Plugging away. Here is a picture of a finished Shetland Shawl.

The black mark shows roughly how much I have done.

That's what's left of the first ball of yarn, out of six. See why I'm worried?

And for those who are curious about cobweb weight, here is a strand of cobweb next to a strand of Opal sock yarn. (Fingering weight or 4 ply).

Pretty fine, huh? It's no so bad now that I'm used to it, in fact I'm quite enjoying it.
Remind of that when I'm whining about it and still knitting it in 6 month, okay?

For those who are interested, Bendigo Woollen Mills have finally got off their butts and get themselves a website.
Depending on the yarn you prefer this could be a good thing. It's great value for basic yarns, and it's all natural fibres. And the balls are 200g, so you get loads in each ball. Some of the colours are a bit wishy-washy.
If you're after sock yarn and suitable lace yarn though, you're out of luck.

Saturday Sky.

Saturday ground.

Raining again!

Startitis. It's biting, big time. The cobweb shawl is continuing, I've done 31 out of 90 border rows.

I'm getting a bit worried about whether I'm going to have enough yarn. The end of the first ball is in sight, and I only have 6 balls. I actually have 100 yards more than the pattern calls for, but if I'm already running out of the first ball, that can't be good, can it?
And the yarn was bought as an end-of-line colour from Jamieson & Smith.
I could be in trouble.

The Sirdar cardi. The back is past the armholes.

Sometimes I just love a quick knit.

And because I finished the Mother's Day socks, I started a new pair.

The yarn is Opal Prisma, and yes, those are my Polar Bear pj's. My old ones. Millers has new ones!
I'm using the Garter Rib pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks. It's hard sometimes to find a pattern that compliments self stripng yarn, isn't it? And I have quite a substantial little pile of self striping sock yarns.

Now I'm off to SnB for the afternoon. Is there a better way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon??

Today, Ailsa and I went on a road trip. Well, of sorts. We went to visit my Not So local Yarn Store, The Wool Inn at Penrith.
The Wool Inn is about an hour or so from me, and Ailsa had already driven about 45 minutes, which is why it's the Not-So-Local.
We wandered around a bit and had a looky-see and a touchy-feel at all the lovely new yarns. I was good, all I picked up was this.

Two balls of Zarina, for a pair of Beaudelaires.
Then we got talking to Anita, the lovely owner of the store, and she started pointing out some of her new things. Like the Fiber Trends patterns.

And only $AU6. I tried to stop there, but then I saw this on the wall behind the counter.

I've been thinking about a black lace cardi for a while, and this one just leapt out at me. And the yarn for it was a great price, and I only needed 3 balls. And Anita had only 3 balls of black in stock. I told myself it was fate, and that followed me home too.

Now I am a Yarn Snob. I'll be the first to admit it.
This stuff is an Ackrylic blend. 70% Ackrylic in fact. But it really doesn't feel like it.
Sirdar "Blur" in black, 70% acrylic, 30% mohair. And as you can see, I have no restraint, I've already cast on.
And in fact, I've already ripped it out once, and it's a bitch to frog, like most mohairs.
That's it, I managed to stop there. Finally.

But I have a finished object to show! (Does that make up for it?)

The Mother's Day socks are done.
Specs: Generic 64st top down socks, K3, P1 rib
Yarn: Koigu KPPPM in P308

I'm happy with them, and I hope my Mother in law will be. I sneakily found out her foot size by checking her shoe size while we at the beach over Christmas. So I hope they fit, because her foot is smaller than mine and I can't check!

It's raining. That's actually really good news.
Twinkie doesn't think so.

Every now and then she looks out the door to check if it's stopped yet.

Yesterday was back to school, but I had canteen duty all day, so I didn't get the nice quiet day I've been longing for. So the rain today is perfect. I'm going to sit on my butt with the television and my shawl and knit until Em's bus gets in.
The shawl is progressing nicely.

13 border rows done, and the best bit of this part is that I'm decreasing. Here's a close up.

I'm actually really enjoying this, there's very little repetition, which is what usually bores me. So far so good, but I'm not quite sure what will happen when I have to do it three more times!

Lets start with some good stuff.

The winner of the book draw is Jejune!
I wish I had enough copies to send everyone, but lets do it again in a little while.

Now some bad.
What pisses me off.
Part One.
I put my car into the Smash Repairs. It was there all week. I got it back on Friday afternoon, and it was beautiful again.

Yesterday afternoon I was going out, and found this.

I hadn't taken it out all day, so it must've happened Friday night at the supermarket within hours of picking it up. Some jerk apparently sideswiped me in the carpark and drove away. I'm hoping the worst of it will polish out, but that won't help the ding. If I want it fixed, I'll have to pay. Again. Thanks, dickhead.

Back to knitting.
The Shetland shawl is now past stage one.

I've done the first edging, and I've picked up 365 stitches to start the first border. At 1 am this morning.
The green bits of yarn aren't necessary to the shawl, they're my counters. I hate counting and recounting 365 stitches, and I lose count all the tme, so I place a marker every 50 stitches so I never need to count more than 50 at a time.
Now I get to start really long rows!

So I missed the entry date this year for the Easter Show. So I decided instead to enter our much, much smaller local version, the Campbelltown Show.
I knew it was smaller, but hadn't been in maybe 12 years. I was a litte put out a week or so ago when I went up to the local council chambers and submitted my entries. The two older ladies collecting the entries looked at me, looked at my entry form, then looked at me again and very obviously didn't know what to think. There are many prejudices in the world about knitting being for old ladies, obviously some of them are held by old ladies!

I entered three shawls, Icarus, Fern Garden Stole and Spring Blossoms.

I have good news, and bad news.
The bad news is that my 6 month old camera is misbehaving.

The good news is that Fern Garden got first in the shawl section and Spring Blossoms took second. No ribbons, all you get is a little card. (And prize money! $5 for first, $2 for second!) Poor Icarus got nothing, but I'm not greedy.

And my tea cosy.

First!
The picture I took at home on the teapot is better, though.

I'm pretty pleased with it, but it took a few goes to get the flowers to look the way I wanted them to.
So three places from four entries!

When I delivered my knitting on Wednesday, there was another older lady in front of me, delivering her stuff, too. I felt that she was a little bit condescending towards me. She insisted that I go ahead of her, because I "only had a few little things", and she had "two whole pages worth!"
So I went ahead, and started pulling my knitting out of the bag. She seemed a little taken aback when I pulled out the Fern Garden Stole, but she said "Oh, that's gorgeous!" I thanked her, then carried on. When I pulled out the Tea cosy, she butted in to tell me that I'd entered it in the wrong section. I just looked at her and she said "Dearie, that shouldn't be in the Tea Cosy section, it should be in hand felted items" I thanked her for her advice, but said "Sorry, it's a tea cosy". She then got a bit argumentative, and insisted it was hand felted. I had to insist to her that I'd entered it as "A knitted Tea Cosy with felted flowers for decoration" and the entry had been accepted.
As it turned out, no-one had entered anything in the Felted section, so I would've won it anyway.
That lady was there today, demonstrating weaving. She ignored me, except when I was pointing something out to Emily. Then she snappd at me "Don't touch the exhibits!!"
I wasn't touching.

Anyway, I was less than impressed with the standard of the entries. Lots and lots of novelty yarns.
It definitely isn't the Easter Show, that's for sure.
And Ailsa? These were even more badly presented. (Excuse the bad picture)

I didn't even realise the camera was mucking up until I'd gotten home and downloaded the pictures. It's going back to Kodak!
I pulled out the old camera to take a picture of the progress on my Shetland Shawl.

12 repeats of the edging, out of 21. I don't think this is going to be a quick knit.

Don't forget the competition to win the "Knit One, Kill Two" book. Comment on the entry below to enter, I'll be drawing a name tomorrow!

So I'd like to say that life is back on track, and I've been knitting up a storm, but I'd be lying.

It's still school holidays, and that's had a bit of an impact. And I'm w-a-a-a-y behind on my sewing, so I've been working on that over the past two days.
Twinkie's helped.

This is what we've made.

Another costume for Em. The pic is a bit deceptive, the bodice is only pinned to the skirt, and I can't get her to try it on for a pic, because she has a friend here, and that is apparently the height of dorkiness. Of course that means I can't do anymore work on it yet, because I need to check the fit.

That's not to say that there hasn't been any knitting going on. I finally started my "Shetland Lace Shawl" by Hazel Carter from "A Gathering of Lace".

I haven't got very far yet.

Cobweb is harder than I thought. I'm using Jamieson & Smith cobweb weight in white on 2.5mm needles.
It's a single ply, and it seems to get very thin in places. If anyone who has used it can reassure me, I'd be eternally grateful.
I am a little concerned about this pattern. I did a google search, and I didn't come up with a single finished version of this shawl on any blogs anywhere. Am I insane for attempting it, or are people just not blogging about it?

My artistic director was on hand for all these photos. Are you getting the impression that she's been a little needy of late?

Finally, I've just finished reading this book.

It was a light, fun read. I'm not really into murder mysteries usually, but this was good fun.
However, now that it's read, I'm going to give it away. If you'd like to receive it, just leave a comment ont his entry. It's Wednesday lunchtime here now, and I'll leave it open until Saturday morning my time, when I'll randomly pick a winner. I'm happy to send it anywhere in the world!

What a fantastic weekend!
The exhibition went wonderfully well, and was a huge success as far as we were concerned.

It all started on Friday morning, with the job of setting up. Emily was sent off to take pictures.
All these piles (and more) needed to be arranged into effective and pleasing displays of our work. (All can be clicked for bigger)

Apparently we knit a lot.

This is Ailsa, Becky and I doing some last minute cataloging in the midst of it all.

Here's me, doing what I do best, sitting on my butt drinking coffee.

Charmaine, Ailsa, Sharon and Ailsa's mum deep in discussion.

Ailsa's mum was a wonder. She isn't a knitter, doesn't understand all the knitting, and only came to pick up Blair, Ailsa's daughter. We roped her into helping arrange things, and she did a great job!
Ailsa's husband refuses to believe she does any cleaning. To prove him wrong, here's a picture of Ailsa vacuuming. Sorry it's blurry, I think I may have been laughing.

In much the same vein, here's Emily mopping. Ailsa asked for someone to mop, and Em jumped up and said "I love to mop!" I'd like to point out that if it had been me asking it would never have happened, and prior to this, she'd never mopped in her life!

And here's Sharon, (not having a baby on opening day this year!) an hour before opening, running around playing with her new toy, the electronic labeller.

Here are the shawls.

Nursery corner.

The ladies' dressing table.

Tea Party.

Sharon's girls, and Zena's tiny sweaters.

And the scarf wall.

Didn't it all look great?
I didn't make it back to the exhibition itself until Sunday afternoon, where I sadly just missed out on meeting Corrie. I did get to meet she of the red shoes, though!
We had a great afternoon sitting in the sun.

Ailsa and Donni spun.

Tianne and I knit, and Em and Blair ate.

It's possibly the best way to spend a Sunday afternoon, with a glass of wine, great company and knitting in the sun! The rain came, but only in the last hour or so, and then it was all over far too quickly.
Setting up the exhibition took all day Friday, pulling it down took around an hour yesterday afternoon.

Much kudos to Ailsa, who worked tirelessly to get it off the ground (and got her picture in the paper for her efforts!) Sad goodbyes to blogless (for now) SnB'er Charmaine, who is leaving us for the United Arab Emirates for three years.
Plans for next year's exhibition are already underway, planned for the last weekend of April, I think.

I've been really slack about Saturday skies of late, but here is the Sunday sky Em and I saw on our way home yesterday.

Great end to a great weekend. Now it's back down to earth, and the housework!!

Grr, my computer is on the fritz today, and it's driving me mad. My POP mail won't talk to gmail and my ICQ has given up the ghost.
But all the chocolate has been raised out of reach of a certain fuzzy chocaholic.

All is being prepared for the big exhibition weekend. My knits are all packed up, tomorrow is setting up day. I'll be there for the opening tomorrow night, then I'll be back on Sunday afternoon with my knitting.

I hope. The tea cosy plans have gone awry. It's just not working out the way it looks in my head. I was most of the way to finished, then I realised that it just wasn't right. I have 6 days to work it out. (Enter panic mode!)
Em and I went up yesterday to hand in my entries for the Campbelltown Show. There were two lovely older ladies on the desk accepting the entries, and they gave me a funny look when I handed in my form. I thought I was being paranoid, but after we left I checked with Em and she confirmed that they definitely looked at me askance.
It's not just young people who assume knitting is the province of little old ladies!!

All that's on the needles right now is the tea cosy bits, the Mother's Day socks and Faina.
Well, actually, Faina is in time out. I'm not feeling the Faina lurve. And I don't think I'm alone. I'll have to recheck the other knitalongers, but I'm feeling like Faina looks good in the pattern, but the knit doesn't live up to expectation.
Or it could just be me. It's wider and shorter than I would've liked. No new pictures, because it looks much the same as it did last time I showed it.
Except that it's now on a stitch holder, because I wanted the needle for the bath sets.
Not sure whats going to happen with yet. I have a very strong feeling that even if I forge on and finish it, I'll never wear it. And life's too short to waste on unloved knits, isn't it?

Anyway, I'm sure I'll have something on the needles.
And getting back on topic, I'll be at the exhibition on Sunday afternoon. There'll be lots of other people in and out all weekend, includng Ailsa, Sharon, Donni, Annie and Tianne, and many other lovely blogless knitters.
Come up, say hello! Don't be shy, we don't bite, I promise.
If anyone wants to come along, but is feeling shy, feel free to email me and I'll send you my mobile number, and you can call and check in before you arrive!

And just because I hate uploading posts without pictures, here's a really bad picture off my phone of some galah's that I saw on my walk last weekend.

Another Australian native bird. Another *noisy* Australian native! They can be kept as pets, and can be taught to talk, but there are plenty of wild ones about to see. I'll try to get a better picture next time.

On, and it was my blogiversary last week, three years! How much time have I wasted on here?!?

It's school holidays here. (Yes again!)
Yesterday Em and I went out and ran some errands and did some shopping. When we got home we found this.

Someone went into Em's bedroom and pinched a chocolate egg, unwrapped it, and ate half of it. The teethmarks are being used to forensically track the thief.

There is a suspect being questioned.

She is protesting her innocence.

The exhibition knitting is done, finished, over!

That's the final two bath sets blocking.
Am I weird? I'm blocking wash cloths.
Anyhoo, they're done. I need to reblock some of my lace that I'm showing at both the exhibition and the Campbelltown Show next week, then I'm completely finished.

So did I start a new lace project?
Nope.

A tea cosy. I've never actually knit one before, but the Campbelltown Show has a section just for tea cosies, and I got thinking about it, and an idea sprung into my head and refused to let go, so a tea cosy it is.
There is more to be done to the tea cosy, but I shan't tell yet.
Any guesses?

Twinkie got labelled for Easter.

Suoer fine!
The label lasted about 1.5 seconds, by the way.

Where did this week go?
The car has been assessed, the insurance guy thinks it's worse than it looks, but at least it's covered by insurance. Well, apart fromt he $500 excess we need to pay. That's a nice chunk of yarn, isn't it?
Anyway, done is done.
And speaking of done, I forgot to take a picture of the Fiesta Tea Set done. I handed it over to Ailsa at SnB for the exhibition, but she took a picture for me.
Afternoon tea, anyone?

I can only claim responsibility for the Tea Set. The cupcakes, cherry pie, Tea cosy and gorgeous lace shawl are all Ailsa's doing.

Knitting for the exhibition is continuing, although I don't seem to have done much this week.

These bath sets are from a Fiber Trends pattern, "Bathing Beauties". I'm knitting them in Brown Sheep's "Cotton Fine" which I got from Yarns Online. The finished set is "Ribbon Lace", and is knit in "Driftwood", the set I'm working on now is the "Leaf Lace set", in "Peridot" and I have some "Victorian Pink" for the "Old Shale" set.

I'm a bit over all the smal project knitting now. (Who guessed that that would happen?) I'm itching to start a shawl. Although this is lace, it's not lace. And I'm hankering for lace again.

We did the grocery shopping last night, and David tossed a green leaf at Twinkie. It landed, rather unfortunately, in his slipper.

It didn't deter her! And Emily wanted to make you all wince.

It works for me.

In news totally unrelated to knitting in any way, I banged up the car this morning.

In the doctors carpark, where I've parked hundreds of times, the brick steps jumped out behind me.
Yes, I am an idiot.

SnB was great, exactly what I needed. Who's coming to the exhibition? Details are here. The more the merrier, we'd love to see heaps of people, bloggers or blogless, makes no difference, just stop by and say hello!
I finished the little bear on Saturday, but I made a mistake.
I had sewn up the whole body, then I realised that it was inside out and the purl side was supposed to be the correct side.
But I didn't care enough to rip out the seaming!
She still looks cute. So at SnB, I knitted up her little dress.

Isn't she cute? The seaming of such little bits was more than a little tedious, but now that she's done she was worth it. I might even knit another.
The pattern I used was "Elizabeth and Heidi" from The Knitted Teddy Bear. Her body is knit in Patons Dreamtime 4ply in shade 3882, and her dress is Elann's "Peruvian Baby Cashmere" in Rose Heather.
I first saw the Knitted Teddy Bear book on Woolwinders blog quite some time ago. I'm glad I purchased it, because there are a great many cute little bears in there.

Having finished the bear, I've been busy at work on the Mothers Day socks. I've finished the foot, and I'm ready to start the toe shaping.

I promise I won't leave the kitchener quite so long this time, Teyani!

Twinkie's been busy hiding under the table again.

I think she's waiting for the Easter bunny.