Beautiful wool, but what to do??

I bought this wool from my LYS a few weeks ago for about $2.50 a ball. Its super stunning, 50% fine merino - those poor sheep :( - and 50% alpaca. Its Aymara
I've knitted the cream one up about 3 times now, and I haven't been happy with the result. Several scarf attempts later I decided to try dyeing the cream one, and then when I put it with the other 2 colours, well they go so nicely that I just can't do it.

It needds to be a loose knit scarf as while this is a fine wool, its very bulky, and goes stiff and scrunchy when knitted tightly, and thats not pleasant...

I just dont know what to do with it!!

Edited 2m later to include photos. Yay for broadband finally!! :)

Gorgeous fabric

I bought this today. I went in for 1 skein of DMC in red for my woolaholics kitchen swap, and saw this fabric. Loved it immediately.
Its 2.6m wide backing fabric, but far too nice to go on the back of anything I say. I would like to makea pinny for Jenna from it, teamed with Denim, and I think I would like to make a skirt from it for me. But I have no idea what pattern and I just dont have time to do anything now.
So it might go in the box for NZ where it will get used.

I think Tikki may like it too, so I might see if she wants a swatch to make something for her little girl.

The other thing I could do is use it for a bedspread - just an all over quilted pattern on it, some batting, a binding (I'm thinking scalloped) and voila - a new bedspread.

Thankfully the shop keeper marked it down for me in order for me to take the last of it on the bolt. There was 2m, and I really only wanted 1.5, so she knocked the price down from $35 to $26 for me. Ah a bargain - I love a bargain ;)

Wont let me load the picture on.... Grrr

Nemo Shorties

Man - you forget how much fun shorties/longies etc are until you knit them again!
I put all my other knitting down yesterday and made these shorts in about 6hrs. SOOOO much fun! And very quick too.

They are made with the picky pants pattern from LTK, which would have to be my favourtie pattern I think, and the wool was 12ply BFL from Jolly Jumbuk. Irene did a great job with the dye job, they are very bright and cheerful, and so soft! I thought it might have been a bit scratchy while I was knitting it, but when it was knitted up, just has such a nice drape, and feels so soft. Would be lvoely to have a winter jumper from it :) MInd you - not in these colours, might be a bit overpowering!

I've decided I'm not going to muck around with fancy short rows methods anymore. I do the best I can, its quick, there isn't much of a hole on the purl wrap, so who cares. I'm happy with them, and as you can tell from mr wiggle bum in the photos, he's pretty happy too.

Sock Yarn Swap

This was the sock wool I received in the Woolaholics sock yarn swap. Its great - 100% machine washable wool, and the colours are like nothing else I have in my stash, so thats very exciting :)
Bec also sent a pattern she thinks would work well with the wool, Ms Marigold ( http://flintknits.blogspot.com/2007/05/marigold-sock-pattern.html ), and I have to agree - I reckon they will look great knitted up.

Thanks so much Bec - I had to hide the chupa chop from Jenna otherwise I wouldn't get to have it myself :)

Mums Scarf

I bought this wool from a market for mum last year, and I've been trying to decide what to knit with it ever since. There was only 85g, and its handspun so there wont be anymore the same. Just the colour was lovely.
So finally I hunted for a scarf pattern. This was the one row scarf pattern, ( http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2006/10/12/one_row_handspun_scarf.html ) I only cast on 18 stitches, and knitted with 8mm needles I think?

Because it was so short, I blocked the buggery out of it, so the pattern is a bit poxy now, but at least it should go around the neck and be able to be fastened with a brooch. It was the 3rd pattern I tried with this wool, nothing else was working for me, and it was using too much wool for any length to be made, so they all got frogged. Needless to say, I'm happy to get this finished!

Happy birthday Mum - It will be sent off in the mail in the next few days.

A dress for a nappy

We have been on the hunt for new nappies for Hamish as he has had a massive growth spurt in the last couple of months, and finally looks chubby ;)
One of the girls on Nappycino wanted a swap for a nappy that I wanted to try, so this is what I made for her 2yo daughter. I tried it on Jenna, and its sooooo cute! Its more of a tunic than anything, but should fit on top of pants for a year or so, just by moving the buttons.
Jenna wears heaps of this style of pinny, and I love them. I recently made abotu 3 of them, 2 to give away, but they were the longer versions so I am going to hem them all much shorter before they go.
Actually a very good pattern this one - the pants and top in the pack were good too.

Good for me

I went for a run this morning. Well a walk run. Well a walk with a bit of running....
I have lost so much conditioning in a month. I couldn't even go a kilometre before I had to stop and walk. Netball finished a month ago, and I'm already unfit!
Anyway - it felt good, the sun is streaming in our windows at 5:30am now, and Jenna was asleep, Hamish was awake, so I thought bugger it.
Lets see if I can stick to it more than once. 3 times a week would be good.

Trying again....

Here are the sock swap photos..... See what I mean - GORGY!!!!

Sock Swapping Wool

Eeeek!!! I dyed this up today, and I'm soooooo happy with it!
One of them is supposed to go to my swapper, but I want to keep both of them!

I've done a really big repeat, each colour is about 60cm or so, so it *should* do two rounds or there abouts, meaning that it will form stripes for the person knitting. To be truthful I only knitted a couple of rounds of 2 different sock patterns in the flat, and took a guess from there, but all the same, it will form stripes.

So which one do I keep? I'm leaning towards the blueish one. I have some bought wool about the same colour as the pinky one, so the blue will add to my stash ;)

The wool is Patonyle, which has about 20% nylon I think, and it makes the acid wool dyes just burst with colour. So much fun to dye :)

Ok - a bit silly but this photo wont load......
Hmmm, off to ponder!