.
The button and things are further down on my page, but I think my sidebar needs some rearranging.
In knitting news, DH’s sweater is coming along nicely. Hopefully we’ll have some nice weather tomorrow and I can try to get a decent picture. It’s a polo style neck, and I have just split the front. I am not looking forward to doing the back – It’s basically a square 65 x 65cm. How long do you think it’ll take me to get bored with that?
I’ve decided that I’m going to knit the Flower Basket Shawl from Interweave Knits. I went over to One Fine Yarn and looked at the Misti lace weight alpaca that the pattern calls for, and it’s gorgeous. However, with postage it comes to $US20, and while that is not terribly expensive, I went for a local alternative. Bendigo Wool Mills in Victoria has 200g 2 ply lace weight merino for $AU10.50, and if I spend over $30, I get free postage. So I got some new stuff from there too 😉
I got a nice baby pink for the shawl.
I must admit that I remained undecided about it for ages, but decided on the wool, but I am still unsure I made the right decision. I’ll see how I go when it gets here. Maybe I’ll still get the alpaca 🙂

Great mail day again! 🙂
Jill came through with a great parcel yet again!!

Woohoo! Now I can be like Sandy and become a sock knitting machine 😉 I’ve had the Knitting on the Road book on my Amazon wish list for a while, and I love the other one, too. I hope Six Sox puts the adult pattern up quick, or temptation may get the better of me, and I’ll start one from these books.
A few weeks ago, a lady named Kathy contacted me, after she saw Em’s Katia cardigan on my blog. She had a dilemma. She was half a ball short of the Katia yarn for a sweater she was knitting herself, and couldn’t find any more. So I sent her the bit I had left, and luckily it was enough for her to finish the sweater. I was happy enough to send it – I was never going to use a half ball of Katia Denim!

Today, this lovely bar of homemade soap and cute card showed up as a thankyou. Well, thankyou Kathy, it’s lovely! 🙂
The Aussie & NZ knitters webring will hopefully be active at some point this weekend. My beloved DH who is a software developer by day is busily building a page for the ring as we speak. And with my DH, close enough is never good enough. I will post here as soon as it’s up and running, I promise.
And just because I haven’t put a picture up lately, Twinky asks why I’m pointing that camera at her 🙂