Aussie brunch

It's a lazy Saturday morning here in Sydney. We've just eaten brunch featuring my new favourite food, avocado.

Today's brunch was toasted rye sourdough with (almost perfectly boiled egg) and avocado. The avocado was mashed lightly with a bit of salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice. Delish!

I've liked avocados for some time but buying them in England was like a cruel game of roulette where the chances of getting a good one were slim. Waiting for it to be perfectly ripe was also tricky. Here they are plentiful and usually perfect after a day on the windowsill.

2013 in knits (September and October and a little bit of November)

September and October were interesting months for us. We moved out of our old house at the beginning of September and moved to Australia in the middle of October. In between, we visited friends and family, spent a few days in London and later in Cardiff and finally spend a couple of weeks back in Southampton before flying out to Sydney. We slept in 11 different places before moving into our apartment here in Sydney at the start of November.  Of course, there was still knitting time.

September

Fovever Baby Blanket

This pattern is from Purl Soho but it is just a large rectangle worked in cartridge belt rib.  The blanket is a present for our friends whose baby was due in November. We visited them on our in-between-homes travels so we wanted to give it to them in person.  Little Madeleine arrived towards the end of November.

October

Shalom cardigan

I've wanted to knit this for a while and wanted to use Rowan Cocoon. Thanks to my lovely sister who gave me a gift voucher for a yarn shop, I acquired said yarn during the yarn shop's summer sale. The colour is Scree. Unfortunately, the yarn sheds like crazy.  Hopefully I will still get some wear out of this when autumn arrives in Sydney but for now it is packed away with the winter woollies.  

The pattern is by Meghan McFarlane and is available at her blog Involving the Senses or just find it through Ravelry, which is what I did.

Imagine When

This was done as part of a KAL. It is a J O J I pattern that is supposed to be knit it one colour. I used two because I didn't have enough yarn in one colour and I like how these two yarns go together. The red is Madeline Tosh Merino Light in Tart and the grey is Old Maiden Aunt bamboo/merino in dreich. 

November 

Zigging Hat

I've included project in this post because these four projects were completed after we moved out of our house in Southampton but before we moved into our apartment in Sydney in the second week of November.  Nothing was really blocked properly (or at all in some cases) during this period but not to worry.

Zigging Hat pattern is by Sezza Knits and I found it when I was browsings patterns during the Indie designers KAL. It is a quick knit that I did with the leftovers from Imagine When.  This was a present for a friends little one and also helped protect an important shipment of Tim Tams on their journey from Australia to America.

2013 in knits (May, June, July and August)

Much of the summer was dedicated to getting the house ready for selling, keeping it clean and tidy for viewing and once we had accepted an offer, getting our stuff ready to ship. There was still some time for knitting.

May

Golden Hour

I love this sweater but I hate the yarn. It was fine to work with but it pilled really badly after just a couple of wears. I would consider knitting this sweater again with different yarn. I love the garter stitch hem and cuffs.

June

Just a quick project for June. In fact, it was knit in single day.  Almost.  I finished the bind off at 00:30. The pattern is called The Age of Brass and Steam and the yarn is Mirasol Miski, which I think it is baby llama.  This was for a swap. The recipient likes orange!

July 

This month I finished one of my oldest WIPs.  I learnt a few lessons with this one.  I bought the pattern book (Rowan Purelife - The Organic Kids Collection) and yarn over 4 years earlier and started knitting this little sweater with a view to giving it to my niece. Soon after, I learned that the cotton yarn is hand wash only. It hadn't even crossed my mind that there might be a whole book of patterns for kids in a hand wash only yarn.  I sort of lost interest in this pattern and only made it halfway through the first piece. In a fit of stash busting/pre-move sorting out, I picked it up again and finished it off.  

The fate of this sweater remains uncertain but at least I have freed up the needles that were hibernating for almost five years!

Lessons learned: read the care labels before purchasing yarn.  I also learned to do a little bit of crochet.

August

Two FOs for August!  The first is my featherweight cardigan. I love this cardigan!  There was a time not that long ago when I swore I would never knit another garment in fine yarn. Featherweight was just the thing to cure of of that silly idea.  It's an open fronted cardigan knit at a loose gauge so although the yarn is fine, it progresses at a reasonable speed.

Across the Beach

When I started knitting again in 2007(ish?), I told a friend that I would knit her a scarf for her birthday.  It took me a while, but this year I did it.  This was by far the most complicated pattern I have knit and despite frustrations along the way, I did enjoy knitting it. I love the FO. 

Although my friend's birthday was not until November, I needed to get it finished, washed and blocked before the movers arrived on 2/9.  I bound off on 29/8. Phew!  I posted it to C's parents and they kept it until her birthday.  

And a close up:

2013 in knits (January and February)

I think 2013 has been my most productive year so far in terms of completed knitting projects. I started off the year with the intention of finishing a few stubborn WIPs and of trying my hand at something a little trickier.  I'm pretty pleased with what I have completed this year.

January

Avast

The first thing to be completed was Avast for Rich.  This is a pattern from knitty.  I started this one quite a while ago, possibly even as far back as 2011.  At the end of 2012, the project was close to completion and I finished it in the first week of January.  Rich likes it and it fits well but I don't think that the yarn (KP Wool of the Andes) will wear very well.  It is already a bit felted where his backpack rubs at the back. I should have used superwash.  

Sheep Carousel tea cosy

For people who drink as much tea as we do, we really should have a proper tea cosy.  And now we do. This pattern is designed by Kate Davies and in addition to being extremely cute, I chose it because I wanted to have a go at steeking and am too scared to try it on a larger project and I wanted to learn how to do vikkel braids.

Harvest Dew socks

A nice sock pattern with slipped stitches, which break up crazy (and not-so-crazy) variegated yarns very well.  I started this pair of socks in the summer of 2012 and finished in January 2013.  

February 

Lizard Ridge

Another knitty pattern.  I started this one about five years earlier and picked up a skein of yarn as and when I found them.  Quite a bit of this project was financed by birthday/Christmas gifts from my mother-in-law and father-in-law! Hooray for guilt free yarn purchases!

I really enjoyed knitting these squares and I love Noro Kureyon.  I like the thick-and-thin, slightly coarse nature of the yarn and of course, love the colours.  I gather that many people find that this yarn is itchy but I am not one of them.  If I had been able to buy Noro locally or had been rich enough to buy all the yarn at one time, I might have put more thought into the colours used but as it was, I just bought them as I saw them or needed them.

I finished knitting the pieces in January and did the seaming and edging in February. I do not love seaming.

Little Love

February's other FO was a quick knit for my cousin's little fella who arrived that month. The pattern is called Little Love and I used some baby friendly yarn from my stash. It turned out to be pretty cute. 

2013 in knits (March and April)

March

Holden

I knit this as part of a KAL on Ravelry. It's a really easy but lovely project. I used laceweight instead of 4-ply and that worked out fine. The yarn is Malabrigo Lace in Velvet Grapes.  This was a Mother's Day present for my Mum, who happened to be visiting us in Southampton at the time.  

I am curious about how well it has held up. The yarn is incredibly soft and I fear that it might not wear well. 

Edit: The pattern is Holden Shawlette by Mindy Wilkes.

Annis

I wanted to knit a shawl for my mother-in-law for her birthday and thought that she might like this bright colour.  The yarn is Knit Picks Shimmer and the colour way is Shallows. It is a laceweight alpaca/silk blend. Instead of nupps, I knit in foil lined beads. I used the dental floss method to place the beads instead of using a crochet hook. It was much easier and much faster. I definitely recommend it. There is a tutorial on this technique at this blog

http://chaosvortex.blogspot.com.au/2009/09/i-try-beading-with-dental-floss.html?m=1

Here's the finished shawl:

Edit: The pattern is by Susanna IC and is published in knitty.com in the Spring/Summer 2010 issue.

April

Lepidina kerchief

This was a test knit for my friend Eddie (www.roued.com). It's a cute little kerchief that fastens at the back with a button. I knit it using some leftover Lambs Pride worsted that I got as a present several years ago. I had just enough left to finish this little project but I no longer have the ball band so I don't know what the colourway is called.