Shots from Prac

Photos updated...

So I finished my second prac a couple of weeks ago, and I decided to knit a couple of things for my associates - plus of course the mandatory box of roses choccies :)

Steve was my coordinator and my associate for Hard Materials Tech, so he had to put up with me for about 10-15hrs a week. The poor bastard! Occasionally he was heard to say - stop your moaning woman, or, man, am I at home? You get the drift. Needless to say we got along well, there was a healthy amount of mutual respect (which was of course favoured in his direction) and at the end of the day, we were happy to go back to our normal lives.

I decided to make him a hat - Turn a Square Sorry non-ravers.



It was made out of Noro Cash Iroha and Silk Garden lite, and I have to admit - it a little funky! This wool was actually knitted 3 times before it made it into this hat. First it started as a Fake Fair Isle - unfortunately floats carried too tight (I was optimistic so I knitted the whole thing before blocking and failing) and it was frogged. Then it started as another fair isle, but I got sick of that, and then I began this one. I was actually pretty concerned about the colouring, but it looks awesome on. Really funky, great shape and lovely and soft. Yay!



SO I only had 2 other assocaites this prac - one for Physics and one for junior Science. I was so lucky with all of my associates in all of my pracs this year, but John and Sandy, and the classes were awesome. I decided to knit a dishcloth for them, with the choccies. I *guess* they were happy?

For John - here



And for Sandy this one ( a rav link again - I'm sorry.....)

Some little mushies....

These form part of my next swap for TNN. Its a hand dyed wool swap, with some extras. I dyed the wool up ages ago, and I have been having trouble deciding exactly what do theme it around.



Its nice having a theme :) Sort of ties everything together.

So this is one part of my swap - and I hand felted them this morning in the kitchen, and they are rocking cool!!! Like really - I wont show an after pic as I want the whole swap all captured together, but these are just so nice.

Pattern is here and can I just say its rare that my finished items look like they do in the pattern, and this time they do :) Happy little knitting fi!

Hopefully I will have the swap off in about a week. I am working on the big part at the moment, and I think that I will have to hand felt it, which IS NOT COOL.

Fifth post in one day!!

Wow - the big five!

I have had heaps to post over the last month, but unfortunately my iMac went kaput. Turns out that the same problem has no happened 3 times and been repaired under warranty, but when the computer died within 3hrs of having it home from the last repair, that was it.

Apple Asia have been fantastic!! There were massive receipt problems as it was an ex demo, that had been put in the wrong box - so my receipt matched my box s/n, not my actual computer!

They informed me yesterday they are collecting my old puter, and replacing it with a brand spanking new iMac, whcih is just fab. While my old unit was only 18mo, and was working wonderfully (except for one small issue....) a new one is even better :)

So I have been surviving on my 12" laptop for the last 4w, which has been a killer as its very small, and veeeeeery slow - thus no downloading of photos, and no working on Rav for my projects or stash.

I have heaps to update when I get my new unit, so here's hoping the data transfers from the old unit to the new one go smoothly, and I dont lose any important things - like photos and files.

Woodlands Shawl - WIP

This is one of my many WIP's at the moment. Woodland Shawl

I actually helped someone with their's last week - the same lovely person that gave me my strawberry plants, so its definitely a deal that I got the best out of :)

Anyway - I am knitting this in flydesigns - Flying Sheep BFL. Its supposed to be DK weight, but it feels more sportweight to me. I have added an extra 2 repeats on the side, and its going really well. I am about 1/3 into my wool, so I expect it will be short and wide, which is fine since I have lots of long shawls.

Dont you love it when you get into a lace pattern, and you dont have to look at the chart anymore. Even better, when you can knit lace and have a conversation. Even better still, knit it around your small children.

I am really looking forward to finishing this one. I think it will be stunning once it is blocked.

Noro Scarf

Sunday Market Shawl

I made this a couple of weeks ago. Totally, totally love it!!

It would have been no good as a shawl, the pattern I think needs to have a twisted stitch either side of the dropped stitch, like the Clapotis, because only a week of wearing it has made the dropped stitch merge grossly into the next stitch. So there isn't a great thickness to the shawl, and its more long and thin.

However - what a scarf!!! I love this baby!! 3 balls of Noro Silk Garden, and it is a blissful joy to wear. It looks like a nice chunky ribbed scarf, without the weight. It was going to be a gift, but its too nice to give away :)

A rainbow magic cape

I have no idea why - but I decided to make the kids capes. I had some old lining fabric there that I always planned to make something out of, but never got around to it. Turns out it was a perfect amount for 2 rainbow capes.



So roughly - this is how I did it.

Cut out a massive half circle of paper, then halved it, and divided it into 3 segments. Voila - templates.

Then I lay the template on the lining, and cut the segments in order, then overlocked them together.

Following this I decided to line the cape, and I had some pink T-shirt material around. Cut this out using the quarter circle left over from before (on the fold) and sewed around the two together. Turned inside out, top-stitched and quilted in the ditch, then cut a circle out from the top.



I overlocked that, put some grosgrain ribbon on to bind it, and thread through some elastic for the next piece.



Madam is quite happy with her rainbow cape, although it is a bit rough!!! I know a little girl in Oz who would love one, but I fear that my sewing wouldn't be up to her mummy's standard on this project ;) Still - its fully machine washable, and should be able to be played with as much (or as little) as she likes.

Bragging about the garden.....

We have a kick ass garden going at the moment - like really, its going great guns! On a daily basis we are picking peas (well the kids are munching on about 5 pods a day each) spinach, lettuce, and yesterday we picked our first cabbage which was awesome. SOOOO crunchy!

So I thought I would post some bragging shots as heaps has happened since we have nearly been in this house for a year.

So the first one is of my "fernery" - pretty small so far, but give it time! This little corner beside the garage was originally a spot filled with convulvulas, and white tailed spiders. Yuck. Shane ripped out the fence, and cleaned up the spot by removing about 6" of soil. Then we saw how bad the garage wall was next door! Anyway, we want to hedge it up, so we have planted a couple of camellias, and at the back were there is the most shade, we are doing a fernery. SO far I have 4 ferns in - they will all grow in different directions, and I still want to put in a couple of cabbage trees. In 5 years the corner will look amazing!

Next up is my favourite bed:
This is as you come into our car area from the long drive. I have put in a couple of lavender, some rosemary and other herbs, 3 silver birches and a weeping cherry. All around the front are miniature flaxes, and there are the last of the spring bulbs dying off. The edging was done by Shane's dad - the bricky on his first trip to visit us, and its using all the original rocks that were in the garden - over weedmat. Inspiring.......


Shane put this bed in about 2w ago - its another vege patch, looks great right? It has tomatoes up the other end, and potatoes in the rest of it. Just up from it is my new compost bin that we made for a university project. Can't wait until the new fence goes up and we can finish it using all the old palings.


These are some of the fruit trees we have put in, and in behind we turned over a chunk of soil for a potato patch. There are about 6kg of spuds in this year, hopefully we will have plenty to share with friends and family, plus feeding ourselves for a couple of months.


So on to the current harvest! Spinach has been doing fantastically! This is the last of our perpetual spinach, which has been amazing. Great flavour, constant cropping. I've been eating it 2-3 times a week, and its doing well. Unfortunately its about to go to seed, so we might not have much time left with it. Lettuce have just come out of the patch on the right, so I planted that up today with carrots and radishes.


This patch shows our current lettuce crop with a bit more. Up on the top is radishes and carrots (just starting to come through!) On the bottom is some more strawb plants, and my sunflowers. There are 6 there, and they are the giant variety and apparently you can eat their seeds. Yum!

Close up of the straws - they were all free thanks to a friend Shae, and they are thriving! They desperately need pea straw as the fruit is beginning to form and I dont want them to get rotten.


In this shot you can see our cabbages, the end of the celery and the broad beans - whose pods are just starting to form. Not a great lover of broad beans....... Hopefully we find a home for them, and I can't wait to free up my patch again!


These are our peas, which are cropping well, and the cauli's that shane put in. He actually had about 30 caulis in, cause he thought they were broccoli, but we pulled them out as we really, really dont need 30 caulis! 15 or so will be fine. in the bare patch is beetroot and onions, just starting to come through - I expect I will have to thin them in the next few days.


Brag over - there is lots more I could take photos off, but I will leave it there for now as its a bit of overload. I love this garden - everything is thriving with the aid of our worm juice, NZ weather and good compost. The kids are growing up being able to pick food straight from the yard and its fabulous :)

I have more seeds in trays today. Cherry tomatoes, capsicum, watermelon and cucumbers. Some will have to be grown in pots unless we can finish cropping the broad beans and peas in the next few weeks.