Spring Knitting

After finishing my Watershed a couple of weeks back the weather turned from mild winter to hot spring days and a woollen cardi in dark was the last thing I wanted to wear (there is always next winter!). The last thing I wanted to do was finish seeing in the ends of my second stripey baby blanket. For several nights I watched TV without knitting, and as nice as it was to have some snuggle time with my husband I was at serious risk of losing my knitting mojo!

Luckily a few days later a package arrived in the mail from Jimmy Beans Wool with just the soft and pretty cottony goodness I needed to get myself back on track. 2 skeins each of Debbie Bliss Eco Baby in mauve and peach and Cascade Ultra Pima in primrose. These will become little cardigans for my growing girls.

This was my first order from Jimmy Beans and I was very happy with the service and the prices (the Australian dollar was worth more than the US dollar when I placed the order - yippee!). It took about 14 days for the yarn to arrive via standard post. I'll definitely be ordering from them again.

New Beginnings

Our gorgeous twin girls, Olive and Eliza, were born on April 5th. They are lovely, healthy little girls with very different features and temperaments.

A few days before I went into hospital I optimistically (or perhaps foolishly) decided to cast on these socks...

A nice and easy pattern that kept me company through the 6-odd hours of the classic BBC version of Pride and Prejudice watched marathon style whilst my daughter was in daycare and I had some precious time alone (alas, those days are now gone). This is as far as I got. It was hard to get overly inspired to knit these when the weather was still so hot and my feet and ankles were swollen beyond belief. The weather has finally cooled down now and my ankles are once again thinner than my calves so I will have to get knitting these again soon.

In the meantime I have started a more pressing project...pram blankets for the twins. After much consideration I decided to go with a colourful stripey mitred square knit in the round.

The yarn is Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic 8ply and the green colourway ties in with the green of our Baby Jogger City Mini Double stroller (love it!) nicely. Now I just have to finish two of these before Winter arrives.

A Grey Area

There is something bewitching about this variegated yarn. I was so drawn to it's mix of greys and charcoals that I bought two skeins intending to knit it into something myself.

At first I thought it would make a great eternity scarf, but after further consideration I realised that I couldn't face knitting a big tube and decided that a triangular shawl might be more my thing.

On Monday night I wound the first skein into a ball. Warning bell 1: when I unlooped the skein I thought "it's very stripey". Undetered, yesterday I eagerly cast on Using Orlane's textured shawl recipe. Warning bell 2: it's hard to see the texture with so much variegation. So after knitting 40 rows I put my knitting away and moped around for an hour or so. I then browsed through every project made in this yarn on ravelry. I didn't like any of them! Finally I came to the realisation: I don't like the look of this yarn, or any variegated yarn, when it is knit up.

Woe is me! What to do now with 2 skeins of this accursed yarn? Bury them in my stash? Do a give-away? No. I have decided that it is still lovely yarn, it is Malabrigo afterall, and it might not look right for me but it would make a pretty cute jumper for a little boy that I know whose birthday is coming up soon. I know his mum will read this so I won't give any more away....


Hmmm, even the photos for this post are grey and dreary ;(

A Bundle of Joy

Can you relate to that really satisfying feeling you get when you pick up a lovely set of needles, a gorgeous yarn and a well written pattern? I had one of those moments last week when I started knitting a gift for a good friend of mine who is expecting her first baby. In this case the needles were Knitpro Symphonie 3mm wooden DPNs (a must for toy knitting in my humble opinion), the yarn was Sublime Yarn's Baby Cashmere Merino Silk DK and the pattern was Ysolda's elephant Elijah.



After knitting Ysolda's Sophie bunny earlier this year - and loving it! - Elijah was sitting on my queue just waiting for an occassion to be knitted. The disappearing loop cast-on is still tryingly tricky, but once that is under your belt it really is quite an easy knit. Like Sophie, Elijah is knitted completely in the round and stuffed as you go. After knitting the head, you pick up stitches and start knitting the body, and so on and so on. This time I took Ysolda's advice and used a crochet hook to pick up the stitches, which was much easier.

To make things a little trickier for myself I decided to give Elijah a striped jumper (the arms were the worst - 5 needles, 2 strands of yarn and a knitted head to deal with!). After inspecting the other FO's on Ravelry I decided that it was essential, otherwise the trunk can look a bit odd.

I used Morris Empire 8ply for the jumper and scarf and think that it matches the Sumblime yarn quite well. In fact I think it actually out-performs it, as there was a bit of pilling on the head by the time I had finished. I will definitely use Empire for knitting toys in the future (although I might go down a needle size to tighten up the fabric a bit more).

After a week of knitting my heart out and a very late night on Saturday (note to self: I need more than 7 days to knit a toy!), my little bundle of joy made his way to his new owner as we celebrated the imminent arrival with a delicious high tea at Sydney's Observatory Hotel.

Happy Blogiversary to me!

Firstly, a big THANK YOU to everyone who has been reading my blog over the past year. My Blogiversary was actually on Saturday (29th May) but yesterday a parcel arrived in the mail that gave me a real cause to celebrate. My Malabrigo order arrived from Eat.Sleep.Knit in the US after just 8 days! Talk about speedy service - just the way I like it. I am so happy with my choice of colours in the Worsted Merino: I went with Frost Grey (at the front of the box in the picture above) and SFO Sky (the variegated grey at the back is so much better than I had expected!).

The box also included the urgently required skein of Silky Merino in Lettuce needed to finish my Cedar Leaf Shawlette, which I'm happy to say is finished and currently blocking on my yoga mat in the middle of the living room. I'll fill you in on all the details after I take some FO photos.

Oops I did it again!

Once again I have run out of yarn in the final stages of a project. You may recall that this happened to me last year when I was knitting the Moss Stitch Hoodie for my nephew. In that instance Ravelry saved the day and a very lovely lady from Missouri, all the way on the other side of the world, was kind enough to send me a couple of balls of Naturally Merino 10ply (we still keep in touch on Ravelry which is nice).

This time around I should have known better. I am knitting the Never Not Knitting's Cedar Leaf Shawlette in Malabrigo Silky Merino. Having consulted other Raverly users' project notes I knew that it would be tight, if not impossible, to knit this out of just 2 skeins. So on Sunday night the inevitable happened and I ran out of yarn with just two and a half leaves left to go.

I had even asked the store where I bought the yarn to hold an additional skein for me, but that was weeks ago and I never got back to them, and of course now they and the only other Malabrigo stockists in Australia are out of stock!

The upshot of this disaster is that I placed my first order with US online store Eat.Sleep.Knit yesterday and my order has already been shipped. To make it worth my while in terms of shipping, in addition to the skein of silky merino that I need to finish the shawlette, I added 2 skeins of Malabrigo Worsted Merino in Frost Gray and 2 skeins in SFO Sky (I love grey!). Now I just have to wait 10-21 days (fingers crossed that it's 10!) for it to arrive.

One skein of Malabrigo Scarf

My sister Nicole entered my knitted gift giveaway back in March hoping to win a red scarf. Even though she wasn't an official winner I wanted to make her something. She is a regular follower of my blog and one of the few who leaves comments (which is always nice!). She has also just returned to work after her second child so I decided to whip her up a one skein wonder as a mothers day gift.

Having the self imposed restriction of using only one skein made the pattern choice a little tricky but I ended up choosing to knit the Drop Stitch Scarf (ravelry link) by Christine Vogel.

It was a nice brainless knit and only took me a few days to finish. I followed the lead of other Ravelry users and wet blocked this, increasing the size from 115cm x 15cm (knitted size) to 165cm x 17cm (after blocking). The result is a good sized scarf and the stitch and slight variegation of the yarn show up beautifully.

A Big Day Out

I am pleased to report that our day out in the city on Saturday was an all around success. The Beginners Crochet workshop was a good introduction into crochet. Over the space of four hours we learned the 4 main stitches and finished with a granny square.

I have to admit that I was surprised that I got the hang of it at all. I tried to get my mum to teach me late last year and it was a disaster. I think the problem was that I went to her with a pattern in mind and tried to launch straight into it before even learning the foundation stitches. At the time I also struggled with holding the yarn in my left hand and keeping my tension.

This time around I didn't even think about it and it wasn't an issue. I liked the fact that workshop teacher, Jeanette, didn't care how you held your hook or yarn as long as you got the end result.


Stitch sampler - chain stitch, double crochet, treble and half treble. I lost a few stitches along the way but I was getting the hang of it.


My first ever Granny Square - my precious!

Morris & Sons were kind enough to give class participants a student discount of 10% off all purchases after the workshop. Maja and I didn't take much convincing to take up the offer, but I did have trouble deciding on colours for my granny square. I couldn't resist buying some of Morris & Sons' own Empire yarn. It looks so delicious and comes in a beautiful range of colours. Pity in is made in China (from 100% Australian merino at least) and so pricey ($10.90/50g). I have Maja to thank for helping me select these beautiful, grown-up colours.


Morris Empire superwash merino 8ply in Bluestone, Smoke and Pumpkin

After the workshop we reunited with our husbands and my little angel and enjoyed the world's best dumplings at Din Tai Fung at World Square, before catching a bus to Newtown to check out a designer kidswear sale. We must have got there a little late in the day for the clothes but I did snap up these 3 gorgeous Lark knitted cupcakes for just $5 each.


Lark Cupcakes - cute enough to eat!

It was a great day out and now I am itching to start a big granny square cushion for my sofa but I am banned from picking up the hook until I at least finish the now very belated birthday shawl for my mother in law.

#7 - What a Yarn

And what a week! Today's post is the final post of Knit & Crochet Blog Week and I have to admit that I am glad it is so. Blogging every day is not as easy as it looks, especially trying to fit in a family and husband and some actual knitting at the same time! But I am so glad that I have made the effort and definitely think that I am inspired to keep challenging myself and blogging on a variety of topics each week (or fortnight!).

To wrap it up here are a couple of yummy yarn's in my stash that I am just itching to use...


Malabrigo's Silky Merino in Lettuce colourway from Tangled Yarns. I've raved about my love of Malabrigo Yarns and this yarn especially before so I won't bore you again. But let me just say that I LOVE it and if you haven't tried Malabrigo yet you are missing out - really! I don't want to knit with anything else at the moment. If you live in Australia and are finding it hard to come by, visit the Tangled Yarns website. I hope to cast on Never Not Knitting's Cedar Leaf Shawlette in this tonight. I planned to knit this for my mother in law for her birthday but it is going to be a bit of a belated present now.



I also can't wait to use this 50% silk/50% merino hand dyed fingering weight yarn from Lush Yarns. the colour is called "Violet Sky" but I couldn't quite capture the richness of the colours in the photograph, I think because of the luminosity of the silk. But take it from me, it is beautiful!

I definitely want to knit myself a shawl out of this. Either Kirsten Kapur's Lavalette(left), Gudrun Johnston's Aestlight Shawl (centre) or YsoldaTeague's Ishbel (right).



Thanks to everyone for tuning into my blog this week! I hope you have found these posts informative or interesting. I haven't had a chance to read everyone else's posts but plan to sit down with a cup of tea tonight and indulge in reading what other knitters have been up to. I'll do a round up over the next couple of days and share some of my favourites with you.

x Natalie

Malabrigo March

You've got to love express postage! My second order of Malabrigo arrived from Tangled Yarns yesterday and this time I am in love! The blue (azul profundo) for Jamie's hat is perfect and the other two colours (vermillion and Sauterne) are divine. Not exactly sure what I will do with the last two but I'm sure I'll think of something!

Stash Guilt

I'm feeling a little guilty this afternoon; because of a couple of recent yarn purchases. Retail guilt is something I experience on a regular basis; not because I shop a lot, but because I tend to agonize over any purchase that is not essential. This really takes the fun out of shopping. It usually doesn't extend to the buying of books and toys for my daughter or the occassional purchase from an online yarn store. But this time is different...

Today I received a package in the mail from Tangled Yarns, an online and retail store based in Brisbane. I came across this store when I was searching for Australian stockist of Malabrigo yarn. There is such a cult following of this yarn on Ravelry that I really want to see what all the fuss is about. I have a pattern queued: Koolhaas by Jared Flood for Jamie (which 763 out of 4474 Ravelry users have used Malabrigo to knit) and now just need to get my hands on the yarn.

When I went to place my order a week and a half ago Tangled Yarns were out of stock of most colours of the Worsted Merino (10ply). By this stage I was in a bit of a frenzy, I wasn't prepared to leave the online store without some Malabrigo in my cart! So I ordered a skein of the Silky Merino (8ply) in teal feather and a skein of Cascade 220 (10ply) - also hard to come by in Aussie yarn stores - in teal also. I don't remember what the logic was at the time. I think I'd figure it out when they arrived. And today they did and I'm not happy with myself.

I don't love the teal colour of the Cascade 220, and it's not the most masculine of colours either. It is definitely not the yarn for Jamie's Koolhaas. The malabrigo silky merino is divine to touch and a lovely muted teal colour, but it is only a 150 yard skein so not enough for the Koolhaas even if I wanted to try and make it in this.
Solution:
1) I've ordered the Malabrigo Worsted Merino in 3 different colours (since my last order Tangled Yarns just so happened to receive a new shipment!). Hence the stash guilt.
2) I have queued a different hat for Jamie to make use of the Cascade 220 and I've queued a hat for myself to make use of the malabrigo silky merino. And so my queue of projects grows...

Milo Vest

I am very happy with the results of the Milo vest that I knitted for Nina. It's a great, simple top-down pattern knitted in the round. I chose to knit this for 2 reasons: 1) I wanted to road test the Utiku Perendale 8ply yarn that I bought in NZ last year (it is so reasonably priced and the colours are great so it could be a staple), and 2) I wanted to knit something with one skein and that included a cable. My first cable!

The yarn is not the softest and is a little fuzzy but it knits up nicely. Hopefully it won't be too scratchy, but it shouldn't matter with this garment because she will always wear something under it. This is going to be a nice warm vest for Autumn/Winter.

So this was my first attempt at knitting a cable and I am very happy with the result although I actually missed one row out of the giant cable repeat. Because of this and the fact that I knit tightly anyway (and especially when crossing the stitches) I think that the cable is a little tighter than it should be. I stretched it out when wet blocking it and I think that has made a big difference as you can see in the before and after shot below.
Left: Before blocking. Right: After blocking

Above: Close up of my cable

Above: A very lovely cast off edge. I used the decrease cast off method for the first time and loved it. I tend to cast off too tightly and usually find it slow going so this kills two bird with one stone. I used this Knitty article for instruction as recommended in the pattern.

I ended up with half a skein left and have decided to whip up a cute hat to match.

New (Zealand) additions to my stash

On our recent holiday in New Zealand I picked up a few balls of wool to add to my stash. In Palmerston North I picked up a couple of balls of the deliciously soft Sublime Yarns Baby Cashmere Merino Silk DK in beige, which I hope to knit Ysolda Teague's gorgeous bunny "Sophie" with as soon as i have finished my current UFOs. I am obsessed with Ysolda at the moment and just wish I could knit faster.


On one of the final legs of our trip, driving from Palmerston North to Taupo I then stumbled across The Wool Company in Utiku and picked up 2 hanks in colours I liked just for the hell of it. I didn't have a project in mind but couldn't walk away empty handed. Their range of Utiku Perendale 8ply comes in a fantastic range of colours (including the two I bought which are Coral and Periwinkle) and at only $13 NZD for a 200g hank it is cheap as chips! Once I decide on a pattern to make for myself I will order more yarn from their online store. hopefully the shipping will not cost the earth.