Photo Shoot

I love mittens

 

I HATE the cold

 

Those two statements merged this winter. I have now knitted three pairs of mittens

 

Husband thinks I'm crazy, until my cold hands meet his bare skin and then he remembers why I need them

 

Last week, I finished the most divine pair of mittens as a test for Katja from Woolly World Knits

 

I splurged out and bought some beautiful Touch Yarn

 

My LYS had some, so I chose a skein of Merino Random 4ply

 

The mittens have turned out sooooo well that when my workmate asked me to take photos of her latest Finished Object, I HAD to get her to take pics of my mittens

 

Of course there are only so many angles one can get photos of mittens.... but I'm happy with the results

 

 

 

Of course there were a few photos that didn't make the Ravelry cut...

 

 

Then there was one were I got a bit over enthusiastic and got stuck in the rose bush

Thorns are NOT cool

 

This photo ended up being my favourite

 

Naturally I'm now making wrist warmers - for when I need to use my fingers :-)

 

Make sure you check out the photos of Leisl's lovely cardi too

 

xBecky

 

 

Springtime

You know what I learned last year?

 

How to work out Daylight Savings

 

Every year its always the same "do the clocks go forward or backwards an hour?"

 

I was told this little piece of common sense (not my usual forte) and now I always remember

"Spring Forward in Springtime"

 

So we move the clocks forward

 

That means when we are heading into Winter, we are going back an hour

 

Genius

 

I know

 

Since its Springtime, I have added a photo of one of my peach trees

 

This one is called 'Christina' and has amazingly deep red leaves one the blossoms disappear

 

 

In case your wondering, no I did not name all my trees... well, maybe some

 

No I'm kidding!

 

Some of the tree's had names on their tags so I try to just go by those

 

Yes, in case you were wondering, my husband does think I'm crazy...

 

The plum tree tag said 'Luisa' and another said 'Bert's Early' so its name Bert or was that Dan...?

 

One of the orange trees said 'Richard's Special'. My brother's name is Richard so its easy to remember

 

Don't get me started on Orion... its a super duper early peach tree and is already covered in teeny tiny fruit

 

Following up on my Orchard post two years ago, yes I have made a list of all my trees and even done a 'floor plan' of them so that I know who is who

I don't really need it except to check the finer details, like which of the four plum trees has the round plums that will be ready at Christmas

Mmmm plums...

 

Now speaking of Christmas and the approaching summer season, I'm getting my fitness on!

 

I know I'm a shocker and this is attempt #896825351 at getting fit

 

So I joined the gym

 

 Since I have to pay for it, it makes sense to actually go right?

 

So I've been going twice a week

So far I've only attended the the ab class and the weights class a few times each. I really enjoy going along to them and the instructors make it fun

(insert husband saying ' "fun and enjoy" are not appropriate words to describe that punishment')

 

Next week we start up playing Hockey again. We all know how last season turned out...

 

The goal: I should be able to at least lift my own scuba gear this summer!

 

Aaaannnddd since you know me only too well, here's a pic of my latest knitted creation

 

 

 

Its called the Voluminosa Cowl and I was super excited to be apart of the Knit-Along and a chance to win some amazing yarn I might not otherwise get to ever use

 

I was going to write that I have all my fingers and toes cross that I'll win the final prize in a few days time, but if I do I probably won't win so just note to yourself that I haven't 'actually' said that!

 

Next up, I'm testing another hat and some mittens

 

I spoiled myself and spent more than I usally would on yarn. I found this at my LYS hiding down on one of the bottom shelves 

 

 

Once I untangle it, I'm going to use it for the mitten test!

 

Hint to family: buy Becky a skein winder for Christmas....

 

Lots of love

 

xBecky

 

 

 

 

 

Special Delivery for a Special KAL

Look what arrived in the mail for me this week!

 

My new KnitPro Nova Metal Interchangeable circular set and a Symfonie Wood DPN set!

 

Eeek I'm so excited!!!!

 

 

The first project I'll be making with these lovely new toys is the Voluminosa Cowl by Katja Ottosson

 

I have my all my fingers and toes crossed hoping I win a prize in the Knit-A-Long (KAL) which starts on Sunday

 

I'll be using some lovely green/blue yarn that I purchased at my LYS just for this project.

It was perfect timing. Here I was at my LYS talking about needing 12ply yarn and the ladies at the store said that one of their suppliers missed printing one small thing on the labels of the yarn and had to discount it to clear it!

Yussss!

 

 

Its lambs wool and oh so lovely

 

 

Wishlist/Update

Hi!

 

I don't have much of an update, other than to ramble on and on.....

 

So I thought I'd share what I've been dreaming about lately

 

And by dreaming, I mean drooling

 

So you can exclude zombies. Plus that was last night's nightmare....

 

Anyway... I've been looking at yarn online

 

I worked out that to buy enough for two upcoming projects, and using the yarn recommended by the designer, it would cost me AUD $72.90

 

Thats $84 NZD!

 

Outragous when I could get a suitable enough yarn at my LYS* for less than $20 for the same projects!

 

But a little squirrel (who am I kidding, we don't have squirrels in NZ) better make that possum, told me my LYS is having a good sale soon so I will be keeping my eyes open!

 

I've also been drooling at this:

 

 

Can you tell what it is? Its the KnitPro interchangeable circular set

 

I MUST HAVE IT!!!

 

I look at it all the time, just to make sure its still real

 

All the knitting nerds say 'yeea-aah'

 

Ahem

 

Well in other yarn related news I cast on my blue hand-dyed about a week ago

 

I started making this scarf

(yip, still obsessed with WWK)

 

Here's my progress so far:

 

 

I've done over 30cm so far and almost two pattern repeats

 

Only 140cm to go!

 

You can check out my up-to-date progress here. Its not going very quickly as I'm working on something else at home and only working on this at my LYS in my lunchbreak

 

Once I finish the at-home-special-request/secret-project I'll get back to the scarf

 

With the weather warming up I'm running out of cold to wear my woolly items!

 

Here's Whangarei's weather for this week

 

 

So while this was a boring non-eventful post, I hope you do like my blog

 

Because I enjoy writing it and you're not getting rid of me that easily!!!

 

 

 

*LYS = Local Yarn Store

 

 

 

Project Update!

Its been a while since I last updated you about my recent projects

It was when I had just finished my first Milo vest for Milo May

 

I made a second one for my niece, Miss 7

Its identical to her sisters one but this pic shows the back

 

 

Now I've slowly been working my way through the Woolly World Knits patterns

 

They sucked me in with their pretty colours

 

Since discovering Katja's patterns, I've developed a obsession with hats and mittens

 

Another Testing opportunity came up but this time for a Hat/Mitten set so I started with the Validus Mittens

Everyone else did their hats first and you know me, I like to do things differently!

 

 

Then I made the Validus Hat

 

 

I was hoping for a cold day to bundle up with my hat and mittens for an awesome photo shoot, but the sun came out and ruined my plans!

(plus I finished the day before my Samoa trip and I needed to get my test results in)

 

Then I finished a Webby

 

 

Ok I know the photo looks like an egg yolk but thats what you get with white bench-tops

I wanted to show how the top of the hat and the 'web' looks

That and the picture of me wearing this hat in my boat with a raincoat, sunglasses and life-jacket on is not inspiring...



 

Then, I realised a certain little lady's birthday was coming up and I had promised her a hat

Remember my Hat Marathon conversation with Kate?

 

So she got this Arya hat

 

 

I'm proud to say I didn't make a single mistake with this hat

Not that I always make mistakes, I don't, but this pattern was so beautifully written and so easy to follow I'll try to make one for myself

That and I kept the old written version because Me + Charts = FAIL so I need written versions

 

Now I'm planning her brother's hats

I'm not saying they'll get their's for their birthdays (Samuel, Isaac.... if you're reading this)

It might be random, it might be Christmas

 

Who am I kidding, it'll probably be their birthdays

 

I've been looking up Men's hats and found ONE I like

 

ONE!!!!

 

Where are all the men's hat designers?

Designers who use DK/8 ply yarn?

 

Non-exsistant thats where! If you're out there and reading this..... I want hats for boys/men

Not hats that can be made with pink yarn and changed into girls hats

Oh and I need it by January at the latest :-)

 

Anway..... moving on....

 

Last night I finished these beauties

They're called Avena

 

 

One is a little bit tighter than the other because I made it while watching a zombie tv show and let me tell you zombie's scare me more than anything else in the world

But I keep watching it because I NEED to know that they don't take over the world!

 

So as you can see I'm a walking advertisement for Woolly World Knits!

 

And I'm proud of it because the patterns are amazing

 

Why don't you pop over and have a look at all the pretty patterns?

 

Now remember I told you I'd give hand-dying yarn a try?

 

Well I did it!

 

I got my large stock-pot, mixed my die, added the yarn and stired it all around

 

I tried Blue

 

 

I tried Yellow

  

 

I also tried Red but the photos of it in the pot aren't very good

 

I ended up with some beautiful colours!

 

 

I started winding up the blue last night and its oh so squishy and pretty!!

 

 

I also learnt a few things:

1. Don't tie the skein up too loosly or the ties move together and everything else ends up knotted

2. Use acrylic for ties because those don't soak up the colour. I used opposite colours so the ties were easier to find

3. The Spin Cycle on my washing machine is awesome. I laid it out so it wouldn't tangle and since all the water was spun out it took very little time to dry

4. Don't tie the ties too tight. My red had white streaks because the die couldn't get through to the yarn on the inside!

 

 

I'll be using these skeins for myself!

 

(Insert evil genius laugh here)

 

And I'm planning on casting on one of these amazing colours in the next few days!

 

 

Update

First things first

 

I promised you a pic of the black beanie I made for my Mum's workmate

 

In my opinion, it was a huge 'read a pattern' fail!

It started out as the Tamora Hat but once it was long enough and I started doing the decreases, I realised I had done the whole thing wrong

I did K2, P2 twice then switched like the hottie bottle cover pattern

So instead I kept going then tied up all the ends together and put a pom pom on top

 

Also as promised, here's the finished hottie bottle

 

I was going to buy a ribbon, but decided instead to do a crochet chain for the tie - genius idea

(thanks Lisa)

 

In my last post, I mentioned it was Milo May

I've managed to get two Milo's made!

 

Here's the first for my niece

 

The second one isn't blocked and ready, but I will show you once it is

 

Now I haven't decided what I'll make next, but I will be attempting to knit 'right-handed' as a few patterns coming up that I want to make are too confusing to switch over to lefty instructions

Wish me luck and good tension

 

Since my blog isn't supposed to be just about knitting (whoops) I thought I'd share about something else

 

Did you know I can run 1.3kms without stopping? I checked good old Google Maps and it used to be 3.5kms

I'm trying to go for a run three times a week at least

Last week I checked the record I've been keeping, and I only ran twice! Uh-Oh

 

So I think I'll have to start getting up early and heading out because its getting so dark at night that I have to take a torch with me on my run. I live in the country, on a metal road where there are no street lamps

It's scary

 

I always manage to excersie for two weeks and then give up. I'm determined this time to NOT QUIT.

At least three-four times a week, I need to do some form of excersie for about half an hour

(I say 'about' half an hour because I almost die after seven minutes)

 

I'll get there slowly

 

Remember my last attempt?

Read about that disaster here

 

Or the time before that?

Read about it here

 

I'm going to have to stay away from balls and cats. Then I should be fine

 

*Just so you know, the lone claw is still there, I've been watching and waiting to see what it will become

 

Ooh and coming up soon I will show you the Chicken Mansion that husband and I have been working on - yes I'm getting chickens!

 

What have you been doing?

 

More Knitting...

I have decided that I need lots and lots of rain

 

So much rain that I can't go outside and do anything at all

 

Then I'll be able to sit inside and knit ALL DAY

For several days

 

So far, I've managed to get through two items on my list of six things to make

 

I made the wrist warmers

 

 

I made the Hottie Bottle Cover

 

 

 

and thats about it

 

Mum's workmate asked for a beanie

 

Thats it. Just a beanie. A black beanie

 

So I made one and haven't taken a pic of it yet because its black and there isn't enough light in the day when I get home from work to get any good shots of it

 

Be sure to check out my Projects page in a few days to see how it turned out

 

I was a huge screw up so I made what looked like a small cowl and sewed all the ends up together then put a pom pom on top

 

Plus it threw off my queue order!!!!

 

Breathe

 

Okay, so here I was working through my queue and all of a sudden, its May!

 

Its Milo May!

 

I haven't had a chance to join up before because I haven't been knitting for a year yet

 

I jumped this ahead in my queue and now I'm making a pink Milo vest

 

I'm hoping to be fast enough to make two. If I can, I'll even try squeezing in three!

You have to start and finish the vest within May and there are random prizes!!!

Fingers crossed!

 

Once I've done that, I'm going to make the Lizzie

 

Isn't it pretty?

 

Then I'll get started on my queue again

 

 

 

 

 

Hat Marathon Update

Okay so I've given up on hats

 

I made four hats

 

There are only so many hats you can make before a pair of mittens jumps out at you and screams "Make MEEEEeeee!!!!"

 

I still need to get rid of all those teeny tiny balls of scraps, but a wise co-worker said "why not make a hot water bottle cover with stripes or something?"

 

So that's what I shall do (after I make the one I purchased more yarn for only yesterday)

 

I have a few things on my 'to make' list

 

1. A pair of hand-warmers which are cast on and in progress. 

 

2. A hot water bottle requested by my sister-in-law - I'll have to make this twice, because I want one too

 

3. A case for my iPad. As simple as these are, I can't just whip up a knitted one like with my crochet.

I'm not creative that way with knitting and I just cannot figure out my own pattern!

I just don't feel like I know what I'm doing yet... still waiting for that lightbulb moment...

 

4. Zeg Wamers - because who does't want to dress like a ballerina and wear these over pants?

And to put it quite simply, scare the bejebus out of their husband because they aren't allowed to buy a onesie...

 

5. Slippers. I have one on my queue, but I'm not sure they're 'the ones' yet. Still deciding.

 

6. A Cowl for my Bestie. I made three of these last year and they are very, very easy to make. I'm thinking of making the Big Herringbone Cowl because it looks like the stitch would be really hard but I'm sure its actually very easy. Its going to be one of those "Did you MAKE THAT???" moments.

I told her about it so now I have to make it. I've got until September so depending on my knitting speed, this might jump the queue

 

Since I have the patience of a ... wait, I have no patience! I had to go and take new pictures of my four hats

 

A newborn hat

Cashmere. Mmmmm

 

 

A child sized hat

I think I'll give this to my niece. Miss 7

 

 Hermoine's Hat (yes, you read that correctly)

I'm keeping this one for myself. Its made out of Alpaca and is so squishy and soft!

 

Tamora Hat

Stolen by Mum

(pic with her wearing it is closer to the actual colour)

 

I still have to make more hats for Husband's young cousins, but the colours they want are not the colours of my stash in a large enough quantity so they'll have to wait

 

Or I'll just go and buy some new yarn tomorrow....

 

And screw up my queue order

 

 

 

 



Miss Jane Cardigan

I did it! I made something!

 

And not only did I make something, I made something that fits!

 

I’m soooo super proud of myself as you can imagine

 

This time last year I wasn’t interested one bit in knitting, but a workmate of mine was on Ravelry and I started to properly look at the beautiful things she had made for her children

 

I started to be really jealous so I got my Mum to teach me how to knit (again)

 

I sort of knew what to do from when I was about eight and Mum taught me the basic knit stich

 

Back on viewing Ravelry, I realised all the things she made that I loved the most were designed by Tikki

 

Going off topic here for a moment, I need to let you know that I organise our office Secret Santa, I had heard from staff that the previous person in my role always asked someone to be their ‘not-so-secret’ Santa because if someone pulled out my name, I was sure to get groans of disappointment in the fact that I would know who they were

 

Straight away I thought of my knitting co-worker and I asked her if she wouldn’t mind

 

I of course, knew exactly what to get her because she had been talking about wanting to make it for her little girl

 

She surprised me last Christmas by buying me the Miss Jane cardigan pattern

 

At a first glance, the pattern looked hard

 

 

Really hard

 

But as a wise knitter told me, only read one row at a time and I’ll have no trouble at all

 

So I did, and boy was it easy peasy!

 

Somewhere along the way I had to rip out about 15-20 rows *cry*

 

And drop a stitch on purpose to fix a problem I found a few too many rows down

 
 

I learnt the hard way not to play yardage chicken with my rows, and in doing so also learnt how to start a new ball of yarn part way through a row

 
 

And hide the dangling yarn from the cat who likes to chew on my needles

Oh no wait... that's every time!

 

It’s been a great experience making this and one that I thoroughly enjoyed

 

 

 

What do you think? (of the cardi, not my Husbands photography skills)

Howdy Doody

Its been a while hasn't it?

 

I have no motivation to blog and for a while I thought I might give up

 

But I've decided not to

 

As I sit reading other blogs, from people who post every week (or several times a week) I've felt like I don't acheive anything blog-worthy

 

Where do people find the time to do all that baking/crafting/running around after children?

 

Then I realise, I've taken out the baking and children and have only been crafting (that and I don't have children!)

 

I also realised, that while everyone blogged for the past month, I've been out at the beach in my cheap beach house (my caravan) relaxing. Now that is doing something useful!

 

I then picked out all my projects from crafting that I've made since I last blogged (about crafting). There's been quite a few items appear

 

A Cowl -pattern here

 

Another Cowl here

 

I loved this one so much I made it twice



 

 

I then made this cute Cardigan for an expecting mummy

The pattern was in a magazine

I then found out that I made the cardigan a bit too short in the body so I said I would make something else

 

So I made this little vest

and broke the first rule of knitting, I didn't measure my gage

I knit too tightly/small and should have used bigger needles

Now this 6 month size vest has become a newborn size

 

To top it off, I can't find the vest to give it away

I put it somewhere, came back from holiday and its gone

My secret 'it'll be safe here' place has betrayed me

 

While on holiday, I started and finished one sock

The pattern is in the book Knitting Rules by Stephanie Pearl McPhee

 

It was  an easy pattern to follow

I forgot... again... to use bigger needles and now the sock won't fit me

I'm still going to make another one

The pair will make a good present for someone, once I find someone who has smaller feet than me

 

I've now started on this 'Miss Jane' cardigan for myself

I found a problem with it last night and will have to frog it back past the mistake

It makes me want to cry

 

Now since you've probably noticed, I've said I was camping

 

I went to Whananaki

This is the view from our campsite

 

We went fishing at 5am 

 

I caught a big snapper

 

We were circled by a shark

 

Then we went diving

This is JJ

I caught a crayfish

 

There are certain rules when catching these things

The females have to be smaller than males

I caught a female and it was only just too small!

 

It was a great holiday with lots of sun and warmth

 

Last of all, I learned a bit of beekeeping

We had one day at home before going back to work and my afternoon was full of excitement

 

I put on the beekeeping clothes

 

 

I got stuck to them in about five minutes

Especially wearing socks and gumboots

 

Its very very hot here

 

JJ's Grandad showed me what to do and we were away

First we pulled out the frames and put them into the bottom of the bigger box

 

As we did, we hunted for the queen

 

She was hiding and it wasn't until the last frame that we found her

 

I kept pointing to the drones

 

Random bee fact #1 = The Queen does not have black stripes

 

The photo is blurry (bees do not sit still)

The queen is in the bottom half of the photo, she's to the right hand side and is dark orange compared to the rest of the bees. One of the drones is on the top right side of the pic, he's big

 

We then made sure the queen was in the bottom box, put the queen filter on it and put a second box on top (this is so she can't lay bee grubs in your eating honey)

 

I've been told that bees can fill the top box within a few weeks if the weather is good

 

I'm looking forward to learning how to get the honey out of the box and buying my own bee equipment

Its expensive so it looks like I'll be saving up for a while!

 

And now, that I've put everything down like this I do feel as I've acomplished something

 

I've made six big or complicated knitting/crochet patterns (for my skill level) and started another even larger item

 

I went on holiday with a husband who is an 'active' relaxer

Me? I'm a sit on my bum and do nothing relaxer

 

I learned how to move bees from a small beginner hive to a large hive

 

Wow!

 

What have you been up to?