What a weekend! We had one of those weekends where you’re still running around madly for half of Monday. Saturday we headed down to Wollongong for Stitch n Bitch.
Here is a Saturday Sky, taken on the road to Wollongong.

It’s a pretty drive down there! Here’s a bonus sky shot from yesterday evening.

There were bushfires about, which made a pretty sunset.
I have a finished object! Well, half a finished object, anyway.

Number one sock is done. I’m happy with it overall, except for the beads, which you can hardly see. I’ve blown it up here and circled the beads.

I’ve strung the beads and started the ribbing for the second one.

I’m going to knit this one blindly from the pattern, and if all is well, I’ll post the pattern when I’m done.
Here is the Twinkie video I promised. I swear that she enjoys this, no matter how it looks. She will lay there and let you do this for hours.

Icarus pics next time, all the ones I took came out blurry!

(Insert drumroll)

Icarus is off the needles!
Finally.
I was pretty excited yesterday morning. I had only 6 rows of chart 4 left. I planted my butt on the couch, and prepared to knit those last six rows. I knit, and I knit, and I knit. And I was done. I heaved a huge sigh of relief, and prepared to cast off.
Then I decided to check the pattern to make sure there wasn’t a special cast off I was supposed to use.
What did I see?
Four more freakin’ rows! Four edging rows that weren’t charted. So I had a little dummy spit, then I sat down again and knit those four rows and I finally got to cast it off.
It’s blocking right now.
I had a video of Twinkie to upload, but i can’t find it. So here’s some pictures of Em fishing for a bunny with a sprig of hay.




I love that last picture. To me it looks like she’s thinking “Must you always point that thing at me?”
And David would like it publicly known that he is overdue for new socks.

Yes, he has one on inside out.

He may be right.

The knitting is still making boring blogging, I’m afraid.
Icarus has only 12 rows to go, and I’m hoping I’ll get it done by the weekend. Spring Blossoms is nearing the end of the sixth repeat, but has been largely abandoned in favour of finishing Icarus.
The sock is halfway down the foot, and progressing nicely.

Having all this boring blogging material is dangerous.
It makes me want to start things.
The new Jo Sharp book, Knit 2 is out, and I purchased it last week. I think this is probably the best book she’s done yet.

I instantly fell in love with this.

Mind you, if I have one major complaint about the Jo Sharp pattern books, it’s that some of the pictures are too artfully posed to see the garment well. Here’s a better picture of the pattern.

Love it, love it, love it.
It calls for Jo Sharp Desert Garden Aran Cotton which is 65% cotton and 35% microfibre, and has a gauge of 18sts and 24 rows on 5mm (US 8) needles.
So I hopped onto eBay and had a look around.
This magically appeared in my mailbox today. (I wonder why my stash isn’t shrinking?)

Rowan All Seasons Cotton in “Purr”. I got this fantastic bargan from Jannette’s Rare Yarns on eBay. How fantastic a bargain? $US22.50 a bag.
Bargain!
To compare this to Jo Sharps Desert Garden Aran Cotton, the Rowan is 60% cotton, 40% microbfibre (close enough for me) and has a recommended gauge of 16-18 stitches over 23-25 rows on US 7-9 needles.
Surely I can make that work.
Or maybe the gauge Gods are laughing at me right this minute.
One glaring difference that is a little disconcerting is that the Desert Garden has only 55m (60yds) per 50g ball, and the Rowan has 90m (98yds) per 50g ball.
Is it just me, or does that seem like a gigantic difference for an apparently similar yarn?
Can 5% microfibre mean that much difference?
Anyway, there are many other things I like from this book.




There’s more, but they’re my favourites.
I haven’t swatched yet, in fact, I haven’t even opened the bag of yarn, but how long do you think I can last?
I will finish Icarus first, I will. I will.
Maybe.

Hey guess what? It’s not a random blue square!

Saturday sky! It’s grey and it’s cold. Finally, something different. And look what happened yesterday.

Water fell from the sky. Trust me, it’s almost that much of an event in Sydney these days. As soon as it starts, front doors open everywhere, and all through the neighbourhood, people stand on their front porches, just looking out at this stuff called rain.
It made for a pretty sunset.

No reall knitting updates, each row on Spring Blossoms is taking around half an hour now, and each Icarus row takes around 20 minutes. Makes for little progress.
I’ve dabbled in many crafts, one of them being porcelain doll making. I was looking at my dolls the other day, and this little one that I’d forgotten about caught my eye.


Row counter included for scale. She’s around 6 and a half inches (16cm) tall. Her little dress is knit from Size 12 DMC Perle cotton on 1.25mm knitting needles.
To be honest, I don’t even really remember the details of knitting the dress, although it would have been around 10 years ago. I had to go look for the pattern today to find the details.
I made the same doll for my mum, too, in the same dress, although hers has knickers, and I got lazy, and my dolly remains naked under her dress (!).

Here’s some close up detail, my finger included for scale.

The pins mark an inch.

The gauge is 15sts per inch. And I knit it twice. And look, crochet edges! I do vaguely remember one of the ladies in my doll class helping me with the crochet.

The dress is badly in need of blocking, but I’m rather proud of it. I’m determined to knit the knickers now, although I can’t remember where I got the thread or the needles, so they probably won’t be a perfect match, but I think the poor little dear deserves some panties!

Okay, we’re overdue for some knitting updates, aren’t we?
The sock, now on Bamboo needles.

Coming along nicely. Yes, I do intend to share this pattern. Although, I have this slight concern that my pattern writing skills are less than desirable. And I do wish I’d picked beads with some contrast.
The black blob.

Otherwise known as Icarus.
I’m so glad to be done with Chart 1. I’ve eben finished Chart 2, and am 2 rows into chart 3. Only 28 rows to go.
The purple blob.

Otherwise known as Spring Blossoms. Also progressing nicely. I’ve done 5 repeats of the pattern. In Zephyr, on 3.5mm needles, the pattern called for 7 repeats. I’m using thinner yarn and smaller needles, so I’ll need to do a few more. I’ve only used 33g of yarn, from the 100g, so I think I can probably manage 9 repeats. We’ll see.
However, now I need to cast on something new. Usually I’m pretty good about not having too many WIP’s, but this is too hard to resist.

Catherine and I had a little mini swap. I sent her some nice Australian lace weight from Kaalund yarns, and some chocolate, and she sent me this 3.5mm knitpicks options needle and some cables. And some gorgeous Alpaca laceweight. Damn KnitPicks not sending internationally! But I don’t have anything going that needs a 3.5mm needle.
So I think I’d better start something new!