The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner can carry about 250 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,700 times in 2012. If it were a Dreamliner, it would take about 7 trips to carry that many people.
So I may have inaccurately suggested online that Susanne was also following (read: copying) my recent knitting projects! I am a little embarrassed to read here that Susanne has in fact made 5 Debbie Bliss baby jackets… Whilst I’ve made just the one! Who’s following who hey?!
And here is mine: I’ve just sewn on the button and snap this morning. The idea to tie a knot on the button as decoration came from the owner of Buttonmania. I’ve reinforced the button somewhat, but may have to redo it altogether if Marilyn gets her fingers into it.
Who’s in for the ‘Still-light’ knit along beginning Jan 1? I’m going to need all the motivation I can get through such a mammoth project, won’t you help me out? Sharon’s giving us a head start...
There is something in the air or water or both. Almost everyone I know is having a baby and I am finding myself searching Ravelry for baby patterns. I keep coming back to Debbie Bliss’ Ribbed Baby Jacket. This is probably my 5th jacket. Getting better with the side seams but still not thrilled with the sleeves. I have since read that there are modifications that might make this look a little better. I understand that a few others have knitted this recently too. Just about to cast on the 6th for another friend who is having a baby in December. This one is Bendigo 8ply with buttons from Wondoflex.
Sometimes it happens that the project is ‘Not Quite Right’ (NQR) for whatever reason. Either the yarn isn’t quite what you wanted it to be or somehow the combination of yarn and pattern aren’t the match made in heaven that you intended. Such was my dilemma over Jo Sharp Silkroad DK and a scarf pattern. The scarf is for my cousin in the US. I particularly wanted the wool/cashmere blend for him and yet whichever pattern I swatched for didn’t quite excite me.
The Silkroad DK doesn’t create a well-defined stitch so anything that relied heavily on the stitch itself didn’t look that great. I started the scarf in a simple moss stitch and that was too simple. Finally, thanks to my Ravelry friends I decided on the Mini Mania scarf.
The beauty of this pattern is you can escape the 400+ purls by simply sliding the scarf back to the beginning and continuing with another length of yarn (creating tassels along the way). While I am sure this will look much better in the multi-coloured yarns it was intended for, its working quite well with the Silkroad DK and finally NQR has become QR.
I finally succumbed, happened to be on the site at the right time and scored 4 skeins of Wollmeise. No real surprises with the colours for me. Not entirely sure what the grey will become but I love that it’s called ‘In the Year of the Rat’! I can actually now see myself up at a ridiculous hour waiting for the store update to score a variegated skein… or three!
Yes, they have released a DK/8ply yarn! Curses to them, was I not addicted enough to their yarn? Does the thought of fighting over a new base every Friday afternoon fill me with dread and excitement?
If you are wondering what I am going on about, it’s the delicious German yarn from Wollemeise. They have a cult following, which I find myself heavily ensconced in! They have an update every Friday, 4pm EST (which changes when the clocks in Australia and Europe change). Previously they had three bases. Lace, Pure & Twin (both 4plys). The yarns are beautifully dyed with rich, saturated colours, both semi-solids and variegated. On an update, it’s pretty much a ‘supermarket sweep’, no time to browse or ponder, you just chuck it in your cart and hope that you don’t lose it at checkout. It’s a learned technique just to find the best way to get what you want, but SO worth it.
I have an exorbitant amount of WM yarn, and I buy mainly sweaters worth each time, or the odd skein for shawls. I felt I was happy that I had collected all the colourways I wanted, in most of the bases, but with the arrival of this new DK, I am totally thrown again. A whopping 200gm skeins with 468yards in each, you would only need 3 or 4 to knit a sweater or cardigan. Lethal for an addict!
I put out a plea on Ravelry for just one hank of this new DK, so that I could squeeze, inhale and generally rub the yarn against my person. I was lucky, someone had too many skeins (are you sure) so was happy to let this one go to me (YAY!). The colour is Flaschenpost, as gorgeous teal green. SO, the VERDICT! Oh My GOD! Yes, it’s all that and more (in my opinion anyway). Very soft and squishy and I am just hanging out for the next update, hoping that I’ll be able to grab some in the Mont Blanc colourway!!!
The Wollemeise Down under Group on Ravelry is a great place to start your Wollemeise journey, but we warned, if you get sucked in, it’s very, very hard to get out!
I just love a competition! Thank you to all our new followers, I hope you enjoy stopping by on occasion to say ‘hi’ or just to catch up with what’s going on with the group.
I’ve done the drawing of the prize for the Cashmere Fling:
And the winner is:
Yay!
Rest assured the Cashmere Fling will be with you very soon. Have a great weekend everyone.
Sitting around the table on Monday night, I was about to divulge about a weekend online purchase; someone pipes up and guesses ‘Wollmeise 8ply’, they were wrong of course. My response… ‘there’s Wollmeise 8ply?!’ Of course everyone was shocked that I didn’t know this piece of information, don’t ask me why! So now you know too, apparently Wollmeise comes in 8ply, you don’t have to thank me 🙂
I know I hate ‘sewing up’. There is nothing about seams or blanket stitch that appeals to be on any level. And yet I still chose a pattern that required every seam sewn. The knitting itself was fine (it’s a gift for a colleague who is having a baby), and then the pleasure turned to pain when ‘finishing’ involved sewing up the seams. It took a ridiculously long time to do, I am bad at it and all in all I am less thrilled with the end result – mainly because the sewing up is ‘shoddy’. Sigh… there is a lesson here in sticking to your strengths! There is also a lesson in finally getting some ‘lessons’ in sewing up properly!
I never thought that I would be a spinner. Not because I thought spinners were freakier than knitters as such ::giggle::. But because I gave spinning a go a number of years ago, before Richmond Knitters even before my first Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show. AND I FAILED… TERRIBLY.
I had done the guild beginner course (not that there was anything wrong with the course, I had a brilliant teacher). I got an updated tetanus shot because we were handling unwashed fleece (ergh!) and I had my MIL’s wheel on borrow. In hindsight… I blame the wheel. It was an old traditional style wheel and I don’t think it had had a sip of oil in quite some time. It was sooo damn hard to treadle, making it so hard to concentrate on drafting whilst the wheel was moving in the wrong direction. It was incredibly frustrating, I thought it was me and I thought spinning was just one of those difficult things I would never master let alone fill a bobbin.
Fast forward to the Bendigo Show where Sharon bought her first wheel (about 3 years ago). I was very jealous by the prospect (recalling my failure), nothing really beats handspun. That year I bought my first spindle. Sheesh, if Sharon can do it, I’ve got to try again! The spindle turned out to be a rubbish, read: too light and unbalanced for a beginner; so back to the guild I went where I purchased an identical Ashford heavy teaching spindle to the one Sharon had loaned me. The black electric tape around the hook still makes me smile. That is the first time I had actually spun yarn, where some drafting was involved. By now Melanie was also heavily in on the act by doing the guild course; things were getting serious.
Today my free time is divided between knitting and spinning; I still love knitting a little more than spinning, but I can’t imagine my life without it. Being able to choose beautifully dyed fibres to turn them into yarn and then resulting in a one-of-a-kind handknit is the ultimate sense of satisfaction.
Don’t get me wrong there are still plenty of non-spinners who come to Monday nights, but bit by bit the spinning bug has at least given most people a crack at spinning on a spindle. It’s wonderful to be able to share my latest skein of handspun on a Monday night by a captured audience. Best reactions to FO’s come from Melanie… always 🙂
So if you really think you’re not a spinner, give it a try, or try again, most people learn a lot faster than me.
This is my mum with her handspun, handknit shawl I made for her birthday last year.
Don’t forget, if you follow our blog before August 19th, you have a chance to win a skein of my handspun. The ‘follow’ button is at the bottom right of this window when viewing the blog on a computer.
Richmond Knitters 