The Great Knit Picks haul

For quite a long time, I’ve drooled over Knit Picks yarn. Stunning colours, great fibres and and excellent price point. The biggest downside was that they don’t ship to Australia. This didn’t stop me building up a significant wishlist! They were destined to remain as wishes until I received a ball of Fingering Chroma in Lollipop in a swap. It’s a single ply wool/nylon yarn with long gradual colour changes. They must dust that first ball with crack, because then I HAD to have more.

I did some research into mail forwarders, and chose to use ComGateway. And because I was paying for shipping, I wanted to make sure I got my money’s worth.

And, boy, did I! In some justification, it was my birthday present *shifty eyes*

Here was the bag that arrived at my door.

And here’s what was inside.

Yeah, that’s a LOT of yarn. Isn’t it awesome?

Lots of Felici – a wool/nylon workhouse sock yarn.

It comes in Self Striping

And Solids.

There’s also some Stroll and Glitter (OMG SPARKLEZ!!11!!1!!!) in there too. I love that there’s some sport weight sock yarn available. It knits up so fast.

I also chucked in some Palette for Dr Who Knits, some Chroma Worsted for cowls and some Gloss silk in both fingering and DK for shawls.

I feel like I could throw it all on my bed and roll around in it 🙂

I also got a mini sock blocker and some DPNs.

Very happy with my stash expansion, even if my husband did groan when he saw it. Now to start searching patterns and actually knitting it….

Back to blogging

Aaaaaand I’m back.

After a whirlwind few months, I’ve finally got a few spare moments to blog. Knitting has taken a backseat over the past month as I had the squishiest, most adorable baby boy come into my life. He is a very good baby, and I’ve been enjoying lots of snuggles from my last baby. Newborn constantly in arms + breastfeeding + tired mummy =/= much knitting output. I have missed it though, so I’ve figured out how to knit while nursing 🙂 

Now to start plowing through my Ravelry queue!

Sunshine blanket of DOOM – finished!

It’s done *happy dance* and it’s awesome!

I decided to increase the basic Pinwheel pattern to 50 stitches between YOs. That’s a massive 500 stitches total. The blanket I pulled of the needles was a good size, and I hope it would grow a little after blocking.

It nearly doubled in size. That’s a 30cm or 12 inch ruler that almost reached all the way to the centre before blocking and comes nowhere near afterwards. It is huge.

I love it though. So bright and happy for my little boy. And the pattern is so ridiculously easy that I’ll be able to whip up one for the pram/car seat quickly.

Ravelry link.

Getting my knitting mojo back.

Our completely pointless summer has given way to a very very cold autumn. As the Starks say “Winter is coming.” despite wanting to hibernate, I’m taking advantage of my childrens’ Easter spoils and curling up with chocolate, good bad tv and my knitting. Fingers crossed that I am finally getting my knitting mojo back.

A nice easy project to keep me entertained is a Pinwheel Blanket for the baby. I started it well before I knew the sex, so I chose to dye the yarn bright unisex colours. I love a baby in sunshine yellow 🙂

I’m calling this the Blanket of Doom as, like the proverbial bunny, it just keeps going and going and going. I’m at 47 stitches per section which is 470 stitches total. Each round seems to take forever! I will increase to 50 before I give up. Thank goodness it’s in 10ply or it wouldn’t be finished before his 21st.

On a side note, this is my first time blogging from my phone. Yay for technology!

The great blog resurrection!

Poor sad neglected blog!

The last 4 months have been incredibly hectic and something had to give. Unfortunately, that something was blogging.

As a quick recap of the last few months: I am expecting another little boy in July, which is so wonderful. This pregnancy has not been the easiest I’ve ever had. A month long migraine ending in hospitalization meant a lot of my crafting suffered as it just hurt too much to concentrate on anything small, like screens or knitting. Ont he other end of the spectrum, my back and pelvis have given up the fight, so lots of lounge surfing for the next few months has encouraged me to really hook into my knitting. Dyeing has taken a very back seat as I just wasn’t comfortable playing with dangerous chemicals whilst pregnant. Stellar Yarns has also taken a break as morning sickness and two young children is draining enough.

I’ve hardly knit anything for this baby (poor unloved third child) so I have a bulky blanket OTN right now.

Even though I’ve been unable to knit, I have still been acquiring beautiful yarns, mostly sock yarns. How exactly does that happen?

I’m hoping that I will be able to blog a little more and really embrace my crafting passions before the chaos of a newborn throws it all haywire again. I must learn how to blog from my phone for late night feeds….

Here’s hoping to a new year full of blogging!

Two at a Time Toe Up Sock Tutorial

Here is the first part of my complete tutorial on knitting two at a time tow up socks. This is a beginner level tutorial, you just need to know how to knit, purl and ktog.

Two at a Time Toe Up Sock Tutorial

This is a .pdf document and it is password protected, to prevent  it being distributed elsewhere. The password is so you want to knit socks? without any spaces, but including the question mark.

This tutorial covers as far as starting the gusset.

Enjoy!

Great start to NaBloPoMo *rolls eyes*

And I miss the second day of the month >.< To be fair, I did have a good reason. Two very sick little boys who needed their mummy threw out the blogging plan. Both Hurricane and Cyclone have croup, which I thought disappeared in the Anne of Green Gables days. Luckily, we live in the Age of Wonders Science and there are specific treatments for croup. It’s still not fun listening to your children struggle to breathe, and I was up all night with miserable kids. And it’s scary to be told to upgrade your ambulance cover in case xyz happens and you need to do a midnight dash to the hospital. Hopefully tonight is less dramatic and we all get a good night’s sleep.

In yarnie related news, my sample stock has finished being dyed and dried, and I’m knitting swatches this afternoon. Reason number squenty billion that knitting is a great hobby; you can do it while a sick toddler lies on your lap. I have some BFL that is quite nice, some scrumptious 100% organic merino and some absolutely amazing MCN (my personal fave). And keep an eye out tonight for Part One in my How to Knit Socks Guide – choosing yarn and needles.

NaBloPoMo

This is an exercise in futility aimed at getting people blogging more often. I am terrible at blogging on time – I often have great plans for a blog post, and then it’s dinnertime, or the kids need a bath, or there’s something exciting on tv. And the blog grows increasingly neglected, and ends up filling itself with bad emo poetry. Winter’s sunsets make my heart bleed…

Here is the link to the National Blog Post Month site. Why not try it yourself on your own blog? Meanwhile, you can expect lots of exciting updates from me on fibre, dyeing, knitting and designing. Happy November!

Bamboo stitch phone cosy

2.5mm/US1.5 needles – either DPNs or long circulars for Magic Loop

4ply (fingering) yarn – sock leftovers are perfect. I used String Theory Entanglement in the Entropy colourway.

Gauge – Approx 9sts per inch in pattern.

This is a great way to use up leftover sock yarns and knits up fast. The fabric is quite dense, so it protects your phone and has the added benefit of wiping away fingerprint smudges. This stitch pattern can break up yarns that tend to flash or pool, and looks great with short-repeat variegated yarns. It also adds an interesting texture to solids or semi-solids. It is knit in the round so no fiddly seaming.

Bamboo Stitch Pattern

Row 1: yo, k2, pass yo over k2, k2

Row 2: Knit

Row 3: k2, yo, k2, pass yo over k2

Row 4: Knit

Cast on 40 stitches using Turkish cast on (20 stitches each side)

Place marker to show beginning of round.

Knit around once.

Knit Bamboo Stitch pattern for approx. 13 repeats, or until cosy is long enough.

Knit 5 rounds of twisted rib (p1, k1tbl).

Cast off using a stretchy bind off.

 

 Ravelry Pattern link

Birthday Bonanza!

Today’s my birthday (and I’m gonna party like it’s my birthday *insert bad dancing here* ).

My birthday present from my family was some money to spend on yarn *squee*! So I trundled over to Simply Sock Yarn, where I’ve been keeping an ever-changing wishlist. There was lots of  oooh-ing and ahhh-ing and hmmm-ing and Ravelry-ing, because I promised myself that I wouldn’t buy yarn without a project in mind. And you have to make sure you pack as much in an order as you can because of, you know, shipping, and stuff.

The final haul is below. Click the pictures to be taken directly to the yarn link on SSYC.

I have adored String Theory Yarns for quite a while now, and I’ve signed up for their Sock Club. But the first shipment isn’t until October, and I really wanted some eye-burning bright stripes. I’ll be doing vanilla knee-highs with this.

Dream in Colour Starry is SHINY yarn. So I naturally bought a truckload.

I’m thinking Boo! socks for the blue, Monkeys with the green, Charybdis for the teal, and… I’m sure I had plans for the red and purple, just need to get through my queue and wait for inspiration *guilty face*

And these solids will become Wonderland Socks. I’m really excited about these, as I’ve never done illusion knitting before.

And that’s my birthday haul! Now to stalk the postman…