Knitting in the Great Outdoors

Knitting in the Great Outdoors - 2 January 2010

After a few of us were involved in the Gorilla Knitting for Wollongong's Viva La Gong recently we got to talking about holding a knitting day each month in a park.

We spoke about it again at Stitch N Bitch this month and have made a date to start Knitting in the Great Outdoors, we will change the venue each month.

Knitting in the Great Outdoors will be held on the 1st Saturday of each month - we will make the venue within a 1 hour drive of Wollongong, which gives us a great range of possible venues each month.

Everyone is welcome, bring your knitting / crochet, a chair, anything you want to eat and drink (a thermos of hot tea/coffee if you like), sunscreen, hat.

The first Knitting in the Great Outdoors will be held on Saturday 2 January 2010 at the park in Jamberoo (on the corner at the roundabout). The park is well shaded by trees so will be nice on a sunny day. There is an undercover area there if the weather is wet.

We will be meeting from 10am until what ever time you want to leave.

There are some coffee shops nearby, an IGA store next to the park.

Hope to see as many as possible and even some new faces.

So bring along your knittting or crochet and have a nice morning in the park.

Community Award for Charity Knitting

In my previous post I wrote about the Clr. Robert East Community Award that my work gives to an employee from outdoor staff and indoor staff.

After having last monday as an accrued leave day, I return to work Tuesday morning, dressed very casually, no stockings, sandals on feet, no earings as one had broken while ripping off my helmet on the sunday at the scene of a quadruple fatality and I had forgotten to replace it, my makeup ran out and I was nearly going to go to work as me, no makeup, but luckily I managed to shake enough out of the bottle to make myself a bit decent looking. Only to be told on arriving at work that I had to go to the Council meeting that night. Shit.

I knew it was because I was nominated for the award, what I didn't know was that I was the recipient of the award. Another thing that really made my heart sing was the fact that even though my family are always making jokes about my knitting and how much time I spend knitting, they were really proud of me for being given this award. And it was great that my family are all at home at the moment to share it with them.

I was so proud to receive an award for community work and I was even more touched that I had won it for my knitting I do for different charities, here in Australia and overseas. And to top that off, I also received a cheque for $200, I thought seeing as DH isn't working at the moment it came at a great time for Christmas, but he and the boys told me to spend it on myself. I might save it and get some nice yarns (as if I need any) and knit myself a nice cardigan/jumper or something for next winter. I will add that to my very very long list of things to knit.

I love my knitting and do some every day, usually at night, I continually knit every chance I get. As for my charity knitting, I haven't been doing as much as I usually do, so I have been feeling a bit guilty, but I do have ideas to start on as soon as I get my Christmas knitting done and some show knitting done which usually goes to charity then anyway.

I even knitted yesterday even though in the sun it was over 50 and in the shade 40 odd. Last night at 11pm it was still 32, thank goodness for air con and swimming pools, of which both got a very good workout yesterday, can't say the same for me, but I did do some gardening in the morning early till about 10am, I am slowly getting the front garden to a more me type of garden, then into the pool for a quick dip and cool off.....over 1 1/2 hours later I dragged myself out of the pool, I did try a few times to get out, but it was way too hot as I approached the top stair, so I just got back in. Once dry I went to the local garden nursery to get some more lettuce and strawberry seedlings to plant.

By 5pm I had to water the garden as a few things were starting to head south, all is good today. The thing I have noticed is that in the heat my Roses that are just really nice buds, burst open and nearly start losing petals as if a week old in a matter of a day. I quickly cut some nice buds for inside so I can enjoy them a while longer.

Christmas knitting...

Is a go!
I have been doing my Christmas knitting, I have completed 3 cotton carry bags with another one on the needles. I have a lot to go. And did you see my Christmas Tree on the bottom right hand corner, well be sitting down when you do have a look at it, because it says 42 days to Christmas. Now that is scary.


I have made up a sheet with a list of what I want to knit for charities in 2010, and what I would like to knit for Kiama and Albion Park Shows in 2011 as well as personal knitting. The list is quite long. I have made up a sheet so I can do a stocktake of all my stash, that way I can match it up with things on my list and as it has been a goal for the last 2 years to knit all my stash, hopefully it will become a reality in 2010.

My work has an Award which is given to an indoor staff member and an outdoor staff member each year for volunteer/charity work. This year I have been nominated for the Robert East Award. Robert East was a Councillor at my work when he died of Cancer about 3 years ago, he did a lot of volunteer work in our community and outside our community. I am so happy to be nominated for my knitting I do for charity, which most of you know I love doing so much and is probably the majority of the knitting I do.

Some of the girls I knit with had been knitting some "Gorilla Knitting" for Viva La Gong Festival held last weekend in Wollongong. Here is some pieces around the tree. Most of it was displayed on the light posts in the mall. It all looked very affective. It will be displayed for about a month, then taken down and made into blankets for charity.

A busy life

Things are really busy around here, not photos of knitting... yes I have been knitting. I am knitting some string shopping bags for Christmas Gifts.

I am going to try to mostly do a homemade Christmas Gift for family and friends this year, and probably only buy something for my own children their partners and our grand-child.

As DH is still out of work it is more of a need to do this than a want, although I must say it is something I think about doing every Christmas, but never actually get around to it.

I have made a list of people and a list of gifts, so hopefully it will all come together. I also want to go through my stash and stocktake a list of everything, then try to use what I have for the gifts. Although I don't know how much of the same colour cotton I have that I need for all the string bags. Another item to go with the bags will be dishclothes, then some homemade biscuits, slices and maybe mini Christmas cakes, time will tell.

I hope to get some pictures of knitting done soon, but a very special thing is happening on Wednesday and that will take up a fair bit of my time, my youngest son and his fiance are coming home for a while, in between jobs. We haven't seen them for 2 years coming this Christmas, they have been working in WA for 2 1/2 years. The next job is in NSW about a 5 hour drive, so that will be a good thing, just a long weekend trip to visit them, I can make some long weekends regularly out of my accrued leave time banked up. Everyone is so excited, our eldest son is excited as he can't wait to introduce his daughter to his brother, and he is going to pick them up from the airport. Wish I could be there to see them together, but I will be at work and will have to wait until I get home (I am going to finish a bit early and get home as quick as I can).

Wow....nearly two months without a post

Boy have I been slack....read very busy since my holiday. I haven't had time to post or read my favourite blogs. I have to get more time in the day.....not sure how I will manage that, but I will try. Sometimes other things are more important......like have #1 son, dil and grand-daughter move back in with us, so in between going to work and home things to do, I spend most of my time enjoying my grand-daugher while she is living with us. She is 15months now and a real little monkey, can climb like no-bodies business. Loves being outside and loves the pool. I can see barb wire on the pool fence and maybe even electrification of the pool fence to keep this little one on the right side of the fence. It is adorable when she comes walking into me of a night while I am sitting in my lounge chair trying to knit or read and she has a book in tow and says 'up', so up she climbs as I try to finish the paragraph or row and quickly get the knitting or book out of the way as she is already perched up on my lap ready to read to her.

I have been knitting this last week doing some gorilla knitting for the Viva La Gong which is on very soon in Wollongong. The knitting is going to be stitched onto the light poles in Wollongong Mall for the festivities. And you never know where else they may turn up.

What else have I knit, the old brain isn't working so good at 10.30pm, time I was in bed as it is another work day tomorrow. I keep waiting for the call from the Lotteries Office to say we have won millions of dollars........still waiting and dreaming.

DH still hasn't found work. Getting a bit stressed about that. Growing vegetables so it won't be too bad, how many ways can you eat strawberry's, tomatoes, broccoli, rhubarb, potatoes, capsicum, zucchini, cucumber and chilli's......let me count the ways. I would love a couple of chooks, that way we will get our protein each day with fresh eggs, but DH hasn't been convinced we should have chooks. Even tried to bribe him with the grand-daughter would love to have some chooks.

Just remembered what I have been knitting, just need to sew it together and get some buttons, ribbon etc to finish off. I am knitting a 3 piece baby set for Kiama Show in January 2010, and have started on a baby dress for same show. I am still decided if I will knit for Albion Park Show which is early January. I have a list of things I would like to knit, but time is creeping (steam rolling) up on me.
Pictures will be coming after I sew all the bits together.

Knitting Again

I have picked up the needles since getting home from our holiday, wow 5 weeks without knitting, I didn't even go into a yarn store while in USA. We were busy taking in all the wonderful places we were visiting. I didn't even get time to do a holiday blog which I though I would be able to do.

I am knitting a scarf in a boucle type yarn, it will be for a charity. I need to get back into charity knitting and get my stash down to about 2 projects in the house at a time, well that is my goal and I have been trying to do that for nearly 2 years now, and only buying yarn to knit things for my grand-daughter.

On friday night I decided I needed something nice to knit at Wollongong Stitch N Bitch on Saturday, so I got our the Patons Serenity Bamboo and Cotton in a very nice light pink. Bought at my very favourite yarn store CR&K Daisy Designs at Fairy Meadow, I bought it at camp in April. I wanted to knit my grand-daughter something with it and I had a look on Ravelry on Friday for a pattern of a dress to knit, I found a lovely one knit top down, no seams, now that has to be a good thing it is called "Violet Dress Pattern".

I started it on Friday night and finished it this morning (Sunday), gotta be happy about that. A very easy quick knit and so soft in the Bamboo Cotton mix. I didn't make it a long as it says my grand-daughter is only 13months old, it finished the increase rows then did the border and cast off.



I tried it her this morning and it looks great, I just have to sew in the ends and I am going to crochet an edge around the armholes, which isn't in the pattern but I think it will look more finished.

I'm back home

I have been travelling in the USA for 5 weeks. What a great time we had.

I will catch up with my knitting and blogging soon.

Patons Heirloom Patterns

I love the old baby patterns, I do have this pattern in a very old Patons book. Patons have now bought out a lovely pattern book of Heirloom Patterns and the cardigan I have knitted for my grand-daughter is the same as I had when a baby and I did knit for my boys - in blue naturally.


I knitted this one in Shepherd 4ply pure wool in a beautiful soft pinkfrom my very favourite LYS - CR&K Daisy Desings at Fairy Meadow. It looks lovely on grand-daughter. I knitted the 12 months size. That is a good thing with the new Heirloom book is that the sizes for all the patterns are from newborn to 12months, which is great for the one's I really want to knit now she is coming up 12months.

This blue jacket will probably go to Guardian Pharmacy for charity. I have noticed that the guardian pharmacy are not sending our knitted items overseas to Mongolia anymore, but are distributing the items to Australian charities. I am now knitting some small baby beanies for my charity knitting, this will be good for my stash busting efforts, which are still going. I got this acrylic yarn from a shop in Kiama which was closing down a few years back I might add, it has another owner now.

I am still trying to read the blogs I have listed along with new ones, I mainly lurk without commenting, not that I don't won't to comment, just that sometimes I don't have the time to spend commenting, but I am there.

Still Knitting

I have been busy, with work, getting settled in our new home, being sick (gastro and now a cold - all from grand-daughter).

I have been knitting, I have finished the knitting on grand-daughter's jumper from the yarn I dyed at the Knitters Retreat in April, I do have to sew it up. Below is the yarn I dyed still in the skein and then in balls. It is an Australia pure wool 8ply from Flinders Island yarn. It dyed and knitted very nicely.

Photo's are loading very slow so I will put more up when they load quicker.

I have knitted her 2 beanies, 1 hat, and 2 pairs of mittens with a 3rd pair on the needles.

The hat is an old pattern, I actually hat one when I was a baby, from a Patons book. It is a pixie hat with braid at the front. Very pretty. The pattern is for 3ply yarn, but I did it in Shepherd 4ply pure wool as I like the darker pink colour.

The mittens are knitted in Sirdar 8ply Fair Isle yarn, they look so cute. They are suppose to have the long cord attached to thread through the child's sleeves, but I am not keen on that idea, so just crocheted a cord and attached at the wrist to tie up.

So the stash knitting is going along well. Still way too much to get through as usual.

Still smelling my roses each day, they are so beautiful in perfume and colours. I even have Ruby (dog) smelling the roses that I cut before I put them inside. She must think I am a very silly human.

Christening & Stimulus

My grand-daughter was baptised at the end of last month. Here is a photo of her and her dad. She was just beautiful.
I am writing this post on my new toy. Thanks to Mr Rudd (Prime Minister). An Acer Aspire One. It is a 9inch screen notebook. I got it for our holiday to USA in July/August this year so I can store photos and hopefully have a holiday blog.

I have the annual Knitting Retreat next weekend I can't wait, knitting, catching up, eating, knitting, dyeing, knitting what a great weekend we will all have.

I'm Back...

We are all moved, Friday 27 March was the day and what a big day. We finally closed the door on the removalist at 6.30pm.

We had a house full of boxes, every where you looked there were boxes. Shit now we had to unpack. But first I had to clean, not that I wanted to, not that I thought I would have to. But I needed to. It all looked nice and clean, but it wasn't. Saturday morning was pack away the kitchen, but first I had to clean and it took 4 1/2 hours. Not happy Jan!

After a week and 2 days in this home we finally have the boxes in the hallway off the floor, some are unpacked, some are moved to the correct room where they will need packing away or unpacking. The 2 toilets are leaking inside the cistern, went to Bunnings to get things to fix them, didn't work, DH not happy, will have to buy the whole guts of the toilet tomorrow. The first big down pour of rain happened early in the week, all the gutters overflowed with water, what we thought was a nice big covered outdoor area became a wash with water. DH spent 4 hours saturday afternoon on the roof cleaning out all the gutters. Again not happy. What happened to people maintaning their homes, not the people in this one. Looks can be very decieving. We are slowly getting everything the way we want it.

#1 son, daughter inlaw, grand-daughter could be moving from the city back to near our old home, so we could be doing more moving on Good Friday, yah! Atleast it won't be ours and it will clear out a room at our home which is storing some of their things.

This is the first day back on the net, and that was a mini drama in itself. We have a house with 4 phone points, 2 include fax points. We had 2 phones connected to 2 of the points, and connected the internet to the point in the room we have set up as my craft/study room. Couldn't get the internet to work, rang the provider, worked through some issues with them, still didn't work. Tried other options, then rang provider back to say it was the phone line. After going through everything again the guy asked me to disconnect the other phones, kitchen point out, phone still working, bedroom point out, phone disconnected. Don't you hate that. The guy rang me back on my mobile (should have done that earlier and saved some phone costs). In the end the only phone line working for the internet and phone at the same time is the study line. When we connect the phone to the bedroom point it stuffs up the internet connection. So far so good. We have 5 cordless phones so only need a phone line point for the home base phone. So out with the other corded phone which DH wanted to have, I was so happy about that. I am not telling him that he could still have that phone in the kitchen point, as it cleared space of the breakfast bar in the kitchen. Makes me happy.

On the knitting front, I am in a smaller room for my craft/study room, so it looks a mess, but I will have to knit through it. Not a problem, maybe by 2015 it might be all done. Yes that is my goal again this year to finish all my stash. Can't see that happening this year though. I am doing a special little guys rug in football team colours. So happy knitting.

Daylight savings ended last night, so it was dark earlier tonight, but the best thing will be it will be light when I get up in the morning. Gotta love that.

I am tied from non stop unpacking, I am going to bed. Goodnight! Sleep tight and don't let the bed bugs bite.

moving, knitting, working, life is full

Life is full at the moment, we are packing up our home and moving to another home we have bought. We have been packing things for weeks, you feel like it should be all done, but no-where near it yet. We are down sizing aswell, so we have to be brutal with what we are keep and what we chuck out. Yesterday while unpacking a trailer load of boxes into storage for the next couple of weeks, I said to DH, wouldn't it be nice to chuck all this away and get all new stuff. Would save a lot of packing I can tell you. Maybe next year I might start getting some new stuff, one room at a time, now that would be lovely.

I am still knitting the 3x3 moss stitch baby hooded jacket, I am up to the hood, so not much to do now. I have also knitted 2 mens beanies to go to Victorian fire victims.

At my every other tuesday knitting night (this tuesday night yahoo) I will get some royal blue, maroon, and yellow acrylic for a special little fellows blanket. (another fire victim, one we know through blogging). That will be my knitting project while moving. I have packed all my knitting stash, patterns, I have kept my needles though, I can always buy wool - right!

Did I tell you I got a set of Addi Clicks, I started knitting with them the very next night to getting them. They are so nice to knit with. I can see me getting a lot of use from them.

DH, myself and a couple of good friends went for a ride to Katoomba, I love the Blue Mountains. Katoomba has turned pretty hippy since our last visit. We lived there in late 1980 - 1981 while DH worked on the Railways. #1 son celebrated his 1st birthday there. We had lunch at the Paragon Cafe, it is a National Trust site. They have really nice meals and they also are famous for their home made chocolates. They had an easter chocolate of a rabbit on a motorbike. I would have got it but I didn't have anywhere to put it, if I put it down my leather jacket it would have melted. I did tell DH we should drive up there one day or for a weekend.

Victorian Bush Fires and Friends worldwide

My LYS told me about this blog site that is helping the people in the bush fires in Victoria. I have been looking this morning and it is a great site. Please go and have a look there probably is something you can help with even if you thought there wasn't.

It has a lot of things that need putting together for the people there, it has a place to donate money if you wish, donate recipes, donate craft items. Thank you to the people who put this site together you are wonderful.

Here is the site http://www.handmadehelpsout.blogspot.com/ now quickly go and have a lot.

Our Tribe a group of knitters/crafters got together a few years back and did some knitting swaps, we have stayed in touch via our blogs, emails etc over the years. One of our tribe is from the bush fire area and lost her husband, her dog and her home. She and her son are OK, they were away at the time of the fires. The fire went through their area at over 300ks an hour, no-one had time to save anything let alone themselves. As a tribe we are pulling together again for her and her family. This is the great thing about these blog community, they are worldwide, most we have never met in person and most we never will, but we always know we are there for each other, no matter what. And that is so special.

If you are allowed to day dream and most of us probably do alot. My daydream today was that I could have enough money to hire a large car and get the Australia members of Our Tribe together to drive down and help out our friend as her husband's workmates are closing their work place down for a day next week and going out to clear the 5 acres up for her, that will help with the re-build of everything for her. I do believe in dreams, and wish this one would come true. But in reality I don't have the money, but all our thoughts will be with them all next week and with our tribe friend and her family for ever.

Kiama Show Wins

Here are the photo's of the knitting I did for Kiama Show.

The baby dress in 3ply pure baby wool won 1st place.
The baby shawl in 2ply pure baby wool won 1st place.
The matinee jacket in 3ply pure baby wool at bottom won 2nd place.
The mauve 3 piece set didn't win anything, I think they want bonnet, bootees and matinee jacket as the set.
They are all knitted in Shepherd Pure BabyWool, it is really nice to knit with and looks great knitted up and you know how I love to knit with Australian wool, gotta get behind our yarn makers and farmers.

Kiama Show & Knitting section

Knitting in this house has been the main priority lately with having to finish items for Kiama Show which is this weekend.

During my lunch time today I walked over to the show to see how my knitting went. Pretty damn good I must say.

The Baby Shawl – 1st Prize
The 3 piece Baby Set – nothing (I am sure they like the old fashioned 3 piece set of bonnet, bootees and matinee jacket – I did the hat, jacket and long pants as my 3 piece set)
The Baby Dress – 1st Prize
The Matinee Jacket – 2nd Prize

Pictures of all the above to come (hopefully over the weekend)

Very happy with the results. But next year I will try to convert them to more modern baby wear with another modern 3 piece set and I will do an old fashioned one as well.

I am now on my ‘stash busting’ knitting, I have put most of it out on the floor and the plan is to go through it all, then look through patterns and pick a pattern for the yarn, and just keep on knitting.

I don’t have any other knitting projects that need doing at the moment, so the stash is the number 1 priority.

I have been back at work at week now, it hasn’t been too bad I guess, it has been extremely hot here the past few days, so it is nice to be in an air conditioned office during the heat. It doesn’t stop me knitting though, DH and I sit out on the front verandah of an early evening, have a chat while I knit, it is lovely until the sandflies decide that we taste pretty good to them. I need to get the aeroguard on us before going out at that time.

Grand-daughter is 6 months old next week, the time is going by so quick, it is just lovely having them living with us while she is so young, we get to spend time with her when we get home from work while they are cooking dinner. She is so cheeky. They are thinking about moving back to Sydney as there is more work there for #1 son. We will miss them, but it will be great to have a home to ourselves for a while and they need their own space too.

Back to knitting……………I am working on a baby jacket with hood, in a 3 x 3 moss stitch rib, that will get 3 balls of baby yarn out of the way. Just need to make the time to sort through yarn and patterns to match them up.

Wow 2009.....

and it is already the 3rd of January....a bit of a blure new year to now.

I have finished knitting the mauve baby set for Kiama Show, I just have to sew it all together.
I am knitting a baby matinee jacket for the show now and have just had to rip back about 8 rows of 164 stitches each row in 4 ply yarn, not my idea of fun, but it had to be done, so tonights knitting will be catching up to where I was before I ripped it back, that took about an hour or so and with other things happening it means 2 or so days of knitting lost.

I have to download some knitting photos and take more after sewing together the mauve set.

Happy new year to everyone, and 2009 is going to be a great year....well I keep telling myself that, and the power of the mind is going to win through here you know...so mind just get with the program will you.