I wore shorts for the first time today.
And it hasn't even been sunny!
Looking forward to the Summer holidays up North already.
Taken on our last Summer holiday to Northland, that's J in the water with LittleMiss.
...even the flowers are smiling!
No, I didn't use photoshop.
I was mowing the lawns so had to pick it to show J.
A couple of finished tops needed photos taken. Normally I just find a good spot in the backyard, but this time I thought it might be more fun to take them at the park.
And of course that meant they got to play also!
It didn't take long before they'd had enough of the sensible photos.
(I needed some better photos of my Amphitrite vest on LittleMiss, but BigMiss didn't bring a jersey so she got cold and put it on)
I get so caught up with my own design work that I don't seem to knit many other patterns.
But the other day there was a callout for testers of a new shawl pattern that looked simple and quick. Though I commented that I didn't have quite the right yarn for it and wasn't too sure about the time to commit.
Then I got a message saying that the designer's yarn supplier was willing to give the yarn for free to the testers and I decided that, yes, I did actually have time to knit it after all!
This is the yarn I got:
A beautiful silk-merino 2ply/laceweight by
Spinning a Yarn in a gorgeous pink colourway (it had no tag so I don't know the name).
It was such beautiful yarn to work with and so soft!
Here is the finished shawl, modelled by BigMiss:
I love the zig-zag detailling that decreases in length. You can see how at the end it's only a small zig-zag here:
I'm not much of a shawl person myself and when my Mum saw it last weekend she thought it might be just right for her!
I did mean to give it to her to take home, but forgot so it might have to be sent up for her birthday in a couple of weeks instead.
This time last year we had just started our (major) renovations. It seems that after Blogtober I slacked off in talking about it all.
Maybe it was because it was so busy, maybe I didn't think anyone was interested, who knows?
But now, a year later, you might be wondering what it's all like (and if it's finished!)
We went from this:
to this:
It appears we're rather useless at taking before and after pictures and this was the only one I could find that showed the same end of the house.
And are we finished?
Almost.
The only things missing are curtains. And there is all the outside/landscaping we want to do, but that's another story!
Yeah, I know, the pictures don't show you much. We did a lot of internal rearrangements also, but the full extent of it all is a bit hard to show in photos. If you really want to see, let me know in the comments and I can show the before and after plans to give a better idea.
Isn't it gorgeous?
It's Cascade Heritage Silk and, wow, is it soft!
This is from
Tangled Yarns, dyed by Kelly in 'Wasabi'. Destined to become (yet another) new design.
This is my latest design:
A cute little girl's cardigan.
(Worked bottom-up for a change)
Now, you might be wondering why I have the needle threaded through the middle of the chest?
It's because this is what I did next:
I ripped back an entire evening's work.
Yep, knitting something once isn't good enough - I have to knit the exact same object twice.
(Incase you're wondering what was wrong with it - the buttonholes were spaced too far apart for what I wanted.)
I'm just pleased I left my waste yarn in place on the sleeves, it would've been a bit tricky otherwise. I think I've learnt not to underestimate my fussy-ness!
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