Pay it forward

I haven't had much enthusiasm for blogging this week, I'm afraid. Working 5 days takes it out of you - who on earth ever thought that was a good idea? That, and my startitis is getting worse. I think it might be viral, unfortunately, with symptoms including compulsive surfing of yarn and pattern sites, and making lists of possible yarn substitutes. So I've just been keeping up with what everyone else is up to.

And that includes the Pay it Forward exchange that the Caffeine Faerie has signed up to, and I thought I'd join in. It goes thus:

I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this Pay It Forward exchange.

I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise!

The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

I decided I had to join in after dreaming about possible gifts last night! And it's my first exchange. Better go - Iron Chef is about to start.

G x

Vested interest

Now that Geoff's vest has been delivered, and I have confirmed his satidifaction with said item, I can comfortably blog it. Heaven knows I sweat over it, so I need some FO-satisfaction!

Geoff's vest was knit from Bendy Rustic 12ply in Graphite, from the Panda Magnum Book 201 Classic Knits for Adults on 5mm needles. This yarn is fabulous to knit (no news flash there of course). Lessons: don't forget to keep a stitch in the midle of the V-neck shaping!!

Geoff caught me in a weak moment when I agreed to this commission ("Wow, you knit! How cool is that! You're so clever....do you do commissions??") but he humoured me by getting right into the whole yarn and pattern selection thing, bless him.

Geoff and his lovely partner R have a little boy a couple of months older than Pirate Jim. It was O's second birthday while we were in Germany, so although it was a little late, I tucked a little gift into the vest for O:

Modelled by Pirate Jim. This is a standard roll-edged beanie knit in Naturally Colourworks handpainted yarn (shade 988) on 5.5 mm dpns. It always attracted comment if I knit it in public and I'm really happy with how the colours pooled and blended. Apparently Mr O likes it too!

Now that these guys are off my list, I've got a touch of the startitis that's been going around. So many projects....so many bloggers have inspired me.....and I obviously don't have the right yarn to start any of them so will just have to buy more....

Sigh. Its a tough life....

Get ready to Wiggle

We had only just moved to Springwood in the Blue Mountains near Sydney when Pirate Jim was born (and by just I mean 3 days before, after spending 4 weeks rennovating the entire house!). I didnt know anyone locally, and was really happy to be asked by the Community Health Nurse to join a New Parents Group of parents (all first-time Mums, as it turned out) with babies the same age. I thought there might be a couple amongst them who could perhaps become friends.

As it turned out, they were all, without exception, great women, of about my age, from a range of professions, and the whole group clicked. I adore these women, and I miss them more than anything else since leaving Springwood in February. They are so friendly, supportive, happy, encouraging and open-minded, and have helped me enormously on our journey on the rocky road we call parenthood. I have learnt from all of them. Love you, girls!! Mwah!


On Thursday and Friday Pirate Jim and I got the chance for a catch up with my Mother's Group when we trekked up to Springwood to see the Wiggles. PJ is a mad keen Wiggles fan (in fact we've had to have an intervention and start a detox program!) and when Bec discovered they were coming to Penrith Leagues Club and suggested we get tickets and go along, I was in for any money.


So we stayed the night with Bec and her family (Audrey is the same age as PJ, Baxter is just 10 weeks old) and had afternoon tea with the girls, then hit the venue with about 500 other families for the show.


Here they are, the Real Live Wiggles! Between you and me, I was just a leetle excited - after all, these guys are on my telly at least 30 minutes a day (more if it's a Bad Day tm) and there's something very compelling about it all. And yes, the more astute amongst you may have noticed I may just have a teeny tiny crush on Murray (although would readily turn my affections to Sam! No loyalty to Greg here, I'm afraid, we are a post-Greg family)

PJ was a little, shall we say, overwhelmed by it all.

He didnt move through the entire performance, until the very end when I got him to wave. However, when we got home, he was very excited about telling Papa what we saw. So I think he liked it. Maybe he was dancing on the inside!

In other news.....

It was SnB this afternoon, so I took along the german sock yarn stash to deliver to those who asked special like, and those who might just fancy some.

After the fibre whores SnB'ers finished, this is what remains of my stash:

and some of that will go to kms (K: let me know what your heart desires, hmm?). Good thing I don't know how to knit socks yet!

Finally, an FO!

Yesterday I succumbed to the lurgy that's doing the rounds and spent the day on the couch watching West Wing (series 2) on dvd. And knitting. Clearly, since I was desperately ill enough to stay home from work, I wasn't up for anything too challenging. I was inspired by both Bell's and Jejune's recent works, and by Pirate Jim's desire to follow the leader, which includes putting on a scarf when we go outside, just like Mama.

Pirate Jim's scarf in the same yarn - Naturelle Aran 10 ply (100% wool) - as the cable baby beanie I knit him a few months back, with Yarn Harlot's one row scarf pattern on 5.5 mm needles. I love this pattern - perfect sick bed and tv watching knitting.

I love it so much I'm jumping on the vintage hues bandwagon and have cast on a scarf for myself.

This just happened to jump into my basket at the LYS the other day....I keep wanting to smell it because I'm so sure it will smell like after dinner mints!

In other FO news, I respectfully ask you to cast your eyes to the left, where you will see my progress bars show Geoff's Vest as 100%! Wahoo! It arrived back from The Finishers this evening. I won't post any photos until it's delivered, so will add details then.

I will have more news on the weekend - tomorrow PJ and I are off to Sydney to visit the girls from my Mother's Group and go with them to see The Band That Shall Not Be Named on Friday morning. Don't tell anyone, but I'm a little bit excited myself....

G x

Hey Mr Postman.....

Just as I was serving up dinner tonight, the doorbell rang. As I muttered under my breath about bad timing, soggy wantons and mushy noodles, Beloved and Pirate Jim went downstairs to answer it.

Dinner, however, was quite quickly forgotten.

It was a box from Germany.

A very exciting box.

With lots of yummy yarn inside. Lots of sock yarn. Opal, Regia, Tekking XXL, Twister. (sorry, awful photo. I was excited.)

Some of this is special order, the rest is just because I can. For Canberra SnBers, I'm willing to part with it (maybe!), and will bring it along to the next SnB.

And a little something for me - Drops Alpaca. (If you havent dropped (haha, geddit?) by this site before, it is loaded with free patterns. Go there.)

And a kit for a Karen Noe anenome shawl, destined for a gift. Sorry, colours are a bit crappy.

I didnt even notice the wantons were soggy. I'm off to reorganise my international boodle and play diplomat.

G x

Look at moi!

As you know, I havent had much time with the sticks lately. My Mum, however, has been knitting like a demon (although not quite as demonically as Taph's mum!), now that she has a grateful recipient in Pirate Jim.

So, in the absence of any FOs of my own to blog, I give you the latest work of Nanna, as modelled by PJ:

Work it, baby, camera luvs ya.

Vest from Panda 8 ply Book 204 "11 Handknits for Kids" knitted in Totem. Its the same as the brown one she did for him a couple of moths ago.

"Look Mama, pockets!"

"How should I stand Mama?"

"Like this?"

I would post the pattern source, but Mum still has it. The yarn, though, is Bendy Colonial 8ply in Cocoa and Indigo.

There's more to come (needing buttons, I believe). And yes, she's figured out I have a boodle.....it's somewhat diminished now after her visit last week! What is it with mothers and boodle??

G x

Fancy a yarn?

I think I may have recovered enough from completing my study to finally sit in front of the pc for fun again. I hope I'm not putting the moz on by saying "finished", since I havent got my marks yet so don't know if Ive actually passed.....but I'll cross that bridge if I happen to come to it.

Since both my life and blog have been low on knitting until last weekend, I thought an update on all things yarny was well overdue. So here is some yarn porn and a bit of an update.

1. Geoff's Vest. A commission for a mate - the largest thing I've knitted in ages (not being renowned for the length of my attention span). It is also well-travelled, having been to Germany and back, but I didnt get much stick-time there, so it came home still unfinished. I put in a big effort early last week, as Mum and Dad were visiting, and I planned to get Mum to finish it for me. Until I got to the shoulder decreases of the second side of the front neck and found I had one stitch too many.

The evil pattern-corrupting fairy that normally hangs out with kms was on holidays at my place, because I missed that one line that tells me to put a single stitch on a pin. Next morning front right side was frogged, and I put it in the naughty corner for a bit of time-out.

Now, however, the front is done, and its on its way to Super-Mum for finishing (a commission is not the time to teach myself to knit up stitches for a neckband!). Sadly, though, no photos of the WIP.

2. S. E. X. in Germany. It was good, don't get me wrong - not really enough for me, but as in many partnerships, Beloved doesnt have the same drive as me, so I'm happy with what I got. Lots of lovely sock yarn and a few other nice bits and bobs. Oooohhh, baby.

This haul came from Wollkorb in Luebeck (please tell me if youre ever in that neck of the woods, the store and its owner are sensational):

It includes the only handspun I saw in Germany - sadly there is very little in the way of a "cottage industry" for fibre. The top 6 balls are Jawoll and the other 2 are Lana Grossa MegaBoots. They were on sale at E5 each - should have bought a dozen.

These four came from the Willich Wollstuebchen - my first yarn shop so I was restrained. 2 balls of Lana Grossa Meilenweit cotton (on the right) and 2 of OnLine bambus.

I also grabbed this GGH 100% wool for E2 (about $3.50) per ball:

This is from a combined craft / kids clothes store only 2 villages from home, and our last stop 2 days before we left (it will certainly be first stop next visit). Some more Jawoll, some assorted Regia, another Lana Grossa cotton and some Regia silk.:

So that is the lot that came home in my suitcase like this:

But the main haul is on its way home in a nice cosy box. I'll flash that when it arrives.

3. International stash relations. I think it might be time to have a bit of a stash clean-up so the german yarn doesnt get the wrong impression about Australia:


Now I've just got to deal with the Knitting Corner and all those lurking WIPs that havent seen the light of day for months. Then I might finally have some finished things to blog about.

G xx