Sunday 31 August 2008

The perfect stay-at-home weekend

I had big plans this weekend: Saturday in the garden (yes, I checked the weather forecast), and Sunday getting to know my sewing machine.

The plan for Saturday was to build a new vegie garden. It's still a work in progress, but it comes from stark beginnings.
There's a lot of lifting, shovelling, shooing away compost-eating puppy dogs, more shovelling, digging out awful plants and weeds that were in the way, more shovelling, lifting bricks used as useless edging, and some more shovelling involved in creating a new vegie patch. Sore muscles at the end of the day were soothed with a beer, a curry and Lars and the Real Girl.

Sunday: finished Tim Winton's Breath over breakfast, then cleared a space in the study/ storage room/ sewing room, and spent a lot of time gazing at my stash of fabric. I tackled a few little projects, but I'm most pleased with this.
Yes, bias binding. I could get hooked on making my own binding. I have a doovalacky to assist, and I really like it. I also cut out fabric for more adventurous projects that are in store for next weekend.

And to finish off a lovely at-home weekend? Dr Who, of course.

Monday 25 August 2008

Will I ever learn...

...to get gauge? Started knitting BSJ2, same yarn as before, bigger sticks this time. Result? This will probably fit ma minette when she's about 5.
At least I'll have plenty of time to pick the right buttons.
Yarn: lovely locally grown, homespun, hand-dyed purply stuff, and some Cleckheaton Country Naturals 8ply from the Great Cassidy's Sale ages ago.
Sticks: 6mm KnitPicks

Saturday 16 August 2008

Bargain Saturday

$25. Big Salvos Queanbeyan. Bargain? I think so.

Friday 15 August 2008

Documentary entry

Not wanting to bore my few readers, I just thought I'd warn you that this post is merely to document in a bit more detail, with a couple of better piccies, my lovely Pi shawl. So you can move to another blog now if you really don't want to read more about it. Try this one, or this one or, for something different, this one.

My Pi is only about a metre in diameter - just big enough to keep ma minette cosy. I finished it off with the plain garter stitch neverending border - not really happy about the final tiny join, but I'll do better next time. Also next time, I'll do some regular 'yo, k2tog' rows to counter the plainness of it all.It really was a delight to knit.

Wednesday 13 August 2008

Very proud

Very proud of another finished object... my first Pi shawl. It's only tiny, because it's for a tiny person, but it is lovely soft baby alpaca and it was very addictive knitting.Also proud of the fact that my very first BSJ appeared on national telly on the weekend. Daughter2 was interviewed about the Government's Grocery Watch initiative, and dressed ma minette in her BSJ for the camera.

Now, if only I could feel proud of my photography skills. There's a real knack to getting handknits in the right light, and I don't seem to have it.