jenwren's blog

I’m on holiday and have been on school hols for over a week now.  I’ve been away from Armidale since last Thursday, firstly at my parents place, then I drove them to Sydney and deposited them at the airport (they should be in England by now) before arriving at my sister’s home.  Here I found the delightful Charlotte has grown a fair bit since I saw her in January.

I’ve actually found some time for knitting again, after a dreadfully hectic school term that had me too exhausted to bother with pointy sticks in the evenings.  I had dyed the yarn (8 ply Bendigo cotton) and started Anouk from Knitty.com for Charlotte during term, but most of it was finished while I was at my parent’s place over the weekend.  It is awaiting blocking, various little bits of stitching and buttons to finish it off.  We’re playing musical homes for the remainder of the week - I’m staying here in Sydney with Oscar the puddy tat, while Kath, Damien and Charlotte go to stay at Mum & Dad’s in their absence.

Kath had been knitting a black Feathers (hey, forget what the yarn is and don’t knock the fact she’s actually knitting...) scarf some weeks ago and had finished, but needed help learning how to shape the end into a point to match the start.  So I demonstrated how to knit two stitches together and told her to do that at the start of each row and she happily finished it off within minutes.

As well as Anouk to finish, I brought with me the second sock of the hand-dyed Patonyle to finish, and the Kiri Shawl in Madil Kid Seta (which I haven’t touched in ages) to keep me busy.  The Strawberry Bobble Cardigan ended up frogged - there wasn't enough yarn for what I intended to do.  Being away in Sydney, I sadly couldn’t participate in the Le Tour de Fleece  which neatly fit with my school holiday dates, but my spinning wheel couldn’t come with me since I was taking Mum & Dad to the airport and the car needed to carry three people and all their luggage.  And I won’t get to SSK on this trip since I missed last Saturday and will have gone home by the 22nd.

And I’m primarily on dial-up while away, so there probably won’t be many updates here.

I’ve finished blocking, stitching bits together and sewing buttons onto Anouk and I’m pretty pleased with how it’s turned out.  I was very pleased to find some suitably bright orange buttons without much difficulty.  Charlotte should look good wearing it over the coming Summer.  I’ve had fun catching up with friends and catching up on some shopping (clothes, books, chocolate, various notions including the orange buttons etc.).  Today I picked up some Anchor Magicline cotton in a nice bright orange/pink colourway from Lincraft in the city.  I have various ideas about what it will become.

In my sister’s absence I’ve been enjoying the company of Oscar, her puddy tat.  He and I are best friends, though we weren’t on the first night after my sister etc. left.  See, he’d been being fed at 4 am when Kath or Damien were up because of the baby (or World Cup Soccer), and Oscar tried to persuade me to feed him at 4 am.  Suffice to say he failed, and hasn’t dared to try again.  Since the second night he’s been coming and sleeping on my bed.  He’s slowed down a lot in his old age, and has been seeking out my attention to “unscrew his ears” (give him a good scratch around the ears and under his collar) - I’m such a softie that I always oblige.

I’ve also taken the opportunity while in Sydney to go and see the movie “Wah-Wah” (since it still hasn’t opened in Armidale), which I thoroughly enjoyed, and I’m currently reading the accompanying book by Richard E. Grant, “The Wah-Wah Diaries”.  Not only is the film a remarkable story, but the story of getting it filmed is also quite something.

I came back to Armidale last Monday to find what seemed like about 2 kg of mail waiting for me at the post office.  Admittedly nearly half of that was one journal issue which clocks in at an amazing 990 grams (I just weighed it - previously I thought I had 1 kg of mail in total), but trust me, it was lots of mail.  The best bit was that some Addi Turbo needles I'd ordered several weeks before going away had finally arrived.  This included a 4 mm 150 cm circular for a moebius scarf.  The yarn for this project was purchased just over a year ago, and has been destined for this purpose since March.

I cast on the scarf on Wednesday, when Peter came over for the afternoon and we sat around knitting and catching up, since he'd returned from Sydney only just before I'd left, so we hadn't seen each other for a while.  After a bit of maths I realised I was going to have to do a long moebius that could go around my neck twice because I'd chosen 150 cm circulars and needed enough stitches to not have to stretch the knitting.  In retrospect, I should have gone for 120 cm circulars.  After Peter left, I realised I'd twisted the cast on such that I had one-and-a-half twists instead of a half twist.  So I had to rip back (I was on the third round), and start again.  That first half round is a bugger, but at least doing it the second time I knew what I was doing and it was a bit faster.

I'm really enjoying knitting this scarf, even though each round is a very large number of stitches.  The socks and the shawl haven't had a look in since Wednesday.  School's back in from this week, so progress might slow down.  Although I'd really like to keep to three or less works in progress at any one time,  next on my list of things I want to knit is the "knucks" pattern from the latest Knitty (probably plain, no words).  I may end up with four WIPs.

Oh, and Kath was thrilled with Anouk for Charlotte.  Oscar was very sad to see me leave him (he kept blocking the door!), and probably more than a bit put out by the time Kath et al. actually returned – the next day!  (which wasn't planned).