The p-p-p-p socks have landed. Or they’re done, or something.

It’s hard to think, it’s a bit hot today. Like 35C. (95F)
But they’re done, and Em loves them. Mind you, she didn’t love them enough to keep them on, and I don’t blame her. She tried them on, I took a picture and she ripped them off as quickly as she could.
Specs:
Pattern: Pomatomus socks, from Knitty, designed by the very clever Cookie
Yarn: Knit Picks Sock Memories in the now defunct colourway “Easter”
I enjoyed the first sock, and it was done quickly, but the second sock not so much. No idea why, but I was over it halfway down the leg. The way the yarn patterned differently on the second sock may have something to do with it.
Spring Blossoms has 2 rows to go and then just a crochet chain cast off. So I don’t care how hot it is, I’m going to sit and finish it. Now.

Saturday sky on a Sunday morning.

Another lovely Sydney day, and only 28C.
We went out and bought some flowers. At this point, I should let you know that my gardening skills are right up there with my cooking skills.
So I’ll show you pictures now, while they’re still alive and healthy.

Miniature apricot roses.

Sweet William. Pretty, for now.
The purple blob is ongoing. However, it isn’t always convenient to work on a shawl that currently has 850ish stitches, so when I can’t work on that, I’m working the p-p-p-p socks.

I’m past the heel! And the gusset shaping! On the way down the foot! Then they’ll be done! I’m only allowing myself to work on these two projects, because otherwise they’ll both get tossed aside and never done.
And frankly, at this stage, I’ll be glad to see them both done.
As you are all probably will aware, I have a great love of laceweight yarns. Up until recently, there was little or no quality, affordable laceweight yarns in Australia. There is a much better selection here now, (especially of my beloved Zephyr, thank you Yarns Online!), but despite the fact that we couldn’t get much locally, I have still managed to build up a half decent stash of the stuff.
I was sitting, knitting on the purple blob on Friday night, and dreaming of new projects. So I started to mentally list the lace weight stash. Then I was a bit amazed at the amount I thought I had, so I got up and wrote it down.
I have 23,200 yards of laceweight yarns.
And that’s only counting the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I haven’t actually gone and checked it yet.
20 kilometres. That’s a lot of shawls waiting for me.
Twinkie fainted at the idea.

Or maybe she was just flopped out on the bathroom floor, staying cool.

We have been pretty lucky this year in terms of the weather, it’s been apretty mild summer. Certainly no ridiculous heatwaves like last New Years Day.
But today has been hot. And tomorrow is going to be hot. This is interrupting my plans to finish the Purple Blob.
I’m having visions of still working on this in 2008. Or 2009.

Of course, I’m kidding myself that it might be finished any time soon, no matter what the weather.
Up until last night I had convinced myself that I could finish it after this, the tenth, repeat. This is the same part of my brain that tells me that I can lose weight without exercise, and that one piece of chocloate, or one bar or one block, won’t hurt.
Then I had a good, hard look at it. Even accounting for the fact that it’s unblocked, it’s still very small. And I still have this much yarn left.

Nearly 35g. Out of 100g. So the only reason that I’d be stopping after this repeat is laziness. Pure laziness. And yes, thats something I’ve been known to be guilty of on occasion.
Sigh.
There will be an eleventh repeat. Only because I’ll kick myself when I’m done if I don’t do it. That means I still have 20 rounds to go. Boring blogging ahead!
Twinkie is starting to love us again.

That may be because of the liberal offerings of food!

I think I’m overdue for a knitting project round up, aren’t I?
First off, the purple blob, aka Spring Blossoms.

It’s coming along. I’m trying to do at least 2 rounds a day, but I’ve been failing miserably. Each round is taking an hour, and I just seem to run out of time.
I’ve got 2 rounds to go on repeat 9, then I’ll do at least 1 more repeat. I still have 35g of yarn, so I might manage 2 more repeats. It does look awfully small, and I’m using finer yarn and needles than recommended. The original pattern had 8 repeats. I don’t know if I could bear 2 more full repeats. We’ll see.
P-p-p-p-p-p socks.

I’m over them. This is the second sock, I have just 4 more rows until I turn the heel, but I am totally, completely, utterly Over it. I’ll finish them, but I have no idea when. Probably when Em’s nagging drives me to it.
New socks.

I spent Boxing Day playing with patterns and numbers until I came up with something I liked. I just wanted to use my new needles!
The yarn is The Knittery‘s Merino Cashmere sock yarn in “Water Lilies”. I’m writing the pattern down as we go. The cables seem to slow down the production a little. I worked on these while we were away, and while I wasn’t working on this.

The Jo Sharp “Tweed Cardigan” from Knit 2. I’m using the recommended yarn, Silkroad DK Tweed in “Fleece”. I got the yarn from an eBay seller a while back, but I noticed today that she’s listed a bunch more here.
Nearly finished the back. I’m going to short row the shoulders and do a three needle bind off, rather than the traditional shoulder shaping used in the pattern. I think I’ll also make the sleeves a little wider.
Twinkie came home from the boarding facility yesterday, and she’s unhappy. She’s in her usual favourite spots, but she’s avoiding David and I like the plague. She still loves Em though!

We’re bribing her woth food, and it seems to be working.
I forgot all about Saturday sky yesterday, my body is still in holiday mode, so here’s a Sunday sky.

It was blue and clear yesterday!

We’re back!
We had a great time, and I think this will be one big blog post. I was going to post last night, but it took me all night just to go through all the pictures. There is a little stash enhancement involved, but it’s mostly beaches and touristy type stuff, despite the fact that we were visiting David’s hometown. (It’s still touristy for Em and I!)
Day 1. Did you all know that they do a 4.30 in the morning now?!? It was a rude awakening, let me tell you, and not a good start for the trip, considering that I am not at my best on a normal morning, let alone at hours I’ve only seen from the other side.
All packed and ready to go we got to Sydney airport.

That’s a pic for the Lost fans. Although that’s the domestic terminal, not the International one.
We flew Jetstar, and it’s definitely a budget option. You have to walk out on the tarmac to board the plane.

And they’re not big on leg room.

I’ve eaten sardines that weren’t packed in as tightly.
I didn’t take a Saturday sky pic this time around, so here’s a Friday sky.

We got to Hervey Bay, and I wanted to make sure that we did the important things first, so we headed to Wagtail Yarns immediately.
We were greeted by the stars of the show.

Got mohair?

300 mohair goats in this field. The baby goats are pastured near the house.

Emily made new friends. They were very friendly little things, but then again, they thought we had food.

They had very cute little tails to go with their gorgeous curls, but this picture doesn’t show the wagging that was going on.

They were dyeing in the huge outdoor vat, but I have no idea what colour.

But there was blue yarn drying on the line.

Their yarn is gorgeous. There is a choice of 100% mohair, 80% mohair/20% merino and 60% mohair/40% merino, in a variety of weights. Despite planning ahead to go there, I still had no idea what to buy once I was gazing at and stroking all that gorgeous yarn.
But I managed.

The dark purple is sportweight (5ply) 80% mohir/20% merino, everything else is fingering (4ply) pure mohair. She had a tiny hank of pink laceweight pure mohair, but I resisted that, becuase it wasn’t really enough to do anything with. She mentioned that she’d had 6 cones of laceweight, but they’d been sold. Lucky, or I may have had to grab them all.
There was a farewell commitee at the gate.

That was the first morning of the trip. Nice way to start, huh?
We then headed into Bundaberg. We saw some sugar cane.

Em, as usual, jumped into the pool as soon as she could. The family dog helped.

We did some sightseeing. There was baby sugar cane.

We went to the Bundaberg Rum Distillery, where the sugar cane byproducts are processed into Rum.

I had plans to kidnap the Bundy Rum Bear, but they were thwarted by a locked cabinet.

Someone must’ve warned them I was coming.
Right next door is the Sugar Processing plant. Are you getting the picture yet that Bundaberg is a sugar town?

On New Year’s Eve, we headed to Mon Repos beach.

We’d hoped to book in for the turtle watching, but more on that later.
New Years Day was spent here.

Not a bad start to the year. Although, as a result of all this beachgoing, there has been sunburn.

Unfortunately, it got worse. By Tuesday evening, I was glowing.
Tuesday we went to another beach.


Em learned to boogie board.

I love that pic!
Tuesday night was the highlight of the trip. We headed back to Mon Repos for turtle watching.
Every year, marine turtles return to Mon Repos to lay their eggs. It’s primarily Loggerhead turtles. The Queensland Government has turned it in a conservation park, and you can only get to the beach at night by booking in and going out with a tour guide.
The turtles come ashore at night, dig a hole and lay their eggs, then depart, never to lay eyes on their babies.
We were lucky, we only had a short wait before we were taken down to the beach to see it all happen.



The turtle we saw was a first time mother. It was just amazing to watch her dig a hole, lay her eggs, cover the hole, and then head back out to sea, all by instinct.
The tour guides are very protective of the turtles, and you are very restricted in when you may take pictures and where you may go on the beach. I loved every minute of it, exept for the rude people who refused to listen to the tour guides, and pushed in front of everyone and tried to hog thewhole thing for themselves, but there’s always some of those about.
Absolutely the highlight of the trip, closely followed by Wagtail yarns.
There was a little knitting done.
I started the plain cardigan from Jo Sharp Knit 2 the night before we left, and worked on it in bits and pieces. Here’s a picture I took while waiting for the turtles.

I had also taken along a lace scarf kit, sent to me by Tammy with all good intentions, but lace knitting and holidays don’t really work together, I discovered. I just didn’t get time to sit down and read the chart – easy knitting is much more convenient for holidays.
I have started a sock on my gorgeous new needles and got a little bit done on that, but failed miserably to take a picture. At least I’ll have blog fodder for next time!