March Madness

This is the cute knitted ball I made for my little nephew. I used Wendy Wash and Wear multicoloured wool, and Val's Original Yarnball Pattern. He grabbed it with glee and an appropriate amount of slobber (for a 3-month-old ;)

And on another topic entirely, I shall be showing solidarity with Taph by joining in on 'Use What You Have' month - what a Good Idea TM! Should be quite a challenge to us both... I must admit that I can only commit to this challenge with equanimity because I've just won 6 sets of Ivoré double-point needles on eBay, well before the April deadline ;)

Stitch'n Bitch yesterday was wonderful as always - I was determined to get there despite waking up with a migraine - damn and blast. I doped myself to the gills with Panadiene, tea, and chocolate (sometimes helps - and if it doesn't, well at least I've got chocolate!), and went anyway, only slightly groggy ;) Was lovely to see all my knitty sisters - and even some rare boys too! Yay!

And last but not least, check out Subversive Cross Stitch. Absolutely BRILLIANT. Perfect for shocking annoying relations... get yours today!

SOCKS!

I'm so excited - I'm actually wearing my first ever pair of hand-knitted socks!! These are my pink Patonyle ankle socks, which I've been knitting forever, but have finally been finished - woo hoo! And yes, they are that bright. And pinkly comfy too!

I am clearly not cut out to be a fast sock knitter, but I do enjoy making them, so I figure I'll just plod away slowly, filling in the 'little knitting project gaps' amongst my bigger knitting projects.

Anatomy of a Stash

On the weekend the dotter and I finally bit the bullet and dealt with - The Stash!
It was scary, I can tell you - those cheap acrylics tangling up the fine 4ply sock wool, feathers lurking in the far corners, pure wool being confused and led astray by gaudy cottons. We dragged them out, kicking and squealing, into the harsh daylight, subjected the ack suspects to the Bleach Jar of Truth, and culled without mercy. Click on the pic to read the captions :)

We now have 2 bags of stuff for the Swap Basket at SnB, and we even threw out a bag of nasty scraps and tangles that weren't worth rescuing. Dotter has her own stash, in her bedroom, and my stash is all NICE and well behaved - for the moment, anyway...

Goddess Bracelet

This is a knitted wire cuff for my gorgeous sister-in-law - she requested one for her birthday, so she chose the colours and width, plus it meant I could get her wrist measurement without having to resort to subterfuge (Look, I just need to tie you up to this bed-post for a few seconds...stop struggling!).

I love the heart toggles - aren't they just damn CUTE? You'll probably need to click on the pic to see the detail. I sort of got led astray when buying beads for this... let's just say there's a wide variety, and leave it at that, okay?

FO Voodoo

Happy Finished Object Dance! These ones are for ME to KEEP for MYSELF without having to SHARE at ALL. So there. Now it just needs to get colder so I can wear them ;)

Furniture Polish?

My lovely pen pal from Pennsylvania (hey, that almost rhymes!) sent me this scan from a mag over there... so if anyone is having trouble with your wooden needles getting too rough, try this little furniture polish trick (if you click on the image it should show you a big enough image to read the details)!

The long spaghetti matches trick is cute too :D

Engrish Needle

I had the best thing this morning - a package of knitting goodies in the mail! This one was from Wool Baa - apart from some stitch markers, Jo Sharp's Eclectic book, and some Ivoré needles (which I thought were going to be DPNs, but turned out to be straights - oh well - my fault for not reading the web site carefully enough), I also got a set of KA 2mm DPNs, which are a very handy 20 cm long.

I just have to share the Engrish on the KS needles' packaging with you :
"Hight Quality Bamboo Needle - presented by Kinkiamibari Mfg. Co"

Well, they're nearly there... just lose a T and add an S...

We have a sleeve

See, I *have* been knitting, even if I haven't been posting much... one sleeve is finished (but the nice little hem hasn't been sewn up yet), and the other sleeve is nearly done. I've also darned in all the tail ends, so there won't be so many to do when it's all done. The end is in sight! And it fits really well :D

Cotton Catch

I nabbed this cotton cache from Salvos a few days ago - for all of $5! What can I say? I'm just showing off :)