 September 30, 2003
Winter hat
Its getting to that cold time of year again. You know, where its dark when you get out of bed in the morning, you have to scrape the ice off the car before driving to school and then after parking the car and walking the 10 minutes to school your little one pipes up "mummy - my ears are cold!" Yes - its time for winter hats! I love hats, I love making them and wearing them and Brooke already has a couple of lovely warm ones that I've made for her especially for this winter. I thought I'd show you this one first. This was made on the way back from Darlington on Saturday out of some Berocco Hip Hop (I think) that Carolyn sent to me. (BTW - my hubby says that if Carolyn sends anything else over to me from her stash he is going to divorce me. Honestly, that's what he said. He also made me give him Carolyn's email address so that he could ask her personally. Sorry Carolyn!)
Doesn't it look lovely and warm? I added the plaits onto the end of the ear flaps and offered to make pom poms for the ends of them but she turned me down...
Posted by Kerrie at 09:03 AM
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September 29, 2003
Darlington trip
The trip to Darlington on Saturday was fantastic. It was lovely to meet Emma and Polly and all the other people who turned up, there was quite a crowd of us in the end. As usual I was there a little early and found myself wandering around Binns looking for the knitters. I noticed a group of people looking almost as lost as I was and luckily it turned out to be Polly and the Liberty knitters! We spent a lovely afternoon knitting, chatting and shopping in the Coats Craft section of Binns. Polly has written all about it and posted some lovely photos (taken after I had left luckily!) so instead of recreating all that hard work I think you should just go over to hers and read all about it. On the train journey up there I started the Phidlar fluffy cardigan. I finished the back and half of one of the fronts and then completed the rest of the front while gossiping in Darlington. This is what it looks like so far - lovely little Christmasy fluffy sleeveless cardigan :
On the way back I seamed what I had done so far on the cardigan (its going to be a minimal blocking required project so I felt like I could manage this. Then I used some of Carolyn's stash yarn that she sent over recently to make a little hat for Brooke. Photos tomorrow. All in all it was a lovely way to spend a Saturday. We must do it again sometime!
Posted by Kerrie at 08:56 AM
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September 26, 2003
Knitting story
Love this story about being a professional knitter! (link from BitterGirl)
Posted by Kerrie at 01:21 PM
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September 25, 2003
Cork Progress
You remember last week when I asked you all to vote on which winter sweater I should begin first? Well the votes started off pointing towards the giboulees one and then dramatically changed at the last minute so that the Rowan Cork sweater was the eventual winner.. I had every intention of starting this in October which would have given me a couple of weeks to finish off some other non knitting work which I have to do. Last Thursday night I swatched for the project. I enjoyed the yarn so much that I cast on for the back. As Emma said, this yarn knits up so quickly that by Monday this week I had finished the back.
So then I decided to cast on for one of the pretty cable pieces on the front. Again, the pattern was so straightforward and the yarn knitted up so easily that I finished it last night. At this rate I'll have the entire sweater ready to wear by October!! I'll probably cast on for the other half of the front tonight and maybe take it as my spare to Darlington on Saturday.
Posted by Kerrie at 07:28 AM
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September 24, 2003
All about books...
At the weekend I popped into Borders to see if they were carrying the most recent Interweave Knits (which they were) I haven't had a chance to sit down and have a good look through it but I'm hoping there are some good patterns in it. I have usually found one or two things to make from past issues. While I was there, I also bought Montse Stanley's book, the Knitters Handbook. Having seen so many positive comments about this on Becky and other people's sites I decided to bite the bullet and add it to my collection. Again, I still haven't had chance to look through it yet but I'm hoping to find a nice quiet evening one night this week so that I can. Coming home with these new additions to my knitting books corner made me reassess some of the magazines that I had kept. I sorted through them all and came up with 7 that I didn't need. If anyone wants a collection of knitting magazines including 2 IK(spring and fall from last year), 3 Knitters and some vintage ones please let me know. I'll send them over to you asap. If I don't hear from anyone before Friday I'll take them to the charity shop at the weekend...
Posted by Kerrie at 09:22 AM
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September 23, 2003
Travels...
On Saturday I'm taking the train up to Darlington to meet Emma, Polly and Sissell for a few hours of knitting and gossiping. Sounds great don't you think? I missed Emma's last get together that she arranged as it was the week before my wedding so I'm really pleased to have the chance to head up North and meet with her. The train journey is about 2.5 hours each way so I've been planning my knitting projects really carefully. I'm going to take this Phildar project which I'm going to make for my niece for Christmas. Its knit on large needles and I'm making the 12 month size so it should knit up fairly quickly. Doesn't it look cute? I'm not using all of these colours, just red and white. The white is going to be a trim around the bottom of the body and sleeves and the rest will be in red. Very Christmasy I think! Just in case I finish this and need another project to start I'm going to take a few skeins of odd yarns so that I can make a couple of scarves or something.
Posted by Kerrie at 11:54 AM
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September 22, 2003
Detailed Fantasia
I promised you some detailed shots of the decreases in the fantasia tank and here they are. I used the simple K2Tog decreases 2 stitches in from the edge to give a nice neat finish. This is the way one of the armhole edges came out and this is the other. I followed the Phildar pattern and used short row shaping for the shoulders, I like the way that came out. On reflection, the seam came out a little wobbly. I think this is because I used fantasia to seam instead of a thinner yarn. At the time I considered using a different yarn but decided not to. I think I'll unpick the seams and resew them using cotton glace or something similar. I'm working from home today so might even get chance to do that later on this afternoon if it all goes according to plan..
Posted by Kerrie at 09:29 AM
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September 19, 2003
Fantasia update
The photo isn't very detailed below, I'll post a more detailed one over the weekend that shows the incs / decs and more of the tank. Our photo shoot time was limited as was my photo editing time!
Posted by Kerrie at 10:58 AM
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Fantastic Fantasia
Here's the maths - The original phildar pattern plus some ideas from this Rowan pattern equals my fantastic fantasia tank. I loved both patterns and wanted to "fiddle" with the Phildar pattern enough to have a nice compromise between the 2. I think I managed that, don't you? True to form here are the changes that I made to the original pattern : 1. I shortened the length so that I would have a more cropped tank similar to the one in the Rowan design. 2. I changed the turtleneck for a round neck, much more suitable for me. Although I understand a bit more about the argument for the turtleneck, sleeveless, super chunky yarn tops I still don't want one. I'm much happier with my round neck that can be worn over the top of a shirt or on its own. 3. I made a size in between 2 of the given sizes. This involved altering the number of stitches, amending the increases / decreases slightly to ensure that I had a tank with a good fit. 4. As usual, all increases / decreases were worked 2 stitches in from the edge to give a fully fashioned neat finished look. What do you think? I love the way it came out and I have just about enough of the yarn left over to make something similar for Brooke. Woo Hoo... I can see matching mother and daughter tanks in our future.. Brooke decided to provide the dancing shots for me, she is so much cuter!
Posted by Kerrie at 09:28 AM
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September 18, 2003
Vote results
Thanks for all the votes yesterday, to begin with it looked like the Giboulees had it but then by the time I checked again last night we were into Cork territory. So Bless will be started in October (Johanna - if you're planning to start yours towards the end of October I don't mind waiting and knitting along with you) I finished the Fantasia tank last night, I should be able to get photos tonight. I'm working from home today and the connection is too slow to upload any photos or anything. Brooke has a doctors appointment for an injection this morning so we're having a nice slow start to the day...
Posted by Kerrie at 07:54 AM
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September 17, 2003
Too Little too late
If you went to school with me the chances are you wouldn't remember me. I was the quiet one who sat in the middle of the classroom, kept their head down and worked hard. I wasn't part of the trendy set but I also wasn't one of the nerds or the troublemakers. I was just me. Quiet, responsible and hardworking. (depending on who you speak to - boring!) That's my nature. I just get on with my life and don't get too involved with things that don't affect me. If you do publicly step on my feet or on those of the people who are close to me then I react. Some of you may remember the post that springs to mind when I say I don't take well to people attacking my family. But if its not on my doorstep its too easy for me to ignore. I haven't been on line much in the last month. You all know why, too many other things to keep me occupied! But when I have been surfing around some of my regular reads I kept seeing little digs, the odd anonymous comment, a few bitchy messages on tag boards. I didn't think too much of it. I got the message, I thought I could guess what it was all about but I ignored it. Now I know that I didn't do the right thing by ignoring it. Why do people feel the need to leave anonymous comments, why is there so much gossip and bitchyness around the knitbloggers ring these days? I've had enough of reading it when I want to catch up with what my friends (IRL and online) are up to. I dont want to see any childish petty behaviour, I want to read about knitting and families and all the other little stories that people tell. I wish that there was some way to persuade everyone to leave their arguments and disagreements in private and not make them public. I believe that everyone should have the right to say what they want to say on their own site or on the sites of their friends as long as they are prepared to put their name to it and follow up any comments they make. And also as long as it is not blatently insulting to another person. I also don't agree with anonymous comments or un-necessarily bitchy comments. The reason that I first joined the knitblog ring was to meet other knitters. To begin with I enjoyed the banter and friendliness. I remember thinking about how friendly everyone was. Now I'm not so sure. I've removed the link to the knitblog ring (as you may have noticed) and I'm not going to venture too far from home for a while. Everyone has feelings and no-one should be made to feel bad or to see people talking about them behind their backs. It doesn't matter how sensitive, confident, thick or thin skinned you are. If you have a problem with someone I'd encourage you to sort it out with them face to face and not in any other way. But what do I know? It may be none of my business but I wish I'd got this off my chest sooner... Now I feel like its too little too late in many ways.
Posted by Kerrie at 01:03 PM
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Cast your votes now
These are 2 winter sweaters that I have the yarn and pattern for and want to make this winter. On the left is a Rowan Cork sweater (I forget the name) that I'm planning on making in blue. I love the cables and the zipper on this design, and Rowan Cork knits up into such a lovely soft fabric that I just know this will be gorgeous to wear. On the right is a Phildar sweater that is knit in lovely bobbly Giboulees. Again I've got a shade of blue to make this with (I should be hanging out with Alison shouldn't I with all this blue!) and I love the way the swatch knitted up. I'm not going to make the turtle neck (see Monday's entry) but will be substituting some kind of round neck instead. Now the question is which do I start first? One of them is going to be an October project and the other one will follow later in the winter. I definitely want to make them both but can't decide which one to start first. So I thought I'd take a vote. Which one shall I pick up on 1st October? Cork or Giboulees?
Posted by Kerrie at 09:41 AM
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September 16, 2003
Rebecca plans
Out of all the patterns in the new Rebecca which I've been browsing on line, I love these 2 the best. How convenient that the photographs also happen to be placed next to each other, its got to be fate! The only slight reservation is that they don't look very wintery. I have just started to get excited about chunky warm winter knitting and now I'm tempted by these 2 short sleeved lovlies. I'm pretty sure I'll end up making at least one of them this winter though, can't wait to get hold of the magazine and find out what yarn they use. Does anyone have the mag yet? I also see that the new Baby and Kids one is out in November this year. There are always such cute patterns in this, I think I'll have to hunt it down when its published. Don't you just love this stripy dress??
Posted by Kerrie at 10:23 AM
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September 15, 2003
Fantasia fun
This is a tank that I started a few weeks ago before the whole wedding saga kicked off. I rediscovered it last night when trying to find some space to store all the new clothes we bought on honeymoon. (whoops - sorry credit card) Its knit using Phildar Fantasia (same yarn that I made this tank for Brooke out of last year) and 10mm needles, this is the back - it only took me a couple of hours to knit in front of the TV. I have started the front so it would be nice to think this could be my first winter garment finished. I originally planned it as a Christmas present for someone but fell in love with the shade of yarn that Becky chose for me and decided to keep it for myself. Hee hee. Sounds fair though don't you think? The pattern calls for a turtleneck but I think I'm going to leave it as a roundneck. I can never understand chunky sleeveless tanks with turtlenecks, seems like an odd combination to me. I'm hoping that I might have enough left over to make another little tank out of, I don't think I'll have anywhere near enough to make one for Brooke but perhaps for a smaller relative. I guess I'll have to wait and see..
Posted by Kerrie at 11:21 AM
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September 12, 2003
The Sunshine State
We're baack! Did you miss me? We had a fantastic honeymoon in Florida, we aught the tail end of trpoical storm Henri so the weather changed from bright 95 degrees sunshine to thunder and rain in the space of a few minutes. It didn't spoil the holiday for us though. A week really wasn't long enough for us to do everything but we couldn't have stayed away from Brooke any longer. This is a sample of what we managed to get up to : Visited Disney and Universal. Hired a convertible car and drove around with the roof off for most of the time. Ate too much. Drank too much. Burned my scalp on the first day because I didn't wear a hat. Played crazy golf. Fed some gators. Swam most days. Took afternoon naps that went from 5pm to midnight (unintentionally). Went to Arabian nights show. Shopped until we dropped and then shopped some more. Bought Bride and Groom Mickey ears and wore them. The best part was getting home this morning to see Brooke, she seems to have grown a couple of inches in the last week and her vocab has grown to match. It was lovely to see her again, we all missed each other so much. She had a great time with both sets of grandparents and it was good for Wayne and I to spend some time alone together. Never again though, from now on its family holidays all the way. So back to knitting, I've hardly done a thing over the last month for obvious reasons. You'll notice that the WIP list and the plans for this month are both blank, this is for a reason - I haven't got anything on the needles at the moment and no plans to knit anything this month apart from a couple more of my own designs and lots of scarves. I've got so much else to do over the next few weeks : back to work on Monday after 3 weeks off is going to be interesting, the post wedding admin things like Thank you notes, sorting out all the cards and gifts, putting together on line album. Then I need to set up my I'm going to update my links over the next few days as well. There are lots of sites that I read regularly that I'm going to add, I won't be removing any though. If anything I seem to find more and more people to read every day. Its a shame that I have to work for a living really.
Posted by Kerrie at 08:31 PM
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September 01, 2003
A Wedding story..
We're married!! Here's the short version of the story for you and a few pictures, more to come when we get back form honeymoon.. The whole day was fantastic. I managed to stay calm all the way through, the only sign that I was nervous was the loss of appetite but apart from that I enjoyed te day from start to finish. I didn't get many digital photos of the day but I'll be putting together a proper album on the wedding site when we get back from honeymoon. Until then here is a quick description of the day and a few photos. The perfect day started at 7am with Brooke jumping up and down on the bed singing "its bridesmaids day". Wayne had stayed overnight with his best man while my sister stayed with Brooke and I. After a luxurious long bath for me and then a fun filled bubbly one for Brooke my parents arrived and whie I wrapped up a few gifts for people my mum got to work making all the buttonholes and my bouquet. At 11 Brooke, my mum and I walked up to the hairdressers while my sister and my dad went to drop off the last few bits to the Brooke was an angel in the hairdressers, here is a photo of her reading her princess magazine while Maxine curled her hair, suhch a little lady. Then it was back home for a nap for Brooke before the photographer arrived. Knowing how obsessive I am about being on time, it was great that the photographer turned up as I was half way through my make up. Brooke and I got dressed and he took a few photos of us in the house before heading over to get set up at the church. 30 minutes early the driver and car turned up so we invited him in for a coffee. I must be one of the few brides relaxed enough to make coffee in her wedding dress while reading Aladin to the chief bridesmaid! Nothing fazed me... The drive to the church took about 30 minutes in Saturday afternoon traffic, as we came around the corner I could see Wayne outside the church with lots of other people. We pulled up outside as he ran in and then just had to wait a few minutes as in this instance the bride was early for her wedding!! The ceremony was great, Wayne looked absolutely gorgeous and it was all that I could do not to cry. It was over in no time and before we knew it we were stnding outside the church covered in confetti being hugged by millions of people. The guests went straight to the reception venue while Wayne, Brooke and our immediate families went to our local park for photos. We stayed for about 45 minutes taking photos of family groups (these The food was delicious and the speeches were excellent. My dad's was really funny, Wayne broke down and cried in his and then as he read out a poem he'd written for me I cried (along with most of the other women in the room) while all the men groaned as they knew they were going to get into trouble from their partners for not being as romantic. The gorgeus cake was made by Wayne's cousin and will last us for months, we cut the cake at about 8.30pm as the evening guests were starting to arrive. Then our first dance was to I want to spend a lifetime with you by Jameroquai. We were happily dancing away together when we looked down and saw Brooke standing by our feet looking up at us, Wayne bent down and scooped her up and she finished the dance off with us. Then the evening celebration got underway and we had a fantastic time, dancing and drinking with all our friends and family until the last person went home. We got back to ours at 3am and collapsed in bed. We're off on honeymoon on Thursday and I can't wait. When we get back I'll be updating the wedding website with a full photo album and anything else that I can remember from the day! We're still in a state of disbelief that it all went so smoothly. I never imagined that I would enjoy every minute of the day so much. I felt like a princess...
Posted by Kerrie at 07:13 PM
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