It's cold outside. Go knit a sweater. Or two.

Last year, I wasn't a garment knitter. I was all about the socks and mitts and hats. 2012 was also the year of shawls for me.

Then this year? Bam! I got hit by the garment hammer of Cast On All The Things!
I can kind of see what it is. When I started as a knitter, I could only afford single skeins of anything.  You can make a whole project out of one skein of exquisitely beautiful sock yarn. Your investment was much smaller.
Even if you screwed it up, you hadn't invested a lot of time or money.
Instant gratification.

But really, how many shawls can one girl need? Especially with the weather we're having.
I love shawls, don't get me wrong, but I might have reached shawl saturation. For now.

Side note: I still don't have enough socks.

So I was going to try it. A nice transitional pullover, knit out of cotton. I fell in love with the way Sazerac was modeled, and I had to have it. So I made one. And I love it. It's fabulous, and the cotton yarn is fingering weight, light enough to not be bent out of shape yet.

Then I made another cotton pullover, this time short-sleeved.
Then a Wollmeise cardigan. Then one with all-over lace. And a mystery sweater. And a lace cardigan.

Then I cast on a big, cushy pullover out of Tails DK, the squishy, cloud-like singles yarn I stock in my shop, in a colour I've been trying to create fora  while, a deep red with black overtones.

And then I cast on Sambuca, my latest obsession. It crept up on me. I bought the yarn in the backroom of Bendigo Woollen Mills, just to play with it. It's just a grey DK wool, non-superwash, how good could it be?
Pretty great, actually. I love everything about this wool. I'm going to add Noro to this project, because knitting with Noro pretty much guarantees I will love this pullover forever.
I'm even adding some shaping to it.

How will all of this turn out? Who knows? But I'm loving the journey.

Are you a garment knitter? Or do you prefer accessories? Or something else?

Rainy day hats

There's nothing like a change in weather to make you want to cast on a hat. Or maybe that's just me?
I test-knit the latest design by the inimitable Mel of SingleHandedKnits fame, Drizzle the hat, and it came out great, if I do say so myself.
It's a simple, straight foward hat with a flattering rolled brim and just enough lace to keep you occupied but not frustrated.
I knitted mine out of my beloved Tails DK base in a new colourway, Looks Like Rain.
The colour is inspired by dark, rain-bearing clouds and grey skies. Have you ever really looked at thse clouds? They're not a flat grey, there are heaps of colours swirling in there!
Looks Like Rain appears just grey on first glance, but when you look closer, you'll see pops of yellows and reds and pinks and blues throughout. It's still a tonal yarn, so lace and patterning will stand out cleanly.
I think it would make a very flattering garment colour, personally.

And guess what? There will be pre-orders of this very colourway, together with a coupon code for Mel's awesome Drizzle hat, going up in the shop very soon!

Do you have a favourite hat type? Do you have a hat on the needles right now?

Shop Update 12/2/13

Have you been waiting for summery yarns? 
Introducing Skinny Ginny, our firsst line of cotton yarns! Skinny Ginny is a fingering weight (we’ll bring you a DK soon, too), and up for the first time in the shop. 
 
There’s also some stripeys! 

Shop Update 2 Oct12

It's been a busy week, as I was filling mostly custom orders.
But I'm excited to introduce a new base: Vampire!
It sparkles...

Party Elephant

Festival Night Sky

If I Was A Rich Girl

Bipartisan Socks

There are few things I enjoy knitting as much as socks. Especially bright, cheery socks. In fact, a very large part of my stash was bought with the thought of "Ooh, pretty. That'd be great for socks." The rest were bought after just the first sentence, but never mind.Sometimes, I buy yarn for other things, but overwhelmingly, it's socks.
I love socks so much, I jumped on the chance to show my political side at Sock The Vote, an event so incredibly full of win, it defies description.
And then along came Megan, incredibly fun co-host of the awesomely named podcast Stockinette Zombies. She's designing a sock. Not just any sock. A bipartisan sock that brings together the two parties. You know. Cuff-down or toe-up.Now, I've knit socks from the cuff. And from the toe. And I've loved them both ways. So when I had a chance to test-knit this awesome pattern, I just couldn't wait to get started!I'd been wanting a fun, slip-stitch pattern to show off this wildly variegated Woolen Mill St yarn, and finally, I had the perfect combination.Then our gas went out. A weekend of waiting for people to assess the problem, and then set about fixing it (which involved open flames, a half-dozen plumbers, a cement truck and enough pipes to fill a Mario level, from what I could tell) gave me a lot of knitting time.So these got done in record time, and they are fantabulous! Love them so very much.

So which one are you? Toe-up? Cuff-down? Or -gasp! - not a sock knitter at all?

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.

Shop Update 21st August 2012

 The shop is back!
There are some old favourites as well as some new things today. We've got some self-striping balls in several bases, a new-to-me Corriedale fibre and some brand-new colourways, both semi-solid and variegated.
And I've been playing with some luscious silk-merino blends for some stunning one-of-a-kind colourways.
What's your favourite today?

Poke-Mitts

 It's no secret that I adore Another Crafty Girl's yarns. A lot. Especially her Poke-colours. In fact, I may need all of them...
I've had some leftover Bulbasaur from that awesome beret I knit a while back.
And I've had the Dustland Mitts pattern by Stephen West in my queue.
Perfect combo!
A quick and squishy knit, I managed to get all the way to the end before running out of yarn.
And while the generous Sarah of ACG offered to help me out, I needed the mitts done *right nao*, so I finished them off with some Malabrigo in Solis.
I love how they look, and I wear the mitts all the time.

Ravellencis! Go!

I hear there's some kind of athletics event happening over in Ye Olde England right about now. The term XXX got bantered about.
I have no idea.
But there's this event going on called the Ravellenic Games, where you knit and crochet and dye and weave for fun and glory and the simple joy of pretending you're competing.
Of course I'm knitting along!
I like pretend-competitive knitting. After all, I do Nerd Wars.
For my Ravellenic project, I'm double-dipping into my Camp Loopy project 3 and making opera-length fingerless mitts in two colours of the fabulous madelinetosh light, a fuzzy, soft, single-ply yarn so bright and cheery, the winter blues will never get to you.

I'm also making some socks out of the yarn I won last Nerd Wars tournament.
And some washcloths, because I love the one I have, and now I need more. It's also a great way to use up that cotton/acrylic I've had in my stash since last year.

Are you Ravellenicking?

Norwegian Rose saga

They're done! The Norwegian Rose socks that took forever are done!
Remind me never to attempt an 800-yard colorwork sock project in a month again.

They're glorious and a pain to get on, but once they're on, they're warm and cushy.
I'll have to redo the ribbing though. Size 0 after size 0 colorwork made it too sloppy for my liking.

The knitting itself was reasonably straight forward, all things considered.
Wendy Johnson is known for her great toe-up sock instructions, so following them was easy as sock knitting can be.
The charts were great and clear.
I'd heard the heel was a bit of an issue for some, so I changed mine to the heel I did for my Bob & Weave socks, and that worked out excellently.

To get all the yardage into the sock, I extended it by one repeat vertically and one horizontally, meaning I did some calf shaping. And good thing, too!

I love how they came out.
They're the perfect height to fit in snowboarding boots, and I intend to try them for this very purpose.
Let's see how the fabled Solemate stands up to some hardcore shredding, eh?

Speaking of Solemate.
The colorway, Bigger on the Inside, I got looked dark in the skein. I was a little sad about that, because it meant the contrast wasn't quite what I envisioned.
Then it got worse.
When I soaked the finished socks, the dark blue dye bled. A lot.
As in, even after a vinegar bath and dye fixing and many, many rinses, there was still dye coming off.
My pretty brown variegated? Blue tinted.
Sad face.

I know this can happen. I dye yarn. No one deliberately ruins your colorwork. If I had thought about this, I would have pre-washed the skein just to be sure. It's dark blue. Dark blues and reds bleed.
But this felt a bit excessive.
So I let Lorna's Laces know that I had a problem. I wasn't trolling, or trying to be rude. Just feedback.
They got back to me within a day. They were apologetic, they were nice, and they offered me a skein of yarn as a gesture of goodwill.
How nice of them! But I'm in Australia, and I know international shipping is a pain. I gave them my address anyway. Their response? "A happy customer is NEVER a problem". Don't you just love that?

Mistakes happen. Things don't always come out perfectly. it's what you do afterwards that really counts.
And Lorna's Laces' response? Perfect.
You know I already love their yarn. But now I also love the company behind the yarn.
Fantastic.

Climate Ninja

 I've made a ninja mask before. It stood me in excellent stead while in Japan. So I wanted another one.
I had a skein of Lorna's Laces Solemate, which is made from wool and magical climate-controlling Everlast in a cheery pink/purple that would go great with my snowboard.
Yes, these things are important. Shouldn't they be?

This one knit up much more quickly, although I conveniently forgot that I had issues with the last one.
i had the same issues again. Doesn't matter.
The finished result is great and worked well on the slopes.
Something I forgot though: The original mask got a lot of its warmth from the fact that the wool felted across my face.
Solemate doesn't felt as easily, making it a bit breezier.
Which means I now have a less-cold-weather mask. Excellent.

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.