Tuesday, August 18, 2009

How do you top the TOP?

What a top week! It had everything: knitting, dyeing, felting, pics from home, and a wedding! Crikey!

Let's talk yarn first. I finished two knitting projects this week; my Green Anacardias (On Your Toes sock yarn) and my Double Trouble Cat Pi (Cascade Yarns Ecological Wool).

My Green Anacardias (pattern: Summer Sneakers No.2 "Anacardia" by Wollhuhn) turned out really well. I love the colours, but am not sold on the yarn:

My Double Trouble Cat Pi (pattern: Kitty Pi by Wendy D. Johnson) turned out fairly well. Next time I think I'd use the yarn held doubled for extra thickness and sturdiness. Although, my sweeties don't seem too worried that the kitty pi is a litte squishy:


Last Monday a package arrived. It was, of course, full of yarn! Whoot! My Blue Face Leicester Aran yarn had arrived! I ordered this yarn from a lovely lady on Ravelry (weetsie). I needed four skeins of it, and didn't want to spend $40 a skein plus shipping. So I bought bare yarn and dyed it! Each skein holds 410yds! So I had to do the dyeing in two stages. The whole process took me FOUR hours, but the results were worth it. I love the colours - very subtle semi-solid. I call this colourway Ozmoss:

Oh, and I suppose you're all wondering what I'm going to knit with it? Well, I bowed under pressure and bought the Central Park Hoodie by Heather Lodinsky pattern. I'm going to start swatching tonight!

On Friday, 14th August, a very special event was held at TBB. A wedding! And not just any wedding, but Kata & Will's wedding! What a fabulous day - sunny and warm weather, lovely setting beside the ponds, a very talented flautist who played so sweetly, beautiful and meaningful vows, stunning knitted ishbel, one handsome groom, and one beautiful bride:


Roxanne and I made some topiaries for the wedding, and they turned out so well! They looked gorgeous beside the lovely archway that Kata and her Mum decorated:



And then yesterday an email from my sister-in-law, Theresa. She sent me some wonderful photos of my beautiful nieces in the snow! Not only are they wearing the hoodies I made them for Christmas 2008, but they are also modelling the backpacks I felted for them for their birthdays! Awwwww:

(Karlia in blue; Jaycee in pink)

There's only one other thing that could have topped this week....but I won't tell. A gal has to have some secrets [smiling].

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Etsy Shop

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, and so without further ado, my Etsy presence:





I only just opened the store today, so there's very little available - just a few zippered project bags and a couple of project grab bags. I hope to get some knitting in there too, but that'll have to wait until later in the year when I have some spare [ha, ha, ha, ha, ha] time.

I already have a load of lovely fabrics, linings, zippers and zip pulls. My sewing machine needs a good service, and I think I might get that done later this month. Once October hits and the [ahem....I'm sorry to say} snow starts flying [according to the weatherman], I'll have time to sew and knit!

Oh mercy! Does life get any getter than this!