Em's Blu-ange Chullo

Last week at this time I was on the phone to my family in Australia.  The whole gang was there.  They had gathered at Mum and Dad's in Grafton to celebrate Mother's Day, Mum's birthday, my brother's birthday and my niece Karlia's birthday.  And yes, according to another niece, Emily (6yr old), there was indeed three birthday cakes!  I asked her which cake she liked the taste of most.  She diplomatically answered that they were ALL the best.

When I spoke with my sister, I asked her what gift I could knit for Emily for her birthday in July.  She suggested that I knit her a beanie (translation = toque) with earflaps. 

When I was on the phone to Emily I told her to keep an eye on the letterbox for a BIG package from Canada that would be arriving for her in a few weeks.  She was of course very excited.  Then she told me that she knew what I was going to send her.  I queried how she could possibly know.  She replied that I was sending her knitting.  When I asked her how she knew that, she replied "Aunty Isa, you always send me knitting".  I giggled and told her that I might not send her knitting this year.  She insisted that she knew what colour I was going to knit for her.  I asked her how she could possibly know since I didn't even know yet.  She reminded me then that her favourite colours are orange, blue and the rainbow!

So whether it was fated or not, I present:

Emily's Blu-ange Chullo

And, in the immortal words of Monty Python, now for something completely different...

Apparently, I might be old and faded, but I'm not beyond being a bridesmaid at a friend's wedding!  Ugh!  C'mon now...really?  A dress and shoes?  Ugh...ugh!  The last time I wore a bridesmaid dress was in 1985.  It was hideous.  Long, with puffy lace sleeves, a hoop in the bottom and lime green in colour.  Eeeeew!

My friend's wedding is scheduled for 2011 in September and will be held in our own lovely gardens at The Bloomin Bog.  Oh man..........  I haven't worn high heeled shoes and a dress for 11 years.

So there's the news this end.  I'm off now to start a new knitting project.  And I have absolutely NO IDEA what it will be!!

Coupla FOs

Time is not my friend at the moment.  So many things are pulling me in all sorts of directions, and it's hard to find a few minutes to sit down and be quiet.

Tonight I didn't have to cook - that's my Sunday "reward".  So that means I have a small window of opportunity to blog.

Not that there's anything much to blog about, but I did finish two projects since my last post.

Last month I knit a vest for my lovely little niece Karlia.  Her birthday is next week, and she'll be turning 7.  You'd be correct in thinking that you've seen this pattern before.  I wrote the pattern for my other lovely little niece, Jaycee who turned 5 in April.

Karlia's vest was knit from Diamond Yarn Fine Merino Superwash DK.  It knit up very nicely, but when I washed it to block it....UGH.  The vest GREW quite long!  Very disappointing.  I hope it still fits Karlia and doesn't become a dress!

Here's the finished project:

Karlia's Vesta

Last month I got a new cell phone - a Sony Ericcson.  So I decided I needed a sweet little cozy for it.  I bought some glass beads, and used some left over Koigu from the Gerlinde Fingerless Gloves.

This project was mindless and took no time at all to finish.

Beaded Sony Mobile Phone Holder

Crikey, Blimey and Poop!

The title says it all.  Remember back in January when I had all that good luck and was worried about cosmic forces crashing down around me?

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaa..........

Well, enter April!  Whatever could go wrong did.  Brutal month.

Things have settled down again now, but the drama and stress held me hostage for a while.  I've got the cold sores and husky voice as proof.

I didn't even have the energy or inclination to knit much.  I finished a little jumper for my new nephew in law, Hunter, a dazzling little tooth fairy bag for my niece, Emily, and a pair of fingerless gloves for my Mum for Mother's Day.

Here are some pics:

Hunter's PC

Tooth Fairy Pouch

Gerlinde Fingerless Gloves

Lookin' Good in the Hood

La, la, la, la, la, la, laaaaah!

I've got a new hoodie!  After knitting for what seemed like an eternity, my Chocolate Rogue Hoodie is finally finished!  Perhaps it seemed to take so long because of other knitting interruptions; namely the Little Vesta for Jaycee and the Gattsbaby Jacket for Hunter.

Looking back at my Ravelry project page, I note that I cast on my Chocolate Rogue on 6 February, 2010.  Then from 4 -23 March I put the hoodie aside while I worked on my other two projects.  So I guess it really only took 5 weeks to knit.  Hmm.....just seemed so much longer.....

Anyway, here are some photos of my finished hoodie:

It's Been a While

Sometimes when I blink, I swear that more than a moment passes.  Seems like the last six weeks have been nothing more than a wrinkle in time.

Not that I haven't been busy - it's the opposite actually.

• I made it through the Olympics - knitting furiously, but not finishing my Rogue Hoodie.
• I wrote and desktop published a 56 page colour catalogue for our business.
• I built a new website for the business.
• I bought new software for the business sales computer and entered 700 inventory items (each with 15 fields!).
• I interviewed 20 job applicants and selected two additional staff to the four I already have.
• I ordered a whole load of stock for the business.
• I had a birthday - lovely day.
• I knit my niece a vest.
• I knit a baby jacket for my NIL's (niece in law) baby shower.
• And I wrote and desktop published a spring newsletter.

So here are some photos of my knitting:

Little Vesta for Jaycee Mae

Gattsbaby Sweater

P.S.  Since the photo I fixed the alignment problem on the baby jacket.

I Told a Lie

Yeah, I told a wee lie in my last post [smack, smack and three Hail Marys].  I wrote that after I finished knitting the Blackforest Hilja Vest, I'd be casting on a double-knit scarf.

Therein lies the lie!

Since I mostly knit in front of the TV, and double knitting requires concentration and looking at what you're doing, I decided the scarf would have to wait.

Besides, I'm crook.  Real crook.  Grumble....grumble.....  Landed myself a fabulous bout of the flu.  It started on Friday with the sore throat from HELL.  By Sunday, my voice was gone!  I know it's hard to imagine ME quiet.  And it was damn hard not speaking for two full days!  Bloody hell!

And now it's Monday.  I still feel yucky, but the sore throat is tolerable, the voice - although deep and husky - is also back.  BUT now I've started the coughing (reads "bad night's sleep").

So since I've been unable to do much of anything, I've been knitting.  I needed fairly mindless projects since my feverish condition rendered my concentration quite useless.  Amen to the Turner Classic Movie channel!

Blackforest Hilja was finished on Friday:

Front

Back

And so, on Saturday I cast on for another hoodie.  This one is called Rogue, by Jenna Wilson.  Not only is Rogue in my queue, but the yarn was in my stash!  (long live NYE resolutions!).

I'm knitting Rogue with Cornelia Hamilton Heaven's Hand Wool Classic yarn .  It's a worsted weight, variegated yarn in chocolate and dark chocolate brown.  I actually love the yarn and the colour, but I'm glad this project is very light on the cabling because the cables are lost in the darkness of the browns.  I figured they would be.

No matter - Rogue is a good TV project during my hiatus from work!

Last of the Mittens

For those of you following my blog, you might remember that I signed up for NaKniMitMo10 (a mitten knit-a-long for January 2010).

Well, last night I finished the third and final pair of mittens.  The pattern was Swedish Fish by SpillyJane.  I used Colinette Jitterbug sock yarn for the background colour, and Estelle Cadenza sock yarn for the red fish.

The pattern called for a 72 st cast on, with an increase to 82 sts after the ribbing.  I was dubious about knitting 82 sts for mittens for my small hand. But, the pattern called for 2mm needles versus the usual 2.5mm, so I figured that they might fit.

WRONG.

I knit about 2ins on the first mitten, decided it was going to waaaay too big, and frogged it back.

I redid the charts to remove one column of fish from the front and one from the back. Then I added a few stitches left and right on both sides to balance the mitten out for a 62 st cast on.  After ribbing 10 rows, I increased to 72 sts.  Perfect!

Mods:  I knit one extra row of fish for the length of the mitten.  I also changed the decreases on the fingertips in keeping with the pattern decreases over ten rounds.

This was a pretty easy knit compared to the complex charts for the Mogit Selbut Mittens I knit earlier this month.  Still, it was enjoyable and a good project for TV watching.

Sarassa Pond Fish Mittens (front)

Sarassa Pond Fish Mittens (back)

I'm glad the kint-a-long has drawn to a close.  It is quite exhausting knitting with a deadline....and where's the fun in that?

Now for something completely different -

A new vest!  I had to have a mindless knitting project in between all those stranded and fair isle projects.  So I cast on another vest.  I present to you Blackforest Hilja:

Blackforest Hilja

Blackforest is the yarn I dyed at Shelridge Farms in November.  It is worsted weight soft touch ultra.  A really lovely soft yarn, and a delight to knit with.

In between the mittens and the vest, I went on a fabulous road trip with the girls to Shall We Knit in New Hamburg.  There I attended a workshop to learn the amazing double-knitting technique.  Double-knitting is a form of knitting in which two fabrics are knit simultaneously with two yarns on one pair of needles. The fabrics may be inseparable, as in interlock knitted fabrics, or they can simply be two unconnected fabrics.  In other words, double-knitting is used for knitted items that can be reversible (e.g.  scarf, hat, potholder, etc.).  And the totally neat thing is that whatever you knit on the right-side is mirrored on the wrong-side.  The colours are just opposite!

So guess what my next project is going to be???  [hehehe]

Some Mittens and a Party

Well, after all my cosmic ramblings, nothing's happened!  A few more odd dreams, but nothing else.  Brilliant I say!  Damn brilliant.  I don't need cosmic forces working against me [laughing] - I'm battling enough already.

In my last post I mentioned some mittens I was knitting - Selbuvotter #7 by Terri Shea.  I finally settled on some colours - brown and olive.  I wasn't thrilled with my colour choices, but beggars can't be choosers!  I resolved to knit from my stash, and my Shetland Spindrift stash was lacking in any sort of natural colorway.

The mittens turned out spectacularly well!  And I'm not just saying that cos I knitted them.  They fit like a glove and they are so, so pretty.  I struggled with the thumbs....don't know why.  Well, I do really - I was watching too much TV and not watching what I was doing!

Showtime:

Mogit Selbu Mittens (front)

Mogit Selbu Mittens (back)

And on Saturday 16th January, I was invited to a birthday party for Kathryn .... one balloon, no cake - but a sparkler in a dessert!  We ate at East Side Mario's (a little taste of Italy) across from Masonville Place.  I ate too much salad and bread to finish my meal, but I took the left overs home and they lasted all of five minutes.

Party Goers