Brace yourself Bridget*

...there's plenty to catch up on, so here's the first in a series of What I Did While I Wasn't Blogging About It posts.

First knitting items:

Some flowers for my MIL's birthday (24th Dec), which open out to reveal:

and

The instrucctions were found on the Dishcloth Boutique site, where you will find amongst the many treasures: Yvonne's Double Flower pattern on page 3 of the Knitting Patterns, and the single flower Doily Style pattern on page 2.

I knitted the two facewashers out of Heirloom 8ply cotton in a cream colour (from stash), and it came out so beautifully! 4mm casein dpns, which was a little awkward at the 'cast on 8 sts and join to work in the round' stage, and I think it might be easeir to manipulate, and make a flatter centre, if those first 2~3 rounds were worked on needles a smidgen smaller.
Mods: I added an extra lace round before doing the edging on the Doily Style washer, just to bring the petals to a definite point. I think I'd like to add an edging round to the Double Flower one the next time I make it, just to give it a little more of a finished look, if you see what I mean.
These were quick and fairly easy - if you've knitted a hat in the round, you'll have no problems!! They came out at about 18~ 20 grams each, so I have a little bit of cotton left over - colour-work washers, anyone??

Second knitting items:

These Raspberry Fetchings were started way back in the Great Fetch-a-thon of Dec '06, but the intended recipient has slightly larger hands than I do, and requested a bigger pair. Fortunately, we visited Miss 1's namesake Great Great Great Aunty V (91 and powering on), who is a knitter herself, and she was very taken with them, they fit her, she loves the colour and the bobbles of the picot edges, so on Tuesday (yes, 11 1/2 months after they were cast on) I wove in the ends and wrapped them up in raspberry cellophane like a giant bonbon, and sent them to her via the MIL - I hope she will get some use out of them next winter.

There is lots more to tell you (another FO, the exponentially-expanding nature of Xmas lists, the Dance Concert, the visitors, the germs, the thing I cast on the other day that I knew I shouldn't have but did anyway.... and still more), but the ham bones need skimming (ham and potato soup tonight to chase away rainyday gloom and fight off those germs), and I may have to convince myself to do the tiniest teensy bit of housework before lunch.
And I have to take photos of some of the Things I Want To Blog About.
So this will have to do for now!



*for the slightly perplexed, the title comes from a creakingly old joke:
Q: What's the Irish definition of foreplay?
A: Brace yourself, Bridget.
(boom boom)
Top

SO, I know you're all dying to know about my weekend!!!!

Well, where do I start?
With the first meeting?
With the road trip?
With the late start?
With the last-minutes?

No!! With the reason!!

So, about two weeks ago now, I was emailing back and forth with Tink, who said wouldn't it be fun to meet up if ever I was up her way, which of course I thought was a fabulous idea, so I shared it with my husband, who said "what've we got on this weekend?" SQUEEEE!!! Do you see why this is the Man Of My Dreams??? While not interested in providing me with unlimited credit for yarn shopping, he is quite happy to suggest a road trip to meet knitbloggers, knowing full well that there would be endless talking about knitting, and he would be doing a whole lot more child-wrangling while I ignored them as much as possible!! I LOVE this man!!!!

So, that weekend was not good (Sunday already allocated to knitting with Penni and Jen), so we looked at this past weekend, and thought - yes, why not? Tink would be free, 2paw indicated her willingness to meet up as we passed through her hometown, the MOMD took an RDO on Friday, and we got on with it.

So, Thursday night, some less-than-cooperative children and resultant lethargy conspired to tell me that before anything else (including packing) I must finish Harry Potter 7!!! So I did, it was good, some excellent twists which I hadn't predicted at all, and all tied up neatly at the end. *happy sigh*

So, preparations. Where's that prezzie for 2paw....oh. Cut out, ironed, and NOT FINISHED!! Sewing machine, pins, dpn to check sizes etc - 12.45am Friday I clipped the last thread and declared it done. (ribbons to sew on in car) Brownies for Tink? Do in the morning...

So, Friday morning, I get up and make orange cherry brownies (oh yes), then there is sorting washing for clean clothes to take, breakky for peoples, bags for kids, toys for kids, etcetcetc, and young mr 7 says
"I want to make something in the car"
"what do you want to make?"
"A knitting bag, to give to Tink like you made for your other friend"
"um, I don't think it will be very easy to sew a bag in the car..."
"can I use your sewing machine please please please please?"
"wait till I finish making these brownies and I'll teach you"
So, mr 7 had his first outing on the sewing machine, and it was good!!


So, we eventually get it all together and pack the car, and I check the mailbox - Dishrag Tag, after all this time, arrived the morning of my road trip!?!?!?!?! The Knitting Muses (I'll have to check the earlier series of Cast-on to figure out which one in particular - maybe Thalia (for fun) or Erato (for knitting for others), or Clio (knitting that holds memories)) were no doubt rolling around laughing with tears streaming down their faces: they had, of course, been watching me dither around my house for half an hour deciding what knitting to take for car and room and visit knitting, only to have it all completely changed by the importance of casting on my dishrag moments after opening the box!

So, I get the box, get my pattern, put computer and purse and cables in the bag, dash for the car, and off we go! And half an hour later I realise the computer and purse and cables are still in the bag in the rumpus room :P (Thus the lateness of this edition of knitty news)

So, I have the box, I have the camera, I open the Dishrag Tag box with great excitement, and see:

Then I have to explain the whole pass-the-parcel/tag/race concept to the MOMD:

Then I have to cast on:

So I used the Dishrag Tag as my Road Trip Knitting (I haven't quite managed to stick to socks as travelling knitting yet - I'm not sure why...)

NEXT: We meet 2paw!!
Top

There was Knitting In Public this weekend!

Saturday afternoon was S'n'B, so I jauntily headed off, only 15 minutes late, to collect Penni and head into the city. About 3 blocks from my house I realised that I had not double-checked the directions to Penni's house, and couldn't quite remember the number either - all I had lurking behind my eyeballs was "turn right in front of the Caltex" and "about 300m" :{
But I had confidence in my ability to find her house anyway, and I was already late, and I didn't have me phone so I couldn't call home to get help from the MOMD, so merrily I continued along, found the right street and cruised along in it in as suspicious a manner as is possible in a suburban 4WD wagon. No joy, so around the block and back for a second pass - starting to feel pretty silly... Parked the car (after being looked at funny by the guy putting catalogues in people's mail boxes - the drive-by look as performed by scatty female on a Sat afternoon? weird...) and got out to walk back up the hill in search of a red car like Penni drove last time, or failing that, inspiration! I had an idea that #29 was close, so I knocked on the door and asked the lady, very definitely not a relative of Penni's, whether she knew a Penni who lived around here, has a young baby? She said hm, maybe, there was one living up there (vague wave up and left), but she didn't think that that was the name... So I asked if I could borrow her phone book for a minute, and discovered that Penni's house was number 30!! Furthermore, it was just up and to the left a bit!!!! (You wouldn't believe how difficult it can be to guess street numbers in Hobart - geographic proximity has little relationship with numerical order on opposite sides of the road!!!) So I ran straight back up the 45* angle path, blessing the past year's gym membership with every footfall, and started to dash down to the car so I could take it back up the road to Penni's place, but was halted mid-asphalt by Penni waving at me from her driveway ;P So I confessed my sins, and we sauntered down to the car (it's pretty hilly here, thus the ups and downs), and headed into the city to a trendy place called JamPacked (a cute pun which would take far too long to describe right now), to greet the peeps and get stuck into caffeine, cake and KIP!
At the s'n'b, I displayed my awesome Rock Candy Socks, to much admiration (thank you, thank you!), ordered tea and a brownie (and a truffle - but it was really small), and got out my First Ever Ballband Dishcloth, hoping I only had eight rows to go, so that I could triumphantly cast-off halfway through the s'n'b, and start my next pair of socks (printing out the pattern for which being one of the many reasons I was late). Penni, with painful truthfulness, told me that there are usually 13 brick rows, so I actually had 20 rows to go, not merely eight :P
I was not deterred: I had set myself a limit (a very tiny, barely there limit): no new cast-on till the dishcloth was done!! Then the tea and brownie arrived, and there was sipping and nibbling, there was scintillating conversation (yes Helen, I agree, the current Martha Jones was the chicky who became a CyberWoman in the previous series, and Saturday night's Doctor Who was excellent!!), there was knitting, there was tinking, and at the end of two hours, I had 1 row and the cast-off left to do:
An evening in front of Doctor Who (which was really really exciting so 1 row and casting off 45 stitches took the whole 45 minutes) and I have something pretty to show in the Sunday sunshine:
After Doctor Who I was allowed to start my next pair of socks - any guesses on the pattern? (not you, Penni!)




Top

Dishrag Tag

My First Ever Swap!!

I'm in Team Australia for a Fast and Furious game of Dishrag Tag - the perfect opportunity to try my hand at knitting with cotton, and probably involving a variety of swatches (if I get the time - see post above). Stay Tuned for updates in August!!
Top