Busy time all around

Time is just passing way too fast. I can't believe it is December next week. DH turns 50 tomorrow...WOW...I will be sleeping with a 50 year old......now that is hard to believe. I guess it shouldn't be as I am only a year younger. Don't feel it though, I thought at 50 we would be so old, not have much mobility, and be wrinkly. Glad I was wrong. I won't add the grey hair as we both have lots of grey hair, thank goodness for hair colour.

I have finished the hot pink cotton and bamboo top for me to wear to DIL's party Saturday week. I also knitted a shrug for grand-daughter in the same yarn, pretty nice.

Over the October long weekend while in Beechworth Victoria, I visited a lovely shop - The Ardent Alpaca, so lovely, it was a freezing cold spring day, they had the wood fire going, beautiful and cosy. The have alpaca clothing, blankets and knitted clothes and knitting items. I bought a Keyhole Scarf kit with a lovely handmade wooden button. I knitted the scarf on the weekend, finishing on Tuesday night at "every other tuesday night knitting". It is Oro Inca Alpaca yarn from Peru 70% Alpaca 30% Silk, it is sooooo soft.

I am now knitting for Kiama Show at the end of January 2009, I have started with Shepherd 4ply Baby pure wool in a lovely Mauve or Lilac colour not too light and not too dark. I thought the pattern went up to size 1 as I am going to knit things that will fit grand-daughter next winter when she is 9 mths - 12 mths old, but unfortunately the pattern I chose only goes to size 6 mths. Not all lost as our cousin's wife has just had her 4th child - a girl, so she will be 6 mths next winter, so after the show I can gift it to her.

I have decided that next year (2009) is going to be my "Lace" knitting year and "Learn to Spin" year. As most countries have a "Year" of something, those 2 are going to be my own personal "Year" of things to do. That will use a lot of my stash up. Yeah I know....my goal of using all my stash by the end of 2007, then became use my stash by end of 2008, will hopefully be the end of my stash by the end of 2009. I would love to have just enough yarn for 3 projects at any one time. I like to finish things before I start another thing. Hey that's me.

SNB this saturday, with secret santa, I have to wrap my secret santa gift to take, make a birthday cake "Cherry Ripe Chocolate Mud Cake" for DH birthday. #1 Son and DIL are shopping today for the birthday food, heaps of fresh seafood, and they have kicked me out of the kitchen tomorrow afternoon while they prepare the food for dinner tomorrow night. Yahoo, gotta love them, that way I am free for SNB. I get to have a great afternoon knitting, chatting, etc then come home to an already prepared birthday meal. We will ring #2 Son and DIL in WA after dinner so DH and all of us here can speak with them.

Pictures of the finished items may get to here over the weekend, not sure though, plan to get the christmas decorations out on Sunday and sorted ready to go and pick out a tree, cut it down and get it home to decorate the following friday.

Two new Knitting books

I had ordered some time ago from Amazon.com two books by Nancy Bush. Knitting on the Road which I had been wanting to get for a couple of years now and just kept forgetting about it. That was until I read about Knitted Lace of Estonia.

I checked out the price at Amazon.com and decided to buy it, it had to be put on order as it hadn't been released at the time. To make it worthwhile postage wise I ordered another book by Nancy Bush Knitting on the Road.

They arrived on Friday. The lace knitting and the stories that go with the lace are really lovely. One day I will knit some things from this beautiful book. Just have to get through a few other knitting projects first. And as I ordered them before the almighty aussie dollar dropped so low, it was really good buying.

Wow what is with blogger tonight, not that I am complaining, but after a few weeks of having to wait forever for pictures to upload, these two uploaded in about 3 seconds.

Quick Knits

I have knitted 2 pairs of Fetching fingerless gloves over the weekend. One for me and one for a work colleague. I love Heirloom yarns and the Cashmerino is really nice to knit and looks great when knitted.

I have made progress on the pink top for me, I am doing the armholes of the back, it is a nice and easy knit. I need it finished by 6 December for a party with a hot pink colour theme.

Addi Clicks

Yahoo! My LYS - CR&K Daisy Designs at Fairy Meadow have ordered a few sets of Addi Clicks. I have a set on order along with some other knitters who are pretty impressed by them. I can't wait until they arrive.

I ducked into my LYS yesterday morning to get a couple balls of merino cashmere for a pair of fetching to make for a work colleague who has a new job in a much colder town to where we are now. I got two balls of the Heirloom Cashmerino, love it, it is just great to knit. I made the pair on Saturday arvo and night, then realised that one is about 1 or 2 rows bigger than the other, so what to do, knit another set one bigger than the other, so I did, and I am about 1/2 way through, only one smaller one to go. I will finish them tonight. Pretty good 2 pairs of fetching from 2 balls of cashmerino. Beautiful.

I have covered the 100g challenge with my local knitters guild for November. I bought 2 balls of Anchor Magicline No3. which are 5og each and from 2 balls made a lovely string back. I think string bags will be making a come back as more places around here are going plastic bag free. My local Council which is where I work wants our municipality to go plastic bag free, it will be intereting to see how they go about it and how long it takes to become plastic bag free. Intereting concept. Good idea too.

Another project finished

I have finally finished the baby blanket in powder puff yarn that #2 son sent me to knit a baby blanket for his brother's baby. Photo is about the same professional picture that I normally manage to get. I need to really brush up on photo taking skills.

I have gotten back to the bright pink top for myself in Patons Bamboo & Cotton that I started on the October long weekend. The pattern is looking very nice, and is an easy knit.

Also on the needles I have a cotton bandage for people being treated with Leprosay in Niger, this is a good knit for when the brain doesn't want to play fair with the pattern knitting on the top, I am trying to do a few rows each night after putting the top knitting away. It is actually twice as long as the picture now, it took 21 minutes for the 3 pictures to load, and what do knitters do when waiting for something, they knit!

Just for the sake of it

I am not really in the blogging mood, I have been stalking you all though and enjoying reading your blogs and keeping up with what is happening in your life.

I have taken pictures, not very good as usually, but pictures all the same of the bamboo cardigan. So as I should post something here it is.

Holidays, spring clean, bike long weekend away

And not a thing got done.

Firstly had extra 3 days holidays to spring clean house, DH had accident at work, rolled the bull dozer completely over...result soft tissue neck injuries, broken elbow and ligament damage, 3 days in hospital. No spring cleaning done.

Bike long long weekend should have started on thursday to ride to Lennox Head for a HOG National Rally over the long weekend, couldn't go, as DH can't ride, bath himself or do much else with arm in plaster. A friend gave me a hug on Wednesday night at HOG meeting and told me he would have a great time for us, and would tell us all about it when they got home. Thursday afternoon received a phone call from the group were were suppose to be riding with, that same friend had an accident, his bike went in front of a car and he died instantly, so shocked I still can't believe it.

Decided to go to friends at The Rock (near Wagga Wagga), drove down friday, friends father had a heart attach a few days before, was air lifted to a Sydney private hospital, had a qaudruple heart by-pass on Monday.

We went to Beechworth in Victoria on Monday with our friends, it was so cold. All the wonderful shops had wood fires going, so warm inside. The Beechworth Sweet Co. was great, it had beautiful, colourful gollywogs, I wanted one for Grand-daughter, but at $79.50 for the girl doll it was a bit too much, it was so bright and lovely though, I will have to look around for one later on. I went to the Ardent Alpaca store, wonderful, it had lovely clothes, blankets etc in Alpaca, and they had a yarn and pattern section too, now I was smiling. I did buy some yarn to do the keyhole scarf pattern, I got a really nice wooden button and I joined their knitting club and got samples of the colours and yarns they stock. They have a 1ply alpaca yarn, you should have seen the scarf knitted in it. It looked lacey but wasn't.

Forgot something funny, on our way to Beechworth, we ran out of petrol in Albury, at traffic lights, thank goodness they now have a by-pass as we were on the old highway when it happened, not much traffic around, so here were 3 nearly 50 year olds, pushing the car while DH jumped in drivers seat and steered the car, with his good arm, around the corner. We laughed so hard I nearly wet myself. Girls stayed in car while guys walked for petrol. Had a good storm on the drive back to The Rock, put the wood fire on, oh so cosy and nice. Next, kettle on, hot chocolate and coffee all around, and some chocolate to eat....nice!

Got home tuesday afternoon, help #1 son mow lawns, did some washing, rang work to organise thursday and friday off, so no work until next monday. Doctor's appointments for DH on thursday and friday and a funeral on friday aswell.

And to top that off, #2 son and fiance are moving back home in December and he wants his room downstairs back (not that it has been used by anyone else, it is still how they left it. I want to put grand-daughter in it, #2 son wants him and his fiance to share the living area downstairs with #1 son, daughter-in-law and grand-daughter. I want him to use the bedrooms upstairs. Family... I wish I could just get him to agree, telling him hasn't made him realise it won't work with the lot of them downstairs, and he won't budge about giving his room up, even when I told him it was just storing his stuff and he would need to move it upstairs....oh the joy of adult children moving back home. Oh damn I have missed Packed to the Rafters again tonight, I guess I should just look at my life at the moment, that would probably be pretty close.

As for me, at this moment I have a very tight chest, this worry isn't going to be doing me any good.

As for knitting, I have finished the 100% bamboo cardigan, very nice I must say, I finished off a cotton bandage for charity for leprosy aid overseas, and have managed to knit a bit more on the baby blanket in powder puff. I just don't have photos yet.

What a beautiful day

It is the weekend and the weather is just beautiful. It is going to be hot, not that I like too hot.
I have tried to take a decent photo of the baby shawl, grand-daughter is getting alot of use of it. It goes on her bassinette each night, although it is starting to get a bit hot for it, atleast she is getting use of it while she can.

I am nearly up to the armholes on my bamboo cardigan, I am going to do a couple more rows so it is a bit longer than the pattern says.

I am still knitting the powder puff blanket for grand-daughter, it was getting long so after discussions about the length I am knitting another part the same and will stitch them together so it will be wide. It is a good adult knee rug size at the moment, so with another width added it will last a lot of years.

Knitters Guild today, so the baby shawl will get shown off again today, then it will be with baby without having to be taken away from her to show people.

I bought some Patons Serenity Bamboo and Cotton in Hot Pink from CR&K Daisy Designs at Fairy Meadow (my favourite LYS), and a pattern book, not sure on what to knit, I have got a short sleeve top off Ravelry which has been knitted in this yarn. DIL's birthday this year is having a "Pink" theme, so I am going to knit a pink top to wear.

Pictures to be uploaded later, blogger not playing well this morning and won't upload my photos. yahoo......3 hours later I can upload photos.

Spring has Sprung

Boy is it hot today, after the last week of like 1 degrees in the mornings to a top of around 15 and this morning at 6am it as 20 degrees (celsius), heading for 26. So after a quick change after going outside and realising how hot it was I walked down to the local school to vote, we have Local Government (Council) elections today for NSW. It is always a bit of a worrying time when you work for Local Government, wondering who the new councillors will be, in our Council area we have 9 councillors, we will get a few first timers as out of the 9 who were in the last 4 years only 5 have stood for re-election. And with a previous General Manager standing for election well that is just to damn scary. It could be a good thing or it could be a bad thing, depending on how much he will push the line between Councillor and employee which is everyone from the General Manager down. After the 9 councillors are decided then they meet and will elect the Mayor for the next 12 months, and they do that each year for the 4 year term, so it can change each year.

I did get a bit side tracked with the knitting and reading bit, but I have monday off so besides going for lunch with my family I plan to get some reading done as the book is due back at the library on Wednesday. The distraction was 4 pairs of knitted mittens for grand-daughter, as it has been pretty cold here still and the wondersuits with the mittens in the sleeve are getting a bit tight on her little hands.

Last night I managed a few rows on my short sleeve cardigan in the 100% bamboo, it is going to be a long knit to the armholes, well it always seems that way when knitting all in one piece. I haven't bothered with the blanket this week, maybe next week that will get a look in.

My printer isn't playing fair this morning, I am trying to print some baby pictures and it just won't do it. I am going to go out to the garden and take my frustrations out on a few weeds.

News Flash....Cleckheaton 100% Bamboo now in store

CR & K Daisy Designs at Fairy Meadow have just received a shipment of Cleckheaton 100% Bamboo and Patons Serenity a Bamboo & Cotton yarn. Along with a couple of new pattern books for these yarns. I got to go through the box and have a sneek peek at the new colours and pattern books. The new colours are really nice, I can see myself knitting a few of the patterns.

I bought the 100% Bamboo in Aqua to knit myself a nice little short sleeve cardigan or top, not sure which one as I really like a few of the patterns in this book. The Bamboo is sooooo soft. And comes in some really great colours. The pattern book is Book No. 967 100% Bamboo with 12 designs in sizes 6 - 22.

I have decided on the pattern which is on the cover (first photo) in the colour in second photo (53 Aqua) and have cast on.

The pattern edge is now finished and I am now on the straight knitting. It is worked in one piece till the armholes, the sleeves are knitting then all knitted together on a round yoke, minimal seams. Yah gotto love that.

I will be doing this while still knitting on the powder puff baby blanket. I only cast on 100 stitches and it is a nice size for sitting watching TV while knitting, but with 7 balls it will be way to long, it would probably go longer than a single bed if I kept knitting. Rae at CR&K Daisy Designs suggested knitting half the balls in one square then knit another the same and sew them together, so that is what I am going to do. I have started the second piece. It will be a lovely size for grand-daughter and a lovely gift from her Uncle and Aunty, and one she will be able to use for a long time to come.

I hope to be finished both in 2 weeks as well as finish reading a great true Australian story "Almost Perfect" by Kelly Denly (new book out) she has 8 children is around my age and so far is a great read, I can't put it down once I pick it up.

I plan to do an hour knitting on the top for me, an hour knitting on the baby blanket and an hour reading each night, that is after doing all the normal household things we have to do after work each day.

Shawl is all done...

Finally after 6 months of knitting on this baby shawl it is all done. I finished casting off last night, wrapped it in a pillow case and put it through the gentle cycle on the washing machine. It is now spread out on the dining table drying. It looks beautiful. It was still looking pretty much like a big blob early Wednesday night while still casting-off, but it soon began to look like the beautiful piece of work it is.

It is knitted in 3ply pure wool by Shepherd (machine washable) on 3.25mm needles. I used circular needles throughout and ended up on a 1.5 metre long circular. Even though it was taking over 2 hours each row for the last 20 odd rows or so (over 2,231 stitches), it was still an enjoyable knit, especially when it is going to my grand-daughter.

I told her parents last night that I want to know the second they are even thinking about having another baby so I can get started on a baby shawl for that baby. I plan to knit one for every grand child, whether it be one or how ever many I end up with.

Now I am onto the blanket that #2 son sent yarn over for me to knit for the baby, this is just a plain stocking stitch knit (he wanted something that she could use for a while to come). Will be all caught up when that is done, well except for WIP's and all my stash.

Still going....

I am still going on the baby shawl. Only 22 rows to go. I am having a flexi day off work tomorrow and hope to get atleast 10 rows done. Each week I make a commitment to finish by the end of that week, then the week comes and the week goes, so my new commitment is to have it finished, washed, blocked and ready to go out for a visit to SNB next Saturday (end of August). Then I can let grand-daughter have it to keep her warm for the last few weeks of winter, which it turning pretty cold now and will probably be cold enough for a couple more months to get some use of it.

Hearts all around

I have knitted grand-daughter a beanie and mittens which I didn't take photos of as #1 son has taken over the camera, thank goodness for digital cameras. We will have thousands of photos of the baby.

This beanie I did manage to get the camera back for a moment to get a photo. It is in the same colour as the other beanie and mittens, it has hearts in two levels all around the beanie. It is knitting in Shepherd 4ply pure wool.

Introducing.....

Aahliyah Louise, born 29 July 2008 at 10.56pm and weighing in at 4180g (9lb 4 oz). Our first grandchild.

#1 son and dil are over the moon, she is a beautiful baby girl. We spent the day with both of them in the birthing unit along with DIL parents. We talked, we laughed and we cried throughout the day. There were calm times and there were times of shear agony.

Aahliyah was born by caesarean after a long and hard labour of going nowhere. It was something to watch my son walk up the corridor of the birthing unit wheeling his baby girl towards us. We stayed and watched her be weighed, had her hair washed, needles given and wrapped up and put in her crib.

We then stayed with her in her room waiting for her mum to join her new daughter. Just beautiful. Then is was time for us 4 new and first time grandparents to leave the new mummy, daddy and baby girl together. It was nearly 1am this morning.

One more sleep....

Grandchild #1 is nearly here, her mum was induced around 3pm today, #1 son has been with her, nothing happening yet, and as she is in the maternity part of the hospital, he can't stay passed visiting at 8pm. When she is taken to the birthing ward then he can stay with her, so a sleepless night here in our home waiting for the call back to the hospital. The nurse doesn't think anything will happen tonight.

I am knitting a hat for her in the same colour as this jumper I finished yesterday. It had been knitted for a couple of weeks, but needed to be stitched together and the buttons put on it.

I am still knitting on the shawl, it probably has about 50 hours more knitting to go. My fingers have been giving me hell and I wake at around 4am with terrible pain as if they are going to break off, so I can't knit at much each night as I would like. The knitting doesn't seem to hurt while doing it, but oh boy through the night is pure hell.

Paint Brush Dyeing - Knitters Retreat

Thanks to Metal and Knit I have photos of my paint brush dyeing, which was knitted in 4ply pure wool, dyed, unravelled and knitted into the hat in the previous post.

I had a flexi day from work yesterday and caught up on knitting the shawl, while knitting I thought I was one stitch out, I looked back, counted stitches, no seems to be right, but still thought it looked like one stitch out. Well.....6 rows later (1 hour 40minutes knitting time for every 2 rows), it was out, I did think about keep on knitting, DH said you can't notice it.....but I could.....so you know what that means.........ripped it back. DH asked if I could take it off the needles and pull it back would save time......not with 3ply lace knitting you can't. So 4 hours last night and I have 1 and a half rows to still unpull before starting to knit it back.

And to top it off, the baby is going to be 2 or 3 weeks early, that is right, she will be here in the next week and a half. Her mum has pre-eclampsia and has been hospitalised. After a week in hospital she is ready to come home, but she is going to be there until baby is born and they come home. #1 son has quit his job and moved them back with us so he can be close by.

So the shawl has over 80 rows to go and at the moment as 1080 stitches which is taking 1 hour on pattern row and 40 minutes on plain row. I guess the good thing is that it is in the round, so no sewing up at the end, now that has got to save a bit of time.

Here are some of the dyeing, and then sitting outside knitting (I am not in these photo)

Hand Painted Original Baby Hat

Here it is....the very special baby hat, the one and only original hand painted/dyed by me.

A square was knitted with white Shepherd 4ply pure wool. Then I hand painted the dye onto the square in bright pink large dots, then with a brigh blue painted large dots between the pink dots, it looked great when out drying in the sun. When all dry I unravelled the yarn (yes you read all this in the previous post), and knitted it with a 'feather and fan' pattern. And isn't it just gorgeous.


Today I went with the kids and the mother in-law for the 34 week ultrasound. Everything is going great with the baby, she is a biggen, at 34 1/2 weeks she is 6lbs 9oz, hopefully she won't get too large in the next few weeks. She wouldn't play well though (must get that from me) when it was time to get a 3d picture, she had turned away, so we only got an ear. It is so nice to see her tumbling around in there, and to see that everything is as it should be. On the other hand the mum is bordering on pre-eclampsia and needs to take it easy. Back to the knitting, I still have heaps to do on the shawl, which I haven't touched in nearly 3 weeks, and the baby jumper in the bright apricot colour I started on the weekend.

See the nice baby shawl as the backdrop......that was mine when I was a baby, it is nearly 49 years old. It needs a good wash and some mending, which I will get done before grand daughter is born.

A knitter's Retreat

I have spent the weekend at "Knitters Camp" at Mt Keira Scout Camp. What a full on weekend of knitting, eating, drinking and catching up with some wonderful people and friends, some I already knew and some I only knew from reading their blogs, it is really great to meet and talk to these people in person. There were workshops on painting on dye, picot and worm edges and felting. There were yarns, yarns, and more yarns, knitting patterns, needles, kits etc for sale aswell.

After a freezing night on friday night, and I did have plenty of warn clothes and bedding, but maybe just not enough we woke to a lovely saturday morning, the one thing about mt keira is that even on a nice sunny winters day, once you get in the shade or the sun goes down over the tall mountain behind the camp the it is bloody cold.

On saturday after a breakfast of firstly porridge with heaps of brown sugar and milk then bacon, eggs and toast we headed up to the Lodge to knit some more and to try our hand a painted dyeing.

We had knitting up squares before the camp in 4ply white pure wool, I knitted enough for a baby beanie. I painted the dye on in bright pink and blue large spots that ran into each other making a nice purple colour. Then when dried I unravelled the knitting into a ball and then knitted a beanie. I got within 3 rows of finishing and ran out of wool. So I had to frog it back to the beginning of the last pattern repeat rows and make it a bit shorter then proceed to finish the beanie. It came out beautifully. I will have photos when Metal and Knit emails them to me. I got my camera out to take a picture before I unravelled the square and guess what....you guessed it....flat batteries. So annoying, I get about 9 photos and then the batteries go flat.

I bought some dark apricot colour 4ply shepherd pure wool to knit my unborn grand daughter a jumper, I got started on that this morning after finishing off the beanie and I am up to the armholes on it.

I won't be getting much knitting done tonight, I will be watching the inside of my eyelids very soon, I am so tired, but a good tired, after so much fun. Thank you to CR&K Daisy Designs at Fairy Meadow for putting on such a wonderful "Knitters Retreat" again this year.

I will leave you with a photo of me (on the right in blue top) and another woman knitting outside with a beautiful view backdrop.

Dish Cloth knitting

The kitchen sponge died a tragic, holey, greasy death. I didn't have any others to use, so what is a girl to do....knit cotton dish cloths of course. This is the first one, which is now being used in the kitchen. The are great things, look good, and great for the environment as you just throw them in the wash and you have a nice clean cloth to use over and over.

I was gifted a few balls from USA. I had knitted some dish cloths a long while ago, which now get used in the laundry. For these cloths I found a nice pattern on Ravelry called the spinning wheel pattern. It is so easy to knit and in no time at all I had made 4. The first one is being used in the kitchen the other 3 are pictured here.

I haven't knitted anymore on the shawl the last few days, but tonight I did 2 rows and that took nearly 1 1/2 hours, it is slow going from now on, and I like to finish a row before putting it down.

200th Post

This is my 200th post, it took awhile, like just over 3 years, but I made it.

The last weekend of May we spent in QLD, dh had HOG P.O.T (Harley Owners Group - Primary Officer Training) and I went along for a nice relaxing 5 days. It rained and blue a gale the whole time. Not good weather for much outdoors, but the knitting I got done was so relaxing and made me happy to get so much done on the baby shawl.

As with most conferences the food was there all the time, I am glad I wasn't doing the training as I got to each fruit for my morning/afternoon snack, the breakfast, lunch and dinners were huge, I feel as if I ate most of the days away. I didn't drink any alcohol, which I think I am very over now, especially since having such high liver readings and not drinking any alcohol since mid March, and I don't seem to miss it either.

We arrived home around 7.30pm on Monday night, unpacked, ate (again) sat down for about 1 hour, then went to bed, we were both so tired this morning, but we had to get back to work. I am so tired now and will be heading off to bed as soon as I finish this post and read a couple of favorite blogs.

I only did a row and a bit tonight on the shawl, with about 63 rows to go, which doesn't seem much but at the moment it takes about 40 minutes a row and the last row I increased 4 stitches on every pattern which is a damn lot of stitches I just increased, so it will probably take a bit longer now, so I worked out the other night that I would have to do 6 rows a night to finish by the time of the 'baby shower' on 26 June. That is my goal to finish, but if that doesn't happen then I need to have it done before she is born in August. So really I don't have to rush, but I would like to have it down for June 26. The pressure is on now. The photo was taking on Sunday afternoon, so a bit more is done now. It is still hard to get a good photo on circular needles, I was changing to a longer circular needle at this time so while I had it on 2 circular needles I stretched it out a bit to get the photo.

The week of knitting

I have knitted each night on the baby shawl. I have 640 stitches on the needles and have just gone up a length on the circular needle and am nearly through the 2nd ball of wool. The picture shows from the centre to one side. It is so hard to get a good photo of something when knitting on circular needles as you can't stretch it out flat.

I also have on the needles a bandage in 4ply cotton which will go to Niger for Leprosy patients, it is great for just picking up and knitting of a morning before work or while dinner is cooking etc, an easy non thinking knit between knitting on the shawl.

The other things I have knitted this last week are 4 kitchen towel tops. A person I knit with asked me to make her some, I was going to sell the other 2 at the Knitter's Guild sale in July in Kiama, but I may not be available at that time and I don't really have much to sell anyway.

WInter is here....

Boy is it cold today, it started yesterday afternoon with wind, rain and cold. It is sunny today but still windy and cold. I dipped out of a ride today, but will meet up with DH and others for BBQ lunch for the HOG Anniversary today.

Last week I knitted a Mohair Scarf in a Feathers and Fan pattern, it took 3 balls of Crucci Babysoft Mohair.

I also got the baby shawl out and did a couple of rows, at this early stage it has 260 stitches on the needles.

Yesterday I started doing a couple of handtowels for a friend while at Knitters Guild. I bought two handtowels which will give me four when the tops are knitted, so a couple for the friend and a couple for the knitting sale.

Baby Socks....so cute

The baby socks are so cute, they look a bit long and pointy toed, but they are probably for about a 6 month old not newborn. I may try another pair but make them shorter in the foot and a bit wider across the toe. Instead of going down to 4 stitches then graft toe, I might try 6 stitches across the toe.

I started a mohair scarf last night after finishing the second baby sock. I have to do some knitting for the Kiama Knitters Guild exhibition and sale on 18 -20 July in the Old Fire Station Gallery in Kiama.

Happy Mothers Day to all the mothers around the world, I hope you had a great day.....I did. I got some new bright pink tweetie bird pyjama's and some bright pink Betty Boo slippers. Just the thing for the Knitters Retreat "Nearly Christmas in July" at Mt Keira the end of July. This is being organised by CR&K Daisy Designs at Fairy Meadow. Just $120 for the Friday night through to Sunday afternoon, all meals included. We do some workshops, eat, knit, some drink, chat the whole time, eat, knit, eat, drink, knit.....well you get the idea. It is a great weekend, and being winter it is great to sit by the fire place while doing all of the knitting, chatting etc etc.

See I have been knitting.....

I am off work with a tooth infection, the side of my face looks like I swallowed a football. I am on strong antibiotics for the next week and a half and then off to the dentist....YUK.

Anyway yesterday I was feeling a bit better and decided to sew up the two "Heather" pattern baby matinee jackets I have been knitting. The first one is size 6months and is going to Ireland with friends for their new baby grand-daughter. The second one is for my grand-daughter so I did her a size Newborn as it will be pretty cold when she is due in August. They both need buttons which I will try to remember to buy on the weekend.

See the two together for size difference.

Pattern: Heather (Patons Pattern)
Yarn: Patons Big Baby 4ply
Colour: 3909
Needles: Sizes 3.25mm & 2.75mm
They both took 2 balls and a bit of a 3rd ball.

I am going to try out Rae's baby sock pattern (from CR&K Daisy Design in Daisy Street, Fairy Meadow - Phone: 02 4285 4531) with the left over yarn. I may cast on for them this afternoon as I want to get back to the baby shawl I am knitting. So a baby sock and shawl will be good knitting for anytime, socks for when I can't concentrate so much and the shawl for when all my brain matter is working (well I hope that kicks in for a while to come).

4 more days then the auction for our house. I hope it goes well, so I hope everyone will cross everything and pray for a buyer and good price for our home. Boy this is so stressful, you would think it would get easier the more you do this, but going to auction is new for us and as it gets closer, more stressful. All the hope, anxiety and whatever other feelings we can muster, good or bad seem to be coming out in leaps and bounds. I will be glad to have it sell either before or at the auction - for a good price that we both can be happy with. We have been looking at other homes that will be less stressful (mortgage will be less), and another new start in a another home. Looks good to me right now.