I've been working hard on

I've been working hard on DH's sweater, and am already halfway up the back, yippee!!
No pictures, because it's still boring, LOL! Look at the picture from the front a few days ago, and imagine it only half way up. :)
Em has been busy, too.

That's her "Little Friend". She is knitting it as a gift for a teacher for christmas. That's the face that she's up to now. She has followed the pattern to the letter, but I think I'll have a look at it before she knits another, and eliminate that first ridge on the "neckband" where you can see where she changed colours.
After the face, she does a few rows of "hair" then casts off, sews it together into a tube, ad sews the top closed. Then we knit arms and legs with a french knitter.
Becky asked the other day if we have a French Knitter. The kit for the Little Friend came with a cute little one :)

Here in Australia we commonly call them French Knitters, Knitting Nancy's or Knitting Nanna's. At the end, the whole lot is felted, so it is very forgiving of little mistakes that may happen :)
She's moving along on it alot faster than I expected her to, and she apparently has plans for a whole army of little Friends for Christmas Gifts.
Look out, World :)

Not a lot of knitting

Not a lot of knitting done in the past few days, but I got mail again!!
Bliss was selling off stash a while back, and I really liked the Lime and Pink cotton blend she had. These are Em's favourite colours right now (this week ;) and I have a pattern for a cute summer sweater in the same gauge. For a variety of reasons, I couldn't buy the yarn from her. But she sent it to me anyway! How nice is this lady?

She also tossed in that lovely hank of variegated merino in the picture. Em is on school holidays right now, and we both squealed with excitement on opening the box. Thankyou Bliss!
My order from Bendigo Wool Mill also arrived, but it paled in comparison :)

This is the 2 ply laceweight in the colour "Rosebud" that I had intended for the Flower Basket shawl. But now I just want to finish DH's sweater do I can start Emily's Lime and Pink one!
DH's sweater is coming along, I've done maybe 6 or 8 inches of the back, and am trying to convince myself that I really should finish it. Now. ;)

I finally took a usable

I finally took a usable picture of DH's sweater today.

It is actually black, not the blue that the picture suggests on my monitor. I have since finished the other side of the front and cast on for the back.
I don't know why this sweater gave me so much grief to start with, because I am quite enjoying knitting it now, even if it does get boring after a while. The Silkroad is lovely to knit with. My DH is not a small man, and the resulting sweater is rather large to knit!
Tomorrow is the first day of the local school holidays. Em has a dance competition tomorrow and Tuesday, so hopefully that will mean knitting time. I also only have 15 more costumes to make (in four weeks!)
Em has made a bit of progress on her "Little Friend".

It's knitted in Jo Sharp DK wool. The garter stitch bit will be the skirt, and the stockinette will be the top. She still has some work to do before felting! There is a neckband, face, hair, then the arms and legs need to be done on a French Knitting spool.
I'll keep you all updated ;)

The Aussie and NZ webring

The Aussie and NZ webring is up and running, yay!!!
Run on over here to join.
The button and things are further down on my page, but I think my sidebar needs some rearranging.

In knitting news, DH's sweater is coming along nicely. Hopefully we'll have some nice weather tomorrow and I can try to get a decent picture. It's a polo style neck, and I have just split the front. I am not looking forward to doing the back - It's basically a square 65 x 65cm. How long do you think it'll take me to get bored with that?
I've decided that I'm going to knit the Flower Basket Shawl from Interweave Knits. I went over to One Fine Yarn and looked at the Misti lace weight alpaca that the pattern calls for, and it's gorgeous. However, with postage it comes to $US20, and while that is not terribly expensive, I went for a local alternative. Bendigo Wool Mills in Victoria has 200g 2 ply lace weight merino for $AU10.50, and if I spend over $30, I get free postage. So I got some new stuff from there too ;)
I got a nice baby pink for the shawl.
I must admit that I remained undecided about it for ages, but decided on the wool, but I am still unsure I made the right decision. I'll see how I go when it gets here. Maybe I'll still get the alpaca :)

Great mail day again! :)

Great mail day again! :)
Jill came through with a great parcel yet again!!

Woohoo! Now I can be like Sandy and become a sock knitting machine ;) I've had the Knitting on the Road book on my Amazon wish list for a while, and I love the other one, too. I hope Six Sox puts the adult pattern up quick, or temptation may get the better of me, and I'll start one from these books.

A few weeks ago, a lady named Kathy contacted me, after she saw Em's Katia cardigan on my blog. She had a dilemma. She was half a ball short of the Katia yarn for a sweater she was knitting herself, and couldn't find any more. So I sent her the bit I had left, and luckily it was enough for her to finish the sweater. I was happy enough to send it - I was never going to use a half ball of Katia Denim!

Today, this lovely bar of homemade soap and cute card showed up as a thankyou. Well, thankyou Kathy, it's lovely! :)
The Aussie & NZ knitters webring will hopefully be active at some point this weekend. My beloved DH who is a software developer by day is busily building a page for the ring as we speak. And with my DH, close enough is never good enough. I will post here as soon as it's up and running, I promise.

And just because I haven't put a picture up lately, Twinky asks why I'm pointing that camera at her :)

I'm thinking of starting a

I'm thinking of starting a new webring. A webring for Aussie Knitters. I love the webrings, I love being able to surf through them at my leisure, checking in on people, sometimes just clicking on that "Random" button, and seeing who pops up.
So today I got to thinking that there really should be a webring for the Aussie Knitters. I'm not saying that I don't like knitters from other countries, I love all knitters equally! :)
I think I've surfed through most of the Australian blogs at one time or another, but I could be wrong. If they were all in one spot, I could find them all and check in. I could see if there is actually a knitblogger close by!
Aussie knitters, please let me know what you think! You can leave a comment, or email me via the link over there in the sidebar -->
In knitting news, I have been knitting, I really have! However, DH's sweater is very large and very black. Which in blog speak means very boring and bad to photograph! I love the Jo Sharp Silkroad yarn, and I'm more than halfway up the front. I joined up the third ball yesterday, which means I'm a ball further along than I've been with previous attempts :)
I tried to start a scarf today to break up the monotony of the sweater, but two attempts with two different yarns failed to inspire me. The next sock in the six sox knitalong should be out any day, so I think I'll keep the needles free for that. I have some lovely Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn that I recieved in a swap early this year that I think I'll use for that.
Em started her felted friend, and I've promised her that I'll show you all, but I think progress will be extremely slow, so I won't rush the pictures.
Happy Wednesday!

I got RAOK'd! When i

I got RAOK'd!

When i got to the Post office this morning, there was a mystery package from Carolina. Much excitement ensued as the package was opened and the beads revealed.
Thankyou, Carolina!! :)

In other news I have a whine about Amazon. Remember that several weeks ago, I placed an order with them? I ordered The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns, Pipsqueaks, Rowan Junior, 365 Knitting Stitches a Year, and Stephen King's The Dark Tower.
At the time, The Dark Tower wasn't being released until today, 21 September, and it was delaying my whole order. So, I went back, cancelled The Dark Tower, and ordered it separately so my order wouldn't be delayed.
The Dark Tower shipped on September 17. My knitting books still haven't shipped.
Bah!!
I'm dying to get my hands on the King book, and there will be a major argument here with my DH about who will read it first, but I want my bloody knitting books! It turns out that there is a delay on Pipsqueaks, and it won't ship until mid-October. Hopefully the other 3 will ship today, but God only knows when I'll see them!
On a sidenote, does anyone know where I can easily obtain the little pamphlet thingy to go with the Knitter's Handy Books that tells you how much yarn you need? I got both books from Amazon, and they don't mention the yardage thingy, which I imagine would be quite helpful.

We went out to dinner

We went out to dinner tonight. Where did we go?

The Casino! Star City casino in Sydney to be precise :)
Now we don't usually spend an awful lot of time at the casino, in fact this was only the second visit for Em and I, and the first for DH. Em and I saw a show there around 2 years ago.
My sister-in-law is visiting from Queensland for 3 days, staying in the city, so we went in and met her and took her to dinner. Fun was had by all, and much time was spent admiring Sydney's harbour by night.

A fun mail day today :)
I got another cute tape measure from eBay.

I could collect these forever!
And I got the confetti sock yarn I won from Brenda.

Thankyou again, Brenda! This is the first RAOK I have recieved by snail mail, and I love it!
I also got a cute kit in the mail that I ordered for Emily, that makes a little person. You knit it up (a more-or-less simple rectangle), sew it up, add arms and legs made on a French knitter, and felt it before you stuff it. I have promised her that I will blog it for you all when she starts it.
Between all that stuff, and the little bit of sewing and housework I managed today, not a stitch has been knit today :(
Better time management tomorrow!

Here is the finished Poncho!

Here is the finished Poncho!

Em is happy with it, but I think it's a little big. That's okay, it'll last through a growth spurt. Mind you, we've been waiting for a growth spurt for years ;)
She's a tad on the small side for her age :)
I'm happy with it, I guess, but my stitching on of the lace edging is a little sloppy.
It's knit with Heirloom EasyCare 8ply, I used 6 and a half balls in total. I made it up as I went long, with help from Jill.
The edging is from Nicky Epstein's "Knitting On The Edge", and is called "Shark's Tooth" lace.
Here is a close up of the lace, please pay no attention to the sloppy stitching!

So now I've gone back to DH's sweater. It seems to be coming along better now, maybe I just needed the break!

The poncho is done! I

The poncho is done!
I finished it late last night, dunked it and pinned it and it is now blocking. I think it will be ready for Em to wear to her picnic tomorrow, but I also think it will be too warm for her to wear! We're definitely heading into Spring here now.
The kids danced at a local school fete today, and Em performed a solo. So I took my camera along for you all. :) Yes, that costume is fully sequinned, and it took me around 3 months to sew. And I think it's getting too small :(
All the pictures are clickable to get bigger (visible) pictures, but they're pretty big files (around 800kb).
Poncho pics tomorrow!

Happy Birthday Jill! Go

Happy Birthday Jill! Go on over and wish her a Happy Birthday :)
Not a lot else to report. I don't think Em will be wearing the poncho on Sunday. I still haven't finished the edging, and it has yet to be sewn on and blocked. And it definitely needs blocking, as the lace is curling under.
Nothing was acheived today, due to yet more family dramas. Everytime I plan out my day to achieve the most, something blows up in my face.
But the weekend is here at last, enjoy it, spend some time with your loved ones, and knit :)
And celebrate Jill's birthday :)

I'm still here, still going

I'm still here, still going on the poncho. I'm halfway through the lace edging, then I can block it.
Em has a Social Event on Sunday, and would like to wear it then. Maybe it'll happen. Of course, the weather here is getting warmer, and she's not going to get alot of use out of it this year. Thank goodness it isn't something she'll grow out of.
You may have noticed that I don't knit an awful lot of clothing for myself. Well, not as much as I plan to. This is because I'm one of those silly women who always say "Well, if I lose some weight, I'll need the smaller size. If I knit the size I need now, It'll be too big." And thus, I rarely knit myself anything.
Never mind the fact that I have been steadily gaining weight for the last four and a half years, since I quit smoking.
Well, instead of talking about it, since my surgery I've been doing something about it. I am very pleased to say that my clothes have slowly been getting too big for me. Today I went out and bought myself some new pants. They are two sizes smaller than the last pair I bought :)
And they fit :)
Picture me dancing with glee!

Tonight Animal Planet showed "In

Tonight Animal Planet showed "In The Wild - The Polar Bears of Churchill with Ewan McGregor".
I was in heaven. Polar bears and Ewan McGregor. Now, I've seen it before, more than once. I have it on tape. And I still couldn't knit while I watched - far too distracting. :)
I may have mentioned before that I love Polar Bears. My family prefers the word obsessed. We went to the Gold Coast in January 2002, and I insisted that we go to Sea World to see the Polar Bears. I have a teacup and a coffee mug, both with polar bears on them. My birthday cards invariably have polar bears on them. I have keyrings with Polar bears, stuffed toy polar bears, a polar bear calendar, magnets, polar bears statuettes and polar bear earrings.
I adore Polar Bears.
If I only ever go overseas once in my life, it will be to Churchill to see the Polar Bears. And if I'm lucky, Ewan McGregor ;)

In knitting news, I seem to be getting closer to the end of the poncho. Or I seem to be running out of yarn, anyway. The school concert went ahead without a hitch today, and I worked on the poncho.
And, in other wonderful news, I won a RAOK contest on Brenda's blog! I won Confetti sock yarn, which I haven't tried yet, so I am looking forward to it very much :)
Have a Nice Day. Hug a Polar Bear :)

Look what came in the

Look what came in the mail today!

How cute is that? And what is it?

It's a cute little Hello Kitty tape measure! I got it from eBay. :)
I was seeing so many cute tape measures on various knitting blogs, and I was getting jealous that I only had boring ones. So I looked and looked locally and couldn't find anything cute or even anything that wasn't an ordinary tape measure, then I turned to everybody's friend, eBay ;)
I'm still after a sheepy one, and I can't believe the different ones I've seen around, I'd love them all, LOL!
The poncho progresses slowly, and I haven't touched anything else lately, I just want to get the poncho done. And Em just wants me to get it done :)

No knitting done at the

No knitting done at the dance comp today :( But the kids had a blast, and they did really well.
But I didn't get any time to knit :(
Anyway, Em has picked out her trim from "Knitting on The Edge". She has chosen "Shark's Tooth" lace. It is coming out at around 2" wide, which is wider than I thought it would be, but not so wide that it will be overpowering.

I did this last night to have a change from the constant stockinette. There is a 12 row pattern repeat that isn't as difficult as I thought it would be. Overall, I'm liking it a great deal :)

So here is where the

So here is where the poncho is up to.

I took this photo this morning after carefully getting the poncho onto two needles so I could look at it. It was only tonight when I was looking at it that I realised it looks like she has nothing on underneath it! Rest assured, she has a dance top on, she was getting ready for dancing!
So I have a little further to go on it yet. Em has been busy picking out a trim from "Knitting On The Edge". She wanted bobbles, but I've talked her into lace. Now she just has to actually pick one from the many in there :) Tomorrow is another all day dance competition, so hopefully I'll get more done then. I detest this time of year, but who am I to complain, I'm just the chauffer ;)

My husband has been feeling

My husband has been feeling unhappy and unappreciated in his job of late. Today they showed him their appreciation. And they couldn't have chosen a better way.

A genuine replica light sabre from thinkgeek.com. Honestly, there is no gift they could have got him that would have made him happier.
I told him to tell them he has taken up knitting and in future would like gifts of expensive yarn ;)

I feel a little guilty

I feel a little guilty about my yarn stash of late.
So instead of buying yarn today, I bought knitting books :) Just as much pleasure, less than half the guilt! Yes, I can justify anything ;)

So off I went to play at Amazon. One of the biggest jokes of the known world is how much cheaper it is to buy pretty much anything knit-related in the USA as compared to buying it locally. I was perusing the Rowan collection. In Australia, I can get Rowan Junior for $AU 52. I got it from amazon today for $US13.97 (AU20.22) See what I mean? Now the postage costs can hit you where it hurts, but it still works out much better to get stuff from the USA.
So I finally ordered Rowan Junior, Pipsqueaks, 365 Knitting Stitches and The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns. I put stuff in my cart, I took stuff out. I dithered and I played about and finally settled on those four books. Good Lord I hope I made the right decision!
Now I have to wait until October 6 - 13 to get them. :(
Why? Because I also ordered the final Stephen King Dark Tower book which is not released until September 21, and I asked for it all to be shipped in one shipment (Those postage costs, you know!) Now I have to wait a month before I get all my beautiful books! And it's the Stephen King book I'm really dying to get.
So, what knitting books do you swear by? Which ones can't you live without? Let me know, so I can order them next time! ;)

I'm reaching that stage in

I'm reaching that stage in this project where I'm getting slightly bored with it and am starting to think about what to do next.
Especially now that I'm up to 250 or so stitches and I'm just knitting around and around. And I figure I've done around 9 inches, so I'm only about halfway there.

Anyway, so I'm debating what to do next. I really like Bonne Marie's Lacy Poncho. However, I don't have the yarn in my stash, and I don't want to buy any more just yet. And I have a Suss poncho Kit to make up too. Maybe I'll do that next.
DH's sweater sits, 3 inches done, awaiting my attention, but I just can't get into it for some reason. I have the yarn for a pair of Broadripple socks, but I should really knit a pair for DH or Em next. And the next Six Sox pattern will be along within a couple of weeks.
I'm dithering. Can you tell? ;)

I gave in and did

I gave in and did the icord :)

Once again, I used the Knitters Book of Finishing Techniques to figure it out. It wasn't nearly so hard or time consuming as I expected it to be!
Here's a close up of the icord.

So things are progressing nicely :)
Emily's school had an "All School Concert" this afternoon, beginning at 4.30pm. Now, Tuesday afternoon is the only afternoon that we don't have dance class, and it is normally sacred, but this couldn't be helped. Em, of course, volunteered to be a "helper" so we had to be there at 3.45pm. School finishes here at 3pm, so we had to rush home to get dressed, have a snack and get back. Now all day it had been grey and cloudy, but no rain. We got to school, Emily wandered off, and I found a seat. Outside. They held the concert in the playground. At 3.55pm, it started to sprinkle light rain. I had no umbrella. I knitted on, absolutely sure that either it would stop raining or the concert would be cancelled. At 4.15 the kids sat down on wet mats on the playground, parents filled the wet chairs. At 4.30, still raining, the concert began. Now the rain never got really heavy, but it certainly was cold and wet. It took the damn school until 5.10pm to decide to bring the concert to a halt and send us all home.
However, it's not all over. We get to go back and do it all again next Tuesday. If it's going to rain, lets hope it starts at 2pm this time! Well, provided that we're not all sick again from sitting in the rain for over an hour!!

I've done a bit of

I've done a bit of work on the poncho this weekend, in between laying around on the lounge sniffling pathetically ;)

It's coming out much better this time around! I've done double increases front and back (with yarnovers to make the holes) and invisible double increases at the shoulders, so that it is wider at the shoulders now. I stopped the shoulder increases after 2 inches or so.
It's rolling all over the place, in this picture I actually pinned it to her sweater so I could see it. As you can see, the neck is quite large. Em likes it like that, I think it's too big. I know the fashion is to have it big, so I shall live with it. The waste yarn is also a heavier weight than the yarn I'm using for the poncho, so it's probably stretched out a little. I'm tempted to do the i-cord now, just to see how it comes out. I started on 116 stitches, and am already up to over 200. I don't think it's going to be as quick a knit as I'd hoped!
Thankyou for all the lovely comments and emails about my socks! I wore them yesterday, and they're the best fitting socks I've made yet :)

See my socks? All

See my socks? All the more lovely because they are finally done! :)
My cold is moving into my sinuses, giving me an almighty headache, so I got very little done today. Although I did manage to break the tap in the shower, and the real estate sent out a very good looking young plumber :)
I should've whipped out the camera "Excuse me, Mr Plumber, can you please smile for my blog?" And of course, my nose is bright red, and my eyes are watery. Good thing I'm not a pretty young single woman anymore! ;)
I managed an inch or two on the poncho. I think the neck is a little big, but Em insists that it's fine and she doesn't want it changed. I think the i-cord will tighten it a little.
Poor DH's sweater is being sadly neglected. Funny how if a project annoys me for long enough, even when I get it on track, it no longer interests me. However, I have spent $100 on the yarn for this sweater, so it shall be done sooner or later!

Somehow I made it all

Somehow I made it all through Winter without any colds, flu, sinus or anything. Now that it's Spring, I've been hit with a big head cold. Bah!
I finished Making Waves! I finally have a FO. It feels like it's been forever since I had one. I'm certainly not churning them out as quickly as Sandy!
I'll have pics tomorrow if the weather is good.
So I decided to restart Em's poncho, following some of Jill's excellent tips.
I'm going to start with a provisional cast on, and if it fits well, I'll do an applied i-cord edging at the neck. Woohoo! Both new techniques for me, so I whipped out my "Knitters Book of Finishing Techniques" and was pleasantly surprised by how easy the provisional cast on was!

This is as far as I have got so far, but I'm feeling ridiculously proud of myself for having tackled a new technique successfully.
I joined the Random Act of Kindness webring the other day, and today received my first RAOK! Lisa sent me a gift voucher for Adagio Teas. Very enticing :) Thankyou Lisa!