baby cardigan

A new little cardigan enters the world and I am rather pleased with it.
It is made from sock wool I bought when in San Francisco a couple of years ago. Earmarked for a scarf, it is part of my travel-stash that will my source of yarn during our renovation-exile period.
My self-imposed rule is that all knitting/crochet projects must utilise existing resources over this time. It is part of a wider project to de-clutter, reduce, recycle and induce greater serenity. I find that the constant drive to consume, to buy, to search for new projects, new yarns is unhelpful in so many ways - it increases my 'too much to do' feeling, it is wasteful of resources and money and leaves us all feeling uncomfortable in our own home. Added to this, whilst cleaning up before the move, I found that much of my stash was contaminated by moths. This little cardigan was interrupted multiple times by having to re-attach my yarn due to presumably moth driven faults in the yarn.

I have now distributed moth-proofing through all my yarn and have had to discard quite a lot of valuable but irretrievably contaminated yarns. Very sad. So. No. More. Yarn. Purchases. Until this lot is used up.

Returning to this little garment - hopefully for my cousin Rowan and his wife Emma's baby due soon - though I don't know the gender. May need to make another more neutral version though I don't see why a little girl can't wear a navy cardy. The pattern is: Baby Tea Leaves. It is a simple and rather delightful pattern. Purchasable on Ravelry and available in a variety of sizes from tiny to adult. I like its rather modern feel and it will be easy to wear, put on and off and is machine washable.

Sewing so so

This is my year of stash busting. Having downsized housewise we are all appalled by the amount of stuff we have.  I packed up a lot of my craft supplies and left out a rather generous supply of projects and materials for the 18 months or so we will be here before moving back to our renovated house. The same applies to books. The much smaller collection of (unread) books seems much more manageable and does not leave me with the overwhelming feeling of  hopeless desire that my usual burgeoning book shelves incites - a mixture of excitement and despair that I will never find time to read them all (which is clearly true).

I am taking a salami principal approach to unpacking and stashbusting amongst other things - slice by slice. Everything I remove from the house is space liberated.

So far this week I have liberated two pieces of fabric  - one for a skirt for my niece made with a make it up as you go along circular skirt pattern which took about 30 minutes from start to finish; and a second skirt for E who reminded me of Harmony Day this Friday when they are required to wear ORANGE. ORANGE !!!!. To my surprise, the wardrobe revealed an orange-ish jacket, orange cords that were too small, a long sleeved orange and white t shirt that I have no memory of buying and voila - an orange t-shirt. Only the T-shirt was viable for a warm Autumn day. A scramble through the stash revealed a half metre piece of orange cotton bought for a now forgotten patchwork quilt. 20 minutes later we had a skirt - of the most simple and uncomplicated variety - long ends joined, bottom hemmed, top folded over into a casing and elastic inserted. It is very plain. And very orange. May decorate it. Or maybe not. Problem solved. Stash busting for the day done. tick. And another piece of clothing (orange cords) into the give-to-niece pile.

I found this plan on pinterest for a little dress which might consume another piece of two. Frills and Flares: Pinafore or Jumper Dress Pattern . The site has quite a few basic patterns and demonstrates how to adapt them for different sizes. I see more stash busting coming on. 

Tea cosy inspiration

I have found a new tea cosy blog:

It has, of course lead to the exploration of some other things like this:

It is a Hobbit Cottage Tea Cosy and is very appealing I think.

and this:

The Australia's Biggest Morning Tea Official Tea Cosy by Loani Prior

I can think of two people I'd like to make that one for. Or would it be a reminder of their cancer diagnosis every time they had a relaxing cuppa?

CraftyRie: adding 52 to 365

I saw this today and thought it an appealing idea. It looks like she is doing a different pattern some days and just adding them in. Could also do the same thing with colour in stripes with a different colour for mood or weather or any parameter you fancy. Check it out on her blog.





CraftyRie: adding 52 to 365: I'm a sucker for crochet, yes.I.am. So to add to my 'workload' (yeah, crochet is work!), I've decided to not only do 365 ...

New Year - new critting

How bizarre. 7am and I am sitting alone in one of two otherwise empty hotel rooms in Coffs Harbour looking out over the Harbour Inlet as yachts dribble in waiting for my dear husband and his crew to arrive from their adventures. As many a woman has done so before me. Though probably not whilst typing on her MacBook Air.

He is sailing with 7 other crew members in the Pittwater-Coffs Harbour race. One of around 30 boats and currently running a rather ignoble last. I hope they arrive before my flight back tomorrow afternoon.

The air is heavy with humidity - I feel damp all over. It is going to be HOT.

In the meantime, I do have the odd thing to do. With 24 hours of in-house internet purchased and a town to explore, not to mention a rather magnificent looking beach, a thesis to finish formatting, a trashy novel and several more civilised ones and a couple of new knitting projects I expect the hours will pass.

Where are the children? Dispersed. E in Adelaide, S in Sydney with friends and A down the coast with a friend.

I missed my scheduled flight from Sydney yesterday due to my confusion over the airports new signage. Some muppet (as my husband would refer to them as, probably with an appropriate expletive descriptor) has relabeled the relatively clear and unambiguous sign: Long Term Car-park to the bizarre and entirely unhelpful new name: 'Blu Emu Carpark'. Go Figure. Hence, I thought I'd missed the turn-off (approaching from an unusual direction) and ended up driving all the way around the airport perimeter (a number of km) so get back in. By which time I could board the plane but my luggage could not. Sydney airport is not an unpleasant place to spend 3 hours. I did some work, attempted unsuccessfully to find a Frock for a cousins pucker wedding and drank a pot of tea. Underline weight loss in the new year's resolutions. And bought a trashy novel. The first Scarpetta.

Out of Sight  - just north of Pt Macquarie at 7am, Jan 4th

Hazy Coffs Harbour with a distant arriving sail visible above the breakwater

So, to my newest projects of the New Year: two scarves - one for me, one for my friend Alice who is unreasonably moving to the UK in March and will need to keep warm. Alice's scarf is the dark red colour she loves and which matches her dark hair and pale celtic skin perfectly. The yarn is Morris and Sons Estate 8ply. The pattern is She's a Waterfall by Dani Sunshine (great name). It asked for a long tail cast-on which I've never bothered to learn. Well now I know thanks to Knitty and I don't know why it has taken me so long. So cool. 

My scarf is called and will be Groovy, originally published as a free pattern in 8ply. I am making the finer version in sock weight yarn - a beautiful yarn called Coast by Holst Garn, a German company, picked up at the Brisbane Craft Fair in October between speakers at a sleep conference. The photo does not do it justice. It is a mix of wool and cotton and the most beautiful purple colour.