A little Twist and Twirl set

Finished this little set last week in time to take up to Montville. I thought it was a pretty set to give them an idea of the type of thing I like to knit.

The committee of the Sunshine Coast Crafts wanted to see as much of my knitting as possible at their last meeting to decide it my work was good enough to sell in their lovely little craft shop! Although I shan't be selling this one it is already earmarked for my group, Knitting for Brisbane's Needy on Yahoo Groups!

The answer is yes!

Not only baby knits but adult knits too.

This is my dream come true!


Not only will I be selling my knitting but I get to work in the shop a minimum of one day a month (voluntary work of course) to help out. The shop sells everything crafty - sewing, wood turning, jewellery, pottery, the most gorgeous felted hats ( I nearly bought one on the spot) all by local artists.

I have until the first Monday in August to be accepted officially - so am using the time to stock pile as many little garments as I can.

In the meantime I am knitting like a maniac to get the blue wool yarn knitted into a sweater for Rick (daughter Simone's S.O.) I ripped out the whole back the day before yesterday - aaaaagh! because it was going to be at least half a size too big!

And horrors! Simone's beautiful ASJ is too small and I have to undo all the i-cord, and then rip back the sleeve cuffs and re knit them much longer, and then unpick back to before the buttonholes (yes, all the mitred bands and neckband) and re-knit it to make it a bit less "firm" - the silly girl measured a sweater like I asked her - but instead of the most loose fitting and comfortable one that I asked for, she measured a close fitting one - which of course affects the math considerably when you are making a button up jacket! *Sigh* I have just enough left over wool to do it too thank goodness.


The little set above is the Twist and Twirl Layette - took about 8 hours knitting to make both jacket and hat. I am finishing a diagonal baby blanket to match - and there will be sweet little sockies too.
http://www.p2designs.com/images/patterns/set-TwistTwirl.html

And here's what is next!

This gorgeous pure wool was on sale at Big W - and so tonight I get to cast on a sweater for Rick, Simone's SO!

This is actually his last year's Christmas present - so I am going to make him a lovely aran patterned pullover . The colour is a bit paler than the picture shows - it's called Dark Petrol.

I am so pleased - 100 gram balls for $2.67 each - bargain ! - and it is machine washable.

The classic pattern is from an old Woman's Day magazine pullout - I have made it several times before - it only needs the extra length - amazing how short men wore their sweaters a few years back! I have been so bogged down with the Adult Surprise Jacket these past weeks - I can't wait to get started on this!!

Surprise, Surprise!!

Remember this?

The start of The Adult Surprise Jacket?

It's finished at last!!

It was supposed to be finished for daughter Simone's birthday, 26th June, but it wasn't, so bought her some gold earrings instead for the actual day. ( The jeweller's had a sale!!)

This is what she will receive in a few days' time!

It's hard to believe that shapeless blob metamorphasised into this elegant jacket!

I am very proud of it - I actually used attached i-cord from cuff to cuff and around all the edges!

The neckband was mitred as were the top and bottom corners of the fronts. Next time I do one though - I shall knit the i-cord twice into each corner of the front bands to stop that curve.

See? And thanks to Marilyn in Texas who gave me some great tips and advice I finally girded my loins, and gathered up my courage in my hands, and after weeks of procrastinating - I did it!

And loooooooook! how good it looks.

I remembered a tip from someone on the knitbabysurprise group too - that you make the i-cord from the wrong side and it rolls to the front. Sure enough, I tried it from the right (public) side, and it rolled to the back. So frogged it and re-did it from the wrong side.

I found the best video of attached i-cord technique on http://www.knittingatknoon.com/

Here is yet another picture of the finished article. I made nice long ribbed cuffs that can fold back. And if the sleeves are not long enough for Simone - well, I can just undo them and knit down to make them longer! Yes, the sleeves are lengthened downwards after the body of the jacket is done! And I defy anyone to find where the stitches were picked up to do that!

The buttons ? Well - anyone who knows me knows that I have hundreds of buttons! But after an hour of searching I could not find the exact right buttons for this jacket! Then - light bulb moment - I remembered a button-through linen skirt in the wardrobe that I never wear - being calf length, it had about twenty buttons in a bronze metal. Voila!!! Perfect !!

Nodding Violet after the Rain

This is Violet after the rain - isn't she beautiful??

And this is outside in the middle of winter folks!

And this is Grandma's Knitting Place ! One of them anyway - this is our back deck. On the table is Violet being given some TLC some weeks back now. Hasn't she improved??

The towels are the dogs' - I didn't notice the raggy old things on the line when I took the pic!!

Sick of my Sunsets yet?

We had some rain - only for 24 hours - and oh it was so blissful - albeit very cold and windy too.

We really need so much more though.

However - we always get glorious sunsets a day or so after - this is right across the road from our house - literally a few hundred yards away.

You can see it was cold - the guys fishing are wearing thick jackets - their legs and feet are bare though - brrr!

Every sunset we have here is different.

We have had some very high westerly winds lately - oh so cold! By our standards anyway - 60 degrees F sometimes!

Here's what a sunset with a high wind looks like! Gorgeous!!

More Baby Knits

Have been very slow on the knitting front since my last post!

However, my friend Penny posted a little jacket and blanket on her blog, which was the subject of a couple of nasty comments,because of the colour. I had some yarn in a lovely nutmeg brown - so shamelessly copied her idea - used the same baby jacket pattern and made up a little blanket identical to hers!! Told you I would Pen!















The colour is a nutmeg brown and very attractive - all from a couple of odd balls in the donation bag! It is very tiny - just preemie size.


Here is a little sweetie - Rindy's Raglan - all for not quite one 50 gram ball of anonymous wool, from a batch bought from Wangaratta Knitting Mills - thank you Karen, it was lovely to knit with. It has little nubs of white fluffy stuff throughout the blue. The white collar and cuffs are a left over scrap of Angoretta. The buttons are little white bunnies - from daverun on ebay of course!

Another little bit of scrap yarn made this next little jacket. I really am trying to use up my stash!