A brush with painting

It's been a long time since I felt like painting anything at all, let alone a new Knitting Art artwork. The past few months have been pretty mind-numbingly exhausting and depressing, what with Dotter's illnesses, my beloved pup Lily's death, and The Endless Book Review.

But after having a Jejune Day, the urge returned. This is a painting I planned and sketched out in January, and has been getting dusty since then. It's finally getting some colours...

It's a bit tricky figuring out how to paint something that looks like Fair Isle, without having to paint every stitch in detail! This is the first level of paint towards that end ...


Jejune Days will be a permanent fixture!

Lastly - Happy 17th Birthday to my dearest Dotter. She is stoic in the face of incredible hardship, pain and illness, and still has a sense of humour. She is intelligent, creative, talented, wise beyond her young years, and my heart's delight. I can't imagine life without her.

Oh solio mio....!

This is my Solio! It comes in a nice box, which is all recyclable ...

It has adapter tips, one of which fits my phone!

It has cables! And a sticky-on-the-window thingy!

See, it can sit on your window like this ...

Or it can be propped up on a pencil and sit on the ground in the sunshine.

It can charge up my phone and my iPod!


Seriously, this is one of the most beautifully designed, solid, clever little things I've ever seen, and I just love being able to recharge my phone and iPod with solar energy. It should have paid for itself within a couple of years. But money aside, I can use grid electricity just that little bit less immediately!

The Solio is UK designed - and used worldwide - you can find out more here, and if you're in Australia, you can buy one of your very own here.

Mission - Wristwarmers!

Last year my Secret Pal Abbey sent me 2 balls of Mission Falls machine washable wool - it's the softest stuff! I finally found the perfect project - a pair of A Little Twist Wristwarmers. They're a quick knit!


Then Dotter tried them on - now, she finds most wool things itchy, even sock yarn bothers her. So when she realised that she could wear Mission Falls on her skin with NO itching - well, the pressure was on. But I refused to give her my lovely new wristwarmers, even though she kept stealing them!

But there was 40g left over, so I decided to go for a second pair - smaller, shorter, not so many cables ... this is how much yarn I had left over :

Here we are, both with our Mission Falls wristwarmers (only mine are better, but don't tell Dotter!) :


The only modification I'd do (and I figured this out a year ago when I first knit them, and then forgot about it, duh), is to make the thumb opening a little more snug - it's a bit 'gappy'. When casting off the thumb gusset, cast off 1 stitch less than called for (ie 12 instead of 13) and then in the next row knit the extra un-cast-off-stitch (ie on the *left* side of the gusset) in with the last stitch on the *right* edge of the gusset - this helps to close up the hole that appears otherwise.

It's Jejune Day again today! I reinstated this last week, after nearly going nuts again. It's SO GOOD. Helping keep me sane(r) and happy.