kanga kiwi kal.

before i get into the full details of what i'm planning to cast on for the kanga kiwi kal (an awesome knit-a-long organised by the fab folks over at wool gathering) i guess i'd better share what's been on my needles recently...



the pair of socks i started for bb before ag was born are finally done! i cast them on using this vanilla sock pattern, hoping they'd be the perfect project for my sleep-deprived, hormone-addled brain and they certainly were!

i won't lie though, i'm incredibly pleased to see the back of them as they were getting a wee bit monotonous... not that i was sick of the gorgeous yarn, or the pattern for that matter as the very next thing i cast on was ANOTHER pair of the same socks!



this pair is for my little brother, promised to him in his christmas card...
i got him to take a gander at my sock yarn stash to see what took his fancy, and he chose a cake of dream in color everlasting heavy 9ply sock in 'morning glory' which reminds me a little bit of a mermaids tail.
it's a beautiful colour and is knitting up like a dream... and i've been fairly committed to getting them done a lot quicker than his jumper, they've only been on the needles for a couple of weeks!
i've been knitting on them pretty exclusively as i was hoping to get them done by the first of february to give my attention wholly and solely to my knit-a-long projects... that obviously hasn't quite come off... but i do still have today to knit as much as i can, before casting on for my two planned projects starts tomorrow!

speaking of which... perhaps i should share my plans!



this gorgeous skein of miss click clack is destined to become a pair of jozi socks. i think the pattern will show off the variegated yarn splendidly, and i can't wait to get them on my feet!

and because i don't seem to know my own limitations... i've chosen a second project for the knit-a-long too!



this sumptuous ball of soft and squishy alpaca is going to be knit up into a textured shawl.

both projects are for little ol' me and i am champing at the bit to get started on each of them after quite a few months of relatively simple knitting.

wish me luck!!

are you joining in with the kanga kiwi kal too?
there are some great prizes up for grabs and the rules are super simple; your project (or projects!) must feature an australian or new zealand yarn AND pattern and be started and completed in the month of february. easy! won't you come and join in the fun?

twenty-first.

the twenty-first make of the year came off my needles a couple of weeks ago now... i had grand intentions to get it blogged straight away. in fact, i wouldn't let my brother leave until i had taken some quick snaps of him with it on!
and here we are two weeks later ha ha. never mind.



this has been a project that's been on my mind since the start of the year, promised to my brother as a christmas/birthday present (his birthday is in mid jan) so i feel like it's been a loooooong time coming...

by the time i got him to choose a pattern, choose a yarn base and colour, order the yarn, wait for the order to come in, and then free up my knitting queue enough to get it started... it was june!
so a make that feels like it took forever because of the planning side of things, really only took me a couple of months or so... and i kind of delayed the knitting on it while i was at it too. only bringing home a couple of balls at a time from work, so that i could keep getting other things knitted up at the same time! oops!



anywho, let's talk about the nitty gritty of this jumper!

the pattern i used was 'his favorite hoodie', sans hoodie drawstring as my brother wasn't interested.
it was a fairly straight forward pattern to knit, the large majority of the pattern being knit in the round, with a small amount of seaming to attach the sleeves to the body and a wee bit of grafting to finish off the hood.

the yarn i used was jo sharp silkroad aran tweed which i didn't love to start with, but thoroughly enjoyed coming back to when i put it down to knit something else.
it did have a fair whack of vegetable matter still in it, i feel like i was constantly picking little prickly bits out, but the yarn handled really beautifully. it was soft in the hand and i liked the little colourful bits that popped up through the tweedy nature of the yarn.



i have a feeling i'll be knitting this pattern again, bb has expressed his jealousy of the hood on more than one occasion! i might have to do some kind of mix between his jumper and this one though, as he loves that kangaroo pocket he he.

i feel like i have to knit myself a jumper next though... maybe if i get it started sooner rather than later, it'll be done by the time it's cool enough to wear it again ha ha!

i have a few more posts on the brain, so hopefully i'll be back in the next day or so yet... all depending on what baby decides of course...
ruling the roost and it hasn't even arrived yet. oh dear ha ha!

fourteenth to twentieth.

and an alternative title for this little collection could be ALL of the baby knits...

after putting off starting baby knits, as i had my big five unfinished projects to finish for the year, i'm now well and truly hooked!
they're so teeny and quick to knit, oh and they are ridiculously cute!

the first off the needles was a milo vest for milo may.



i knit it up in some bits and pieces i had in my stash, hence the two different colours, and much shorter body than i'd prefer...
the lighter purple knit up as more of an aran weight, than a dk, so it's going to be super toasty warm as it's super dense!

next up is the hundreds cardigan.



this one is knit up in a skein of miss click clack dk i picked up at the hand-knitter's guild market.
i love LOVE this colourway, it's called 'patience young grasshopper' of which i had none. this skein was knitted up within a month of purchase he he!

then there was another tikkiknits pattern, what big eyes you have.



i found this pattern a little more of a thinker than georgie's other patterns, with a few tricksy bits of picking up stitches and such to keep everything seamless. but as always with georgie's patterns, the finishes are superb! well worth any fiddliness.
super glad i tried something new as look how gosh-darn cute this looks!
i knit it up in wooldays scout and my-oh-my do i love this yarn. if it came in a bigger range of colours, it would be my desert-island yarn choice for sure!
and if you have no idea what i'm talking about with a desert-island yarn choice, do yourself a favour and check out the pomcast, lydia and sophie are the coolest and cutest folks podcasting around! they never fail to make me giggle!

these little baby hats FLY off the needles! each one was completed in an afternoon of knitting, and both were made without a pattern, just using my off the cuff, that looks right, time to start decreasing method.
maybe i should do some proper maths and actually make these things into proper patterns... one day!



anywho, back to these hats...
both were knitted up from wee balls in my stash. another great thing about baby hat knitting, they don't use much yarn!
the colourful one was colinette jitterbug leftover from these socks, and the yellow was bendigo luxury 8ply leftover from a scarf that my mum knit a few years ago.

and lastly, there are this pair of twin milos, for the cutest little twin boys.



while i was knitting up the wee purple milo above, i couldn't help but think of how ace it would be to knit up the boys a pair of matching, but not really, milos...
both of these beauties were knit out of yarn i already had in my stash, the teal, merino magic, and the neutral, bendigo woollen mills and i knit them both in the 18month size, with a little bit of extra length... hopefully that will mean they might get a couple of winters out of them! fingers crossed!

if you have a little peruse of my ravelry projects, you might notice that a lot of these projects have been done for a wee little while... i procrastinated making button choices for the cardigan and grey vest, and then took my sweet time to write this post!
the combination of commuting to melbourne for work, and being quite heavily pregnant have definitely sapped a lot of motivation for writing posts, hence it being almost a month and a half since my last post! hoping that now i'm on maternity leave, i'll find the mental space to get back here and writing... before i no doubt drop off the radar again when our little one comes along he he.
we will see what the future holds!

what are you favourite baby knits?

eighth to thirteenth.

or an alternate title could be, a series of knitted headwear...

in between the big finishes that i've been blogging about this year (titled first through to seventh), there have been plenty of little knits. instant gratification projects, a few of which have already showed up in my #memademay posts...

i thought i'd spend a wee bit more time today, and flesh out some of their details a little more.

the eighth, ninth and tenth projects were all knit from the same yarn.



i had originally bought the yarn to knit my pouffe, but as it was a MASSIVE fail, i pulled it all out and made an arm knitted blanket, but still had a big ball leftover!
these three big beanies definitely burned through a bit of that big ball, and i was hoping to send them and maybe one or two more, to the alice springs beanie festival, but i completely missed the deadline!
too much going on in my brain!!

i think instead, i'll send them off to syrian refugees. a wee bit of handknitted love to keep a head and heart warm.

these next two finishes have also already been featured in #memademay and have barely been off my head since they left the needles.



they're the perfect pieces for keeping my ears toasty in this freezing cold winter's wind. funny as the pattern is titled 'queensland beach' ha ha!

i knitted both of these at the same time, and ran out of yarn for both of them! i made up for it by knitting some plain ribbing for the underside in black, and it blends in quite nicely with my hair and kinda looks like it's meant to be that way!
'design feature' for the win ha ha!

and this final hat?



it's a classic nicole beanie, completely free-styled... but it's knit up in the new wool days yarn which is absolutely LUSH! it's basically ruined me for all other yarns as it's so buttery soft and gorgeous to knit with.

hopefully the recipient likes it, as it's a belated birthday present! fingers are crossed!

seventh.

this teeny little dress, has been one of the longest standing projects on my needles in quite a while!

started back in october of last year, it was definitely on the list of works-in-progress to get finished this year.
this list, that i've been banging on about since the start of the year, had five items, and this is number five! yahoo!
the other projects were these special socks, my alcomar shirt, bb's jumper and a very long standing cross-stitch project.

anywho, back to the dress!



i'd been lusting after this pattern for a good while as it's quite a hard one to come by. it's only available as a physical print out, not by pdf or online or anything, and is generally only available to purchase in a kit...
complete impulse purchase on my behalf, but one that i don't think i'll come to regret in the future, as i now have a copy of this beautiful pattern and can make it again and again and again!



i knitted this up in a 12 month size, thinking i could gift it to a former coworker with a wee baby girl, but being that she turned one in november, i have strong doubts it will fit her any longer!

it was such a gorgeous pattern to knit up, especially the beautiful lacework in the yoke. i did find the skirt a little tedious though and i think it was a main reason it took me so long to finish up! lots of teeny stitches in that there pretty skirt!



the dress finished up beautifully after a wee block and a button from my stash.
now to get it to my friend sometime before her daughter's second birthday...

having serious thoughts about sizing it up (it only comes in two sizes...) by changing up the ply of the wool too. we'll see if i ever find the time ha ha!!

fifth.

over the weekend, i finished up my fifth finish for the year.
and the second to last on the to-finish list i began at the start of the year.



i'd been working on this for quite a while... it being a souvenir that my folks brought home for me from their trip to the states, nearly THREE years ago! phew!

i had the frame for it for at least a year, making me think i've been working on this one for at least two...



very happy to get it done, pressed and framed. and now i only have one wee thing left on my little list of unfinished projects, yahoo!

fourth

as i mentioned when i posted about this top, i was very very close to being finished another big project off my list.

i finished it within a day or two of that post, but then it took me a fair few days to get some 'modeled' photos ha ha!



i've posted lots of notes on my ravelry page about this one, as there were quite a few tweaks i made to make this the perfect jumper.
i did NOT want a repeat of the previous jumper i had knitted for bb, where i was so unhappy with it after a year or so, that it ended up being frogged!

i ended up buying new yarn for this jumper in the end, as the thought of swapping and changing between dye lots had me not wanting to even make a start.
in the end however, i ended up running out of the 1000g (!) of new yarn i had bought (bb has quite a bit longer body and arms than the pattern designed for) and having to swap and change between dye lots in the yoke as i was finishing up...



i carried the two dyelots through the decorative ribbing on the back right shoulder, but it's not too obvious in the above photo i don't think...

i realised once i was a good ways into knitting the body, that i had a different tension to the pattern and i hadn't taken that into account in the number of stitches i'd cast on. absolute rookie error on my part, but thankfully, knitted fabric is super stretchy. phew!



this pocket is definitely one of my favourite things about the pattern. it's all knitted seamlessly, gotta love that!

the most important thing with this finish, is that bb LOVES it. if it wasn't for this crazy warm, completely unseasonable weather we've been having at the moment, i'm sure it wouldn't have come off his back!

this finish leaves two projects still on my list for the year.
though i mayyyy have started something completely new once i finished this up, so the likelihood of either of those two getting finished any time soon is slim ha ha.
we'll see!

solar dyeing results.

a few months ago now, i posted about a little solar dyeing project i put together.
i waited until the 3-month mark ticked over this wednesday just gone...



and then got to pulling that sweet skein out to have a look!

i gave it a little rinse where unfortunately it lost a wee bit of colour. it dried outside overnight, thanks to the unseasonably warm autumn weather we've been having.



oh the possibilities!

i've got plans for this beauty, involving some fair isle, and the leftover naturally dyed skeins from this hat.
now to find the time to knit it...

third.

so this project has been done for a little while... since february according to the project page on ravelry! oops!

i was trying to find the perfect time and situation to WEAR the top and get some photos, but it just didn't happen, and now, well now it doesn't fit so well...
maybe i'll share some photos of me in it next summer ha ha!



this was my honeymoon project... i started just after we arrived onto the relaxing island leg of our trip and being that we were in far north queensland, and the humidity and heat were fairly intense, the linen and cotton blend of the yarn i was using was just perfect!

the construction was really interesting, the front yoke was knitted first and then the back yoke was joined (using a provisional cast on) and knitted afterwards.
once the back yoke matched the front yoke in length, they were joined under the arm and the body was knitted in the round.
the provisional cast-on was simple enough, but took a little bit of patience to get it looking beautiful and perfect when i was finishing it up.



the lace on the back is utterly spectacular!
i've removed cardigans to gasps of surprise and awe a couple of times. always nice to have such reactions to something you've made ha ha!

finishing this beauty, leaves just three unfinished projects from the list i had going at the start of the year... one of which is nearly finished, but the other two, well they still need quite a bit of work!
hoping to have them finished up by the middle of the year, which might be a little hard as i have one or two big projects on the brain, as well as a whole heap of baby knits!
wish me luck!

a bump in the road.

ok so it's been a while...
well and truly fell off the blogging every day bandwagon i started up back in february... and then kind of never got back on the blogging horse at all!

it's been a busy six months or so in these parts. a wedding, honeymoon, a couple of weeks of full time work, an overseas trip, a house move aaaaaaaand...



a wee announcement.

the extreme fatigue of the first trimester really got the better of me in january and february! but now i'm on the other side with a little more energy, and with hopefully a little more downtime thanks to our recent move (hoping to share some more about that later!)

truly hoping i can get some of the posts that have been going around and around in my poor addled brain onto the screen as i have absolutely missed putting together and sharing!
see you soon!

day five - a 2015 finish.

this is the second in a pair of cardigans i was knitting for a pair of wee sisters, my cousins daughters.
the first, an orange number, was finished up quite a few months ago now... but this pink one languished a little in the lead up to all of the wedding fun in december.

on the day of my hens do, there were two little visitors... and i thought i'd use the opportunity to get these little visitors to choose buttons for their cardigans.
the owner of the orange, already completed cardigan, declared she didn't need buttons, and she would be taking the cardigan home and wore it immediately. she also declared a need for orange knitted pants ha ha!

the owner of the pink, yet to be finished cardigan, chose the buttons seen sewn on here (good choice, no?), and took up a hearty argument that hers was also done (it wasn't) and she could take hers home that day too. after i explained that everything was still a little raw to be taken home today (sleeve stitches on holders, midway through the body) we negotiated that it was NEARLY finished, with requests for cropped sleeves and body length.

the next logical question... but when will it be finished?? the next time i was due to see my cousin was the evening of my wedding reception, so being the crazy risk taker that i am, you'd better believe i promised that sweet young lady it would be done!

and done it was! it involved a lot of bartering with bb (can you please drive today so i can knit?) and i may have even partaken in a little bit of knitting post wedding ceremony, after our family lunch... mainly just because my wedding day wouldn't have been complete without a little knitting happening somewhere along the line ha ha!

do you commit to crazy deadlines with your projects? what's the strangest place you've ever pulled out a craft project to work on?

day two - second.

my second finish of the year wasn't one of those on my to-be-finished list... it was an all new project. a procrastinatory project if you will.
you see, i'd just realized i had forgotten to include a whole heap of shaping into the garment i'd been working on, so naturally, rather than tackling the bull by the horns, i put my hand up to knit this little blouse for work. with a tight, two week deadline. as you do....



the emmer top, is written by sarah hatton, and features in the book 'simple shapes, summerspun and purelife revive'
it's knit up in the purelife revive, a dk cotton/silk/viscose blend, with all of the fibers being from recycled sources.

this little blouse, knit up incredibly quickly! i managed to churn it out in a week and a half, though it was the only thing i was working on for that time...



when i spotted this pattern in the book, i was a little worried about how the neckline would sit. on the model in the book, it seemed a bit gapey, and i thought it might flap open at inopportune moments ha ha.
i think it definitely sits ok though, and i'm seriously contemplating making this little number up again... or potentially absconding with this sample version ha ha.

have you finished anything recently? what's been your quickest garment project ever?

show and tell.

this week's finish, comes after my questioning at the end of last week's post, regarding what to do with the yarn i had leftover...
well it didn't take me very long to decide at all!



another of georgie hallam's patterns, the milo vest!

this one i have knitted before... i think this might be my fourth to be honest! it definitely won't be the last however, as they are super fun to knit, as well as being very quick (particularly in this weeny size!)

i always find the body incredibly compelling to knit, with the small amount of cable design. i just want to get one more repeat finished... and before i know it, it's way past bed time!
i may have been a complete zombie at work yesterday for that very reason!



i knit this up in the 3 month old size, playing yardage chicken towards the end there... and i have in mind a good friend's growing bump. i just hope it still fits when it's cool enough for the little one to wear next year!

what have you been working on this week?

show and tell.

this week i'm sharing a wee cardigan i've been working on for the last couple of weeks.

i've been wanting to knit up a granny's favourite for what seems like forever, so when i came across this yarn, i knew it was time!



i snapped up the yarn when we were having a mega sale in sunspun a few weeks ago.
i'd never seen the colinette cadenza before, but having knit with the jitterbug in the past, i knew it would be a treat.
also i just couldn't walk past the colour! there's a little lady in my family whose favourite colour is orange so a granny's favourite it had to be!



this isn't my first time knitting one of georgie's patterns, but i still can't help but marvel at the beautiful details she includes.
the lacework is the sweetest thing ever.
and boy do i love the slipped stitch along the inside of the button band. it helps the button bands sit flat against the body AND means they can be worked seamlessly.
there's nothing i love more than finishing up a project, casting off the last edge, and having only half a dozen ends to sew in... no seaming required!



as i suspected, the cadenza was an absolute dream to work with. my only concern is that i now have a whole skein leftover... what to do? what to do?

now, i'm off to pop this baby in the bath. it definitely needs a good ol' block to relax the body and sleeves, and open up those lace panels a bit!

what have you made recently? have you knit one of georgie's patterns before? are you a seamer, or do you, like me, prefer seamless makes?

show and tell.

yesterday, i mentioned that i wanted to make a couple of cushion covers and i have wasted NO time!
with the public holiday in melbourne today, i thought it was the perfect excuse to ignore the housework, and get to a little bit of sewing.



the fabric panel above, i screen-printed at the craft sessions a few weekends ago, thinking i could make a cushion cover for the study for bb. he's a big fan of all things star wars!

because i was super unorganized before the craft sessions, i had no plan or idea of what i wanted to do with the screen-printing. hence, when it came to making my panel into a cushion, my fabric was a little narrow.
this meant i had to play around and add some sashing around the edges to widen the panel.



i'm pretty happy with how it came together considering i'd never sashed anything before, nor constructed a cushion back before!

to hold the cushion in the cover, i sewed some buttonholes freehand on my machine (the buttonhole function wasn't working!!) to one side of the back panel, and raided my button stash for something that would work...



these little beauties came home with me from the bendigo wool show earlier in the year.

i mayyyyy already have regrets for choosing black for the sashing and backing for reasons you may have picked up in the previous picture.
black surfaces don't stay pristine for long when there's a ginger kitty in the mix. cat. hair. everywhere!

what have you been making recently? have you ever sewn a cushion cover before?

show and tell.

the finished piece i'm sharing today was a quick knit. and i mean super quick. an hour or so tops!
AND knitted between serving customers at work to boot!



a flouncy scarf to highlight a yarn we have on sale in sunspun at the moment.
knit on a 5mm needle and using just one edge of the net style yarn, the scarf grew before my eyes.



anyone who has knitted with rowan kidsilk haze, would understand just how soft and ethereal this version would be.
it almost feels like a cloud! and the hazy mohair finish, traps a nice bit of warmth too.



with the yarn on sale for only $8.55 a hank, it would make the perfect start to the gift stash for the holiday season, don't you think?
i would imagine the scarf would come together even quicker if it was crocheted too!

what are you making at the moment? have you ever knitted or crocheted with a net yarn before?

ps. shoot the store an email, if you'd like to get your hands on some of this yarn before the sale ends on saturday!

show and tell.

as predicted last week, the socks i've been working on ARE done this week. just.
i may have cast them off last night. quite late. oops!

in any case, they're done and dusted!



these socks, used yarn and a pattern from the inaugural yarnhaus "box of sox" and since i signed up for a 6 month subscription, there'll be a lot more socks in my future!

the first installment, came with the pattern 'tip top toe socks' with the option to knit the socks, toe-up, or top-down.
i opted for the toe-up option, with my last two pairs of top down socks not fitting so well (one because i ran out of yarn mid-way through the foot, the other because i didn't anticipate the amount of stretch in the rib).
i also converted the pattern to knit two-at-a-time to avoid the whole potential second sock-itis issue. it also definitely made it easier to ensure both socks were the same size too!



the socks overall have quite a firm fit... though in these photos, they haven't been blocked. i'm anticipating a little bit of stretch with wear, which seems to be what happens with most of my hand-knitted socks.
i was very naughty and didn't swatch for these, which would explain why i have quite a bit of yarn left, despite knitting them a little longer than i was first expecting to.

my reason for not swatching, had nothing to do with yarn quantity though, and everything to do with just wanting to get them on my needles!
in fact, i was so keen, i decided not to wait the two days until i was back at work and had easy access to a swift and yarn winder, but wind the skein by hand. WHAT A NIGHTMARE! the skein got SO tangled, it took me FOUR days to untangle. seriously!
such a fool i am!



anywho, i'm super excited to welcome this pair into my stable of hand-knitted socks.

are you a sock knitter? do you wear hand-knitted socks? what have you been making this week?