Chihuahuasaurus

As promised to Monnsqueak, here is a dog I'm very close to in her dinosaur suit, courtsey of the divine Taph! Are we cruel or what?

Mmmmm, delicious!

Yesterday we had lunch with my husband's aunt and uncle in Sydney... Aunty R used to work for Patons many decades ago, as a creative director (or something similar, I've probably got the terminology wrong). She is one of those amazingly artistic people... she decided to create a series of vegetables, and set about it with typical throughness. First of all she grew an eggplant to see what its flower and vine looked like, then created watercolour paintings of each vegetable, before starting to create them in 'freeform' knitting and crochet with touches of embroidery.



The eggplant is a tea cosy. There are also scallions, a bunch of radishes, a caulfilower, lettuce, cabbage, turnip, tomatoes, artichoke, and my favourite, a bunch of delicate asparagus. It's worth clicking on the photos for close-ups views.

I know this is not useful craft - but it's really stunningly impressive work, true fibre arts.

Back again

Hi guys,

Well, we're just back from a lovely week's holiday up on the Central Coast, at a neat beach pole-house (which swayed!). It rained for nearly the whole time, but we had a fireplace, and books, and knitting, so what more was necessary? The big treat was discovering balls of Oro Inca 70% baby alpaca, 30% silk (made in Peru) at The Alpaca Centre in Berrima - I got 2 balls of purple, which I'm turning into Knitty's Branching Out lace scarf. It's SO SOFT I just can't believe it. It's the most luxurious yarn I've ever used!



The bad news is that I'd put my work computer in my husband's office for safe-keeping while we were away, and some fucking bastard fucking bastard stole it! The whole office building is locked, as is his office, and there were no signs of a break-in, so someone with a master key did this... I've lost about 3 weeks' work, 6 months of family photos, and plenty more and worse besides. He's lent me his work machine for now, police have been informed, as well as the security bods at his work, and hopefully the insurance can be sorted out quickly. But we're still really upset!!

Japanese Boucle & the Heart Scarf

A dear friend of mine has just been diagnosed with breast cancer, proving once again that life is a bloody bitch at times. I'm making her a Heart Scarf (from Knitty's 2004 Breast Cancer Awareness mini-issue) using blue-green-aqua bouclé which was in my stash (as I can't afford to buy anything right now). I couldn't read the label though, as it's Japanese...

So I sent it off to a friend who can translate this stuff, and she said it's 100% acrylic, called "Off time Alicia" (go figure!), for needles 9 to 11; Standard guage: 13-14 stitches, 22-24 rows to 10 cm.

The care instructions read Hand wash, don't bleach, don't iron, dry clean, the twisting image has "weak" written on it, and the jumper image has "flat" written on it. Probably don't wring, and dry flat is my guess.

The lace heart pattern won't be very obvious in the bouclé, but they'll sort of be stealth hearts... I only wish I could do more, and make the bad things all go away :(

Here's the scarf so far... can you see the hearts?

On Target

Here's Target Beanie #1 — I've used a twisted rib (all knit stitches are knit through the back of the stitch, which gives a more defined rib). Hubby's got a 24" head, so I cast on 114 stitches, but this was really a bit big. Each colour ring is only 9 rows, and the whole beanie is a bit short, so the design needs a bit of work.

I will do Version 2 soon, on 100 stitches, 10 rows per colour, and adding a black ring in the middle of the white, and a white ring in the middle of the black (they delineate the 1 & 2, and 3 & 4 scoring rings respectively - ones you don't want to shoot ;)

Once I'm happy with the pattern, I'll write it up here.

Tea Party Time

It was my dotter's 15th birthday this weekend, and she chose to have a fancy tea party with her yarn sisters - all of whom are older than her. We cooked lots of yummy things - the sort of treats we don't normally have, like bleu cheese filo pastries, coffee cream chocolates, cucumber sandwiches, orange poppyseed shortbreads, and smoked salmon on pumpernickel....

I dusted off my collection of old china cups, dug out the lace tablecloth and doilies, and we polished the silver... it was a lovely afternoon, with excellent company, knitting much in abundance, and delicious fibre gifts (many thanks, ladies). There's really something to be said for a proper afternoon tea with one's women friends :) I'm only sorry we couldn't invite more of our 'yarn sisters' - we clearly need to do this more often!



On the knitting front, the lurid green scarf is a little further on, hubby's Jet Jumper now has a front, and the sleeves have been started (both at the same time), and the cuff for the second Fibonacci sock is nearly finished.