A scarf

We had a lovely, but hectic visit to Australia. Lots of running around getting things organised. I got new glasses, still learning to love them; sourced goodies for the goodie bags for Kidlet’s birthday party in October; picked up birthday presents for Gorgeous Man (a bit later in the year) and caught up with friends and family.

There are a few finished objects and some fibre and yarn acquisitions to show you. First something I took right down to the wire. I knitted this scarf last year and then got stalled when it came to blocking. In my defense it was rainy season when I finished it and I knew it would have problems drying. I finally got it blocked and dried the day before we left so that I could gift it while we were in Australia.

It blocked out really well. I love the look of it puddled on the couch.

This went to live with my sister-in-law Rockmelon Recycled who as a maker herself (both of my sils are makers) appreciates the handknits. To keep this in the family, this yarn was given to me by my step-mother-in-law. When I saw that the colour was almost identical to the hat I had already knitted Rochelle I knew I needed to make a scarf to match.

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A handspun shawl

A looong time ago I spun some silk. It languished marinated in the stash for several years until Adamas bubbled to the top of my Ravelry queue and I decided the two would be a good match.

I think I was right.

I’m loving how this is turning out.

This final picture shows the colour most accurately.

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A scarf

I knitted a scarf.

Summit scarf – pattern found here.

Close-up.

It has been blocked, but it’s been so humid that it’s gone a bit curly again.

 

 

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Actually wearing the handknits

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you will know that I love to knit. One of the great ironies of my life is that right now I live in a place where it is never, ever, cool enough to wear knitted items. Knits get carefully stored in anticipation of a visit to a cold place. I’m a process knitter, in that I enjoy the process and the finished item is of secondary importance, but still, it’s nice to actually wear the things I’ve made from time to time.

Looking through some photos of me on our trip I was happy to see the knitwear appearing.

Hat is handspun and hand knit and the shawl is knitted in Nurturing Fibres sock yarn. This shawl is reflective of my life in the last few years. The yarn was bought in South Africa, the shawl was knitted while on a research trip to the USA in 2013 (collecting material for my thesis) and finished once I got home to Papua New Guinea…

This is handspun. The fibre was from Nurturing Fibres. I spun this several years ago, but didn’t get around to knitting it up until last year.

Gorgeous Man and Gorgeous Girl also sported hand knit hats (sadly Gorgeous Man’s hat got lost in Atlanta). Gorgeous Girl’s hat was handspun and it always makes me happy to see her wearing things I’ve made.

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Odds and ends

Crafting time has been thin on the ground lately, but I’ve been sneaking a few minutes here and there.

I pulled out and blocked a few hand knits in preparation for our upcoming trip to the USA.

This shawl had it’s first blocking to open up the ‘lace’. The last time I was somewhere cold enough to wear it I had finished it on that trip and had nowhere to block so just wore it as it was.

Love the nice straight edge my new blocking wires provide. Can’t wait to wear this. The yarn was handspun by me. The dyer has branched into other things and no longer stocks fibre in her etsy store which is a real loss.

Unfortunately a lot of my favourite shawls are staying behind. It would seem that I have knitted a lot of shawls (and there are plenty more in my ravelry queue), but I have to admit that space dictates I only take a select few.

This one is newly  off the needles, but is staying behind. It turned out rather small and I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it yet.

This is a handspun single from superfine South African merino dyed by me.

Finally, I did a little bit on my travel journal. Gorgeous Girl really enjoyed keeping a travel journal while we were in Fiji earlier this year, so I want to make sure that she does that again, and the best way to encourage behaviour is to model it yourself.

I’m planning on picking up some USA themed stickers or paper for the cover page, but I had some lovely October Afternoon paper I bought several years ago when we were living in South Africa (and have been hoarding). This seemed like the perfect project for it.

This page opens out and will be used to describe our accommodation.

I fussy cut some paper

All ready for journalling to happen.

Tomorrow we are flying to Australia. We get to spend time with family and celebrate some milestones which will be lovely. My mum is going to come over and join us in Brisbane for a week. We don’t get to see her as much as we’d like because while Brisbane is only a three hour flight, the trip to Perth is much longer (and much more expensive).

I’m hoping to blog more regularly now that I am on holidays. Hopefully there’ll be a finished mitten to show before too long.

 

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Knitting

I finally got around to blocking my bitterroot shawl. I’m thrilled with how it’s turned out. Gorgeous Girl is trying to convince me that it should be hers…

I’m currently fighting illness. I know I’m sick because I had the afternoon to myself and instead of knitting I fell asleep.

Gorgeous Man goes away for most of next week and once he returns we are flying to Australia very briefly and then on to the United States.

I have been knitting in preparation.

These are Vineland Mittens, but the lovely Java Jem who I was lucky enough to meet in person last time I was in the USA. This is a free pattern. They are kind of addictive.

 

Yarn is deep stash. The berry is from Nurturing Fibres and is the leftovers from a cardigan I knitted. The brown was gifted to me from a friend of Gorgeous Man’s who used to have sheep and had the fleece processed into yarn.

There has been some art journalling still in progress, and I’ve been slowly working on getting my travel journal ready, but photos need to be taken.

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A shawl

I finished a handspun shawl.

I’m really pleased with how this turned out. I have enough yarn left over to (hopefully) make a matching hat.

The arty tree shot…

And with the sun shining through

It’s still unblocked. I’m going to leave it unblocked because I’ve got fancy new blocking wires on their way to me. Hopefully pick up in Australia on our next visit and anything blocked here and put into storage will need to be reblocked before wearing in December/January as things go musty. So I’m going to block it at a later date. Hopefully it will grow a little in the blocking process.

Yarn is a silk/merino blend and is a navajo ply. It’s been languishing marinating in the stash for at least 4 years. I think it was worth the wait though.

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Playing with yarn

I go a bit mad in our traffic as a passenger if I don’t have anything to do with my hands, it just seems like such a waste of time! So on the way out of the door on Sunday I quickly grabbed a spare ball of yarn from the stash (left over from a pre-Ravelry project) and started crocheting in the car.

A basic baby beanie that will be donated to charity.

I have some lace knitting on the go as well, but that requires too much concentration to do in the car. This shawl:

Pattern is free from Knitty.com. Frost Diamonds. The yarn is much more purple in real life and, because it’s a wool/silk blend, has quite a sheen to it. This yarn was my souvenir to myself from our trip to South America last year.

Another photo because I’m loving how this is turning out.

I have the flu. Sunday and Monday I felt terrible, but have turned the corner today and am starting to feel better.

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A handspun shawl

I started this shawl just before we headed to Europe as I wanted something simple to do in the few moments of down time between conferences and sight seeing. Then it travelled with me to Australia earlier this month and I worked on it a little more, but couldn’t finish it there because I needed my little scale to make sure that I used every last ounce (towards the end I was weighing the remaining yarn after each row to see if I had enough to do another row or if I needed to cast off). Without further ado I give you my Old Lady of Poland shawlette.

Pattern is a free Ravelry download and can be found here: Old Man of Storr Shawlette.

I’m pleased with how it came out.

The yarn was handspun by me quite a number of years ago (2010 according to the stash entry on Ravelry) and I don’t know why I didn’t get around to knitting it up sooner.

It’s a merino/tencel blend from Girl on the Rocks, who has wonderful laser cut knitting and sewing notions in her etsy shop. I adore the sheep WPI tool.

I made two trips into town as the passenger today, Gorgeous Girl had a role in her school assembly this morning and so Gorgeous Man and I both went in and Friday afternoon is school pick up + grocery shopping. This meant that instead of having to deal with our awful traffic I could knit. Here’s the progress from today’s journeys.

Using up some leftover yarn from a pair of socks knitted a very long time ago. It’s a little baby hat for charity.

I’m hoping to find some crafty time this weekend: a bit of scrapbooking (I have lots of new photos to play with) and perhaps a bit of spinning, I’m hoping to replicate some Malabrigo yarn using their fibre that I purchased in Poland. Wish me luck!

What do you have planned for the weekend?

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Crafty interuption

There’s been a little bit of crafty goodness happening here at Ruth’s Place.

I finished Brickless and wore it in Germany. It’s now in a ziplock bag in a box waiting for our next visit somewhere cold…

I’m pleased with how it turned out.

Needed to make a thank you card and I came up with this.

I fussy cut the motifs from some paper. Leaf placement on the right could be a little better, but I think it works overall. Now just need to write in it and pop it in the post.

There has also been some scrapbooking. I am trying to use some photos of myself and Gorgeous Man, so that not all the scrapbook albums in the house are of Gorgeous Girl. These are very old photos of my graduation from my first degree. When I graduated I never expected that life would lead me in the direction that it has. For this layout I used the layout by Gisele Julien shown on the Let’s Capture our Memories blog for sketch 69. It was perfect for the photos that I had of this event.

I hand wrote the title and coloured it with water-colour pencils.

A slip of the cutting knife meant that an embellishment was needed. Fortunately I had the perfect one left over from when I did a page for Dr. Gorgeous Man’s most recent graduation.

I suspect I must be the ultimate simple scrapbooker with only one embellishment on a page.

In real life the green leaves in the background paper and the green in the title match perfectly, but my camera didn’t want to play nice.

Right now I have some yarn cooling on the sink and some cooking on the stove. A very generous Raveller sent me some Kool Aid, so I’ve been experimenting with that. The over-dyed yarn is looking great, I’m reserving my judgement regarding the yarn on the stove.

Stay tuned for yarny photos.

 

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