Stephanie's Boobholder

I needed a warm cardi or jacket to wear out last saturday night ... it was only saturday morning that I realised I didn't have anything in my wardrobe to match the rest of my outfit. I had some stash yarn that was the right colour and was thick enough to knit up fast, but even so, I thought it was abit much to think that I could complete it in an afternoon! (but of course, I had to give it a shot :D) ... so, armed with my 2 balls of Katia Himalaya, Stephanie Japel's Boobholder pattern, a cup of tea (several actually!), and some old Taggart re-runs on TV, I set about knitting :D

Ta-daa! ... five, non-stop knitting hours later, it was finished (I even had a perfect button in my stash!). I wore it on saturday night, over a black long sleeved skivvy ... it fits great and feels great, and kept me nice and toasty warm on a cold Adelaide night :)

(The only changes that I made to Stephanie's pattern were to eliminate the puffy sleeves, and to decide, by trying it on, when to divide for the body and sleeves)

Still de-stashing

...yes, the de-stashification process is still going strong :-) It has been hard to stop myself from adding to my supplies (I came very close to caving in at Spotlight this morning!)... buuut... so far, so good :-D
It took me a while to figure out what to make with my two lonely balls of Sean Sheep Armytage. It's too scratchy for baby things, and far too prone to accidentally felting for a teething, drooly bub (although it would have made an awesome looking earflap hat!), so in the end I settled on my old faithful,' go to when in a knitting funk pattern', the One Skein Wonder. I followed the pattern without modification, phew!!, and it pretty much saw all of my two balls :-)

I made a few pairs of toe-up socks. The white pair here were made with some old 'no label' acrylic, and the pink ones were Lincraft Cosy 8 ply wool. They're basically the same sock, 8 ply yarn with 4mm needles. Turkish cast on (12 sts) increasing to about 24 (or whenever the sock fits snuggly over your toes), work straight in any stitch (on my lace pair, I did plain stocking stitch on half the stitches, for the sole). I tried a Short row heel this time, instead of the Afterthought one, and really surprised myself with how easy it was, although I do need to practice it more to eliminate the little holes on either side. After the heel it was just ribbing on all stitches until I was happy with how they felt on :-) I found this elastic bind off, which made a heap of difference to getting the socks on and off!
....and finally, I attacked my fabric stash, and started making random quilt blocks...not sure what I'm making with them yet, but I'm pretty sure that a baby quilt will be following shortly ;-D

Bad Penny

This is my slightly shortened version of Stephanie Japel's Bad Penny. In keeping with my stash down plans for this year (of course, this will only last until Lincraft or Spotlight have their next big yarn sale!!), I used 5 balls of Sean Sheep Armytage (yep, the reason for the shorter length is because I just knitted down until my yarn ran out...couldn't do that if it wasn't knit from the top :-)) I added a bit of waist shaping with the help of Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top and omitted the lacy increases and edgings....but other than that, I pretty much followed the pattern ;-D
I started knitting this top before Christmas, but it was just too hot and sticky to be knitting with a thick wool at that time of year (trying it on all the time to get the fit right was just the worst!!) ... we had a couple of cooler days last week, so I made the most of the change, and finished it off...all in all, it probably only took a few days to knit. I have another 5 balls of the same yarn in a different colour, so I think I may be starting another one soon :-)
I'm liking the layered look again for this winter...just perfect for Adelaide :-)

Knitting from the top

I found a copy of Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top on Ebay, and have spent the last couple of days reading it from cover to cover :-) It's not a pretty book, and it would certainly be overlooked by me at the bookshop, but reading everybody's praise about it, I knew that I had to have a copy (and I was so right!). The book relies on text rather than photos, but it is so well written that it all makes perfect sense, and makes everything seem so easy...I'd given up trying to master the Invisible Cast On, but on my first try with Barbara's instructions, I totally got it!!




I haven't done much knitting or sewing in the last couple of weeks ... thanks to the great aussie cold virus that everybody seems to have had :-(
...but I did make a start on some Pocketbook Slippers (easy, no think, no effort, stash yarn knitting). The weather is getting hotter now, so slippers were perhaps not the obvious choice...but hey they're quick and have a really clever construction.
Trying to be Sunsmart yesterday, I was looking for something to wear over my shoulders, and found this green One Skein Wonder that I made a while back (before I started blogging). It worked perfectly...just right for protecting my shoulders outside in the sun....and just right for inside, guarding me from the air conditioners.
I'd forgotten just what a cool top this is :-)