Socked Out

Let me show you what I've managed to achieve over the last few weeks.

I MADE SOCKS! (Well, one-and-a-half socks ^.^;)

:D

Aren't they pretty? I'm positively exploding with glee over these stripes. That's how Opal's "Florist" yarn, knits up for me. I'm already slobbering over their new Graffiti-inspired line of colourways. 

I'm controlling myself, barely.

Speaking of self-control, I cast on the second one as soon as I finished bashing at the Kitchener Stitch on the first! I feel like such a good girl for doing so, but we all know that it's only a matter of time before Second Sock Syndrome strikes me down. Not this pair, maybe not the next, but one day it will. Self control acts like a finite resource, after all.

Since they're my very first ever pair of socks, I'm feeling extremely proud of myself even though they're not exactly the fanciest footwarming devices on earth. They are destined to be gym socks, so I hope Opal lives up to it's reputation at the NEV Knitting Squad for "wearing like iron"

Time will tell, right? Right now it's time for me to have at that second heel!

Happy crafting!

~Topaz, tangled in sock yarn.

Me Brudder!

One of my brothers got jealous of Mum's hat, and asked for one for Christmas.

After seeing the second and thrid incarnations of her hat, he asked for the typical Kiwi Conservative Black Beanie.

The things we do for our family ;)

A black beanie. Are you kidding me? Talk about a snoozefest! Where is the colourway, the earflaps, the pompoms and tassels, the interest to keep me going after the initial excitement of starting a project wears off and I'm tempted by the siren song of something new and exciting?

It was probably the thought of him growing his dreadlocks back to keep his head warm!

I got my hands on some lovely black Possum/Merino from the Milton Wool Mill Factory Shop, found a "Manly" ribbed beanie pattern on Ravelry and cast on. Unfortunately I didn't bookmark the pattern, so I can't link you to it D:

Anyway, when I finished his hat looked like this:



There are one or two "design elements" or "special features" due to being distracted while making it. But my brother is awesome and didn't mind, since it came out pretty much how he wanted.

Read: A black, warm and manly hat for a young bloke who paves the roads.

When embarking on this project I wasn't prepared for just how soft possum/merino blends can be. On reflection this probably wasn't a terribly good yarn choice for this brother of mine. Like me, he tends to thoroughly abuse his clothing. If it isn't made to last it will disintegrate pretty quickly. The had was made in time for New Years and had holes by the end of January.

So, about a month of hat-life? Yikes!

Next time I'll have to use a sturdier yarn for the hat body and line with with the good stuff, or find someone willing to make a yarn reinforced with titanium.

A quest for a brother-proof hat?

~Topaz

Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty.

Winter is fast approaching down here, and like a good girl I've started this winter's hat and scarf projects already.

Well, not precisely "good", I'm ignoring my tottering pile of Works In Progress/Unfinished Objects to cast on yet MORE projects ^.^;

Moving right along!

As anyone with a cat knows, knitting when the cat is around can be somewhat perilous to both you and your ball of yarn. There are several ingenious inventions and little tricks that can help you keep your furbaby from wrecking your yarn, but frankly I'm too lazy/poor for most of them.

These include, but are not limited to:
1) Pulling the working end of your yarn from the centre of the ball. (Too lazy!)
2) Using a Yarn Bowl. (Too poor!)
3) Using a knitting bag. (Too lazy!)
4) Shutting the cat out of the room where you're knitting. (Too lazy!)

What I decided to do was make Dralion (My Beloved Feline Overlord) her VERY OWN woolly toy. That way she can play with hers and leave mine alone! A few meters of DK acrylic and one tennis ball later, her SHINY NEW TOY! was ready to go.

I think it worked, after a few weeks of non-stop yarn-ball-rumpus she suddenly got sick of it and went back to stealing any and all bits of paper she finds lying around.

At least my yarn is safe!





Happy crafting!

~Topaz

You Spin Me Right Round

Every year in the month of December, the local Wood Turning Guild takes over the Community Gallery with a massive Expo and Sale on behalf of it's members.

I absolutely love going there to see all the wonderful things, smell the woods they used and very occasionally, if I'm feeling rich, pick up a pretty for myself.

Last year I went in with a mission: Upgrade from a Spud Stick to an actual, honest-to-goodness spindle.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for a pretty piece of wood!

I wasn't terribly hopeful to begin with, and my fears were confirmed after my initial browse. Lots of lovely bowls and candlesticks, the inevitable salad spoons, chopping boards and children's toys, but no spindles.

As a child I was painfully shy. I have attempted to grow out of it, but initiating social contact is still more than a little difficult for me. Screwing up my courage, taking my metaphorical balls in both hands so to speak, I approached the people chatting behind the register and asked if they might know someone who would possibly be interested in making a drop-spindle for me.

Blank looks.

Nobody knew what I was talking about.

However one old bloke was nice enough to give me a pen and a piece of paper. I drew a vague picture of what I wanted, affixed ma name and cellphone number and wandered off to work.

Two weeks later, on New Year's Eve, I got the best voicemail EVER!

A wonderful man had made me my spindle, and wanted to know if I could please come and collect it?

This is what the wonderful guy made. He has been turning wood since the 1940s, well longer than I have been alive and kicking, but had never made a spindle before! The Internet had not turned up any helpful references for him, so to the trusty local library he went for reference material to create this wonderful top-whorl drop spindle for me:



He made it from beautiful native Kauri wood and it smells AH-MAY-ZING! I can't wait to see how the colour changes when the wood absorbs lanolin from the wool fibers.

Happy crafting!

~Topaz

The "Long Thing"

I have a ongoing project that was inspired by a friend of mine.

She is taking all the random bits and bobs of yarn from her stash and knitting them into a "Big Thing".

And when she says "Big" she means it!

Her tag-end-eating monstrosity was well over 200 stitches per row the last time she was brave enough to attempt a count. Each row is so long that it takes multiple sittings to complete, and sometimes the old yarn runs out and new has to be brought in at least twice midway.

I wasn't quite brave enough to attempt something of that magnitude, but I did need something to up all my tag-ends of yarn on since I'm too lazy to turn them all into Magic Balls. The situation in my stash was getting a little desperate, with an entire shoebox full of bits and pieces far too short for a project of their own, but too long to be shredded for stuffing.

From this crisis, the Long Thing was born.

I took a pair of knitting needles that I inherited from my Grandpa, some shorter bits left from one of his post-clip-dog-vest projects, and cast on.



The Long Thing has accidentally become a kind of history of projects and people. A few sections come from donations from people in the Knitting Squad, many stripes are left-overs of my own. A precious few come from my Grandfather's stash and quite a few sections were purchased at Op-Shops specifically for inclusion in the Long Thing.

Hmmm, I guess it kinda defeats the original purpose of the Long Thing if I go and get yarn specifically for it ^.^;

~Topaz

My Very Own Beanie

I liked the hat I made for Mum so much I decided to make myself one!

Using the same pattern, which has become known in the NEV Knitting Squad as the "Boyfriend Hat" (Aren't those decreases absolutely divine?) and some utterly adorable Magic Garden Classic Prints baby yarn that essentially started dancing a little cabaret on the shelf singing "You want me, you know you want me!" when I saw it. (You know that feeling, when you see a really pretty ball or skein and you ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE IT, right?)

It is warm and bright and cheerful, the perfect pick-me-up hat for a walk to work on a cold winter's morning.



Yes, that's me at 6:30am on a chilly Saturday morning. There is a good reason why I dislike having my photo taken!

~Topaz

The Many Stages Of My Mother's Hat

So, for Mother's Day last year I decided to be nice and make my Mum a hat. I figured that winter was just around the corner, and she'd probably need something to keep hear head warm whilst walking the animate mop she calls a dog.

(Mono is a wee white West Highland Terrier. Cute, but a little on the short side for full 'Dog' status in my books)

Mother's Day happens to fall near my paternal Grandmother's birthday, and we were planning on driving up to Christchurch to celebrate with her. My partner was driving, so this guaranteed me five or so hours of uninterrupted knitting time in which to make Mum's hat.

I wasn't entirely sure what colour to make Mum's hat. Naturally all her clothes are different colours, and I didn't want to get something that clashed horribly with 90% of her wardrobe. I found a nice shade of grey to execute the project in, and then I consulted Ravelry for a pretty beanie pattern I could pull off in the car. Something that looked nice, but wasn't too complicated in execution.

I fell in love with this pattern. The decreases are wonderful and make a monotone hat into something a little special.

After disturbing some poor hitchikers with the sight of a young female happily knitting and talking away a long car trip, I presented Mum with her hat.

She liked it! *Smug face*



(That's her 'I like my new hat, but why do you need a photo?' face)

At Nana's party we caught up with one of my many Uncles, who had come over from Australia for the Birthday Festivities. Canterbury is a darn sight cooler in climate than Queensland and my uncle was as bundled up as he could be without getting hassled by his brothers and he STILL looked cold. Mum very kindly leant him her brand new hat for the night, since a grey beanie is a "manly" way of staying warm.

The hat is now in Australia, probably stuffed in the glove box of his massive B-Triple truck.

Mum was a little bit pissed off by this hat-theft, so I offered to make her a replacement hat. Mum agreed, on the condition that SHE got to pick the yarn.

You know what happens when a non-knitter is allowed an unsupervised yarn-buying trip? You get a ball of overpriced, inferior quality wool yarn that has KNOTS halfway through which COMPLETELY CHANGE the colourway and provide a point of potential unravelment during hard wearing.

Oh well, it was a very pretty colourway. I would have been all over it if it was on sale too ^.^;

The placement of the knots in the ball of yarn Mum chose for her hat meant that it was about 5cm too short for Comfortable Ear Coverage, so I picked up around the bottom seam and added on a few extra rows of ribbing with some Barbie-Pink yarn to give it a bit of a boost.




There, now she can walk Mono in stylish comfort. You'll definitely see her coming at the dog park!

~Topaz