Beautiful Manos del Uruguay yarn

Very excited to discover an Australian company who re-sells the beautiful Manos del Uruguay silk/merino blend yarn - "Wool & Flax" (www.woolandflaxyarns.com.au). This is my favourite yarn that I have ever worked with, beautiful, soft, shiny, unique colours. And an added bonus, Manos del Uruguay is not for profit and supports artesian and rural women in South America. Previously I bought this yarn from Purl Soho in New York, but the shipping is quite expensive, and Wool & Flax are slightly cheaper per skein of yarn, and the postage is much cheaper, and you are supporting an Aussie company too.

I can't wait to start knitting with this yarn!! :-)

Baby quilt finished :-)

I have rather neglected this crafty blog over the last 6-months or so. In 2013 I really had much less time for doing anything crafty like knitting or quilting. I think this is partially because previously I used to do a lot of my craft while I was bored while my ex watched crap tv shows, or as an excuse not to attend various car shows on weekends. 2013 was an awesome year for me in terms of re-inventing myself, finding more time for fitness and being healthy and happy, (which is awesome) but as a result my craft time was quite diminished from previous years. Hopefully I will pick up a bit more craft time in 2014 :-)

This quilt was initially planned to be a queen bed quilt for myself, but due partially to the change in my life in 2013, I decided to abandon this project, and instead realised that this fabric would make the perfect baby quilt with all the pastel colours and bunny prints. So I decided to make a baby quilt for a long time friend who lives interstate near Lismore in NSW whose 2nd baby was due in 2013. :-) My friend is awesome at sewing, and much more of a perfectionist than me, so I spent a lot of time on this quilt, and even had to re-do the binding as I wasn't happy the first time. I sent her this quilt for her baby Bonnie in the first week of January 2014 :-) This is the first time I have made a quilt for someone else, apart from the one I made for my cats.

Winter knitting

It is definitely winter in Adelaide now...we have had lots of rain, gusty wind, storms, even hail and snow in places! It has also been very cold. Perfect weather for knitting warm things like scarves and gloves! I made some fingerless gloves to match my wildflowers infinity scarf, using a simple pattern from Tiny Happy's blog, with a bit of improvisation to make seed stitch cuffs on one edge. I still have about half of one 50g ball of this lovely merino/silk yarn, even after making the scarf and the gloves. Not sure what I will use that for yet.

The next project was made with a couple of 50g balls of very chunky warm wool (100% merino superwash; Katia Fabula, Colour 98, dye 26213A) that my friend Hannah gave me :-) I had intended to make another infinity scarf but there wasnt quite enough wool to do that so I make a kind of neck-warmer, like a mini infinity scarf instead. I cast on 14 stitches, then mainly knitted in garter stitch (on 8mm needles), with a few sections of seed stitch thrown in for fun. The wool seems to be self-striping, at least with 14 stitches per row and the tension I was using, which was quite tight. It feels nice and warm to wear, perfect size to wear poking out the top of a winter jacket.

Wildflowers infinity scarf

At last - I have completed one of my knitting projects! I love it....and I'm calling it my 'Wildflowers' infinity scarf after the name of the Manos Del Uruguay silk-merino blend yarn I used to make it. It is so soft and snuggly to wear and such lovely colours. This scarf is made with yarn I bought in New York last year from a cool shop called "Purl Soho", so now whenever I wear this scarf it will remind me of my first visit to NYC.

I knitted this infinity scarf in garter stitch using 2 skeins of Manos Del Uruguay silk-merino blend yarn, on 4.5mm straight needles. I joined the ends with a twist to create a kind of 'mobius' cowl even though I didn't knit it on circular needles like the traditional mobius patterns. The finished scarf measured 115cm without stretching before I joined the ends, and about 17cm wide (37 stitches).

Birthday celebrations

Well, I am still working on my WIPs...but this week it was my birthday, which meant I spent time over the weekend catching up with lovely friends, eating good food and drinking great wine, and also made some time to experiment a bit more with my camera at the zoo, and do a little knitting. It was wonderful. I have a Zoo Friend membership, which means I can go to the major zoos in Australia as many times as I want for 12 months. This is great, as one of my passions is photography, and I am really trying to increase my photography skills, and a zoo is a wonderful place to practice! Incidently, the Adelaide Zoo shares it's birthday with me (although the zoo is celebrating it's 130th Bday and I am obviously not nearly that ancient)! Here are a few photos from my birthday weekend.

Drowning in WIPs...

Again another month has passed and I don't have any completed projects to show for it! Beginning to feel like I'm drowning in projects that are stuck as "work in progress" at the moment. I think it's partly because most of the projects I have on the go at the moment are quite big projects, so the little amount of time I have spare for craft at the moment seems to make little visible progress as I jump back and forth between knitting my Purl Bee inspired blanket, quilting my queen-sized quilt, knitting my first socks, crocheting a bed-blanket etc! I decided this afternoon I need to at least focus on one project and get it finished so I don't feel so overwhelmed with lack of progress. So I am focusing on my wildflowers infinity scarf as that is probably the project that will be easiest to finish and I should be able to work on it a little bit each night after work until it is done.
So if anyone is following this blog, hopefully I will soon have some finished craft projects to post about soon :-)

Easter long weekend

How great to have a 4-day weekend!! If only every week was followed by 4-day weekends...
I've spent most mornings over Easter catching up with friends, and then afternoons or evenings crafting - it's been lovely.

 

I didn't manage to complete any projects, but I did make some progress on a few different things I'm working on, and even started another knitting project (an infinity scarf)! I know I should really concentrate on finishing my (multiple) works-in-progress before moving on to yet another project but I just couldn't help myself. Here's some pictures of the three projects I have been working on at various stages throughout the long weekend:

1) My queen-sized Pandora's box quilt: Feels like it's starting to come together at last, now I have begun stitching the squares together (28 so far).

2) Slow progress on knitting my first pair of socks:...it's going quite well, but the yarn and needles are so fine it is taking a long while and requires a lot of concentration.

 

3) My new project: an infinity scarf made using my favourite yarn of all time (Manos del Uruguay - silk blend). This was yarn I bought from Purl Soho when I went to New York about this time last year. This particular colour is called 'wildflowers', and is a lovely mix of pinks, greens, cream and light blue. As the yarn is so colourful I really just wanted to make a simple scarf without any complex stitches or ribbing, so I have chosen to knit in garter stitch on 4.5mm needles. This is much easier to knit than the socks, and can be done while watching a DVD. I dug out my David Attenborough "Life" DVD series this weekend and have been watching a few episodes while knitting. David Attenborough docos are the best!