Well, we have a winner.

But it wasn't in the race until yesterday.

Meet Frog Tree Alpaca in fingering weight. (4ply for the Aussies). I went through the stash yesterday and found this. It was sent to me in a swap by a lovely lady, and for some reason I had it in my head that it was sportweight, which was why I hadn't considered it. But I'm very glad I found it!
I'm crossing my fingers that it's fourth time lucky. It's still a bit wider than I'd hoped, but I think it'll be closer to the finished size of 10". Mind you, I've had to go down to fingering weight on 2.75mm needles to get there!

In other news, the second Bloomin' Feet sock is on the finish line.

I've actually come quite a bit further since then. The toe is finished, and all I need to do is the dreaded kitchener. Once I got up to there, I put the sock aside, and I haven't touched it again. Give me cables, give me lace, give me tiny little yarn on tiny little needles, anything at all and I'm fine. Give me Kitchener, and I'm lost. I just can't get it.
How many pairs of socks have I knit?
I still need to go watch this video to help me graft the toe, every single time. I have no idea why, I just can't get it.
Thank heavens for the video.

In other news, it rained again today. Well, it poured. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. Like every other Australian, I'm overjoyed when I see the rain. In fact, I think it's rained more in the last two weeks than it has in all of the past year.
But why does it do this just as I'm walking out the door to go pick up Emily?

Did I mention that Emily "borrowed" my umbrella last year, and it never made it home again? I was soaked through just getting to the car. But maybe it was just what I needed, I laughed for the next ten minutes.

Faina, Faina, Faina. The bane-a of my life right now.

(Well that, and Dreamhost servers crashing when I want to write blog posts!)

Faina and I are having difficulties in our relationship. I have restarted the scarf in a different yarn. Well, two different yarns in fact.

Faina in Wagtail Yarns fingering weight pure mohair. I love the colour, I love the way it feels.
But I'm not loving the halo on the yarn. It's not really fluffy, but there's fuzziness going on.

Faina in "Touch" fingering weight merino. Love the stitch definition, not too sure on the variegation.

So help me to decide, please!

And in the fun and games department for today, we're playing spot the bunny.

Faina's Scarf.

Now you see it.

Now you don't.

Let me explain.
I love the yarn.
I love the pattern.
Together they just weren't working for me.

t dawned on me late last night that this is a very, very wide scarf. Allow me to demonstrate.

The pattern claims that using sportweight yarn (check) on 3.5mm needles (I was using 3.25mm) would give a finished width of 10 inches. I hadn't really thought about that.
Then when I had a good look at it, and then measured it, mine was coming out at 11 inches, unblocked.

I live in Sydney. Our winters just don't require a scarf that wide. So I put it aside and thought about it for a while, then this afternoon, I ripped it out. I was at row 100.

Sigh.

It will be restarted in the Wagtails Yarns 4 ply (Fingering weight) on smaller needles. I'm 40 yards short, but hopefully the smaller needles and finer yarn will make it go a little further.

However, I do have progress to report on the Bloomin' Feet socks!

I'm on the home stretch now! Better start gathering some goodies to cushion the package.

Lets talk once again about the wonders of blocking.
I know, I harp on a bit, don't I?

At about 11pm on Saturday night (around the time I get all my wonderful ideas), I took a good look at Faina's Scarf and got a bit worried.

Pardon the blurriness, it was 11pm after all, and my camera's night vision requires more steadiness than I'm patient enough to provide.

Anyway, the point is, see the way it's curling? I was a bit worried that I had cast on too tightly and that the curl wouldn't block out.
So I needed to make a decision before I went any further. Should I rip it out and start over? Should I knit on, and have faith that it would come out alright?
Or should I block it as it is and see how it goes?

I went with option 3.
I got out a hand towel, pins and a water spray bottle. I spritzed the knitting (being very careful near the bamboo needle!), pinned it out, and left it overnight.
Sunday morning, I awoke to this.

Why did I ever doubt?

None of the colours are accurate, by the way, but the top two are closest.

Happy Saturday!

Yet another gorgeous one here in sunny Sydney.

Due to a stomach bug that hit me yesterday afternoon, I haven't enjoyed it much, but I'm feeling a bit better now. Not much knitting has been done, either, but I did get a start on Faina's Scarf.

Not much of a start, but a start! I'm really enjoying the Jo Sharp Alpaca Silk Georgette. It's a nice soft yarn to knit with, and I think that it has good stitch definition for a project like this.

The second Bloomin' Sock is moving along nicely.

The heel is done, and pretty soon I'll be moving on down the foot. (I just typoed that as hell, but really, it wasn't that bad!)

Due to all that lovely rain we had earlier in the week, we actually have glimpses of green in our yard.

Twinkie is doing her best to single handedly eradicate it.

Rain? We had rain! Lots of rain!
The local shopping centre's roof caved in under the weight of the rain.
The yard got wet!

Twinkie wasn't happy. She's three and a half now, and she hasn't really seen a lot of rain.

But she's seen enough to know she doesn't like it.
We had another visitor through the downpour. Early Monday morning, I could hear some distinctive squawking out the back.

A Sulphur Crested Cockatoo. They're not unusual around here, but he sat there in the same spot all day Monday in the pouring rain and all night Monday night. On Tuesday I was worried that he might be a lost pet, or injured, but then a friend came visiting.

Then they left together. He must have got his days mixed up for their date.

Is there anything better to do on a rainy day than knit? I think not.

The Fern Garden Stole is growing.

I've got the hang of the pattern now, and it's going along very well. I've also been working on the second Bloomin' Feet Sock.

I'm at that stage with both projects that blogging feels boring. It's the same old, same old, looks the same, just longer. Who wants to see that?
Of course, today is February 14, which is the first day of the Faina's Scarf-along, which means I get to start smething new. Now I'm entering danger territory, because I have far too many projects on the go, which means the blogging will stay boring. I apologise in advance.
I'm trying to be organised and apportion a certain amount of time to each project per day.
But lets face it, I'm not organised.

No new pictures of the Fern Garden Stole, because it looks pretty much the same, just longer.
And no Saturday Sky picture because I forgot.
I'm getting a bit slack with this blogging caper, aren't I?

Here's a sky photo David prepared earlier.

Wednesday night to be precise. We had a thunderstorm, and the sky turned orange, as it frequently does in those storms.
It's raining again today, but I'm not complaining because it's desperately needed, although I'd bet piles of money that the dams aren't getting any.

I've decided on the Jo Sharp Alpaca Silk Georgette for Faina's Scarf. Much as I love the Wagtail yarns, it'll be much cheaper and easier to get one more ball of the Jo Sharp if I run out. With less leftovers laying about to haunt me. And hey, thanks to the International Date Line I get to start mine before everyone else - at least 12 hours or so, anyway.

Bloomin' Feet Sock One is complete!

At this rate, they'll be done 2 months before the deadline. How totally unlike me. I think that parting with them is going to be the hard part.

And finally, me and my bunny. (Em would argue that it should be titled "Me and Em's bunny". Or more correctly "Em's bunny and I". But facts are facts, right?)

Still totally in love with the Fern Garden Stole.

It's not growing as fast as I'd like, but I'm enjoying the knitting. Despite the fact that I've tried very hard to ignore any and all housework this week, Emily went back to dancing after the summer vacation. She's there a lot and all that chauffeuring is eating up valuable knitting time.
And she can't get her license for three more years. Dammit.
However, back to the stole. It's labelled an Advanced Knit, but I'm finding it to be relatively easy. I'd guess that it earns the "Advanced" label because it has lace patterning on both right and wrong side rows, so there are no plain rows.
I haven't had any trouble yet, and I'm on the second body repeat.

I haven't forgotten the Bloomin' Feet.

It's so nice to have two knits going, both of which I'm enjoying. I probably shouldn't say that, huh? (Cue ominous music)
I am having a little bit of a problem with this swap.
I have some sock yarn. A bit. Well, a lot. I've been checking out all the blogs involved in the swap, and everyone is using al this gorgeous sock yarn. It's far, far too tempting. I keep seeing beautiful yarn that I don't own, and I'm lusting after it all. And lets face it, I think it's going to take about ten years to knit all the sock yarn I already have.
It's such a hard life!

Next week La's "Faina Scarf Along" begins. La wants to see our yarn. There is a teeny, tiny problem.

I haven't decided what yarn I'm going to use. Here are my choices.

The pink from Wagtail Yarns is 100% mohair in a 4ply. (Aussie equivalent to Fingering weight). The Jo Sharp Yarn is Alpaca Silk Georgette in Musk. This is an Aussie 5ply, or Sportweight. The purple Wagtail yarn is 80% Mohair/20% Merino, also a 5ply or Sportweight.
The pattern calls for 450 yards. I have only 410 yards of each of the Wagtail yarns, and 426 yards of the Jo Sharp, so I'm a tiny bit short on all of them.
Decisions, decisions.

I have a week. Almost.

I got mail! Look at this wonderful parcel I received from Kimberly and her lovely bunnies.

2 hanks of Knit Picks Bare Lace Weight, and 3 hanks of Knit Picks Shadow in Sunset. The Sunset is not a colour I would normally have picked for myself, but seeing it in person, I love it! I'm thinking something autumn-y, and I'm already on the lookout. And chocolate. Milk chocolate, yum. And toffee and almonds in milk chocolate, totally droolworthy. Thank you so much, Kimberly!

Something else I'm totally in love with?

The Fern Garden Stole, which I'm knitting in White Zephyr.
I've just finished the edging, and I am totally in love with this pattern so far.
I had originally planned to add the beads, but then I decided that it wouldn't suit the design. After I knit the little bit I'd shown in the last post, I decided to frog it and just try it with the beads, to see if I liked it.
As you can see, I did indeed like it, and the beads are staying.
They are glass 3x10mm dagger beads, in Crystal AB.

In all of this, I have not abandoned the Bloomin' Feet socks, in fact I'm pretty pleased with the way they're coming along.

Housework? Hasn't been happening, obviously!

Saturday sky.

Just another gorgeous day in paradise! It wasn't as cloudy as it looks, I was just trying to get something other than perfect blue.

So, the stashbusting project I started.

I decided to make a felted bag from the leftovers from my Nundle sweater. There's a fair bit leftover, but not really enough for any other project, so I thought a felted bag would be ideal.
The picture you see above was the first incarnation. After I took the picture, I thought the bag looked a little small, so I frogged it yesterday afternoon, and last night I re-cast on, making it bigger. I don't have a pattern, I'm just making it up as I go along.
So, after I knit all the blue, I weighed all the yarn I had, and realised that It would be a very shallow bag after it was felted.
So I ripped it out, and have started it again.
Third times the charm, I hope.

Toi combat the frustration, I decided that the next project would be the Fern Garden Stole.

It's not much of a start yet, but it'll get there. Eventually.

In between all of this, I've been working on another new costume for Em. Last night, I had it spread out over the coffee table to glue diamontes on the skirt.
Twinkie thought that it was a great game.

Maybe she wants something pretty.

The Jo Sharp cardi is finito!
Well, the knitting is. I have yet to block or seam it.
Last night, I was picking up the stitches for the front band, and it occurred to me that some people may be having the same difficulty I used to have with the line "Pick up x number of stitches evenly around the neckline"

It used to drive me batty. It would say to pick up 50 stitches evenly, and I'd pick up 30 really close together and 20 spaced much further apart, and I'd have to rip it out and start over. Again and again.
Then a really simple idea hit me, and it's been much simpler ever since.

Pins. Duh.
Maybe I'm just a dope who did everything the hard way, and every one else has already thought of this.
The Jo Sharp cardi required that I pick up 46 stitches along the V-neck sharping. I measured the part where I had to pick up the stitches, then I marked it in 4 even spaces. Then I picked up 11 between the first two pins, 12 between the next two, 11 in the third section and 12 at the end.
Personally, I find this much easier than trying to work out how to pick up 46 evenly.

What's next? Hmmm... here is a list of the things I really want to knit as soon as I can.

My Kitri sock kit.
The Fern Garden Stole.
The Hanging Garden Stole.
Heere be Dragone Shawl.
My Sea Silk.
Finish the new socks I was designing.
A V neck raglan sweater in Cleckheaton Country Silk.

That's it. Well, that's what I would cast on this very minute if I had 500 hours in a day.
For now, I've started a stashbusting project. More info next time!

Twinkie is in disgrace. Remember the new couch we got back in May?

While you can't see the actual damage very well, the wooden frame is visible on the corner. I almost considered rabbit pie for dinner.
Almost.