Merry Christmas

I hope you have all had a fantastic christmas. Sorry about the blog silence, We have moved into our own house and we dont have internet there. I am at my folks with my lappy stealing my folks internet....

I probably wont get a chance to get internet or onto the internet until after the new year, so I hope you all have a very Happy New Year, may it bring a good year for you all !!!


Catch you as soon as we have the internet!

Blog Fairy

Well.... as you can see I visited the Blog fairy and used one of the fabulous free templates to jazz up the old blog a little.... I like it.... ok, so it's really the dummy's guide to redecoration, but quite frankly, when it comes to computers, that's about the extent of my capabilities.

Do let me know if you find it obscenely difficult to read wont you??

If you check out 30 Days, you will see that Mique has a fantastic blog makeover giveaway going on... so if you fancy a makeover, and you are more on the ball than me.... why not enter... you never know, you might just be the new author of the trendiest blog in blogland.

So.... I have no pics of the mans jumper... which isnt finished...though it almost is. Other than that preparations are insane and we are about to move house....tomoro.... oh and did I mention that we are hosting christmas for 20 people.... yes... I think we might be mad afterall.

Wish us luck... and lots of good cheer!

Wednesday Winner

Wow.... I was overwhelmed to see so many people visit my blog. I hope that you all had a little look, I have checked out so many new blogs over the last week and really had a lot of fun.

I randomly selected a winner from the 230 comments.... it's Beth...

Beth said...

Beautiful fabric choice, I have a SIL who knits every where she goes, and this would be great for her needles.

04 December 2008 13:45

I'm sorry I can only give it away to one person (there's only one roll) however, because of the response, I thought I would put a tutorial up over the next week or so, and then you have some help to give it a go yourself, so keep an eye out for it ! .....I had better go and email Beth.

Hopefully I'll see more of some of you.

Handmade Giveaway

Well, here it is, my giveaway for 3rd of December.


It's a needle roll made of canvas. The floral fabric is vintage fabric and the interiors are thick contrasting canvas


It's going to be able to hold needles, pencils, brushes or other notions of your choice. Here's a look at the inside.... with my needles and hooks to show you how what it holds
Once you get the needles in... flip the flap....

...Roll it up...


....And away you go....

To win the needle roll isn't hard, just leave a comment, take a look at my shop if you like or browse around the blog and leave me a message with your email or blog URL or some way of contacting you if you win.

I'll draw the winner on Wednesday the 10th of December...you've got almost a week...

And dont forget to check out the Sew Mama Sew giveaway List!

There are jumpers and there are jumpers

Hmmm... well... just a short post.... not yet the giveaway post... I thought I should clear something up. You see I'm making a jumper for my husband.... To me, 'Jumper' conjours images such as this...


Not my pic (or my hubby in fact) but you get the idea.... rugged, manly and so on. However, as a good friend pointed out (with a giggle) this is what the word 'Jumper' conjours up for her....

As you can see there's rather a significant difference there...

A quickie

Well... I've been busy, the hubby's jumper is close to finished (pics to follow eventually) and I made a couple of purses for the shop and a pencil case (with terrible pics).

The Sew mama sew giveaway is on tomoro (check out the button on the side ---->) and I am taking part, so feel free to take a look at what is on offer tomorrow.

Sorry about the dreadfully dull post... see you tomorrow.

Vintage Stripes

OK... so here's a wee pic of the finished jumper...on me... eek


Here's the only bit I dont like

A wee squiggle on the neck.... but it's fine, it's not so bad that I plan to unravel the lot... I especially love the long sleeves and it's going to be nice and cosy when we are tucked up in our little cottage this winter.

Finished...

Well... I do have a finished item to show you... though I will do that in the next post. In the meantime, I started the Hubby's jumper with the wool he picked in Australia. Which is a pain to knit with but knits up fast.

This is what it looks like up close



It reminds me a little of this....

See the similarity


So when it's finished, the hubby will be like a big wooly sheep and hopefuly just as warm.

Back in business

Well, winter is rolling in and the frost is heavy in the mornings. The days are short and crisp making everyone scurry around quickly about their business to get it all done and get home to the fireside. We're not immune to this scurrying and we always feel a little desperation as the sun starts to set and the days work isn't done.

However, long cold nights wrapped up indoors leads to lots of knitting.... I'm proud to present my first knitting in months ....


These are the sleeves of the jumper I am almost finished knitting..... I LOVE the wool. It's Cleakheaton 'Vintage hues' from a sale in a Sydney wool shop. I decided to just knit a very plain v-neck to emphasise the fabulous striping.

You may also recognise those needles..... yes.... I finally have my very own knit picks! I havn't photographed them yet, but I will. I just have the small started pack with 3 wires and 3 needles, though I bought an extra pair.

So in Sydney I had a little adventure in a wool shop.







pics from Morris and sons themselves

Thankfully they had a couch, which homed the hubby for the duration of the adventure. They had 30% sale on everything (yes, everything) including the knit picks. I bought 40 balls of wool..... um.... it came in packs of 10. I bought the vintage hues for me and then the other 20 were this.....

This is for the mans jumper...nobbly curly stuff.... I love it (thought not as much as my own)

I also had an adventure in a wool and fabric shop in france (it really was an adventure) couldn't understand anything and couldn't explain that I wanted the book I had seen in the window. In the end I took the lady out of the shop and pointed to the book in the window, and smiled a lot. It was a tiny little shop with every surface filled with shelves of fabric and wool and with racks of crosstitch, tapestry, patterns, tension squares, beads....you name it, it was stocked there somewhere. With barely enough room to maneuver, I purchased this....


It's just gorgeous and I cant wait to start something from it.

Unfortunately my little shop stands startlingly empty, I have not had time to do anything to sell there. Not only that, but I can't see anything happening for a while yet as christmas is round the corner and I plan to make some gifts. Not to mention that lovely nativity that I STILL havn't finished. Oh dear. Looks like, once again, I am all outta time.

OK, today I am off to paint our bedroom. We ought to have the power turned on today too (fingers crossed) and then soonish (in a couple of weeks) we should be living out there. In case you forget what out there is, this is the acre we stand on...


Oh... and we need to get some firewood too.

Much to do, and we are going to host christmas (with a big fat goose) hopefully. Better hop to it, catch you later.

I'M BACK ! ! !

Well... hello !

So, it's been ages and to be honest, I don't know where to start. I gave up all craft and knitting for the whole time I have been away, knowing I needed to devote the time to my work and planning the wedding.

SO... I handed in all my final papers, sat all my final exams and now I am officially Dr. PJS. It's been a really long hard 6 years, but there we go, it worked. I was also accepted to specialise in Reconstructive Surgery, which I will hopefully begin before this year ends.

This was us at the graduation....


2 weeks after the graduation, we got married. We'd been engaged almost 2 years, but we had wanted to wait until after I graduated to get married. So on the 11th of October we tied the knot in a beautiful church in Arad. Here are a couple of pics (we still havnt seen them all)

Me with my girls

My man and some of his family (mum, dad and one of his sisters)

Me and my dad (right before I stumbled on the dress, didnt fall over though, no worries)

We had guests from Britain and Australia, which was lovely, as well as all our Romanian friends. My only complaint is that it was all over too soon.

We nipped off to a wee picturesque village in France for our honeymoon and then on to another part of france to meet up with friends, and finally, we did the long haul out to Australia and spent a few weeks there. We got back tired and a little dishevelled on Sunday night. And now we are back in business.

I'll post on my latest knitting later and will catch up with all the blog reading I have missed later.

Bye for now...

Not a stitch

Hi folks,

A rediculously long period of time has passed since I wrote here, I doubt anyone still reads my blog (it wasn't like there were thousands of readers anyway). With the wedding and my licence exams and a bout of pneumonia, there has been exactly NO time for crafts. I am not even doing wedding knits as they became redundant. The only crafting has been our wedding invites (to be posted at a later date)

So, to make it official, the blog will be active again in November. A long time you say? Well, exams september, wedding and honeymoon october and ....well... then it's november.

I miss my knitting, and my sewing. It's been ages now and I miss blogging too but I just havn't got the time at the moment.

See you in November

moving madness

OK, so it's been a week of silence... and then some before that too. Well, last week we found out that the landlord wants to sell the flat, so we have decided to make what was going to be our 'summer move' an 'in-a-months-time move' instead.

As you can imagine there is a lot to do when you have to pack up your house in a short space of time, the major of which, is de-junking.... wow the stuff piles up. We are also trying to think up meals to make out of whats left in the pantry and freezer.... which is fun and very organised... this weeks menu...

monday - black pudding and potatoe scones
tuesday - meat and potato curry (we have so many peas)
wednesday - chili con carne (we have tonnes of kidney beans)
thursday - chick pea curry (we have 2 portions from the last time stored in the freezer)
friday - lentil, pinto bean and cashew burgers (cause we froze the mix when we made it)

Other than that, the fact that we are moving into my folks place for a couple of months means that we have to decide, what do we need essentially and what can we put away till we move into out house.

In the meantime, we are having work done on our cottage. We were able to buy it outright last year and it has an acre of land with it too so we are really looking forward to moving in... which we will... after the honeymoon in october.

So, there are many knitting and sewing projects lagging (of course my knitting will count as essential item and not be packed) and my blog has become a sparse and infrequently updated mess.... I feel so boring!

There are many good points to the move, this flat is driving us nuts right now anyway, plus it is a lot less expensive to live in a house.

So, for boring-ness and silence I apologise, bear with me.

7 random things...

I think it's probably the first time someone tagged me to do anything like this, but Arja tagged me with the '7 random things' meme, so here they are...

1. I'm pretty much willing to try anything and usually once I have started something I am determined to finish.... eg. it meant I abseiled down the side of a hospital for a lung cancer foundation

2. It's said I am a 'strongwilled' person.... a nice way for those who love me to call me a stubborn ass.

3. I lived in India and then Pakistan when I was small.

4. I have a real Marmite addiction.

5. Sitting in the grass at sunset on a warm day is heaven to me.

6. I love being in the operating theater and all that it entails, it's where I feel most at home. I am not faint or weak at the site of blood or bits, and while I started medicine with a leaning towards pediatrics, I am finishing with a most definate desire to be a surgeon.

7. I absolutely adore australian wildlife, especially wombats.

Not fabulously interesting, but certainly random. I would add that I am a complete and utter tea addict and that I cant function without it, but, that's not really a random fact.

I am supposed to tag 7 people... I wouldnt want to force you, but please, if you read this and you feel you are up to it...consider yourself tagged (you know who you are!!!).

Stitched up...

Look what arrived yesterday....


Lots and lots of yummy stitch charts. ... 332 yummy stitch charts to be more precise



At the moment I am so overwhelmed I cant make my mind focus long enough to even begin thinking of applying them. The ideas flick around in my head as much as the pages.



It's really great and really comprehensive with lovely big glossy pics. I love it!



Also, yarn from a swap on ravelry arrived. I promised Man I would make him socks with it, so I cast on last night. I am waiting on some needles for my own spring socks.


There is a pattern in there but you cant see it yet. I dont mind really in the end whether or not the pattern is very clear, the sock yarn is interesting enough (of course, that's why the stitch pattern isnt very clear though)



I am much better, thanks for the get well thoughts, still have a cough, but most of the rest of it is gone. Back to the old life on Monday.

I am in my final semester. That's a scary thought. I have been in the degree for 6 years, I am in the final semester of it. It was a relatively safe place to be, but soon I'll be thrown into the big world where I have to take real responsability for my actions, where my learning finally makes the difference between good and bad, where I have to figure out on my own what to do with people. I wonder what it's going to be like.

Sick day

Another non-day has slipped by in which I have eaten a breakfast, lunch and dinner of Pill Cocktails and vitamins.

I felt a little better this morning so I flopped around the house trying to pick up a little and make the place look a bit better only to discover that I had overdone it and spent the rest of the afternoon feeling and looking like something that crawled off the screen of 'Night of the living dead', eventually succumbing to a long nap in bed in an attempt to kill the headache.

Back to the doc tomoro to tell her that indeed antibiotics did help and that I'll be needing a 'sick note'. Maybe next week I might actually be productive. If I am not still coughing up pieces of my lungs.

Best go, I'm sure to be due a dose of something

Hot water.... at last

Well, that hot water pipe that burst over a week ago now was fixed last night when my fabulous father (jack of all trades) turned up last night and said.... "oh, you still dont have that fixed... hang on, my tools are in the car"

Fantastic.... now there is hot water coming from the tap in the kitchen!

I paid him back with cream cheese and parma ham toasties.

As the gals of the sock year know, I have not finished my feb socks.... though, I am here


My progress on all things is slightly hindered by this delightful bout of flu I have. I gave in and went to the doc today, so it must be bad.

Astrum Beret : : A knitting pattern

I bought this fabulous wool boucle from Yarntopia Treasures and I knew it was destined to be a beret. It’s knitted top down to use lovely neat yarn over increases as a feature of the pattern, resulting in an asterix of sorts.

So here’s how to do it…

Materials:

Aprox. 230 yards of sport weight wool

The beret is knit in a round, so, you need whatever needles you use to knit on the round in a size 4mm (US size 6) (i.e. a set of 4mm dpns, 2 circular size 4 needles, 1 long circular size 4mm needle whichever you feel comfortable with. )

Gauge:

aprox 5 stitches per inch. I used a looser gauge as the boucle is more effective when not so closely knit. However, if you aren’t using boucle, use a thicker yarn and aim for the same gauge.

Abbreviations

CO Cast on

K Knit

P Purl

M1 Increse one stitch in last knitted stitch

YO yarn over

SKP Slip the next stitch knit-wise onto right hand needle, knit the next stitch, pass the slipped stitch over the knitted stitch.

2x2 Rib knit 2 stitches, purl 2 stitches

St Stitches

Rnd round

I knit this with one long circular and cast on with figure 8 magic loop for a neater start. If you haven’t done this before you can find instructions here, or you can just cast on and join the round in your usual way.

Begin! …

CO 4 stitches

Knit one round even.

Next round: increase one stitch in every stitch (8 st). Repeat this step on the next round (16 st)

Place a marker at the start of the round

K1 M1 K7 M1 K1 M1 K7 M1

*K2 M1 rep from * to end of round (30 st)

• K one Rnd even

*K3 M1 rep from * to end of round (40 st)

• K one Rnd even

*K4 YO rep from * to end of round (50 st)

• K 2 Rnds even

*K5 YO rep from * to end of round (60 st)

• K2 Rnds even

*K6 YO rep from * to end of round (70 st)

• K2 Rnds even

Repeat this pattern, increasing 1 stitch before the YO each time and knitting 2 even rounds after each increase round.

Stop repeats after you complete *K14 YO rep from * to end of round (150 st)

-End of the increase pattern

K 5 Rnds even (you should still have 150 st)

-The decreases begin here

K13 SKP

K12 SKP (130 st)

• K 1 Rnd even

K11 SKP

K10 SKP (110 st)

• K 1 Rnd even

K9 SKP

K8 SKP (90 st)

• K 1 Rnd even

K1 K2tog, K45, K2tog K to the end of the round (88 St)

Work 2x2 rib for 1 inch (or desired band width)

Loosely cast off (try the stretchy Russian Cast off) and sew in the tails of yarn.

Now all that’s left is to block it.

This pattern is far from perfect, so, if you have any questions, corrections or suggestions please feel free to leave me a comment.

Russian cast off : : A knitting tutorial

The Russian cast off (Russian bind off) is a looser, stretchier and more elegant way of casting off than the traditional method. It works particularly well as a finishing to ribbing, especially on a ribbed collar or a ribbed band (eg on a hat).

To start with, take your row of stitches (practice on a swatch first I think)




Knit the first one as you normally would when casting off



Now, insert the left needle in the back of the stitch you just knitted, you should have this sort of thing...



Now, take the tip of the right needle and insert it in the next stitch, as if to knit,



you should see a lovely cross formed with the stitches and the needle through both of them and out the back, like this



Now, just pass the yarn round the needle as usual for a knit stitch



Pull the point of the needle back through your cross, you should have a lovely stitch on your needle


Now pull that off the left needle, and start again


Put the left needle through the back of the stitch on the right


Right needle through next stitch to knit


Knit



Off



Keep going, it should look like this



and eventually, you have this



Here are a couple of examples of this stitch in real live action.....

The collar of the Drops Jacket



The band of the Astrum Beret



Simple, elegant and useful, give it a go.