High Five!

We had afternoon tea with my sister J and her husband M and my cute 16-month-old nephew B on Sunday. J is on a job exchange with the Australian Museum (she is a curator at the British Museum), so it's a real treat to have them living locally for a few months! Anyway, Dotter had fun teaching B how to do a 'High Five!' - he caught on very quickly, saying 'Ching!' along with Dotter too :) Both my teens then had fun helping B practice. Terribly cute! I suspect my two are going to be the older 'bad-influence' cousins ;)



And here are some more goodies - the Kaffe Fasset book was won by Dotter at the Harlot Happening (thanks Taph!), and will provide a great deal of inspiration, I'm sure. The TWO Addi Turbos (2.0 mm 120 cm for me to knit socks with, hopefully; 3.25 mm 120 cm for Dotter to finish her blue lace shawl) are from Stick To Your Knitting. Her prices and service are wonderful - and she's got an Addi sale on at the moment - check it out!



The Bendigo shade cards are occupying a lot of my attention at the moment, as I try to figure out what to choose for my Mariah Cardigan. And the 2 skeins of purple sock wool used to be white Patonyle (won at the Harlot Happening). Dotter has dyed them for me, using the Wilton's purple food dye paste that I got for her a few weeks ago, when Bells led me astray by taking me to The Essential Ingredient in Manuka - Bad Naughty Bells! ;)

And this is my puppy (well, she's 11 but tiny) guarding the sock wool, and enjoying the autumn sunshine on her arthritic joints, thinking, "Oh God, not another bloody photo..."

I'm still not feeling well - sort of up, rugged up at the computer, sipping green-tea-with-apple-juice (yum), and dosed up on Panadeine. Blogging looks like a good alternative to productive work right at the moment!

Phew bloody phew

Just heard from our property manager - our house is NOT being sold, although the rent is likely to go up by about $20/week. It's still cheaper than moving!

The owner wasn't happy with the number of plants that have died in the garden, but she hasn't lived in Canberra for the past 3 years! I think we've done pretty well, all things considered - a few camellias, native bushes, daisies, and gum trees have died, but the rest of the garden is still there, and is actually quite lush.

Heading back to bed - Dotter and Hubby have both got virusey things, which they've kindly shared with me... but at least I can relax about our accommodation!

The lace shawl is back on track, too - it's a relief to have it fixed and looking good again.

April Fool's Lace

So I'm sitting there watching Miss Marple, and knitting my Spring Shawl for the first time in a few weeks...

All is going well until I get to the second half of the next knit / pattern row. Suddenly the pattern isn't working! I undo a few stitches to see if I'd made a mistake just then, but on closer inspection, there was a MAJOR problem for the whole left half of the shawl, down for about 5 or 6 rows. The central decreases in the diamonds were sitting on the left of the diamonds. I looked at Dotter, Dotter looked at me, we both knew there was only one thing I could do....

I threaded some apricot coloured sock yarn onto a needles, and ran a safety line through what I hoped was one row of the shawl, about 6 rows down. Then I unravelled those 6 rows (~1200 stitches!), and am now in the process of slowly picking up the stitches and hoping that the pattern is still OK, and that I'm picking up the right number of yarn overs and so on! I'm halfway through the picking up... will do the rest tomorrow. Sigh. This is what I get for trying to be clever and knitting lace while I'm talking or watching TV. Can't be done!

So here are my Lace Resolutions : I shall pay more attention to my lace, forsaking all others while knitting it, including girlfriends and telly. I shall thread in a safety line. I shall not get too big for my lace knitting boots. Did I mention safety lines? I'll mention them again. I shall thread in a safety line.

I wonder if I can blame this one on Lulu?

Monday update : I've got all the stitches back on the needles, and one row has been knitted, with each and every stitch fixed so it sits the right way on the needles. Back in business! Lulu is looking - well - sheepish...