Sunday, January 27, 2013

Unscheduled holiday

Appears that I've had a blogging holiday, completely I scheduled, and lovely. No blog in two weeks, not really sure why - I've been on leave from work with both cubs underfoot. Although the elder cub was officially measured by our family doctor at 179cm tall, and still growing. That's just under six feet for the non-metric amongst you. I'm only 172 on a good day ... So he towers above me and yet oddly can still be under foot. We have had play dates, and school shopping, uniform shopping as elder cub is off to high school this year, official uniform and timetabled days, a variety of subjects and new teachers for us both to get to know. He starts tomorrow, younger cub In a week. Bear decided we needed a proper holiday so this past weekend we headed out for two days in the tourist mecca of Otago, Queenstown. Fantastic sunny days and warm nights, and fabulous meals. Even some knitting and souvenir yarn!
New thing

This is the newest thing on the needles, a purple strip. There is no pattern, just a case of guess, cast on, knit some, rip some, knit some, rip some ...again and again until it I liked it. This is a skein of 200 grams merino, alpaca, angora from the Milton mill factory shop. There is a need for purple, and long ....I decided the edges needed to be moss stitch to boarder a narrow lace,with a matching grand at the end. The lace is direct from Barbara Walker, horseshoe lace, page 209, the treasury of knitting patterns (volume 1).
Here is the first trial, I had gone shopping for purple yarn, in Aran weight, and found nothing I liked in a natural fibre, only acrylic. Buying yarn is not something that should be done in a hurry, as i settled on two balls of this, I tried to convince myself that this was purple, even to the point of asking people to confirm it was purple. Well blue, they would say, but it is a purple kind of blue isn't it i would ask. Ok they would say hesitantly - in that I will agree with the crazy knitter to keep the peace voice my family have.
I only had 100 grams of this, and the replacement yarn comes in 200grams, so my other worry about having enough to do want I plan has faded.
Before we headed away I had made some progress on the first sleeve of my cardigan, i am up to the ribbing at the cuff! I would have loved to knit this while away but travel knitting from a cone of yarn is not as simple as travel knitting from a center pull ball.

The other new project is the frog pond socks, which grow. But as the pattern is totally charted, and I am working the chart on my ipad (using knitcompanion) this was eliminated as travel knitting. I love my ipad, and I love how easy charts Are to follow in knit companion, but knitting in the sun from a reflective screen isn't ideal. There is a lot of squinting to 'see' the frogs in the lace, but the flare of their flipperey feet and the bend of long froggy legs are very clearly hinted at.
I also managed to sign up for another season of vintage purls sock yarn club ... A wee treat to look forward to.
Take care, stella

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