Hip hip hooray! My Vintage Flannel sweater by Anna Johanna is finally finished… and I love it 🙂 It turned out just how I wanted it to, but I must admit, it was touch and go when it came to the end. Like ALL of those ends, that I had to sew in
The number of ends is all my own fault of course. When purchasing the yarn for this project, I wanted my contrast colour to be varigated. I couldn’t find any yarn at the Sheep Show that would do this in 5ply. So… I used 3 different colours to create the varigation, which meant I needed to change colours every 3 rounds or so.
But before all of that, the other hurdle I faced was, as I cast off my second sleeve, I realised I had knit my second sleeve on needles that were .25mm larger than the rest of the sweater. True story.
The completed sweater before blockingCorrect needle used for the 1st sleeve, gridlines line up with the body2nd sleeve, gridlines are further apart with .25mm larger needle
Luckily upon wearing, I can honestly not tell the difference in the sleeve length. So this is our little secret.
With the end of the year approaching, I’m now eyeing off all of my unfinished projects to see what is going to make it into this years completed projects. Spoiler alert, I have cast on a new sweater. There’s also 2 pairs of socks and a blanket to complete. Seems unlikely doesn’t it?!
The TAFTA Geelong Fibre Forum has been running for around 30 years. A very long time ago, 2007 to be exact I attended my final Fibre Forum workshop until this year. Prior to this I attended the forum for 7 consecutive years. Whilst the order of worshops undertaken are sketchy, the classes themselves have always been wonderful and worthwhile. On top of that, the experience of being at the Fibre Forum has been incredible. Last week I was reminded of that again, being surrounded by so many women (over a hundered, 150? and just a couple of men), it was so enlightening (and weird at the same time).
I have been a subscriber to the TAFTA e-newsletter since the magazine ended (yes, there used to be a magazine!). So when Jo Hamilton’s Crochet Portraiture workshop was announced, I just knew I had to return.
The Fibre Forum is hosted at Geelong Grammar School, whilst the kids are on school holidays. The Dining Hall is just like being at Hogwarts. I lived-in for the whole week, and was served breakfast, lunch and dinner (and morning tea) each day. It was Heaven.
For my workshop, I decided to do a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. I brought along an Ikea bag of yarn in colours that I thought would work for the image I was going to crochet.
For a novice, the technique is very slow going (for the experienced it would also be slow!), with lots of trial and error (learning) along the way. Jo is a fantastic teacher, with great patience. I wish I had gotten more done, but I feel as though I can continue on and complete the portrait on my own. It’s only my first portrait, and it is a bit wonky, as to be expected. Jo has been using this technique for around 20 years and her work is spectacular.
Whilst recovering and coming down from the high that was the week, I’ve picked up my hook and filled in some more areas since Friday.
Whilst working on the portrait, a lot of the time is spent looking and checking to make sure the stitches you’ve put in are correct.
Here’s a photo of my class and some of their creations, click on the first image to make them larger.
Wednesday night was Party Night! The theme this year was: Black and White with a touch of … Now in my memory of the Forum, the dress-up theme was always wild; there have been some super wacky costumes, mostly worn by the former organiser Janet De Boer. So I came dressed as Wednesday… with a touch of severed Thing.
I might have been overdressed, ha ha. I hope to attend again in the future and I hope it’s sooner than 18 years. I’ll be back to my regular schedule of knitting soon. I almost got no knitting done this week!
My ‘Bendigo Sweater’ for the Richmond Knitters is finished and blocked. It has turned out even better than the first Wool & Honey sweater that I knit six years ago. I love the length of the sleeves and the electric blue colour. The benefit of doing something more than once is, you’ll always do it better the second time, you would hope! There is something I’d like to re-do… but perhaps after the Show when the pressure is off.
As it’s been so cold here in Melbourne (and Bendigo town is always colder) my mind is turning to the possible accessories I can knit to go with my sweater. I don’t normally go all in, with an entire matchy matchy Bendigo ensemble, but it’s really cold right now and I don’t want to be whilst I’m in Bendigo.
I’m hoping to knit a hat, mitts and cowl, that’s do-able within a week right? I’ll report back.
It’s been a few busy weeks. I’ve been away for a romantic lunch and night in Red Hill:
I’ve been yarn shopping(!) I made it to Little Woollie’s yarn store on the way to Red Hill, then went to the Coburg yarn market the following day!
I’ve been sick again 😦 I’ve celebrated birthdays (there’s another one this afternoon)
and I’ve been knitting madly on my Bendigo Sheep Show sweater! I’m now further along since these photos from last weekend, I have half a sleeve to go!
I should have this version of Wool & Honey finished in the next couple of days before blocking and photos next weekend.
Meanwhile this week, the extra yarn from Louie & Lola has arrived for my Fragmentation Cardigan. I have just 2 half sleeves on this to go. It’s going to be very satisfying finishing these 2 sweaters at about the same time. A new sweater cast-on beckons in July.
This past week I’ve been playing ‘yarn chicken’ with my Fragmentation cardigan.
I started getting concerned whilst knitting on my first sleeve. With the button bands and a second sleeve still to knit, I was getting anxious by how much yarn I had left. So I strategised, I went ahead and knit the button bands, and then the second sleeve to match the (so far) length of the first sleeve… and after all that, I had just 23 grams of yarn left in the grey. Not enough to finish the sleeves in grey.
My options were:
To make long colourful ribbed cuffs with the remaining advent yarn, then not have enough yarn to make the matching hood. I also wasn’t sure I wanted to have colourful cuffslike Stephen West’s sample.
Or… to email the lovely Karina at Louie & Lola yarns (the yarn dyer of the Advent yarn) and hope that she could help. Which is exactly what I did. I’m so relieved to say Karina got back to me right away and offered to do a custom dye for me, so I asked for 2 skeins (to make it worth her while) and I’ll also have enough for the trim in the matching hood.
So whilst I wait for the additional yarn to arrive, I’ve placed the cardigan aside to get cracking on my Bendigo Sweater… I’d been so obsessively knitting my cardigan, I lost sight of the fact that the Bendigo Sheep Show is just 5 weeks away!
So now I’m playing ‘time chicken’ as well, eep!
Last weekend I presented my sister with her mitts, I think she loves them. It was a proud Knitter moment.
It’s a long weekend here and the weather is terrible, so I hope to get lots of knitting done in between socialising.
The happiest month of the year, should be your birthday month am I right? Or at least equal with July (for the Bendigo Sheep & Wool Show) or December for Christmas of course. Thankfully these months are well-spaced, so there’s always something to look forward to.
How are my monthly sweaters getting on?
I’ve put a good dent in my ‘March’ sweater, Wool & Honeyby Andrea Mowry. The yarn is named Vivacious by Fyberspates. It is a really gorgeous colour and much deeper in real life. I’m hoping and expecting the slipped stitches which make up the hexagons to settle down a bit after blocking. They look a little springy and spider web like at the moment.
When April came around, I wasn’t mentally ready to cast on my ‘April’ sweater until I got to dividing the sleeves from the body. But now that’s done and it’s easy knitting from here on in… I’ve cast on for Stephen West’s Fragmentation Cardigan. I’m using my Louie & Lola Advent calendar from 2024. I selected the DK weight version, and it is my most favourite yarn calendar yet. I spent a few joyous days arranging and rearranging my colour sequence for the modular panels in the yoke.
I love knitting with colour so much! I will get back to knitting a one colour project in June perhaps! Spoiler alert, the ‘May’ sweater is also going to be super fun.
Louie & Lola have just released their pre-order for this years calendar; but sadly it’s a 12 days of Christmas calendar, 4ply 50gm mini skeins. I really enjoy opening an advent everyday in December, not to mention working with lots of colour, so I’m passing on this calendar this year. Who knows, maybe I won’t purchase a calendar, but make up my own from stash? I won’t make any rash decisions just yet.
At this rate (and because I’ve taken this week off work), I should be finished with the yoke colourwork part today. 8ply is so much faster than 4ply. And because it’s a cardigan, it’s just knitting all the way.
I’ve just picked up a copy of Laine’s newest book 52 Weeks of Scrap Yarn from Sunspun (as well as some delicious Birthday yarn). It’s like this book was made for me, seriously! There’s some really great projects in here, and I know it will be a great source of inspiration for future scrappy projects.
I did a preview knit for Brooklyn Tweed! I’ve never done a preview knit before (let alone a test knit). So many of my friends are doing test knits, and I wanted to see what the fuss was. I thought that committing to a hat design, was like dipping my toe into the water, so to speak. Also, due to the size of the project, it gave me plenty of time to complete the hat! The pattern was fully road-tested and tech-edited, which meant the only thing for me to do, was knit the hat!
The design is called Diamants Hat by Mary Weaver (a BT designer) and it launches today. I’ve knit my hat in Jamieson & Smith 2ply jumper weight (4ply) as unfortunately BT Tones light (the called for yarn) is not available in Australia. The J&S is yarn I had in my stash, and I think it’s a great colour for me.
The pattern is well written and the charts are clear. I actually really enjoyed knitting the twisted stitches and the pattern describes how to do these really easily, without having to drop stitches at any point.
The weather has turned chilly here, so this is the perfect addition to my hat wardrobe. Thanks BT.
My Stripes! sweater by Andrea Mowry is complete! I’m really happy with it! The fit and drape vastly improved once it was blocked. I’m not sure why I was surprised by this, doesn’t blocking make everything better? It is a fun sweater and I’ve already worn it a couple of times. This is a relief to me, because I thought this would only be a very ‘occasional’ type sweater.
Everyone seems to love it. So my ‘February’ sweater is complete. My ‘March’ sweater (Wool & Honey) is a little behind schedule, due to a little distraction. More on that next time. And my ‘April’ sweater will need to be cast-on soon seeing as though we are in April. No spoilers 🙂
Since I’ve last blogged, I’ve been away on a crafty weekend in Daylesford with friends. During this weekend, I finished knitting my stripey socks and even did some cross-stitch (the photos of the patchwork, are not mine!).
Then this past weekend, we visited Tasmania. The main purpose of our visit was to see our Melbourne friends who were making delicious food in Tassie. We were not disappointed. Bruny Island oysters, yes please, as well as many other delicious delights Tasmania has to offer. Thank goodness they’ll be back in Melbourne this week, we’ve missed them and their food. Whilst in Tassie we also visited Mona, which was incredible. I haven’t visited Tassie in many years (maybe 20!), and Mona has been built since then. We’re already making plans to return one day, to spend more time because one day is not enough. And look I wore my Stripes! sweater to Mona.
I’m still going on my Stripes! sweater by Andrea Mowry. For some reason I thought I would be done by now, but a week for a sleeve is probably fair. Thank you for your kind suggestions, about knitting the sleeves 2 at a time. I just really detest knitting anything 2 at a time! I also got fed up with having to grab the next colour. So, I wound all of the yarn (in the correct order) into a gobstopper ball for fun.
The long weekend has been a good time to get a few things done. I’ve been dyeing, or rather over-dyeing some yarn and a sweater! I’ve wanted to correct some dye jobs (that I did) for a while now. Every time I looked at my yarn set aside for sweaters in my stash. I haven’t wanted to use the ones I dyed… so it was either fix it, or donate it.
These are the ‘Before’ skeins. I no longer like variegated yarn for sweaters, my tastes have changed…
This is the ‘After’
I’m much happier with these… but some of the skeins are still not quite right. The tarragon skeins look pretty good (phew!), but the ‘night’ ones have a few light patches in them. The bloodwood skeins were all good, except for one with a shocking flash of red. This was due to it being missed in the dye pot.
And here’s the Dragonfly sweater I knit, originally dyed in dusk.
Whilst I love the sweater, I never really liked all the white bits. So I attempted to over dyed in fuchsia. I kind of messed up the dyeing on this one too. I put in 50gms of dye for the 500gms of the sweater into the dye pot. Ten minutes in, I began thinking the colour was not deep enough to cover up the dusk colour. So what did I do? I dissolved the rest of the dye in my glass jar and threw it into the dye pot. Amateur! The result is uneven dyeing, there’s some really dark bits, and some not as dark bits. Dyeing is hard work! I have so much more appreciation for hand-dyers after this weekends escapades. The sweater may have gotten smaller as well…
Not to worry, I’ve ordered more dye, and the touch-ups will continue next weekend. Then I may never dye again.
Here’s my cast-on for March, I’ve casted on today. I’m knitting Wool and Honey by Andrea Mowry for my knitting group’s Bendigo sweater. If you’re not from here, The Australian Sheep and Wool show is in Bendigo, a large regional town in Victoria. It takes place every July. This is the 5 or 6th year my knitting group has made this tradition. I absolutely love this colour. This will be the second time I’ve made this, it was super fun the first time 6 years ago.
I think I may lengthen the sleeves on both versions. It’s been a week of improvements.
Sonia Knits 