Well, it was a rather hectic weekend again!
Lets start with Saturday sky. This is the pic I took first thing in the morning.

Yet another perfect Sydney winter morning, I know.
Later in the day, we headed down to Stitch n Bitch, but more on that in a bit. However, we found prime material for Saturday Sky!

See them? The pic was taken through the window of the Wollongong Novotel. Here’s a slightly better one.

In other weekend news, it was SnB weekend. My sister-in-law was visiting from 1300km or so away. She’s leaving our fine shores for the UK in 3 weeks, but I didn’t let that stop me. I brought the whole family along to SnB.
I gave my sister in law the gloves, she was very enamoured of them. Then I said “I need them back now, to take to SnB, you can have them back this afternoon.”
I’m fairly sure she thinks I’m rather odd.
David and his sister were happy to sip drinks and read their books, leaving me and Em to get down to serious knitterly business.
Ailsa tried to teach Em to crochet little flowers.

I caught up with Jussi and Sharon.

Then I put the camera away and forgot to take more pics.
SnB was wonderful fun, as always. Wonderful company, and great inspiration from all the lovely projects.
Yesterday, we took SIL to the Sydney Fish Markets for lunch.
In a word, Yum.

I should’ve taken a picture before we demolished it!
We sat on the jetty in the sunshine and enjoyed the food and watched the seagulls trying to steal food.

They’re very brave little souls. There was one guy, chatting on his mobile phone, and the seagulls were walking right up and stealing the food from under his nose.
I even got a little knitting done.

The black blob, otherwise known as Icarus is growing, albeit slowly. I’ve done 2 out of 5 repeats of chart 1.
And I’m already thinking about what I can do next.

And they’re finally done and blocking!

It feels like I’ve taken forever to knit these gloves.
I’m hoping they don’t take too long to dry, as David’s sister (the recipient) arrives tomorrow afternoon to spend the weekend with us before she heads off to the UK for a year or two.
I’d like to say that this will give me more time to work on Icarus, but I’ve promised Em that I’d knit her this hat.

It’s from the current issue of the Australian Creative Knitting. Sorry, the picture isn’t very good.
I received a great email last night. In amongst all the other great emails from people joining the lace swap, that is!
David’s cousin and his wife live in Queensland, 1300km away. Almost 3 years ago, they had a beautiful baby girl, so I knit up a few little pink things and sent them along. This is the same little girl whom I knit the little pink STYK cardi for last year. Earlier this year, she got a baby brother. That would be the baby boy whom I knit the shawl for.
So yesterday I received a lovely email from P, the children’s mother.
This is how it started.
Hi Donna
I have you to blame for my newly acquired affliction- I have taken up KNITTING!
It feels so great to spread the knitty bug 🙂

Thanks to everyone who has signed up for the lace swap, it’s all so exciting! Remember that sign ups are only open until August 1.
Isn’t it odd that I have quite a stash of laceweight, yet I’m so excited about getting more?
No, you’re right, it’s not odd at all.
I got mail!
Remember the lace weight yarn that I dyed blue, and offered up for swap?
Donni took me up on the offer, and sent me this.

KnitPicks paint your own Laceweight, dyed in yummy shades of green. I think it wants to be Mim’s “Mountain Peaks Shawl”. Also in the package was this fun notepad.

Love it!
There is a rumour floating around that there may also have been chocolate in the package. I can neither confirm or deny that on the grounds that I may incriminate myself.
Knitting. Why yes, I have been.
I’m this close to finishing the second Fair Isle glove.

Crappy colour in the picture. I’m hoping to get a new digital camera soon. This one has colour issues and takes crap pictures at night.
I’ve also been working on Icarus.

Just kinda looks like a black blob, really. The Misti Baby Alpaca is a bit splitty, but it feels so soft. I’ve finished the second repeat of chart one, so there’s still a long way to go.

Three posts in three days!
Don’t get used to it.
Ailsa and I had a little chat last week, and the idea of a Lace Swap was tossed out casually.
As these things are prone to do, it grew, and grew, and has been born!
Whose lace is it anyway?
Who wants to participate in a secret-palesque lace swap? If it doesn’t appeal to anyone else, I guess Ailsa and I can send each other a surprise parcel.
If however, the idea does appeal to you, details can be found on the swap blog, or you can email me at randomknits at gmail dot com, and I’ll add you to the list.
Tell your friends and feel free to advertise it on your own blog.

Two posts in two days, alert the media!
We had an outing today. Thankfully, the weather was a vast improvement on yesterday.

Where did we go? To the football.

That would be the NRL for out-of-staters, and Rugby League for the international contingent. Anyone who knows me is scratching their heads in puzzlement. The football and I generally don’t make a happy couple. However, there was an ulterior motive.
We had free tickets because Emily was performing.

Emily, and roughly 800 other kids!! Isn’t she a star?
Okay, here’s a marginally better picture.

Anyway, the dye bug bit again, and I had dyed up the Knitpicks Dye Your Own worsted weight that Tammy sent me, and I took it along to work on. In my gorgeous new Jordana Paige bag!

Just a scarf, but I needed something relatively easy to work on. I seem to be in a muted phase at the moment. The colours I used here are Gaywool colours, Meadow, Watercrest and Violet.
So it was a happy family day. Em got to dance and show off, I got to knit, and David got to watch the football.
Every Sunday should be this good!