Autumn Knitting

Right, so it's getting colder and I need to keep warm.  Check out that autumnal light.  

Just finished this today.  It almost finished me.  It's been a while since I knitted something in so many bits.  Sooo much seaming and sewing and fiddly and fussing.  But I swear on my orange ukelele it was totally worth every headache inducing, eye-squinting, finger pricking minute of it.

I gotta tell ya, this is royal baby alpaca, no ordinary llama wool for me!  Unbelievably soft and drapey and pretty.  Somehow shiny and matt at the same time, wooly and silky, smooth and snuggly.  Thank you Webs closeouts!

Obviously the best thing about this sweater is the pockets to hold my wool when I walk around the house knitting. Actually I could walk to the shops knitting in this.  Will the kiddos be ashamed of their crazy mama when she turns up at school knitting out of her kangaroo pockets?

But the rest of it looks pretty good too:

Slouchy and comfy, but stylish and a little tailored too.  Just like me, he he ;-)  Thank you Norah Gaughan for the wonderful pattern.  One very clever lady.

This is my other new sweater for Autumn.  A test knit of  Calvados by Thea Colman.  The wool is Jo Sharp Silkroan Aran Tweed in a colour called Jewel.  It's impossilbe to photograph for some reason.  It does something weird to my camera and makes everything look hazy and pink and makes me vanish.  See:

 

Spooky Mulder.  I love it, especially as it's not really anything like that colour - think Shiraz and you're closer.  Perfect over a merino on an almost cold day.

 

Actually today is gorgeous.  Sunny, a light breeze and 17C, I'm too hot in my alpaca!

I had some Silkroad left over so I whipped up this tweedy beret.  This is a test knit of a new pattern by the lovely Sheryl of Shorty Stitches (who always looks gorgeous in a beret) and will be available soon.  In the meantime you might like to knit her other new beret pattern, the Dolce Beret.  Life is sweet.

So I've become a testing whore. 

Look who we saw on the way to school this morning....

Ok, actually: look who we saw after being tipped off that dolphins were in the bay, racing down to the beach, and seeing not dolphins, but a pod of orcas swimming around the coast.  Cool.

There were quite a few, at least half a dozen, big ones and little ones.  All swimming around the rocks, coming in amazingly close - as if they were checking out the crowd of curious humans gathering along the shore.  These babies are fast!

Orcas are fairly regular visitors around Wellington, sometimes they swim right in to Wellington Harbour and cruise along beside the whalves and motorways.  They always seem to swim around the coast from east to west, passing us ans heading off towards Red Rocks where there is a seal colony.

Hopefully the newly established Tapu te Ranga marine reserve means we'll get more and more visits from orca, and dolphins, and who know who else as the natural marine environment recovers and grows. 

Quite a few local kids were a wee bit late for school this morning.

Thanks to Kelly Thomas and stuff.co.nz for the pic - more here:

http://static.stuff.co.nz/1273526814/961/3679961.jpg

Lego/Dr Who

The kids entered a Lego building competition during the school holidays.

Miss 9 built Dr Who's TARDIS, with the Ood at the table, and an alien sneaking up on the Doctor.

Mr 5 & 11/12ths built Dr Who's TARDIS crashing.  See, the Doctor is falling out the door holding his (enormous) sonic screw driver.  (Doctor, is that a scewdriver in your pocket?...)

We are all deeply, deeply in love with Dr Who around here.  I'm even able to accept the new, hideously young Doctor - although I did spend most of the first episode of the new series trying to get a good look at the young Amelia Pond's cardi.

Sorry, you can't really make it out in that pic, let's just say it's textured with panels of different small lace stitches, with a cream border.  Goes rather well with her nightie and red boots. 

She had a rather snazzy hat too, and gloves.  The things people obsess over... Do you know there are whole websites devoted to knits in British sci-fi TV programmes?  Well, I don't know that either, but wouldn't it be handy if there were?

What did they say about working with children and animals?

Oh yeah - never do it!
All I wanted was a few modelled shots for my Ravelry page of DD wearing her little Wisteria dress.  How hard can that be?  Warning, children get harder to photo as they get older.

First she insisted Mr Moon be in the picture....

then she wanted to play on the swing....

then she ran away....

onto the garage roof....

where she pouted....

and showed her knickers (hopefully not to the football team)....

Oh it's tough looking at these pics on a grey autumn day.

My Wisteria used 200g of Bendigo Woollen Mills Cotton in a discontinued colour called Heather.  To get a dress to fit my 9 year old out of one ball took some fiddling - I knitted the size 4 width, but longer with 2 full repeats of the lace and just enough armhole depth to fit.  The length is fine, but the open lace means it's best worn over leggings or with something underneath - if you're clever you could sew a little matching slip.  I'm not at all clever with a sewing machine so I probably won't.

Recycling....

I've come to hate the Hourglass Sweater I knitted a while back.  It was always too big, but after a few washes it ended up way too short and wide.  So when my friend Sharon mentioned she was frogging hers, I was inspired! 

Is there anything more satisfying than unravelling knitwear?  I used to love doing this as a kid, I can wind a wicked ball.  Moon enjoyed it too, although things would have gone a lot quicker without his help.  Knitting and kittens don't really mix.  for the most part my Hourglass Sweater unravelled easily even after two years, but the armpits were felted beyond help and I had to cut them apart.

Look!  Legwarmers! Ha ha.

Give it a bath, this is not new virgin wool - seriously used and kinky! But such a pretty blue.

Tools of the trade.  I don't know how I ever lived without my swift and Singer wool winder, despite winding a pretty mean handball, I love these guys.

Ta da!  All done and good as new.  Now how shall I make it a-new? 

Indulgent Nostalgic Post #1

Once upon a time I was a glamorous young thing with chic hair jetsetting around the world....

Prosecco in Sciacca

Chianti and a puppy in Tuscany

Red velvet scarf in London. 

Bought at a London market and left it in a restaurant in Paris a week later.

We had a very cool car.  It usually looked like this. 

Fortunately convertables are very light and easy to push.

Even further back in the mists of time were the Molly Ringwald years when I won a trip to Sydney by working in Payless Shoes.

A very cute attempt to pass for a cleancut couple.

The matching clothes!  The body language! 

Ripped jeans and Dr Martin shoes, must be the early '90s.

We were so not these people!

Not a house made of Lego, a Lego house.

Last night I watched James May's Toy Stories with the kids.  It was all about building a life size house out of Lego, Grand Designs with Lego - brilliant!  Here's a taste....(that gives away the unhappy ending).



James commented that he didn't want to build a house out of Lego, he wanted to build a Lego House.  Meaning finding a new architechural vernacular for building in Lego or somesuch (not his comment, me trying to be pointy headed).

R-almost-6 was inspired to build his own Lego House, not a house out of Lego you understand!

Can you spot the sink?  It has a big green tap.  The man and the boy have gone to bed with Lego blankets.

Here's the car parked in the garage.  And the star ship that transforms into a boat.

At one point in the TV show they ran out of Lego (as it always does in these "build" programmes.  It's usually the windows....  but I digress).  R leapt up exclaiming "they can use mine!" and ran from the room, returning with his box of Lego.  "I can send it to them!".  Bless. 

Sadly the Lego house is no more.  I haven't told R yet, but I'm sure he'd understand. 

That's the thing about Lego.