Road Tripping

So dark and early tomorrow morning (just 6.5 hours from now), we're road tripping for Christmas. We're off to sunny Queensland to visit the in-laws. Then a few days on the Gold Coast before coming home via Nundle (and the Wool Mill).

The Lacy Kerchief is finished, but not yet blocked. The silly season has gotten the better of me over the past few days, I fear. I did however, start something new.

Funny, after Venezia, working on a garment in just one colour seems so fast, even when it's 4ply (fingering) on 2.75mm needles!
This is the start of the gorgeous Rosa by Kim Hargreaves. The pattern calls for Rowan Cashsoft 4ply, but I'm substituting Rowan 4ply soft in Tea Rose.

This is my road knitting - 1,000km each way, so hopefully there'll be plenty done by the time I get back.

I did pull the Cap Shawl out of hibernation last night, and did 3 rounds on it, but I remember why it's been in hibernation now. It's boring! I had planned for it to go into the Easter Show, and maybe it will - not sure what year though!

I also had forgotten to mention the wonderful last sock club package in this round from Needlefood!

Chocolate, and yarn in a gorgeous colour!

As well as a cute little pouch, stitch markers, a sock pattern and a handy note with kitchener instructions. It's a great sock club! If you're interested in signing up, the next round will open up in mid/late January. If you sign up for the newsletter at the website, you'll get a heads-up when it's about to happen!

If I'm not back here before Christmas, (I'll be popping in on Ravelry, and on my email and twitter - I love my iPhone!) I wish you all a wonderful day with family and/or friends, with much love and comfort, I hope you enjoy the silly season, even if you don't celebrate!

Venezia!

And finally, she's done.

This is possibly the most time any garment has taken me. According to Ravelry, I started it in mid-August, and finished it on Monday, December 14. Four months! Thanks, TAFE.

Specs:

Pattern: Venezia by Eunny Jang, from Interweave Knits Winter 2006
Yarn: Jamieson & Smith 2ply Jumperweight. I've listed all the colour subs on the Ravelry project page.
Needles: KnitPicks Harmony, 2mm, 2.25mm and 2.5mm.
Pattern Mods: None. I do wish I'd made it a little longer, I think my row gauge was a little too tight, but it's still wearable.

In the end, I had almost two whole balls of the edging colour left over, but I ran short of two colours on the second sleeve. I knit the 34.5" size, and needed to get an extra ball each of the 106 Mooskit and the 183 Sand equivalents. I was only about 3 metres short for the Sand!

David and Emily bought me the yarn for my birthday back in May, and I reordered those two colours about 3 weeks ago - and they were exact dyelot matches! Even though it wasn't totally necessary in the Fair Isle. I'll never have that kind of luck again.

It's going to be wonderfully warm - I had it on for about 5 minutes for the photo shoot and couldn't bear it another minute. (It was about 30C!) Emily took some pictures in the morning, then in the afternoon, Ailsa took a bunch more for me. There are a heap more on Ravelry.

What a weekend!

What an awesome weekend I had!

Bright and early Saturday morning I got up and went to the Inner City Guild meeting, and afterwards spent the afternoon knitting outside the Sydney Opera House with a bunch of great people. I started trying to link them all, but there were many, many Sydney and Canberran knitbloggers in attendance. Alas, I didn't take very many pictures, but Bells has some great ones.

I spent the day working on my Lacy Kerchief scarf. It's relatively mindless, easy knitting.

Can't go very wrong, right? Right?

I knit merrily away, making a mistake or two in the lace part, but ripping it back and fixing it. Then I got on the train. And looked at it again.

I'd stuffed up the lace more than 80 rows back. And while it wasn't blindingly obvious, I knew it was there. And for about 30 seconds I considered ignoring it. But I couldn't. SO I spent half the train trip home ripping out most of the knitting I'd achieved.

The red line indicates where I'd been up to before I frogged it. (The cable shows where I'm currently up to - the scarf is folded in half)

And this picture was taken after I'd reknit about 5 repeats!

In happier news, when I got home on Saturday afternoon, I got stuck into Venezia's second sleeve. And guess what?

Those sleeves are now attached, and she's blocking, right this very minute!

For something different

I'm still working on Venezia. Almost exclusively, in fact. And that makes for kinda boring blogging.

So here's a little something I prepared earlier.

The Lacy Kerchief Scarf. It's coming along nicely! I'm on the downward slope now, so it won't be long until it's finished. If I can put down Venezia.
In fact, I have a full day of knitting in company planned for tomorrow, so the scarf should get some action - Venezia isn't a very portable knit. Or a company-friendly one!

It's been a great week for yarn clubs, too! This week saw the arrival of the first ever Knitabulous Indian Summer club parcel - and it's gorgeous!

Gorgeous sock yarn, needles, tea and there may have been some chocolate involved. Maybe!

Can't blog... knitting!

Can't blog... knitting! Okay, but just a quick one.

The yarn for Venezia arrived, and we're back on track!

Dancing is over for the year, the concert was wonderful, and I'm left with the detritus. Twinkie helped clean it all up.

Or something!

There's been some fun Christmas parties over the past few weeks. SnB had theirs, and I went along to High Tea to help the Morris and Sons SnB group celebrate. At both events, I got beautiful Kris Kringle gifts!

The super cute little stockings were made by Zena, who manages beautiful knitting and three little boys under the age of three! And the exquisite little snowflakes were made by the lovely Rosered who included Snickerdoodles in the parcel. No way were they lasting anywhere near long enough to be photographed!

I had no intention of putting up a Christmas tree this year, seeing as we're running away for Christmas (to the beach!), but these may change my mind!

One more day...

So tomorrow is my last day of TAFE for this semester, then I get my life back! For two months, anyway.

I'd never have thought that being out for three days a week was going to take up so much of my time that I'd only post for finished projects, but there you go.

And on that note, I have another finished project.

Twinkletoes!

This was a super fast knit, helped along by the yarn - Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock in Heavyweight. They were knit in around two weeks.

Specs:
Pattern: Twinkletoes by CookieA (again!)
Yarn: Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock (Heavyweight) in Jasper
Needles: Knitpicks Harmony DPNS in 2.75mm
Mods: None! It's not a difficult pattern, just a simple 8 row repeat that moves really quickly. They're worked toe-up, but with a flap heel, which I prefer to a short row heel. The Socks that Rock heavyweight makes a lovely thick sock - thicker than I like to wear with shoes, but they'll be awesome for house socks in winter.

Twinkie gave them a nudge of approval.

So with these off the needles, I started my December socks. I had intended to make Froot Loop socks, but the Apple Laine Apple Pie yarn I chose was too variegated, it looked a bit messy for me, so I'm going with plain old 64st, toe up, heel flap socks.

Boring pattern, but I'm loving the way this yarn feels! It's 65% Superwash Merino, 20% Kid Mohair, 10% Nylon, 5% Silk, and 100% squishy!

Still no yarn for Venezia. Hopefully it'll show up tomorrow or Friday, just in time for that nice long holiday from TAFE!