World Traveller Club: April

By now, everyone in the World Traveller Club should have received their April shipment, and the may shipments are well on their way.

I had great fun picking the theme for the inaugural trip. After all, the first trip will set the tone for your entire voyage!

So for our first trip together, I wanted to take everyone to a region close by that is near and dear to my heart: The Australia Alps.
We're getting ready for our wintersport season, such as it is, so this area has been on my mind.

The Australian Alps consists of two biogeographic subregions: the Snowy Mountains including the Brindabella Ranges, located in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory; and the Victorian Alps, located in Victoria. The latter region is also known as the "High Country", particularly within a cultural or historical context.

While I mainly visit the alpine region in winter, there are many gorgeous things to do there in summer. It's dry and has a stark beauty all of its own. but that dryness comes with an ever-present danger: Bushfires.

In 2009, the bushfires were so devastating and widespread, they are now known as the Black Saturday fires.

Just this summer, fires raged around the mountains almost all the way to the peaks. The images from those fires were striking. I was planning the club colours during that time and I could smell the smoke. I wanted to do something that reflected what was reality in our area.

The variegated colourway for this month was inspired by photos of yellow and orange fires and billowing blue-grey smoke against a deep blue sky.

The tonal colour is inspired by the Pygmy Possum, a tiny marsupial native to only the Victorian Alps, and whose already small habitat was vastly decreased due to the fires.

And there you have it. Our April trip. May travellers will be going somewhere different, and then it's time for our April travellers to pack their bags and hop on a virtual plane to somewhere completely different.

#socks365

I’ve started a new project to help me practice my photography. 
I’m sure a lot of you have heard about Project 365. Well, I’m putting my own twist on it and calling it Socks 365. 
But it’s no fun to play alone, is it? 
So I’m challenging all of you to play along, too!

Take a picture of your socks (on you, or get creative!) every day and share them in the Ravelry group, or on Twitter (#socks365), on your blog, on the project365 website…

And who knows? There may even be prizes for those who play along… ^_^

You can follow my project on the Project365 website, on Google+ or on Twitter.

Tokyomnomnomnom

It's been a great day for food as we've been exploring the temple and old town of Asakusa. I had some sweet potato with chestnut, a strawberry in sticky gum syrup on ice, a chocolate-covered banana and mochi  in crushed peanuts. Omnomnomnomnom.

Why World Travel?

Why would you want to choose to travel with Yarn vs Zombies?

1. Fun Yarns Each yarn has been selected to best showcase the colours of each destination, or to reflect something about the destination itself Our club will feature both traditional merino and merino/nylon blends as well as more exotic and luxurious fibres and yarns.
2. Something new Each level will have at least one new, never-before-seen in the shop base!
3. Flavour It’s not just the yarn that’s delicious! Each shipment will highlight a dish from the region you are travelling to.
4. Exclusivity Each of our handpainted colorways will be exclusive to the club, never to be sold on our regular site. You’ve got to travel to get unique souvenirs! Plus, club members will be able to order as many extra skeins as they like for a year from the start of our world tour. Seen something the other travellers got you particularly like? You can order those, too!
5. Souvenirs Who doesn’t love souvenirs? From little goodies inspired by your destination to free coupons, stitch markers, and patterns, there’s something for everyone. Contests and prizes. We’ll also run periodic contests and drawings that only club members can enter. Win free yarn, or other awesome gifts.
6. Friends Get to know other club members. Hear about your fellow travellers’ stories and adventures, show off your yarn and goodies, and make new friends from all around the world!
7. Bonus Club members are eligible for special prize drawings and other shop surprises. What are these? You’ve got to travel to find out…
   
   
   Club sign-ups are open until the 28th of February 2013. Places are strictly limited and will be assigned by lottery on the 1st of March 2013. If you are selected for a spot, payment will be due in full by March 15th.

World Traveller Yarn Club

 
Sign-ups are now open! Simply fill in the form to be added to the lottery. 
Link here.

Yarn vs Zombies is taking you on a world tour to visit different destinations.

Experience a truly international club with colourways inspired by locations on different continents.

Extras will include a recipe from the region with each shipment, as well as a goodie or pattern inspired by the location or yarn colour.

There are four levels of club in two flavours.

Choose from:

• Quick Trip Traveller (1 skein of sockweight yarn of 100 grams plus goodies every other month)
• Long Distance Traveller (2-3 skeins of coordinating fingering weight yarn of 100 grams each plus goodies every other month)
• Big Traveller (2 skeins of coordinating DK or worsted weight yarn of 100 grams plus goodies every other month)
• Adventure Traveller (1-4 braids of fibre of at least 125 grams/4 oz total)

Choose from two flavours: variegated or tonal.

If you are interested in more than one club, please fill in the form once for each club of your choice.

All clubs have the option of re-ordering extra skeins of club colours (variegated and tonal) for a year after sign-ups.

Club sign-ups are open until the 28th of February 2013. Places are strictly limited and will be assigned by lottery on the 1st of March 2013. If you are selected for a spot, payment will be due in full by March 15th.

If you no longer wish to be part of the club before payment is made, please let me know asap so I can offer your spot to someone on the wait list.

So, are you ready to go travelling?

Hotham Hat 2012

I had this single skein of Madelinetosh DK in Mourning Dove. It's gorgeous, and squishy.
I bought it alongside the yarn for my Vivian cardigan to check out the colour, and I freaking love it.
So it needed to be something. Something awesome.
Like, say, a super ssquishy, medium warm hat?
Enter the Koolhaas, which not only has a neat name, but a cute look about it. It looks clever. It looks the good kind of handknit.
Its chart is tiny.
Perfect.
I knit this hat during a bus trip and several car trips up and down my home mountain, Mt Hotham, this snow season. And I finished it just in time to get no wear out of it at the snow. Such is life.
It's still a fabulous hat. And it fits perfectly.

Feelin' Blue Socks

 I finished another pair of socks! They're not for me though, they're for the Boy, when he travels to the cold (and lonely) capital.
They even come with extra cat love!

The colourway was an experimental one I did on one of my yarns. now I just need to figure out how to recreate it, of course...

Swap-tacular

 Today, a squished-up but well-sealed box arrived. All the way from Colorado.

Oooooh! inside were some lovingly wrapped parcels.

 Six, to be exact, and cards to go with them.
It's my Loopy swap package!

 My wonderful swap partner chose travel & stories as her theme. For those who know me, you know this couldn't be a more perfect theme for me.
She started off with a handmade card featuring maps, explaining her choice of theme. I'm loving this already!

But let's get to package number one.

 Each parcel contains a little sheepy note, explaining why the pressie was included. Number one states that all journeys start with comfy feet. So I got Heel cream! The best foot-pampering cream in the world. This is so coming to the snow with me.

 Next up, some adorable stitch markers (a unicorn, a mushroom, a wizard and a rainbow) and tab markers in an awesome little case. These reminded my partner of stories and the sharing thereof. As a writer, I never have enough tab notes. And as a knitter, I never have enough adorable stitch markers.

 Next was a big, squishy parcel.
It's socks!
Not just any socks. Firefly-colored socks knit into the "Intrepid Traveller" pattern. Gorgeous and comfy. I'm wearing them as I type this.

 But wait, there's more! There is Colorado chocolate with a fridge magnet (I love travel magnets, don't you?) and Jolly Ranchers, which I'd heard of, but had never tried. Until now. They are so good!

 Of course, swap packages come with yarny goodness. The photo does not capture the fabulous glow of this gorgeous madelinetosh sock yarn.
How much do I love MadTosh? Oh yeah, it's lots. And lots. This is a wonderfully complex pink-and-purple. LOVE!

And finally, because Australia can be difficult to send tea to, my wonderful swapper sent me a tea mug to put my own tea into.
I've been coveting my colleague's awesome tea travel mug (exactly like this one!) every time she brought it to work.
This is beyond fabulous!

 So here is the fantabulous package in all its glory.
Am I spoilt or what?

Oh yeah. Lucky, lucky me.



Win!

Life is perfect.

Snow Forest Mittens at last!

Remember how back in February, I had grandiose plans of knitting myself mittens for and in Japan? And then I only knit one, finishing the thumb just in time to rush out the door to the taxi?

Well, thanks to Nerd Wars, I finally finished the second mitten.
It went much more easily the second time around. I knew what to expect of the Latvian braid (a lot of very tangly, grabby yarn), and how to read the charts.
Easily doesn't mean quickly though. But the finished result is gorgeous.

The yarns are alpaca for the light and possum blend for the dark, two happy, fuzzy yarns that are just glorious after a quick spin in the dryer. So fuzzy and warmerific.
Of course, it's not cold enough here for mittens... Guess I'll have to go travelling again!
Where would you take mittens, if you had them?

Feed Your Artists

We were going on a day trip to Geelong and I needed something new to cast on.
I'd bought a skein of Noro Kureyon while we were in Japan, and I knew it needed to be a hat.
A Starving Artist, to be precise. The pattern is by Laura Linneman, of Knit Girllls fame.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable knit. Quick, straight-forward and pretty. The yarn is interesting to work with, and the colours are just as magical as people say they are.
This may well become my new favourite hat, and that's saying a lot.

Like Clockwork

Knitting shawls is popular, no doubt about it. There are stunning lace creations, squishy, brightly-colored winter accessories and everything from bold statements to classy cover-ups.
I've knit one shawl before that I loved deeply. Of course I knit it in early summer, so it hadn't seen much use until I travelled to Japan. There, it was a trusty staple while walking through fashion-fabulous Tokyo.

But I loved knitting the shawl, so I knew I wanted another one.
I'm not in a lace place right now, and lace shawls don't really fit with my wardrobe.
I like Stephen West's bold, geometric designs, so I knew I wanted to make another one. This time, in two colors.

After a bit of humming and hawing (too many great patterns!), I settled on Clockwork, with its garter stitch squishiness, simple stripes and slip-stitch steampunky detail.
And I was going to knit it out of two rockstar yarns, Malabrigo Sock (in Solis) and Wollmeise (in Feldmaus).
Could things get any better?
This would be perfect travel knitting. Beautiful yarns in pleasing colors, a simple yet gorgeous pattern and just enough size to see me through the trip.
And it sure did.
As an added bonus, I got to knit the first section twice, because I am brilliant and cannot remember directions for a whole row.
So I did only one set of increases, instead of increasing throughout the row, like I was meant to do. No wonder the first section knitted up so quickly!
Good thing I like knitting, so ripping back and reknitting wasn't much of a chore.
The yarn stood up perfectly to ripping and being re-knit, by the way.
Fabulous yarns.
And what can I tell you about the end result?
The shawl is squishy, it's large, and it's fabulous.
Unfortunately, it was also unfinished by the time we came back to Melbourne, so I haven't had an opportunity to wear it yet.

If you're looking for an easy-ish knit to use up two skeins of gorgeous yarn, you could do worse than try a Clockwork.
Mine used suprisingly little yarn all up, so now I have leftovers, almost enough to knit another one, if I so chose.

Knitting while Japan

 Happy leap Day, everyone!
I've finally gotten my act together after travelling to Japan.
I had grandiose ideas of how much knitting time I would have.
You know. A one-hour flight, one hour layover, then a mammoth 10-hour overnight flight, followed by two 1 1/2 hour train rides just to get to Nagano... I was feeling ambitious.
I packed my lovely fuzzy yarns I intended to use for my Deep In The Forest mittens, and a set of bamboo circular needles, just in case flying with knitting needles was on the no-no list again.
Turns out I can't count to 70 though, so I got to do the cast-on again.
And that was pretty much all I got done, since I managed to sleep for a surprisingly large amount of the flight, and once on the train, i was too busy taking photos of everything.

in the end, I got one mitten done. in fact, i closed the thumb while everyone around me was hustling for our waiting taxi.
I had to run, but hey, I can't just stop in the middle of kitchenering!

That wasn't the only project I had with me though. I didn't know how tiring/complicated doing a colorwork mitten would be (turns out, quite), so I had an easier project, too. A mainly-garter shawl called Clockwork, by Stephen West.
great pattern, but onca again, I failed at directions, and a bus trip's worth of progress was ripped back because I forgot to do increases when I should have.

I took some little birdies with me to take action shots in the snow. I also had ideas of taking more pics of my knitting and me knitting in the snow. Didn't quite happen. I only have this one shot.
there sure was a lot of snow...

Of course, once we got to Tokyo, I was on a mission to buy yarn. not just any yarn. i wanted Noro, and I wanted it in the colorway 95 that I'd seen in a knitting book a while ago and was in love with.
After I finally got the chance to duck into Yuzawaya, I found my Noro, and two little Melody skeins.
Success!

What have I learned form this first big trip with knitting?
It's good to pack enough knitting, but don't be too ambitious.
Chart reading and following directions may be harder than it looks.
Always take a garter or plain stockinette project for long bus/train rides where you still want to see what's going on.
Have a yarn plan to make sure you get some crafty shopping done while travelling with non-crafty people.

And finally, Japan = awesome. But we knew that already.

Photography Friday - Knitting Tokyo Style

Is there anything more cosy than sitting at home under your heated blanket and knitting away while your scarf-toting friends are banging on your door?

Window display for a shop that sold neither yarn nor knitwear, in Tokyo.

Knitting in Action

 Remember the Ninja Mask I knit for snowboarding?
It's finally seeing some action.
It's working exactly as I hoped it would. It's warm, but lets me breathe, and my goggles don't fog up while wearing it.
It freezes at the mouth, but that's not a big deal at all.
I'm so glad I have it out here in the deep powder!
What can I say? Life is grand.
I might need to knit myself another one of these. Too awesome.

Chubby Chirps

You know how it is. Or maybe you don't.

Some days it feels like all knitting is going your way, the next, stuffing is coming out of your head and you hardly know which way is up.
Well, chubby chirps, those tiny, squishy yarn birds that love to live deep in your stash of leftover no-longer-loved balls, feel that way every day.
To show some love to the squishies, I decided to take them on a trip.

They seemed excited to be taken along and were happy to pose in the airport, but then they became suddenly camera-shy.
I caught one quick snapshot of Electric Blue frolicking in the deep powder pockets of Nagano, but they've been shy ever since.
Will we see them some more on their holiday?
Or will they prefer the homely life?