Print o the Wave.. well, not saved but,.. significantly less impeded by the use of lifelines...

I finally got the courage, ripped out the repeat I needed to and started the repeat over again.

Thankfully, since I have been putting in a lifeline every successful repeat, I only had to rip back one repeat. It does, however, make me consider putting in multiple lifelines. Just in case I don't pick up that error in the repeat it happened.

Oh, and I expect my blogging will be a little quiet for a while. I am about *crosses fingers* eight weeks from moving house and I have several friends waiting to take on (increased) sprog-herding duties :)

So there'll be secret baby-knitting projects on the go. Which I can't blog cos some of them read this :P

Speaking of which *cough* anyone want to loan me a copy of Itty Bitty Hats?

This makes me sad. (Lace being mean to me)

See this? This looks innocent enough, right?
But look closer my friend.....


That is a mini-zig, when it should be zagging.

Which means I did probably rows 1-2 then started over again by accident. Which means it needs to be ripped out. :(

I noticed last night, my courage still isn't up to it. It goes away again until I try to face it again tomorrow :(

A mixed weekend

The bad

• The weather was terrible.. Driving rain, heavy wind etc.
• The bad weather meant my man was really not well enough to do the house-planning shopping we had planned to do. (When the barometric pressure drops, he's toast)
• I went to buy my daughter a new tracksuit from Target, went through all the dramas of a little person freaking out because she got wet when we got out of the car at the shops, her insisting on looking at every toy in the store... and then when I finally got to the checkout, having left my pursue at home :(
• My man still being sore and tired today, and so him sleeping all day and us again not doing any of the things I had planned (despite the weather having improved somewhat)

The good

• I made my first ever dahl for my dinner last night. And it rocked!!
• Despite the aforementioned poor weather, and us being inside all weekend pretty much, my daughter was actually very well behaved.
• Well enough, in fact, that I actually read all of the new Harry Potter book (bought in a fit of self-indulgent retail therapy when I went back a second time to Target .. with my purse this time).
  

The mixed

• I cleaned up the house a lot, so it looks less like a pigsty but.. I loathe cleaning.
  
• I can't decide on a new project. I'm looking sideways at the two pairs of half finished socks on my needles, but am half way swayed by my daughter's suggestion that her doll needs a beanie, as my doll (Lizzie in the top banner) has one.
  

This was my first ever sock. I bought the yarn (Opal self striping of some kind, ball band lost in the mists of time) because it was on sale and I didn't know yet whether I would like knitting socks. I hated the colourway. I am now considering if I should finish the last sock, and overdyed it purple.

This was my Jaywalker attempt. I like the colourway much more, but... the yarn is a little scratchy and I can't get into the Jaywalker mojo. It just seems to be not working for me.

Weirdly, now I keep looking at this yarn... which is soft, and I love the colours. And am now thinking as a result, of shifting one of the other two pairs onto scrap yarn and casting on socks pair #3
I don't know. I need an easy project, the lace stole takes too much concentration to knit while doing the public transport thing (and a single mistake requires rather more work to fix)

My Fetching are all done! (Does that make them Fetched?)

Very very quick knit. One ball of Naturally Me Merino/Cashmere blend. Yummy sqooshy and soft.

Plus, a pretty blue!
They took almost exactly one ball, and I lengthened the finger part to reach my first knuckle, and also increased the thumb sections to match.

The yarn is 8ply weight, so I knit them on 3.75mm needles. Which is smaller than the pattern (both yarn and needles) but I'd heard that the original gloves were large on some people. I have fairly narrow hands/fingers so these fit nicely for me.

I like em, and look forward to them keeping me warm on the walk to the bus stop come Monday morning.

Finished Object: Raspy from Rowan Denim People is completed!

Here it is!A finished Raspy, photographed by my favourite small person.

Here is a close up of the detail on the neckline.
My man's comment? Why did you want a jumper with holes in it? {insert much of his mirth at my expense} This lead to a discussion of our relative appreciation of deconstruction-ism as a fashion statement.

{You can imagine it, right?}

Of course, towards the end it was too big to travel and it had to wait for a trip to the Laundromat for access to hot wash and dry for finishing.. So I started these while I waited.

It's a Fetching. You know the drill. If you don't Google it and drown in the masses of them online.

I am the personification of busyness and nerves

I'm doing stuff, honest. But I cannot tell you where the four days off I just had, well, where they went.

It certainly didn't sufficiently go into finishing Raspy like I wanted to.

I mean, I am making progress, definitely.. I'm into the raglan decreases and everything.



And I've done about 4 repeats of the Print O' the Wave stole, when I wanted something more engaging...




And I have cleaned half the house for the rent inspection on Thursday..


And did the school run on Thursday and Friday...


And did some food shopping on Saturday (no I didn't photograph it Lupinbunny, sorry. Maybe one day I shall both remember the project and buy a normal number of things and my kitchen be clean. Like, all at once..)

And I went to Stitch and Bitch Saturday... and then we went raiding Crossways for Yarn...

And .. I've been playing rather a lot of this.. . Oblivion. It's awesome and huge and a nice break from the tedium that World of Warcraft has become.


Oh. And stressing about the new job I start tomorrow. My darling man says they'll love me. Gawd, I hope so.

Making progress (slowly)

I ripped out that sleeve, all the way back and re-cast on. And am regularly checking the results against the pattern. Rather frequently. You can see the comparison below of my progress of reknitting against where it was. It's not too bad really.

I've also cast on Eunny Jang's Print O' The Wave stole. It's in Knitpicks Shimmer colourway Mountain Mist. A little stripy, but I'm giving it some time before I make a firm decision.

I've done about one and a half repeats of the 34 that make up the main body. It's a long-term gift project. And painfully slow. I think I've ripped back about 4 rows so far.

And I got a spoken-comment aired on Craftlit. Which was great, but.... I realise now just how many times I say um. I also sound kind of incoherent as I try to explain one of my points. All kind of embarassing. Which is, interestingly, at odds with my own quiet giggly pride I felt at being aired. Good thing I never became a radio talk-back host, huh?

Annoyed with self. Cos I am dumb.

Cos I can't count, apparently.

See this ? One of these is wrong. Cos I can't count. One of these is 4 stitches too short. FROM THE VERY BEGINNING.

I don't know wether to throw it at the wall, rip it out or cry.

I really want to finish this, but I don't know if I can face ripping this out right now.

My new lace project may get a starting run while I cool down...

I'm designing a new meme : What do you wish you had been when you grew up?

I've been mulling this over in my mind ever since I wrote my response to the '7 things' meme.

Here is my new meme.

What did you wish you had been when you grew up?

Think of the child's game, playing what they want to be when they grow up. This is the adult's past-tense version.

Now you've grown up (whatever that means) what do you wish you had become?
Rules:

1. You can be any number of things you choose to be
2. Ability, talent, location and other realities are not a requirement.
   
3. A comment about each thing you choose is encouraged, but not required
4. Time/place realities can be assumed to have happened (e.g. assume the love of your life would still have met you, even if you never had become a school teacher/violinist/whatever you are now) and should not prevent the game.
5. You can add to your list whenever you like.
   
6. Please send me a comment with your blog post so I can read responses!

That's all.

Spider_knit: What did you wish you had been when you grew up?

• An architect. I love buildings and design and how spaces are created with walls.
• A sculptor/potter. I like the forms of ceramics very much. Second choice would be oil painter.
• Italian. I love the food, the art, the clothes and how they seem to have this whole thing going on. My family also mirrors the Italian thing.
• Better dressed. Now don't get me wrong, I like how I dress, on the whole. But have never really been satisifed with my ability to find clothes I like, or how I portray myself to the world.
• A furniture/household stuff designer. (looks at piles of design mags/blogs)
• A (successful) actress. i.e. I'd like the job, but only if I earn enough to pay my bills etc. I don't like the 'poor/doing other jobs' bit.
  

That's all for now. I may add to it later :)

YOU ARE NOW TAGGED!

Cool things I have found - house & Design

Firstly, today I found out that one of my favorite TV programs - Grand Designs - has it's own magazine! (which of course was immediately bought to be persued at lunch)


And, this fabulous site - which has all of its back issues articles availible, free online!

So far my browsing has shown I want to make:

• these jars;
• these etched glasses;
• the scrabble pin board;
• maybe more. :)

Geek joy!

Heeheeheeheehee!

Just in case any of you were fooled into thinking the heading was just a joke..

Look! My Cthulhus arrived!
And the 'my little victims' have REALISTIC DISMEMBERMENT ACTION!! And the limited edition "Angry" 'thulu :-)

LOL LOL LOL..

Well, I made progress on Raspy!

Here you can see the finished back (the front's already done) of Raspy.

Unfortunately, I then decided it was a bit too Raspy, and I've ripped some out to reduce the length of those neck-edge drop stitches.

And I'm even eyeing off the ones on the front, thinking maybe I should stop them being dropped 2 rows before the edge, rather than all the way to it, to stop the neckline curling so much as I have seen online..

Still, I am reminded by the Elizabeth Zimmerman saying - "You are the boss of your knitting!" and am remaining most-unlike-me calm in the face of this ripping/reknitting.

Finished Object : Red Light Special Hat

Subtitle: Go Western Force!

So, the beanie is done and in use. It does seem to fit okay (on him) rather than the really way to big (on me) that got a bundle of laughs at Mt Lawley SnB on Moday last.

The hat is not the exact version of the pattern of Brooklyn Tweed fame - mostly because of the need for a much larger size. I scaled the number of stitches up, worked out the nearest multiple of 10 that would work (the pattern is a 10 stitch repeat) and didn't do the fancy false seams down each panel.

Still, I am happy with the end result. And he seems happy (I'm sure he'd be singing my praises were he not to have a flu right now). ;-)

Onto .... Heroes and Raspy!

Duplo. It's not just for building anymore. (New! Improved!! Knitting application!!!)

So. What to do when you need to block a fair isle beanie?

Use what comes to hand!

Here is my man's beanie blocking away happily.


What on?

Here is the peek under the covers - a large Chinese bowl on a tower of duplo. Nice, solid, and adjustable!


And to show you that, 'yes Virginia, blocking does make a difference', here's a pre-blocking, 'lumpy' photo.
I'm back to knitting on Raspy (!!)

Okay, clearly this post should have been subtitled 'where I make use of inappropriate numbers of exclamation marks' ..

So, tomorrow night I do believe I shall geek out, watch episodes of Heroes and knit away happily.

(And, very quietly on the uber geek front... I dinged 70! Yay me! All the knitters, just nod knowingly and look at me like the people on the bus look at you. You know the one. :)

Yep. That's the look.

Can you tell what this is?

Hint : Okay, it's knitting progress.

Decreasing! Whee! I'm closing in on the end of the beanie project! (Which means I might actually finish Raspy for me, you know, THIS winter!)

(Just quietly, I was actually disappointed the Knitpicks order arrived promptly, as the required Telemark yarn meant more beanie, rather than more Raspy!)

And to show it really has grown...
It needs a serious blocking, but generally I think it is okay. I noticed the square-type patterns seem to have more problems with floats/tension than the less regular ones. Still, its a 'note to self' for next time. I hold knit-faith that this IS a "blocking will fix it" thing. *crosses fingers*

I was going to sew some cushions this weekend, but instead got caught playing computer games with my man and decided that spare time should be spent knitting - as I want the knit things now, but the sewing things not really for a few months.

(more) Photos of hat when done!

Found the cushion design I want for our lounge

petrie sofa in action, originally uploaded by guessica.

See that cushion second on the left?

I like that one.

I like the mix of solid with patterned fabric capability. And its still modern-contemporary a la our new house.

Now I just need to see if I can deconstruct it without buying the Denyse Schmidt book...

Not much knitting happening..

Well, as it says. No knitting to speak of.

I did have to frog a chunk of Raspy, after I realised that the reason my number of stitches didn't match the pattern was because I forgot to cast off for the underarm seam. {sigh}

I also went to the craft fair (not bad, I think slightly better than last year)..

Where I bought these:
to make cushions for our new house. (There is also another fat quarter of matching brown spots coming in the mail during the week). I think the fourth from the right probably won't be included now I've got them home, as the others all match better. The owl fabric I've been coveting online a very long time, so was really nice to see it in person. My biggest problem was picking just one of either the owl pattern or the plant one (which I also loved).

One particularly good stall (for my non-country-style tastes) was from Patchwork on Central Park. Lupinbunny, they have Australian designers - this is where I got my Kirsten Doran owl fabric from.

I also cleaned up and did a huge chunk of filing & sorting.

Which uncovered these:
Which is the pile of interior design stuff (just those here, there's more at Mum's would you believe..) which I need to sort through, and throw out all the brochures for things we've already decided on (e.g. taps, bath, and so on.) Then I need to file the remainder in the blue concertina file at the back.

And at some point, I should probably put some of that clean washing that's taking over our bedroom, well... away.

"But Mummy, Betsy's feet are cold!"

Subtitled: Why I am a sucker when it comes to my daughter..

This is how I don't get my Raspy (for me) done. I get sidelined by the people I love.

First it was Action, then my man's beanie (which awaits more yarn) and now... dolly socks.

Because she's cold, apparently. (I suspect she just needed to match her little-girl-mum).

I cheated though - DK weight yarn and 3.75mm needles. :) but they were done in the same afternoon...
And, importantly, I have an additional tagger for the 7 Random things!
The magnificient Heather Ordover of the podcast CraftLit. Read on!

I'm making progress... but no finishing...and I'm tagged!

Well, I finished my bag..
And I've stalled on knitting the beanie, while I wait for more yarn.

And so I am back to knitting on Raspy. Which means sometime soon I need to think about how I am going to adjust the raglan sleeve caps to adjust for the different height front & back that I am altering to allow a crew neckline.

In other news, the rather nice Pen&Purl tagged me with a meme.

It's this: Each person tagged gives seven random facts about themselves. Those tagged need to write on their blogs seven facts, as well as the rules of the game. You need to tag seven others and list their names on your blog. You have to leave those you plan on tagging a note in their comments so they know that they have been tagged and need to read your blog.

Which means I need to find seven bloggers who I can tagged, who haven't been tagged already! And since I am but a newbie nobody knit-geek-blogger, this is going to be tough.

Factoid one: I was born in Perth, and have never lived anywhere else. I am somewhat embarrassed by this fact.

Factoid two: I am deeply enamoured of the 1920s period. Fashion, fiction based there, just about anything. English 1920s in particular.

Factoid three: I used to run a role playing game (that's the people sitting around table playing pretend) based in the 1920s. But with horror monsters. Based on HP Lovecraft writing, and called Call of Cthulhu.

Factoid four: I love red wine. But can't drink it in any significant quantity anymore without getting a bad stomach. I hate getting old.

Factoid five: Part of me wishes I'd done worse at school, so that I'd pursued art as a career, rather than getting caught up in hard-core maths and sciences. I suspect I'd have been more happy with my final career.

Factoid six: I have wanted to go to Italy and Egypt since I was 15 and secretly sulk that my mother randomly decided to go to Italy last year.. and went in that same year!

Factoid seven: I never trust men who are too model-good-looking. I have a deep predilection for 'intellectual' types.

Tagging:

• Nadine (who may have forgotten me)
  
• Meshell (who I have been admiring as a troll)
• Craftyaction (who I know is a group, but all those without their own blogs can all take a turn each!)
  

I'm making a clutch bag!

This pattern here by Amy Butler, "Clutch Purse with Antique Pin Closure".

Shown here in stages, very very nearly finished...

Step one: all bits of fabric cut out. Retro large print outside, black inside.

Step two: Attach the interface to the reinforcing canvas (or as I used, herringbone heavy-weight calico)

Step 3: Sew the reinforcements to the outside pieces...

Step 4: Reinforce the handle/tab.

Step 5: Sew on the Velcro..Step 6: Sew the outside bits together (see my uber-leet sewing jargon?)

Step 7: Sew the lining together..Step 8: Put the outside in the inside, and seam around the top.

Step 9: Do bag origami and put the outside to the, well, outside..Step 10: Iron and neaten it up ..
And then realise its late, and your family probably expect dinner, you know, tonight...

Next time I top stitch the hole shut, and do pleats on the edges and add the pin.

(Oh and I got some belated birthday money for fabric, and have progressed the beanie, which is looking very much like it needs another ball of yarn for the beanie. So another Knitpicks order....

so what else do I want to order? heeeheeeheeeheeee..